Twitter announced a useful new tool today that helps businesses better connect with customers and community. Twitter Dashboard is a free iOS app as well as a desktop platform that is designed to become the Twitter platform for business. The Dashboard is especially helpful for small businesses which don’t have the use of expensive third party tools or outside consultants to manage their Twitter image and Twitter related marketing. Twitter is hoping that the Dashboard encourages business owners to engage with Twitter more and make Twitter more mainstream in their marketing.

The Twitter Dashboard provides businesses a clear view of what’s being said about them at any given time via a custom feed so that business owners can react and engage authentically in realtime. The app also lets a business schedule Tweets, edit Tweets and provide analytics related to the businesses use of Twitter. The idea is to help business owners and others working in a small business the opportunity to react and communicate with their customers quickly whether in the office or out.

One idea Twitter posted about is for small businesses to schedule Tweet tips related to their business in order help start the conversation and engage their followers. For example:

“If you work at a restaurant, a tip like, “Your team is as unique as your business. Tweet a surprising fact about one of your team members,” might remind you to share some recent recognition your chef received. Or, if you’re an interior designer, seeing, “Share the love. Like and Retweet kind words from your customers,” might prompt you to Retweet a customer’s excited reaction to one of your recent projects.”

Twitter asked some businesses to comment on how they would integrate Twitter Dashboard into their marketing:

Being able to easily schedule Tweets and manage my queue with Twitter Dashboard is critical to staying on track with our engagement campaigns on Twitter.
Logan Robinson, Social Media Manager, @GarnetandGold:

From our first use we could tell Twitter Dashboard would become an essential tool for our business. Not only is scheduling Tweets now a seamless experience, but having access to a custom timeline is helping us identify the best opportunities to engage with our customers and potential customers on Twitter. — Jeff Kitchen, Online Community Manager @Crutchfield