Using Twitter for Targeted Marketing Campaigns

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.