Twitter for Business: B.box
Recently I met with Monique and Dani from b.box to discuss social media and review online applications for promoting their business. b.box is a recent startup that sells a compact portable baby change product giving parents quick access to wipes for cleaning sticky fingers and access to wipes for nappy changes. Over the weekend I asked Monique about the impact of Twitter on the b.box business since we met:
It’s been a week since we caught up. What have you done to promote through Twitter since we met?
We immediately implemented your suggestion to brand our Twitter page with b.box logo and “feel”. We also started following people who have interests in the baby products area, either as consumers, other designers and manufacturers, retailers, distributors, media, stockists
And what sort of benefits are you seeing through Twitter?
Within 24 hours we had more than 50 people following us and within a week have 234. It’s incredible how it works and what’s more important is the tangible benefits to the business, such as real distributor interest and enquires from international stockists.
Can you describe your target market? Has using Twitter helped you connect with your target market?
Our consumer target market are parents of children aged 0-2.5 years. Our retailer target market includes specialist baby stores, including online baby retailers and gift stores. Twitter has definitely helped us connect with our target markets. It’s also interesting to see what other businesses in our industry are doing. In just a week we’ve had 50 unique hits to our website from Twitter, which is great. We’ve also had three serious enquiries from potential international stockists and distributors directly from Twitter.
What other social media are you using to get the word out about b.box?
We created a Facebook page for b.box which within a week has over 120 fans – many of whom are unrelated to our personal Facebook networks. We’ve also had over 100 unique hits to our website directly from our Facebook page. We keep our fans updated on b.box happenings through relevant posts. We also keep people posted on upcoming events, such as trade fairs or consumer markets and shows. We also updated our linked-in profile and added a b.box specific page. We searched for and joined groups which were baby and baby product related. We have had direct contact from other members regarding the product, including overseas interest and sales and media/blog review requests.
Any recommendations you have for using social media.
Know what you want to achieve and don’t get caught up in the hype. Spend the time to target your communications. Don’t waste people’s time. Give them something worthwhile to read and keep them excited about what you have to
Having used Twitter and Facebook to promote, b.box now have over 350 followers or fans. What matters more is not the “number” of fans taking an interest in their business but the “who”. Potential customers, distributers and stockists and people who are genuinely interested in their product have opted in to a conversation and relationship with Bbox. To achieve this number of new quality business relationships in just a couple of weeks wouldn’t have been possible a few short years ago.
Monique and Dani have created a product worth talking about and social media provides a conversation platform for the discussion. If you have used Twitter for business I welcome your feedback below and you can follow me on twitter @sladesherman.