Using Twitter to sell
Jinfo Blog

12th February 2009

By Diana Nutting

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For small companies, using Twitter (http://twitter.com) to promote their products and services might seem like a cost effective idea. Many large companies are doing it, and digital media agencies are already selling their services to create tweets for clients. By selectively generating a network of contacts on Twitter a company can get highly valuable feedback and new traffic to its website. However, it is reported that Twitter is considering charging for commercial organisations that use the service to market their brands, although there are currently no plans to charge individuals. Twitter has stated that it will hold off on such action while its 'business model is in a research phase'. As an example of the power of Twitter as an advertising tool, PC maker Dell, which has 80 different Twitter feeds and about 11,000 followers, has been experimenting with the service as a tool for customer service, public relations and advertising. Dell told Internet News late last year that its 'Twitter sale alerts' have produced $1 million in revenue over the past year and a half. People who sign up to follow Dell on Twitter receive messages when discounted products are available through the company's Home Outlet Store. They can click over to purchase the product or forward the information to others (http://digbig.com/4yghh). According to Marketing Magazine (http://digbig.com/4yghj) other brands are starting to cotton on to Twitter as a means of having a genuine one-to-one chat with customers. Coffee chain Starbucks started its @mystarbucksidea Twitter account last July as an offshoot of its customer site (http://digbig.com/4yghk) to get customers to share their ideas with the brand. It now also has a general company Twitter account. Starbucks says that its 'principal Tweeter' is like a virtual barista on Twitter; sometimes it's about coffee, sometimes it's about the company, and a lot of times it's just about life.

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