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Twitter: A Direct Marketing Means for the New Age

Image via CrunchBase

One of the biggest reasons why you would want to use Twitter for your marketing purposes is that it has a simple approach towards promotion but is highly effective. If your goal is to find your target demographic and reach out to a whole new audience of customers, then you should definitely give Twitter a go. Twitter will work for you regardless of the merchandise you are offering, or even if you are just a blogger trying to drive some traffic. Once you understand the ideas behind Twitter’s merchandising plan, its an easy process to follow. You can use it for many purposes such as updating your customers about the changes in your company, sharing new information and tips, promoting your products, special deals, discounts, etc. The possibilities with Twitter marketing are endless; you only have to start off to see it in action. When you choose to utilize Twitter marketing you will not only enjoy short-term results, but also the long-term benefits that come with building a solid relationship with your customers. The following article discusses the types of benefits that you can gain with marketing on Twitter and what you can do to harness its power for your own company. You need to consider the latest trends in web marketing like what is seen on this Twitter Marketing internet site

The biggest benefit that Twitter provides is the opportunity to network with other like-minded or interest-driven users. For every new person you meet on Twitter, your page, profile and business will be seen by their friends – or followers as they are called – and your exposure can expand tenfold. When you are able to have such interactions with like minded people, it leads to new ideas and concepts, collaborative projects and mutual partnerships. New relationships are great, but continuing to build and develop existing relationships with customers that you know have made purchases in the past can yield even bigger results. Personal blogs, as well as sites created for your hobby, and formal business can use Twitter for development. While Twitter is a social marketing tool, you should not confuse the methods behind it with networking marketing or multi-level marketing, as this is a very unique way to find people with a common interest or goal, especially when compared to other methods of marketing. By using a reliable and trustworthy marketing tool your business relationships that start as a result will begin on the right foot, with trust and respect. Makeing money online used to be hard, but not any more thanks to this Twitter Marketing site

How do you feel about spying on your competition? It’s true that you can use Twitter as a means for spying on your competitors. When you use Twitter for spying on rivals, the greatest benefit is that it is totally free to do and you can use real time for their search. What this denotes is that you will be able to read your competitor’s previous customer feedback, so then you can find out what consumers don’t like about their products, ask for their features and more. You can gain a much clearer picture of what is on the minds of your target audience and design your products to meet their needs. And this is especially effective when you don’t see your competitor taking care of the customer issues, where you can just tweet the person in trouble and point them to your product for the solution.

You should investigate how marketing with Twitter works, if you are interested in employing Twitter marketing to obtain great results and to gain the advantages of socially based marketing. It won’t bore you, nor will it be confusing. Once you learn the basics you can expand your skills to use Twitter in many new and exciting ways. Everywhere you look these days, marketers are turning to techniques such as can be seen on this Social Marketing website

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• Social Media Managers and Twitter Software (plusstuff.com)
• Usable and Effective Twitter Marketing Techniques (understandingecommerce.com)

Popularity: 5% [?]

Tags: facebook, Multi-level marketing, social marketing, Twitter, Twitter Marketing, twitter marketing guide, twitter marketing micro blogging, twitter viral marketing

Your Customers, PR and Social Media

Image via Wikipedia

As a consumer we tend to think in pictures and when we think about products or services it is likely that that we see the company’s logo or maybe an image of the product.  The Coke logo or a Coke bottle, whichever it is they don’t mind, their marketing has entrenched itself into our psyche.

When less established or startup businesses think about branding they typically thing about their logo .  However the logo is just a part of a much larger strategy, and a measure of the ultimate effectiveness of that strategy is whether the logo eventually becomes associated with a particular product or service.  Nobody buys because you have a nice logo, but your logo is a friendly face in the crowd once you have gained the trust of your market .

