# 21 Twitter Tips For Entrepreneurs From Forbes

- Link: https://exclusiveaccess.net/21-twitter-tips-for-entrepreneurs-from-forbes/
- Published: 2011-01-26T10:09:18-05:00
- Author: EAN

Silly time waster? Sure. Powerful business tool? You bet!

You’ve heard about Twitter–that curious, strangely addictive social-networking technology
that facilitates torrents of truncated messages among millions of users. You might
even know your hashtags from your re-tweets. But how can you make money with it?

Forbes canvassed scads of businesses and pricey social-networking gurus looking 
for honest answers. Admittedly, we were skeptical. After all, how much can you accomplish
in 140 characters or less?

Turns out there are myriad ways Twitter can have an impact, and not just as a marginal
marketing tool. Indeed, we found 21 clever ways to use Twitter–for everything from
boosting sales and scouting talent, to conducting market research and raising capital.
Chances are, there will be many more.

**21 Top Twitter Tips**

“I believe Twitter is a communication platform,” says Nathan Egan, founder of Freesource
Agency, a social-networking consultancy in Philadelphia. “In a year or two, everyone
will be on it, using it in totally new ways.” Better yet, getting results “doesn’t
take a year or six months, but a matter of weeks,” adds Mark Schaefer, head of Schaefer
Marketing Solutions in Knoxville, Tenn.

Some strategies take more time, or are more industry-specific, than others. Taken
together, though, this collection of techniques and real-world examples constitutes
a powerful online arsenal for companies large and small. Herewith, some highlights:

**Coupon Campaigns** Congratulations for getting to the end of this sentence. “As
an online culture, people are not reading; they’re scanning,” says Dell ( DELL –
news – people ) Computer’s Stefanie Nelson, voice of @DellOutlet. “The shorter and
more direct your message is, the more successful you’re going to be.” Dell tweets
links to coupons at Dell Outlet’s Facebook page, which shoppers use during checkout
at Dell.com.

This strategy works for small companies, too: The abbreviated offers are easy to
produce–you don’t need an ad agency to write 140 characters. California Tortilla,
a chain of 39 causal Mexican restaurants based in Rockville, Md., spread coupon “
passwords”–through its Twitter feed @caltort–that must be spoken at checkout to 
be redeemed.

**Viral Marketing** In July, in honor of its 10th birthday, London-based do-it-yourself
Web site builder Moonfruit gave away 11 Macbook Pro computers and 10 iPod Touches.
Contestants had to tweet using the hashtag #moonfruit. (Hashtags collate Twitter
responses.) Nearly a month after the contest ended, traffic to Moonfruit’s Web site
is up 300%. Sales are up 20% this month, more than paying off the $15,000 investment.
And the Moonfruit Web site has climbed onto the first Google ( GOOG – news – people)
page for “free website builder” (it used to be on the fourth).

Word to the wise, says Moonfruit founder Wendy White: Such campaigns must be courteous
and fit with a company’s brand, lest you draw the ire of the Twitter-sphere: “There’s
a fine line between annoying people and getting the thumbs up.”

**Artful Customer Service** Frank Eliason, director of digital care at Comcast (
CMCSA – news – people ), uses Twitter to help 200 to 300 subscribers a day with 
issues ranging from sporadic Internet service to errant e-mails. Frank and his team
receive direct questions at the @comcastcares account and search for complaints.
Twitter has a built-in search, but it’s more efficient to set up a permanent search
on one of the free, third-party Twitter applications, such as TweetDeck.

Eliason’s key to success: maintaining friendly relationships, not foisting unwanted
advice. “If they want assistance, they’ll let me know,” he says. Eliason has a 10-
person help desk at his disposal, but small businesses can use Twitter to provide
better customer service, too. Even a little help goes a long way.

**Focus Groups** Back in the old days (last year), companies actually paid customers
to solicit their opinions. There were 3.37 million mentions of Starbucks ( SBUX –
news – people ) on Twitter through early May 2009, and all of that information is
available for less than the cost of a frappucino. “There is a major element of Twitter
that’s about listening and learning,” says Brad Nelson, the man behind @Starbucks.“
Twitter is a leading indicator.” Collecting the information is as simple as searching
for references to your company.

