Using Social Media Platforms To Cross Promote Your Products
Social media platforms such as Twitter and blogging are ideal for cross promotion
Cross promotion is a way of promoting your products which involves two or more parties. It is an excellent way to have friends, suppliers and even competitors help you to promote your products or services.
I am in the promotional gifts industry. I have used cross promotion extensively to promote many different types of promotional gifts. In this article I will let you in on how I did it and hopefully give you a few ideas about how you can do the same in your business sector.
1.) Working with Suppliers to Cross Promote Their Products on Twitter
The promotional gifts industry is quite competitive. It is difficult for a well know manufacturer to be seen assisting one distributor of their products over another.
That said, it is much easier through cross promotion using social media platforms.
I recently contacted seven well know manufacturers, my suppliers, of promotional pens. Personalised pens have always been a major part of my business and I wanted to ensure it stayed that way.
I asked each manufacturer to send me samples of their top selling plastic pens and more expensive gift pens. The deal was that in exchange for the free merchandise I would sit down and personally test each of the pens for quality and writing comfort and then write a review on my daily blog.
I am currently still making my way through the hundreds of best selling pens, testing each one and writing a review.
When each blog goes live, I tweet a link to all of my Twitter followers. These daily tweets are then retweeted by the supplier, good customers and friends to all of their followers giving the blog and the product a much larger audience.
It shows that they are endorsing my expertise and the product which can only be a good thing.
2.) Encourage Suppliers to Start a Distributor Blog
Many manufacturers and wholesalers are strictly trade only. For this reason they are hesitant to start an onsite blog for fear it could look as though they are trying to attract enduser business.
You may have a similar setup in your own industry and perhaps you will agree with me that this stance is silly.
I recently contacted my biggest promotional pen supplier with the view of starting a distributor blog on his trade only website.
To date I have written several guest blogs about his products, case studies and the promotional gifts industry in general. What's more, many of my competitors have also joined in submitting their own articles.
Indeed, we have all begun to comment on each other's guest blogs to the point where there is a small community growing all competing to write interesting blogs that will attract people to their own websites and hopefully to purchase the products that the blog owner's company produce.
To date my guest blogs are already showing at the top of Google for certain pens. This has helped promote the brand of the supplier and it has attracted a lot eager promotional pen buyers to my company's promotional pen website.
3.) Working with Competitors to Cross Promote with Social Media
The internet has changed many industries over the past fifteen years. There was a time when all promotional merchandise suppliers would try to be a one stop shop for everything. This is no longer feasible.
Easier online communication with Far East manufacturers, online catalogues, proper search engine optimisation to promote those catalogues and social media have seen many promotional merchandise supplier begin to specialise.
Some may specialise in embroidered clothing where others have excellent relationships with promotional pen manufacturers. It is not uncommon for one distributor to retweet a promotion from a competing promotional gift distributor in exchange for a similar endorsement.
Do you know of a competitor who specialises in an area you do not? Do you specialise in an area of your industry that they rarely touch? This could be an excellent time to contact them and suggest promoting each other through social media such as Twitter and leaving comments on each other's blogs.
You may just be surprised how quickly your brand can grow!
by: Dan Toombs
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