In this guest post Chris Gillis from Saltline Studio (follow him at @saltlinestudio) talks about creating space for your customer on TWitter.
I’d like to talk a little about creating space for your customers, friends and future customers on Twitter today. I’ve been working closely with Bin Ends Wine (@binendswine) on Twitter to offer their customers (well, fellow wine geeks) and friends a few key things:
#1 A Twitter relationship that works in both directions
#2 An avenue for having a good time on a regular basis interacting through Twitter Wine Tastings (http://www.twittertastelive.com
When tweeting to your customer or potential customer, there certainly is a need for a back and forth. Tweeters that constantly sell are not offering anything back and will get the ‘unfollow’ right away. Someone who offers good content on a regular basis is giving back and you continue to follow them. When it comes to a business, if I want to be sold crappy products I would watch QVC streaming all day.
That is not to say that you can’t give your followers certain deals or work up discounted products just for them, after all these are some of your online friends or fellow wine geeks. So this is something that Bin Ends does on a regular basis – they offer Twitter only wines like the ones below:
Bin Ends has a unique business model where they carry only a certain amount of a single product at a great price will it sells out. For example – 50 bottles that normally were $30/bottle for $15/bottle. When that inventory gets down to say 15 bottles or so, they will tweet it out to their favorite customers…the Tweets. This gives their followers an advantage over the regular consumer who just drops by every once in a while and browses inventory – a back and forth.
Bin Ends is constantly trying new wines as well, and owner Craig will post direct tasting notes in 140 characters (which is very hard believe it or not). Any of these bottles could be exactly what a given Twitter follower loves, and they can pick it up from Bin Ends or their local dealer – a back and forth.
We started to talk about holding online wine tastings and that’s where the idea for Twitter Taste Live came about. Our angle was to create an exciting space where not only could we hold a tasting through Twitter, but we could also connect wine drinkers directly with the person making the wine or the importer of a set of wines. We enable some video and use hashmarks to track the tasting online via the middle column so you don’t have to be following everyone in order to see the tasting live. See below:
Other Wine Tweeters can take part in these tastings by either buying the designated wines from their local wine shop or directly through Bin Ends. It is really great when you have a whole bunch of wine lovers tweeting at the same time as they sip live.
So this was a space that we not only created for ourselves, but for all the other wine geeks on Twitter. It really is just an area where if you want to hold a tasting, just get in touch with Craig (@binendswine) and pitch the idea. We created this space for other Tweeters and wineries that love to get a group of people together…and tweet live about a certain style, producer, etc.
So how do you Creating Space for YOUR customer?
First, you must offer up some value. Tweeting what you’ve got for sale in your retail store or Etsy store right now isn’t going to cut it. Coming up with creative ways to work your product into your tweets and offering your fellow Tweets some value is going to work. This is going to differ depending on which type of product of you carry, but if I was a seasonal retailer I would start tweeting just before the season to get everyone excited about what is coming up. Whole Foods does a great job with this:
They are already dropping the hint before you even start thinking about citrus. They are offering up something to their followers, and that is the main point I am bringing across in this article. Offer your customer, friend or potential customer something in return and you may just get their loyal following.
@gtvone
I have multiple ‘”online” persona… The one I twitter with is part of my blog – Absolute Ramblings – no link, you can find it yourselves
I try to offer things that I find around the web, twisted in with little thoughts and dreams (Todays “errr, I had another camera dream” blog) …I’m not sure if this is classified as “giving something back”
I like to think of myself as your “light reading” between “heavy reading” if that makes any sense?
Another great article from twitip Darren – thanks.
Sime
@DerekHalpern
This article is great, but I think it can be easily misunderstood amongst a crowd of bloggers. Sending your blog post links via Twitter is not preferential treatment. If they wanted to read your blog, they would be reading it. However, sending links to stuff you’re reading, what you’re watching, or what you’re doing is much better.
@amauiblog
What a clever idea! Good for the wine geeks! Have a great time – aloha!
@warrenss
Appreciate the guidelines for “creating space for your customers” and developing a Twitter relationship that works in both directions. However, I think that the Twitter examples you gave are just one sided which show the brand pushing their message and offers without any dialogue or engagement with their customers. After all, Twitter is about community relationships and engagement, isn’t it?
@glwallace
Great post! Readers, just make sure you are responsible with the advertisements of your blog/website. No one wants to be bombarded with repetitive requests.
Remember, people don’t care what you know, until, they know that you care.
Cheers!
@dantanner
Landing pages for twitters is now coming into vogue. You call the above an example of the
” SQUEEZE” page made famous by Internet Marketers, selling Affiliate products, which goes on and one down the bottom. Our Google Analytics show a 75% bounce rate for twitters on the regular blog. Will that change if there is a ” squeeze page” I don’t know.
@shawnjooste
Thanks for the post. I have been thinking about this for a while. Twitter on a personal lever is fine, and its easy enough to ‘make friends’ with tweeple. But when it comes to a business or a service, how do you engage your customer or potential?
This post has given me some ideas and I think it’s a good start.
@saltlinestudio
Thanks everyone for the posts.
Twittermaven – The above example tweets do look a bit one sided, but I was trying to hammer the point in a small blog post. If you look at Bin Ends Twitter Stream, you will see an enormous amount of customer service http://twitter.com/binendswine – shipping, wine recommendations, conversations, etc. – that is just with the customer. As for the wine bloggers, take a look some back forth with @1winedude or @winecast or @WineDiverGirl, etc – we have all become good friends…and will drink wine live with each other in the Valley of the Rhone at some point (well I hope so anyways). Thanks.
@hectorhenr17
Interesthing
@storyboardlife
@Derek I think that it’s meant to be exclusive when you send it to specific people. you have a point because everyone that’s following you and them will receive it unless they are DM them.