One thing I’ve noticed is that there are still large amounts of people (yes, even now) that still don’t see the value of Twitter marketing, especially small business owners.
That second one trips me up a bit because I know it can be such a valuable tool, and most of all, not costs the businesses near the amount of money they spend on advertising to attract customers.
The following isn’t meant to pick on a business (far from it), but it is a good way to show opportunities to connect and engage with consumers.
Crossfit is my new workout of choice and I’ve been going to Crossfit NYC for about a month. I’ve mentioned them (@CrossfitNYC) in various tweets and am yet to ever get a response.
They have an active blog on their website that’s updated daily, so I’m not exactly sure where the Twitter disconnect has happened. Per the screenshot below (click to enlarge) you can see that up until a couple of days ago, they hadn’t tweeted in quite a while.
You’ll also notice by looking at the tweets they have sent, that engagement with customers, or potential customers, hasn’t been a priority (mostly push tweets).
Again, this isn’t to pick on Crossfit NYC, not by a long shot because I like their business a lot, but it is meant to highlight the missed opportunity at hand.
Take a look at the screenshot below and you’ll see that their existing customers are mentioning them in tweets. I even sent one to try and provoke a response, but it didn’t happen.
Crossfit is picking up steam all around the country and it’s a prime opportunity for the company to strengthen the existing community (Crossfit NYC’s customers) and engage potential customers.
The screenshot below is of tweets mentioning “crossfit” in NYC. These are people that could be engaged in conversation – they could even be given a free class or something along those lines.
Hopefully Crossfit NYC will commit to Twitter marketing before long because I think they’d benefit in a pretty big way. From what I’ve seen so far, people that have been doing crossfit for a while really believe in the concept, and are not only dedicated, but vocal. A fantastic online tribe could easily be made.
And so you know, Crossfit NYC is $199 per month, so there’s a chunk of change to be made per customer. Imagine if a single tweet prompted a prospect to join… that’s a good return on a little proactive engagement.
As time goes on it will be great to see (more) small businesses realize Twitters value, and allot the resources necessary to put it to good use.
