Social media platforms, like Twitter, have changed the way people communicate and interact. This micro-blogging platform that has had a never-before-seen growth, at an over 1,000 percent increase in its user base year-on-year, is the equivalent of a virtual social club where people can meet, get to know each other, socialize, make new friends and maintain existing friendships.
Twitter , though, is unlike any other social media platform you know or have been using for the simple reason that it is extremely restrictive. You are constrained to 140 characters of text and you cannot upload media content or post long articles. However, this is what makes Twitter an effective, real time communication system.
One thing that Twitter is not is an online mall where people come to buy or sell things. While this may make you stand up, take notice and scream at the top of your lungs that you don’t need Twitterif you can’t promote your offers, you would be sorely mistaken. You see, that is where the true power of Twitteris, in the fact that it isn’t a marketplace.
Twitter should not be considered a cheap form of advertising because treating it like a traditional advertising medium will get you nowhere. On the other hand, this micro-blogging platform ranks among the most effective and powerful marketing tools that you can use. This is due to the fact that Twitter is the perfect place to build relationships with your target market and this is critical to your online marketing success because consumers have changed a lot over the past decade. The Internet has opened up so many routes of communication that people can go online and find out information and opinions on different companies’ products and services almost instantly. In fact, in a study conducted by Harris Interactive, it was found that 45 percent of the respondents considered reviews from friends or people they follow on social media websites to influence their purchase decision.
Consumers are no longer limited to buying from only a select few large corporations and, in fact, prefer to do business with people they know and trust. Twitter gives you the opportunity to build that relationship with your potential customers which will help you generate leads as well as more customers.
Before we move further into the material, it needs to be specified that we are assuming you know how to set up a Twitter account and if you have not yet done so, you understand that you need an active Twitter account to be able to apply the material and information in the present ebook.