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Sunday, October 18, 2009

Comments

Mark Leevan

Twitter for small business? Define small. You mean a franchisee or a mom & pop place? 50 souls? I don't consider franchises to be small businesses.

If you consider a small business to be 500 souls, then maybe...

Mom and Pops do NOT belong on Twitter or any other social network. They barely use email effectively.

No Mom & Pop small business has the time to effectively tweet. Their competitors and customers are not on Twitter.

Nobody except techies and social media people are on Twitter. In 5 years we will be looking back and laughing at Twitter. It's the Cue Cat of it's day.

Mom & Pop Store

People who think Twitter is a waste of time don't understand Twitter's potential. Having said that, those small businesses who are not on Twitter, should get on with the program. While we can laught at Twitter 5 yeas from now, we can take advantage of it RIGHT NOW instead of wondering what's going to happen in the future. I can't think of any Mom & Pop shop that's going to close their doors because the world will end on Dec, 2012. Sear the cow while the iron is hot. If you're not on Twitter now, you're missing the boat.

twitter.com/ShallieBey

Thanks for a wonderful post.

Your advice to small business owners is excellent. If your customers are on twitter, you certainly need to be there.

If people are talking about products and services like you deliver, even in different markets, you also need to be there.

If you want to survive as traditional media become less and less effective, you need to be on twitter.

Shallie Bey
Smarter Small Business Blog

Lyn

"Nobody except techies and social media people are on Twitter. In 5 years we will be looking back and laughing at Twitter. It's the Cue Cat of it's day."

This is demonstrably false and bordering on troll-ish, not to mention similar to reactionary complaints made about every new or emerging (Twitter is at least 3 years old now) technology in the history of technology. In other words, bo.ring.

In my Twitter feed right this second are:

1) VA State Parks
2) a journalism professor
3) an 'eat locally' activist
4) my hometown newspaper
5) a cookbook author
6) a music magazine
7) a women's studies professor

and yes, a bunch of techies and political geeks (which is unsurprising, since I am both, myself) as well as various media streams and baseball feeds and a bunch of other stuff.

I've got some issues with Twitter the company and with some of the technical choices they're making about the service, but the micro-blogging format isn't going anywhere.

twitter.com/rongraham1

Just a couple days ago, I recommended to a "mom & pop shop" that they didn't need Twitter. You don't need to be reaching out to the world if your practical target audience is less than 100 miles away in any direction.

But having said that, the idea that "nobody except techies and social media people are on Twitter" is simply laughable. There are thousands of people who *think* they are "social media experts" but don't engage anyone; there's also a legion of positive-thinkers and MAKE.MONEY.FAST types. But from where I sit, there are *too few techies* and *too few really social people*. Twitter cries out to the heavens for more of those. I kid you not.

hellotrade

Very Good advise for small business owner...

Twitter actually help a lot to track your customers, competitors & helps you to make your strategy accordingly!!!

Hellotrade

Account Deleted

Many people have started rubbishing twitter because of a more comprehensiveness of facebook. But I strongly feel twitter is far more simpler and accessible and faster and any such application is bound to be mass hit.

Greg Elwell

Great insights on use of Twitter for small business - or any size business for that matter. The key it seems to me is to find your market and help your market to find you. Then engage in meaningful conversations. Don't use Twitter to constantly broadcast your stuff. Make a connection, build quality relationships and have some fun with it!

Financial Planner Raleigh

Hi nice to read this I realy like to


Thanks for such a nice post.

Regards

Roy Weissman

Great post about using new technologies to grow your business. Twitter is creating a new approach to getting sales now. Using technology to gain leverage in business is key today as you need to stay ahead of your competitors.

Roy Weissman
Publisher:BuildMySiteforFree.com

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