Biz Talk: Twitter Benefits

Earlier this week, one of my LinkedIn groups had an interesting discussion about the pros and cons of twittering for businesses. Andrew Ballenthin culled through the 120+ comments and compiled a list of the top themes, which I've included below and are available on his blog. While a lot of companies are struggling to understand what twitter is and how they can utilize it to build business, more than 80% of commentors agreed that twitter presents a lot of opportunities.

Here's how companies have benefited from twitter:

1. Build relationships with people they would have not met before
2. Exposure to lots of new business thoughts, technical ideas & leadership styles
3. Finding new clients by commenting back on others’ tweets
4. Access to thinkers and doer’s one wouldn’t normally interact with
5. Can follow businesses you want the latest updates from with less effort
6. Clients have asked for accounts to be opened so they can get regular updates
7. Can assist Google rankings, sometimes it gets first page results
8. Can assist in getting real questions answered real time during the day
9. Been a great way to gain interactive access with new clients by following their tweets
10. Received access to publicity: radio, TV, press, speaking engagements
11. Allows leaders to connect to followers on a personal level
12. Without being pushy, it can generate buzz/talk about your company
13. Great for bringing traffic to your site if you offer truly valuable information & links
14. Provides a premier marketing tool when used correctly
15. Can be a great resource for getting push information versus searching the web
16. Can act as a news wire for journalist who are looking for story content
17. Can save time by getting the latest news without having to go search for it
18. Enables expansion of your database by removing budget or geography barriers
19. It can increase your market reach if you actively promote your presence on twitter
20. A great way to showcase your expertise & differentiate from competition.

Great list! How are you using twitter? What would you add to this list?