5 Reasons Your Business Should be on Twitter. (& 5 why you shouldn’t)

Posted by: Neil Callanan

Tweets, twits, and tweeps. Twitter is all the rage these days and many business owners are struggling to decide when, if and how to use twitter for their business.  I’ll save the how for a later date, but here a few reasons you should be on Twitter, and a few you shouldn’t:

5 reasons why you should be on twitter:

1. It’s a focus group of millions, and will leave you feeling more in touch with the trends in news, business, culture.
2. Your customers are using it. Why miss a chance to have another point of contact?
3. Your prospects are using it.  Why not connect?
4. Your competitors using it. Their likely to be connecting with the prospects and customers mentioned above.
5. It is free, and can reap huge business benefits. Sales, promotions, customer service, they are all enhanced through good twitter usage.

5 Reasons why you shouldn’t:

1. It takes effort to use it well. Twitter takes a bit to get the hang of, and in order to have it make an impact on your business, you'll have to put some time in.  Don’t expect to push a button and begin succeeding.
2. You are likely to hear things about your business that are hard to digest. If your product, or customer service is lacking you are likely to hear about it.  Are you prepared to act on what you hear?
3. Distraction – Do you have room for another one? It takes discipline to avoid overusing and monitoring.
4. You will not be internet famous- the average number of followers is less than 50. Don’t expect to join up and instantly gain 10k followers. Unless your are @oprah that is.
5. Because its trendy- The majority of twitter members use the site only a few times and give up. Don’t join just because CNN tells you to.