Going Where Your Customers Are

There's already too much written about a certain micro-blogging service. The Guardian reported on 27th March that so far that month 684 articles had appeared in national and local newspapers that included the word "twitter". This compares to 206 in January 2009, and 40 in November 2008. The irony is that these articles often seem to be written by people who have not used the service or who have been on it since, er, they were asked to write an article about it.

Many are still trying to work out exactly how social tools like twitter might be useful for business. Meanwhile, businesses are just getting on with it and finding out for themselves - by trying it out. Research published by O2 indicates that small businesses are far more twitter-savvy than their larger counterparts, and are seeing tangible benefits. It estimates that 700,000 UK small businesses are now using the service. The Federation of Small Businesses has even started tweeting. I've worked with a few small businesses. The one thing they don't have is the luxury of time and resource to waste on anything that doesn't bring return. But the one thing they always need, is a direct route to customer engagement.

Some businesses are showing the way. Others are still experimenting (as Mark would say, lighting lots of fires). The kind of experimentation shown by the Guardian and Sky in their G20 coverage last week. The kind of experimentation which is needed now more than ever. The kind that I think should be applauded.

Strange then, that some sectors of the business media don't agree. Perhaps they could learn from their audience and go where their customers are. 

Comments

[Len Kendall]

It certainly is difficult to convey the benefits of the time investment required with certain social networks. For small business (especially in the b2b space) leads are extremely expensive. In this economy if small biz folks can invest time vs. money to gain often expensive leads they may change their minds about seeing immediate benefits.

[Christian Hughes]

Hey Neil, I have to agree about your point on how it seems people writing articles about Twitter are either not even using the service or are just popping in once and never going back. But I think it goes further. Irish Twitter use has exploded. I'll be honest I'm a moderately new user myself - just over 300 Tweets. However I have noticed that in the last 3 weeks in particular I have recieved a huge amount of follows from people I know to be Dublin-based Digital Marketers, and none of them have more then 5 Tweets, yet are following 200+ people.

If you don't want to use the service then why be there in the first place?

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[One Trouser]

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