Top 10 Ways Executives Can Use Twitter to Grow Revenues

For the marketing executive, Twitter is not just a micro-blogging site where people can share irrelevant news about their day. Twitter can also be a tremendous tool that can help executives increase their revenues at their company. Twittering only takes a couple minutes a day and can have a huge impact on your business. Here are just a few marketing applications of Twitter.

1. Build a following
Barrack Obama’s campaign used Twitter to build a tremendous following of over 100,000 followers. When the campaign needed help raising money or getting people to register to vote, they were able to call their huge following to action.

2. Communicate directly with your customers
Twitter is one of the most intimate and authentic communication tools ever. Through twitter you can speak directly to your customers, rather than having to go through the media or advertising. Comcast, who twitters with the handle comcastcares, has built a following of over 6,000 followers just by helping anyone who contacts them via Twitter with their issue.

3. Build branding
If you are open and honest, you can build trust in people who follow you. This can create goodwill and encourage loyalty for your brand.

4. Free advertising
It is increasingly difficult for companies to catch the attention of consumers but Twitter gives you the attention of people who are actively seeking what you have to say. The undivided attention of a thousand engaged consumers is more valuable than a million consumers zipping past your commercials with their DVRs.

5. Instant Focus Group
Jason Calacanis uses his 23,000 plus followers to find out what they think. He will shoot out a question about what people think about a Mahalo’s site design or who should be the next host of Mahalo daily and lets the community share their ideas and thoughts.

6. Spread a Message
Twitter is the ultimate catalyst for word of mouth. If something remarkable came out like Apple is planning to release a new product, it will spread through Twitter like wildfire. With a lot of people having mobile access to Twitter via SMS, they can quickly and easily spread interesting news about your company.

7. Market Research
By texting Track, followed by a keyword (e.g. track Kindle), you can get immediate updates whenever someone in the Twittersphere says the keyword. For instance if you are a well known brand, you can monitor what people are saying about your brand or new product releases.

8. Provide Valuable Content
If you provide valuable and useful content people will give you their attention. A company Twitter account could provide useful information and updates to prospective customers.

9. Direct Leads to Your Website
You can direct people to products on your website where they can convert to customers. Linking to your site can even possibly give you some added SEO value.

10. Have a Conversation
Twitter allows you to reply to what someone says, so you can have a conversation about virtually anything from the lives of consumers to issues in society or just whatever you think is cool.

If you are an executive take 5 minutes to create a Twitter account. You can send updates to all your followers by text messaging to 40404 in the US By registering your cell number at Twitter . There are countless CEOs that are already on Twitter. Check out this list of CEOs and executives who currently use twitter.

Discussion Question: Do you use Twitter and have you found it helpful in your business?