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Selling products on twitter

A friend of mine works for a pr agency, and she is currently evaluating the use of twitter for one of their customers – an online shop in germany . She came up with an idea, which from my first impression, sounded brilliant: use the direct contact to potential customers from twitter, and tell them about the products in the online shop, when they talk about a demand in their tweets.

After some consideration I found it difficult: where is the small line, when selling becomes spamming, or positive ment information. So, its all about the style, how the company is adressing their customers. For example:

@fredl: „Damn, I need a new notebook, but can’t decide which to take“

@notebooksellingeshop: „@fredl, take this one: <link>! Its the best and cheapest price out there“

I find this annoying: this is like salesmen in former times came to your door, trying to sell an abonnement for a newspaper.

Another, in my opinion, positive attempt would be:

@fredl: „Damn, I need a new notebook, but can’t decide which to take“

@notebooksellingeshop: „hey @fredl, looking for a notebook? What exactly is your demand, maybe we have a product which fits your needs. Do you use it for business? Are travelling a lot? Or is it more for home use, like games, movie editing etc.“ (Well yes, shorten this to 140 😉 )

@fredl: „hey @notebooksellingeshop, basically it needs to be small, ‚cause i’m travelling. Heard something about „netbooks“ – got that? „

@notebooksellingeshop: „hey @fredl, have a look in our shop <link>. This notebook has been tested by <hardwaretestmagazine> with 5 stars, an we think, we offer it to you for a fair price. It’s 13″ wide, and the aku lives for about 4h.“

So, this is an attempt on how to communicate with your customers. And guess what? It’s not magic. It’s just the „old-fashioned“ way on how to be polite, and sell respect to your customers.

In addition, there’s been a cool interview with uservoice.com on #building43: Watch it and learn how to put your ear on your customers needs.