We should have seen it coming. As texting became a major league means of communication, voyeuristic and exhibitionist texting took hold in the form of social media web sites. Just when businesses were beginning to scratch their heads and throw up their arms with frustration on how to connect with potential customers, the customers came rushing to them in a stream of perfect demography…well almost…

Like anything, “if it were that easy, everybody would be doing it.” And like most everything on the internet, it appears everybody is doing it. But like most things in life, some are actually working at it, while others really are only dabbling.

In the last year, we have begun tweeting for clients as a part of a complete internet marketing strategy that has grown out of our core SEO service. At the same time, several of our clients have jumped on the Twitter bandwagon and are doing it themselves.

Here are some observations we’ve made about the “Twitter Phenomena”:

1) It’s All About the Audience – If you have no audience (followers) then you might as well go down to the street corner and just start shouting. With no audience you are like the proverbial tree in the forest. Nobody hears you. Your primary concern at Twitter should be building an audience of followers. Preferably, these should be people who are in a position to buy whatever it is you offer. Therefor, the majority of your time allotted to your Twitter effort should be spent seeking out the right audience for your tweets.

2) Consistency – I’ve got a bone to pick with 95% of all Tweetheads; You lack consistency in your messaging. One moment you are on subject and then next you have gone into left field. It’s fine for a teenager to pronounce they are tired and didn’t get enough sleep. But is that really the message you want to be putting out to the audience you have built for your business? One moment you are completely rational and the next moment you are tweeting off about getting 1000 followers for $9.99. I mean…really!

3) Welcome to the Neighborhood – Twitter, like all other social media is actually a community with protocol. If you don’t understand or don’t feel the need to participate in the community, your time spent on Twitter is essentially a waste of time. In real life, nobody likes a blowhard. It’s no different here. If all you do is shout out advertising babel, your marketing effort will fall far short.

4) Active Response – Whether you are tweeting to build your business or to put a customer service oriented platform in place, how and when you respond to inquiry and comment will shape your success or failure. Several times a day you should be checking out what others are saying about you and responding swiftly and accordingly.

5) No Specific Strategy – You need to have a plan for the use of Twitter. While this might vary from business to business, we have found that for business building on Twitter it is important to have several pieces in place before the tweeting begins. It makes sense to have a FaceBook and/or MySpace business page in place to send your Twitter followers to. These Social sites make a nice intermediary stop for prospective customers to continue “checking you out”. I firmly believe that you need to have a blog in place on your web site for several reasons. For Twitter, having a blog means you have new stories and posts to send your Twitter followers to. After all, the main intent of all things related to internet marketing is to get the person to visit your site and then visit your site again…and again! At least 30% of your tweets should link people back to your web site. 50% is probably better.

Why would business owners tweet for themselves? Because they can! Why would they hire an outside service like ours to do it for them? Because there isn’t enough time in the day to “do it all”.