Your Small Business Should Too.

Because of my experience in the food industry, I follow a lot of local chefs and foodies on Twitter. I have watched businesses grow through support from peers on Twitter.

An especially great example of this is the twittering of the Portland food cart scene. Cart owners, like Whiffies Fried Pies,  post updates on what’s on the menu for the day, exchange news and info with other cart owners, and interact with customers and fans.

Whiffies opened their doors (er window) for business just this spring, but with a lot of buzz generated through social media they have quickly become a success. They even won Best Food Cart 2009 from Willamette Week. Their fried pies are delicious, and that helps too!

Twitter is becoming such a popular marketing tool for small business that even the New York Times is chiming in on the matter in an article today.

“…small-business owners like Twitter because they can talk directly to customers in a way that they were able to do only in person before. ‘We’re finding the emotional distance between businesses and their customers is shortening quite a bit,’…”

If you have not, we highly recommend signing up for a Twitter account for your small business. Start by reading Twitter’s brand new guide for small business users. It’s one more easy and free way to keep in contact with your customers. Especially in these tougher economic times, you should be doing everything you can to engage your customers: e-mail, telephone, face-to-face meetings, mailers, social media, and blogs.

In this climate there is so much not in our control, but running our own effective marketing strategy is. Twitter should be an essential part of that strategy for you.