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Using Twitter To Promote E-Commerce Websites
Raise the Profile of Your E-commerce Website Using Twitter
Twitter is an increasingly popular tool for online businesses.
For the E -commerce business owner it offers a free, simple and relatively informal way to raise awareness of your products, make new contacts and get valuable industry information.
Some ways to use Twitter to raise the profile of your e-commerce business
The purpose of Twitter may not initially have been to help e-commerce businesses increase their sales, but this is exactly what it can do.
For small business owners it is an ideal – and most importantly free – way to find out about the latest trends in their sector, make valuable new clients or establish a reputation.
There are many different ways in which Twitter can benefit the owners of e-commerce websites It can, for example, allow you to make new business contacts quickly and efficiently. Follow the people you are interested in working with and make intelligent and informed comments on what they have to say in their tweets.
If you use Twellow – the Twitter yellow pages – you can search easily for accounts that may be useful to you.
Using Twitter is also a way of raising interest in any new products you have and drawing new traffic to e-commerce websites. Whilst you shouldn’t bombard your followers with advertising, a subtly worded tweet with an accompanying picture ahead of a product launch can create interest. Make sure you also have a system in place for analysing your website data so you know how many customers are coming direct from Twitter. This will help you to keep a track on how successful your social networking activities are.
You can also draw attention to your own business by understanding how to use hashtags. If you research to find out which are the most popular tags relating to your industry sector and products then you can begin including these in your Tweets to increase your audience of potential customers.
Twitter is an excellent way for you to build up a reputation as an expert in your field. Take part in discussions relating to your sector and offer advice or links to helpful blogs. This works both ways, as you may pick up some useful tips from others in your sector. This is a particularly important function of Twitter if you are a small company working solely in e-commerce as you will not have much, if any, face-to-face contact with clients.
What else gives you such an immediate and yet informal way of promoting yourself as a credible vendor?
So far we’ve discussed what you should be doing, but there are a few don’ts, too. It can be very off-putting to other users if you try to direct them to your own products too obviously, so try to be a bit more subtle.
Remember that Twitter is about expanding your network of clients and exchanging information rather than a platform for you. It’s about give and take.
Also, make sure you get your timing right. By its nature, Twitter is a pretty immediate tool, so you should get into the habit of responding to Tweets at least once a day. Otherwise the other user may have already moved on or even forgotten their tweet, and you could lose a valuable lead because of it. On the other hand, you shouldn’t jump on a contact immediately as this can make you seem a little over-keen.