How Twitter Can Drive Your Bottom Line
Written by Stephen DiMarco (contact - e-mail) -- May 4th, 2009 |
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“Yes, I have tweeted.” If you’re a fan of Stephen Colbert, you’ll know that his boastful response to Meredith Viera earlier this month wasn’t phrased exactly that way, but it’s clear that America is tweeting along with him.
So, how many people are using Twitter? According to Compete data, 14 million people visited twitter.com in March, a 76% increase from February and a whopping 14 times more than March last year. And this doesn’t count the twitterati who rely on software apps like TweetDeck or Seesmic. The site already attracts more people than Ticketmaster, WSJ and LinkedIn, and the term “Twitter” had more queries than “American idol” and “IRS” across the top search engines last month. Like its social media predecessors, Twitter has captured the attention of consumers — and marketers have to play catch-up once again.
Given this explosive growth, is there any doubt that brands will try to tap Twitter as a marketing tool? But therein lays the challenge: marketers haven’t encountered anything like Twitter before. Despite its large user base, the underlying mechanics of Twitter are really about being atomically small. As a marketer, how can you hope to drive sales or create a branded experience when you’re faced with a 140-character limit and a massively fragmented audience? How do you attract a following? How does it influence your other marketing programs? And how do you know if your efforts are creating ROI?
If you’ve read my other submissions to Metrics Insider on Moneyball Marketing, you’ll know that I am a big fan of marketing that starts with a specific outcome, and then employs creative tactics and new metrics to measure progress and iterate along the way. And in this sense, Twitter is a great tool. While many people are content with Twitter’s soft ROI impact (like seeding and/or listening to conversations about your brand), we are starting to see examples of Twitter’s hard ROI impact, too. Southwest Airlines and JetBlue are tweeting promotional offers to followers, and Dell is probably the first company to achieve $1 million in sales exclusively through Twitter. And you can be sure these brands are taking what they learn from these campaigns and informing the rest of their marketing.
My personal favorite example comes from American Express, specifically its OPEN Forum. The OPEN Web site combines professional editorial, consumer-generated content and product marketing. To tap Twitter, American Express co-opted the popularity of its guest bloggers like Seth Godin, John Battelle and, in particular, Guy Kawasaki, ( who wrote about Twitter on the OPEN Forum site just last week).
To see exactly how American Express and OPEN Forum are excelling with their use of Twitter and getting measurable ROI, check out Compete’s monthly post on MediaPost.
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May 4th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
Stephen-
Thanks for bringing up this important discussion. Twitter provides a platform to facilitate two key things… relationship and transparency. Those two elements make it a hit for celebrities and marketers alike. It is a platform to be real with your following, and build relationship with them.
For marketers you can drive sales and traffic by accident, but it usually works better if you have a strategy. I recently wrote about this and even gave suggested targets as to the content of your tweets so as to maximize this.
It is also important to participate in conversations taking place within your following as well as trending topics. Larger companies will create a position for Twitter activities, but it isn’t necessary for small businesses or entrepreneurs who carve out a few minutes a few times a day to engage their following.
The entire article is available at http://www.marketingprofessor.com/social-marketing/3-rules-of-using-twitter-for-business/
Lastly, in order to determine ROI, it is important to measure. In a recent month, I’ve found 4% of traffic comes from twitter, and optins to the newsletter is from twitter visitors is 260% than the most popular search engine.
May 5th, 2009 at 12:40 am
Aq
May 5th, 2009 at 1:29 am
I am very new to this twitter business; but so far I can only find good side of twitter - as it has definitely helped my site by facilitating visits by many of the “twitterites” searching for coupons and deals. As a new player in coupon distribution market, I personally thank the Twitter team for everything they have done to couponchooser.com
Thanks…
Couponchooser
May 6th, 2009 at 9:56 am
It’s not rocket science. All you have to do is find a way to put your product/service alongside the real twitter message (as an ad), rather than as the twitter message itself.
Like for instance, you could hire a big celebrity who has a large following on twitter, and get him to become your spokesman and include your latest ad campaign micro-site link in his bio. The fact that the celeb is hawking stuff on twitter will make a big splash in the media, which just brings more attention to your ad.
May 8th, 2009 at 10:35 pm
There’s definitely a right and a wrong way to pursue these new marketing strategies.
Sure, you could (as suggested) hire a celebrity spokesperson to Tweet and hope that folks are drawn in. Of course, you’ll pay for the celeb, you’ll pay to get the word out that this is going on, etc. In the end, you might wonder if it was worth it vs say, having the celeb blog or frequently mention your product on facebook.
May 14th, 2009 at 5:38 am
Спасибо за интересные мысли. Сохранил на комп, вдруг пригодиться…
May 14th, 2009 at 7:51 pm
Thanks for the post.
Good to know your all information about twitter. It’s very useful.
I have an online shopping site basis of open market.
What do you think if I open the blog space site with online shopping solution all together.
Providing to registered blogger for cpc cpm profitable tools and also comission for selling products that display on my online shopping site?
Do you think it’s good business model?
May 24th, 2009 at 10:11 am
Благодарствую!!! На Вашем ресурсе часто появляются очень интересные посты! Очень поднимаете мой настрой.
May 27th, 2009 at 11:47 am
Все-таки, подобное не всем интересно. Хотя, каждому свое.
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Ну вот, дожился… Скоро за монитором буду проводить больше времени, чем с девушкой ((
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July 3rd, 2009 at 7:42 am
Спасибо!
Отличная информация!
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September 2nd, 2009 at 11:00 am
Спасибо.
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