Internet Marketing: Twitter can be a slick marketing tool

By Jonny Buroker

In recent articles, I introduced you to Social Media Marketing (SMM), some of the top SMM “communities” and how your business could get started using these tools. This article will focus on Twitter, a growing phenomenon in the world of online communities that’s creating a lot of media frenzy and attention.

It seems like you can’t go a day without hearing about someone’s latest “tweet” or being asked to “follow” someone on Twitter. What’s all the hype about and how can your business get involved?

Growth rate explosive

EMarketer estimates there were roughly 6 million Twitter users in the U.S. in 2008, or 3.8 percent of Internet users.

EMarketer also projects that the number of Twitter users will jump to 18.1 million in 2010, representing 10.8 percent of Internet users, and if Twitter continues to receive the front-page type of attention it’s been getting, those estimates may be conservative.

While this is certainly very fast growth, Twitter’s numbers are still dwarfed by such communities as Facebook (estimated 200 million users) and Linkedin (40 million).

However, the rate of growth is causing people to sit up and take notice.

Three consumer market research firms reported that Twitter.com attracted anywhere from 4 million to 8 million unique visitors from home, work and college/university locations in February 2009, up about 1,000 percent over February 2008. When you factor in the multiple access points for Twitter (e.g., mobile devices and desktop applications), the number of Twitter users is substantially larger than the number of visitors to Twitter.com.

What’s driving growth?

In a recent New York Times interview, Twitter CEO Evan Williams said, “Twitter lets people know what’s going on about things they care about instantly, as it happens.”

A survey of Twitter users conducted by MarketingProfs supports Williams’ statement. On a scale from 1 to 5 (with 1 for strongly disagree and 5 and for strongly agree), the phrase “I find it exciting to learn new things from people” averaged a score of 4.65 and “I value getting information in a timely manner” averaged 4.58.

How should your
business use Twitter?

With so many people jumping on the Twitter bandwagon, what can your company do to leverage Twitter for your business? In addition to developing your company’s high-level SMM strategy and Employee Use policy, you need to spend some time evaluating how other companies are making use of Twitter to stay in contact with their customers. Here are a few resources for you to start your research:

• “50 Ideas on Using Twitter for Business”: Chris Brogan shares 50 thoughts on using Twitter, all in 140 characters (Twitter’s maximum message length) or less.

• “16 Examples of Huge Brands Using Twitter for Business”: Ann Smarty explores how major companies use Twitter for such things as updating customers on sales and coupon codes; offering an alternative customer service option; to get closer to customers; to react to customers’ feedback, and to promote company news.

• “40 of the Best Twitter Brands and the People Behind Them”: Jennifer Van Grove provides this excellent resource to see how the top brands are using Twitter in everyday use, their stats (how many “followers” they have on Twitter), and what they like best about Twitter.

Your initial research will help you generate several ideas as to how your company can use Twitter to make your business more successful. Good luck and happy Tweeting.
 

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