Is Twitter The Next Wave Of Viral Marketing

Ask any Twitter user about the service and you will find out how addictive the service is. For those that are unaware Twitter is the latest wave of viral marketing, after subscribing to the site, users can add anyone to their friends list and get added back by them. Though this aspect has a similarity to social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace this is where the similarity ends. When a user visits their homepage on these sites they can receive messages from other users, but the primary focus is on video, music and profiles. Twitter on the other hand is primarily a micro-blogging tool. Unlike a traditional blog post, which could be hundreds of words in length, a micro Twitter blog only allows users to post a sentence or two at a time.

Through Twitter, users can write interesting and relevant post that encourages others on the site to follow their "tweets", allowing a business to build its marketing list. Compare a Twitter user who has 1,000 friends to a business that sends out 1,000 press releases electronically. The business sending out the press releases would take weeks even months, and would have to submit to a number of different press release sites, then it could still take weeks before potential visitors check out their site. While a Twitter users just has to write out one sentence, and add in the URL of their newest blog, podcast, vlog or other news and instantly this information pops up as the newest message in the home pages of everyone who follows them. The great benefit of sending a URL this way is that as users talk to you they become invested in your business and services and want to offer support, making them more likely to click on a link you send.

Twitter is also a great way of seeing what the competition is up too; small businesses are not the only ones jumping on the Twitter bandwagon. So have large corporations, Web site only companies, mommy bloggers and entrepreneurs promoting their startups. By following other businesses that sell similar products or services, you can learn better ways of marketing products to your customers and you can build alliances. Just because a business is your competitor does not mean you have to be enemies. In fact, small businesses are often willing to offer each other support and assistance if it doesn't compromise their business.

Twitter is also a great way to expand your existing customer service experience. Through Twitter, real time updates can give you instant feedback on how your business is being perceived. After ordering a product online and having a bad experience a user might post their feelings about a brand directly to their Twitter account to get feedback from others. In essence, Twitter isn't just about enhancing your own customer experience but learning what techniques should be avoided if you want to keep a customer happy.

Get creative with Twitter and use it in all your Web 2.0 connections. For example if you run a podcast, use Twitter to seek out potential guest to interview, to get feedback on how well the audience liked the newest episode, to offer suggestions for improving a podcast and for offering questions you can answer during the next podcast.