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Does Twitter Bring You Cold Hard Business And Drive Sales?
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We recently won a pretty large client very simply through Twitter and as I said on Twitter at the time “It helped me feel better about the hundreds of hours I had spent dossing on Twitter”. Nobody needs to preach to the merits of Twitter to me but one complaint that I do often hear people saying to me is Twitter really worth all the effort and will I get business out of it? Just last week we conducted an extensive interview with Loraine from La Cucina a business that is using social media effectively to bring real customers through the door and she said that Twitter was the least effective tool for getting customers to come to her shop although it was good for networking with other food bloggers. The thing with social media and Twitter in general is that it changes so quickly and trends can appear from week to week so I wanted to get a discussion going and run a poll and see what the majority of people out there thought. For what it is worth here are some of the thoughts that I have on the issue…
The Wow Factor Has Gone
As recently as six months ago being a small restaurant, bar or local business on Twitter was a big enough story on it’s own, you didn’t even really need to be doing anything innovative. Chances were that if you were sending out special offers or pictures of food etc people would have passed them on to each other and you would have been able to build a buzz on the basis that you were ahead of the curve. Those days are gone as all sorts of people or on the service and you now need to add real value to stand out from the crowd.
Is It A Customer Service Tool?
For bigger companies I would say Twitter becomes far more useful as a customer service tool rather than for making direct sales although many people have made money including Dell computers (apologies for using the most over quoted and obvious example of a business making money on Twitter but it does stand out). The real value is looking after your existing customers using twitter and providing them with the sort of customer service that will not only make them stay with you but also to spread the word about the positive way in which you look after your customers. In other words the sales might not come in directly from Twitter but they may come in an indirect manner.
Should A Small Business Have A Twitter Account?
If you had asked me this question a year ago I would have said 100% yes. I’m not so sure now. Is the return on investment there, I’m not so sure it is. There are too many small companies and businesses out there creating too much noise to really get yourself noticed. How many times have you followed a logo on Twitter? It takes time to build up personal reputation and business logos just tweeting links to content is not going to get a following. There are some great examples of small businesses using twitter well but it is very very hard to build a decent following from scratch these days and in terms of making cold hard cash from Twitter I would certainly advise smaller businesses to stay away from it if that is their only goal. If you are talking about cold hard measurable return on investment it is just not there. Bigger businesses who have larger marketing budgets to include competition giveaways and other innovative ways to use Twitter without needing to worry about the bottom line and return on ROI would still be advised to use it. I know loads of people will say “oh you are a social media agency and doesn’t everybody need to be on Twitter now?” but to be honest something like a leaflet drop or email marketing campaign might work better for you and increase sales. Twitter is not always the answer.
This Is Completely Foreign To Some People
I have given loads of training days and preached to people about how to use Twitter and when I am in the training days or selling them the merits and possibilities their mouths are open in amazement and they all vow to become converts of the service. What happens next invariably is that they dabble a little, get bored and never come back. I have seen this pattern repeated so many times and it is often because people simply don’t have the time. It is easy for me to use Twitter because it is part of my job. People like Pat Phelan have huge success with it as a tool because they live and breath the service all day long and can access it on mobiles and through fancy Twitter clients etc. Small business managers or people from a non technical background don’t think like us and we often forget that. Most people don’t know what blogs are yet alone read them so the whole notion of using Twitter is just alien to them, they only log in to their email once every couple of days never mind using Twitter clients. I think some of us in the industry forget that sometimes when we say Twitter is for everybody, it really isn’t, some people are far too busy serving at the counter or painting walls to even think of the computer.
Twitter Is Not Always the Option
There are hundreds of people out there advising people to embrace Twitter but these days I take as much heart advising people not to use it and look at more effective channels. At the end of the day business owners are usually pretty smart people so if after using Twitter for 3 months they have not seen a single sale through the service they will just stop using it and not employ you to advise them on social media strategy any longer so far better that you look at their business at the very start and see if Twitter is actually the right tool for them to be using rather than wasting 3 months of their time tweeting away and copying what the other cool kids and media are telling you to do.
What Are Your Experiences Or Opinions?
What about you, do you use Twitter for business? Do you think everybody in business should be on Twitter? Is it worthwhile?
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A very good post especially for Ireland. Thanks. I hope you generate a lot of debate. I’m going to gather my thoughts and come back to you on this.
The amusing thing is that just as I put down the phone to a bit of new business which I got because of my total social media activities (including Twitter), your tweet popped into sight.
Glad to hear that you got some business out of all your efforts Paul
Looking forward to hearing how it paid off for you!
Couldn’t agree more on the last point. Twitter isn’t going to be useful for everyone, despite what the self professed social marketing gurus will have you believe. A lot of people still don’t seem to ‘get it’!
