3 Reasons NOT to Use Twitter for Your Business
It seems like any time we talk about Twitter, we focus on the reasons to use it. Conversations are always about the benefits, never about potential drawbacks or reasons not to use Twitter. Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m definitely a firm believer that Twitter can be a powerful tool for increasing brand awareness, driving web traffic, generating leads, building trust with consumers and more, but I don’t think Twitter is right for every business.
Here are 3 reasons NOT to use Twitter for your business.
1. Your target audience doesn’t Tweet—While Twitter attracts a diverse crowd, the average user is somewhere in his early to mid 30s. Older users have been slow to adopt Twitter, instead preferring LinkedIn and even Facebook. What does this mean for you? It means there’s a chance your target audience doesn’t really use Twitter.
It’s time to dig up that business plan you stuffed away in some filing cabinet to look at the info about your target demographic. How old are they? How often do they use the internet and social networking? Are they using smart phones to stay mobile?
And if for some reason you don’t know who your target audience is (shame on you), check out this post for tips on identifying your target market.
2. You don’t have time to Tweet—You might already have quite a bit on your plate as it is. Tweeting takes time. It’s not just dropping an update here or there. Being successful with Twitter requires finding the time to interact with your followers and to respond to @replies and direct messages. Engagement is the key.
So, before you sign up on Twitter, you need to ask yourself:
• Do I really have time to Tweet?
• How much time can I realistically devote to Tweeting each day?
• Should someone else handle the company Twitter account?
On that note, check out these tips for increasing your social media productivity.
3. You don’t have a plan or goals—If you’re using Twitter for marketing purposes, you need to have a plan and clearly defined goals. This means figuring out:
• What do I want to accomplish with Twitter?
• How will I measure my results?
• How long will I give myself to reach certain benchmarks and goals?
If you don’t have any goals, then there might not be any point into creating a Twitter account for your business. You’ll just be blindly Tweeting away without a purpose.
There’s a great post on Mashable about creating a social media plan that I highly recommend checking out.
What are some other reasons businesses shouldn’t use Twitter?
February 24th, 2010 at 6:34 am
Agreed with all your points and true as well. I would suggest we can always use twitter as a good customer support tool and may be its the best transparent way of customer care!
February 25th, 2010 at 5:08 pm
You make some sound points! But people will always find "reasons" not to do things.. not having time and certainly not having goals is a not such a great reason. Great read though! Thank you I enjoyed it!
February 25th, 2010 at 8:01 pm
I like that you took an opposite view. It makes this post stand out. Really great tips. Twittering (effectively) DOES take a lot of time, but it's worth finding time to do it – IF, like you said, your target market tweets.
February 26th, 2010 at 7:19 am
But i think twitter is very good to find business because if anyone wanna create something or have any idea of creating something so the person will tweet for sure.
February 26th, 2010 at 10:33 pm
Excellent point about engagement being necessary to Twitter. Even if you find the time to tweet relevant articles and tips, if you're not engaging then you're not pulling the full value out of Twitter. Not to mention, when a potential follower comes across your account and sees no interaction they're going to highly suspect you're spammy or a bot which in fact can negatively impact a brand.
February 27th, 2010 at 5:03 am
Agree also here with all point. Twitter can always be used to watch trends and check on what people are saying about you if your are a major company..But yes if you do not have the man power , twitter us not a good idea.
March 2nd, 2010 at 5:17 pm
"There’s a great post on Mashable about creating a social media plan that I highly recommend checking out."
Great! Uh…where's the link?
March 13th, 2010 at 6:31 pm
If I had a dollar (or pound
) for everytime someone has approached me wanting to get their business on twitter but has no plan whatsoever. And no intention of creating one.
Not to mention no time….etc etc.
Waste of time!
March 13th, 2010 at 2:39 pm
Love the blog…people are missing out not using Twitter more often!
March 20th, 2010 at 7:21 pm
Nice post, some good info on here. You should install one of those multi-share tools so people can re-tweet, facebook, digg, or whatever they want. There are like a million different services so limiting it to only the very top services seems to not be the best way to go.
March 21st, 2010 at 2:57 pm
I’m pretty sure I read something about this on Matt Cutt’s blog like 4 days ago saying pretty much the exact same thing. I don’t always take what he says at face value because he has been known in the past to “smear the truth” so to speak when it’s in Google’s best interest.
March 21st, 2010 at 4:04 pm
Between the spam on twitter and their crappy web hosting/server speed they have some really pretty serious issues IMO.
April 20th, 2010 at 8:58 am
Yes like all social networking sites to use them for your business marketing must be complimented by other campaigns. To use one single dimension in isolation will not give you the leverage or achieve the market saturation. A good marketing framework and long term strategy will certainly guide you when considering do you need Twitter.
May 11th, 2010 at 7:26 am
Social networking sites is not a commercial, people such sites is not shopping, so I think this use can not bring more sales and conversion, the basic business model, or should adhere to
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August 23rd, 2010 at 2:52 am
If I had a dollar (or pound
) for everytime someone has approached me wanting to get their business on twitter but has no plan whatsoever. And no intention of creating one
August 31st, 2010 at 4:50 am
Your three reasons are correct. And should be common sense. For social purposes, having a dabble in Twitter can be interesting. But if you own a business you should know time is money. And therefore know it is not worth spending a lot of time on any marketing strategy that is ineffective for your business and cost inefficient.
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October 29th, 2010 at 8:29 am
I am also VERY happy to see this. There is just SO much hype about Twitter out there and I just can't tell if it's real or not. I mean, I tried to tweet for 4 months, and NOTHING came of it. And I was really trying. And now to see how overrun twitter is with commercially intent. It just seems so bad…
November 5th, 2010 at 11:27 am
Ah nice one! Thanks!
January 19th, 2011 at 12:28 am
Twitter is a great way of communicating, however engagement with others takes time so you've got to know what you want to get out of having a Twitter account and really focus on that. There are many other ways of engaging with your target audience.
February 9th, 2011 at 1:12 am
Twitter is the better way to communicate with your audience.There are many other ways to engaging with your target audience or non-target audience
March 6th, 2011 at 4:57 am
Stumbling upon your post just might stop me from wasting my time. So many marketing avenues to explore and Twitter might prove the one which works 'further down the road' rather than in the early days.
May 27th, 2011 at 2:17 am
Good points made..
July 15th, 2011 at 5:58 am
Very informative, thank you. I’ve been blogging on and off for almost 3 years, but have never had much of a focus – I tend to just write about whatever is on my mind when I feel like writing.