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Oh, about twice a day now I get asked if this twitter thing is a tool for business. Sometimes the requests are muddled with puzzled tones of “I just don’t get it.” Other times folks are sort of pissed off. I mean, yet another thing to keep track of and do.
I happen to think that twitter has some fabulous business uses, and not just for the ultra connected techie, for the typical small business too.
I’ve put together my “Beginner’s Guide to Using Twitter for Business” and offer here to all as a gift. This is not the definitive guide to all things twitter, this is a nice, simple, practical road map to show you how to start using twitter to reach some of your business and marketing objectives.
Enjoy and feel free to pass along and share on some of social sites linked below.
Comments
This entry was posted on Monday, August 4th, 2008 at Aug 04, 08 | 1:22 pm and is filed under Social Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
Cool. Stumbling it.
Thanks for the guide! The rest of my marketing team seems to be dumbfounded by Twitter so I just passed your guide around to them. There isn’t too much of a buzz about electronic payment processing (other than PayPal), but by creating the RSS feeds (that you mentioned in the guide), I feel like I am having the “big picture” fed to me. Thanks, again!
@chad - my pleasure, passing the guide around is what it’s for.
Thank you for the e-book. I read your blog via Feedburner. I will certainly read through it this week.
Great resource, thanks for developing and sharing.
John, thanks for putting this twitter guide together. By the way, did you happen to see the ABC NEWS reports on TV a few weeks ago about Comcast using twitter to improve a customer service event. Great video: http://tinyurl.com/5aqasr
In closing, a client of ours said to me the other day “I don’t know about all that Tweeter or Twitting stuff. Those people sound like they have too much time on their hands!” HA Guess we have some coaching to do to help her understand the value of twitter and other social media.
I’m in a women business owners group that is mostly confused by all things bloglike and social networking… this will really help me explain to them what Twitter is - thanks!
Thanks for putting this up, John. I confess to being one who draws the line at Twitter in terms of its effective use for businesses, but I look forward to being proven wrong.
I’ve been using Twitter for 2 months and now, because of this e-book, it actually makes sense!
I’ve enjoyed the relationships I have found with like-minded people and as well, I have found great material for posts to my blog and Facebook profiles.
Thanks John for this Guide. I use Twitter and find it’s great for hearing about things first as people send out ‘tweets’ about things I’m interested in. I hadn’t heard of Twellow, the Twitter directory, so thanks so much for sharing info on that. And of course Twitter’s a great tool for helping people to be more concise and to the point with the requirement for 140 character posts!
would like to have printed same - but it always prints using an Asian font, ie not english…no matter what I try to do.
is that normal?
Jim
I like what companies like Cashboard have done at http://twitter.com/cashboard, using Twitter as a day-to-day or even hour-by-hour update of software enhancements and system status. Thanks for putting this together.
Thanks for the ebook. I’ll check it out and see how to use twitter for business use
Thanks for creating this useful guide John. I have been using Twitter, but wasn’t convinced it could forward my business. You’ve convinced me! Thanks for the tip on Twellow too….I updated my profile there.
Thanks for the guide. People might also like to keep up to date with how to use Twitter in business at:
thetwitterclub.com
Hi John,
Thanks for this. Love the guide. I read it online but when I print it out, the words are jumbled together…not sure if I’m the only one experiencing this but I wanted to let you know.
Thanks again.
Tynisha Thompson
http://www.booksavvymedia.com
I totally relate to your statement about people sounding pissed off when they talk to me about Twitter. They also are people who haven’t tried it but they know they hate it. Reminds me of people who say all blogs are stupid because they don’t know why anyone would journal online.
Nice primer on Twitter, John. Have shared it with my Twitter network too. Thanks
All success
Dr.Mani
I tweet as ‘drmani’
John, I’m looking forward to reading this. It’s kinda overwhelming all these sites to deal with. Your work is always exceptional, so I’m sure this will be a great help!
Thanks, this is just what I need to share with some business colleagues who do not “get” Twitter. I think the tool can also have good internal uses for things like communication around Balanced Scorecard and other strategic initiatives, as mentioned briefly in my post at Hedgehog
& Fox - Jeff
I absolutely HATE Twitter, but I use it as a neccessary evil. Just to make sure I wasn’t being too hard on it, I went to Twello and looked up a particular sector. The posting there…in this ‘professional’ environment…was just as inane as the what they ‘generic’ Twitter user writes.
Don’t get me wrong. I am grateful that you took that time to share your guide with us…but I strongly feel that Twitter will soon become MySpace…a place that is clearly for teens and slackers. Trying to contact all of your ‘friends’ and telling them about your business or product can much more easily (And professionally!) be done via e-mail.
http://www.ShopForTheGood.blogspot.com
Thanks for the guide. Twitter has developed a following with a little niche of the small business community in Wilmington, NC. Here are a few benifits I have seen..1)It has been a tool to create more community within a segment of my client base. 2) I stay top of mind as a referral source 3) Clients provide testimonials of events that they attend that their followers can read 4) A former client of mine re-engaged my services by staying connected to me on Twitter. 5) Twitter allows people to see our personal side which gets people to know, like, and trust us which makes it safer to buy from us.
So Twitter is working in Wilmington, NC
Twitter Club link not working Graham
Great free download - we plugged it on Business on Twitter and http://www.299steps.com
A very useful and generous booklet. I am already a Twitter evangelist, but will share this booklet with new clients and friends whenever I can. Thank you!
I look forward to reading this tonight. I have started to use Twitter to update clients and even find new ones…while it hasn’t been earth shattering…it certainly seems to be full of promise.
Amazing ebook on how business (any business) can use twitter to grow and build that so important relationship. At Spheric we’ve took it further by linking our delicious account with our twitter account, read about it here.