Well the thing is Paul up to about 6 months ago people were getting away with going in to people and selling them a twitter style social media package as people had kind of heard of it and knew they needed to be on there but had no idea how. That stage has passed now and its far more important to actually ask yourself if it is worth being on those services at all. In most cases it probably is if done correctly but you need to look at the net benefits without just jumping in because it is cool
Again I think it depends on the small business, e.g restaurant, hairdressers etc def work better on facebook as “everyone” in your local area is your target market. It’s more likely that the majority are on FB and not Twitter whereas if your target market is other companies or the country as a whole then Twitter is probably the better option? In saying that I stole a customer from Milanos through Twitter the other day:)
Good job on getting the sale! I guess the balance is doing something cool and offering value but I have seen people abuse it in a tacky way. You still seem to like the social element Loraine which is what I would imagine keeps you there and if a little bit of business comes in as a result then it is all good
Niall,
I had no idea that there were people out there selling a twitter social media package. I suppose I’ve have realised if I’d thought more about it. I’ve been trying to work out my own ideas on how the different social media could be used by Irish business people.
A few days ago I decided I’d advise people not to start with Twitter. If you open up a business Twitter identity and then let it lapse you look like you can’t do strategic thinking. I remember the reaction I had when I found Brown Thomas on twitter – but no tweets. I was furious, called them all sorts of names to myself. I imagined the CEO dithering, exposing the company and undermining its strong brand. @brownthomas has recently changed gear and seems to be starting to use Twitter. I offer this as a case study the typifies the risk of jumping to use a tool before you’ve got some coaching.
Better start on blogs. Best to start commenting on the blogs of others. And move on from there.
I must go back to your original post and consider that carefully
Paul very good example with Brown Thomas. One of the biggest problems and the challenges that large companies and brands face when using is twitter is the openness of it all. Anybody can come along and just say…Brown Thomas is shit on your first day using it, how do you deal with that? Do you have a crisis management plan in place, what if it all blows up in your face? Having said that if things are managed correctly and you use it to converse with your customers then you have something special but that is easier said than done. You just need to know how and why you are using the tools I guess and sometimes you are better off not using some of them at all
Oh man, I feel you on this post.
“Is the return on investment there, I’m not so sure it is.”
=> Cosign!
We all heard Dell made like about 6 million profit with Twitter. But how much does it represent on their total income? May be not even half a percent, which represents 100$ or so for the most of us.
The truth about Twitter for common people is that THEY DON’T GET IT. No doubt 50% of my followers are people who logged in only once. For the beginner, it’s not so evident that a Twitter client is required to fully enjoy the “experience”.
As I have mentionned it before several times, Facebook consists of over 80% of my total traffic. Thousands of people follow me on Facebook and guess what? There is no easy way to attract them on Twitter.
Finally, I strongly feel that businesses get on Twitter just to be like everyone else.
Also, I could add that there are too much spam accounts that follow mostly anybody to expect a follow back, and this is too myspace-like.
On a more positive note, people that really follow you on Twitter are extremely reliable unlike other platforms.
Niall, thank you for this post. It’s refreshing to hear someone who is knowledgeable about twitter to speak about how it may not be for everyone. Your comments regarding small business are dead-on from my experience.
Your comment “It is easy for me to use Twitter because it is part of my job” is very good to hear. I think that’s important point to make when talking to small businesses that are considering using twitter. Though using twitter is somewhat part of my job, even for me, there is also project work that needs to be done and twitter can be a distraction and time-consuming. And, as you also said, many people never even look at blogs as well. It’s easy for us bloggers to think the whole world reads them.
Though I’m relatively new to blogging and twitter, I’m not new to using the tools available. I had an email account in the 1990s before I knew anyone who had an email account. I believe in the power of these tools, old and new, but I am having trouble now with twitter in that there is just so much noise and I feel like I’m just contributing to it and diverting myself from other, more valuable things when I take part using it. Hmmm. Lots to think about.
It’s not just about promoting as a means to make money. For some types of business, it can also be about gaining suggestions from followers that can improve the business (in the case of @VintageIreland, improve the Vintage Fairs) so not only does your business earn more money, but everyone enjoys the experience more too.
I have found in pure traffic numbers Twitter only gets me about 5% of the traffic Facebook does. I think so many twitter accounts are simply set up as another place to push content and you have to wonder how many people are actually using twitter as a 2-way tool??? At least with Facebook more often than not there is a person there communicating.
Hi Niall,
I’m torn about this myself. I’ve mostly been using it for personal purposes and only recently have began to think about how it can help me with my blog. I think it’s much less involved than Facebook or Myspace, and for that reason alone, I love it. I can send a text from my phone, receive updates; it’s great in that sense.
Guess I’ll update you one day when I see any progress made with it in favour of my blog