Twitter IS Good for Business – How You Use it Makes All the Difference!

Last week I had an incredible business experience on Twitter that confirmed just how useful Twitter can be as a business development tool. This came at just the right time too because I was starting to question the real value that Twitter held for small business owners like myself. I’ve been on Twitter for over a year now and it’s been a good networking tool that’s allowed me to meet some very interesting people. Some of these people have become friends and valued partners. But until last week I hadn’t seen Twitter really show potential to drive direct business from my efforts on it.

Here’s what happened…

I’m using TweetDeck which is a Twitter client (software) that allows you to organize your Twitter streams into multiple columns by people in different industries or different criteria that you determine such as an A-list for people you want to follow more closely – thanks @TanveerNaseer for that great tip. TweetDeck also lets you set up streams/columns by filters for mentions of certain words or topics. I had one set up for “AdWords” so I could follow people who mention AdWords to keep up to date with news and other related AdWords tweets. Last week as I was going through the AdWords tweets I came across one by @JustinLocke. Justin was frustrated by some of his ads not showing up right away as he was led to believe so I sent him a quick tweet explaining why this most likely is happening.

For my 10 second effort, Justin was impressed that a complete stranger out of the blue took it upon themselves to give him a hand on Twitter. He was so impressed by this that he even wrote a blog post about his experience and the fact that I reached out to give him a hand.

Needless to say I was in turn impressed as well because I didn’t expect anything to come out of this other than an exchange about AdWords editorial policy and a quick thank you for sharing some info. Instead I get some added visibility and someone I didn’t know before, to pass my name and company on to potential clients. How amazing is that?!

So the moral of this story is that Twitter in and of itself is not good or bad – a total waste of time or a great tool for business development. It can be all of these things depending on what you do with it. Use it wisely and you’ll be surprised with the results!