Attraction Marketing

Despite what many so-called online marketing and social media experts predicted, Twitter still has legs!  While social media websites like MySpace.com appear to be waning in popularity, Twitter continues to gain momentum – with everyone from pre-schoolers to octogenarians twittering up a storm. 

Many online marketing experts once questioned how anyone could turn a 140-character tweet into a marketing tool.  Bu in fact, Twitter has become a successful and very useful attraction marketing tool.  However, I have to admit I was once one of the “skeptical naysayers” regarding the attraction marketing potential of Twitter, and also questioned the degree of success someone could have using Twitter to market products or services on a thriving, long-term basis.

Fortunately, I never hung up the towel on Twitter, but was determined to learn how to use Twitter successfully in the world of online marketing, and as an attraction marketing tool.

I began my quest for answers with Twitter by setting up my own personal “Twitter Research Lab” and have been testing the marketing potential of Twitter for the past 6 months.  After putting Twitter to the test, I can now pronounce that like most good Internet marketing tools, if you use Twitter wisely, it can indeed be a great attraction marketing tool.

The key phrase here is “use Twitter wisely.”  For most marketers play with Twitter a while and give up too quickly before having the opportunity to experience or see success that Twitter has to offer as a marketing tool. 

What I’ve learned over the past six months is that there are four basic types of success stories on Twitter. 

[Celebrities] Twitter Success Type No. 1:  These are the celebrity types like Ashton Kutcher (4.5 million followers) or Jessica Simpson (2.2 million followers), that are going to reap a butt load of followers simply because they are celebrities.  Granted, in some cases (like the latter) they have nothing better to do than tweet because they have more free time than the average Joe and they need to (1) keep their egos stroked daily with any kind of  “Look, I’m still popular!” feedback from the masses, or (2) or using Twitter as their personal popularity machine because their agents told them (and it’s true) that it will bring them media attention.  And as we all know, publicity, even bad publicity, is a good thing – if you’re a star or celebrity. Unless you’re a star or celebrity, you have little hope of falling into this category.

[Social Media Animals] Twitter Success Type No. 2:  This category requires a lot of hard work and many different types of people fall into it.  It covers a very wide range of highly successful Twitter users.  Essentially, it is made up of everyone from teens that are online 24/7 with the likes of Facebook, personal blogs and Twitter and have all tied together using the latest and greatest plugins and gimmicks to have their Tweets broadcast on every venue they can imagine, to celebrity types that don’t tweet for fun, but tweet for gain.  Examples of celebrity “types” that are turning the tweeting world upside down for promotional gain with a deliberate and highly organized Tweet and Tell business model are politicians and talk show hosts that want to spread their agenda.  Examples:  Sarah Palin, John McCain, Sean Hannity and Glen Beck would fit the role of politicians and talk show hosts that are tweeting like mad.

[Happenstance] Twitter Success Type No. 3: These represent the “one in a million” types that get their 15 minutes of fame on Twitter because they have (or had) a unique story that (through happenstance) the media found out about it and opted to headline or feature their story, sending a flood of online junkies to visit their Twitter page.  In other words, regardless how they achieved their 15 minutes of fame on Twitter, memory of them and their stories quick fades away and their tweets are no longer relevant to the public at large.

[Online Marketing Pros] Twitter Success Type No. 4:  These bad boys never play with the same playbook as you and I.  They develop and/or use apps created to milk Twitter for all its worth.  Have you ever wondered how you can tweet until your fingers turn blue and end up with only a small hand full of followers, while some of those people following you have 30,000 – 50,000 – a 100,000 or more followers.  You probably ask yourself questions like, “Are they “really that good?”  “Do they play by a different set of rules?” and “Do they have a tool or shortcut that allows them to achieve these results?”  The answers are, “Yes,” “Yes,” and “Yes.”  These bad boys play the game by a different set of rules than you and I.  They are armed with apps that allow them to search Twitter by keyword and then invite large numbers of followers by the masses that fit a certain profile.  Now imagine the power of having the ability to find several thousand people on Twitter that have words like “Ebay, MLM, network marketing, teaching, golf, etc.” in their profiles and then being able to tweet your special sale message to that group.

Think of that last category a minute.  Despite all the rules you’re read about not being able to do this on Twitter, I’m telling you there are online marketers that are using special tools and apps that allow them to milk Twitter for leads, and then exploit those leads (i.e., followers) by pushing a sales message (through the form of a tweet that contains a link to their website or a presentation file) to everyone that meets their selected profile, or sales criteria.

Then, by regularly tweeting to the audience they are focused on, they in essence become popular to that audience.  Never before in the history of the Internet has something been more powerful as Twitter, in this regards.

What many people never come to realize is the power of printing your message on the page of everyone who follows you.  That’s what happens with Twitter and how it works.  Let’s say, for example, that you have 100 people following you.  You tweet a message on Twitter and it is instantly published on each of your 100 followers Twitter pages.  Now ask yourself, how many followers do each of my 100 have and how many people will visit or see the Twitter page of each of those 100 members and possibly see my message?  Think about the attraction marketing power with having such a broadcast medium.  Granted, your message may only appear for a few minutes before it rolls off the bottom of the page of each Twitter account, but you can always tweet again, right?

I can’t cover everything you need to know about Twitter and attraction marketing in this blog post, but I promise to cover more in the future.  Until next time – do something to “become attractive” to your marketing audience.