How To Actually Sell Products Directly On Twitter
Copyright 2010 by Willie Crawford
Many people will tell online marketers that
you can’t make sales on Twitter. Twitter
“purist” will tell you that you shouldn’t
even try. They tell you to get followers to
visit your blog or website first.
I understand their message, but I’m here to
tell you that you CAN make direct sales on
Twitter. I do it all the time, and I’m going
to share with you how I do it in this article.
First of all, you do need to understand that
Twitter is NOT a mailing list, and that you
need to understand the culture and habits. That
being said, here are the things that you need to
keep in mind to make direct sales on Twitter:
1) You need the right products. Twitter-related
products have done very well for me.
2) The products that you offer must be on-topic for
your followers. People follow you because they see
that you tweet about a certain topic. Your product
offerings should generally be on that topic.
This rule applies to email marketing too. Give your
audience information on the topic that they’ve already
told you that they are interested in.
3) Inexpensive “impulse” items do well. Your followers
are wondering how much they could lose if the item is
not exactly right for them. A strong guarantee removes
that risk in the first place, but not all of your
followers believe the guarantees. They don’t seem to
understand that with Visa and MC, all they really need
to do is request a refund and they’ll get it!
4) You do generally need to build a relationship with
followers first. They need to know that you are
trustworthy, and do really care about them. This takes
a little time.
Tweet useful information regularly to build that
relationship. Your tweet should also indicate the
benefit they’ll get from clicking through. The title
of the article is a good example!
5) You need to post when your followers are online.
That means that you need to serve a very specific
demographic, and you need to study their surfing
behavior. What country or countries are they from?
What time of the day are they usually online?
You are better off with several Twitter accounts
serving different demographics than one account trying
to communicate with and serve everyone.
If your followers follow a LOT of people their “twitstreams”
will flow very fast, and it does no good to tweet about
something that should interest them if they don’t see
it. If most of your followers have regular jobs,
they probably glance at Twitter early morning, and then
early evening (after getting home from work, and having
dinner).
Those are just a few of the things I subconsciously
consider when posting marketing messages to Twitter. They
do make a huge difference 
———-
Willie Crawford has been using Twitter for several years,
and does use it in his marketing mix. To learn how
you can do the same visit Willie at http://timic.org/dc
