Twitter is certainly the talk of the town these days, but there's still a lot of resistance among marketers and non-marketers alike to joining Twitter. We always hear the same 5 excuses for not joining Twitter. But I'm here to tell you - enough with the excuses, Twitter can actually be a very valuable tool for your business.
Here at the Top 5 Excuses for Not Joining Twitter - and Why They're Wrong
1. It's a waste of time for businesses.
Probably the first excuse everyone always gives is that it's a waste of time and has no value for a business. Though, I admit, many of us at HubSpot have felt that way at one time or another, we have both gotten media coverage by connecting with bloggers and journalists directly, and also generated significant traffic and leads by getting found by potential customers and sharing valuable content that drives them to our website and self-select as leads. Marketers already recognize the value of networking in generating business - well, this is taking that networking online, and Twitter is one tool that
makes networking easy, painless, and powerful
. There are endless
business uses
we could actually talk about.
2. Why do I need to know this nonsense?
It's true, there is a lot of "noise" on Twitter with people talking about the spicy burrito they had at lunch, their sick cat, or how concerned they may be about their favorite MLB team. What's great about Twitter is that you don't have to follow (and thus get updates from) people whose tweets you don't enjoy. You can follow someone, and then choose to unfollow if you don't enjoy their tweets. And you don't have to follow every "noisy" person who follows you. With that said, don't write this off altogether - what is sometimes called "noise" is actually an integral part of engaging fully on Twitter, sharing a bit of yourself in order to connect and communicate with others. You don't need to make it all about business - after all, the lines between personal and business networks are blurring .
3. My customers aren't on Twitter. Or, my industry is too niche for Twitter.
The first thing I have to say to this is, have you checked? Have you checked if or who is already talking about you or your industry on Twitter? If not, head right over to Search.Twitter.com (once you finish reading this article, of course) and search for your company name, or product name, or even relevant keywords for your business. See if and who is talking about you. If you have a very niche market, perhaps a small audience of engineers or manufacturers, there is all the more reason to connect directly with these people wherever they choose to hang out, which may be Twitter.
4. It takes too much time.
OK, Twitter can definitely be a time-suck at times. You get lost in your twitterstream and before you know it the day could be over. But it doesn't have to be like that. For one, RSS makes it a lot easier to follow conversations that are directly relevant to you. Head back to Search.Twitter.com where you searched for your company or keywords. At the top right you'll see a link to "Feed for this query". Click on the link to subscribe and stay on top of your most important conversations. Beyond that, just check into your main twitterstream a couple times a day to see what's going on, check your @Replies to see who's directly replying to you, and you're done. Here are a few other ways to avoid the Twitter time-suck .
5. I don't want to give people an opportunity to say negative things about me and my company.
The truth is, people are already talking about you and the question is whether or not you will listen and respond. You need to get into that conversation to address your customers' feedback, even if it's just to say, hey, we hear you. Listening and responding early can have quite a significant impact in, for example, calming fires before they spread. A classic example is the publication of Dell's product and customer service issues triggered by Jeff Jarvis' "Dell Hell" blog posts back in 2005. The issues were originally ignored (after all, he's just one customer) and the story was picked up by numerous blogs, featured in whitepapers, and also chronicled by major publications including The New York Times and Business Week . On the other extreme, a great example from Comcast, where they saw a tweet from an upset customer, responded with a thoughtful, What's the problem? Can we help? and through a series of tweets turned that upset customer into a happy evangelist for their company.
We've held a webinar, presented by Rick Burnes ( @rickburnes ), Mike Volpe ( @mvolpe ), and myself ( @ellieeille ), all about how to use Twitter for Marketing & PR. You're hopefully convinced now that you need to stop making excuses and try out Twitter for yourself. You can watch the 30 minute webinar below to learn how to get started using Twitter for your business.
Do you hear more excuses for not joining Twitter? Leave a comment below with your thoughts and experiences.
Inbound Marketing Blog Feed
peter caputa 10:58 AM on October 13, 2008
Well said, Ellie.
Re: #3, I'm increasingly growing tired of people saying that "my audience isn't there". My new retort is that "you have to stop 'targeting' your audience and start engaging your audience and building your own community of followers."
Michelle/chelpixie 11:32 AM on October 13, 2008
One of the first things that I do when I hear "my business is too niche" is point out @garyvee.
No product is too niche, as a matter of fact you're going to find a handful of people that might just become your biggest fans!
Dave 11:32 AM on October 13, 2008
I think it's worth noting that the good Twitter example from Comcast came after years of ignoring widespread customer complaints, and soon before they publicly admitted their secret web filtering. Marketers talk about Comcast's Twitter success - everyone else talks about Comcast's horrible reputation.
