50 million tweets are created each day. This has several implications for business owners who participate (or are considering participating) in social media marketing. First, it means that a lot of people, and a lot of companies, are tweeting. Your competitors are likely among them. If using Twitter as a means of communicating with customers has practical potential for your company and industry, join in now. It's a valuable means of liaising with consumers, and you don't want your competitors to take advantage of opportunities to create relationships with customers while you miss out.
However, the incredible volume of tweets out there also means that simply having a Twitter presence and tweeting often are not enough to make your brand stand out. 50 million tweets per day (that's 600 tweets per second) is a lot of noise. With such a great quantity of content out there, it's going to take some additional effort for your brand to gain followers and, ultimately, customers: you need to give them something that they are not getting from anyone else (especially not from other companies in your field).
All marketers are familiar with the idea of differentiating their product from others in the same vertical. The goal of marketing in a competitive industry is to convince consumers that your product or service has something valuable that they want and that other offerings lack.
Consider your Twitter account a microcosm of your product (or service). This means that, like your product, it needs to have something special about it that will catch and retain consumers' attention. A unique online presence that consistently offers valuable content adds another positive element to consumers' experiences with your brand. As a result, social media efforts can contribute to brand loyalty in much the same way quality product offerings canif they stand out from the crowd.
Make this potential work for you by tweeting content that is worthwhile to your target audience. Give people a reason to follow (and retweet) you! Many retailers create Twitter accounts that announce sales and new products for followers before anyone else. However, more successful ones (including Woolworth's SA and Best Buy) go further by also responding to customers' questions, comments and complaints about products in a personal and timely manner. Brands in the hospitality or media industries work to become a valuable resource for their customers by tweeting links to relevant resources. Musicians publish links to free music downloads.
Look at what other companies in your industry are doing, think about your audience, and try to provide them with valuable content and interaction that your competitors are not. Think about how you can make your Twitter feed a unique, valuable resource.
