Using Twitter for Business

[NikkiPilkington]

This is a repost from Business on Twitter - following recent chat on here about twitter, I thought it, and it's followup were worth sharing:

I understand why people find it hard to see Twitter as anything more than ‘fun’ and a ‘waste of time’ - and indeed it can be both of those things (separately and together in fact!).

But Twitter can also be a great business and marketing tool.

In the past 7 days I have:

- Generated 400+ signups to receive the 299 Steps to Website Heaven ebook for free on August 1st
- Generated 50 downloads of a free Google Adwords ebook (today alone)
- Gained 2 new customers for my higher Google listings service
- Gained feedback on 2 new business ideas (an online course and a day by day blog featuring the optimisation of a website)
- Followed a link to get free promotional magnets for my company
- Found out about 2 web conferences I wouldn’t have known about otherwise
- Promoted a client’s article, which was then picked up by StumbledUpon and received over 400 visitors
- Been offered a column in a holiday industry related magazine
- Had industry news come to me, instead of me having to go out and find it

From a non-business point of view I have:

- Read film reviews for films I didn’t know were out
- Seen photos by people that take amazing pictures
- Read blogs I would never have found on my own
- Found perfect recipes for courgettes
- Shared soem of my favourite non business site

All via Twitter.

As I use Tweetdeck, I don’t have to log on to the Twitter site, or take any more time than it takes to scan down the list of Tweets every so often and find out if there is anything to interest me.

So it’s a thumbs up for Twitter for business from me - won’t you join me?

Follow me on Twitter - Nikki Pilkington on Twitter

Nikki Pilkington
Higher Google Listings and Search Engine Optimisation UK from an Internet Marketing Expert

[NikkiPilkington]

After I posted the above post (in it's original form) post about getting business from Twitter, in various places, someone said to me that it must take a lot of dedication and discipline to get those results from Twitter.

I spoke to a few other people who said that they thought it would take an awful lot of time to achieve any sort of results on twitter that would be useful for their business.

This is my response:

Hi XX

Honestly, it hasn’t taken up loads of my time.

I’ve installed Tweetdeck - this makes it easy to see Tweets - you could install Twitterfox or Twhirl for similar results.

I’ve used Tweetlater to set up Tweets that can be posted at different times to reach different followers who are on line (not too many just at different times on different days).

I’ve got the bookmarklet application from Twitthis.com - this allows me to share a page with twitter with the click of a button.

I’ve set the feeds from 299 Steps to Website Heaven and Business on Twitter to feed into my Twitter account and post when I have written something new - Leigh (my daughter / PA)updates those most days as she posts the 299 Steps to Website Heaven tip in various places.

According to Rescue Time, in the past 7 days I have spent 2hrs and 54minutes on Twitter related tasks. That’s around 24 minutes a day.

[Daniel :: EZPZ Hosting]

Originally Posted by NikkiPilkington

- Generated 400+ signups to receive the 299 Steps to Website Heaven ebook for free on August 1st

One of which was me - very good it is too!

I've never heard of TweetDeck, but it looks very handy. I'll be downloading that in a minute to see how it works.

[NikkiPilkington]

Glad you enjoyed 299 Steps to Website Heaven

Tweetdeck really is quite fab - I wouldn't go back to anything else.

[TownDeeds]

Hi Nikki,

In terms of revenue - how much has your 3½ hours of twittering this week generated?
It seems like a complicated process - how long did it take you to get to grips with all this tweeting, twickering and twooting?

Do you think it benefits specific businesses (eg: those that have FREE downloads)

regards
James.

[NikkiPilkington]

- Generated 400+ signups to receive the 299 Steps to Website Heaven ebook for free on August 1st - from which I received 17 service enquiries, and 4 turned into business worth over £4500 (yearly contract value)
- Generated 50 downloads of a free Google Adwords ebook (today alone) - an affiliate link in there seems to have earned me £75
- Gained 2 new customers for my higher Google listings service - worth over £1800 over the year
- Gained feedback on 2 new business ideas (an online course and a day by day blog featuring the optimisation of a website) - can't put afigure on this but it's valuable to me
- Followed a link to get free promotional magnets for my company - saved me about £50 probably
- Found out about 2 web conferences I wouldn’t have known about otherwise - free conferences that saved me money on training
- Promoted a client’s article, which was then picked up by StumbledUpon and received over 400 visitors - client goodwill - priceless
- Been offered a column in a holiday industry related magazine - worth over £4k over 12 months
- Had industry news come to me, instead of me having to go out and find it - time saving

So, if I take the yearly values and split them into monthly values, I reckon that week made me at least £850 for the month of July. (Bear in mind it was the first week I had tracked business through Twitter). Plus the affiliate money and the saving on the magnets. I won't quantify the savings on training as there's every chance I woudln't have paid for it anyway

£850 + for 3 and a half hours work (which was more like play really AND which I did while doing other work too) - £200+ per hour - I'll take that and party

Of course, the real value will become known when i have tracked sales and leads from Twitter vs other sources for more than a week - I intend to do a 3 month analysis.

