Discuss the fun task of marketing a t-shirt shop. Where to advertise, local marketing tips, word of mouth, press releases, search engine marketing, keyword advertising, magazines, etc.
Just looking for some tips on using twitter to help market your business. If anyone has any useful information that would be wonderful! I am new to tweeting and not sure exactly how I should be using twitter.
Just looking for some tips on using twitter to help market your business. If anyone has any useful information that would be wonderful! I am new to tweeting and not sure exactly how I should be using twitter.
Ah Twitter..it is great..or, at least I think so..and here is why:
- its free
- there are millions upon millions of people using it
- you can find people who may be interested in your product by finding similar brands on twitter and following those who follow them
- it is another weapon in your online marketing arsenal, a quick and easy way to stay in touch with your customers
- its often said its like "word of mouth on steroids", this is true. If a few people RT (re-tweet) your post which may contain a link to your site you can get a lot of traffic quickly and somewhat easily
- you can build your brand image easily. Get in touch with people who follow you, be real, talk about what you care about or what you're doing so that people can relate to you and start to build up trust in you
- google loves twitter so if your user name or url (eg Felix (yourcompany) on Twitter) is your company name whilst your own homepage may not rank in google results the twitter one will which may result in traffic to your page you may not have gotten
- it is fun, really...once you get "into it" and start to connect with people you'll find that you will make friends and business connections..be it suppliers, customers, bloggers, web designers - whatever, they are all on twitter waiting to be spoken to..
- a useful and easy way to foster "relationships" with potential customers
- a very quick way to get the word out about product offers or deals you have going
Ultimately, you will get out of it what you put into it..you can't expect an instant result but as you create your online image, just by being yourself, you will slowly but surely see the rewards and (possibly/probably) have a good time doing so...
in twitter you are overwhelmed by lots of messages everyday and every second. and your advertisement will be overwhelmed too. so find other way of advertising your products online.
Try to find your demographic on their. It can be tough but they are there you have to find all of them and follow. One way is to find a brand that is your closest competition and start following all their followers.
Don't follow people indiscriminately. There are a lot of spammers and people who are just looking to sell you something. Make sure the people you follow will be interested in your message. It doesn't do you any good to have 100,000 followers if 95% of them have no interest in what you're saying or selling. Sometimes less is more.
Lady umbrella made a ton of REALLY GOOD points, definitely follow that.
I really think the key is being interactive and taking the time to care what others are saying and @respond to them. Its a lot easier to just keep tweeting and promoting yourself, but when you take the time to single out your followers tweets, it goes a long way.
So far I like Twitter. It is SO much easier than Facebook (which has given me nothing but problems). If Twitter had the same number of users as Facebook, that'd be awesome (I think that's the only asset Facebook has right now).
Twitter is a great tool to engage in real-time conversation. But before you engage you must have a strategy and first you have to listen to what people are talking about, and then say something insightful to join the conversation. Post informative updates inline with your business but having no links back to your site. You don't want to spam them or you will lose followers.
Sign up, link to it on your main website, and remember to use hashtags and keywords so people can find it and follow you.
Don't just tweet about your business, give people a reason to follow you. For example, get some corny jokes out there or something that the suscribers actually WANT to see.
Try to start by figuring out who your closest competitors are for your brand. Once determine you can start by following all their followers. Over time some will start to follow you. If your website has a blog you can start by dropping each blog post into your Twitter account, this will help by generating visitors to your blog which you can then find ways to let them know about your clothing.
Twitter can be useful if you do it correctly, however, it is very time consuming. We currently have over 1200 followers and are active with our updates every day. A lot of the time we tweet about everyday things, but also mix it up with T-shirt quotes and special offers/promotions we have going on. I have got maybe 2-3 interested people and MAYBE 1 actual order from it so far. Do I think it will pay off in the end? Probably, but it definitely isn't going to come easy or quick. If in the end I got a large account from it, it would probably be worth it though because it's free! The key to any successful marketing technique is to gain VISIBILITY, CREDIBILITY, and then you get PROFITABILIY. I would say we are in between the first two steps right now...
Twitter and Business 
