marketing on twitter

[Mattlock]

Not sure how this would help my business, can anyone suggest why it would help a carpenter.
I'm on facebook which i think is quite good for spreading the word.

 

[thetime22]

Thats pretty much why everyone is on twitter. If they aren't marketing a product or service they are pretty much marketing themselves. For sure you should sign up for an account and start broadcasting deals. Give it a try, after all it's a free experiment.

 

[MissClearBooks]

Hey Matt,

I've just started using Twitter in the last few months - and I must admit it's a really good tool for speaking to people and connecting with people you wouldn't have otherwise met.

Facebook is more for friends and acquaintances. If it's working for you and your business by spreading the word - keep using it!

There's no harm however signing up for a Twitter account, which I believe is be angled more on businesses and networking. It's free PR basically, but it definitely comes with an etiquette!

In a month's time, you could have over a hundred followers, and maybe 10% more business from just 'tweeting'! It's worth a try - it's free!

I follow a company called Newspepper who have some interesting videos about the does and don't of social networking.

If you do sign up, follow MissClearBooks

 

[S-Marketing]

Waste of time and its not free at all. It costs your time messing about on Twitter etc. Time that could be better spent doing something that will actually get you work.

 

[dubOnline]

I recently was told about a good case study for a service based marketing method on Twitter. This simple concept may help.

The twittere'r fixed and supplied washing machine parts. He simply set up an alert (use tweet deck) so if anyone in his vicinity tweeted about a broken down washing machine he would be instantly notified. His strategy was to simply respond to them with some advice. It took seconds per tweet but he could instantly find new prospects with a problem that he could help/sell too.

Services such as NearByTweets can also reveal many people in your local area tweeting about a specific topic.

However for brand protection its also worth snapping up your name incase a competitor does it for you.

 

[Newcott]

Dubonline - I've never heard of that but will be looking into it more.

 

[popunder]

Waste of time and its not free at all. It costs your time messing about on Twitter etc. Time that could be better spent doing something that will actually get you work.

I'm afraid that's just not true, people were saying that about websites and Facebook and email marketing and just about every bit of new media when they were new, before they realised eventually "oh actually it does work". I know local businesses that get decent streams of business from Twitter. No you can't base your whole business on it but the rewards for very little time (and zero cash) spent can be worthwhile.

I would use Twellow to find locals and follow them, many will follow back. Also use the search functionality in whatever platform you've got to find people mentioning your town, and follow them if they appear to be local. Then just keep an eye on conversations and offer advice if anyone's doing DIY, building an extension, or moving house for example. Get involved in conversations about local restaurants, the football etc., just be pleasant. Occasionally drop hints that you're a carpenter if anyone needs one.

Don't sit watching Twitter all day - there are websites and platforms around which will email you a daily digest of tweets matching your criteria, similar to Google News alerts.

Make sure you collect positive feedback from clients and post it online somewhere as that is what other people want to see from a tradesman - word of mouth ... or "word of mouse" as it's called when online apparently!

Spend a bit of time, build up a following, and take it from there.

 

[keironwest23]

Facebook and Twitter have become over used by people wanting to do the same thing, if I were you I would try and look into new ideas that will help you.

 

[marketingquotes]

Hi Mattlock,

We have been advised by a few people to go to twitter, register an account and start following people you are friends with/business associates with.

Once you do this just keep an eye on it, watch what people are 'tweeting' about and talking about, and over the next few days/weeks of watching, you should get the hang of it.

Some people (like stephen fry) spend all day on it - so there must be benefits.

You should get the hang of it from watching others - just don't spend too much time

Regards,

Marketing Quotes Support.

 

[Mattlock]

Thanks for responses guy's ,you've swung me towards it

 

[wiltshire-local]

Love the idea of having an alert when someone local tweets about a certain subject, great idea. My only thought on Twitter, is that, surely if Twitter is used by millions across the world, a little promotion on there will not hurt, if anything it's worth a try. You'll soon find out!

 

[S-Marketing]

I get the distinct impression that all those who think Twitter is a good idea for local trades, have never actually marketed a local trade business. And if they have, they didn't do it very well.

Having read somewhere else that Twitter is great, or having used it for a completely different type of business, doesn't mean the OP should use it. Carpentry is such an incredibly easy service to market, it would be daft to waste time messing about with Twitter.

 

[Mike W]

For sure you should sign up for an account and start broadcasting deals. Give it a try, after all it's a free experiment.

Wrong on both counts.

a) Twitter and the Social Media networks, in general, aren't about 'self, self, self'. They are social environments in which you are having a virtual conversation, sharing information with your followers. Talk about just you and your followers will just switch you off.

b) Social Media sites are free. Your time isn't. (see this article). To get anything out of Social Media you have to invest a lot of time and understand the different concept in marketing there.

