Think Twitter is a waste of time? Think again. Every managed service provider (MSP) should be using Twitter regularly to share knowledge, engage with customers, and improve your company’s search engine optimization (SEO).
Many MSPs, executives, and business owners are hesitant to use this social network, though. The reasons I’ve heard for this range from not having enough time to not knowing what to tweet about. These concerns are understandable, but in the modern age you can’t afford to not take advantage of an important real-time communications tool like Twitter.
With more than 300 million monthly active users on Twitter worldwide and more than 500 million tweets made each day, Twitter offers your business a unique opportunity to reach both existing and potential clients.
How you can use Twitter
There are multiple ways you can use Twitter to further your MSP business goals. Like all things in business, though, you need to put some thought into it and establish a strategy to use this tool.
For example, you can use Twitter to find out what’s going on in the IT industry by using Twitter’s search feature to tune into relevant conversations. This also gives you the opportunity to dive in and contribute to those conversations.
Twitter is also an outstanding way to up your customer service levels and strengthen relationships with your clients. According to a recent study, about 73 percent of small to medium businesses say Twitter provides them with a lightning-fast way to reply to their clients’ issues.
Twitter helps drive awareness of your business and its services, too, so it’s a simple, cost-effective way to increase the impact of your marketing efforts. You can also use it to connect with vendors and other MSPs, keep an eye on the competition and how they use Twitter, and connect with technology reporters and publications.
How leveraging Twitter for SEO can increase rankings
Using Twitter to promote your MSP’s website and blog can also help boost your company’s search engine rank because Google now indexes tweets. Earlier this month, Google started displaying relevant tweets in mobile search results for U.S. users searching in English. Similar results will be coming to searches done on desktops soon as well.
So, when you tweet make sure you are including keywords relevant to your audience and your company. I also recommend including your services as well as your location. These are the search terms your customers and prospects are entering into search engines.
According to data from Stone Temple Consulting, Google indexes an estimated 26 percent of tweets with an inbound link to a company’s website. That’s about four times higher than the average rate of indexation. Tweets that contain hashtags and images also increase a tweet’s chances of being indexed by Google.
Using Twitter can also improve your search ranking on Bing, and there are rumors that Twitter and Apple are on the verge of partnering to improve tweet visibility on Apple’s iOS and OS X Spotlight searches.
So get your Twitter account profile established now. It’s free to use. And once you have, “follow” me (@StuartRCrawford), and I’ll reply in kind. If you have questions about how to use Twitter, tweet at me, or if you want to keep the conversation private, send me a “DM” (direct message). #GoodLuck
Photo Credit: Garrett Heath via Flickr.com. Used under CC 2.0 License.
