10 Twitter Tips for E-Commerce Retailers

Twitter is a fairly uncomplicated site; however, there are a few tips and tricks to gaining more followers (people reading your messages); being retweeted (having your messages re-broadcast); and ultimately converting followers to customers on your site.

I’ve got 10 Twitter Tips you’ll want to consider as you create your Twitter account.

Craft a Relevant User Name. Use your real name or your company name, but whatever you do don’t get too cute or too sultry. There are Twitter spammers out there and they tend to use cute or sultry names – they also tend to get banned. If you will be the only one Tweeting on behalf of your site and you’re not that well known yet, stick with your site or company name. If you have some notoriety, use your real name (assuming someone else hasn’t taken that User Name). Examples of good e-commerce User Names could be Philly_WaterTrtment; Diapers_r_us; Kids_Corner_Toys, etc.

Don’t neglect your profile image. No one will take you seriously if your Twitter profile’s image is the default brown box. The default box either tells your fellow Twitterers you’re new or don’t care. Instead, use a site logo, a fun graphic or even your own headshot.

Remember to write a profile. Your Twitter profile is a searchable section of your Twitter persona. You can write your profile to include keywords as well as a website URL. An example of a good Twitter profile would read something like this: KittyTreats.com is a e-commerce site specializing in cat toys and treats.

Write a non-lame first post. A lot of people will draft their first Tweet something along the lines of “This is our/my first Tweet.” That’s all well and good, but if you want to capture future follower’s attention, you may want to post something a little wittier. Consider doing some basic marketing with your first Tweet: “Looking forward to talking to people on Twitter about cats and the humans who love them.”

Post a few more introductory posts before you start to find people to follow. When you start to follow people (or sites) on Twitter, they’ll most likely check out your profile and see if you’re legit or up to no good. One clue you’re a little shady? Having a single posts and a bunch of followers. Follow up your first tweet with a second, similar “getting-to-know-you” tweet: “Just getting the hang of Twitter and hoping to connect with cat lovers and let them know about our cat toys.”

Find and follow your fellow Twitterers. Twitter offers an option of rummaging through your e-mail inbox to look for people whose email addresses you have that they also have on Twitter. This is one option for finding people to follow. Another option is to use “Find on Twitter” function under “Find People.” Go ahead and see if your local paper, favorite websites, or retailers have a Twitter presence. Not only you have some followers to look at and read, you also get a better sense of how different folks craft their tweets. Another good option for finding people to follow is by using Twitter Search (search.twitter.com/). Essentially a Twitter search engine, Twitter Search allows you to plug in a term or terms and see who is talking about them on Twitter. Once you’ve found people (or sites or companies), go ahead and follow them.

Concentrate on crafting good Tweets. No one (and I repeat, NO ONE) likes having sales-only Tweets rammed down their throats. Twitter is best used as an extension of your brand. Use it to converse with cat lovers (or whatever your site sells), or cat food manufacturers, etc. If you’re running a special sale on your site, it’s a great idea to Tweet that; however, don’t let it be the only thing you Tweet. Twitterers love a conversation.

Spread the love and ReTweet good Tweets. In keeping with our fictional KittyTreats.com idea, say you follow Purina on Twitter and they’ve just posted a recall on their food. All of your followers may not know about the recall and you want to let them know. By ReTweeting (RT as it’s commonly known in Twitterville), you can spread the word to your followers as well. A word about retweeting: A retweet requires the RT and then the @____username in order to be considered a retweet. If your RT is too long, you can condense it to fit within 140 characters, just be sure to keep the gist of the message intact.

Broadcast your Twitter presence. Be sure to add a widget on your own site that proudly displays your presence on Twitter. Whether your run a live Tweet stream on your site or just a graphic and a link, online buyers will see you on Twitter and odds are, will hop over to Twitter to follow you (if they’re already on). In this day and age, a lot of online shoppers are finding e-retailers with social media flavor to be a little more “hip” and with it which translates to sales for you.

Find a good desktop (or mobile) Twitter application to increase your productivity. Twitter can be time consuming if you let it; however, with good desktop or mobile application, you can turn the time-suck into a productivity win. TweetDeck (tweetdeck.com/beta) is my favorite desktop tool. Within one simple download, you can follow, respond, search and check on Twitter trends all on one navigation pane (rather than on Twitter.com where you have to move around the site).

