Twitter Case Studies: Strategic Business Lessons from the Bird Cage

by    |   1st Mar 10 3:25 am   |   2
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Twitter for Business e1267438668518 Twitter Case Studies: Strategic Business Lessons from the Bird CageIt’s said that small businesses realize about half of their customers through word of mouth. This business axiom begs a couple of questions:

  • Does this hold true for your business?
  • Do you have a referral strategy of some kind in place?
  • Could Twitter assist in spreading the word about your products or services?

Think about it: When it comes to spreading the word with positive endorsements, Twitter is about as viral as it gets. If you can plug into what excites your followers, it effectively shortens the emotional distance between your business and customers. From there, it’s a short skip to increased sales.

From time to time I’ve had reasons to search online for good Twitter case studies – many Internet marketing bloggers probably have. Over the years I’ve come across only a few. So, I was delighted to discover that Twitter has rounded up their success stories. Among them, I found this one thought-provoking …

A Dell Outlet marketing employee discovered Twitter in 2007 and started using it to promote discount computer deals. However, she soon discovered that people were interested in much more than learning about good deals. They wanted to ask questions, and existing Dell customers wanted to share their experiences, both good and bad.

People felt good about getting such a personal response from the Dell representative. Issues were resolved; goodwill was built; and respect and partiality was earned. The reps had learned the hard way, you could say, to specifically search for Twitter members who’ve tweeted about Dell, using www.Search.Twitter.com.

Dell Outlet didn’t abandon its strategy to promote products on Twitter. In fact, they’ve had astounding success with it, attributing over $3 million in sales to its microblogging activities.

Most of people won’t earn $3 million from our Twitter followers, but for me, the Dell Outlet business case study underscores one very important point: It’s too easy to be off-target from optimum messaging when tweeting.

If you’re unclear about what your followers want to learn from you, just ask them! Isn’t this one of the best ways to use Twitter? It’s easy to conduct informal opinion surveys using Twitter. Do this with an eye to better honing your blog content, or refining your product or service mix.

The goal of every marketer is to give the people what they want, making every aspect of doing business with you irresistible. Sometimes creating that feeling has little to do with price. Sometimes you’re chosen over the competition because you seem to care more.

So, engage in conversations. Try to help prospects solve problems related to your niche. Before long you, like Dell Outlet, may realize that face time truly does build preference, and preference is a tangible commodity – one you can take to the bank!

Douglas Idugboe, Digital and New Media Marketing Strategist. Founder and Chief Editor of Smedio! A Canadian Bestselling Author, Marketing Strategist, Speaker and Trainer, Who Loves Technology
  • http://www.gremln.com/ Ryan B

    Good topic. I often see the Dell example used as a source of success for social media. What I would like to see is analysis of that example to show whether it is in fact true.
    1. Did they spend nearly 2 to 3 million in social media marketing related expenses in order to acquire 2 to 3 million in sales
    2. Did their sales result from new customers or did they in fact canibalize their own customers. I know that Bud Select sells well, but I have no doubt that an overwhelming % of Bud Select drinkers used to be Bud Light drinkers.

    If you could do a story on this, I think you might either find suprising results or at a minum generate an answer to a much asked question.

    Thanks,

    Ryan

  • http://smedio.com Douglas Idugboe

    While I know social media marketing success is never cost free, especially in time currency, Ryan, you have very interesting points. You've actually gotten me interested in finding answers to these two questions:

    1. How much, in dollar and/or time, did they spend to generate 3 million in sales?
    2. How much of the resulted sales were generated from new and repeat customers?

    Thanks for getting us thinking on this subject. Expect a follow up article on this subject soon.