The point? Don't forget that even if your external marketing efforts are strong, you've got to take that public feedback and turn it into useful guidance for the operations side, and you've got to sell that guidance internally. All the tweets in the world won't bring back a customer who feels truly disrespected, but they can help you catch the problem before it gets to that point.
Jesse Luna 11:34 AM on October 13, 2008
The biggest thing I've learned is that you are dealing with "people" not "target markets." Guess what, engineers are people and so are marketers.
Maddie Grant 11:37 AM on October 13, 2008
The other thing organizations don't realize is that maybe they don't have many of their stakeholders on Twitter today, but they probably will tomorrow. Participation is on a steep upward curve, as it is with socnets like Facebook too.
Gina Schreck 12:00 PM on October 13, 2008
So many people tell me that Twitter is only for entrepreneurs or marketers. First I tell them we are all in marketing and that Twitter is about listening to people and creating relationships. As a professional speaker, we used to get feedback AFTER a program (if we were lucky), but today people are Twitting as the speaker is still speaking-why not join in, make adjustments if needed and engage! Great Webinar last week-BTW
Jim Campbell 12:13 PM on October 13, 2008
As I follow this and other lines of discussions, I'm beginning to think that ALL social media is good and to get busy with involvement and less so with analysis. Is that about right? LikeSoup.com
WebSlicers 1:37 PM on October 13, 2008
does "my laptop crashed 2 hours before the webminar" count? that's exactly what happened to me... : (
WebSlicers 1:39 PM on October 13, 2008
damn! i was so hooked up with the webminar that i posted a wrong comment. i read the title wrong. i'm sorry... : (
WebSlicers 1:39 PM on October 13, 2008
damn! i was so hooked up with the webminar that i posted a wrong comment. i read the title wrong. i'm sorry... : (
Chris 2:48 PM on October 13, 2008
I related to #4 at first. It's hard to sift through all the options out there to find what would be most effective. The webinar, by the way, was a great way for me to not to use that excuse, but to just do it. Thanks, Hubspot!
Twitter.com/toddlesby 1:21 PM on October 14, 2008
It is interesting how Twitter seems to have reached critical mass. After 18 months hanging out on the edge of the internet, the world has come to "discover" twitter. The good news is it's not too late for businesses to generate interest in their offerings by connecting with folks via twitter.
It's more personal than any other web tool we've seen in years. Public figures can be messaged directly and often respond - something I wouldn't dream possible with email.
When I follow users answering the question: "What are you doing?", it's the quickest way to find out what's going on in the world!
When I post my content I'm telling folks what's going on in my world and creating (albeit in a small way) the stream of internet conciousness. Pretty powerful stuff for 140 characters.
btw, very nice summary of Twitterverse. A future posting on twitter tools and ways of engaging like twitterific (iphone) and tweetdeck (desktop client) would be nice.
Twitter.com/usegraymatter 1:59 PM on October 14, 2008
Great snapshot of how Twittermania can trickle down to your bottom line through relationship-building. Talking the non-believers through the "time-suck" perception is my biggest challenge—even among industry peers. "I don't have time for that" is pretty much a standard response. Sure there's a time investment in getting up to speed and learning how to make any type of social media work for you and/or your business. Unfortunately, I think so many of these venues are still perceived as personal journal-blogging or just-baked-a-cake tweeting...but the virtual door for businesses to engage is wide open. Thanks again for crafting the rationale...I'll definitely be linking to it on my business blog!
kelly 8:28 AM on October 16, 2008
I think it's partially people think business people do not join sites with qute birdie graphics. I really don't understand why majority thinks that a business website has to be "serious".
Sure you take your business seriously, but it's not bad to show the human and humourous side of yourself when you're working.
I joined Twitter to see if I'd get any followers without telling anyone. 17.
After number 17 there was a sudden surge. Now it's stopped all of a sudden. But I think I am not maximising the use of Twitter.com somehow. So I hope to learn more!
Paula Werne 10:47 AM on October 21, 2008
Twitter actually *saves* me time. I can send out a quick tweet between blog posts. Since it's a companion piece alongside our HoliBlog, visitors to that page (almost) always see something new. @HolidayWorld
Ange Perkes 7:53 AM on December 24, 2008
Thanks so much for sharing! I've only just recently heard about Twitter, but by all accounts it sounds absolutey fantastic. Social networking is a great way to build rapport with potential clients. And rapport really is what stands us out compared to our competition. People would prefer to do business with businesses and people they already know, as opposed to those they do not. So I believe getting involved with sites like Twitter is definitely well worth the time investment. Thanks for sharing!
Kara 1:17 PM on February 23, 2009
The Twitter craze is something that I just never got in to and still don't find to be all that exciting but I can now see why it isn't as big of a deal as we make it and that excuses for not using it are just as useless as we think using it may be. It's something that may very well change the face of business and the online presence of companies and luckily things like this are there to point out our flaws and woes when we try to disregard its importance.