25 Creative & Innovative Ways To Use Twitter For Business

A lot of people ask me about Twitter and its use. “Surely it’s just a lot of ‘noise’” they say but there are so many creative and innovative ways you can use Twitter, especially for business.

With Twitter, to a certain degree, you have to think out of the box.  The term ‘micro-blogging’ does makes it sound a little clinical, but when you open your mind to the wonders of what it can do for you and your business, then you really get an idea of why Twitter must be part of your online business profile.

Here are a few ways of using Twitter for business.

1. Mastermind Group – Set up your very own Mastermind group, the best of the best in your area of expertise, a great way to help and support each other.
2. Test Panel – If you have a virtual product why not create a Twitter test panel of a select number of your Twitter stream and ask your Twitter pals to download/read/look/share your product and give you honest feedback.
3. Customer Service – Why not use Twitter as a channel for your customer service and feedback. Add it as an extension of your customer service helpline or your call centre.
4. Support – Do you have a business that requires you to give support to your clients and customers?  Then why not use Twitter as your support helpdesk or at least an extra arm of it.  You can use an app called TwtFAQ to help with Twitter based support helpdesks.
5. Away/Busy Messages – Perhaps you need to know when certain people in your company are out of the office or busy, how about using Twitter as your messaging system, a lot cheaper than a pager or a mobile contract.
6. Recruitment – Need to hire someone new?  Advertise your position on Twitter yourself or use Twitter recruitment services such as TwitJobs which certainly embrace all things Twitter and recruitment.
7. Noticeboard – Have important announcements to send to your clients, customers, friends, staff?  Use Twitter as an online noticeboard.
8. Special Offers – Do you offer special offers, sales, discounts etc?  Shout about them on Twitter.   Why not even offer a Twitter only special offer just for your Twitter followers.
9. Network – Need to meet businesses in your local area then find them on Twitter using Twitter Search.
10. Intranet – You can set Twitter profiles to ‘private’ so that only approved Twitter users can see your profile and tweets.  By doing this you can easily create an internal intranet system for your company.
11. Surveys/Polls – If you need some extra feedback on something, whether serious or for fun, set up a Twitter survey or poll through Twtpoll.
12. Groups – By using Twubs and Twibes you can set up Twitter groups which can be used for a variety of topics.
13. Referrals/Testimonials – Send a glowing testimonial or referral to another person using Twitter, this allows others to see it and hopefully get in touch with that person.
14. Tweetup – A ‘Tweetup’ is a meet up of people with a common interest that has been arranged via Twitter.  You can use such tools as Twtvite or SchmapIT to organise your Tweetups.
15. Lead Pool – Do you have leads coming in that you do not have capacity for or perhaps are not in your industry area, then create a leads pool on Twitter and tweet out the leads.
16. Promote Blog Posts – If you write a blog post, tweet it (and the URL obviously!) and spread the word.
17. Newsletter Sign Ups – Just as you would your blog posts above, don’t forget to shout about your newsletter and ask for sign ups.
18. To Do List – Need to keep track of your tasks and ‘to do’s'?  Then use Twitter as a to do list and you can even use apps like Remember The Milk to tweet you when you need to do something.
19. Tweet Live – Are you running an event?  Then why not use Twitter as a live stream commentary.
20. Send Business Cards – Oh yes, believe it or not you can now even send your business details in a business card format via Twitter by using TwtBizCard.
21. Track Parcels – By using TrackThis you can track parcels being sent to you via FedEx, DHL, UPS and many more.
22. Set An Alarm – Need to set an alarm or alert for something urgent?  Create a Twitter alert using Timer, just send them a direct message and they will alert you when you need it.
23. Market Research – Ask your clients/customers, both existing and new questions via Twitter.
24. Hashtags – Create hashtags (e.g. #hashtag) for events, special offers or even slogans for your brand and help your business become viral.
25. LISTEN – Now this is the biggy.  Use Twitter to listen to what the world is saying about your business, use Twitter Search and other keyword search tools to see just what people are saying about you and your business.

We hope this gives you a few good ideas on just how many ways you can use Twitter in your business.  Are you not using Twitter yet for your business?  Well maybe it’s time you should.