We’ve been bombarded with questions about Twitter in the past few months. Due to its rising media attention and popularity, everyone feels they need a Twitter account for enhancing their business.
Yet for every Twitter success story, there are many people who have spent hours learning it and have nothing to show for it. We solicited input from active Twitter user and have some success stories to share. Here are the first few responses that were worth sharing. We’ll be adding a few more posts with success stories in the coming weeks, as well as some guidelines on what business owners can learn from all of this.
“Our Tweets are exclusively related to health and wellness related content (the focus of CareFlash) and encompass out-of-the-mainstream topics. Each Tweet is linked to our CandyStriper blog and follows a Guy Kawasaki quote… “Create world class content and Google will find you.” Each post links-up pertinent 3-D animations related to the topic of that particular post… making these very rich Tweets. As we get new followers, we thank them and reply with a link to a lighthearted video that has proven very effective at driving viral follower growth and loyalty. I’ve picked well over 7,000 loyal fans on Twitter (while driving my business model), most notably on just over 200 Tweets.”
Suzanne Collier - Mercy House:
“In 2009, Mercy House (www.mercyhouse.net), non profit 501(c)3 organization that offers Continuum of Care to provide homeless prevention, emergency services, transitional housing and permanent housing with supportive services to homeless men, women and children living in Orange County, Calif. and the City of Ontario, Calif., began a fundraising program that includes a monthly Twitter TweetUp, held the first Monday of every month at Proof Bar (@proofbar or www.proofbar.com) in Santa Ana, Calif.
Followers of Mercy House and Proof Bar on Twitter will “Tweet” information on the TweetUp starting about two weeks prior to each TweetUp, invites are also sent out via Facebook. Cara Good and her team at WunderMarx|PR (@remarx), a public relations firm based in Tustin, Calif. help to execute this program by creating the Facebook invites, and “tweeting” the news of the TweetUps to Twitter followers. The hashtag for the TweetUp is #mhtweetup.
Thus far, four TweetUps for Mercy House have been held at Proof Bar. The first one, which took place in February, drew 30 guests and raised $600 for Mercy House. Attendance has grown to 45-60 guests per TweetUp with $600 to $800 raised. The next “Tweet-up” is scheduled for Monday, June 1 from 5pm to 8pm.”
Patrick Allmond – Focus Consulting:
“BatteryFuel (http://batteryfuel.com) is an online store (no retail locations) that sells new batteries and chargers for a large variety of laptops, cameras, cell phones and other home/portable electronics. Working with Focus Consulting, BatteryFuel has been able to leverage social media tools to provide live customer support. BatteryFuel continuously monitors real-time conversations via Twitter about dissatisfaction with the market it deals in – especially competitor products. They offer information (gratis) on how people can get better use of the products. It is also not uncommon for customers to be happy enough with BatteryFuel’s advice to ask for assistance making a purchase from their site. As a result the portion of the BatteryFuel revenue that comes from Social Media interactions is growing each month.”
