In the previous article, I talked about why twittering is necessary for companies and why you really need to be on twitter. Today, I am going to wrap up some key benefits you will gain by using twitter, which could help and improve your marketing effort.
1. Establishing Repertoire with Your Customers / Readers
Twitter allows for a bit more personal, less formal, more fun mode of communication. It allows audiences to catch a glimpse of you just as a regular person sending SMS texts from Wal-Mart or wherever, rather than as a serious, detached blogger or business owner. This allows people to connect and relate to you on a personal level – it makes you look just like a “regular Joe”, especially if you include random/fun tweets among the more serious, business-driven tweets.
2. Keeping Your Customers / Readers Updated
With a blog, you might only update once or twice per week. With Twitter, you might send a handful of tweets per day, keeping your followers “in the loop” and reminding them of your existence.
Of course, it’s not recommended to send a million tweets per day. This will only serve to annoy people and they will likely un-follow you.
3. Building a Loyal, Steady Customer-Base
“BUILD A LIST!” As a marketer, I’m sure you’ve heard this refrain many times over. Building a list is one of the most vital steps you can take in the advancement of your online marketing. Twitter is pretty much the same as building a list – although it might be even more effective in the long run.
When it comes to an email list, a large portion of your subscribers won’t even glance at the emails you send. Their eyes will glaze over and they may even send it to the trash. With Twitter, your followers will see all of your Tweets. They’ll digest its information in about half a second and if you include a link, they probably won’t get offended.
Chances are, if you included an eye-catching description, they’ll probably click it! Additionally, it won’t SEEM like you are marketing to them, because you’re just another Twitter user tweeting about random stuff!
4. Building Up Excitement for a Product Launch
Just like with an email list, Twitter can be used to build up excitement about an upcoming product launch. It can start with occasional Tweets about your “new project”, and by keeping your followers up to date and offering freebies and cool stuff that they’ll appreciate, you’ll build trust and anticipation. When your product launches, a well-timed Tweet may likely be just as effective as a blast to your email list.
5. Driving Traffic to Your Website
Wouldn’t it be great if you could instantly notify hundreds or thousands of people every time you update your blog? Twitter makes this possible. It essentially acts as an RSS feed. By building a sizable list of followers, you pretty much have access to an instant source of traffic to your website or blog.
People who would otherwise not be aware of updates and new content will be notified, giving them a chance to check it out. If your blog is high-quality, people will keep an eye out for more of your Tweets.
6. Building Relationships with Business Contacts
Twitter makes it easy to keep in touch with business partners and contacts. Traditional instant messaging is on its way out, and you’ll find that most savvy internet marketers use Twitter as their primary social networking tool. So take advantage of this fact! Hook up with your contacts so you can work on building a closer relationship.
7. Crowd-Sourcing
Crowd-sourcing is a unique form of outsourcing. It works by calling on your friends, fans, followers, email subscribers etc to contribute ideas and solutions. Basically, it is a form of “group intelligence”.
By listening to the crowd, marketers and business owners can figure out the exact thoughts, needs, and wants of their customer base. In this way, innovative new ideas and strategies are born, which are guaranteed to fall in line with the desires of the consumer.
By directly asking your followers what type of new software they’d like to see developed, or what their biggest setbacks are, or what they liked/disliked most about your last product, you can gain an incredibly amount of insight about your business!
Twitter provides a perfect platform for crowd-sourcing.
8. Going Viral
Social networking sites give us a great opportunity to ‘go viral’, which means that you Tweet about something that really catches people’s attention. Your followers are impressed, so they re-Tweet it.
In turn, each of their followers re-Tweet it, and so on and so on, and soon your little Tweet spreads like wildfire, snowballing into a huge storm of clicks and traffic.
Of course, TRYING to make something go viral probably won’t work. It tends to just happen on its own. If you Tweeting, example, “Hey guys, buy my new book click here” will never go viral, obviously. But if you find something really interesting, little-known, valuable, funny, etc., you might have a chance.
Very often, Tweets go viral without anyone really expecting or planning on it. This is just one of the many amazing benefits of social networking.
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About Ann Liu