Morgan Johnston, manager of Corporate Communications at Jet Blue, abolished a $50
fee for carry-on bikes after hearing complaints via Twitter. “Think of Twitter as
the canary in the coal mine,” says Johnston. “We watch for customers’ discussions
about amenities we have, and what they’d like to see made better.” For a more formal
approach, lob a simple post asking for feedback and provide a hashtag to collect
the responses.

**Poaching Customers** “Twitter is not just a kid story,” says Chris Brogan, president
of New Marketing Labs. Brogan should know: He is one of several Twitter experts 
advising companies on how to spy on their competition and to swoop in with a better
service or discount.

Freesource’s Egan describes how to do it: Using TweetDeck, set up a permanent search
for all permutations of your competitor’s name, as well as words that convey dissatisfaction(“
sucks” or “hate”). Public replies to those new prospects are dangerous, as your 
competition may see them, so the best bet is to follow them and get followed back,
allowing you to send direct messages.

**Customer Expectation Management** Bad things happen–it’s how you condition customers
to deal with it that counts. Jet Blue tweets flight delays. In April, when a Stanley
Cup broadcast was interrupted, cable provider Comcast used Twitter to immediately
inform its subscribers that the culprit was a lightning storm, and that transmission
would soon be restored.

Small companies–like United Linen, a linens and uniform company in Bartlesville,
Okla.–can manage expectations this way, too. When a major snowstorm hit the area,
Marketing Director Scott Townsend used Twitter to let customers know deliveries 
would be delayed. “It was a great way to send information to everyone,” he says.“
They understood we wouldn’t be there, but they wanted to know what our status was
and updates as the situation changed.”

**Corralling Eyeballs** During last year’s NBA Eastern Conference Finals between
the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Orlando Magic, Turner Broadcasting managed to weave
social-media feeds into its home page. Fans accessed the conversation by logging
onto Twitter through TNT.com, and the tweets were also posted on Twitter with links
back to TNT.com. Those forums mean more Web traffic–and thus more advertising revenue.“
It’s exciting to sell this to an advertiser,” said Liza Hausman, vice president 
of marketing for Gigya Socialize, the brains behind the integration technology.

**Vendor Selection** Twitter can snag customers, but how about suppliers? Crowdspring,
an online marketplace that marries businesses with graphic designers (see “The Creativity
Of Crowds”), used Twitter to build up its stable of contributors–now 12,000 strong
globally.

Business travelers can apply this same logic: Tweeting that you’re about to visit
a city can scare up discount offers from hotels, bus companies and other travel-
services providers.

**Conflict Resolution** Wiggly Wigglers, a Herfordshire, U.K.-based marketer of 
gardening and farming supplies, was recently overcharged $10,500 by British Telecom.
Five months passed without restitution.

Finally, Wiggly owner Heather Gorringe hit the Twitter-sphere, asking if anyone 
else had had problems with BT. @BTCare sent Gorringe a message within 30 minutes
promising help; two days later, the bill was amended. “When I phone them up, I’m
an isolated call to deal with, so I’m less important,” says Gorringe. “But if I 
tweet, and 1,193 people re-tweet, 100,000 people see it within 30 seconds.”

**Employee Recruitment** Sodexo, a food services and facilities management company,
trains its recruiters on Twitter and other social media. An automated program sends
prospects a direct message whenever a position opens up, and the messages are opened
30% of the time.

The trick, says Arie Ball, vice president of talent acquisition at Sodexo, is to
be as personal and engaging as possible: “People get an insider’s view, a sense 
if this is a company they want to work for.” The company says that using Twitter
as a recruitment tool has helped cut its investment in online job boards by hundreds
of thousands of dollars.

**Raising Capital** As in the physical world, no one likes to be solicited for contributions
online. A better Twitter tack: Don’t ask, just inform.

Last Thanksgiving, Epic Change, a nonprofit that encourages people to tell their
stories to transform communities, launched the Tweetsgiving Web site, with the help
of theKbuzz, a word-of-mouth marketing firm. Tweetsgiving asked people to tweet 
what they were grateful for, and compiled the responses at #tweetsgiving, with a
link back to the Tweetsgiving site, where users had the option of contributing money
to build classrooms in Tanzania.

Over the 48-hour campaign, 15,000 people came to the Tweetsgiving site; 360 donated,
for a total of $11,000. “We never asked people to give,” says Stacey Monk, founder
of Epic Change. “We got people invested in their own, personalized way.”
 Via _[Forbes.com](http://www.forbes.com/)_