How not to Sell on Twitter
I hear a lot of grumbling about people who direct message other people on Twitter with a notes such as “see my blog at…” or “go to my website and enter __ for a 10% discount”. I don’t like these either, and I am a marketing person. I also, by the way, avoid car lots with aggressive salespeople.
In general, people are “turned off” by obvious attempts at sales on social networking sites. I ran a poll on this subject recently and 90% of my Twitter followers who responded expressed frustration at these direct messages. And, they also “unfollowed” people who did this. They don’t even like the ones that say, “Thanks for the follow. See me at…”
Ouch.
It is not an effective marketing technique on Twitter, it seems. If it has been effective for you, I would appreciate hearing about your experience in the comments section.
Do people gain sales/jobs/following on Twitter? Absolutely. But this is accomplished more by developing trust and developing relationships with your followers versus sending them “specials” via direct message.
I recommend that If you do want to post a special, or a blog post/link that you think is beneficial to other people, post it as a general message to all under the “home” tab versus making your followers into a mailing list.
Another thing that I dislike is when stores add me to their mailing list without my consent. I see if I’ve worked with them before, but I’ve been getting newsletters sent from companies I haven’t even heard of. Maybe you can talk about this in a later post!
I agree, Sheena. I connect with people via email sometimes when they ask for advice, etc. Which is cool-love to do that. But I end up on some lists because of it.
I dislike the Twitter DM’s as well. Don’t clog up my twitter space with your sales message when I don’t yet know you. Let’s have a conversation first.
Short and sweet but very to the point! Thanks, Mary Jo!
I love when someone posts a comment saying check out my new blog post about XXX and I have the option to check it out. I don’t like DM’s that say that but I like a comment about what people are doing and keeping me updated. I find a lot of great articles and blogs that way.