In 2017 one might question whether Twitter is still a worthwhile spend of time and focus for businesses. The truth is, it is when used in the right way. Twitter is declining in users sure and the engagement of the people using it has lowered. We’ve become a bit of a scroll-generation more interested in looking than participating. Beyond this however, there are still plenty of businesses, agencies, individuals and consultants using Twitter as an important way to stay on the pulse of their businesses.

How do we know? Because we see it firsthand. Part of our sign-up process is reaching out to our users to see why they’re using Twilert, the cause for email alerts (over just say, checking Twitter manually) and the benefit they see for their organisation in using Twitter in the first place. In doing so, here are some of the key ways we’ve found that businesses are still using Twitter in 2017.

Twitter Business Use Cases Guide

Using Twitter to Monitor Critical Updates

“We need to keep up on the latest traffic impacting conditions on our roads. We’ve found some accounts that tweet alerts about situations we want to be aware of in realtime. Twilert is perfect for monitoring those specific accounts”.

Two of the things Twitter is best known for; it’s feed of real time information and it’s ability to alert us to situations or news before almost any other medium. Despite a loss of users, these fundamental qualities having changed, making Twitter one of the best channels to monitor critical updates. We have many customers who use Twitter to monitor weather or traffic conditions, critical situations or news around their industry and even to monitor attacks, threats and crime.

Monitoring critical updates is where Twitter alerts come in extra handy. When time is of the essence, real time email alerts like the ones we offer with our tool Twilert, send up-to-the-minute tweets directly into your inbox, as one email digest that can easily be monitored and responded to.

Connecting With Key Twitter Audiences

“I am using Twilert for the social media team at our University. We are looking for a way to be alerted to trending events that might be happening on campus or with our students”.

Just like the University social media team we spoke to above, Twitter helps connect any business with its key audience. Whether this is business to business, business to employee or business to customer. Twitter is one of the first channels people turn to when sharing information, asking questions or alerting audiences. Within a school, business or store, Twitter can be used as a direct channel to the voice of hundreds or even thousands of key customers. Ensuring you hear what they’re saying is one Twitter use for businesses that many miss out on.

Twitter for Great Customer Service

“We are a new company trying to make sure we are on top of our mentions and tweets so we can communicate to customers right away”.

New or old business, Twitter is a primary customer support channel that no other social media network has yet been able to bypass. Over 1 million people view tweets about customer service every week and the threat to brands to respond not only well but also quickly, increases every day. Twitter mentions and Twitter email alerts ensure that brands and businesses can stay on top of tweets and respond quickly, or even in real time. This provides a much slicker customer service experience, which results in higher levels of customer satisfaction.

survey by Bain & Co. estimated that 89% of businesses rely on customer service as their primary means of competition. Here’s where Twitter comes in extra handy. Most people know that Twitter should be monitored in order to provide good customer service and a fast response to queries. What many don’t realise, is that Twitter Search is also an extremely valuable tool when it comes to monitoring competition and what customers may be saying about other companies. Using the to:user search which we explain more in this post, you can see what customers are saying to your competitors and when. Imagine the valuable intelligence you could receive and how easy it would be to find potential customers and answers their questions when you know exactly what they’re asking!

Using Twitter to Generate Business Leads

I primarily joined up because I wanted to make it simpler for myself to find opportunities for my business. People on Twitter looking for recommendations or looking for social media help for their businesses”.

People are still using Twitter to ask questions and look for help. Unfortunately, many of their queries go unanswered. You only have to do the question mark search to find Twitter questions of every nature. This isn’t just for personal use either, it can be business recommendations, questions on tools and products, or even potential customers looking to hire your exact service. Many of the people using Twitter (and Twilert) want to find these opportunities more easily. They know that people are out there looking for them, otherwise they wouldn’t have reached product-market fit. Without any budget or investment, they can directly reach these warm leads and provide information that will lead to sales.

Recruiting on Twitter

“Looking for Mechanical Engineers to follow and connect with to fill the open jobs I have available.”

When you think ‘recruitment’ you probably think LinkedIn. This is where many agents go wrong, pigeonholing themselves into a social media network filled with competitors. On Twitter, you get the opportunity to break out a little and to become genuinely useful in a space where many aren’t yet utilising the channel for its recruiting potential. What’s the first thing we enter into our Twitter bio? Our job title of course. This makes Twitter a minefield for finding specific candidates who may be looking for their next opportunity. Even if they aren’t looking for the roles you currently have on the table, it’s still a great way to build connection and network, ready for the future .

Using Twitter to Generate Leads for Customers

“My clients are leading physicians so I want to be able to notify them of any PR or journalistic opportunities where they can share their knowledge. Twitter alerts helps me to do that and ensures that I can get there first before everyone else”. 

Twitter is such a deep well of public relation opportunities that we wrote an entire post on it. From checking familiar tags like ‘#journorequest’ to following journalists and searching by keywords, Twitter can open the door to new leads for your customers. In any business development sense, Twitter can help to unearth leads much more easily than Google and in a more unobtrusive way than LinkedIn or Facebook.

Due to Twitter’s real time nature, any PRs or consultants using Twitter are often first on the scene of new leads for customers. Only when they make a specific effort to monitor them though – leave it too long and you’ll be competing for a single PR opportunity against hundreds of others. This is where Twitter alerts and reacting to tweets in real time shares an advantage point.

Using Twitter to Build Following

“I’m using Twilert to get Twitter alerts that will allow me to engage more with those talking about our core issues.”

The social media channels we love and use have become a bit of an echo chamber. Due to the rise of algorithms, we often see the same posts from the same users time and time again. When you want to engage users and build a higher following, you have to look outside of your own followers and the echo chamber, to find hidden potential. Twitter search and alerts can help you to zone in on other users you may not have discovered before. Once found, these become accounts you can converse and engage with. Not only does this lead to a higher following (organically, without spam or bots) but it also helps you to gather far more information about your target markets than standard research or assumptions alone.

The best and most successful social media marketers and business owners are the ones who leverage every opportunity. To this day, Twitter remains a huge opportunity that allows  businesses to find leads, converse with customers, build larger followings and provide excellent customer service. In niche industries; recruitment, social media marketing, education and so on, the opportunity becomes even more specific.

Many businesses aren’t using Twitter to its full potential right now, scared off by the report of decline. In the meantime, the ones who are still using Twitter to full effect, are only becoming more fruitful.

To begin using Twitter as effectively as the companies above, monitor and receive email alerts on the important tweets at www.twilert.com 


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How to Write a Tweet – 10 Unique Twitter Ideas | Twilert Blog · September 25, 2018 at 9:28 am

[…] you start using Twitter for your business though, it’s important to understand three […]

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