In last six months many companies especially smaller ones have started using Twitter actively for marketing, CRM, building relationships with clients and customers. Twitter is fast emerging a great marketing tool for small businesses.
Now, companies are going a step further. They are tracking their RoI on their marketing efforts on Twitter. It has not happened so far but now companies want to check the effectiveness of their marketing efforts from Twitter.
Twitter has many advantages because of which small, local and medium businesses are using it. Biggest of all is, it is free. At no cost, you can pull up a huge marketing campaign. It is easy to use. I would say extremely easy. Few clicks and you are ready to go. It has audience. Well, 10 million and still counting. Micro blogging site, Twitter started slowly but picked up and in February they have more than 10 million users. And according to one report, it is not only youngsters who are driving this growth but middle aged also using this micro blogging site wit great zeal. Entry barriers are negligible.
All you need is an art to use it effectively. Art to communicate, art to initiate interesting conversations, art to build relationships, art to track conversations around your brand and respond to customers. It is easier said than done but companies are trying.
PS - There are some risks attached which I will discuss in my next post, so stay tuned.
by le embrouille blogueur , on May 19, 2009 12:50 AM
One of the biggest examples of it being an aggressive marketing tool was it's use during the U.S Elections.The impact - huge youth support for the Obama campaign.Waiting for your follow up post.
by rads , on May 19, 2009 2:17 AM
Yea after reading somewhere that Opran Winfrey uses it I guessed it to be a good marketing tool and I started using it myself...Lets see how long it'll last..
by Mehul , on May 19, 2009 10:19 AM
The growth that twitter is seeing is truly amazing. Everyone seems to be on it ( right from celebrities, astronauts, presidents to spammers and hackers!)....
It's proving to be a great way for companies to promote their products....And that too, if companies come up with interesting ads etc...the spread through word of mouth on twitter is tremendously fast.
Latest example is probably wolfram alpha...
by A journey called Life , on May 19, 2009 1:38 PM
ohh this is quite an innovative approach to marketing..
frankly i did not know this concept until very recently.. call me outdated..
but then i feel it cant be used in isolation, it has to be secondary or even tertiary to other common maekteting tools small biz's use.also having twitter is not as commonplace as having a phone.. so may be its range is limited..
by Dhiman , on May 19, 2009 2:18 PM
Twitter seems to have become a bizzare place...
yesterday read that a 104 yr old lady signed up for it and today another guy is tweeting while climbing well "Mt. Everest" and is auctioning his "Tweet from summit" at ebay :D ...
by Adesh Sidhu , on May 20, 2009 12:00 AM
@ Blogueur - Yeah Obama example is classic case of using Twitter effectively.
@ Rads - 60% leave Twitter after using it for one month. Lets see in your case.
@ Mehul - Thanks for visiting. Twitter picked up really fast and captured everybody's attention.
@ Journey - It does come with its own pros and cons. If you can use it effectively, it is wonderful tool for marketing.
@ Dhiman - Yeah, some amazing stories are happening around Twitter.
by preposterous girl , on May 20, 2009 3:58 PM
Hmm.. Its great to see such easy to use micro-blogging sites avialble as an option to small level business groups which can be used as a marketing tool..
And as Mehul said interesting ads definiltely spreads like fire on twitter..