If you want any tips on how to get the best out of Twitter, follow us there (link below) or check out our blog and click the Twitter category.

If you want any tips or, ultimately, want any help managing your social media activity, send me a PM or an email.

Regards

Mike

 

[Matt Owen]

Not sure how this would help my business, can anyone suggest why it would help a carpenter.
I'm on facebook which i think is quite good for spreading the word.

Hey Mattlock (great name btw!), it might not seem obvious but Twitter is a very good way of finding local customers for businesses of any size. If you head over to search.twitter.com you can construct a search that will identify posible clients on twitter who you can then tweet directly.

Twitter recognises a few different terms such as 'OR', 'AND' etc

Construct a search that looks something like this: "Carpenter", carpentry help, OR anyone, OR suggest, OR need, OR how OR Good OR Local ? -http

(the command '-http' will remove any tweets with links that say things like 'need a great local carpenter? check out my site!)

You can then ask twitter to narrow the search for twitter users in your town. You'll then get a stream of tweets saying things like 'can anyone recommend a good carpenter in townsville, localland?', which you can reply to.

Easy and works for almost any business you can think of (I use a lot of these searches to identify clients needing digital marketing advice.

hope that's useful!

 

[knowlton]

All too often marketers use Twitter in the wrong way and end up either becoming spammers or irrelevant.

 

[Mattlock]

Cheers Matt, thats well helpful!

 

[Matt Owen]

no worries-not yet allowed to post links but if you go to the eonsultancy website there's a good blog post by Chris Lake called '16 *****in' commands and shortcuts for twitter' that has a bunch of useful stuff to help narrow your searches - cheers!

 

[Business Blogger]

Marketing on twitter is one great task. It seems every one is through out links on the internet. Best way is to provide some offer and information.

 

[Remote Resources]

If you're going to use Twitter be prepared to tweet to yourself for a few months until you build a network. It can seem a bit pointless in the early stages and you do find yourself wondering what on earth to say sometimes, especially when hardly anyone is listening.

Constantly sending out marketing tweets is annoyinging. I see it as spam and I quickly unfollow anyone who takes up my entire home page with 'spam'. I prefer to know what people are up to and thinking, it builds a rapport on a more personal level so that if you ever wanted to do business with a person you may feel like you 'know' and 'trust' them to a point.

 

[deborahowl]

We have produced a short guide for businesses new to Twitter. If you would like a copy please let me know

 

[Mike W]

We have produced a short guide for businesses new to Twitter. If you would like a copy please let me know

Maybe you ought to read the 'Short guide for beginners to a forum first'?

 

[deborahowl]

Sorry, should I have said - FREE copy? I am not selling anything?!

 

[S-Marketing]

Ill have a copy. Thanks very much.

Sorry, should I have said - FREE copy? I am not selling anything?!

 

[pickaweb]

Twitter is an excellent way to find people that might be interested in your services.
As with search engines like google they search and may find you.
With Twitter you could find them. That is the beauty really.
Hope this helps.

 

[SEO Lady]

From knowing nothing about Twitter 12 months ago I learned fast and wrote down my mistakes and how I corrected them.

I have managed accounts for several of my clients and have proven purchases by connecting with others on the same network.

My article can be read here.

 

[DetectiveDenise]

I use Twitter, I use it for raising my profile and finding people to chat to, it's fun, I enjoy doing it and as a result of that I get work but I don't have any sort of marketing strategy. I would say try it, have conversations and if you don't enjoy it, do something else with your time.
Denise

 

[garyk]

I have managed accounts for several of my clients and have proven purchases by connecting with others on the same network.

My article can be read here.

Proven purchases are one thing, profit is another. I still don't see how anyone is making *measured* profit vs their time if the time is costed at their professional rate.

 

[CraigieDD]

Proven purchases are one thing, profit is another. I still don't see how anyone is making *measured* profit vs their time if the time is costed at their professional rate.

Just because you can't see anyone making measured profit doesn't mean it's not there. ;-)

 

[eventdomain]

Give it a try, after all it's a free experiment.

And thats all it will be for most - an experiment. Facinating how people jump all over something free isnt it.......

Twitter success is so dependant on insane work levels - constantly making tweets so to appear like your somebody, its quite sad when you think about it. I guess its one of those things where your buggered if you do it and buggered if you don't, and I think thats very fitting.

Say I follow your tweets, but will you actually follow me back - and I somehow think you won't. Even if you do, will you buy something from me - I doubt this very much..... and is my theory of why this twitter is such nonsense, its so built on easy fame and fame is not easy to acquire in this world.

