twitter marketing

Twitter is a real-time short messaging or 'micro blogging' service that works over multiple networks and devices. It asks its global audience the simple question "What are you doing?" and allows 140 characters for them to tell their followers and anyone else out there in the 'Twittersphere' exactly that.

Twitter seeks to keep its users connected with friends, relatives, and coworkers so that they have a sense of what they are up to. That said there is no expectation to respond to any updates unless a user wants to, so you can step in and out of the flow as it suits you.

By the end of 2009 Twitter had generated $25 million (£15.6 million) from its 'Real-time' search deals with Google and Microsoft, which finally put it in profit, but for how long? Twitter's business model may be in development, but there are certainly some workable commercial (and political) opportunities available to those using it.

In terms of corporate communications, Twitter can be in a variety of ways:

  • Direct - as an extension of blogs, for PR & marketing, links back to on-site content;
  • Indirect - via employees to enhance corporate & personal reputations;
  • Internal - for sharing ideas and communicating re internal projects;
  • Inbound signalling - for 'listening' for mentions of your company, products, industry and so on and to collect feedback on issues or ideas.

While Twitter displays no advertising, advertisers can target users based on their history of tweets and sometimes may quote tweets in ads.

Twitter also offers organisations the opportunity to create awareness of their brands, products and services through promotions (what better way to distribute promo codes?), sharing new content and incentivisation.

It also enables organisations to reinforce their existing branding by engaging new & existing customers, responding to concerns or even complaints, and also giving more insight into what's going on behind the scenes.

Most importantly Twitter can also be used to directly create sales by generating traffic, leads and even product or service trials.

The added bonus of Twitter is that it is search engine friendly. Mentions of (and links to) you, your brand, your website and your products or services across the World Wide Web are an invaluable part of search engine optimisation, particularly due to its contributions to Google & Bing's real time search functionalities.

Follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/vie_digital or drop us a line to find out how we can help you and your business get the most out of Twitter.