Using Twitter for Targeted Marketing Campaigns

[Scott]

Twitter has come on to the social media scene in a powerful way. With
millions of "Tweeters" around the globe, this is a difficult market to
ignore. What makes Twitter different from other social media sites?
Why should special interest or consideration be paid to using Twitter
over MySpace or Face Book in terms of target marketing? These
questions are sure to come to mind for the uninitiated, however, they
are easily answered after only a short experience with Twitter.

Twitter is extremely different from the traditional social media
formats like MySpace and Face Book. First, Twitter is vastly simpler
and easier to use, even for a technology novice. While the other
formats require extensive profiles, components and maintenance of a
personal profile site, Twitter requires a simple registration to
create the profile, then a user is off and running. All that is needed
for Twitter is the ability to type simple blurbs about your current
activities or interests. A user can "Tweet," or write a blurb, as
often or as infrequently as they desire. There are also many companion
programs available for Twitter which can manage your postings, to
allow them to be scheduled and uploaded when the user wishes, if they
do not want to be online all the time, but want to remain active with
posts. These add-ons can also manage contacts, responses to posts and
updates from "Tweeters" whom the user has chosen to follow.

Twitter is also unique in the fact that personal information is not
available unless the user posts it as a "Tweet." Therefore, people are
much more comfortable with interacting freely and networking with
others. On the traditional social media it is rare to see anyone with
more than a few thousand people in their network; however, there are
man "Tweeters" with followers ranging into the hundreds of thousands
and even millions. (Think Ashton Kutcher). But how does this relate to
Targeted Marketing? Certainly a large market exists, but targeting
specific market segments is easy on Twitter as well. Many Twitter
members are promotional spammers, just putting large volume out,
hoping for some interest. This is not what this article is referring
to or advocating. Twitter has a "real time" search capability, which
allows users to view "tweet" threads on any keywords searched for.
This allows a marketer to search for their product or service
keywords, and to find those "Tweeters" whom are currently discussing
topics related to their products or services. This is especially
useful when those potential consumers state that they are looking to
purchase or have a need for those items. Twitter allows members to
respond to posts freely. These responses can contain links to sites
and specific pages. Therefore, it is easy to direct qualified,
interested traffic to your through such targeted postings. However,
Twitter offers another advantage as well…Through network building,
your reach is increased. Every user who follows your account also gets
a copy of each posting you make. With a large following, this can mean
thousands, or in Ashton Kutcher's case, millions of links to your site
with a single targeted posting. For this reason, it is important to
socialize and be real, as well as to do business posts. Those users
who are like a constant infomercial lose the interest of followers
quickly and become irrelevant. Building a network of followers and
following appropriate users is just as important, if not more so, to
marketing than the posts themselves.

Twitter has positioned itself remarkably well in today's blog-centered
society. In a sense, Twitter is a micro-blog site, where users give
very short blogs, rather than long, well organized blogs like
traditional sites. This is useful because it lends itself to RSS
feeds. These feeds can be used to create interest in your site, as
those who visit your site may subscribe to your Twitter feed in order
to keep up to date on information, product offerings, sales, or just
on your goings on. Personally, my Twitter account has a link to it on
my company website, ezinearticles.com has a link to my Twitter account
as well, to automatically inform my followers when I post a new
article, as does Twine. In doing targeted marketing for a client, I
have created numerous links through posts, but I have also established
a mutual following with two key manufacturers who supply my client
with products. The value of this is twofold, one I get up to date
information from key suppliers and two, suppliers see my efforts to
increase sales for one of their distributors, which increases sales
for them. Never underestimate the value of good PR like that. One
caveat, keep your personal shares business appropriate, you do not
want to share things which could create a negative image of you or
your company. My final tip for Tweeting into commercial success is to
just jump in a give it a try.

Happy "Tweeting" I hope to see you there. Feel free to follow me and
say hi if you do come to Twitter, I would love to hear about your
successes and your ideas.


Scott Schwartz - SDS Consulting Group - Greenwich, CT - 203-979-9822
SDS Consulting Group Online Full service independent consultant.

Check me out at Twitter Twitter.com/SDSConsult

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