How to use twitter to promote your onlineshop – part 1
Twitter has been a phenomenon for some time now - at least for us early adopters who play around with every new tech or application we can find. Although there have been some discussions about whether or not twitter has reached the masses, with just a few million users I think this is hardly the case…yet. Nevertheless twitter has been hyped as the new thing and I have to admit that I enjoy using it very much. And so do all the marketeers and social media specialists out there, proclaiming twitter as THE new tool for social media marketing. That begs the questions - is twitter really relevant when it comes to effective marketing? Lets see…
Figures and target group
With over 8 million users in the US, twitter might even reach between 50-100 million users worldwide by the end of this year. I guess that we have about 2 million users here in Europe, but I lack numbers to confirm that.
Many of those users are innovators and early adopters, who, by their nature, toy around with every new and interesting tool they can find. Given the imense growth of 33% a month (in the US), demographics will change though. Over the next month, twitter will reach a new group called “Early Majority”. But what does all that mean for the question if twitter is relevant from an ecommerce point of view?
Questions you have to ask yourself
There are a few questions you have to ask yourself, if you want to find out if twitter is a marketing tool for you.
1. Is there potential in using twitter for my territory?
So you sell stuff - but to which market? Do you ship globally or do you supply only customers within your country? If you have a very limited territory, do you know how many twitter users there are in this region? This might be hard to research, but you should try to get a good picture of the potential there is for your twitter activities.
2. What kind of products do you sell?
Not every product is suited for twitter marketing. If you sell toilet paper, chances are that noone will look or retweet your information. Ask yourself if you can produce useful information for your readers, rather than just sending out marketing links, but more on that later.
3. Are you prepared to use twitter to communicate with your clients?
Twitter is most of all a tool for communication! It can be used for marketing pruposses, but don’t be surprised if someone wants to talk to you via twitter. Communication is the new marketing, so be prepared to communicate! But is your boss aware of that? Or if you are the boss - do you encurage your employees to communicate with your clients? Never see it as a waste of time to talk to your customers.
In part 2 of this article I will give you some ideas on how to get started with your own twitter strategy. Click here to read the second part of this article.
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