Twitter is a great social media platform for your business to utilise. It may not have as large of a user base as Facebook but that does not mean that you should treat it as a second rate platform that deserves less social media activity. I often here business owners who say things like “I just don’t get Twitter” and “140 characters is too short to convey my message”. The following are three reasons why Twitter is good for business and all the stats quoted are from Twitter’s own research.

1. 90% of Followers Will Stay With You For At Least 6 Months

Six months is a long time for you to turn a lead into a client. Once you have attracted your new followers you have the opportunity to cultivate the relationship. Six months gives you enough time to show that you are a business or brand that the follower can trust, that the follower wants to be associated with.

2. Twitter Users Follow Businesses for Good Reasons

The top three reasons that Twitter users follow brands are:

• The user loves the brand (70%)
• The user wants to learn about new products (58%)
• The user gets discounts/coupons (54%)

Twitter is a great way to promote new products that you may be launching and it is also a great way to advertise promotions that you may be running.

3. Tweets with Links have an 86% higher Retweet Rate

This is where Twitter differs drastically from Facebook. With Facebook posts that contain a link to another website are generally in fewer of the newsfeeds of those that have liked your page than other types of content (test updates, photos etc). However with Twitter you are more likely to see an increase in the number of people seeing your content if you are using Twitter.

Often the hub of our online marketing efforts is our website, this is where the real conversions are achieved. Much of our social media activity is centred around funnelling users to our website. This means that anything that helps to encourage users to click on the link to your website is beneficial, assuming you are not using spammy techniques where you promise one thing and deliver another!

Twitter can appear a little confusing to the novice but it is well worth investing a little time to discover all the benefits that Twitter can offer. If you are not already using Twitter as part of your social media activity it is time that you did.