Launching on Twitter

[FutureM]

Hi All,

We finally have our new eCommerce website up and running and ready to take orders!

I want to start to build a following on twitter, this new website is to do with football, (Selling mainly football goals for the garden)

I think twitter could be quite good to reach potential customers.

I have started to follow a few football related accounts and some of our suppliers, but I want any advice on actually reaching those customers!

Looking in to doing a promoted tweet with the goal of gaining followers, we have a 10% discount that I think would make a good tweet topic?

Mainly looking for advice on how to choose the target audience or anything else you think will be useful. Who do you think people who might purchase these goals would be following on twitter?

thanks

 

[HorseLatitudes]

Have you thought about doing a give-away?

A local shipping company got their hands on a pair of cup final tickets for the Sunderland end and did a competition.

You had to retweet their post and follow the account to be in with a chance of winning.

Their amount of followers sky rocketed instantly

 

[FutureM]

HorseLatitudes I have thought about doing a give-away. I have been watching a post by someone who has done just this, and I am quite impressed with their results, though they had a fair few followers when they started. I have done a promoted tweet, with a small budget just to test the water, gained 23 followers so far from this, which I guess is ok, although one is me .

Paulsimmons I am using tweetdeck at the moment and quite like the features not heard of twiends will give that a look, thanks.

 

[HorseLatitudes]

I've just give you a follow there

I'll retweet your post when I get chance as around 50% of my followers are what I'd think would be your target market. Everything from yound fellas, blokes with kids to coachers and teachers.

 

[FutureM]

thanks, I appreciate that!

 

[Wavecrest Ltd]

We have been on twitter for a while now and are only just starting to see tangible benefits to our business.

We have made 15 k tweets, follow 2000 people and have 1600 + followers.

You see many newcomers to twitter dip their toe in the water, make 20 (similar) self promoting tweets in about two days and then either disappear or make about two tweets per month.

This will not get results. You have to be on twitter daily, join in conversations (not necessarily business related) and not continually self promote.

We are now in the position where our followers do a lot of the promoting for us. Quite often a follower of ours will refer someone looking for shipping services to us.

Of course we do promote our services from time to time but they maybe only make up 10-15% of our total tweets.

If anyone is interested in following me I'm wavecrestglen

 

[fisicx]

^^Good Post.

The biggest problem you will face it getting lost amongst all the clutter. A garden goalpost is a one off purchase and most people will Google for the product. You need to market where your potential customers go. Do you want a twitter following or do you want to sell goalposts?

 

[FutureM]

I agree that most people are going to search Google (have Ad Words running), but I think having a decent social following is a good way to reinforce a feeling of trust. I often look at the social profiles of companies I intend to purchase from to try and see whether or not they are reputable. I don't expect to gain sales directly from twitter but I do hope it will help convince potential customers to purchase.

 

[ethical PR]

Hi FutureM

You mention in your post you feel Twitter could be a good way to reach your potential customers.

Who do you see as your target market? And how much do you know about the communications channels they use.

Social media can be a useful tool if you understand which social media your customers use and how to engage them on these channels.

Companies can find themselves spending too much time on social media channels as they see them as a 'free channel' when perhaps depending on their target audience and business they would be much better spending their time and budget on more relevant channels to reach existing and potential customers.

 

[mediaguy35]

This will not get results. You have to be on twitter daily, join in conversations (not necessarily business related) and not continually self promote.

Exactly, problem is too many use Twit-ter as a sales tool and its just in your face. Issue is the time to amke all these posts, you can spend your life on Twitter and off it thinking of unique tweets, news and content to rack up your content. Can waste much time doing it.

There was a girl on Dragons den, Jess Ratcliffe, who started Gaboom, a site for swapping games - she made 1550 tweets, but got just 500 followers. Sadly even with investor, Gaboom went bust, she now works for MindCandy...

Twitter can be a waste of time, you need to know unless you got 100 people managing tweets, you'll burn much time with zero to show for it.

 

[FutureM]

Thanks for all of your replies. Very useful, I think i will use twitter, but for sure I will concentrate more on other things, especially in these early days. The main thing I like about twitter is being able to talk with customers openly for all to see. I don't think i see it as a way to gain sales directly more of an after sales/customer service tool. I agree football goals can often be a one off purchase or at least a few years between purchases but when their friends and family see the goal I want them to be happy recommending us, I think I've gone off topic now, woops. Thanks again.