In his recent article, Twitter A Dead End Investment For Small Business, Robert Bacal warns that unless you are doing it for fun, small business owners should not invest time in Twitter and expect business results.  Though I’ve only been experimenting with Twitter for business the last couple of weeks, what I have seen so far tends to support many of Mr. Bacal’s conclusions.  Having said that, I’m not convinced we should write Twitter off completely.

In his article, Mr. Bacal writes:

Here’s the bottom line for those in a hurry. Do NOT invest the time on twitter with the expectation that it will yield business results. If you want to participate because it’s fun, then do so. But don’t do it for business, because you’ll be disappointed now, and in the future.

While this is probably true for many small business owners, I tend to get nervous when I hear a blanket statement.  Without examining your particular business needs and marketing plan, I wouldn’t unilaterally cast Twitter out.

One Data Point – My Site

I’ve been experimenting with it as a means of driving traffic to my new website.  How successful has it been?

Well, so far 31% of my new website’s traffic has come from Twitter.  Having said that, the bounce rate for my Twitter traffic is 72%, while the pages per vist and average time on site stats are about half that of my direct hits and facebook referrals.  So, the Twitter traffic is coming, but they’re about half as committed as the rest of my traffic to stick around once they take a peak.

What does this mean for my Twitter experiment?  Well, for me, it means it’s not over…yet.  While my Twitter traffic is not sticky, it is still a significant portion of my overall site traffic.

Small Business Hope for Twitter?

Contrary to Mr. Bacal, I can imagine Twitter providing value for some small businesses.  For example, I know of one local business that occasionally distributes a dollar off coupon for Gelato via email;  if you mention the email, you get a break on the Gelato that week.  Is it possible that some subset of their customer base wouldn’t want to give out their email address, but would follow them  on Twitter?  How much more effort would it be for them to tweet their coupon in addition to sending it by email?  Would they get enough business to warrant the time?

In the end, I see Twitter as just another communication medium, albeit an immature one with a, currently, poor signal-to-noise ratio.  If you can find a way to get your message to the right audience via Twitter while achieving your desired ROI, by all means do so.    As is so often the case, it is ultimately about alignment.  If a technology, and what it provides, aligns with your business strategy and goals, use it.  Otherwise, concentrate your energy elsewhere.

I would be especially interested in hearing from any small business owners that are currently using Twitter as part of their business efforts.  What’s working for you?  What’s not?  I look forward to your comments.