John Jantsch over at Duct Tape Marketing posted an excellent article on How to Make Your Tweets More Useful.
Jantsch says that one of the big problems businesses have with Twitter is whether Twitter has an effective ROI. While most businesses love the push/interruption marketing approach, they’re just not going to get that many followers doing it, and thus the ROI is going to be low, and the executives who gave a wary, half-hearted approval are going to say, “See? Told you it wouldn’t work.”
The problem is that social media doesn’t work that way. We don’t like to be pushed or interrupted. Or when you do it, it has to be so slick and smooth, we don’t even realize you did it. You can’t just beat us over the head with commercial after commercial of “Daily special: Mention this tweet and receive 10% off your next order!” You’ll be dropped faster than a napkin with someone else’s snot on it.
Jantsch says we should think about our tweeting activities and payoffs in an “expanded way.” (That’s “adopt a revolutionary paradigm” for you marketing-speak addicts.
We can use Twitter to test messages and headlines, best time of day for tweeting, soliciting comments and feedback, and find out what interests people.
Jantsch offers a few ideas we can use to improve our Twitter ROI and actually get some use out of the tool. Here are a few of his ideas, paraphrased and adapted:
- Forward an article to your followers, using the bit.ly URL shortener in TweetDeck or at www.bit.ly. Measure the Return On Influence at Twitalyzer.com or at www.bit.ly. If you get a lot of traffic in the form of clicks, you may be able to do your own blog post on the subject (sort of like this post!).
- Tweet a question to your followers for their opinion on a decision you need to make. Link a shortened URL to the page/post in question, check the stats, and read the comments. Throw in a survey if it will help.
- See what kinds of tweets people respond to the best. If they respond to certain ones more, say personal or non-commercial posts, you may be on to something. Give people more of what they respond to. Don’t flood them with the other stuff, because they weren’t responding the first time.
Twitter is quickly becoming a tool for businesses to marketing and promote their brand or product. And for those of you who have to show your boss how to find the ROI, these are a few ways to do it. There are plenty of Twitter tracking and measuring tools out there. I just happen to favor Bitly and Twitalyzer. You can use what you want.
So what do you use to measure your Twitter ROI?
Are you measuring your Twitter results? How are you doing it? Any ideas or suggestions or things to avoid?
