6 Reasons Why Twitter Makes You a Better Marketer

By Doug Stephens

There are many reasons why retailers should be incorporating Twitter into their marketing mix. One important thing that no one seems to be talking about, however, is that using Twitter to market your business will make you an infinitely better marketer.

I know this may seem counter-intuitive given Twitter’s micro-blog format—which to the uninitiated appears to be nothing more than an endless stream of short information bites—but it’s precisely the abbreviated nature of Twitter that can make us better and more effective marketers.

Here’s why.

1. Clarity is Key: It doesn’t matter if you’re Al Gore or Ashton Kutcher, you get a maximum 140 characters, no more. Within that space, you need to clearly position your brand, product, or call to action. Amazingly, with some practice, this restriction can produce Zen-like clarity in your messaging. When you think about it, the best marketing messages are rarely wordy or complex. They’re clear and straight to the point. Twitter trains you to do just that.

2. Self Promotion Doesn’t Work: Blatant self-promotion has always been a bad marketing tactic but through the lens of Twitter it looks even worse. Twitter forces marketers to find ways of being important to consumers without being self-important. By promoting the needs of the consumer instead of promoting yourself, you’ll literally learn how to create a community of customers. A lesson many marketers never learn.

3. Reaction in Real Time: One of the huge problems with conventional marketing is lag-time. By the time the campaign is conceived, packaged and broadcast, we’re usually onto developing the next campaign. By the time consumer reaction begins to filter in, it’s usually too late to affect the positioning or execution of future communications. And so it goes. With Twitter, you know within hours if your message has resonated and spread. With real-time insights, you can fine tune your content to consistently connect with your followers.

4. Money Doesn’t Buy More Space: Marketers often complain that if they only had more money they could buy more attention, often resigning to being out bankrolled by their competition. With Twitter, everybody’s wallet is the same size: 140 characters. Sure, if you’re Best Buy, you can get more people in your company tweeting but that’s no guarantee of success. Look at some of the top re-tweeted Twitter users. Many are individuals and not large companies.

5. Twitter Models Real Life: Twitter is a great real-time representation of the sheer amount of marketing traffic consumers are subjected to every day. Therefore, it’s the ultimate testing ground for your message and your ability to connect to consumers. If you can break through the noise on Twitter, you can do it anywhere!

6. Twitter Makes You Smarter: Twitter is a proverbial fountain of information! Used wisely, you can vastly improve your knowledge and expertise as a professional. You’ll be amazed at the competitive advantage that this new level of insight can create.

If your a Tweeter and can add to our list of reasons to use Twitter, leave us a comment!