Tank News and Blog

I’ve spent quite a lot of time on Twitter over the Christmas break. Admittedly, it’s mainly been about catching up with friends that I haven’t had chance to see in person and commenting on the festive goings-on over the past few weeks, but it’s also helped to reinforce the importance of Twitter for businesses.

Many have been using their allotted 140 characters to reinforce their post Christmas sale offerings and festive branding messages. This has an obvious benefit for B2C companies, providing an instant, and free form of direct marketing, but Twitter’s advantages for B2B organisations shouldn’t be overlooked either.

It’s the perfect way to engage with potential new leads on a more informal basis, injecting some personality into your corporate image. It sits nicely alongside the likes of Linkedin as a network-building tool, allowing you to engage directly with some of the country’s biggest brands.

Twitter also has the ability of driving web traffic, either directly to your own site or to articles relating to your field of expertise. And, of course, the PR value of Twitter is ever increasing. Not only have I seen it establish individuals as thought-leaders, but I’ve also seen some of our most impressive pieces of national and trade coverage come from a single tweet – you should never forget how many leading journalists are active Twitter users.

In terms of the economy, it’s safe to say that the country will hardly be back on an even keel in 2011, and the next 12 months are bound to be spent by many clawing their way back to stability, so businesses will be looking at the best and most cost-effective ways of publicising themselves. This is why I believe that Twitter will continue to expand in terms of business use, presenting new opportunities without impacting on the all-important budgets.

For those of you venturing into the world of Twitter, one word of warning – remember that it should be considered as an important part of your marketing campaign. Be an active user, follow the right people, engage with them and take time to plan tweets. Although it’s important to present a degree of personality, always keep at the forefront of your mind that you’re representing your company and your brand image.

So, if you’re looking to make a New Year’s resolution for your business, you could do a lot worse than Twitter.

Happy tweeting in 2011!

Martin