Is Following a Business on Twitter the Ultimate Opt-In?
Twitter has been gaining popularity for months now in Australia, and it seems every day there are more and more articles popping up that mention Twitter – what it is, how you use it and now, what you can use it for.
I’ve found participating on Twitter to be an incredible experience – both personally and professionally. It has helped me build an audience for business launches, conduct market research with immediate feedback and shape my products and services based on this feedback – it’s a win-win situation.
I recently read this quote from FlexiCar’s co-founder, Monique Conheady – an early adopter of using Twitter for business.
“We decided to trial Twitter when we noticed our members posting “tweets” about us. And it occurred to us this could be a short, sharp way to stay in touch with both members and others who were interested in Flexicar’s movements. Plus we can follow our members, which helps us stay close to our member community. To be honest, it’s also a minimum of effort to get out a message at a time when emails get increasingly relegated to junk mailboxes.”
Click here for the full interview.
The last line caught my attention – “it’s also a minimum of effort to get out a message at a time when emails get increasingly relegated to junk mailboxes.” And got me thinking – is following a business on Twitter the ultimate form of ‘opt-in’?
The word “opt-in” is commonly used in email marketing – it’s a term used to describe individuals who give permission to receive promotional/email communication from an organization.
With news that social networking is overtaking email – is it more important than ever for businesses to be participating in Twitter? And when a Twitter user chooses to follow you as a business is this the ultimate form of permission marketing?
If businesses present themselves honestly, and communicate sincerely using this medium has their opportunity for promotion/sales/marketing doubled, quadrupled, or more?
Is following a business on Twitter the ultimate opt-in?
I would love to hear your thoughts.
If you liked this, you might want to check out my business website - Women in Business.
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Related posts:
- Gary Vaynerchuck on how Businesses should be using Twitter
- Using Twitter for Business – A Guide for Beginners
- Starting up a new business
- A peek behind the scenes of twitterguide.com.au & the Twitter for Business E-book
- How to use Twitter for business
I've been working online since 2001, started my 
Hmmm. I think it all depends on how the follower uses Twitter. From what I’ve seen, the majority of Twitter users follow just about everyone who follows them, and end up following hundreds, even thousands, of people. As a result, there’s no physical way they could read every tweet they receive. So, even though they’re receiving your tweets, they may not be (probably won’t be) reading them.
Obviously there are exceptions (e.g. if your tweets are so good that people put you in a group in TweetDeck or add your tweets to an RSS feed), but not everyone can be the exception!
On the other hand, if your follower follows only a small number of people, I agree that it’s the ultimate opt-in!
Cheers, Glenn (Twitter: @divinewrite)
Absolutely, Clare!
Not only is Twitter the ultimate opt-in, it’s one of the easiest and most efficient referral systems around. You wouldn’t email all your email contacts about an article you’ve read or a website you love, but you will tweet it.
I’ll be honest, i went through a stage there where I thought ‘Let’s build up as many followers in the shortest space of time possible’ Gee, that was stupid!
Now, I am busy culling back those that I follow, quality is much better than quantity,only in terms of who you are following of course.
Business’ using this philosophy will see massive benefits, I feel Twitter act’s as a soft form of ‘Newsletter’, one which I will actually read and pay attention to rather than instintivly hit the DELETE button.
I am pretty careful of the business Twitter accounts I follow, and will quickly ‘unfollow’ those who are ‘promotion heavy’, or ‘tweet lite’.
I want a little bit of banter, some customer interaction, and a sense that the brand is a little bit human
James Richardson
@jamesis