Twitter is getting a lot of press these days.  This morning I opened up the Wall Street Journal (yes, the print edition) and on page W3 of the Weekend Journal was a full-page spread on Twitter.  It even went so far as to show examples of celebrity “tweets” from Eli Manning to Britney Spears.

What seems like a burgeoning fad and source of entertainment for many can also be a powerful marketing and branding tool for companies; especially small businesses and startups with little to no marketing teams and a limited budget for advertising.

If you are a small business owner or entrepreneur, you have probably been asking yourself “what is Twitter and how can I use it to benefit my company?”  Well, allow me to explain…

Twitter was originally designed to be used as a way for people to broadcast what they are doing at any given time, using 140 characters or less.  The idea was that the “tweets, as they are called, could be viewed via text messaging on mobile phones, hence the 140-character limit.  It caught on quickly and soon I was able to know what my brother, who was 2,000 miles away in Indianapolis, was doing over the course of his day.  When my friends in Denver were hitting the slopes and what the conditions were.  Where my friends in Seattle were tailgating before a Seahawks game.  It was great for all of these things, but honestly, was a little redundant given the fact I was also using Facebook’s similar feature.

Then, Twitter began to evolve.  It was no longer just a place to tell friends what I am doing at 11am on a Saturday.  It became a place to disseminate news and information.  Now, if I were browsing the internet, came across an interesting story somewhere, I could now let my friends know about this article and provide a shortened link via bit.ly or tinyurl.com to the story.  I was able to read articles that I may have never found or had the time to find on my own that were being recommended by the people I was “following” on Twitter.  If I find the article interesting, I can now “retweet” or essentially forward my friend’s tweet to my entire network, which could contain 200 or more “followers.”  If one of those friends found the article interesting, they could “retweet” it to their friends, which could be another 200 or 300 “followers.”  Do you see how this has now taken on a viral effect?

This is precisely how it can be beneficial to a business.  The key, as a business, is to provide valued information.  You can’t simply say things like “visit us at www.acme.com.”  That is not going to generate much interest.  However, if you combine a blog or some kind of publishing tool to your website and offer valuable information that is also tied to your industry or products/services, now you have something to “tweet” about.  Whole Foods does a great job of this type of viral marketing using Twitter when they recommend that their followers read an article on their website about eating healthy.  With Twitter and other forms of social media, you are trying to cast a wide net, so to speak, and by doing so reach a few people you may not otherwise been able to reach.

Which leads me to my next point.  Twitter, to be effective, cannot be used in a vacuum or as your sole marketing/advertising vehicle.  To get the most out of Twitter you must use it as a strategic piece to your overall marketing arsenal.  In essence you have to provide value to obtain value.   You want to provide a sounding board for your “fans” and also provide them with valuable information to go along with the products or services they buy from you.  This will then foster repeat business, which is the cheapest form of business, as well as encourage them to tell others about your brand.  Twitter is essentially a PA system for word-of-mouth advertising.  People no longer tell one to three friends about how wonderful your service was at the last dinner party they attended.  Now they can tell hundreds in less than a minute.   And when it is combined with a Facebook profile, Myspace page, YouTube video and LinkedIn profile, it can really cast a wide net with a funnel back to your website and your products and/or services.  Because, let’s face it, they can buy anything unless they have their mouse on the “checkout” button or have a phone number with which to call you.

With that ability to broadcast good news also comes the ability to broadcast bad news, which is my segway into next week’s topic on reputation management and why it is important to your brand.

If you would like to chat about how you could use social media to promote your business drop me a line at travis@rainierdigital.com or give me a call at 206.388.2580.  If we find that using social media is a viable option for you we can discuss how we can work together to get you started.

Follow me on Twitter:  http://twitter.com/RainierDigital