Does my company need to be on Twitter?

It probably depends on the segment of the market you are trying to appeal to. I would guess the Twitter market would be younger. (I am middle aged and know nobody who Twitters or Tweets) If the younger generation is the part of the travel industry you are trying to appeal to… well, I will leave it up to those who participate in Twitter to tell you if it would be a good thing.

It’s free, simple to use, easy to advertise you’re on Twitter, easy for the consumer who uses Twitter to follow, and takes just seconds a Tweet to get the message out. Personally, I can’t see the downside to this, and it really is a slam dunk call. I mean, worst that could happen is nobody follows your Tweets and you’ll cancel the account. All still at no cost.

I’m with @120aks. What’s to lose? Gear facebook status so’s it forwards on to Twitter. No extra effort, really. I’d take the time to be a bit more human on Twitter though. I never follow anything that’s purely corporate unless there’s something entertaining about their tweets. Maybe that’s just me.

Only do it if you’re going to actually use it. It doesn’t look really good when business tweet 5 times, and then abandon it, and you find it a couple years later with no updates. Better to just focus on having a good Facebook page.

The more exposure your business gets, the better. Make sure you have a Twitter link on your fb account so that people who use Twitter can follow you there as well. I imagine there are tons of things your company can tweet about, but if you are still not sure on the sort of thing you can tweet, just go ahead and check the tweets of similar businesses to get ideas to get you started.

@optimisticpessimist @12Oaks @atomicmonkey @MyNewtBoobs @Porifera This is great advice and I understand there is nothing to lose – but HOW do businesses use it? How do they gain followers? How do they use it as a marketing tool?

Map out a plan for what you’re going to use twitter for, how you’re going to attract your customer base, your frequency of tweets, etc. You are going to have both pushed and pulled content. For example, if you go out to a site like tweetdeck.com, you can see other promotions out there and can offer deals for people following you or in your area. But you can also see other things, like a guy complaining that he can’t find air fare for business travel from NJ to San Diego that falls within his company’s guidelines. That becomes someone that you can reach out to on an individual basis. If you are able to meet his needs, then you may have an opportunity for his company’s travel business.

It is a good move, but be prepared to communicate, and respond to inquiries – good AND bad. The Twitter force is smaller than Facebook, yes, but they’re constantly ON.

@tptptp111 You get followers pretty much the same way you got them on fb. If you have a website or a blog, you can have a Twitter widget, logo or icon so that people know your business has a Twitter account.

@tptptp111 Since I do not participate with Twitter, all I could do was find some articles for you. I hope they help.
10 Business Uses for Twitter
50 Ideas on Using Twitter for Business
40 of the Best Twitter Brands…

If your business has a lot of information to share which is frequently updated, and these updates can be expressed in 140 characters or fewer, then Twitter may well be useful to you.
If don’t update frequently, Twitterers may forget about you. If you update frequently but have nothing new to say, you may be regarded as “spamming” Twitter. If your updates are larger than 140 characters, Twitter simply won’t work for you, unless maybe you use it to post a link and synopsis to a blog entry or some such.

I will also add that since I’ve been active on Twitter, our business and personal lives have been affected positively. We’ve even had unsolicited sales requests come across!

I think Twitter is stupid, but it does seem like every business is on it these days. It just boggles my mind.

Keep in mind that if you can build a following, it’s another venue for sharing blog posts, new products, etc as well as commenting in (mostly) real-time about any topic imaginable. Twitter has really helped our businesses!

Well not necessarily but as almost everyone pointed out, what’s the harm. Almost all businesses are on Facebook and Twitter. I think FB is far better for businesses compared to Twitter.

A Twitter account will indeed be very helpful for a company. Twitter will help a company to connect with customers, branding of products, customers feedback , marketing and increasing of sales. There are undoubtedly many advantages of becoming a member on Twitter.

It is good tool to connect and network with others to share views. If you like to know what being said this minute about your organization, people, products, competitors or brand? It is good tool for that. Following the right people on twitter is the key

Facebook is great because you can create a page there and it has a lot of users. BUT Twitter has this magical power called “Hash Tags” and through them you can easily market your products to anyone following the tags. Twitter has a trending system and you can see the most talked about topics at the left side. You could use the hash tags or phrases of those topics and voila! your post can be seen by everybody. Plus, in Twitter, you can follow related organizations or products, you can send a direct message to users just like Facebook, and you can promote your own tag based on your company’s brand. Customers can easily find you based on your personalized hash tag.

Thus, I find Twitter very useful, but I suggest you use both Facebook & Twitter for better results.