Monday, July 27, 2009

The Viral Effect - Twitter for Business

So you don't think Twitter works for business?

Many people still write off Twitter as a waste of time, people boring others with updates on their every mundane move. Twitter has a much more important, viral effect that takes the power of word of mouth and spreads it far and wide.

Dr. Ravi Jain, Medical Director of the award-winning cosmetic clinic, Riverbanks Clinic in Bedfordshire, is very active on Twitter with the username 'VaserLipo'. Cosmetic treatment is not the first industry you might think of benefiting from online networking, but Dr. Jain has recently seen the benefits first hand.



"I saw a new patient and on her 'how did you hear about us?' part of the form, she wrote "TWITTER!" said Dr. Jain. "She was a second generation follower, having seen our information repeated by someone else whose updates she followed.

"She then did some research about us via our website and general Google, and made the journey all the up from London purely based upon word of mouth recommendation."

If you post interesting 'tweets', people will pass them onto their network. This all happens in seconds. Earlier this year I discovered that one article I had written and linked to on Twitter had been 'retweeted' by people in four different continents on the same day.

I'm not aware of anything else that has offered such viral power so quickly. If people trust the updates of those they follow, the opportunities to find new clients quickly and at such low cost is unparalleled.

Whatever your industry.

1 comment:

  1. Interestingly, having blogged this story this morning, I've just come across this New York Times story on how small businesses are using Twitter.

    An interesting read that further underline Twitter's business value.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/23/business/smallbusiness/23twitter.html?_r=3&ref=smallbusiness

    ReplyDelete