by Lisa Greathouse
A graduate from Mercyhurst College in Erie, Pennslyvania, Lisa Greathouse enjoys spending her days as the Product Manager for K-12 Solutions for a web-based, business-to-business software company. In the evenings and on weekends, she also works with small businesses to help develop and implement creative marketing solutions – specifically those involving social media, or web 2.0 marketing. Lisa has seen much success using Twitter and other social media marketing tactics for brand promotion, market research, and customer support. Lisa is always looking to discuss and explore new ways of using technology in marketing, and you can connect with her on Twitter via @isi_techgirl.
While I use Twitter for several different aspects of marketing, I’d like to share an aspect that I don’t think gets enough credit: using Twitter for marketing research and/or product development purposes.
This isn’t something a newbie Twitter account will be able to do right away. But it’s something to look forward to, and if nothing else, an amazing reason to start building your account and your network.
I use Twitter to:
- Start discussions with my market about possible new product ideas and concepts using # keywords
- Scan discussions to find out about the latest news in the market
- Post online surveys and ask for participation
- Spy on the competitor -what do people think about your competitors? What are their complaints? What do they like about your competitors? Any new competitors?
- Manage my brands – How does the market view our company? Our brand? Are there any concerns? How can I help?
- Find volunteers for focus groups
Of course, as I mentioned above, you can’t just dive in and start expecting solid feedback. You need to build your network. This is what worked for me:
- Found key consumers or market leaders and followed them
- Then, followed everyone that followed them
- Read, read, read. Learned about my market before I started tweeting
- Became available and an expert. Posted all day long. Not possible? Sure it is. Tweetlater.com or other applications allow you to set tweets. I started a database of relevant tweets and schedule them once an hour M-F. Of course, I live tweet a lot as well!
- I didn’t promote my brand shamelessly. In fact, I started using a personal account (@isi_techgirl) with my photo and personal thoughts before Twitter got big. Then, when the popularity of Twitter grew, I realized my brand needed an account too (@SimpleK12) and now that is my main account.
If I could share one tip about Twitter that I have found most valuable it would be:
Twitter is a language. Within Twitter there are multiple, multiple dialects. Your target market will have a different dialect than mine. Learn how the people you want to communicate with, communicate. Is it a serious tone? Do they share personal photos? Do they RT and @ a lot? Do they like to hear about market news?
Learn the language.
Then tweet it.
Don’t forget to check out the other posts from Twitter Tweek:
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