Five Must Ask Twitter Questions

Little doubt remains about Twitter’s potential as a marketing tool, but a great debate exists about how, when and for what purposes Twitter should be incorporated into the marketing mix.

Its nimble nature already makes Twitter a great customer service, listening and general communication tool. Countless brands across many industries have put Twitter to use in this capacity. In the future, Twitter’s speedy nature will likely earn it a place on the search engine results pages of one of the major engines, and marketers will undoubtedly find additional ways to harness the much lauded microblogging service. In the meantime, marketing executives should at least ask their teams the following:

Are we using Twitter to help boost our site traffic?
Twitter sends a lot of traffic to the brand sites of marketers who cultivate its potential and engage in meaningful discussions. Companies can also introduce new products, press releases or special promotions on Twitter, which can create significant traffic surges that can be tracked in real time. Many tweets get passed along through “reTweets” and other viral methods that lead to links on blogs and other sites that drive even more traffic.

Although brands take many different approaches to driving traffic with Twitter, a couple notable efforts include:

• Lowes publishes a site full of creative projects/ideas and drives traffic through Twitter to get people excited about various home improvement projects
• WholeRecipes: many Whole Foods Twitter accounts exist, including one from the national chain and many that represent regional stores; WholeRecipes, like Lowes, drives traffic and boosts demand by getting people excited about specific projects

Are we using Twitter to improve our search rankings?
A natural byproduct of boosting site traffic, the inbound links that result from blogs and other high quality sites can significantly improve a site’s performance on the engines. Marketers should think of Twitter as an accelerated link machine; as more and more inbound links accumulate, the credibility of the marketers’ site rises in step in the eyes of the search engines.

Are we tapping Twitter to sell seasonal merchandise and excess inventory?
Many online and multichannel brands have achieved great success with Twitter. As more and more fans of the brand opt in to follow on Twitter, marketers can tap Twitter to help sell old models and other inventory that needs to go. Some marketers may even decide to setup a “sales” or “deals” Twitter account that’s affiliated with the brand but completely dedicated to sales and promotional updates.

Some of the brands, retailers and e-tailers currently tapping Twitter include:

• Kohlsdotcom: promotes Kohls.com Deals of the Day, contests and sweepstakes, and more
• OldNavyOfficial: promotes sales, offers free shipping and other special promotions, etc.
• BROfficial: promotes sales and other deals for Banana Republic
• MoviesUnlimited: promotes 12-hour specials and DVD preorders for the e-tailer

Is Twitter helping our search and reputation management efforts?
Twitter can help your search teams capture and code consumer sentiment, the backbone of keyword buildouts and a critical component of any search campaign’s overall structure. Twitter can assist in keyword mining, topic classification and more. It can also provide unique and timely reputation management insights to fuel natural and paid search efforts by offering marketers an effective method for monitoring the positive and negative things qualified customers or the general public are saying about their brands.

Are we doing more than distributing static news and chatter?
Unfortunately, countless banks and financial services providers, airlines, and businesses across many other verticals have either ignored Twitter altogether or have simply chosen to use the microblogging service as a one way channel for distributing news or chatter. Unfortunately, this approach fails to capitalize on many of the benefits that Twitter makes readily available. Worse yet, many of the brands missing from Twitter have been usurped by imposters waiting to dupe the unsuspecting Tweeter into thinking they represent the brand.

If the answers are anything but yes, marketing execs should turn to naysayers and simply ask: what are you doing?

Michael Kahn ([email protected]) is senior vice president, marketing at Performics and a monthly contributor to Chief Marketer.