I have written about Twitter a few times on my blog. While I feel it is better for business to business marketing, there are ways to use it to reach the end user. One way is participating in (not necessarily hosting) Twitter parties.
Sometimes you will see a #hashtag trending that may say something like, #ThisisStyle or #BestBirthdayMemory. This, more than likely, means a Twitter party is going on around this topic of conversation. It was set up by a company (in these cases, Sears and Milk Magic Straws, respectively) and it typically will last an hour.
Simply click on the hashtag and you can join in. The sponsoring company will ask participants a serious of questions, based on the hashtag, for them to tweet an answer (you have to include the #hashtag with the answer).
The incentive for participants to answer is that typically prizes are given away. The sponsoring company benefits because the Twitter party is a great way to engage customers and get in front of an even larger market.
But, as a small business, you do not have to host a Twitter party to still benefit from them. Simply by participating in the party – answering the questions intelligently and informatively and making sure that your Twitter name and avatar represents what you sell – then the majority of other participants might take note of you. People aren’t just there to give answers, they want to read answers too. So after reading yours they may just click over to your Twitter profile or decide to follow you.
For example, MomCentral is a popular blog and they frequently host Twitter parties. So if you sell to moms, it is a good opportunity to join in because the majority of people participating will be moms. Again, just answer the questions, do not promote your business or products. The display of your avatar and company name are enough.
During Twitter parties, it is also common for participants to respond (nicely) to each other’s responses. This gives you a chance to engage potential customers, as well as another opportunity for your avatar to show up in the feed, as long as it doesn’t look obvious that is what you are doing.
How do you know when these parties will be happening? Simply enter in the Twitter search box #twitterparty and any upcoming ones will appear.
So, join in a Twitter party and see if during that hour that you participated (as well as the hour after) your traffic from Twitter increased. Then you will know if it works for your business.
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