SMEs acquiring more customers with Twitter and Facebook

Small and midsize companies are figuring out how they can use social media to gain customers. Small businesses are acquiring more customers using Twitter and Facebook than large companies, even though large companies spend more money on so-called “social marketing.” This is recording to research carried out by Nielsen Co.

To ensure your small business doesn’t miss out get started by setting up a Twitter account, find your customers and ask them what they want. It’s that simple.

Small businesses know there customers which helps when it comes to your tweets and knowing what to say. You can also undergo market research by soliciting feedback about a new offering or design that you are considering.

For some small business owners, traditional advertising channels such as television, radio and newspapers are prohibitively expensive.
For others, the web is a medium more in tune with their potential customers. It provides an opportunity for small businesses to advertise on a level playing field with their larger counterparts.

While large companies usually try to accumulate a lot of Twitter followers, small businesses tend to be smarter and use the service to build relationships with people. A Twitter relationship means that you reply to all tweets to you, and you encourage your followers to send you private direct mail or “DM” messages whenever they want.

Another advantage small companies have over larger ones is that they can usually respond to Tweets more quickly. Larger companies normally have to go through layers of management to make a public comment, but smaller companies can respond on Twitter within a day or so, which means if something needs fixing, you can get to it faster than your larger competition.

You can also let some of your firm’s personality shine through. You don’t have to sound generic and overly professional like the big guys. Be friendly and personal. Research shows that the Twitter world is conversation-obsessed. Consumers spend almost half of their tweets on conversational messages.

Build up your relationships with your customers on twitter and when they are happy with your business, products and service they are sure to tweet their followers about it and potentially retweet your business tweets which will bolster word of mouth communications for your business.