Twitter Marketing: An Update
Back in December, I started using Twitter for the very first time. (See: My First Day Using Twitter) After having purposefully stayed away from Twitter, I realized the huge potential it had.
There have been quite a few tangible and intangible benefits of having created a Twitter account for Niche Titans, and using it to build connections and reach out to more people about niche marketing.
More Relationships
On my first day using Twitter, I was on it like ALL DAY. But, in that time, I met two very cool people. One person I have started a series of joint ventures with. Another person has helped me to learn Twitter marketing better, and he’s cool to bounce ideas off of.
Those are connections I never would have had, and had randomly come across just that day. I have met some other cool people, found some sweet links I may have never seen, and generally had a good time.
Ryan had a great post a little bit back about the importance of Relationship Marketing. Twitter has definitely expanded my ability to create good relationships. These few relationships I have already made I have already started projects with those people.
If you’re new to internet marketing or an old timer, you definitely cannot neglect Twitter. It is here to stay and a very powerful resource for networking and marketing.
What have been your experiences with Twitter, and using it to build relationships and marketing?
Also, be sure to follow us on twitter: @nichetitans
Relationship Marketing – Building Successful Relationships
While growing up my father started a few small businesses and never really succeeded. Both my grandmother and my grandfather both had trouble building successful relationships with not just family but people in general. This doesn’t mean that my grandparents had any trouble making friends if they wanted to but once a friendship was established they did little to maintain it over time. Without solid guidance from their parents my father and his brother struggled with their relationships at an early age.
My father always wanted to go in to business for himself and tried more than once. His first business venture that I know of was when I was not much older than 5 years old. He wrote a short book or pamphlet, “How to Be Rich and Thrive”, basically a short self help manual intended to give people the motivation they needed to do something with their life. He finished the How To Get Rich manual and had it published under his registered business entity “How To Publications” in the State of Oregon. He published an ad in the local newspaper, this was the early 90′s, sold a few copies that weekend and that was pretty much it. He stopped pursuing it after that. He had a marketing strategy that worked on a small scale but nothing that attracted a large audience or any real success story.
Not long after that my father was talking with a friend from church in the Mortgage Business. He was able to establish a relationship with this guy from church and land an after work job opportunity. At that time my father was working as a millwright for a large manufacturing company that is still in business today. He would work from 8am to 4pm and then head to his after work mortgage opportunity. He initiated a few home loans for his co-workers at his day job and made a few thousand dollars in commission for as the loan originator. He eventually ran out of leads and was having trouble generating new leads because he had already exhausted his current personal and business relationships. Unable to effectively process any new loans as he was not building new relationships his days in the mortgage industry were cut short.
Now a few months later he met someone else at church who had a work at home business opportunity. This business was really simple, you just keep doing what you’re doing but instead of buying your usual products from the store you buy them from a single company. You purchase your toothpaste, toilet paper, printer paper, clothing, barbecues, etc directly from them instead of from the store. By purchasing products from them instead of at the store you’re saving a little bit of money but not much to be honest. You earn a % back of products you buy and so does the person that referred you. The idea is that by continually referring people over time you profit from their purchases and from people they refer as well. This company was known as Amway at the time, currently known as Quixtar, and is probably one of the largest pyramid schemes for retail purchases ever created. Now once again because my fathers marketing failure had directly to do with his relationship marketing skills and the fact that he wasn’t able to build successful relationships.
Now some years later when I was 15 years old I asked my father for a Go Kart for Christmas. This is all I really wanted and I was almost old enough to get my license and drive a real car. My father came through at Christmas like he had almost always done in the past and bought a $1,000 Red Go Kart. This kart went almost 35 MPH, which was pretty fast, and we took it out to some new construction neighborhoods and drove it for a couple hours. It wasn’t long before my father spent nearly $10,000 on some racing karts, motors, tires, etc for himself, my brother and I. We went sprint track racing on pavement for a season and us kids were just getting burned out. After a season I was about to turn 16 and my dad traded my kart for my first car, a 1987 Toyota MR2.
Anyways, after my brother and I stopped racing my dad continued to do it by himself even though we were no longer interested. He purchased a equipment press, lathe, engine building tools and even custom built a machine to test engine performance. All together he had invested nearly $15,000 in tools and equipment and planned on starting a business. His marketing was limited to the phone book and a website with almost no traffic. Most of the calls from the phone book were kids looking for a place to ride go karts for recreation instead of a racing and performance shop. Go Kart Racing is a very small market and people tend to buy from the same people over and over again. These racing shops develop a customer base and their customers refer new customers. This is a market where relationship marketing and building successful relationships is critical to your success.
Now since he didn’t already have a racing team or customer base it was difficult for him to secure any work. Most of his work was done for newcomers because he was the cheapest and he barely made any profit on his work. He was doing his work cheap to try and get noticed while still making a little money for his time. His work was superb but it went unnoticed because he had no respected racers marketing his brand. It probably would have been a good idea to sponsor the best racers even if he lost money initially to give some respect to his brand.
Building successful relationships is healthy and can really enhance your success. In order to build an empire or a fortune 500 company you definitely can’t do it by yourself. You need be able to build new relationships and maintain them over time. Think of every new relationship you build as new roots to your tree. You are the tree and as you build new relationships new roots are created allowing you to absorb more water than ever before. The more water you’re able to absorb the faster you’re able to grow and more likely you are to survive.
You can’t build a pyramid by yourself anytime soon… you’re going to need some help. Try to apply this to internet marketing and the community. Establish yourself with competitors or friends interested in the same things that you are. Try to work together and learn from each other while building a successful relationship in the process.
