I met with a potential client the other day, and as with many such meetings, I probably spent more time giving advice about marketing and promotion (and Twitter) than I did “pitching Needmore.” Funny thing is, I hear this a lot, in many different industries. You spend a surprising amount of time when you first meet with a client just giving them advice which is more or less free. And then you hope they decide to work with you!

This client offers a service business that shares the same building with Needmore. Many folks in the building are on Twitter, and we “broadcast” to each other by adding a #omcc “hash tag” to our messages. This is a quick, simple, and effective way to talk to the people around us. For example, we decided to invite everyone down for drinks a past Friday, so we sent a quick tweet out. We had a great turnout.

One of my suggestions was that if there was a break in her appointments that she wanted to fill (quickly), she could send out a message to the building offering $10 off if they were willing to use that empty slot in her schedule. This benefits everyone - potential customers would save money, become more aware of her business, and she would be able to spend more time working with clients.

It goes without saying that Twitter is a Big Deal for businesses. I follow a lot of local businesses, and I can tell that many other users nearby do as well. Sometimes a business owner will joke that if they were to start using Twitter, they wouldn’t have time to actually run their business. I think this is a bit disingenuous, since the beauty of Twitter is how little time actually takes to post an update! Saraveza does so all the time; it probably takes one minute to mention the new beer specials for the week, and plenty of folks are interested - and probably come down to taste. That’s a big win for everyone.

Don’t doubt the power of Twitter to help your business. If nothing else, it will surely make it more interesting.