by Mel DePaoli

   This article was originally published in The Productivity Institute (PI) Newsletter

Twitter is quite the enigma. Everyone has an opinion, but no one really knows what you are supposed to do with it. The New York Times said it best with It’s What You Make It. I am not going to go through all of the features of Twitter because you can find that elsewhere. Instead, I am going to talk about using Twitter for business.

Like so many, I am relatively new to the world of Twitter. Before signing up though I wanted to know “if anyone has received business from Twitter.” I posted that question on various sites to see what others experience has been. The general consensus was that no one has received business (directly) from Twitter. So if you are looking to get more business from a new source, you will have to look elsewhere.

That being said, if you are looking for a tool to get the word out about your company, your product or your service, Twitter is IT! Twitter is a great way to talk about what is important in your area of specialty. It also makes you think, because you have to use smaller phrases and words that will entice your follows to read what you write and hopefully re-tweet your tweet.

So what are things that will interest your followers and help you get results? Notice the fine print—get you results! Whether you advertise, use social media or network the goal for any of that is to drive business results. So what are you looking to get out of Twitter? That will drive how you tweet. Do you want to increase visibility, have someone read that blog you spend all that time posting to, or drive people to your website because your conversion rate once they are there will take care of the rest? How about practice conveying value to prospects or the idea you had for an article but forget where you were going with it? Twitter is great for all of those things.

Like anything else out there, Twitter has a learning curve. There are a ton of acronyms, it makes you aware of the length of your URLs and you cannot assume that your followers will read every message you tweet. Because of this, your messages have to be true to your brand, but simple enough that they make sense individually.

You will hear some tell you that Twitter is addicting, others do not have a problem. Hmmm sounds like any other addiction. The great thing about Twitter is that it allows you to target your audience when they are available. If your audience is online from 5-7pm then that is when you post your tweets because that is when they will see them. @DanZarrella did his own study and noticed that most tweets are viewed in the morning from 9-11. Though this is interesting, he did not mention what time zone and the chart he shows doesn’t account for this either. He does show interesting stats on words that encourage re-tweeting though.

Another thing to take into account is mixing business and personal. If your objective is to use Twitter as a business tool, then leave off the comments about how you are working in bed, eating a jelly donut, or just got over a cold—we don’t care and you really are not that important. So get over yourself!

Ahh I forgot to mention the challenge in being able to tweet 24/7. Like you, I have other things I need to do. Therefore, tweeting live is not always an option. A great tool to assist you with your tweeting is TweetLater.com. You create an account with them and can schedule ahead of time your tweets. How wonderful is that? TweetLater gives me the benefits of tweeting, but still allows me to get the real work done that I need to.

So take the good with the bad and make the most of the service. There is a lot of talk about changes that Twitter may be making in the future. We will see. For me they sound good, so I am looking forward to them.

Mel DePaoli is the president and founder of Omicle located in Seattle, WA. She is also interviewing companies for her upcoming book series Brand or Culture: Which Comes First. Please visit www.omicle.com for more information about how Omicle can become your Catalyst for Discovery and www.brandorculture.com to get involved in the Brand or Culture Debate! Ms. DePaoli can be reached at mel@omicle.com.