Perhaps this is the crux of why this fails more, I mean we only hear about the major successes right, you never hear about the failures much. I used it for months myself, but cannot say or prove it works, as the only measure is the followers and you cant track which followers bought anything - its impossible to measure success, and seeing as many tweeters are now businesses, this seems like an important thing no?

 

[CraigieDD]

Say I follow your tweets, but will you actually follow me back - and I somehow think you won't.

When arguing a case using words like "think" doesn't support it. The fact remains that if you follow people on twitter who are in your field, a significant number will follow you. Check out Marketing Sherpa's report on Twitter.

you cant track which followers bought anything - its impossible to measure success

Simply not true my friend. It's digital so it's track-able. You just need the right tools.

Are you trying to tell me you can't track where traffic to your website comes from and how many create a lead or buy a product or service?

 

[popunder]

We Twitter-users should just leave the Twitter-deniers to it, if they don't want to pick up the work that's out there then it's more for us.

 

[eventdomain]

just leave the Twitter-deniers to it,

Actually, I get more traffic from my real blog, than anything Twitter sends me - so proof enough. I also get lots of testimonials from my blog, something which Twitter fails to do.

Wont be long before some big company copies the Twitter idea and does it better, come on it isnt rocket science - its just a 'souped up' blog, and if you think it cant be done.... just wait and see what hits the web next.

 

[popunder]

Actually, I get more traffic from my real blog, than anything Twitter sends me - so proof enough.

That's not "proof" of anything. It may suggest to you that "Twitter doesn't work for business" or "is not worth the effort", but to me it suggests you haven't put the effort into Twitter, or you're not doing it right. The evidence is simply that some people are making it work and some aren't, like every other marketing channel.

Incidentally I know someone who sold 20-odd places at an exclusive "entrepenuer's boot camp" event solely via Twitter, and seeing as each seat was £2000 he felt that was quite a decent return. Mind you he has taken the time and effort to build up a very engaged and targetted Twitter following.

 

[eventdomain]

you haven't put the effort into Twitter,

or you're not doing it right.

Who says I want 20'000 people following me? and who says I haven't, just not via twitter I think Twitter is attractive, but its too social and not the right platform for business, and its too general anyway.

20k of people pretend to follow you, bcos you pretend to follow them - not difficult to work out that its fake interest a lot of the time. Jeeze, I had a company follow me bcos I'm a client of theirs - says it all really - much sucking up and pretence here Actually Twitter is like those Football sticker albums - gotta get the next team filled up, must get the next 200 followers etc.

Who the heck has the time to repeatedly follow 20k of people - there's the proof its a bunch of crap. The mass-following is fake, the intention to keep in touch, use, visit etc isn't doable - Id like to see you try and visit even 500 people each week, you'll never physically do it, but I bet you'll accept their mouse click to follow you.

Twitter is great for Twitter.... I'm sure its worth a fortune by now.

 

[popunder]

Most of what you've described above is the exact wrong way for a business to approach Twitter, so no wonder you're not keen on it.

 

[eventdomain]

Most of what you've described above is the exact wrong way for a business to approach Twitter, so no wonder you're not keen on it.

Ive seen many Twitter accounts, but not seen any secret yet, so tell me, what is the secret of promotion on Twitter?

 

[garyk]

I would hazard a guess that those who *may* be monetising their traffic aren't actually recording how many hours (and what the per hour cost to the business is) they are putting in vs revenue. I'm not singling out Twitter in this respect, the same could be said of this forum for instance, hours spent vs revenue. What is your *return* thats the key.

 

[SEO Lady]

Proven purchases are one thing, profit is another.

Surely these are the same thing? If I sell something that has cost me little more than the time it takes to tweet, then the profit margin is better than Adwords or buying advertising online?

 

[SEO Lady]

What is your *return* thats the key.

Scenario: If an average sale is £100 and 10% of this is allocated as advertising cost, to prove a sale via a free source such as Twitter or Facebook I am making £9.99 more profit than if I ran a PPC campaign and spent the usual £10 on converting one sale?

 

[eventdomain]

it has a newsfeed so if you befriend people your info will come up

Ahh ok, so basically its a glorified news generator. Kind of works like a search engine, the more followers you get, the more views your news/offers get, as you 'move up' the system of ranking or whatever its called. But with the sheers numbers of tweeters, any exposure will be small - how many tweeting each day? Hundreds of thousands at least, and all competing for your news slot

I dont see enough value here for the large companies - small businesses might eek out some odd clients here and there, but significant traffic? - forget it.