Are you using Twitter for your business?

I have found the search.twitter.com section very useful for business. You can put in keywords for your business and locate people who are currently discussing that topic and gives you the opportunity to connect with them. 

I met for example wonderful people such as the team @HippyGourmet through Twitter and was able to help them with their filming in Christchurch. But, more than that I can speak with lots of people coming to New Zealand and share my ideas and help plan their holidays.

If you want to follow me my tweet name follow @EntirelyKiwi

Hope to hear from you soon :)

Hi @EntirelyKiwi!  I'm @IndependentBell on Twitter

I'll be sure and follow you!

We love Twitter at Laurie Sarah Designs!  We have 3 distinct Twitter accounts that we use depending on what our focus is at that time:

LaurieSarahList - Only jewelry pieces that we've listed or new offers, including Engagement & Wedding Rings

LaurieSarah - Jewelry discussions only

LSPetz - Just for our custom Paw Printz designs

It has opened us up to new markets and has been very successful for us.  We had 5 Paw Printz sales this weekend with 4 being from Tweets made on Friday evening and Saturday.  The key is making sure, not only that you are following the right people, you also the have right followers for yourself as well. 

When starting out, we found a lot of the SEO types, get rich quick types and other random people that are just adding followers to their lists.  That will not help you in the long run, though it "looks" cool to have a bunch of followers - it's pretty much useless.  Take the time to use the "Find People" link on Twitter. 

When we created LSPetz, for example, we purposely added "Pet" people: Those with a bio about their pets or pet store, dog lovers and cat lovers.  If someone non pet related wants to follow me - they are welcome to but we will NOT follow them back. 

We were not as careful when we first started LaurieSarahList and had to spend a lot of time cleaning out followers that weren't helping us.  When setting up LSPetz - we knew better and it has worked well.

We wish you success as you find your way onto Twitter as it really is a great marketing tool for your business! And feel free to follow our Woman owned business using the Twitter accounts above.

Laurie Sarah

Laurie Sarah Designs ~ Owner

http://www.lauriesarahdesigns.com

Hi dtruesdale - I'm not sure how far from SFO you are, but you may be interested that Twitter is holding its very first conference there on May 30th - and its about how to use Twitter for you business. You can get more info here http://twtrcon.com/ but it may be very useful for you! Good luck :)

Twitter can be a little hard to figure out at first and it’s not just about getting people to follow you and tweet about your business. The best way I found twitter to work and generate traffic to my business is to use the search feature.

The way you use it is search for something that is related to your business and then include that search term and a link to your URL to get traffic.

For example if you sold poker chips and supplies you search poker and all these people come up tweeting about poker right? Now tweet something like this @poker hey I have a great line of poker chips and supplies check us out here (then post your link) and you want to use one of those little link program so you URL is small.

There are all kinds of tools and free programs to help automate some of the work for you. Here’s a list of some of the good ones.

·  Tweetlater.com

·  Futuretweets.com

·  Tweetspinner.com

·  Tweetmeme.com

·  Backtweets.com

·  Twitturly.com

·  Twibs

·  Twitterfeed

·  Grouptweet

·  CoTweet

·  Twitterhawk

·  Hootsuite

I hope this helps and if you want to follow me I have a twitter acct about adult toys :) http://twitter.com/adulttoyshop

I've found Twitter to be a great way to build business and communicate with my target audience.

One of the most important Twitter tips I have to share is to focus on Twitter as a conversation and relationship-building tool, rather than a direct sales, broadcast tool. Focus on value and building community if you want Twitter to have a positive impact on your business.

I tweet about business technology, social media, online marketing & PR, publishing, and more. You'll find me at http://www.twitter.com/patricerutledge.

We use Twitter for business also.  Our handle is @herstartup .  Have met some great people on Twitter in addition to coming across some great real-time conversations with people you would not normally come across. I've also found people to interview on certain topics when I field an inquiry.  We have a summer focus group series for women business owners coming up and that has been retweeted also. It's just nice to be able to chat with people quickly but meaningfully.

