Is Twitter about making friends... or making money?
So is Twitter about making friends or making money? This was the tempting title of the talk that Morgan PR presented to the Thames Valley Chamber of Commerce in Oxford today.
The noise from Twitter has long since drowned out the dawn chorus! More and more businesses want to know how Twitter can help them, not least in these difficult times. There are also of course suspicious that social media may just be a waste of time! Obviously it is not, but you can understand their doubts!
Following a fine lunch at the Barcelo Oxford Hotel I revealed the importance of building relationships on Twitter BEFORE you even think about making money.
There is a good chance many of our followers on Twitter will be reading this post, which may lead them to other parts of our website and some may even become clients through this process, Indeed while some may already be loyal clients, many will simple be followers who have found consistent value in our Tweets and therefore were prepared to invest in reading this blog.
It is all about adding value. If you add enough value then you will become entitled to promote your business to the same audience. Get that mix right and making money is within your grasp.
I also revealed some of the pitfalls of getting Twitter wrong, such as when Habitat abused hashtags to promote its furniture, through to the estate agents who were selling out their reputation by doing nothing but selling on Twitter.
I also explained how getting the mix right can deliver viral results and illustrated how our free downloads can go bonkers after being retweeted and how clients had seen increased footfall through Twitter promotions – when their followers feel that they have offered value through non-commercial tweets first!
There was also some technical talk with people keen to know how to avoid wasting time and we explained how tools like Tweetdeck makes it easier to manage a large following and TweetLater – which was recently re-named SocialOomph allowed you to schedule tweets. Of course it is still important to monitor your accounts in so you can respond to any enquiries.
We have talked about Twitter and the importance of social media with the Thames Valley Chamber of Commerce before, in Newbury when we presented our theories on Organic PR, which neatly exploits the opportunities within your business.
It was great as ever to meet professional keen to learn about Twitter and some may well be joining us for one of our monthly Twitter Workshops. My thanks also goes to photographer Peter Davey who had not only made the effort to come along to hear me speak, but also readily wielded my little Canon camera to take the photos for this blog.