Will Twitter Be Effective For Small Business Advertising--Or A Twap?

To tweet...or not to tweet--twat twit twuh twestion!










Thus will ask many business owners in the wake of Twitters IPO, which as of this morning's stock price opened DOUBLE what they anticipated.

But as Koh and Needleman discuss in their Wall Street Journal article:

Justin Beegel, president of Infographic World Inc., spent $550 to advertise his 11-person New York data-visualization company on Twitter in September. But two weeks of "promoted tweets" offering a discount to targeted users generated only one response, from a user who didn't become a customer. "I'm definitely done with the Twitter ads," says Mr. Beegel.

But as many marketers and even Twitter members indicate-- cultivating and reaching an audience on the short-message service can require more time and effort than many small-business owners feel they can afford.

This is the question I asked in an earlier post as to the viability of small business investing in advertising on Twitter as opposed to other options. 

Twitter earned over $422 million in revenue thus far this year--but their loss has extended to $134 million.

They go on to say: Facebook's targeted promoted posts are "the most effective opportunity out there for small-business owners" and "more effective than Twitter's ad products," says Kathleen Ray, co-founder of The Everzocial Group Inc., a Temecula, Calif., agency that advises about 125 small firms nationwide on social-media marketing.

Twitter's VP of Global Online Sales, Richard Alfonsi says,  "Twitter has only been trying in earnest to recruit small-business advertisers since April, when it gave all businesses full access to a self-serve advertising system that makes it easier for smaller firms to buy ads. It has since added several features such as more specific search targets and pre-scheduled tweets, and increased its outreach efforts to educate small-business owners"

The real issue business owners will face with Twitter is how to "quantify spend"--or justify their advertising investment if they can't "measure" their results

This is what plagues all advertising mediums--but has become much more available with digital elements in use now in many communications industries.

According to the article, for now, though, people like Alex Gounares say they don't want to invest the time needed to make Twitter effective. The founder and chief of Concurix Corp., a software-service provider in Kirkland, Wash., spent about $1,000 for a few days of promoted tweets in August.

Mr. Gounares says Twitter told him that users were clicking on or retweeting his ads. But he says he didn't detect increased traffic to his website and says the firm gained only a handful of Twitter followers.

Mr. Gounares said he didn't seek help from Twitter. "I don't want to spend my time becoming a Twitter expert," he says. "I want to focus on getting customers."

Have you used Twitter yet for your business? If so--how has it worked? Have you been able to measure results in traffic or sales? 

I'd love to do a follow up post with your results. Maybe, with your input--we'll be able to determine if in fact Twitter is worth over $13 billion!

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BY JOHN D. VERLIN