Twitter to Profits

Do you Twitter? Do you Tweet? If you don't do either you're missing on a huge segment of your customer base.

Twitter was started on the premise of allowing people to send messages from their cell phones or online to say simply what they were doing. Some people and firms "tweet" or post status reports dozens of times a day. And for some Twitter members, like celebrities - it works because it feeds a hungry fan base that wants to know what their favorite celebrities are doing. For a company you need to be a little more conservative. A good rule of thumb for companies that are using Twitter is not to tweet any more times a day than you'd call someone.

Let's face it calling someone 10,15 or 20 times a day could be considered a little excessive. That's exactly how a lot of tweets about your company will be perceived and you'll most likely get blocked. A good idea is to just tweet once or twice a day.

As far as what to tweet, the sky is the limit. Talk about new products and services, if you're attending an industry convention in Las Vegas, post a few relevant photos and talk about you saw. Having a sale at your company? Give your Twitter pals an extra 10% off the price just for being your followers.

Also, you can follow people on Twitter yourself. You can search by keyword and find people in your general area or by interest. If you sell dog products and you find someone interested in dogs or involved in dog training; follow them and chances are excellent they will follow you back - this means they will receive the tweets your post and potentially - visit your site and make a purchase.

Web 2.0 is here to stay and social media marketing is still taking its first steps. Get in on the ground floor now and start reaping the benefits that social networking venues such as Twitter can bring.