Twitter Story: Marketing

I’m back from my blogcation, and continuing my Twitter tales. This one focuses on using Twitter for marketing.

Three exemplars of what can be done with Twitter to market your organization are:

  1. Dell
  2. Zappos
  3. California Tortilla

All three companies use their Twitter presence for a combination of marketing and customer service/interaction.

California Tortilla provides periodic free giveaways to their Twitter followers – everything from burritos if you say the secret phrase to Twitter-only coupons to periodic swag bags. The main Zappos account is tweeted by CEO Tony Hsieh. He drops in tidbits like “follow the link for FREE LIFETIME VIP CLUB status” (hey, that’s a good offer – and there’s still one day left!) amongst a little personal news and a series of interesting quotes from various famous people. Dell also shares a lot of online only coupons, pre-sales and other deals, in addition to running a CheapTweet store.

OK, you’re probably not going to attract the 1.5 million followers Tony Hsieh has, or the 1.4 million Dell has. But you don’t need to, because you probably don’t have 1.5 million members. California Tortilla has more like 2200 followers, and they’ve done it through word of mouth because of their great deals.

What great deals could you offer? Could you offer a special discount to an upcoming event, or a free preview of a forthcoming publication, or information about a “secret” chat with an expert in your field to your Twitter followers?

What are you doing to market your association and your products and services through Twitter?