GOSO

By: Chris Garrett Co-Author of Best Seller of ProBlogger, our celebrity blogger, Chris has helped thousands of individuals, non-profits, small businesses and blue chips make the most of the web.

Email is super important to any online business. As an auto dealer you will be using email to follow up leads and customers, to send out offers, keep your fans warm and loyal, and to post news and events.

Most people who have dismissed Twitter as noise and chitchat will not have realized that Twitter can be used in very much the same way, but also they compliment each other very well too.

Twitter is also an instant alert tool in a fashion. OK, not all of your followers will get your Tweet at once, but those who do can take action right away. Try doing that with a blog post or a postcard. This means it is perfect for snap offers or breaking news.

Do not overlook the traffic boosting ability of Twitter too. Just like when you send an email out you can get a big spike in page views to your dealer website or deal pages, but also through “retweets” you can get pass along traffic just like when someone forwards your email to a friend.

That page that you send people to? That could be a newsletter opt-in form, so your twittering can drive more email opt-ins.

Of course it works the other way too. When you send an email out, either from your personal account or from a newsletter, mention your Twitter page. It will drive more followers.

One advantage Twitter has over email is people do not get as irritated when you tweet often, but send more than one newsletter email in a day and you will likely lose subscribers. So while you have to ration your email delivery, with twitter if it is useful or interesting tweet away! I send the same link up to four times a day in Twitter to catch several time zones but I would never dream of repeating an email unless I made a mistake the first time.

While social media is seen as the new shiny thing, it is far better to integrate these tools into your existing best practices. Twitter and email get along famously!