Monday, November 8, 2010

How Can a Small Business Benefit From a Free Twitter Analytics Tool? == By Gary San Platinum Quality Author

Twitter is making moves in the social networking space in attempts to better its physical image and attract more users. The most significant of those moves is a new look designed to make the service easier to use, more interactive, and just plain better overall. A while back, it was reported that the company was looking into providing a built-in analytics service as an effort to appeal to more business users. A few interesting acquisitions add credible fuel to the speculation, but there is no word on when such a service would be available to the public. For now, small businesses can take advantage and benefit from the many free twitter analytics tools on the market.
Insight Into Reach
One great thing about Twitter as a business platform is the opportunity it gives you to reach an even bigger audience than you already have access to. All it takes is a short and interesting tweet to get people talking about your products, services, or the brand itself. But how do you know how far that tweet traveled and the impact it made? If you are having trouble answering that question, a free Twitter analytics tool could be of good use. There are currently dozens of tools you can rely on to analyze your tweets and measure their reach, many of which are pretty handy at helping you discover your best advocates as well.
Influence Measurement
Having a large number of followers on Twitter is great, but that is not where the true power of this social network lies. The real potential rests in the ability it provides to network, share ideas and interact with others. Several successful users have demonstrated that the more you interact on the site, the more rewarding it tends to be. Since gauging your impact is difficult on any social network, free Twitter analytics tools are available to help you measure that influence. A good tool will not only show you how influential your brand is, but also go a long way in helping you adopt the skills needed to effectively communicate with your audience.
Valuable Data to Calculate Your ROI
If the return on your investment is something that is important to you, then it would be in your best interest to find a way to measure ROI when leveraging Twitter as a marketing platform. Some apply homemade algorithms and methods, but free analytics tools also exist to make this task easier and more efficient. With a good utility at your disposal, you can find out valuable information about your followers such as how many of them are re-tweeting your content, and much more. Some tools even provide easy to read charts and reports that can be downloaded and analyzed at your leisure. Although there is no one magic formula to calculating Twitter ROI, these tools give you a much clear picture of how your efforts are paying off.
Twitter recently mentioned that it would be launching a free analytics service in the near future. If you are a small business owner who does not like to wait around, rest assured that there are a plethora of free tools just waiting to be put to use. With so many to choose from, you can easily build up a nice collection that fits perfectly in your marketing arsenal.
Gary San is a best practices advocate for combining Twitter with email marketing.

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