Technorati Tags: Marketing Tips, Tweet Me Savings, Twitter for Business

Depending on your strategic approach, the webinar shows how Twitter can be used to improve customer service,
promote a product or service, manage a crisis, event activation, advocating an issue or cause or following trends in your industry.

Enjoy!

Technorati Tags: Social Media, Twitter for Business

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.

Technorati Tags: BBox, Social Media, Twitter for Business

7 ways small business and restaurants have used Twitter:

1. Tender Greens, a fast-casual healthy restaurant chain sends Twitter blogs, about three times a day.  Most messages advertise the restaurants’ daily specials or tell followers about finds at the Santa Monica farmer’s market. Twitter was also used to advise public about a late opening of a store.
2. Dallas-based Maggiano’s began tweeting after they found multiple mentions of Maggiano’s during Twitter searches. The restaurant chain has 45 locations and launched a Twitter contest offering $100 gift certificates to two winners (Follow @Maggianos by 5pm CST to be entered to win $100 in Maggiano’s gift certificates). The chain increased their Twitter followers from 130 to 4099 at the time of writing. Meggiano’s uses Twitter to search for mentions of the brand and thank guests for positive comments and get to the bottom of unpleasant experiences. Maggiano’s also use Twitter to tell guests about menu specials, contests and promotions.
3. The Loft at Soby’s in Greenville, S.C send targeted promotions to approved customers with great results.
4. Table 301, a restaurant group with 6 restaurants in Greenville, S.C market via Twitter. Richard Peck, co-founder, believes Twitter is perfect for restaurateurs and hospitality pros who like to interact personally with customers. Addressing them with short messages through mobile devices or computers, which Twitter does simultaneously, is highly effective. There is the bonus of no cost promotion with response to tweets able to be measured.
5. Besh Restaurant Group in New Orleans believes Twitter increases sales. The main benefit of Twitter to Besh is their ability to interact with customers on the platform providing two-way communication not possible with traditional direct mail.
6. Panchero’s Franchise Corp sends tweets promoting the day’s special just before meal periods and claim that this drives people to restaurants. Friday tweets include Trivia questions with winners getting free food.
7. Large groups like McDonalds are following customers that comment on their brands or promotions.

I have some close friends who have built really impressive businesses in the mobile/cell phone marketing space. They assist small businesses including many restaurants with promotions via SMS messaging, another example of short form micro messages. The examples above and the growth of SMS promotions provide solid evidence that people respond to short from messages. Twitter is only going to get bigger and those who embrace the application now will benefit the most.

Tips for promoting your tweets:

1. Get your message across in 140 characters and be clear with the message.
2. Don’t send too many messages as you increase the chance of important tweets being ignored.
3. Try link tweets to your website or other social media pages to give additional detail about your promotion.
4. Be personal and interact as you would in person.
5. Know your identity and ensure your tweets are consistent with this identity.
6. Follow bloggers and writers in the industry.
7. Don’t go for too long without promoting. Your followers expect to get updates.

Special thanks ‘The High Powered Food & Beverage Forum’ members who gave their feedback and suggestions. If you like what I have to say you can also follow me on Twitter @sladesherman.

Technorati Tags: Marketing Tips, Restaurant Promotion, Twitter for Business

What Is Twitter? According to the definition on Wikipedia, Twitter is ‘a free social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read other users’ updates known as ‘tweets’. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length which are displayed on the user’s profile page and delivered to other users who have subscribed to them (known as followers).’ Once your Twitter account is setup you can nominate to ‘follow’ people (following) and people can nominate to ‘follow’ you (followers). Twitter is available via the web, SMS and instant messaging or emails, and users of Twitter update their posts by answering, “What are you doing now?”. The cross platform functionality and the ability to update on iPhone, Blackberry and mobile devices is very powerful as it allows users to communicate what they are doing, without cost, from anywhere. What are the Business Uses? It took me a while to get an understanding for how Twitter can be used for business but here are some suggestions that small businesses can benefit from:

1. Twitter Search: Twitter has a really powerful search application (http://search.twitter.com/) that allows you to search for people or topics in real time. This provides a useful tool to listen to your customers, prospects or target demographic. Use Twitter Search by typing in your business name and see if anyone is commenting on you, or search for your products by name to identify opportunities around those products.
2. Blog Post Tweets: If your small business has a blog Twitter is a great way to inform your followers about new posts. Using relevant keywords in your Twitter post will result in people searching Twitter potentially following you and getting to know you and your business.
3. Promote Specials: If I’m following a business on Twitter there is a good chance that I’m interested in specials they are promoting. Catalogue specials and promotions that you update on your site could be the subject of your Tweets. Click here for an example of Twitter uses for Restaurants.
4. Mentoring/Networking: Search for and follow the experts, authors and trade publications in your industry. Most will have a Twitter page by now, and by following them you can be the first to find out about new innovations or trends. This can be more valuable than ‘reader feeds’ because the expert you are following will tweet their articles as well as 3rd party articles or information that appeals to them.

Is Twitter A Waste Of Time? Twitter can be a waste of time if it isn’t used properly. Following too many people with countless ‘tweets’ about every passing moment would drive me mad. I follow people I’m interested in and I enjoy their updates due to the value of their tweets and what I can learn from their activity. I prefer to limit the number of people I follow because I couldn’t possibly ‘listen’ to hundreds of people. I think Twitter is a wonderful tool and welcome your feedback about the way you have used Twitter for business. If you like what I have to say you can also follow me on Twitter @sladesherman.

Technorati Tags: Twitter for Business, Twitter Search, Web2.0 Weapons