Twitter Success Stories – Will yours be one of them?

April 14, 2009

Heard of a little thing called Twitter? I hope so! At SMEketing in Hampshire, not a day goes past where we don’t read some kind of article on it. They’re not always positive articles – like most success stories, there are people who love it, and people who loathe it. But at the end of the day you can no longer ignore it. Twitter is here to stay, and it can help your small business.

How? Well, many of the articles I read surround success stories of Twitter – how it has directly helped businesses gain more customers. And you know what? They’re always small businesses – these are the people who are using Twitter to maximise their product/brand awareness and as a result are generating new businesses and boosting the spend of existing customers.

Here’s a couple of Twitter success stories:

Hubspot, a fantastic source for online marketing, recently wrote about the Kogi Korean BBQ taco truck in LA. They’ve been using social media, and in particular Twitter, with astonishing affect. They identified that their young, techno-savvy customers were using Twitter, so they got involved too. They now have a community of over 14,000 people. They used Twitter to broadcast the locations of their trucks, solicited new names for their trucks and are also designing new company t-shirts via their blog and Twitter. As a result, they now have constant queues of people, lining up to get their hands on one of their tacos. Considering the current state of the economy, that’s a pretty nice position to be in!

Another, well documented Twitter success story is that of CoffeeGroundz, a coffee shop that has credited Twitter with almost doubling their clientele! CoffeeGroundz owner, J.R.Cohen registered with Twitter and started following members of his local Twitterati (definition: the tweet elite, whose feeds attract thousands of followers and whose 140-character spews capture the attention of the rapt who doggedly monitor them) – he soon build up over 1000 followers. One day one of his followers called Sean, sent a direct tweet to Cohen, saying that “I want to pre order a bkfast wrap so I can zip thru drive thru to get back for gas man. C’est possible?”. Cohen replied straight away saying ‘Wi. What do you want on it?”. Ten minutes later Sean had been through the drive-thru and had picked up his breakfast wrap. This simple exchange generated a lot of buzz on Twitter, and was hailed as the first time a to-go order had ever been placed via the medium. Grasping the opportunity with both hands Cohen started taking to-go orders via direct messages from any of his Twitter followers.

CoffeeGroundz has also expanded on their Twitter success by hosting a Tweet-Up – an event where local Twitterers meet up to chat, network and generally get to know people better. Not only did this generate great PR for CoffeeGroundz, but they also kept the 100+ Twitterers well fed and watered – lining their pockets even further!

There are many examples of how small businesses are using Twitter for their advantage. It can be as simple as confirming an appointment, offering some advice, or just commenting on other people’s conversations. The point is that you can’t gain from the benefits if you’re not there. Twitter is perfect for small businesses – it doesn’t cost a penny, and it allows you to reinforce one of your key USPs – your individual character and personal touch to business.

What else can you use Twitter for?

• Understand your customers - by using Twitter polls, you can gain insight on your followers that can be fed back into business
• Form valuable business relationships - it’s not just your customers who are using Twitter. It’s likely that journalists and body representatives are using it too, so use if to build relationships with these key people
• Events and reporting - if you are hosting an event, create buzz about it by broadcasting details via Twitter
• Offer exclusive offers and promotions - offer discounts to Twitterers only
• Reputation management - use Twitter to make followers aware of your service levels, answer customer questions and engage i conversations about your offerings

If you’re still not sure if Twitter is right for your small business, come and talk to us at SMEketing. Based in Southampton, Hampshire, we can help you plan your Social Media Marketing campaigns to ensure you receive best possible results from your investment. Get in touch, even if it’s just for a quick bit of advice! Of course, you can always reach a SMEketer on Twitter – follow us at http://twitter.com/SMEketing

If you’re already using Twitter to great success then let us know. It’s always good to hear from small businesses that are doing well – especially in the current economic climate. Leave a comment at the bottom of the post…

For information and advice on setting up a Twitter account – stay tuned. This will be the subject of the next SMEketing blog post.

Filed under: Social Media Marketing

Tags: brand reputation, Branding, Customers, Events, Hampshire, lead generation, PR, Reputation, search engine optimisation, Small Business Marketing, Twitter