The MASSIVE Guide to Marketing on Twitter

To anyone who has not used it before, social networking and micro-blogging site Twitter can seem hyped up and not serious enough for promoting a business. Yet when you run a business you are catering for the general public, who make up almost the entire population of Twitter. The only Twitter users (tweeters) you won't be aiming a marketing campaign at is your competitors, but even then you can share some useful links with your fans without accidentally promoting each other.

What is Twitter?

If you've never come across it before, Twitter is similar to instant messaging clients like MSN Messenger, in that you can have real-time conversations with other users. The main rule on Twitter is that any tweet (message) you send is limited to 140 characters, I.e. the same number as a cell phone text message. It's also a micro-blogging site, so you can send a tweet about something that's happening in your life and it's there, sent to everyone who follows you.

Is it making sense yet? You can tweet about your brand new product line and give a link to the relevant website page. Followers can tweet you with any questions they have, or buy it instantly (or find their nearest store if you don't operate online). You can do this even before your retail store has opened by tweeting the launch date and inviting people to come along. If you need to know about the inner workings of twitter and how to get started, take a look at this video guide.

The Re-Tweet

Re-tweeting is a huge bonus for any store with a Twitter account. The principle with the re-tweet (called 'RT' for short) is that when you see a tweet you really like, you re-tweet it to your followers, essentially spreading the word. Tweeters sometimes add their comments onto the end of a tweet of yours that they've sent out, so if you think it might get re-tweeted then try and keep it short. If someone re-tweets one of your tweets then you will see it in your own time line, prefixed with 'RT'.

The Micro-PR Distribution Site

When it comes to PR, Twitter is pretty much your best friend. Ever. If you've got a reasonable following of the right kind of people on twitter (a minimum of around 100) then it's even better.

Write your press release, or get one written for you and submit it to the usual websites, a few free ones like PRLog and the ones that charge under $10. Once it's been accepted and it's on the site, just tweet the URL to your followers (with some words to capture the reader's attention, of course) and they can read it from there. The great thing about twitter is that you can just tweet the headline followed by the URL to the rest of the release.

It's so easy we could...write lots of press releases.

Blog Posts

Twitter was made for bloggers, and a blog serves as a hub of information and a place for your followers to go when they want to know about your news. Remember to keep your blog and your website separate though. A website is where people buy your stuff, where they read 'about the company' and where they can find your stores, whereas a blog tells them when the new products are coming in and what special events are going on in the industry.

So when you write a blog post, just announce it on twitter. You can do that explicitly by saying something like 'NEW AT THE BLOG: blah blah blah (link)' or you can try and get your followers intrigued in what you're talking about and tweet something more ambiguous. Every now and then you could tweet a link to your RSS feed, so that followers are sent your blog posts to their reader without you needing to announce it to them. Don't do this too often though, or it's like the same salesman coming to your door every day of the week. The same applies to blog posts – don't tweet it more than once.

Competitions

If you're lucky enough to be in the position where you can give products away then do it! Tweeters absolutely love a competition and there's one simple way to do it: the RT. Send a simple tweet, such as 'Competition time! We're giving away a pair of handmade cushion covers to one lucky winner today only – RT before 3pm to enter!' and watch the RT's roll in. It's easy to keep track of who entered, as you get notified with who has re-tweeted you in your @replies column/page. You can tweet this a few times (perhaps once every two hours) so that all your followers see it, and then send out a tweet at 3pm saying you're picking the winner. Don't be afraid to keep them waiting for a few minutes – this builds excitement. Then announce the winner, make sure you're following them and ask them to send you a direct message with their address so you can send the prize on.

Lush Ltd. in the UK is the very best example of this kind of competition. In the run up to Christmas they did one every day, on both twitter and facebook with around 10 winners for each one. It was exciting to say the least!

Don't worry if you don't sell physical products, as you can offer 50% discounts on services, or one free online product. I got great quality hosting for my website at half price with one of these competitions (from @timbury) and have thanked my lucky stars ever since. I wasn't following him at the time either; someone else I was following RT'd his comp. tweet at the same time I was looking for hosting. Now I'll renew with him again next year, and I've promoted him to you.

See how powerful and insanely useful twitter can be?

Find Out More

We've waffled on for long enough for one hub, but if you want to read more about marketing on Twitter then there's plenty more to find at UKCopy.com!