The Pros And Cons Of Using Twitter To Market Your Local Business

Twitter allows you to connect and engage with your customers on a really personal level. The interaction is casual and continuous and gives your business a real face and voice to people. This is known as conversational marketing
Twitter provides your customers the platform to give you valuable feedback.

 It’s so much easier for them to tweet those 140characters from the comfort of wherever they are than fill in a feedback form. Your local business can get firsthand reviews in real time enabling you to remain nimble so you can give them what they want.

Twitter provides a sales funnel for your local business, enhancing your ecommerce. You can integrate your twitter account into your business operations by using it to take orders, offer exclusive coupons and promote business and social events.

Twitter offers your business a chance to build a community around your brand instead of being a detached entity. This community of followers will become your mini-marketing army through the viral network.


Cons
It takes some time to set up and gain followers. You need to be organized and patient in the initial stages before you see big results.

It can be addictive because you feel chained to your phone all the time, always checking for incoming tweets and then responding to them. It’s hard to separate your business life from your personal life and that can affect you socially with family and friends taking second place.

It is a double-edged sword and you need to be ready to accept the good and down right nasty tweets about your business.
Bad news travels faster than good news so any mistakes or controversies your business has will travel at lightning speed on Twitter. You need to be extremely quick to do damage control if this happens.

 Because people always know what you and your business are up to and in some cases your exact location, it could result in security issues if someone maliciously used that information. It is always wise to err on the side of caution and decide what you shouldn’t tweet about concerning yourself and your business.