Why business should use twitter

Twitter has an estimated 350 million users, there are over 250 million tweets a day and more than 2400 companies advertising on the social media site with 80% renewal. So why exactly are businesses choosing this method to get to their target market?  They are using Twitter because it is word of mouth for the digital age.  If a person enjoys a tweet of another person they simply click and re-tweet it broadcasting the message to all the people who are following this person.  A consumer does not take a screen shot of their Google search results and email it to all their contacts but this is happening every day on Twitter.

There are two prime examples proving that business gain massively from twitter:

Virgin Airlines did a one day deal exclusively on Twitter offering flights from any U.S. city to any other U.S. city.  Though this offer was only promoted on twitter Virgin Airlines experienced their 5^th highest sales day in history.

 When Paramount wanted to boost the buzz of their new movie – Super 8 – they also did a twitter only deal. The day before opening day they ran a sneak peek of the movie only for twitter users and they sold tickets on Twitter only at full price.  They raised over $1.5 million on the deal and as people were leaving the theatres they were tweeting on how amazing the film was. The movie was expected to make $20-25 million in its opening weekend but raised $38 million. The chairman of Paramount came out the following Monday and put the great opening success of the movie down to Twitter.

These two success stories are prime examples of how Twitter has given companies a new way to access their target audience.

References:

Business insider interview by Henry Blodget with twitter chief revenue officer Adam Bain

http://www.businessinsider.com/exclusive-interview-twitter-chief-revenue-officer-adam-bain-2011-11