Leveraging Twitter to Build Customer Evangelists

I’m not going to lie, Twitter and I have historically had a love/hate relationship and as a marketer I have often questioned its value as a lead and revenue driving tool.  However, with so many raving Twitter fans, I thought I must be missing something. So, I experimented.  First I tried being funny- surely my clever sense of humor (gag) would attract a few followers.  Yeah, that got me a few fans and on a list or two, but whoopty doo- that wasn’t going to build a business.

Next I experimented with complaining about bad service as I had heard stories of companies that bent over backwards to make Twitter-complainers happy. I got about a 50% response rate as a result of my rantings.  No bending over backwards though. Yes, I was impressed that they cared enough to tweet, but that didn’t solve my problem and really only temporarily numbed the pain when my infected sore of disappointment really needed an anti-biotic.  And let’s face it; if a customer is complaining into the Twittersphere, the damage has been done- as marketer that’s when you’re thinking about apologizing, cutting your losses and taking notes for next time. The Twitter Complaint Brigade holds little value when you’re BUILDING business.

I then proceeded to mess with posting and re-tweeting, all with only a modicum of success. Twitter still wasn’t making enough of a case for me to support it as a marketer or invest so much time with it.  Then, last night, the sweet dental hygienist from my dentist’s office changed my mind.   Here’s how:

 Just by the nature of who she was, she took an interest in me as a person while in for some routine dental work.  She found me on Twitter and on occasion would send me a cute personal message in response to something I posted or follow-up on our brief conversation from the last time I was in.  So sweet that she actually remembered what we talked about!  She’s sort of become a Twitter friend.  Then last night, I told her to find me on Facebook.  She tweeted that she would and that I should come into the office.  I thought- yeah, I totally should!  What she didn’t know was that while I always received great dental work, I was thinking about moving to an office closer to my home and had been postponing my six month visit.  Of course, after this personal interaction I was thinking I would be stupid to transfer my business over distance when I could go to a dentist that provided good work and actually knew me as a person and cared about me beyond my business with them.   

It was then when it hit me, if I could replicate this organic experience as a marketer, how powerful would that be?  Twitter stocks just hit payload for me.  While Twitter is only slightly valuable to me in all the other ways I discussed, it could be invaluable when building and maintaining relationships with customers. And I’m not talking about impersonal tweet blasts that go out to everyone but meaningful, personal tweets created for them individually that are infrequently distributed at key points during the buying cycle. Depending on the size of your business, you’d only need a CRM system, time allotment for staff and you’d have to collect Twitter profiles like you do emails.  Sure it’d be a small investment, but the pay-off just might be a loyal, evangelistic customer base you could bank your money on.

 Let’s face it, customers and prospects are over-marketed, over-emailed, and over-Twittered. They are numb to our messages half of the time, leaving us licking our lips in anticipation of a measly click through.    The opportunity that Twitter gives us to communicate with our customers in a personal way that is not intrusive gives us a whole new way to build loyalty and attract new business. I’M SOLD!