Twitter: Not A Waste Of Time For Small Business Owners

Social networking has changed the way we do business and the biggest change has been for small business owners.

Small businesses usually have one person who makes a great representative for the company in the social networking arena. And this makes small businesses a perfect fit for a social networking tool called Twitter.

Twitter is a micro-blogging tool in which you have 140 characters to answer the question "What Are You Doing?"

At first I was reluctant to join in on Twitter and wanted to make sure I would see business results from it. Since connecting through Twitter I have seen these results: more Website and Blog traffic; product ideas from my target market; and an increase in expert status. Another bonus, Twitter makes working from home not so isolating and I feel as if I'm in an office talking around the water cooler.

So how can you obtain these results for your business?

1. Create a Compelling Twitter Profile - Add a professional photo to your Twitter profile, because no one will follow you without a photo. Include a link to your main website and create an interesting bio that entices people to find out more.
2. Create Interesting and Useful Tweets (a Twitter message) - Don't just write about your personal life, but also include blog posts, links to articles and anything else your target market would be interested in.
3. Follow Others - Start off by following others in Twitter and return the follow when they follow you.
4. Automate It - Use your cell phone with Twitter and update your status while you're on the run. Within Twitter click on the settings tab and then the devices tab. Within this section you will be able to add your and setup your cell phone to work with Twitter. Also, I have my blog set up to automatically post new posts to Twitter. This is a great time saver and generates a lot more traffic to my blog.
5. Is Your Target Market on Twitter?Before jumping in on Twitter I would consider if your target market is there yet. If you target small business owners then, yes, Twitter will work great for you. Also the younger generation is very involved in Twitter. So think about your target market and where they are.

Action Step: Create a Twitter profile at Twitter.com and you can start off by following me @jhaubein. I look forward to connecting with you.