PMA February 2010 : Page 29PMA 2010 about the utilization of cameras. What will happen is Nikon will tweet that out to their thousands of followers. T eir thousands of followers say: “Wow, this is really useful. I will retweet this to my thousands of followers.” Pretty soon, hundreds of thousands of people will see this thing that originated with a Nikon tweet. Many of those people will begin to follow Nikon, and it just gets better and better. T at’s the way to use Twitter. PMA: You personally are truly a prolifi c tweeter. Do businesses need to follow your example, and tweet several times a day to use Twitter eff ectively? Kawasaki: T e answer to that is no, thankfully. I’m trying to drive traffi c to my website at www.alltop.com. T e best way to do that immediately, for free, 24/7, is Twitter. T at’s why I’m on Twitter 5 hours to 8 hours a day. My goal is not to sell cameras or fi nishing products or drive people to a store. Unless your job is social media marketing for a company, most businesspeople have other things to Hear all about it Learn how to search on Twitter, discover the wealth of information at www.alltop.com, and find out why you do have time to tweet by listening to a podcast of this interview, available now at www.dimacast.com. do during the day. It’s a matter of what your function is. PMA: What’s the most common mistake businesses make when it comes to marketing via Twitter? Kawasaki: T e most common mistake is they haven’t tried it yet. Once they try it, they have to get over that initial “What-the-heck-is-this?” reaction. Once they start searching and interacting, it comes pretty naturally. T e value is obvious. Businesses should always be tweeting links that are relevant to the sector. If they’re in the camera business, they should tweet stuff about how to take great photos. PMA: Give us an example of a real company making great use of Twitter. Kawasaki: One of the best is a company called Kogi BBQ, which is @kogibbq on Twitter. It’s a street food vendor with about 10 trucks. T ey have around 50,000 Twitter followers; and they will tweet something like, “In two hours, we will be at the corner of Olympic and Sawtelle in L.A.” When they arrive, there are 50 to 100 people waiting for them. Another example is Dell Outlet, which is basically used by Dell to dump equip- ment. If you have a bunch of refurbs com- ing in and you want to get rid of them, what better way than sending out a tweet? People can order after clicking through on a coupon or a link. ■ Be there Guy Kawasaki will show PMA 2010 attendees how to use one of the most powerful tools on the internet, Twitter, to increase sales and customer loyalty at his Official Business Session on Feb. 23 at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, Calif. Give your customers some style. Offer them more than just the ordinary. Vintage, contemporary, traditional, or urban. We’ve got it all! Aperion greetings for all seasons. Oh, by the way ... www.aperioninc.com 800-727-6347, 949-472-2225 receive a discount of 35% when you order online. (Reference coupon code PMA-35.) PMA — February 2010 — www.pmai.org 29 Aperion Inc |
