The value of Twitter is something that is widely debated as it continues to grow.  The extremes are those who can’t live without it and others that can’t fathom how it’s worth one second of their day.  In the middle are a lot of people trying it out, maybe for their small business, maybe just for fun.

My Twitter use has a very high value to me and if fact it even has a number.  I’ve posted in the past on the benefits Twitter showed me right form the start, how it can drive blog traffic and a big attempt to amount 100 reasons for a business to Twitter (still short, add one!).

My Twitter ROI as of today is:  $13.50 per Tweet

As of the tweet I’ll put out to announce this blog post, I’ll have closed just over $25,200 in business only and directly because of Twitter and my 1,870 updates. That is just plain cool.  Even better is I have many more projects being quoted, referrals being given and connections being made.  Strictly from Twitter.

I’ve received this business from Twitter in a few routes:

• Industry peers. Thanks to Twitter I have connected with numerous other talented web designers and developers that have passed me leads.  Twitter allowed us to connect, view links to work we’ve put out and made them think of Five when there was a project or lead that didn’t fit them.  This has been both humbling and exciting as a some very talented people themselves think enough of our services to recommend us.
• Marketing proffesionals. I’ve connected with internal marketing talent from various companies locally and nationally that have put me on to RFPs, projects and other needs that I would have never known about without a connection via Twitter.
• Twitter friends. It might be baseball related, small business related, music related or another interest I have put out there, but I have connections that are non-web design related.  The replies and conversation might be about about the Minnesota Twins offense, but then a direct message comes out of nowhere with a contact person at a company that needs web help.

Do you have a Twitter ROI or a Value Per Tweet (VPT)?  Share it if you can.  I’m constantly amazed at the value I get from Twitter in news, connections, knowledge, ideas and yes … even sales.  I’m looking to add to my Twitter ROI.

You can’t interact with any form of media these days and not hear about Twitter.  TV, radio, print, web, mobile and face-to-face networking are all jumping in. Big traditional media, big business, big stars, big sports … all on Twitter.

But you, you’re not big.   You’re a small business and while you’re interested in tools and strategies to grow your business, you don’t know how to evaluate the Twitter buzz.  It looks like a time waster, meaningless chatter and something that falls to #524 of what you have to accomplish in your day.

You might want to reconsider. I could list out my 100 reasons a small business should get involved with Twitter, but I think having 100 different voices (comments) would be better.

So I’m putting it out to the Twitter community in the attempt to gather a total of 100 reasons or more to be on Twitter as a small business. Give me yours, leave your Twitter ID too (I’ll link it for you), and lets help those on the fence decide and all of us learn a new thing or two on the benefits of Twitter.

Great Internet marketing blog posts are always on my radar and I have four I’m highlighting here that can provide some great education, examples and ideas for any business working to succeed on the web.

Each one has some great takeaways you can plug into your business strategy online. Better fundamentals, better content, better use and better marketing.  Great reads!

+ The SEO Pyramid Fundamentals
SEOmoz and the fabulous Whiteboard Friday video’s are a must for any beginner/intermediate in the SEO world. I keep waiting for them to put their SEO video series out on DVD so that small business owners can rent it at Blockbuster or Netflix. This video covers the fundamentals and needed areas of SEO in a way that makes sense to us all, a pyramid. Watch it and you can’t help but understand the importance of valuable content that is beneficial to the user, accessible by search engines and worthy of inbound links.

Speaking of content …

+ The Discipline of Content Strategy
Minneapolis’s own Kristina Halvorson writes a great article on web content strategy that appears on the A List Apart blog. Her breakdown of website content disciplines is darn near a step by step guide to success with content strategy for both your users and SEO. It’s not a bad idea to keep an eye on her staff’s musings on the Brain Traffic blog as well.

Speaking of a vision …

+ Pancheros Gets Twitter … Kinda
The always entertaining and idea factory Ted Murphy throws out his visions for burrito chain Pancheros on their current use of Twitter and how they can deepen their use of the social media tool. Ted gives great examples and photos on how the restaurant chain can take their Twitter marketing use to a whole new level by bleeding it down to each location and employee. First read the post, then follow @pancheros and then go eat at Pancheros.

