I had a great chat yesterday with Jen Harris, who looks after social media marketing for the excellent Tsheets. (Aside: Tsheets is pure magic for any business that charges for its time – it is a very neat, simple-to-use timesheet application that finally lets you keep a truly accurate picture of how your people spend their time. Try it – it’s fantastic.)
We were talking about Twitter and whether it is something that companies in general need to wake up to. Jen drew my attention to a real slamdunk argument – Dell recently came out and said that Twittering has brought it an additional $1 million in revenues. Yep, $1 million. The Industry Standard has the news here.
That obviously sparked my interest and I checked out Dell’s Twitter presence. You’ve got to hand it to them, it’s pretty impressive – a wide range of options for all kinds of people. You can learn much more about Dell’s social media strategy in the recent podcast interview on The Hobson & Holtz Report with Bob Pearson, Dell’s VP Communities and Conversations.
Is Twitter right for every business? Of course not. But is it just a flash in the pan that can be ignored? Despite a few wobbles along the way, the answer is no – see Venture Beat’s assessment. Any business that is serious about engaging with its customers needs to find out if they are Tweeple. If they are, should it be Tweeting?
(And if you don’t know what I’m talking about, check out Jennifer Laycock’s Twitter overview on the Search Engine Guide.)
