Twitter, the New Prospect List?

This insightful critique of Twitter offers the greater upside of using Twitter regardless of who is answering because at some point someone might.  Whether you are getting a direct response from the Person or Business that you are following or a ghost response from a them(someone handling that response beside the person or business directly), Twitter  provides not only a chance to reply to the tweets that impact you the most but also can help a business build a robust prospect list.  Twitter now has enabled geolocation tools so that if a user has it enabled, you are able to see where that tweet came from-this is a huge help for local businesses.  So, understanding that everyone is tweeting is important but it’s targeting the ones that are listening that is more important. 

                In examining this important part of paying attention to those listening and building a database of these listeners, provides a business an important tool to growing their presence and prospect list.  The example used by the text examines a plumbing business that has used Twitter and limited their search query to people within a 25-mile radius, thus creating a target market.  If that Plumber builds up a following within this geolocation, not everyone that sees their Tweets will necessarily respond but the one who has a plumbing issue will.  This has just created a prospect for the plumbing company and given them a shot at the business that they may or may not have necessarily had, if not for Tweeter.  So the question of Tweeter is now over the importance of responding to the tweets that we should be responding to because once Tweeter grows to certain level it will be impossible to follow all Tweets.  So, just providing a ghost response might be acceptable for Britney Spears or Kanye West, for a local business owner looking to generate prospects it can ultimately determine their success or failure.   

Source: socialnomics by erik qualman