My friend Jayme Soulati sent me a great little story about getting new business through Twitter. I thought you might enjoy it!  Here’s Jayme:

The name of the game, as they frequently say, Mark, is developing relationship for ultimate Twitter success. I began tweeting for Cardthartic, a 16-year-old private greeting card publisher, in June.  Currently, we have merely 130 followers and 200 tweets.  Because the web site relaunch was not slated until September 2009, I knew I needed to establish a presence, build reputation and tweet about our passionate greeting cards in a sincere way.

Content is king. No doubt about that. While I could not drive traffic to the antiquated Web site, all I could do was tweet about the greeting within each card. To gain followers, I reviewed trending topics for “florists” who carry our cards that are nationally distributed and kept following people oriented to moms, grandmas, pet lovers, gift givers and florists. In a little over a month, I got my first authentic sale from Twitter! 

Here’s Jayme’s list for Twitter success: 

• Establish yourself with relevant and sincere content.
• Do not directly sell with offensive marketing gimmicks, like teeth whiteners.
• Personify yourself; a human is tweeting so who are you?
• While tweeting for a company brand is acceptable, come out from behind the curtain and be accessible.
• To convert a lead into a sale, ensure you pull in the traditional troops to close the deal.
• Monitor, monitor. Had we not been in close touch with the Tweets, we could easily have missed potential sales.

3 Comments

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  By Jody Pirrello, September 18, 2009 @ 1:54 pm

  I’d love to hear more about her first authentic sale from twitter.

  It’d also be great to read a follow-up after the new web site is launched and up for a while (I think it’s still the old one?). How is social integrated with the new site? What’s the feedback loop? Did it change the conversations happening on twitter?

  You know, how did it {grow}? ;)
• 

  By Jayme Soulati, September 18, 2009 @ 1:40 pm

  Hi, Jody. Thanks for the inquiry re my Cardthartic Twitter biz success. The cool thing is the absolute lack of expectation to garner such a positive. Knowing there was nowhere to which I could direct traffic, the authenticity had to be the 140-character message.

  I see so many direct sales efforts as offensive (teeth dudes, make $millions) because the sincerity is absent.

  That said, this effort to integrate social media with Web marketing is a first for this company. I’m helping drive that at a snail’s pace. A greeting card company with amazing products as Cardthartic offers MUST rely on a Web marketing plan to stave off market obstacles: postage, texting, Internet, price of paper, etc.

  Traditionally a slow-to-adopt, lean publisher, Cardthartic will eventually get there. The initial thrust, under my tutelage, am hopeful will be the Facebook Fan Page, Twitter and new blog.

  I’d love to take this viral when the Web site goes up…you know, a virtual launch party!

  More as Mark permits! Thank you, Mark, for permitting this little ditty. @Soulati

Other Links to this Post

1. DR. WHAW? – September 18, 2009 « One true sentence. — September 20, 2009 @ 12:06 am

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