Building Business Tweet by Tweet

BusinessWeek: Entrepreneurs are finding the fast-rising microblogging site to be a useful tool for reaching out to customers.
Here’s what happened when Chris Savage, the chief executive of Wistia.com, searched for the phrase “private video sharing” on Twitter, a social networking site. One post he found read, “A teacher requested a private ‘video sharing’ Web site so that specialists can observe student behavior — can anyone refer one?”
That got Savage’s attention. He e-mailed back: “Still looking for a private video sharing site?”
Minutes later came the reply: “YES! It’s the first request for one — thought I’d hit up my tweets before [I] go digging.”
Savage: “Cool. You may want to check out Wistia.com. Full disclosure, I’m the CEO ;-)”
While this exchange may seem a bit cryptic, Savage is one of a growing number of business owners to whom it makes an awful lot of sense. Savage frequently trolls Twitter looking for sales leads for his five-person, $1 million company, which makes software that facilitates video sharing through a private network. Although Savage has been using Twitter for only a year, it’s already helped him find 12 new clients for his Lexington (Mass.) company.
“This is a no-cost way of marketing,” he says. Because Twitter provides a public forum, each post becomes a form of promotion as other users follow Savage’s posts. “You are building a reputation; people can go back and look at your Web site and the quality of your content, and you are becoming part of the community,” Savage says. Other business owners are using Twitter for market research and to keep an eye on customer service issues.
Twitter’s simplicity is paired with a powerful search function that allows users to mine others’ updates in real time for useful nuggets. “Twitter lets you stay on top of what is happening within your client base,” says Chip Lambert, owner of Network2Networth, a business development consultancy in Phoenix. “You can look at conversations and reposition yourself, your products, and your services in a way that appeals to the market you are reaching out to.”
Twitter: Building Businesses Tweet by Tweet [BusinessWeek]