When it comes to Twitter, we all let our hair down from time to time, for instance tweeting about how weak-kneed we are in the face of pizza. Now wouldn’t it come as a surprise if you tweeted about Papa John’s and got an answer? It seems brands are catching on to how easy it is to track down potential customers and catch them when they’re in the mood for their products on Twitter.
It’s not just food brands that are capitalizing on reaching out to us when we make our desires public. Real estate franchise Coldwell Banker is doing just the same thing when it comes to users tweeting about important life events. Companies like LocalResponse {link no longer active} and Hiplogiq have known about the power of exclusivity and making users feel special for some time now. However, you don’t need to be a huge brand to utilise this idea for yourself. This outreach might prove effective for both large and small local business, but the execution might differ. The system requires some hands at the keyboard for some real-time interaction and does not suit automated responses.
Using social tools like Hootsuite and Tweetdeck, brands are filtering through the morass to find both keywords and influencers that could prove important to them. When these influencers are compelled to post about the brand on their own network, this compounds the outreach effort by increasing social views from the influencer’s network. The system is a great vehicle for promotions and to get users to provide their emails so marketers have a direct line to consumers.
This new method of brand outreach is the culmination of research {link no longer active} that shows that brand tweets drive site visitations and are more likely to inspire users to consider actually purchasing the product, especially when a promotion is involved. When you do get a previously out-of-network user to follow your brand, the likelihood that they will recommend your product to someone else is 60 percent.
It might be time to do more than just tweeting about products and promotions. The future of social marketing may require getting one-on-one with the public in a way that humanizes brands and creates a relationship with consumers.
Source: MediaPost
