Sales low; intelligence high
It would seem that the business case for using Twitter – in hard currency terms – is low, according to a survey of twittering energy assessors; not only for gaining it, but for giving it, too.
On the other hand, measured in terms of gleaning useful business intelligence, most respondents find Twitter valuable.
No blog is complete these days without at least one post extolling the virtues of using Twitter or imparting “guru” advice on the best way to use it. I thought I’d bring something of substance to the table before I jumped on the bandwagon – something that speaks directly to energy assessors.
And so here it is, the results of a survey I conducted last week asking Twitter “followers” both why they use it, and whether they’ve actually sourced any sales directly from it.
A massive 13 responses out of an audience (at the time of survey) of 59 known energy assessors using Twitter answered five questions in total. It has to be said that most of the 59 assessors (now 64) have not been active in some time - which may in itself say something - and others, for one reason or another, may have missed calls to participate.
| Question | Yes | No |
|---|---|---|
| Do you use Twitter to attract business? | 11 | 2 |
| Have you sourced EPC leads using Twitter (not sales)? | 3 | 10 |
| If yes to Q2, did those leads convert into sales? | 3 | N/A |
| Sales aside, do you feel Twitter benefits your business? | 9 | 4 |
| Have you bought anything from your followers? | 2 | 11 |
| Does Twitter provide useful business intelligence? | 11 | 2 |
Cash or intelligence?
Like most, I think, I have always been sceptical of the claims made by self-appointed “social media experts” whose livelihoods depend on their perceived guruness. Few, if any, tackle the tough question businesses want to know: Where’s the cash?
In the cold light of day, these results are not encouraging. Although if you do happen to bag a lead, chances are it will be red hot with a 100% conversion rate; at least according to the lucky three above.
Business intelligence
In a warmer light, most respondents think Twitter provides useful business intelligence (Twitter is definitely good for “speed news”). But how much is business intelligence worth?
It’s one of those unquantifiable commodities that make us all paranoid: ‘If I’m not with the crowd, I might miss out.’ But being amongst the first to know does not often translate into profiting from it (unless you’re working the stock market perhaps!).
But then again, intelligence-gathering can keep you out of trouble, too - unless you’re Bush or Blair, that is!
Is Twitter worth it?
All that aside, I do enjoy Twitter and the folks who use it meaningfully. The survey was far from scientific and most energy assessors only joined fairly recently; so still early days to draw any financial conclusions.
The platform does offer the potential to build useful contacts, however, which might prove useful in the long term – if one invests the time to use it intelligently.
Don’t however, believe the hype: I’ve seen previous darlings of the media - Digg, MySpace, Bebo, plus others I’ve long-forgotten - disappear into the long-grass after the stage-lights were turned to other platforms, like Facebook. People are also fickle and the attrition rate is huge, with most accounts lying dormant after a short period of time.
Twitter mistakes
Rather than evangelise on how to use Twitter for maximum effect (I’ll leave that to others – much of it is nonsense), I’ll just list how not to use it if you want to be taken seriously by those following you.
Don’t continually tweet about your services; it is boring, annoying, invasive, will be ignored and will eventually ensure you’re unfollowed (and possibly reported for spamming). Don’t drop your URL in every tweet either.
Don’t follow everyone and anyone: Who you follow says a lot about you; keep it focussed. Someone who follows thousands (or even hundreds) of people can’t possibly keep-up with it all. It also indicates they don’t care about their network (and by extension your extended network) and displays an air of desperation. I want to engage with people not compete for someone’s attention – it’s about the conversation and building relationships.
The chances are someone following thousands of others will end up re-tweeting lots of stuff you’re not even remotely interested in, too (although you can choose to block that person's re-tweets - re-tweets are the viral element).
Be wary of users with thousands of followers: Unless they are a celeb, don’t believe the numbers; many are non-human bots auto-following people because they’ve mentioned a keyword in their tweet. Others are the people mentioned above, hoping people will follow them back. I have blocked many many such followers. It also indicates they don’t care about their network.
Mercilessly block those who have no possible reason or interest in following you - remember, your followers also says a lot about you, too.
Don’t be sad: Few things are sadder than reading a series of daily re-tweets from people who’re desperately trying to curry favour with some celeb business person (Sarah Beeny seems to be the current flavour of the month in the property world).
At the end of the day, if you want a mass audience you’ll need to pay someone to sit there and tweet meaningful messages all day and respond to the thousands vying for your attention. Based on the results of this survey, can you afford to?
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