Summary: Why invest your precious time on Twitter when you have Facebook, Instagram and YouTube where you can reach way more people and eventually generate higher levels of attention?<br> You see the majority of small business owners don’t fully understand the power of Twitter. Furthermore, they haven’t come to terms with the fact that over the past few years, Twitter has evolved and with that the ‘tweets’ and conversations on this channel.<br> It’s no longer about what you have had for lunch or dinner. If you miss those kinds of stories though, you’ll have to switch to Instagram, Snapchat or Facebook.<br> This is the sixth part of the Small Business Owners series I started recently.<br> In the previous months, I covered the topics of <a href="http://www.strengthinbusiness.com/small-business-owners-social-media/">Social Media</a>, <a href="http://www.strengthinbusiness.com/small-business-owners-facebook-advertising/">Facebook Advertising</a>, <a href="http://www.strengthinbusiness.com/small-business-owners-email-marketing/">Email Marketing</a>, <a href="http://www.strengthinbusiness.com/small-business-owners-amazon-kindle/">Amazon Kindle </a>and <a href="http://www.strengthinbusiness.com/small-business-owners-live-events/">Live Events</a>.<br> Today, I’d like to talk to you about the real power of Twitter for your business. It has nothing to do with mass marketing. It’s not about sending out a bunch of tweets or celebrating likes and levels of engagement.<br> Bridging the Gap Between Your Twitter Feed and the Offline World <br> I’ve been active on Twitter for several years now, since 2011 to be more precise. I tried all kinds of marketing strategies and tactics. I listened to Twitter experts and applied their teachings. I read several articles, blog posts and books about ‘doing it the right way’. I watched videos and listened to podcasts.<br> While everybody is tooting the importance of sending out vast amount of daily tweets, getting likes and followers, starting all kinds of conversations to increase engagement – very few people actually talk about what I’m going to share with you here.<br> Let me break the ice for you:<br> Twitter is a phenomenal tool because it enables you to turn online connections into real-world business relationships and friendships.<br> Unlike LinkedIn where a professional obligation is implied or <a href="https://www.facebook.com/StrengthInBusiness" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Facebook</a> where you might receive messages from people who can hardly put together two sentences, Twitter is a place where you can easily cross between professional and personal experiences without suddenly being unfollowed or considered weird.<br> On Twitter the professional and personal worlds mold together harmoniously allowing users to connect more meaningful by building strategic alliances and retweeting each others stories, doing live streams together or catching up over a cup of coffee when visiting nearby locations.<br> How do you do it?<br> 3 Tips to Driving Offline Relationships from Twitter<br> Here’s how you can deploy this amazing tool to take those valuable online connections and transform them into real-world relationships.<br> 1. Use Direct Messages to Start a Conversation<br> One of the most valuable assets yet so underutilized or very poorly used/ utilized is Twitter’s inbox. Every time somebody sends you a direct message, the opportunity to build a deeper connection arises.<br> Obviously, I’m excluding all those DMs that include an invite to sign up to a random email list or a link to follow the sender on some other channel. I’m referring to those direct messages where people show a genuine interest to getting to know you better.<br> Use DMs wisely. Answer to those who ask you personalized questions and ignore bulk messages that are sent out by automation tools. <br> Always wanted to start a one-on-one conversation with a user that keeps coming up in your feed and prom...
