Unless you’ve been completely cut off from the world lately, you’ll be aware of Twitter.
There’s been something of a buzz about it in internet marketing circles for about a year or so. In the last few months it seems to have gone mainstream with everyone and their dog jumping on the bandwagon (I guess you know something has gone mainstream when celebrities like Oprah Winfrey start getting involved).
So, is this the answer to your marketing prayers? Or is it just another passing fad…
…(Hey, whatever did happen to MySpace…and how’s that Facebook thing going?)?
In other words, should you invest time, momey and energy getting involved with Twitter?
Well, it depends.
And in a series of posts I’m going to look at the pros and cons and refer you to a host of good resources that will give you some good information relevant to your particular situation.
You see, like pretty much every marketing tactic, how Twitter may, or may not, be useful to you depends on what you’re looking to achieve and your specific circumstances.
For example, if you’ve already got a blog up and running and a decent sized readership, there are some quick and easy ways to incorporate Twitter into what you’re already doing.
On the other hand, if you’re an offline retail store, then getting any benefit from Twitter is a different challenge.
First up, Twitter is not going to be of any help to you if you don’t have the basics of a marketing plan and strategy in place.
If you haven’t already mastered at least one form of lead generation and conversion, then getting involved with Twitter just because it’s the latest thing will most likely be a complete disaster.
Why? Well, let’s step back a moment and revisit some marketing basics and what this whole “Social media” marketing thing is all about.
If you’re following the direct response marketing model, then your initial marketing objective is simple.
It’s to build a list of people who have raised their hands and said “Yes, I’m interested in what you have to offer.” As you get more sophisticated you can segment your list into buyers and those who haven’t bought from you (yet).
But basically, it’s all about building the list.
And you get people on your list (i.e. get them to give you their details and permission to “talk” to them) by offering them something useful like a free report or a newsletter.
Nothing here that I’m sure you haven’t heard before.
But if this is your objective, then doesn’t it make sense when looking at every marketing tactic (like Twitter) to ask the question…
“How is this going to help me build my list?”
And I’m not talking about the BS of building “followers” on Twitter. That’s an intermediate step.
To look at this question a little more, let’s consider what any of the social media sites (like YouTube, MySpace, Facebook etc) are all about.
What they are basically (for a marketer) is a potential source of traffic. You see what you have on these sites are groups of people getting together who share some sort of common interest. These sites are a way for people to connect with like-minded individuals and get information that is relevant and of interest to them.
For a marketer, this is an opportunity to find a group of people who are potentially interested in what you have to offer and connect with them.
Now, marketing on social media sites is not about “hard selling”. Do that and not only will you fail to get results but you’re likely to get an extremely adverse reaction from the community. It’s about adding value to the community and offering an invitation to find out more about what you have offer.
So, how does Twitter fit in to this model? I’ll look more at that in the next post in this series.
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