Social media marketing is on fire, perhaps nowhere as clearly as on Twitter. It’s nearly impossible to find a Twitter user who does not follow any accounts that are clearly used to sell a product or push an agenda. Twitter marketing is so prevalent that, at times, it looks like marketers have dominated the platform and mostly tweet amongst themselves, with little real activity from the average user. There is, in fact, a large subset of Twitter users who log on daily, actively talk with their friends, and follow companies or movements that they are passionate about. Becoming friends and engaging with this kind of customer requires a different kind of marketing style focusing on an honest dialog with your customers.
Twitter is about brevity. Quick, short status updates allow users to digest hundreds of messages every minute. It’s not only possible, it’s likely, that many of your messages will get lost in the flurry of status updates.
The key to effectively running a Twitter social marketing effort is updating with attention-getting updates primarily targeted at engaging users in a conversation. Here are some great examples:
(From a Conservative/Tea Party oriented political blog) 63% of Americans think that the government is too involved in our lives, but where do you draw the line? What industries should government be in (or not be in)?(From a popular blogger) Surprise! I’m going to tweet two days in a row. I bet nobody saw that coming. What’s up?(From Sarah Palin) Ground Zero Mosque supporters: doesn’t it stab you in the heart, as it does ours throughout the heartland? Peaceful Muslims, pls refudiate
***Politicians tend to send the most polarizing Tweets. I do not suggest this for your marketing campaign!***
In all of these messages, the goal was not to promote an article, story, or product, but to get followers to @reply back to the poster. This kind of engagement is more about brand loyalty and building a following than closing a sale, which is better suited for a sales page than Twitter.
The popular Web comic Questionable Content found another unique way to involve customers by creating faux Twitter accounts for characters in the comic. All of the main characters, as well as some supporting characters, have Twitter feeds that follow each other (and no one else).
Many companies, notably Starbucks and a number of Vegas hotels, have begun to push Twitter toward a kind of customer service and feedback application. They encourage customers to just hop on the platform and send out tweets tagging their products and services. Then, if a user reports a negative experience, it’s followed up with a quick Direct Message from customer service. Engaging customers and improving quality of service is one of the clearest benefits offered by Twitter.
In any event, successful Twitter feeds are those that create a dialog between the company and users. When a user hashtags or posts an @reply, it provides free word of mouth advertising for the company. When done en masse, it often results in a tweet going viral, as did Sarah Palin’s widely-known misuse of the made-up word “refudiate” in the Twitter message posted above. While it’s unlikely that this mistake was deliberate, it did get retweeted thousands of times by Palin’s half a million followers, and there’s no such thing as bad publicity—so they say.
Once a pattern of quality tweets is established, it’s okay to announce major releases of new products via Twitter. Offering coupons or promotions, too, is fine. But if marketing is all your Twitter feed consists of, you will find yourself talking to other marketers more often than your real, passionate followers.
Posted by Greg Henderson, an Internet Marketer and SEO Associate for two public records sites: RecordsProject & N2Genealogy. Please feel free to leave a comment or e-mail him.
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