Twitter? What the heck is Twitter? - Contractor Talk - Professional Construction and Remodeling Forum

TimberTom · 11-06-2009, 10:15 AM

I keep hearing that I should sign up for Twitter. I just don't get it. What is it all about? I hear and read that all types of businesses are cheaply promoting themselves there. I know I don't have the time, but is it worth the effort? Is it a big waste of time?

Bartic · 11-06-2009, 11:16 AM

From my knowledge Twitter is a micro-blogging service. So where as a blog post might be 500 words with great content a "tweet" is 140 characters that might be something like, "hey we just finished up at 123 fake street. Check out the pics.. LINK"

It's my opinion that Twitter for contractors is useless unless they already have a decent online presence that includes a website, blogging and other social networking connection like Squidoo, Digg, Youtube, Vimeo etc. I've used Twitter before and for me it was more like a gathering center where people could see all of the updates to my online marketing. Your goal from my limited online background from twitter is to drive traffic somewhere else, whether that is to your blog, website or to things like your Digg account where people can see what your company's values are.

I'm just a landscaper though, so maybe somebody with a bit more experience should chime in.
EDIT: I'm sure if you searched you would find some more interesting discussion on Twitter, I can't imagine there has been no talk of Twitter yet in CT.

Willie T · 11-06-2009, 12:13 PM

Several months ago, I attended a seminar about this whole "Social Media" concept. It seems to be a good idea if you know it will reach YOUR intended customers.

To be honest with you, it seemed too involved and complicated for an old guy like me, but many people there who target a younger group than I do said it has as much as tripled their business.

Below is an excerpt from the presenter's blog.

Willie T

Saturday, October 31, 2009

Social Media: It's Not A Fad, It's a Fact

This past week Curt Middlebrook and I conducted a seminar on Social Media which was the second seminar we've conducted on the subject with new specific information. I think we can all agree that it's obvious that Social Media is the biggest shift in how we communicate and conduct business since the Industrial Revolution. If that's true, what facts about Social Media's growth and influence, can really confirm this premise?

During the development of this second Social Media Marketing Seminar, I discovered some amazing and startling facts that can help put these changes into perspective.

By the end of 2010, Generation Y will outnumber the baby boomers. Now Generation Y is defined as:the Millennial Generation or Generation Next or Net Generation, is a term used to describe the demographic cohort following Generation X. Its members are often referred to as Millennials or Echo Boomers and were born about 1974 to the mid 1980's . And at last count, Baby Boomers numbered 112 million and dropping. Plus 96% of Gen Y's have joined a Social Network! Generations X & Y consider email passe'.

One in 8 couples married since 2004 in the US met through Social Media. Romance that starts in the local bar or at a party or a work place is soon to be replaced by Social Media connections, friends and a tribe of twitter followers? Sacrilege!?

LinkedIn facts: On average, a new user joins LinkedIn every second, it has almost 50 million users and every Fortune 500 company is on LinkedIn. For you new position seekers out there, here's something to get your attention: 80% of employers use LinkedIn as their " primary tool to recruit employees."

We all know the growth of Social Media has been fast, but how fast? Here are some facts that speak to this. It took 38 years for radio to reach 50 million users. For TV, it took 13 years for 50 million people to watch it regularly. The Internet took just 4 years to reach 50 million users and IPODS took just 3 years. But, FaceBook took just 9 months to add 100 million users! In fact, if FaceBook was a country, it would be the 4th largest in population behind China, India and the US and FaceBook has over 200 million users in the US alone!

Now get this, the fastest growing segment or demographic on FaceBook is females age 55-65 years old! It's not just for college students and the Gen Y's anymore. Hulu has grown from 68 million streams of TV shows in April 2008 to 373 million in April 2009. Plus 90% of people who can TiVo ads, do TiVo the ads.

YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world with over 100 million video's posted. A full 25% of Americans have said they watched a short video this past month....On Their Phone! The cell phone will be the marketing tool of choice, the interface that will be used to reach consumers.

Twitter is also changing the speed and reach of our communications world. Eighty percent of Twitter traffic is by cell phone. Imagine what that means to your business if your customer has a bad experience with your product or service. If they spread their concerns about your business virally through Twitter? How many more people now know about it?

