Twitter is the world’s most popular micro blog and whilst it’s primary service was for friends, family members and co-workers to keep in touch over the past year or so Twitter has become an extremely popular avenue for businesses to communicate with their customers and prospects.  The inherent nature of Twitter is its real-time newsfeed and it’s ever growing population.  As at June 2010 Twitter had 190 million users tweeting 65 million times every day.

So what do Companies use Twitter for?

Companies can use Twitter for any purpose to communicate a short message to their customers and prospects on issues such as:

• Customer service
• Public relations and news
• Advertising new products or services
• Thought leadership and knowledge sharing
• Research and development

There is no question that Twitter is now the most talked about social media portal and many companies have seen this as a great opportunity for them to promote their business.

The primary ways that businesses use Twitter include tweeting to expand their customer database by finding individuals with the same interests and needs of your business, using Twitter to increase their brand recognition amongst their followers and demonstrating their expertise and encouraging their followers to look to them as a source of information and authority on the subject.

Twitter can also be used by your business to ask questions to a community, for instance product research and to build trust and a loyal community to your brand amongst your followers.  Twitter can also be used as another avenue for permission based marketing and as both a customer service and research tool.

Here are 5 ways to encourage people to follow your business on Twitter:

1. Follow them – there is an almost automatic reaction for people to follow those that follow them.  Be aware however that there can be a backlash against people who follow others simply to gain followers themselves.
2. Post some good quality tweets before following others – encourage people to follow you by posting some good quality value adding informative tweets.  This will help them to see that you are providing value to them through your tweets, however you must remember to tweet regularly.
3. Complete your company profile – people will rarely follow strangers so it is essential that you complete your company online bio and make sure that you include your company url in the “more info url” section of your profile.  Most people want to know who they will be following before they actually decide to follow.
4. Add your Twitter feed to your blog and other social media profiles – if you have an established and loyal following for your blog or already have many connections on either Facebook or LinkedIn, you can leverage this audience to increase your number of followers on Twitter.
5. Reply to people you are following – especially if they are not yet following you.  This is an excellent way to engage with someone and encourage them to follow you, although it should be remembered that some people have literally thousands of followers and may not be able to respond to every reply.

If you would like more information about our Social Media Services please leave a comment below or visit GB Web Marketing – Internet Marketing Services for Businesses in Surrey, Sussex, Kent and throughout the South East of England.