There may be more than 200 million registered users on Twitter and it may be among the fastest-growing social media networks – but small business owners may not be taking advantage of what it has to offer them.
Twitter wants you to know what the site can do for your business. Twitter recently relaunched its Twitter for Business microsite. The site is designed to help business owners reach their audience and uses the line “Grow your business, 140 characters at a time.”
Lest you are cynical and think the relaunch is solely about advertising options — it’s not. It’s about more. Advertising is one of the options open to businesses, true, but Twitter is also trying to convey how businesses organically can use its platform and engage with customers and the public.
In conjunction with the release of the remodeled site, Twitter has created a two-minute video. Matt McGee of MarketingLand gives the video high praise, noting that while the video is basic and for beginners, it is “the most effective messaging the company has offered yet for businesses — not just why, but also how to do business on Twitter.”
The revamped Twitter for Business site provides sections on promotion including advice on how to launch your product using Twitter and how to use events as a way to engage. There are also pages on how to build your community and specifics on how to market using Twitter. The site also contains an extensive collection of success stories from both large businesses and organizations like Airbnb and The American Red Cross, and small businesses like retailer Alter and Hampton Coffee Company.
The new Twitter for Business site is the latest in a recent string of innovations by microblogging platform Twitter, designed to benefit small businesses. Starting in January, Twitter added its new Vine App for sharing video, an analytics tool for Vine, making the app even more helpful for business, and a new API for advertisers.
Joshua,
Funny-I just got an email from @Twitter on this.
I’m open to checking out what they have top offer in the way of promotion, etc.
So far, I’m not hearing a lot of buzz from other small business owners about Twitter’s small biz tools.
@FranchiseKing
The Franchise King®
Anita Campbell
Joel, one of the best features IMHO consists of the case studies (“success stories”). I love the way Twitter has organized that section by industry as well as business size. More companies and social platforms should do that with their case studies.
– Anita
Twitter is a fantastic marketing tool – not just for inbound traffic but for reacting to conversations. We’ve played a bit with each of these tools (promoted tweets, following trends, etc.) and while some of them work better than others, it’s definitely a good option to have in the toolbelt.
Ti Roberts
These tools are really awesome for increasing engagement and funneling traffic back to your website. Thanks for sharing them with us.
Ti
So many businesses are already on Twitter, so it’s great to see a tailored approach for businesses.