Tweeting about your business?

[SOTRC]

Dare I ask the question about Twitter?

Do you Tweet about your business and has anyone ever gained clients through it? Just wondering

I'm @SOTRC

 

[bsfweb]

I think raising questions about Twitter are good.

Is there any link value to be gained? I have found a Twitter link showing up in Google Analytics, but I have also seen a link from Duncan Bannatyne's blog and he uses 'no follow' links. If he is genuinely concerned about any possible loss of 'link juice' then he should host the blog part of his site on blogspot, wordpress or blogger.com or another a 3rd party website. I might be wrong, but I believe that this is good web development practice in any event - i.e. having the blog situated on a 3rd party site, which allows you to send links back to one's own site regularly.

Returning to Twitter, relying on Twitter to attract followers to read your blog posts is unrealistically optimistic. How often have you clicked on a Tweet to read it?

I do manage several Twitter pages. It certainly helps in the overall online marketing mix, but I have never come across a Tweet in a Google search yet, have you?

 

[BWRAO]

Yes I've seen tweets come up when I vanity search my company name. So there's value in using Twitter for raising awareness.

I agree about having your blog on a third party site and building links back to sections of your main site. By doing this, combined with tweeting and, ahem, forum posts I manage to rank pretty well for company name. I don't rank very well on phrases but then I don't pay for it.

I always consider my site is for reference and reminding targets of my communication. i've never had a cold lead from the site and that's just fine by me as I like to research who I am targetting.

Alan
www.bwrao.com

 

[McVicar Marketing]

Good discussion (thanks SOTRC).

Sounds like we’re all in agreement that Twitter has value as part of social networking, but is not a one-stop solution.

I’ve recently been doing some tests with a (non business related) blog, which I’ve only been proactively promoting through Twitter. The stats show that the vast majority of traffic comes organically through Google. But, Tweets which specifically link back to the blog are getting around 80 clicks per day. With another Twitter account, I’ve also found that I get a very high click through rate when posting pictures/images.

Recently, my specialist blog got over 4,000 hits in one day after I’d spotted, and blogged about, some breaking news. Not very high stats for most blogs, but huge considering this blog is so specialist. Normally sitting at around 5 or 6 on a Google search return, it shot up to number 1 within minutes of posting the blog. Interestingly, my tweets also made it onto Google search – showing that it can be done, if your tweets are relevant and timely.

The tricky part with Twitter is that it can be extremely hard to verify what ‘success’ it’s having in driving traffic. Looking at clicks is one way but, as with all social networking platforms, it’s all about building relationships and conversations, from which awareness of you/your business is heightened in a halo effect.

Also – never forget the value Twitter can bring to you in providing information about news, events, industry trends (etc.). It’s definitely not a one way conversation!

My basic approach to social networking is based around a blog (definitely hosted on a third party site. I use Blogger – any opinions about WordPress or others?). All other social networking profiles feed out snippets of this blog, plus bring in news and take part in wider discussions.

Obviously, social networking isn’t making direct sales there and then – it’s about creating relationships, demonstrating expertise, building profile – and increasing your online presence/search engine return.

For me – the interesting development in social networking is that the success of content is increasingly being driven by the audience, rather the search engines. Early days yet, but with Facebook’s ‘Like’ button available on external websites, Delicious bookmarking, Stumbleupon, Digg and Reddit (etc etc),and of course reTweeting, the trend is set to continue.

With all of that in mind, I see Twitter as a small part of my overall social networking strategy, and one which has brought me into contact with new potential customers, as well as suppliers, associates etc. It’s started the conversation – it’s now up to me to draw that conversation up to a sales point.

I will admit that I’m currently concentrating on social networking campaigns for clients, and have let mine slip a tad, which is another point – build in enough time per day to make your social networking consistent.

I’m @ingamcvicar, @expertreaderreport and my business partner is @amicusphoto

 

[ralphaverbuch]

Inga

Interesting take on the uses and usefulness of Twitter.

As you mentioned, I think it's immensely useful as an information gathering resource. It's also useful from an SEO perspective but that's been touched on.

On our business site (run using WordPress) we generally use it to alert people to new blog postings and it does seem to generate more reaction than an email alert for example. It's a sort of half-way house between traditional email alerts and RSS feeds I'd suggest.

But it's worth noting that tweets are also time sensitive. Posting out a tweet too early or too late and you might as well not have bothered if it's about reaching real people. By the time they check, it will be way down their personal tweet stream.

Just a few thoughts...

