Twitter and More Twitter

Volume 11

In one of my most recent post I spoke about the importance of marketing on Twitter. I also discussed ways that marketing on Twitter can help and harm a company or brand if not utilized properly. With the fact that I am interested in the mixing of the entertainment and fashion industries by form of a retail boutique. I found an article in one of the magazines that I subscribe to Chain Store Age which can be found at www.chainstoreage.com the article was titled "All A'Twitter" and was focused on social media and its importance for retailers. In this particular article two companies got together to survey where retailers were trending in terms of social media engagement and communication tools.

The article states that though Facebook and Twitter are ranked amongst web and mobile advertising sector it will not surpass proprietary databases or customer infinity programs. It is important to mention that the survey returned results indicating that half of the retailers surveyed believed that the old way of communicating with customers worked just fine. While the other half of the retailers believed that frequent shopper programs, opted-in databases, web advertising, and Facebook are amongst the most important forms of communication. It would be great to see at the end of a year or two the balance sheets and new surveys of both sides to show how the percentages changed.

Mobile advertising and Twitter are expected to see a rise in retailer use, this is where the greatest increase will be seen. Though many retailers will join the social media trend many still have direct relationships with their customers as their main focus. It was amazing to see that of those surveyed that it was mainly the specialty retailers were more likely than all other retail category respondents to say web and mobile advertising were important forms of communication. The larger department stores see direct mail as the most important form of communication. Though web and mobile advertising are rising on the list frequent shopper programs remain on the top of the lists.

I felt that this article was very helpful in finding out how the importance on various forms of advertising are ranked across the retail spectrum. I think that the survey would have held a little more value if it would have surveyed the retailers and the customers. This would show the differences each side held on how they view advertising.

Boccaccio, K. F. (2011, October). All a'twitter. Chain Store Age , 87(7), 23-24. DOI: www.chainstoreage.com

Tweet, Tweet, Tweet

Volume 09

I mention all of the time how the fashion and music industries are a perfect comparison for each other, and how I want my business to show how the two can compliment each other while at the same time bringing recognition to entrepreneurs who would generally not be able to get their products out to the public. This past month things have been moving pretty fast here at The Shoe Cafe and I have found some new ways to get my products in front of the public while at the same time doing the things that I love. Recently I was approached at an event about modeling for a company in the Orlando area with a strong background, so I accepted. Modeling for this company gives me the opportunity to see how fashion and music industries work well together and at the same time gives me the ability to wear my own products at events and shoots. One of the things that I was informed of by my agency was the importance of using Twitter as a form of marketing to gain jobs and recognition for ones brand. Because of the information received in that particular meeting I decided to do some research on the Twitter for marketing topic that seemed to be of such importance.

One of the sites that I stumbled upon while looking up some information was Virtual Social Media whose post can be found at http://www.virtualsocialmedia.com/why-twitter-is-a-good-marketing-strategy/. This was titled Why Twitter is a good marketing strategy one of the many things that was mentioned which caught my attention and something that I could easily agree with is the fact that Twitter is different then any other social networking sites which means that it will take a different type of marketing strategy to see success. It also list some of the pitfalls that businesses and individuals face when trying to use Twitter as a form of marketing these pitfalls include but are not limited to the following bulleted points:

• Following and being followed by people in the same industry.
• Followers usually have no interest in the products or services being offered.

It leaves off by mentioning the fact that if Twitter is used correctly it can be very profitable to all involved. Making sure that tweets are short and to the point will also help to make sure that your followers are actually interested in the things being tweeted. Since Twitter only allows 140-character tweets it is important to leave room for people to re tweet your tweets if they like what is being said.