Why should anybody use Twitter?

One reason to why not how, you should consider using Twitter.
There are an estimated 25,000 posts and comments how you can use Twitter, how you get more followers and some even claim to teach you becoming an instant millionaire just by using twitter. On the other hand you heard it loud and clear: Twitter is just a fad, 40% of twitter conversations are just random blah blah blah, all you read is somebody walking their dog, eating pizza, being bored...

I guess it is time to answer the question WHY should you going through the exercise in the first place. The answer may surprise you. So why on earth are some business managers and executive still using it? Why is the number of users growing from about 8 million in 2008 to about 40 million in 2009? And why should YOU, a successful and very busy manager waste your time with Twitter?

For the same reason why only 1% of companies are really successful, only 1% of executives make a ton of money, only 1% of products are a hit, only 1% of twitterer understand to make a difference using those tools right.

If you are bored by the silly conversations - you follow the wrong people.
If you just browse around - and hope to get something out of it - keep dreaming.
If you hope to tweet about your stuff and people will buy - keep playing in the lottery.

Instead:
Don't guess or experiment with the tool, but do an assessment and you will probably find more than 20% of your customers are in Twitter. Maybe not the person that processes the order but the thousands of people that use your product and influence others more than your TV commercial and bill board on Times Square.

Now WHY should you consider Twitter?
Assume you have one of the following six challenges:
1) You want to provide a better customer experience
- Listening to your customers will give you ideas how you can serve them better
- Connecting with your customers will create a stronger bond between you and your customer
- News that are important to your customers (not marketing BS) will get there much faster
- You may want to get direct feedback - here and now - not through an agency or research institute

2) You like to get market feedback
- You may want to track and follow customers, prospects and competitors customer to see trends
- You may want to have conversations about their experience
- You may want to chat about things you like to know
- Your Customers may tell you stories that you didn't even ask for

3) You like to connect with your customers
- You may want to create a better social connection with your customers
- If you really care about them you may want to know more about them\
- You may want to use this tool to have very short conversations and therefor touch more people
- You may want to get easily introduced to other interesting people

4) You like to find new customers
- You may want to connect with people that have problems you can solve
- You may just chime into conversations from people you like to connect
- You may discover it is much easier to chat that to cold call
- You may realize that a social connection gives you twice as much depth than a phone call

5) You want to better / faster support your customers
- You will find product complains in Twitter before your customers even reach your hotline
- You may use Twitter to dispatch issues faster than on the phone
- You may want to leverage other expert users to help less experienced customers
- You will learn about product issues faster in Twitter than anywhere else

6) You want to introduce a new product
- Twitterer are a group of very open minded people who love new things
- This is by far the best place to get early adopters and early feedback
- If your product is well received in the Twitter verse you find more advocates than anywhere else
- People communicate on average with another 100 people in their network. So talking to 1,000 accelerates the conversation to 100,000.

Now here is the single answer for any of the above challenges
Because you can perform the job in a fraction of the time compared to other methods. And as such you can touch base with more people than in your traditional way.

Efficiency is the single most important reason why you should consider Twitter.

No I’m neither a share holder nor an employee – just a social media practitioner sharing experience – like 400 Million others every day to the benefit of products and companies who deserve it. You may become one of them.

Axel
connect with me via XeeSM