Based on some widely reported stories about the success of two small businesses on twitter, @coffeegroundz and @nakedpizza (which we interviewed here), we can make some calculations that should be insightful and (absolutely) inspiring to small/local businesses everywhere.

NakedPizza, which at the time (May 2009) had 4,100 followers, was seeing 20% of their $1M in-store sales come from twitter. Wisely, Jeff Leach of NakedPizza has been careful to track the source of his phone-in and walk-in orders, so we can trust these numbers are very close to accurate.

So: 20% x $1,000,000 = $200,000. $200,000 /4100 = $48.79/follower.

When you account for the fact that many of Jeff's followers are social media types and those outside his local service area in New Orleans, the number is likely higher.

Since these stats were collected, Jeff has grown his following to 6,600. I don't know what his current revenue numbers are, but assuming no increase in traditional business, we can conclude that NakedPizza is now nearing $1.12M, or another 10% gain from Twitter in the past 5 months.

In the case of @CoffeeGroundz, a Houston Texas coffee shop who "nearly doubled" it's clientelle with Twitter, it's a little harder to figure a dollar value, but I don't need a formula to know that doubling your business is always a good thing.

This data was shared about 9 months ago. Today, @CoffeeGroundz has 8,700 followers. Since Twitter has more than tripled since this information was gathered, let's assume they had 3,000 (the article states 1,000, but err to the conservative) at the time.

This means every 60 followers = 1% increase in revenue.

Getting 60 targeted followers a day is not hard. I've done it. To be fair though, both of these accounts are manned by friendly people who converse with their customers on twitter more than they promote their business. Followers themselves don't amount to much. Targeted followers, much more. Targeted followers who become loyal and vocal fans through interaction is the secret.

Obviously these numbers don't work in every case. Dell's $3M in twitter sales for a $60B company doesn't quite have the same ring to it. But we're talking about small/local businesses who have made a tremendous impact to the bottom line through the social web. Location and user population will also play a role in your particular outcome, but in this economy you're dumb not to see for yourself.

You have an opportunity to kick the economy in the ass. We hope you take it!

Loading mentions Retweet