Twitter is a major advertising platform for solo-preneurs and business owners alike. Many of us use it as a means to network, build relationships, and eventually sell our products and services. However, Twitter can be so much more than just a promotional tool.
Case in point: Innovative Beverage Group Holdings (IBG), marketers of
Drank Beverage, used Twitter to keep customers updated following a server crash after feature of their product on Fox News. Despite the 12-hour site crash, the company still managed to retain their customers and actually had a bigger surge in sales the next day. This was something no 1-800 number could do for a company. IBG was able to keep a two-way conversation with their customers during a crisis, and avoided a complete PR disaster.
Gary Vaynerchuk, owner of New York-based Cork’D LLC, quickly came to the rescue after his website,
Corkd.com, crashed by creating a video to apologize; hosted it on a video site; and tweeted the link to everyone that mentioned “Corkd” on Twitter. Mr. Vaynerchuk did not experience any drop in traffic in the days following, and received over 70 emails from customers complimenting him on how he handled the situation using Twitter.
How To Keep Track Of It All
If you have several thousandfollowers, and you are actively engaged with them, then it can become a little troublesome to keep up with everyone. There are some tools available that will help you to manage the dozens or hundreds of conversations that you may have going on, especially during a crisis.
CoTweet is a software program that allows you to manage multiple accounts and users; monitor keywords and trends; assign specific tweets to people within your company; and get e-mail notifications when tweets are sent to your twitter account. Companies such as Ford, Microsoft, Starbucks, Coca-Cola, JetBlue, and even Whole Foods use this to stay in touch with their followers.
HootSuite is the ultimate Twitter toolbox. With
HootSuite, you can manage multiple Twitter profiles, add multiple editors, pre-schedule tweets, and measure your success.
HootSuite lets you manage your entire Twitter experience from one easy-to-use interface. Creating an account is easy. Enter your Twitter username and password, and add a profile for each Twitter account you wish to manage. Got more than one tweeter per profile? Add multiple editors. Then get going! Post live or pre-schedule tweets. Check stats and analytics right from the dashboard.
TweetDeck is another powerful platform that allows you to view multiple conversations at once, and even lets you monitor your Facebook pages so you don’t have to keep multiple windows open at once.
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