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It seems there is a lot of buzz around Twitter, and the act of “tweeting” what you are doing every 5 minutes. My developer friends Vid Luther and John Gray wrote a program called GeoTweet that estimates in San Antonio alone, there are over 1,200 “Tweeple” (compared to about 4,300+ in Austin, 8,700+ in Los Angeles, and 17,000+ in NYC). Techcrunch has estimated somewhere in the neighborhood of over 3 million users, and that was in March 2008.
So the answer is “yes”, Twitter can absolutely be used as a viable marketing tool. But first, let’s observe a few rules about using Twitter:
1. Post something useful. You see a lot of people tweeting play-by-plays of what they had for lunch. Quite frankly, no one really cares, and you are simply clogging up my timeline. Tweet a link to an interesting article you found, or a poll question, a new blog posting, or in my case, I like to tweet Website Analyzer scores that were recently run.
2. Don’t spam people. Twitter’s version of spam is you going out and following a bunch of people you don’t know for any reason, and hoping they will follow you back. Your followers will should grow organically. There is nothing wrong with following people with similar interests, but let them know how you found them.
3. Update moderately, but consistently. I think of Tweeting like blogging. You wouldn’t fill up your blog with hundreds of meaningless posts, right? Don’t over-tweet, but don’t under-tweet either. 5-10 tweets per day seems like a good number, and if you are posting meaningful stuff people care about, that is probably a tough goal.
4. Don’t use Twitter to chat. Some get confused between Twitter and chat. Don’t have a one-on-one conversation with your buddy – no one will know what you are talking about, so the more of that you do, the less they will pay attention to your tweets, and will likely “un-follow” you.
The point is, you have a real opportunity to find and engage a captive audience. Remember the Awareness – Consideration – Purchase graphic we used in one of our recent posts? This is the consideration stage of marketing – that crucial conversation piece that will have a much better chance of driving real conversions, or sales.
Example of How Dell Made $1M Using Twitter
My friend Alan Weinkrantz recently sent me an article about how Dell has chalked up $1 million dollars in revenue to Twitter. What they do is basically use Twitter to send special sale promotions to their followers. Now, you might be thinking that $1 million is not a lot of money to Dell, but look at it in terms of cost per acquisition. All they did (basically) was have the guy (or gal) who manages their Twitter account (which one of their several accounts has nearly 3,500 followers) send out a special promo code, and sit back and watch the sales come in. This is arguably one of the lowest cost per acquisition channels there is. Here is a link to the full article. Another company in San Antonio who does this very well is Mosso – Cloud Hosting.
Example of how Zappos.com Uses Twitter to Promote New $50,000 Product
I figured that would get your attention. That’s right, CEO Tony Hsieh is promoting his new “Cease and Desist” $50,000 t-shirt through Twitter and other channels. It’s a hilarious marketing campaign that says if you purchase this $50,000 t-shirt, that your wife or significant other will no longer be allowed to purchase shoes from Zappos.com for life. Check out the $50,000 t-shirt promo here. Want to know if he sold any? Follow Tony on Twitter and find out.
Example of how the Health Care industry uses Twitter
Really? The health care industry? That’s right! Check out this article on how health care providers use Twitter that my friend Jennifer Dunn over at GDC sent me. They use it to ask questions to engage their audience, post safety tips, and even health reminders, like when it’s time to get flu shots.
So if we follow a few basic rules, grow our captive audience base, there is no reason why Twitter cannot be a part of your marketing mix. With little overhead and the chance for ultra-low cost per acquisition, you would be missing out if you weren’t engaged in this channel. What do you think?