With that in mind, think about this- Ashton Kutcher and Ellen DeGeneres have more Followers on Twitter than the population of Ireland, Panama and Norway....Combined! That's called true marketing reach!

So what can this also mean? Think about it this way: "What happens in Vegas stays on FaceBook, Flickr, LinkedIn, DIGG, My Space, YouTube and Twitter!" Word of Mouth is now World of Mouth.

Wikipedia has over 13 million articles and studies have shown it is more accurate than the Encyclopedia Britannica and 78% of the articles are non-English! In fact, if you were paid $1 for every time an article was posted on Wikipedia, you'd make $156 per hour!

There are over 200 million Blogs and 54% of bloggers have added content daily. Twenty Four of the 25 largest newspapers have experienced record circulation declines. Only 18% of traditional ad campaigns produce a positive return on investment. 78% of consumers trust peer recommendations and only 14% trust the recommendations of ads. As much as 1.5 million pieces of content (web links, photo's, notes, video's, blogs and news stories, etc.) are shared on FaceBook.....Daily!!

What does this all mean? Social Media is not a fad.

Social Media is a fundamental shift in how we communicate. We no longer search for the news and information, now the news and information finds us! Every company and sole proprietor needs to get involved in Social Media Marketing.

I encourage all Core Business Solutions clients and show them how to be active on as many Social Media platforms as they can. It's not just a way to promote your business or your brand.

Along with a good Blog, Social Media sites provide you a tool to:

Expose your expertise in your business segment
Allow restaurants to announce their specials, daily or even hourly
Let retailers announce their new discounts
Have New products unveiled
Display a Blog for a business to display its professional knowledge of its target market
Exhibit the expertise a customer can expect from business
Even display video's and photo's that can be posted to help educate your prospects or customers

Social Media- It's not a Fad, It's a Fact!

I hope this provides you new food for thought and some points to ponder to help your business. I welcome your comments and feedback.

In a few weeks another Core Business Solutions Advice blog article will be published.

All The Very Best...Always,

Walt Morey -
Executive Business Advisor Accredited by the Institute for Independent Business
www.corebizsolution.com

TimberTom · 11-06-2009, 04:07 PM

Wow. There's a lot to swallow there. Looks like I need to get myself on Twitter, and start figuring it out. Thanks for the detailed info!

Willie T · 11-06-2009, 04:33 PM

Yeah. Walt told us that, truthfully, today's generations don't even read printed items of any kind. If it's not on that little plastic window in their hands, they never see it.

Thewoodman · 11-09-2009, 12:59 AM

The more you get your name out on the web the better things will be for you in the future. Even blogging on this forum can be found in web searches.

Allow I must admit I have not yet tweeted, I plan to do so soon.

RCPainting · 11-09-2009, 08:24 AM

Tweeting can be a great way to get your name out and brand your company. You can do certain things to help you to become the "local expert". Use it to get folks to your website or facebook page.
http://mashable.com/2009/07/20/twitter-new-users/

lopreste · 11-13-2009, 05:43 PM

I just started using twitter a couple of days ago. I will let you know if it yields any business or hits to my website. So far nothing though, but it will probably take week or two for anything to show up in the search engines.

my username on twitter is workpros if you want to try an find it.

ps just wanted to add that it was really easy to get it set up.

MattCoops · 11-13-2009, 06:24 PM

There's a lot of guys in all kinds of trades that get paid to talk about the work.
Like I always say, there's guys that talk about the work. And there's guys that do the work.

Enough of being subliminal, let's get right to the point. Twitter will get you ZERO jobs as a construction contractor. ZERO.
Unless you sell stuff, like tools, and piecework, that you could sell over the internet.
But it's a place to blab. And get your thoughts out of your mind and infect the internet with.

You could use it as a subliminal message tool. Let's say, to let people know why contractors need to get paid by the hour rather than by the square foot.

Kidding aside, I "tweet" and link in signature. Chirp chirp.

brooklynite · 11-13-2009, 07:41 PM

I dont think you get much useful traffic from twitter as the reach is worldwide. I think a local paper ad would be much more helpful in finding local clients.