Has Twitter killed the Yellow Pages?

One of the less gratifying things about owning a house is that every so often things need to be fixed. Usually at inconvenient times... and generally at great expense.

Before my own house ownership days I remember my parents leafing through the Yellow Pages in search of a plumber, electrician, roofer (or whoever was needed to fix the current problem). This was the era of the iconic J.R Hartley advertising campaign plugging Yellow Pages as the starting point in the search for any goods or service (much like the Google of its day?).

Yellow Pages in the UK has moved online since then of course. By the time I started looking for home repair services the listings were more likely to be shown in a Google search results page than on yellow paper, but the basic model of a directory listing all the local businesses (with some paying for premium spots) continued.

For a lot of people though, Twitter has killed this model stone dead. I have a healthy network of local Twitter followers and when I need to know a good heating engineer or roofer... I just ask.

Nine times out of ten I end up with one or more recommendations for local businesses. These are from people who I know and trust and who have used the business themselves - and been so pleased that they bother to tell me about it.

It doesn't matter whether they are listed in a directory, or have paid extra for a flashy advert. The people who plug them aren't being paid to do so either, they just want to help someone out and spread the word about a business they think offers great service.

Businesses using Twitter for their own push marketing don't have the same effect. A recommendation from one of my followers goes a long way towards building trust. If a business I don't know sees my tweet about "a decent plumber" and responds to say they offer that service... then it basically shows they know how to use Twitter search. If they offer a useful tip or some advice then it may help, but it's still not the same as a recommendation.

I am a really long way from being the first person to identify this trend, but what interests me is that it doesn't matter whether the plumber or the roofer is on Twitter themselves. Often I only get sent a phone number to call someone and "say that X recommended them".

Twitter is helping these businesses to get work even if they are not on it, don't care about it or actively dislike it. In fact, just by quietly doing a great job for their existing customers, they may be getting more benefit from Twitter than competitors who spend time tweeting about their services (or paying someone else to do it for them).

You can't short circuit this process though. Singing your own praises won't get you far and if you want your own customers to recommend you then you have to offer them something pretty special.