PS I read this yesterday which is pertinent (though they for some reason never posted my comment ... :

Does UK business have a social media attitude? – Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp


Best

Ralph
@ralphenn
ENNclick : Expert copywriting and content services

 

[McVicar Marketing]

Hi Ralph,

Thanks for that link.

Absolutely right about the timing of tweets. One second, and it could be gone forever ...

Social media is a fascinating new trend, and it is indeed easy to fall into the trap of championing one particular platform without the 'results' backing up your passion.

I'm a huge fan of Twitter, but am under no illusions that (for example),when I want to open a discourse with young people, I'd be far better to concentrate on Facebook.

It's also amazing to watch how fast social media platforms rise and crash in popularity. MySpace seemed to fall to a Facebook coup overnight - Bebo is also now also suffering the same fate.

And as a small postscript to my previous post on this subject: Twitter has indeed come to the rescue with a search engine return!

Due to ongoing DNS/nameserver issues, a client’s website had dipped way beyond the first page for a Google search on its company name. But, the first return from Google is its Twitter profile (of the same company name). It’s obviously not a permanent solution, but it just proved to me how important these platforms can be for even the basic task of ensuring that your customers can find you (albeit on a tangent).

All best,
Inga

 

[Employment Law Services]

Great Post!!

We use various social media tools to promote what we do and to try an actively engage with potential clients and Twitter is definitely one of the most effective tools.

Whilst there are no doubt SEO benefits IMHO these are secondary to the other less obvious benefits.

Benefit One: Promoting specific events and/or news relevant topics.

For example, when we used Twitter to promte the VIP reception we hosted at the Business Scotland event in June, we saw a dramitic spike in 're-tweets' as well as site traffic to the and this combine with good old fashoned word of mouth referrals helped us to get 70+ people in the room over the hour.

Benefit Two:

Better Quality Site Traffic

Our Twitter account is responsible for delivering just under 2% of our overall site traffic but the bounce rate of this traffic is 35% better than the site average....in simple terms, visitors stick to our site more when they come from our Twitter account

Benefit Three: It Helps Creating relationships, demonstrates expertise, builds our profile

Only just over 15% of site visitors that come via our Twitter account are new visitors so clearly the majority like what they saw the first time and keep coming back for more. These visitors also spend >340% more time on site than average visitors and have an average pages/visit rate that's just over 125% higher than the overall site average.

Many of these visitors have gone on to subscribe to our HR newsletter 'In the Loop' so in one way 'YES' we've sort of got clients from it but I think, and hope, that as we continue to build relationships, extend our reach and therefore our brand awareness we'll also see a direct rise in sales revenues.

We're tracking this closely using 'goals' and 'funnels' on google analytics so look forward to seeing the benefits going forward.

I think many SMEs could benefit significantly by adopting a social media strategy that is aligned and supports their overal marketing strategy.....

 

[Scottish Business Owner]

Hi Gary,

You have some brilliant stats there! Really great to see someone who really understands how it all impacts on things. I really do think that Twitter is a slow burn but it really does help in getting people to your site and then performing an action like joining a newsletter for example. Someone doing that just now may simplyjust not have an immediate requirement but that may change in the future which ultimately gives you a good chance of getting some business.

I use it a slightly different way with SBF but I figure it must work as we have very few people leave and we're also nearly at 1300 followers.

Thinking about it more Gary what you've done with that is really amazing in terms of the stats i'd be really interested in seeing if you're willing to share the info with a view to maybe creating a few posts on the blog all about it

 

[Adventurelife]

I think I am in lucky sector with all the social media stuff. On twitter we just monitor the tweets that ask questions about the destinations we operate in and the activities we do. We then just answer questions or refer to other tweets who know the answers.

Doing the above gets us all the previous mentioned benefits but they main benefit and the one I look for most is that it is converting people into clients.

I am still a million miles away from nailing a social media strategy as it is a fast moving beast , but it is driving business that is for sure

 

[Employment Law Services]

Hi Gary,

You have some brilliant stats there! Really great to see someone who really understands how it all impacts on things. I really do think that Twitter is a slow burn but it really does help in getting people to your site and then performing an action like joining a newsletter for example. Someone doing that just now may simplyjust not have an immediate requirement but that may change in the future which ultimately gives you a good chance of getting some business.

I use it a slightly different way with SBF but I figure it must work as we have very few people leave and we're also nearly at 1300 followers.

Thinking about it more Gary what you've done with that is really amazing in terms of the stats i'd be really interested in seeing if you're willing to share the info with a view to maybe creating a few posts on the blog all about it

Thanks for the kind words ! :blushing:

I'd be happy to share and add a few posts to the blog, give me a few days to come up with some decent stuff.