FOLLOW THE LEADER

Unless you are Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber or Mel Gibson (the top Twitter celebrities of 2011), you are going to need to work to get customers to follow your postings on social networking sites such as Twitter.  This sign at a CB2/Crate & Barrel store in Chicago caught my eye, because it shows that they are serious about building their Twitter following.

In addition to in-store signage, you might consider having business cards made up that say “Follow us on Twitter” and give the name of your account.  A restaurant we visited last night was giving out cards for a neighboring florist with “Find us on Facebook” printed in large letters — and a mention of the florist’s Facebook-only promotions. The same card could easily have promoted their Twitter account, and if we were fans of the store this card would have reminded us to sign up.

Twitter appears to be around to stay, so if you haven’t adding “tweeting” to your social marketing outreach, spring would be a good time to do so.  (We’re eager for any birdsongs at all here in winter-bound Wisconsin!) And since Twitter is free, and relatively easy to get started with, it is worth adding it to the ways you keep in touch frequently with your regular customers.

The simplest way to start to “tweet” is to coordinate your Facebook posting with Twitter.  Every time you post something on Facebook, a short message will be posted on Twitter with an abbreviated link that goes to the full message on your Facebook page.  If you use HootSuite you can schedule your Facebook postings and Twitter messages out in advance for a whole week or even month.

And of course you can use your smart phone or iPad to send a short “tweet” right from the sales floor whenever the inspiration hits you, because unlike Facebook, Twitter is text-based.  The listings are limited to 140 characters, so you need to be brief — although us can learn to use hash-tags and other links to take customers to a longer message.

Make sure that your postings are fun and timely.  Twitter is very much “of the moment” — a great way to announce that you have just taken a batch of chocolate chip cookies out of the oven to share with customers, rather than to tell shoppers that they should consider your store the next time they need a picture frame.

Twitter and Facebook are only effective at bringing customers back into our stores frequently if we can convince our happy shoppers to “follow” and “like” us.   Remember to include links to Twitter and Facebook in your e-mail blasts, and on your shop’s home page.  As the big red “YES” in the CB2 sign affirms, they are a fun, free and effective way to keep in touch with loyal customers and make them come back frequently.  So the more followers and friends you have, the better!

Happy Retailing,

Carol “Orange” Schroeder