Don't use Twitter unless.....

The other day, I had a potential client asking me if I new how to use Twitter, Blogs, Face Book, YouTube, and other social networking tools to help her grow her business. I asked her why does she want to use these tools. She told me that she felt that she has not been using these tools so she felt it was a good way to grow her business. In other words, she was looking at all the pretty opportunities out there and decided that she must add social networking as a tactic to grow her business.

Then, I asked her what her strategy is for her business. She couldn't give me an answer.

According to Seth Godin, "Building a permission asset so we can grow our influence with our best customers over time" is a strategy. Using email, twitter or RSS along with newsletters, contests and a human voice are all tactics. In my experience, people get obsessed about tactical detail before they embrace a strategy... and as a result, when a tactic fails, they begin to question the strategy that they never really embraced in the first place."

I recommended to her that before she spends time on the tactics, she will need to develop a viable business strategy. When something fails it is not the tool, it's usually the person using the tool. For example, some people use Twitter to successfully grow their business (following their business strategy), others use Twitter to harm their business. Twitter is not inherently good or bad, the best variable to success or not is the person using the tool.