COMMENTS
I love Laura, but I'm a little confused about this post. The title of the post, "My Customers
Don't Use Twitter, Why Should I?" doesn't really jive with three out of the five summarized points.
If my customers don't use Twitter I can't use Twitter to research what they're saying about my brand (#2). Same for #3 - aggregating content about my brand is impossible if my customers aren't using Twitter to create content about it. And #4 says to use Twitter to start a WOM campaign. Sounds great, if only my customers actually used Twitter.
Did I miss something?
Great information Laura! My niche market is the pet industry and many of my clients don't even want to bother with Twitter, Facebook or any of the other social media sites. I keep telling them that it is very important that they join at least one social media site. I'll be posting your video on my blog :) Thank you again for the great info!
Great reasons to be active ob Twitter even if your customers aren't. Thanks for the reminder!
Scott:
Good questions. Here are my responses.
#2) Any large mass of *vocal* people is fantastic tool for market research. My favorite example is "crowdsourcing" as a brainstorming tool. They don't have to be in your immediate market to give you valuable opinions.
#3) If people aren't talking about your brand, can you aggregate content about something else? Perhaps collect tweets about an issue that your product or service solves? It doesn't *have* to be about you or your company specifically. Creativity could come into play.
#4) The point here is non-Twitter users know Twitter-users and vice versa. The Dell coupon campaign started on Twitter and moved to inbox to inbox, and hand to hand.
Good debate!
I am new to twitter.So please tell me to use twitter for marketing?
Arthur: I think a good start is to check out the free Twitter kit at the bottom of the post. Might have some helpful information?
Another great resource is Laura's website: http://www.pistachioconsulting.com
Good luck!
It is not only your customers you are looking for on Twitter which is important for people to understand also. It could be an editor of a B2B publication that overlaps your industry who could catch a tweet from you and all of a sudden there is an article about your business. With Twitter you have to also think outside the box. It is ok if customers don't start flocking to your website. Conversions can in many shapes and sizes.
Very surreal, am currently listening to Laura's webinar from #IMU when I got this as an email alert. She is brilliant. Have just started using @rentokil so am still learning, so these tips are great.
I have two questions in regards to the SEO aspect of Twitter.
1. To get good rankings also means having a good link reputation (as well as the mentioned fresh and relevant content). So how am I supposed to engage customers who are not on twitter or others who are to build that link reputation?
2. If my customers are not on or don't use Twitter and a well ranking search result points to my twitter page, not my website, that seems almost worthless to me. I would imagine, someone most likely won't click on that link or will leave immediately because they are not interested in Twitter.
Loren
Loren:
1. The SEO tip is in regards to how your Twitter page itself ranks. (Not your website.) Active Twitter pages rank well for the Twitter username. If it is your company name, there's another piece of well-ranking content that people will find on the first page of Google.
2. I agree. It is MUCH more important for your website to rank. However, this is about increasing your content footprint in general. You want to dominate as much of the first page of Google as possible with information about you. -- If you are tweeting interesting and helpful things on your Twitter, it will be helpful to potential customers even if they don't tweet themselves. Your page is still a public site that non-Twitter users can read.
These are all great tips, people need to go beyond "marketing" in social media, to thinking creatively on how to use the tools for all aspects of business promotion online. It's not always about direct hits on your market. Great advice here, thanks for sharing :-)
Scott -- (aww, thanks)
The Madonna example got slightly skewed. She doesn't yet tweet that I know of. The point was if she did tweet she could share it with her fans via widgets on her website (preferably portable ones they could add to their sites) and never need a single fan to join Twitter in order to benefit.
The point about research extends to many types of research beyond customer research: product innovation, industry news, competitive research, etc. I gave a John Deere example once - maybe the core Deere demographic is not represented on Twitter, but plenty of chatter about people's lawn mowing behavior - seasonality, concurrent interested and activities, frustrations over, etc. - IS there.
WOM definitely spills off of Twitter because of the pass along nature of the medium and because it's still disproportionately the kind of people who are well-connected and/or write for blogs and other media outlets. When I did #pinkslipparty in Jan 2009, just 20 hours of tweeting about it brought in 3 recently laid-off attendees who had never even used Twitter. A friend told them. @DellOutlet reported $500,000 in sales at a time when they had less than 1,000 followers on Twitter, so clearly those offers were being passed along to people NOT on Twitter.
