Twitter? Really?
It seems that in the past nine months or so, Twitter has gone mainstream. Honestly, we've been really dragging our feet jumping into the Twittersphere, mostly because I'm having trouble justifying the time expenditure on it. We have a Twitter account and I try to "tweet" (how much do I hate that phrase) for PoolDawg at least once per day, but when will I see a return on my time investment?
Rather than judge this tool as of having little value simply because I don't get it, I decided to look at one of the companies that has really embraced the tool - Zappos. Zappos has dedicated an entire area of their site to Twitter and their CEO account currently boasts over 390,000 followers. With that many followers, there must be something interesting being said, right? Apparently not, as the posts coming from this account talk about red eye flights, coffee with mom and spicy pork rinds. OK, maybe Twitter is a tool to put a personality and a "face" on the company. I get that. After all, I spend a couple hours per week trying to blog in the voice of a ceramic bulldog.
I guess that's the point though. While Twitter isn't going to show a clear ROI, what it just might do is improve your customer loyalty. When customers feel like they "know" a company, they're more likely to buy from you. It builds relationships and trust. Thanks to Twitter, Zappos is not a faceless corporation. Their customers can see that their employees (everyone is allowed and encouraged to use Twitter) are real people with real interests that their customers can identify with. If Twitter can help a large company build a rapport with their customers, it just might be worth doing.
This post is filed under By Merchants, For Merchants and has the following keyword tags: twitter, customer loyalty.
10 Comments
PetsRight says:
I personally think twitter is worth doing... "IF YOU CAN MAINTAIN IT". Decide if your tweets are going to be all about sales at your store or something more personal and stick to regular updates.
People on twitter seem to expect multiple updates per day. If that's too much for you to try update at least once a day or risk losing followers and maybe harming your brand.
PetsRight says:
Don't know if I'm allowed to link to other articles in posts.. but I found an article that elaborates on the things you've spoken about in this article, using Zappos as an example as well.
http://www.getelastic.com/twitter-customer-service/
Danna Crawford says:
I love twitter! It is a brilliant tool in many ways!
Follow me at: http://twitter.com/PowerSellingMom
Shipwire eCommerce Order Fulfillment Service says:
I think twitter has proven useful to stay in touch with partners and hear about what is going on with some customers. I am a relatively new user of twitter; but I'm also thinking about using Tweet Deck. The real feature that I think myself and half the corporate users out there are hoping for is multiple twitter users in 1 account. Maybe Cotweet.com will do it or somebody will find a way to aggregate multiple twitter RSS feeds into one twitter user. Or maybe twitter will charge for this feature. Who knows; but, if somebody has a hack for that I'm interested.
Follow me/us/we/Shipwire at http://twitter.com/shipwire
PetsRight says:
I just stumbled upon (pun intended) http://www.twtqpon.com/ Which allows merchants to create their own coupons for the twitterverse!
PetsRight says:
@Shipwire eCommerce Order Fulfillment Service
I've just switched from Tweet Deck to Seesmic Desktop because it allows multiple accounts!
Terri says:
I love Twitter. I am learning new things about it daily. I just signed up to a great new Twitter Machine and can make money from it too.
Follow me on Twitter to find out more
http://twitter.com/tlgcritter
Bruce Golub says:
This is another perfect example of "Musthaveness" Can your business benefit from using Twitter? I doubt most of the businesses owned by readers of Practical Ecommerce can. Zappo's? Sure, it appeals to a demographic that may actually be using the technology for now...and, its a company WITH an identification, so twitter can be used to re-enforce that identity. There are SO many other more valuable things for businesses here to put their time to that do return tangable benefits.
Melissa Shea says:
I only recently started using Twitter - I really thought I wouldn't like it, but I'v e actually found it an incredible resource for information and great web content. Now I'm an avid user and have started using it to promote Coffeeshopreneur. We got two members from my tweeting!
Fulfillnet Fulfillment Services says:
I have maintained twitter accounts for a few different businesses and I have found that the value is both underestimated and overestimated by most business owners. The # of sales you can generate through twitter is usually very small. Even with 10K targeted followers on 1 account I have noticed that if I had built this account just for sales, it certainly would not have been worth the time and effort. What many webmasters underestimate is the value in networking with other webmasters and business owners. This is a great way to form partnerships or at least find potential partners... its just not a great way to earn direct sales unless you are dealing with a true authority website.
