Small Biz and Twitter, Perfect together?

I have been reading a lot of bogs and articles lately that go on and on about Twitter. Quite a few talk about how small businesses can get lost on Twitter and should only do it if they are unique and can really stand out. Many more are going on about the number of followers a person/company has says everything about how successful a twitterer you are. Me, I'm not really sure. I recently changed my ID from my stand-by, use it for everything login: htrout13 to a variation of my 'business' (hey - I've been doing freelancing under this name for over 7 years - I guess I'm a business now): padgettmrktg. Whether that drives business to me or not - so be it. I'm having fun, learning a lot, and that's what really matters to me.

I have been on Twitter for nearly a year. I have just over 100 followers and I'm ok with that. I see so many people touting their plans to boost the number of followers into the thousands in less than 24 hours...and that doesn't interest me. I only follow 130 odd people (not that their odd...well some of them are...you know what I mean!) and I actually try to read every tweet. I can only imagine if I had 10,000 twitterers to follow, and thousands of tweets each day. I wouldn't get anything done ever! It would become a full time job (does anyone want to pay me to do this??). I don't have a fancy application to sort tweets for me so that I only look at tweets directed to me (actually containing @padgettmktg). If I did that I would lose out on reading a bunch of interesting things, and miss the opportunity to follow some very engaging people.

Many companies are looking for e-marketing people to help build their online identity (and if you're out there - I'm always available!!!). Unfortunately, they haven't fully decided on an off-line identity yet, so their efforts are not always rewarded. They throw good money after bad. Why? Because someone read an article that said that they should be doing something. Just because companies like Zappos (@Zappos - great twitterer!) incorporated Twitter into their marketing mix successfully doesn't mean that every company jumping on the Twitter bandwagon will see that same success.

My favorite small business on twitter are the ones who actively search for people asking questions or making comments on topics relating to what they do. I once tweeted that I was heading to the dry cleaners. I was then followed by two different dry cleaning companies; one of whom asked if I was local so that I could get a discount by following back and mentioning their name in the store (I wasn't, but it was the thought that counts!). If I am working on a project and hit a wall I will tweet it in hopes that someone who knows the answer will respond, or that someone in my network will re-tweet it until an answer comes back to me. I've found some good providers that way.

Basically it comes down to 2 things. Time and effort. Do you want to spend the time necessary to follow the 'right' people, learn more about your followers, and post meaningful tweets? Or do you want to want to obtain as many followers as possible regardless of why they are following you - because it is all about the numbers?

I'll stick with my way. Low numbers but meaningful content. Hopefully my clients and employers will see it my way as well.