Hope this helps. For more detail view the video and the webinar?
Hope you're having a great summer.
Warmly,
Laura
Loren - also, don't forget that:
1) YOUR website is just one click away from your Twitter profile (your web URL)
2) I'm pretty sure a Twitter profile with strong pagerank will convey direct SEO benefits to your site's pagerank when you link to your site in your tweets. (Note: the profile website link itself is nofollow).
I will disclaim tho, I am no SEO expert, so I'd bet there are others who can offer a more thorough analysis of the full range of effects and influence.
Laura,
Thanks tons for the answers and the additional follow-up. I understand a bit but I'm no SEO guru here either but I would assume your answer about a strong Twitter page rank benefiting the websites ranking to be true.
Maria hit it on the head though. At least in one respect: Social media is very much like the salesman out on the show floor, there to interact with the people, not just shove fliers in their face as they walk by.
Loren
Thanks Laura - this makes more sense. The post title related to the summarized examples threw me because I was skimming (imagine that).
Obvious to many, but I think it's important to note that the effectiveness of a WOM campaign originating from Twitter increases exponentially based on the number of followers. A WOM campaign starting with a user with 100 followers isn't likely to go as far as fast as someone with 36k (or more) in their network.
Cheers!
World’s Top Internet Marketing, Social Media and Online Business Books you should have read but haven’t yet: http://htxt.it/ghrb
This is a great post Laura. I hear this objection all the time -"my customers are not on Twitter so why should I"...I would throw another benefit into the mix. What if someone (anyone) posts a negative tweet on your business. This can happen whether you are on Twitter or not. However, if you have an active presence on Twitter, you are in a much better position to address the issue and defend your position. i.e. communicate directly with the person (on Twitter), address the concern as best you can and aim to get the discussion off Twitter and into a one on one communication as quickly as possible. If you are not on Twitter, bad word of mouth can just run rampant and you have little defence. As Gray VanRees say "Twitter is word of mouth on Steriods"...that can be good AND bad.
As someone who has been unsuccessful with Twitter, I find this info very useful. I can now focus on using it in a different way.
Great post Rebecca. And thank to Laura for answer Scott debate.
I really impress about how twitter can help you go into search engine (Google) first page, for very short and common word like Pistachio.
Interesting article (I genuinely believe that Twitter can be a powerful communication tool if you use it in a relevant way) but some of the points don't add up.
I can't see Laura 'dominating' the search rankings. On page 1 of Google UK there is one entry for her twitter account, the others relate to other business. That is not domination. Agree that having a twitter profile helps with your overall SEO presence but it does not by any means dominate. It becomes interesting when you integrate your Twitter presence with all other marketing channels including your main website.
The other point that is sometimes too intangible to get Clients attention is "word of mouth passalong". If your customers aren't on Twitter, then the only passalong you will get is if tweeps pass on info they think is interesting to contacts of theirs who exist outside Twitter. That then becomes very difficult to measure to proove the impact of your time investment. I agree that there is a benefit and this does clearly happen but budget holders want accountability and proof of impact. Measurement will always be difficult.
I use Twitter daily and find it invaluable for networking and gathering info. I have personal relationshisp with brands that use it well to drive traffic/sales to their websites. However, most of our Clients would only invest in this if they think their customers will be directly affected and can proove it.
thanks
james
Laura, thanks for the great information, you've definitely remained true to your final takeaway. Your final takeaway impacted me the most. I find that its also far more fun, enjoyable, and natural to make a valuable contribution than to simply try and sell. I've managed to learn this the hard way :-) Thanks again.
twitter have no follow links, so no it won't help you with SEO
Laura= Twitter Fan Girl #1
Laura...I agree with you 100%! The best thing that you said was to serve. So many Twitter users push their info on followers and end up with many unfollows and blocked accounts. Thanks for the video. @photoshoptips
me too got the inspiration to use twitter in a new way. thanks for the valuable information and tips
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