Facebook Hints at Charging Users for Service

Facebook has been working on and is in the early stages of an internal payment system.

For a while now they have tried to work out a business plan that would generate revenue from its over 100,000,000 users. Lately word is stirring that they have hinted more at the possibility of charging users for their service. Exactly how remains to be seen but some thoughts have been possibly charging for the use of vanity urls (currently free so get one while they are) or even for allowing you to purchase credits that can be used to buy virtual goods from the third-party applications that run on the site, or from Facebook itself.

There has yet to be a full disclosure of the concept but it brings me to the new poll I’m running on the site (look to the right side of the screen and scroll down a bit in the navigation areas): “If Facebook began to charge for their service, would you still use it?”

Voice your opinion and let me know your thoughts.

Facebook Vanity URLs … Get ‘em While They are Available

In case you haven’t heard yet (although that’s hard to believe), this past Friday Facebook launched vanity URLs to their subscribers.

What does this mean for you?

Well, much like Twitter does already by allowing you to direct followers to a url that looks something like this http://www.twitter.com/VoomVentures so too does Facebook now.

If you have a Facebook profile you can now set a username for that profile and turn your previously long numbered link into a shorter more meaningful one. So what used to be http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1234567890 now might look like this http://www.facebook.com/YourNameHere.

If you have created a Facebook Page then you may have to wait for a vanity url. Currently, Facebook is only allowing Pages to select a vanity url if they have over 1000 fans as of May 31, 2009. Word has it that restriction will be lifted near the end of July 2009 and Facebook will enable anyone with a Page to reserve vanity url.

Statistics show that during the first 3 minutes after launch the site had already reserved over 200,000 names and after 15 more minutes went over the 500,000 mark. After one hour it went over the 1,000,000 mark and that continues to climb.

In short, if you haven’t reserved your url yet you might want to do it (providing the one you want isn’t already taken now). You can reserve your Facebook username here.

Facebook surpassed MySpace as the largest social network last year sometime and continues to explode. Now with yet one more previously missing link added (the ability for Facebook users to choose a unique vanity url) they look poised to stay on top for a while and have now put a stranglehold on Twitter. Both could be considered a form of micro-blogging with Facebook offering a large variety more of “social applications”.

So if you have a store and associated Facebook profile or Page you should consider reserving a username of your choosing before it’s too late. It would be a shame to have marketed your business and developed a name for yourself only to have another person come in and lay claim to a domain with your company name in it.

Should you hire a social media consultant for your e-commerce site?

With the hundreds of social media sites or applications available, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. When you’re already trying to keep your e-commerce business afloat, social media can seem unnecessary and time-consuming.

Research has shown, however, that e-commerce retailers are reaping the benefits of social media (i.e., offering better customer service and increased sales) so it pays to use it.

Not everyone is social media savvy nor do they have the time which is why a lot of companies hire social media consultants to help them with their campaigns.

Do you need a social media consultant or should you do your own social media work?

When to hire a social media consultant:

• If you really do not have the time to commit to social media sites
• If you don’t have the time to learn social media sites
• If you don’t consider yourself a strong writer and/or interactive with your audience
• If you want to launch a large social media campaign and need experts to help get things off the ground.
• If you tend to defer project work to experts rather than attempt to try it yourself.

When to do your own social media work:

• If you’re familiar with social media sites (like YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn or Facebook) and use them on a personal basis.
• If you’re a quick-learner and tech-savvy.
• If you’re planning a small campaign with only one or two social media sites.
• If you have content ready to post on a blog (or Twitter, Facebook, etc.)

Note: Social media consultants tend to pay per project or per hour depending on their rates and availability.

9 Social Media-Related Tools E-Retailers Should Consider For Their Digital Toolbox

I am a self-confessed geek. From cool apps (geek speak for applications), to productivity-enhancing web tools, I’m what my IT colleagues call a “power user.”

My laptop is a treasure trove of sites, tools, gadgets and widgets I’ve found on list-blog posts like these. Don’t even get me started on my phone. It’s my laptop’s “mini me.”

