Use Twitter to make money

 Twitter, a social net allowing the million of users to exchange the flows of brief messages, got the huge popularity recently. But not many people know that it is possible to use Twitter to make money – and not only as an effective marketing instrument but also like a complete communicative platform, as reported by the Forbes magazine. Here you can read about several ways of successful usage of Twitter for companies of any size.

The first way to use Twitter successfully is to send targeted and brief messages about the events you would like your customers to know about. For example, Dell Computers uses Twitter to send the links to Dell Outlet page in Facebook where the customers can find the coupons with the discounts for purchases at Dell.com. California Tortilla – the owner of Mexican snack bars – circulates through its Twitter-feed @caltort “passwords” which must be told to the cashier to receive the discount.

Another way is to use Twitter to support and help clients. The Comcast, dealing with support manning of digital devices, uses Twitter to receive questions and complaints from the clients – from 200 to 300 come to account @comcasters daily. Twitter has the built-in system of searching but there are also several free applications to Twitter specially for permanent monitoring, - for example TweetDeck.

Viral marketing is one of the methods of distributing product or information in the Internet and it can be successfully performed by the instrumentality of Twitter. London company Moonfruit dealing with the web-site making decided to organize the advertising campaign in honor of its tenth anniversary in July 2009. To take part in the drawing of prizes it was necessary to send the message through Twitter with the hash-tag #moonfruit. As the result the traffic to Moonfruit’s site rose 300%, the sales volume grew 20% and now Moonfruit is situated at the first page in Google system on demand “free site making”.

Some companies use Twitter to collect opinions of the customers about their product or service. It is as easy as look in Internet for the links with the name of the company. In stead of paying for questioning of target- groups, Starbuck could collect 3,37 millions mentions on Twitter for absolutely free. This way the companies can make various changes in their price or service policy to better meet the needs of their customers.

As one uses Twitter to find the customers, it is also possible to find suppliers there. For example, Crowdspring portal where business representatives and graphic designers meet, used Twitter to form its author collective. The same way you can receive the favorable offers from the local hotels, transport companies or tourist agencies after placing the message in Twitter that you plan to visit some city during your business trip.

Any company can find itself in the difficult situation and the key moment is the cooperation with the clients. And one of the best ways of direct contacting is Twitter. For example, the cable provider Comcast notified its clients through Twitter that the reason of interruption of the broadcast of Davis Cup in April 2009 is the storm and the broadcast would recommence soon. It is important that the clients know what steps are taken to settle the problem.

Sodexo Company managing the public catering establishments uses Twitter and other social nets to train the HR specialists. The automotive program circulates the letters to the potential employees when the company has the vacancy. 30 percent of messages reach the addressees. The messages are very personal and attractive to give people the understanding whether they would like to work in this company or not. Moreover, twitter allows reducing the expenses for placing information about vacancies at online public bulletin boards.

Twitter also helps in settling the possible problems. If some company does not pay attention on your problem, for example it charged excess amount in your bill and refuses to give it back, you can always tell about the problem in Twitter and receive answers about the similar situations. Moreover, if 1000 people answer you now that means that in 30 seconds 100,000 people will know about your problem. It helps settling the problem indeed.

Nobody likes when he is asked to donate money neither is real life nor in Internet. But there is more effective tactics – to inform instead of asking. Nonprofit institution Epic Change launched Tweetsgiving web-site together with Kbuzz firm at Thanksgiving Day. The visitors were asked to send messages about whom and for what they are thankful. The answers were placed at #tweetsgiving and the link led back to Tweetsgiving site where the visitors could donate money for building schools in Tanzania. The action lasted for 48 hours: from 15,000 visitors 360 donated totally $11,000.

Chris Brogan, the president of New Marketing Labs, consults companies how to spy on the competitors and entice the clients at the expense of more qualitative service or giving discounts. In the instrumentality of TweetDeck you find the negative mentions of your competitor company and settle the direct contact with them. After receiving the response you can be almost sure in finding your potential clients.

Also Twitter allows involving the users of social nets. Visitors can get access to the forums through Twitter and exchange the messages which are placed at the both platforms. The forums increase the internet-traffic and of course the advertising income. And such services can be sold to advertisers.