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A recent event reminded me on the importance of social media to businesses can be and how many of them are missing the boat.  I recently required some electrical work to be done at my house. Since I didn’t know of any electricians personally I sent a request out to some friends.

I was given several recommendations back but was disappointed as both electricians never got back to me after the initial contact.  I then turned to my followers on my personal Twitter account and asked if anyone could recommend a electrician.  Within an a few hours I got several suggestions from my followers.  What surprised me is was that none of the several electrical firms in town that have a presence on Twitter replied to say they are available.

I am reminded of a section from Scott’s Stratten’s excellent book “UnMarketing” in which he describes “the hierarchy of buying in a service based business.” Your best customers are ones who have done business with you before. Next is referral by a trusted source followed by ‘current relationship but have yet to purchase’ . Moving down the list to search engines / yellow pages and ultimately cold-calling.

With software that can search Twitter for keywords and by geographic location it is not that hard for companies to listen on what’s happening in the twitter sphere . In this case a search like “electrician” within 25km of London Ontario.  In addition having a search to see if anyone is talking about your company on Twitter.  In this way you can leverage Twitter to engage with your current and potential customers, and to provide a voice behind the business.

It may not always get a sale but it certainly can’t hurt, and it’s cheaper then a yellow pages ad.