January 18, 2009
Using Twitter to Grow Your Startup Business
I admit it, I am a big fan of Twitter, I’ve talked in the past about why I think that more so than other Social Media tools, twitter has the potential to be a powerful tool for entrepreneurs and startups to build their brands and to manage and grow their influence (and ultimately relationships) with consumers.
One of the most powerful features of Twitter is the ability to explore the twitter network for potential audience members.
Last month, I decided to conduct a little experiment, to see if I could use this feature in a practical way to grow my twitter reach and influence in a meaningful way. As a startup entrepreneur, I’m always looking for effective ways to interact with potential customers. My goal was to find people that I thought might be interested in what I have to say. I was looking for people that I could interact with, that would reciprocate that interaction with me, that I would find interesting and more importantly (as the point of this experiment was to find people who would become part of my audience) would find what I have to say interesting.
If you consider Twitter to be a broadcast medium, and you are in the business of broadcasting your message, then a getting an audience of meaningful size is critical to your business success. Keeping them entertained and informed equally critical, but before you can keep them, you need to attract them.
As a media startup, imagine if you could start a conversation with every visitor of the most prestigious website in your industry?
I will start with the premise that you have to have something interesting to say. I won’t get into a debate about whether or not anything anyone says on any social network is interesting, my assumption is that you’re not an idiot, and you have a plan for informing and entertaining the audience once you find them (or they find you). But instead I am going to focus on the idea that the unique attributes of Twitter allow you as a “promoter” to find your audience, instead of waiting for them to find you.
From December 1st to December 15th, I used made a concerted effort to seek out potential audience members. When I found them, I reached out to them. I used the Twtter follow feature to follow those people, I sent them messages, and I commented on their tweets that were relevant to my topics of interest. For the most part, people on twitter tend to follow you back, especially if you interact with them on a personal level. The result is that your follow count will rise as you interact with more and more people.
The result of this is that my Twitter Reach (my second order network size) has now risen to approximately 2 million people, and I’m the 37th most “elite” Twitterer in Seattle.
Some people might argue that a twitter network of over 1,500 followers is fragile, and realistically these people are not actually interested in your twitter stream. However, since conducting my experiment, my twitter followers have continued to grow. Of course, I can’t know for sure why all these people follow my stream, but I can say that we’ve seen a direct effect on our business, from increased sign-ups, increased blog traffic, and viral spreading of our brand and message.
And as an added bonus, I’ve had a lot of fun meeting a lot of cool people in the process: whether it’s a late night IM about entrepenues working long hours with Guy Kawasaki or a conversation about punk rock music and vegetarianism with the former bassist of the great 80’s girl metal band Vixen. Where else can you do that? Twitter Rocks!
Filed by Brad Hefta-Gaub at 8:07 pm under Entrepreneurship, Social Media
Digg! this story.
Nice post. I’m glad to see somebody did some kind of scientific tracking on this. I’ve been on Twitter for a while, but I haven’t been consistent with it. I’m not one to do a lot of posting from a mobile device, but perhaps that will come when I hit the season when I’m out in the field more. Still, a desktop is a fine medium for Twitter — when you’re on it all day.
Experiential evidence has shown me that once you connect to one critical person in your industry network, you will immediately pick up other critical people, which will generate credibility, relationships and, in my case, immediate PR. Since I tend to post (mostly) links to articles in my blog, Twittering hasn’t “cost” me much (by cost I mean time). I do follow most of my followers and interact with some, but I don’t have the time (or is it the inclination?) to chat everyone up. And I do wonder if some of my followers aren’t what I’d designate “people collectors”. I wonder how much I’m missing by not investing in this chatter.
I am curious, it seems you post often, how much time investment do you find is necessary to make Twitter really pay off? In addition to your posts, how much time are you really putting into Twitter?
Thanks!
Robin,
I totally agree with you on this point:
Another great way to attract followers from your industry is to tweet about an industry event using a “hashcode”. When I was at the Health 2.0 conference many people were tweeting with #health20con and I picked up several followers from that process.
As to your question about participating in chatter. I think this is something you have to balance with your other activities. I usually have twitter up all the time on my desktop, and I check it throughout the day, if there’s something that catches my eye, and I think I have something to add, then I’ll jump in on the chatter. But I don’t use it as an IM or chat tool.
Thanks for the comment!
I am a Realtor and built my business on networking and referrals. The Twitter world is a fun and new way of doing this.
I love these stats. I will be teaching other Realtors in my area about social networking this week.
I am hoping to recuit a whole slew of Twitters to this great and fun place.
Welcome to the Twitterverse! And good luck to you, Cindie!
[...] 3 Steps to Setting Up a “Refer a Friend” Marketing Program « Affiliate MoneyA Plan for Increasing Your Web Presence: The First 3 Months – Become the Best Hunting Business in your County, State, or even in the Nation « DayneShuda.comKonamoxt, Inc. » Using Twitter to Grow Your Startup Business » Sweat365 » Fitness … [...]
Thanks for sharing your informative post…..