I am a Twitterholic...

Yes, it’s true.
My name is Leslie and I am a Twitterholic. Don’t go away,though, because the reason why I’m addicted may be of interest to you if you want to reach your potential customers directly, measurably and for free.

Last October, on the first day of the High Point Market, I was thinking…”What can I do to show my readers the power of social media marketing?” I decided to ask you to follow me on Twitter – a micro blogging site that asks a simple question, “What are you doing now?” and gives you only 140 characters in which to post your answer.  By “following” me on Twitter, I was able to tell my “followers” what I was seeing that I thought was “hot” at market.

Within the first 4 hours after that post went “live”, there were 27 people “following” me on Twitter. The words, “following” and “follower” are words Twitter uses to describe whose “tweets” (twitter lingo for the micro posts)you are following and who is following your tweets.

Fast forward approx. 8 weeks. There are now over 1100 people who have VOLUNTARILY CHOSEN to follow my  tweets.  8 weeks, 1100+ followers. Does it matter to me PERSONALLY? No, not at all because there is no way I can be engaged in real conversations with that many people on a personal level. BUT, it does matter to me in this way:

FOR  MY INDUSTRY AND FOR MY BUSINESS. Why? Because by investing a huge chunk of my time on engaging and helping and learning from others on twitter(and occasionally asking for help, too) I have come to understand how POWERFUL a venue Twitter can be to save jobs within our industry.

How? Here’s how:
1.    Twitter is free to use. Completely free.

2.    There are three tools you can use to find out, right at the beginning, who to follow-www.mrtweet.net  www.twellow.com and www.search.twitter.com .

For instance, interior designers, kitchen and bath professionals, assembly companies, accessory vendors, furniture vendors etc. . furniture and mattress retailers, etc. are all represented on twitter and the sites mentioned above enables you to find them easily and add them to your list of “follows” with one quick click on twitter. When you do, the chances are very strong (and protocol on twitter encourages) that, as long as you are “tweeting” (saying) something relevant to their businesses, they will follow you back.

Interesting and wonderful people in each of these industry segments are following me on twitter right now because I followed them first OR because I “tweeted” something  they replied to  because they found it interesting or relevant or were curious for more information and, by this method, THEIR followers saw my name and started following me, too.

Because they are VOLUNTARILY CHOOSING to listen and/or engage with me AND CAN UNFOLLOW me at anytime they choose if they find me boring or not relevant to them anymore, I can tweet about whatever I choose and SO CAN ANY OF YOU.

Think about what it might mean for the future of our ENTIRE INDUSTRY if each of you had a twitter account and were able to attract EXACTLY the people who could bring you business and they CHOSE OF THEIR OWN FREE WILL to LISTEN to your messages and also INTERACT with your company’s twitter representative.  Twitter enables this direct interaction-second by second if you wish-for free-by zip code.

Over 4 million people use Twitter and they are adding over 10,000 new accounts A DAY.  I

Imagine this scenario:

You own a retail store like @nestliving does. You follow the people in your market that are in related businesses to yours that might be able to refer business to your store. Your sales consultants know they sell a lot of furniture to engineers or, maybe, architects. So, you also set them up with individual twitter accounts and give them each a specific niche of people to follow.

Now, here’s your next step: You send a tweet to  all the people following you in 140 characters or less. Like this:

“ Love a deal? Tell us you saw this tweet when U come in on Sat. 1.8. U will receive extra 10% off your purchase.”

Or maybe this:

“ Need to paint your walls, but don’t what color? Thurs.night, 1.6, we will show you how at 7 pm. Food/drinks”

Now, here is the POWER aspect. If I am following you and I think MY followers would be interested, too, I will RETWEET this and,all of a sudden you are not just reaching me, but you are reaching all of my followers, too, and all of their followers, too and on and on.

For free. And this is just Twitter. There are many sites that can be linked together to create a very powerful and free social media marketing program for your company’s messages.x

THIS is the POWER of social media marketing-it’s VIRAL if you are publishing information that your audience finds interesting and relevant.  However, unlike traditional media, it’s FREE and it’s DIRECTLY measurable through analytics software that is ALSO FREE from Google Analytics.

Why do you think brands like Zappos,  Ford, Starbucks, Proctor and Gamble, Samsung, Dell, Select Comfort, etc. are using social media marketing? Because they know their customers are online- researching, engaging, and talking about them. They want to be part of the conversation,b ut ,bottom line? They want to reach their customers in the most cost effective, direct and measurable way possible and the social media channel(also called “new media, web 2.0 and social networking ,by the way) offers them that opportunity.

There is not, to my mind, a better way to invest your money and your time in 2009 than in understanding and implementing a social media marketing plan.  Once the initial strategy is set and you have a designated in-house or outsourced “community manager “ in place, the rest is free –forever.

Remember this, though: Twitter, especially, is FIRST about listening, second about total honesty(especially apologizing when you screw up because we ALL screw up and the social media world understands this and accords trust by how honest you are about it), third about credibility, fourth about trust building and THEN about marketing.

But, if gaining a decent audience for my tweets happened in eight weeks for me –with no other marketing budget at all and no blog other than this industry specific one, imagine what it could do for your business if used to authentically listen and engage your audience with what matters most to them-their homes.

By the way, there are many twitter users with over 5000 followers and several with over 30,000. Remember,their followers are  actively choosing to listen and engage with these “twitter rock stars.” That’s real influence all over the world-instantly and,again, for free except for the time investment on their part. Powerful.

If you would like, I am on twitter as @tkpleslie and I welcome you to follow me, listen and engage.  Don’t be surprised, though. I talk about all kinds of things-lots of personal information…and NOT mainly about business.  My goal with twitter is to develop real relationships, both personally and professionally. To do that, I let people see the whole me-kind, excited, bad, sad, flawed. I also ALWAYS endeavor to help others -as I hope I am doing for our industry and for you with THIS information. Sometimes, because people are good, they turn around and help me, too!

And, here is my request: send this article to EVERYONE you know in our industry, PLEASE. I STRONGLY believe, working together,  we can save thousands of US furniture industry jobs if our entire industry can quickly grasp the viral power of  SM marketing because the bottom line reduction in marketing expense is so dramatic-so fast- and the top line results are instantly measurable through analytics.

Together, we can make it through the night.