by Jason Drohn – Follow him @jasondrohn
Every marketing agency in the world is trying to figure out social media right now. The funny thing is bloggers and content creators have been embracing social media for years, building their own brands around social services.
If you were to walk into the top marketing agency in your area and ask what the ‘Digg Effect’ was, what kind of response do you think you’d get?
In Boston, Chicago or San Francisco, they’d be able to tell you exactly what it was. Ask an established blogger or anyone who’s been around the web for a while, and you’d get a correct answer. That marketing agency, they’d reply, “What’s Digg?”
Social marketing is a raging phenomenon and Twitter is the darling of the group. In fact, there are a number of ways I’ve coached clients to use Twitter. Some more successfully than others. Here’s the shortlist of the most successful:
Customer Service
Don’t be afraid to provide customer service through Twitter as long as you offer exceptional service. It’ll give you top of mind in your customer’s eyes and their followers will see your interactions (depending on the structure of the tweet).
Sales and Promos
The worst thing you can do is treat Twitter like a billboard and incessantly spew garbage about this promotion and that sale. Don’t be afraid to run Twitter-only promotional offers, though. Make sure you put a deadline on it, like 24 hours, and be sure to track the sales.
Events
If you’re holding an after hours event or a weekend motorcycle ride, share the news with your followers. Make sure to include a link to where they can register!
Locations
One of the most interesting uses I’ve seen of Twitter is an ice cream truck that tweeted his path for the day. He’d let his customers know where he’d be so they could meet up and take some ice cream off his hands! It’s a brilliant way to keep up with customers!
Project Updates
One thing I was doing when I did web design was keep clients updated on their projects through Twitter. They appreciated the interaction and the status updates, and they could reply about design changes or functionality. It saved tons of time because I wasn’t on the phone or running between offices all day.
Unfortunately, when most people think about Twitter marketing, they think of blatant, spammy promotional methods. If you implement one or two of the methods above, you’ll be adding value for your clients and increasing your following in the process.
Please share your thoughts. What has worked for you in the past? Is there something special you’re doing to build your fanbase?
@7son75
Great post. I really like the ice cream truck example. Very creative and innovative use of Twitter.
@webzillatech
Useful TIPS . Thanks
@hisubash
Thanks for the tips bro, nowadays twitter is everywhere
@milehighshows
I also like to do market research using sites like http://TwitPipe.com and other Twitter search sites
@jasondrohn
@7son75 – I thought it was brilliant when I read it too. Very cool example of using Twitter as an update engine rather than the traditional marketing outlet.
@hisubash – I know, SportsCenter, CNN, MSNBC, it’s nuts. I was listening to a radio show that said, “Follow @XYZRadio for all the radio news.” Crazy.
@entwipreneur
Thanks for the post. Love the ice cream truck Tweeting where it is. Great idea.
@xgineer
I like the project updates but if you are serious in using this format for projects you have to check out socialcast. Amazing system.
@Martin_Kevin
Great article. I especially enjoyed the ice cream truck example – pure brilliance. It reminded me of another interesting use of Twitter that I heard of a few months ago. A bakery (unsure of where it was) apparently developed a box mounted on or close to their oven. This box was used to send Tweets out to the bakery’s followers announcing that fresh baked goods were just being pulled out of the oven. I believe it also had a dial on it to adjust which type of baked good it tweeted.
A little less interesting, but at Impulse Studios we use Twitter to post about new clients and also to alert the masses of new blog posts in our “Labs” section. We’ve noticed direct positive correlations between those tweets (and diggs, etc.) and traffic spikes to our site using Google Analytics.
@BILL_ROMANOS
Excellent post. I hope there is a follow up that provides more elaboration. It would be interesting to see what is or has been sold via Twitter and what success or failures have occurred via sales or attempted sales on or via Twitter.
Bill Romanos
Palm Beach Gardens, Florida
@jordanperks
My biggest pet peeve are people that I am following that provided interesting and valuable content that suddenly discover some sort of $ making technique and proceed to to flood every tweet with with “I got “x” followers and made “x” dollars by doing “x”. Check out this link.” It has started happening al ot in the last 2 weeks for me. I think I have unfollowed 10 people in the last week.
@gemmawent
Some of us marketers know what the Digg Effect is my friend!
Good post, I’d add the use of Twitter as a research tool (love how willing Tweeters are to get involved in this) and as a very valuable part of the digital PR process.
@NicksTraffic
Great post!
I think the secret to successful marketing on twitter is to give people information that they actually care about.
The ice cream truck was a perfect example of this.
I run a blog on how to get traffic to your website. Whenever I post some newly informative article on my blog I tweetabout it. Within seconds I have traffic to my new content from people who are interested.
I highly recommend not advertising directly on twitter but rather using it as a gateway to get people to your website. Once a person is actually at your site then you can market to them.
@copia
Great, cut-to-the-chase advice. I think you could be a little more clear in your distinction between twitter-only sales and promo’s and certain kinds garbage-spewing spam. (It’s great to offer free services, but it’s harder when you have a business to support vs. just a blog you want people to read). The reason i mention it is that one of the things consumers care about–now more than ever–are sales and promos. I know several local and franchisee-based businesses which have used twitter to successfuly drive sales by promoting them through twitter, which has the added advantage of being free. In fact, your tips implicitly suggest that twitter works best (or is at least most interesting) when things are time and space specific. (ice-cream truck, fresh baked goods) In any case, thanks for useful and thought-provoking post.
@JamesMcWhorter
I like the idea of keeping clients up to date. Thanks for the tip!
I’ve been using more location-based social networking iPhone Apps, like Loopt, to show my followers photos of where I am and what I’m doing. Fun!
@gwenmccauley
Good thoughts and suggestions.
One thing that people often forget is that sales & marketing are not the same thing. Marketing is about creating interest and desire for what you have to offer. Sales is about turning interest into a purchase. And Twitter is definitely much more of a marketing vehicle than a sales one.
I tell all of my small business development coaching clients that they need to remember that regardless of the product or service they are offering in the marketplace, when all is said and done people are buying THEM, not their product. So as a small business person you have to invest time in having people get to know who you are, what you stand for, what your values are and what a good human being you are. If you can’t bring yourself to be that open with the world, perhaps Twitter is not the place for you to be.
Gwen McCauley