Today the business marketing landscape covers both the offline and online worlds, and online there are further new worlds developing that can further complicate a business marketing strategy.  Social media and Web 2.0 offer new and innovative ways for the savvy business to connect with new customers and build relationships with their existing customers. It is the need for a portable identity across these many new worlds that has rekindled the importance of branding and identity.

In the beginning social media grew based on an almost anti-business bandwagon.  Generation X like those before them wanted ways to create their communities and identities separate from the establishment and that establishment included companies looking to sell to them.  Many businesses wadedinto Web 2.0 with an old world sales mentality and got burned.

People still love to buy but they don’t want to be sold to and companies have to follow new rules .  Social media offers a huge opportunity for business but only if those businesses entertain, create buzz, give free help and advice, and generally take part in the community as if selling was the last thing on their mind.  Then by building trust and getting over that inherent mistrust of businesses online, your new customers will find their way to you.

All that said, a business’ identity online has to be connected with this buzz.  The fundamental prospect capture channels such as autoresponders etc carefully set in wait to grab the prospect.  Any momentum carefully built up over time in social media can then be traced back to its source.  That means the brand and aspects of the brand such as the logo.  Also that branding and presence needs to be mirrored online and offline and each marketing channel you create needs to tie both of these major areas together.  If someone sees you offline and goes online they should find the experience visually seamless.

One good example of combining offline and online branding could be running an offline networking or corporate event such as a corporate golf event for existing customers .  They use the day to re-enforce that relationship, demonstrating the qualities that the customer likes to see e.g. attention to detail, smooth running of the timetable etc. They give out suitable and good quality promotional golf gifts with the company branding. Then using online tools to add to that relationship such as branded corporate Facebook and Twitter pages for keeping people up to date on the event and also showing content from the event possibly in real time.  Also branded YouTube videos published to the company’s own YouTube channel can show content coming out of the day and includes opportunities to display your branding such as logo golf umbrellas in use on the day if it was a corporate golf based event.  Also general PR gain due to online recording of offline events can be excellent.

Remember social media is not an immediate selling channel like direct mail it takes careful strategy but old fashioned branding techniques still have an important part to play .

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Popularity: 2% [?]

Tags: Advertising and Marketing, Business, facebook, Marketing, offline marketing, online branding, Online Marketing, PR and Social Media, social marketing, Social media, Twitter, Web 2.0, Your Customers, YouTube

Undertanding Social Networking

And they told two friends

Understanding the concept on social networking –

When I was a kid, you know back in the stone ages – there used to be commercial for Breck Shampoo - “and you told two friends, and they told two friends, and they told two friends . . . The idea was that happy customers would share their experiences with friends, who in turn would pass it on. Ultimately, this became known as viral marketing.

Fast forward to the 21st Century, and this is the premise behind using social networks for marketing. You post something, your friends read it and pass it on to their friends. Great! Marketing all done! Well, not exactly.

The problem is not every thing you post is compelling enough to repeat. Trust me, it’s not.

In order for social networking to work as a marketing medium for you – what you post must be interesting, have value and be compelling to pass on. Let’s go back to the ladies of Breck. If Becky simply told Jan and Sue “I went shopping for shampoo, today,” then Jan and Sue would have nodded approvingly (actually Sue would have rolled her eyes) and the subject would have quickly moved on to Jan’s new Dorothy Hammill do. But instead, Becky told the girls that this new product left her hair soft, shiny and cured split ends and they should try it. Now this was different – the value? soft, shiny hair and a call to action – you should try it!

While your fan base may put up with your posts about what you had for breakfast – they really want to know what is in it for them. Soft, shiny hair? Sign me up! Emerging technology that solves all of my business problems? Where do I invest?

The next time you post to Facebook or Tweet on Twitter or what ever it is that you do – makes sure it’s worth sharing. Oh, and seriously stop sending me Mafia Wars, already!

Popularity: 1% [?]

Tags: facebook, social marketing, social networking, Ten Top Twitter Tips, tweet, understanding social networking, Undertanding Social Networking, viral marketing