Social Media For Small Business

CHAPTER 12TWITTER

Fast facts

• Launched in 2006
• A microblog that allows you to ‘tweet’ short updates. Its initial purpose was for people to communicate with each other using only 140 characters—the length of an SMS. The maximum length of a tweet has now increased to 280 characters
• Has more than 300 million active users
• Was the first social network to adopt the hashtag when it was introduced in 2007
• The most popular social network for news consumption
• Used by Barack Obama, who has one of the most popular Twitter profiles.

Why Twitter?

A majority of Twitter users follow their favourite brands, which can make it a very effective tool for businesses.

As a business owner you can use Twitter to:

• grow your network of connections and connect with people you might normally not have access to
• look after your customers by providing an amazing customer service experience
• build your authority by sharing content that is valuable to your audience
• research trends and get news. A lot of reporters and journalists use Twitter as their source for uncensored content. You might even become one of their sources if you publish insightful content. Twitter is also a great tool for combating fake news because you can get information straight from the source
• tweet at events to connect with and share insights with other event attendees
• stay on top of trends and keep your eyes on the conversations happening in your industries. I like using Twitter as a research tool to get customer insights and ...