Twitter for Business: 5 Inspirational Companies to Follow

Struggling to grow your brand, its followers AND use Twitter for Business? Social Media such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Google+ and others can be daunting to start off with. However several companies and brands have successfully achieved a brilliant social media ROI. Last week we looked at 5 inspirational companies on Facebook and this time we focus on Twitter.

• Strategy: You first need to have a Social Media Strategy in place and each business will be different. From small companies to large brands, each implementing tactics to increase engagement with their Twitter Followers.
• Branding: An effective Twitter strategy results in an opportunity to quickly and cheaply build your brand.
• Productivity: It’s simplicity makes it very adaptable, it can also be used to drive increases in business and employee productivity across various tasks.
• Advertising: Many use Twitter advertising. Success doesn’t come for free but neither does it have to cost much, as you can choose your own budget and tactics.

So what do you wish to do when using Twitter for Business?

• Listen to the conversation - Listen for mentions of your brand and take the opportunity to positively influence the conversation.
• Engage with People – Respond to conversations and engage with people in real time.
• Increase Followers – Attract people who want to know more about your business and will eventually become customers.
• Deliver Customer Service - It’s an ideal customer service platform and many companies choose to set up dedicated customer service Twitter accounts.
• Grow Sales - There is no point in doing well on Twitter without a Business ROI. The final result to achieve is more people becoming customers, purchasing your product and therefore increased turnover.

Here are five brilliant examples of companies using Twitter for business:

# 1. Zappos on Twitter

Founded in 1999, online retailer Zappos has gone on to become one of the biggest names in e-commerce. Their success is built on their devotion to creating the ultimate customer service experience and in parallel Zappos have also become one of the most innovative users of social media.

Led by their Inspirational CEO Tony Hsieh (who has 2.7 million followers) their strategy for Twitter revolves around an unusually open and transparent culture that encourages the use of social media across the business:

• All Zappos employees are on Twitter.
• Zappo’s Conversations page on their website uses Twitter’s API to look for all the Tweets that mention @Zappos and @Zappos_Service.
• They have also launched the Zappos TweetWall, which brings “the latest product finds and obsessions from the Twitter community”

# 2. Starbucks on Twitter

Starbucks are a social media superstar. The brand has almost 35 million fans on Facebook and nearly 9 million views on YouTube.

On Twitter, Starbucks 3.7 million followers ranks it fourth, behind Samsung Mobile, iTunes and NASA. And that’s just the main Twitter account, the company has many other accounts for it’s brands and international markets. The main Starbucks account tweets between 1 and 2 times per day:

• Pictures and Hashtags are used extensively and the brand focusses on building customer relations rather than promotion.
• Along with the @Starbucks account, the company has @MyStarbucksIdea.
• There, followers can send in ideas on how to make for a better customer experience. Starbucks then blogs about those ideas, which get put into action.

# 3. New York Times on Twitter

The New York Times is an example of a newspaper that has really embraced social media.

Their main Twitter account has 8.2 million followers and often tweets over a 100 times per day:

• Tweets include links to the NYTimes.com homepage and RTs of NYTimes journalists.
• Dozens of additional New York Times accounts such as @nytimesbooks, allow for additional targeting of their audience and segmentation.
• Those followers are receiving only the information that’s important to them.

# 4. Dell on Twitter

Another social media superstar, Dell’s ability to drive sales and customer service on Twitter has been well documented. However, they continue to deserve to be highlighted as an example of a large multinational that has become a genuine social business.

The main Dell Twitter account has just over 70 thousand followers and tweets up to 15 times per day.

• Dell has dozens of other Twitter accounts across their Support, Sales, Community and Corporate departments.
• Study their tweets and you will notice a great blend between PR, listening and selling.
• They also create weekly videos to thank customers as part of very the innovative #Delllove campaign.

# 5. SmallBizTrends on Twitter

Disclaimer: Anita Campbell is CEO of Tweak Your Biz, where I am a co-founder.

Led by Anita Campbell, “Small Business Trends is an award-winning online publication for small business owners, entrepreneurs and the people who interact with them”. The stable of websites includes: Small Biz Experts, BizSugar, Small Business CEO and Tweak Your Biz.

The main Twitter account (which is run by Anita) has over 100 thousand followers and tweets between 10 to 20 times daily.

• Tweets are made up of links to articles and information that small business owners would find useful.
• Anita also regularly engages with her followers and thanks them for their participation.

Conclusion

So having studied these Twitter accounts, there are a few similarities in their Twitter strategies that stand out:-

• Stick to the right blend between PR, listening and selling.
• Tweet relevant information that your audience and customers will be interested in.
• Use pictures and use hashtags.
• The CEO of the organisation needs to be on Twitter.
• Segment your audience by using different Twitter accounts for different aspects of the business.
• Use Twitter for customer service.
• Aim to integrate Twitter into the business.

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