Speaking of what to do first …

+ 73% Of Business Owners Would Do Taxes Themselves Before Search Marketing
Yikes! What is the fear? This article surveyed 400 business owners and found that 73% of them preferred taxes to search marketing. Is paid search marketing really a great unknown to fear? I guess so. The article highlights the following as reasons why:

• Nearly nine in 10 (89 percent) feared keywords may become too expensive.
• Eighty-one percent questioned if paid search marketing is the best use of their marketing budgets.
• One quarter of respondents believe paid search marketing is too complex.
• Twenty-one percent thought it would be too time-consuming.
• Thirty-five percent felt they would need an agency to help set up a search marketing campaign.

I can’t disagree with the last bullet.  I think engaging a SEM professional is a good idea to maximize your goals and budget. From the right keywords, to the right landing page, a pro can really make a difference.  Having an expert as a service partner also alleviates many of the other fears listed.  Funny how that works.

Thanks to @pancheros on Twitter for putting this Twitter marketing story in front of me. (There are more benefits than you know to following a burrito tweeter.)

The Cedar Rapids, IA Gazette has a nice little write-up on a small restaurant using Twitter. Riley’s Cafe started using Twitter recently and implemented a “Twitter Tuesday” special. So far they have seen both foot traffic in the door as well as local buzz from it. Very cool.

Their first Twitter Tuesday offer was 25% off the entire bill.

You can follow Rileys on Twitter, I did: @RileysCafe

It’s also interesting to note that Riley’s doesn’t even have a website. They jumped right to social media and are using it to drive direct business, not just website or blog traffic.

I recently asked the help of a few Twitter users to measure the impact that Twitter can have on promoting a blog post. Plenty of bloggers on Twitter will tweet about their own posts but I wanted to see the power of “retweeting“, when other Twitter users put out a link and suggest your blog post to their followers.

The outcome: Some simple Twitter promotion and retweeting DOUBLED my normal blog traffic for the day.

I’ve found myself referring to Twitter as broadcasting channels, no different than TV or radio. Each channel (person) has it’s own set of followers (audience). Some are shared and the sizes, interests and interaction of the audience vary.

The Blog Post To Be Retweeted
The first thing I did was create a post of solid value and interest. No, not all of my posts make this criteria. So I thought that sharing our email marketing campaign statistics would be a great post.

The Twitter Broadcast Channels
Next I hit up some folks I know on Twitter from various web and Internet marketing backgrounds, “Twitter styles” and number of followers. Accepting my request to help were Desarae Veit of Sniki, David Mihm a Portland Web Designer, Kirk Anderson a Wisconsin Web Designer and Mike Rynchek, a Minneapolis Online Marketer. I’ll break down their Twitter handles and followers at the end of this post, but these four broadcast channels and myself gave me exposure to over 2,300 followers.

The Retweeting Message
Here is a screenshot of a Twitter search of the TinyURL that was given to them to retweet my post. You can see how each of them suggested my post/link to their followers and audience.

The Blog Traffic Result
Retweeting and the Twitter broadcasting made my unique visitors double, my page views double and I gained 8 new subscribers that day. No doubt, it was a powerful promotion tool for my blog. I went into this little experiment hoping for a bit of a spike but was very pleased with what it offered up. A few of my retweeters even shared with me that their readers gave them feedback or thanked them for putting them onto my post. How cool is that?

Twitter is a great broadcast tool and traffic generator, not just a great networking tool.

The Twitter Info On Those Who Helped
Here again are those that helped me and how you can follow them on Twitter. They all put out some great tweets on web design, social media, online marketing, SEO and small business. I suggest you follow them.

• Desarae Veit (1400+ followers) http://twitter.com/desaraev
• Mike Rynchek (500+ followers) http://twitter.com/mikerynchek
• David Mihm (300+ followers) http://twitter.com/davidmihm
• Kirk Anderson (150+ followers) http://twitter.com/kirkaanderson

Of course you can always follow me as well at http://twitter.com/AaronWeiche .

Do you have a Twitter story to share on what it has done for your blogging traffic, web traffic or another aspect of your business? I would love to see your comments on this.