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Apr 23, 2010

Twitter for Local Small Businesses 101

Twitter is a social media micro-blogging platform which allows anyone with web connection to publish short messages of less than 140 characters - or best described as: a collection of ongoing answers to the question “What’s on your mind?” that appears in your Facebook profile. What’s the hype? Simple: Twitter allows you to “connect” with a big number of individuals in a personal level and in real-time, via the web and their mobile phones – at no cost for you or for them.

As the bulk of transactions for small biz are local, it’s easy to think that attracting the 5,000 people in Twitter don’t sound a very good use of resources. Thanks to Twitter recently “going local” with their new “geotagging” tool, small businesses are now able to do a keyword search in http://search.twitter.com (like the “Google” for Twitter) and find locals “near this place” under the advanced search option. Nevertheless, the “key” word to consider is “strategy,” which is empirical to incorporating any new marketing element. Do you want to know what people are saying about your products and services? Do you want to be on the look out for consumer patterns in your industry or city? Or do you to attract potential suppliers, employers or consumers?

In order to access if Twitter is a good tool for your business, I invite you to visit the Twitter search engine and search for any keywords related to your business. For example, if you have a cupcake store in New York City, start by searching: “NYC cupcakes,” “NYC bakery” and “cupcakes” within miles around your store neighborhood. The reality is that the most important step to strategizing Twitter use is by “listening” first and participating in the conversation later. In next post, I’ll provide you with the “10 best ways to use Twitter for Local Small Business.”

Anllelic Lozada is founder of SmallBIZLatino, an agency focused on bilingual marketing & web training for small businesses and professionals. Follow her on www.twitter.com/smallbizlatino.

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