For the sake of productivity — and to make your e-commerce toolbox as rich as they come — I’ve compiled a list of the tools I can’t go without throughout my day so that you can use them as well. (You’ll see a lot of Google products pop up on my list. This has more to do with their ease-of-use and free pricetag than anything. I highly suggest using Google’s applications as much as possible particularly if you’re watching your dimes.)

1. GMail/GCalendar. (http://mail.google.com/) Used by some of the most intelligent and techno-savvy minds I know, Google’s email platform, Gmail, is similar to Microsoft’s Outlook email client insofar as organizing e-mail is concerned. Where most e-mail systems use folders, Gmail uses Labels which are color-codable organizing tools. You can also create filters and rules to jettison your email into a particular “label” thereby keeping your inbox relatively clean. Gmail also works in concert with the Google Calendar which is a God-send for busy types like me. Both Gmail and Google Calendar are accessible by phone, which brings me to…

2. iPhone. I just bought mine a few weeks ago and quite honestly, I’m not sure how I managed without it. In a coming post, I’m going to detail some great social networking apps, but for now, I’m just going to rave about the phone. It’s true that the iPhone isn’t a social networking too, per se, but as I mentioned, it has a number of apps (applications) you can install to keep you as connected as you would be sitting in front of a computer screen. On my own phone, I have several applications that can tell me how far the nearest bathroom is — great when I need to change for a face-to-face meeting; where the nearest free wi-fi spot is; recipes I shouldn’t go without; up- and down-loadable shopping lists that I can concoct while I’m sitting in traffic. My iPhone has become my lifeline.

3. Skype. (http://www.skype.com) My phone only has so many minutes without my seeing a huge bill which is why I depend on Skype for cross-country, international or lengthy phone calls. To call Skype’s calls phone calls isn’t quite true. They’re computer-to-phone line calls. Skype is incredibly easy to use (and free for basic use) and even offers an instant messaging feature if you’re without one. Other options include an telephone address book and search tools to find people or businesses you may know also using Skype. Skype-to-Skype calls are free so you may want to invite everyone you’ve ever done business with to download and use.

4. Widgetbox (http://www.widgetbox.com) If you’ve ever seen a feed of recent video, blog, Twitter, etc. posts, odds are, the site was using a Widget. There are several widget sites you can use, but my favorite is Widgetbox. I’ve created easy-to-install widgets for my own sites to keep visitors updated on recent posts. Like most tools, there is a free, basic version and a pay-for-customization version. I’d play around with the free version and if you like what you see, pay for the rest.

5. Lijit (http://www.lijit.com/) I’ve talked about Lijit before. Lijit is useful when you get around in the social media sphere like I do. I have a membership on a lot of sites, blogs, etc. and I like to show them off which is why I’ve housed my networks in my Lijit account. I can use embed code Lijit gives me to display my social media-prowess on my own sites if I chose (which I often do).

6. Twitter. (http://www.twitter.com). I hope you’re not getting tired of hearing me talk about Twitter because I’m a huge fan. I can connect with thousands of people throughout the world in 140 characters or less (which is good, because I can get wordy). I can ask a question about a social media app, find other people like me who want to connect and even promote myself and my sites. I use a desktop application called Tweetdeck (http://www.tweetdeck.com/beta/) to manage my incoming and outgoing messages which clears up valuable real estate on my browser’s search bar.

7. Google Analytics (www.google.com/analytics/) Another free tool, Google Analytics lets me know who is visiting my sites, when, where from, what terms they’re using to get there. I consider Google Analytics my owner personal website private investigator.

8. Google Docs. (http://docs.google.com) Similar to Gmail and Google Calendar, Google Docs has some similarities to Microsoft’s Office suite. Google Docs, unlike Microsoft, let you create and share online rather than emailing a document back and forth. Consider Google Docs the next time you need a word processing or spreadsheet tool and/or also need to share it with another person or group.

9. iGoogle. If you’ve signed up for any of the Google products mentioned above, odds are you now have a Google account. Great!!! Good job. Now you can also customize your Google homepage to include RSS feeds and other widgets that will keep you informed and more productive. Need an example? Using our fictitious animal toys e-commerce site, imagine you want to keep track of your e-mail, calendar and RSS feeds from your favorite animal-related websites. iGoogle lets you create a homepage that houses all of these things on one screen. Nifty, eh?