What a  great topic! I am a DC Twitter Elite. To be honest, I used to wonder "Hey, where does this get me in life?" But now I know. I'll use my women's leadership company (The Hot Mommas Project www.HotMommasProject.org) two main goals right now are:

1. Fundraising and

2. Influence

So, Twitter helps with this latter part - and, as it turns out, may help with the former. Here's how:

On Twitter I met @TMCRomi (www.twitter.com/TMCRomi) who put me in touch with Maria Shriver's people, and now I'm going to be a featured contributor on her website (opens July 13 for women's conference registration, and a ton of content for women/leadership)

On Twitter, I also met @newoldmom Tina Williams (www.Twitter.com/NewOldMom) She is a social media and fundraising guru and is a friend of the Hot Mommas Project. She is helping us find sponsors RIGHT NOW!

At the risk of being spammed, here is one more link. This is how the Hot Mommas Project found, intervied, and hired an intern on Twitter  http://adjix.com/er7s

Thanks to PINK, our fab partners who are publishing the three winners of our 2008-2009 case study competitions. Stories about real life role models. Inspirational.

Hi Pink Community!

I have just unleashed the majic of twitter for my business http://www.ladypr.com. I hope to have great stories of twitter marketing in the future. Currently I am looking to follow and be followed by other women business owners and entrepreneurs. I'm @ladyprnews.

So far I have been using twitter to share the press release that I receive through my LadyPR.com distribution site that helps businesses reach women consumers through the media.

Has anyone else had any success or networking that has turned into sales and relationships through twitter?

Good idea. I just wrote you a DM on Twitter. Thanks for the idea.

Cindy Freland

Maryland Secretarial Services, Inc.

www.webmss.com

I am ONLY using twitter for business and it's fabulous. I have spent at least 200 hours studying it from many angles...and have many more to go. It's great for any business, but here are two examples.

1. I have a national marketing/promotion agency. We do all traditional types of promotions and marketing plans + web sites, relationship marketing programs (peek at www.JustForMenSelect.com), and - lately - hook-ins to social media. I learn a lot through twitter experts' online pubs - Joel Comm, Larry Brauner and so many more. And I can gather a fast database virally for our mom- and women-related products.

2. My husband is a CPA/Attorney - Tax. I just finished his new site where I've been experimenting with every type of conversion tactic out there (along with SEO). Now that we have the "base," I'm going to apply the twitter principles to his meeting new people (I guess I'll do the posting - just like his newsletter) and adding clients to his practice. Twitter and other strong web 2.0 options are fabulous.

Recommendation: Twitter Power (book) by Joel Comm. Available on Amazon, all the tips and techniques are right there. It's incredible for newbies (like me).

I didn't want to do it--I thought it was silly and a waste of valuable computer time--and I just couldn't see how it could help my color therapy business prosper.  I knew I didn't want to get into a situation where I had to reply to thousands of "friends" all day.  I maintained this sore attitude until SelfGrowth.com contacted me about their free teleconference on how to use Twitter for business purposes. 

To borrow from Martha Stewart (a known Tweeter herself), it was "a good thing".  I've been twittering since April 2009, promoting my Color Therapy school and products and I have to say it was a very good business decision.  I now have over 1,300 followers who have received my colorful 140-character tweets and the result is people are being introduced to the benefits of color healing.  Additionally, I've sold numerous online courses, color therapy club memberships and color therapy products.  And since Twitter offers an option NOT to have tweets appear on my cellphone, my monthly bill has not been affected.

Twitter also helps attract readers to my "Rainbow Writing" blog.  For my view of the Twitterverse, please see my blog post, "Twitter Me This", at: http://eleyneaustensharp.blogspot.com/2009/05/twitter-me-this.html.

By the way--my Twitter name is: @RainbowWriter--and I'm mad about Hue!

I'd love to connect!

http://twitter.com/macofficeassist

Professional Whole4sale.com provide cheap clothing wholesale, wholesale ed hardy, cheap ed hardy and other brand name clothing, to high-quality products and favorable prices, winning a good reputation

Yes, I am an executive life coach and I have been on twitter for almost a year. I have made many lovely connections on Twitter and formed some really good relationships. I have also deepened my relationships with others on Twitter.

I loved this story about Twitter on a woman's business and her green pizza box: http://www.authenticchangecoach.com/twitter-and-the-green-pizza-box/

And I also wrote another post on Twitter culture and Facebook culture:

http://www.authenticchangecoach.com/facebook-and-twitter-basics-social-networking-skills/

I absolutely love Twitter and it is an important part of my marketing message each and every week.

Thanks

Iyabo Asani