sell your house on Twitter

Posted on March 31, 2009 by admin

Is your Realtor using Twitter to promote your house? This seller took matters into his own hands, but isn’t ‘find a buyer’ the main reason to hire a real estate agent? Agents, you’re forgiven if you don’t offer Twitter promotion as a standard part of your offering today, but that probably won’t be the case for long.

Once you better understand Twitter and its potential applications, you’ll find that it’s not only promote your listings but also a great way to attract new clients – buyers and sellers. We’re developing a report specifically for Realtors. In the meantime, be sure to download our “12 Essential Marketing Rules for Twitter” (available at the top right of this page).

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using Twitter for market research

Posted on March 31, 2009 by admin

Twitter isn’t just about pushing products, promoting brands, or driving web site traffic. Progressive companies in every industry are using Twitter to enhance their ability to conduct research, engage with prospective customers, support existing clients, engage with users to help define next generation products and more. Ad Age published this short article about using Twitter as a focus group.

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Twitter for pizza

Posted on March 31, 2009 by admin

This pizzeria has more than 1,000 followers on Twitter and sends them instant messages about different meal deals and other incentives to come in.

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should you hire a ghost to Twitter for you?

Posted on March 27, 2009 by admin

Anyone that doesn’t at least understand that Twitter has become a disruptive marketing tool should immediately stop reading this, start with some earlier posts and the articles they recommend.

Disruptive technologies, by definition, change the way people do things. In most cases, our the way we use these technologies evolves as we learn more about them and what we want to get out of them.

When we got our first Tivo, at first we only recorded a few shows. We’d watch them and delete them then wait for something else to be recorded. Then we realized that it would be great if there was always something to watch so we added more shows to record and let Tivo record its own ‘suggestions’. At first, we were overwhelmed. We were so used to watching and deleting shows that we felt like we couldn’t keep up anymore. It took a little while before we were ‘okay’ with not watching EVERYTHING that was on Tivo. Now, 8 years later, it’s totally natural.

The pattern evolves over time and varies depending on the individual and the benefit that they are hoping to get out of the technology.

So what does this have to do with Twitter? We’re only starting to see what’s possible. Even the early adopters are still evolving their usage of Twitter. The big question that came up recently in this New York Times article is whether or not it’s acceptable to use a ghostwriter for celebrity or corporate tweets.

Keeping a constant stream of tweets flowing to the followers of a brand (whether you’re a celebrity or a corporation) is crucial. Go dark for too long and you’ll never realize the full potential of Twitter. If you can’t do it yourself, a ghostwriter is definitely better than sporadic tweets. However, you’ve got two choices – either you have to be up-front and fess-up that the tweets are coming from multiple writers, or, you have to be darn sure that the ghostwriter is accurately representing your brand. Maybe you can’t write every tweet, but you or someone on your marketing or PR team should review them before they go out.

Keeping a constant flow of tweets is key and requires a separate post. We’ll get that up asap. Enjoy the Times article.

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WSJ: firms seek profit in Twitter’s chatter

Posted on March 26, 2009 by admin

A lot of virtual ink is used in this Wall Street Journal article to describe Twitter to the few remaining people who don’t get it and to rehash info on Twitter’s recent funding, valuation and usage growth.

However, this bit hasn’t had much play in the media.

German start-up Magpie & Friends has started paying users for the right to sell ads in their tweets. The company uses an auction system in which potential advertisers bid on keywords they want to associate with their ads — like iPhone or NCAA.

Magpie looks for tweets about these topics among Twitter users who have signed up with it and, with permission, sends the winning bidders’ ads into those users’ message streams, to be seen by their followers. Advertisers typically pay from a few cents to around $13 per ad, and Magpie splits the proceeds with the user.

Are users endorsing products by sending promotional tweets through their personal Twitter account? How fast will they lose their followers if they do this? What kinds of companies will promote this way rather than building and using their own brand and account? This will be interesting to watch.

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Twitter the most powerful marketing tool since tv?

Posted on March 25, 2009 by admin

The WSJ posted an article about Guy Kawasaki’s keynote presentation at Search Engine Strategies in NY. During his presentation, he called Twitter “the most powerful marketing tool that I’ve seen since probably television.” He also talks about the value of retweets and using Retweetist to monitor them (claims that he uses it as his ‘scorecard’ and checks 5-10 times a day).

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3 Twitter interface updates and how they can impact your brand

Posted on March 24, 2009 by admin

This article on MediaPost written by Mark Ghuneim of Wiredset talks about the new ‘Suggested Users’, ‘Trends’ and ‘Search Now’ options and the potential impact on branding.

Zappos, Mashable (@Mashable), and Jet Blue (@JetBlue), among others, have proven that users and brands can pick up 200,000 followers, solely by being designated a “Featured User.” These brands and users are then involved in a live conversation and engagement around their brand. This demonstrates Twitter’s ability to be a driver and conduit to the consumer. It is even more impressive when you consider how far off the main page these opt-ins live.

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only one rule for social media? get real.

Posted on March 24, 2009 by admin

Chief Marketer just posted an article by Charles Hull of Archrival claiming “Social Media’s Only Rule: Don’t be Boring.”

Maybe it was linkbait. Sure hope so because anyone that truly believe that could get seriously burned.

While it does make sense to use social networking as a way to add a personal element and depth to business relationships, we’ve seen that saying exactly what’s on your mind can have serious consequences.

Take Mr. Hull’s article with a big grain of salt and add common sense. Try not to be boring, but definitely don’t say anything that you might regret. Always assume that the world is watching.

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Dell offers Twitter exclusives and sells $1M in product via Twitter

Posted on March 24, 2009 by admin

This article from InternetNews.com perked up a lot of ears. “Dell sold $1M worth of product using Twitter?” While many people still question the business model for Twitter, mainstream companies are signing up right and left. Now that Twitter’s funding situation is pretty solid, it seems that there is confidence that Twitter is here to stay.

Twitter is becoming indispensable not just for navel gazers but for companies looking to sell a product and keep in touch with customers.

As reported by InformationWeek, last month, Dell is continuing to leverage Twitter by offering about 12,000 @DellOutlet followers a 30% discount on an XPS M1210 laptop. There was an exclusive link that took people to coupon code to use when ordering online.

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more mainstream companies are adopting Twitter

Posted on March 24, 2009 by admin

Paidcontent.org posted a short summary of companies that are incorporating Twitter.

BusinessWeek, Salesforce.com and Best Buy have incorporated Twitter feeds into their redesigned websites and products. The more ground Twitter gains, the more of a threat it poses to rivals like Facebook and MySpace that have spent the past year building out platforms aimed at making them more attractive social-communication tools.

Each business is using Twitter a little bit differently. That’s one of the reasons that Twitter is such an interesting new method of communication. BusinessWeek is building a community on Twitter and displaying content from its Business Exchange members. Best Buy is also using Twitter as a way for users to comment on products and to get price alerts. Could this be the future of ‘comments’?

Salesforce.com is using Twitter in its customer-relations product. Service using the Twitter-enabled service from Salesforce.com can monitor the Twitter stream for mentions of their brand. (via InformationWeek).

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