[ad#468x60]I am pretty active on Twitter. Addicted wouldn’t be the perfect word to describe my Twitter use but I am pretty close. There certainly are days when I am checking my Treo ( if you are looking to buy a smart phone my suggestion would be to stay away from Treo. It sucks! ) to see whats new on Twitter even when I am not around the computer. Not good! My twitter use isn’t primarily for marketing purpose. Its networking and being surrounded by like minded people. Its a good platform to share thoughts, ideas and share interests.
Today I just wanted to share a few things that I personally think works better both in terms of building followers and for marketing. Remember if you are marketing on a social platform on the web, you can’t just send links to your product and services and expect results. That’s a fast road to being labeled “spammer.” The biggest misconception that I find on Twitter regarding building a presence or a massive following is : Follow everyone and atleast 75% will follow you. What is the point though? I don’t see a real benefit of this sort of mentality. If you want to network like crazy and follow 10,000 people’s tweets that swarm in like a group of bees, go right ahead. But if you are looking at Twitter as a marketing platform I just don’t see how it serves the purpose by doing mass following.
The key to any marketing campaign is to know your target market. A thorough research is vital for any marketing campaign and the same rule applies on Twitter as well. What is the point of promoting your products to 50,000 users on twitter when your actual target market might only be 2% of that. I hope you see my point. I personally think that if you want to promote your products, blogs, services or whatever it is, you need to find a way to create interest among users to build a following. This will create a “following” that is actually based on people that are interested in what you have to offer. That “following” is your target market. That following is who you want to reach.
If your comapny sells products only in US why the hell should you promote in Germany. It just doesn’t make sense. I think the key to marketing on twitter is to create a presence, a presence that compels others to follow you. A following that will welcome your messages both personal and business related.
Those are my personal opinion. Let me know what you think through your comments. Also if you like my thoughts and enjoy my tweets you can follow me here : ritubpant. Once again, follow only if you like what you see otherwise it just defeats the purpose of using Twitter.[ad#336x280]
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Most people (online and offline) are short-sighted. Good news is, this works out brilliantly for those who are not.
vimohs last blog post..How to follow the conversation?
I personally don’t see Twitter as a huge marketing tool, but simply a way to solidify social networking relationships. When you build a relationship with someone through Twitter or Facebook, you have the possibility of tapping their SOI, and that is where the real value is I think.
Justin | Searching Solutionss last blog post..Top 25 Funniest Google Ads Ever
You nailed it. I HAVE to limit the number of people I follow or the volume becomes overwhelming. Periodically I change out the people I follow, only keeping the ones who drive meaningful communication or who have insights that I value. By dropping some people and adding potentially relevant new ones, I can build a more effective and productive social network where I can both benefit and contribute. I am finding that following 50-100 people works best for me now, but tat number may increase a bit because I am now using TweetDeck, which lets me group the feeds into functional categories. Twittering at “BizTrek”
Gil Gerretsens last blog post..How To Find More Cash For Marketing
You make a great point! Even if you manage to get huge numbers of followers, if they’re only following you because you followed them, then they’re not valuable as an audience. Instead, if you can provide value to your Twitter followers so that they voluntarily follow what you say, then there’s a tremendous amount of value there, because they look to you as a source of information.
As Twitter continues to grow, it’s going to be up to the community to decide what types of marketing and advertising are going to be allowed and permitted, and what types are not. Already, we’ve seen a backlash against the Magpie service, which I discuss here: http://thefutureofads.com/2008/11/03/magpie-tries-to-make-twitter-an-ad-network-fails/
I think part of the problem with Magpie was what you discussed above. If the large numbers of followers that Magpie is paying for are not going to take action on any tweet that is made, then the CPM number might be really low, but the actual CPC or CPA might end up being really high, which is ultimately what advertisers are looking for.
It’s all about action, and if you don’t provide value to your Twitter followers, then they won’t take action when the time comes for you to request them to do something. It needs to be a give and take, and there’s a delicate balance between too much give, and too much take.
CoryOBriens last blog post..Sony Ericsson Shot Their Busty Ad With A Mobile Phone
Thanks for the feedback guys. I think Twitter can be a great marketing tool if we use it in moderation.
I haven’t yet jumped onto the Twitter bandwagon. It’s something I am considering in the future, and when I do I’ll be sure and check back to this post. Thanks for sharing, there’s some good concepts to follow.
Web Marketings last blog post..Complete Overhaul
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