As for how long did it take to learn? I'm still learning, as we all should be - it doesn't take long to get the hang of twitter, but it's still a test and measure form of marketing, like any other.

Hope that helps

[edited to add that another 2 contracts came in that I can attribute to that week too - worth low thousands over the year]

[TownDeeds]

Thanks for the excellent reply, appreciated.

I'm still trying to get my head around the whole Twitter thing - even looking at your page (which as you point out is successful) I can't make out what it's about - who is saying what - or what I'm supposed to do with information like "could be worse; could be rocking all over the world"

You appear to be swamped with stuff coming in by feed which makes the whole place look like a giant index of spam.

Which part am I supposed to look at to find something interesting/productive to read?

regards
James.

[NikHurwood]

Originally Posted by TownDeeds

You appear to be swamped with stuff coming in by feed which makes the whole place look like a giant index of spam.

I agree with this about twitter, although I have spent a fair bit of time sorting out (in my own head) how to read the "twits", I much prefer a different service.. Plurk, due to the threaded conversation aspect... you can see my Plurk timeline HERE

I've not been using it all that long, but it seems quite friendly and conversational, and in the short time I've been using it I've connected with a good number of people who I have been able to talk about business with, and even learned a few things about business ideas I've wanted to progress.

[Dot Design]

Hi Nikki

This is one of the most useful posts I have read in quite awhile, very helpful and I can now see the potential, I'm going to check it out!

Thanks!
Gareth

[NikkiPilkington]

Glad to be of help

To get the full benefit of Twitter, you really need to use a third party application, not rely on the website - it's the only way to make sense of everything I'm afraid...

[Dot Design]

I agree Nikki, I'm currently using Twirl saves huge amounts of time and is working out quite well at the moment.
Means I can keep an eye on things without disturbing my work and it works just like email really with alerts etc.

[Dot Design]

Quick question Nikki and I thought I'd post it here as it might help others..

How do I directly answer someones question that I have found on Twitter without it appearing to everyone else who may not be interested. I know I can directly messages "friends" but what about those who aren't yet friends?

Hope that makes sense?
Cheers
Gareth

[NikkiPilkington]

You put an @ symbol before their name.

Eg @NikkiPilkington sends a message direct to me - only I and people that are connected to BOTH you and me will see it.

That's if they're using a third party client.

Anyone visiting your (or the person you are replying to) Twitter page direct would see the reply, and it wouldn't make much sense to them.

[handbaghabit]

All this twitter stuff has had me a bit baffled until now so I wouldlike to thank Nikki for wonderful post. Now off to see what all the fuss is about.
Thanks Lori

[INDIZINE]

Thanks for this Nickie, I really havnt had time to get into this, but your post is so informative I will get around to it very soon and to coincide when my new and updated website goes live this month.

I really like it too when people actually post their results or whatever we can interpret as factual evidence of what works and how.

[NikkiPilkington]

Thanks guys - happy to help

[brunswickheights]

Just curious to find out if it is suited to all sorts of businesses?
Thanks
Patricia

[NikkiPilkington]

I think it CAN suit all businesses, but then I would

I think that probably the only way to find out is to give it a go?

[altyfc]

We make our money from people booking hotels through our websites. Can Twitter help us?

I've looked at it in the past and could never really see the potential benefit.

[NikkiPilkington]

You could use Twitter to post last minute offers, to post special deals, or to post hotel reviews (if you have the facility for them on your site - I haven't looked yet!)

You could use Twitter Search to find people asking for hotel recommendations in various areas, and recommend hotels that are on your site.

You could give people a special 'Twitter code' to book hotels via you that gets them some sort of incentive (free newspaper with breakfast, later checkout, bottle of wine when they arrive, whatever).

There are 3 ideas, just off the top of my head. I'm sure if you looked at what others are doing with twitter you could think of more.

[brunswickheights]

But I shall carry on getting my keywords and placements right..............thats a job on its own....so maybe a Twitter next year.

[Eliska]

I am not that familiar with this technique myself, however I have heard about it in the past. Now, this discussion made me think that I really should loo into it. Have you got any advice of where to look first?