I’m testing Twitter to see if I can use it as a profitable direct marketing medium. Here’s how things stand six weeks into the experiment:
- 30 days of tweeting (working week only), average 4 tweets a day, total approx 120 tweets
- I charge £60 an hour and each Tweet takes about a minute to write. That’s 120 minutes = £120 marketing ‘spend’ so far
- I have 150 followers and am following 357 – still keeping control on quality by blocking spammy followers
- tweeting 90% informative / fun subjects (mostly marketing, English language, personal and Brighton-focused stuff), 10% soft sell messages
- I’ve had six re-tweets so far and re-tweeted 20 or so – I’m aware I need to re-Tweet more but it’s time consuming looking for things worth re-Tweeting. I have my reputation to think of and don’t want to re-Tweet any old guff just for the sake of it
- I’ve gained some exciting followers including the Green Party and a load of Brighton-based SEO / creative agencies
- I’m following some really cool people including prospects, ie. companies I’d love to write copy for, existing clients and a few lost colleagues from the olden days, back when I had a ‘proper’ job (!)
- I’ve un-followed two organisations because they tweeted so frequently they jammed my account with hard sells, which made it difficult to pick out the fun / useful stuff
My Twitter SMM ROI
The sums are simple so far; £120 spent and nothing gained. But it’s very early days. I’m going to run the test for six months to give Twitter a decent chance of creating revenue.
From a brand perspective it’s difficult to get a grip on what good, if any, Tweeting is adding to the marketing party. Most of my customers find me by searching Google using terms like ‘freelance copywriter’, freelance copywriting’ and ‘freelance copywriting services’. I’m not chasing brand traffic – I don’t have a brand advertising-sized budget. I just have to hope I’m saying things that make people warm to me, respect my copywriting expertise and think of me next time they need a freelance copywriter.
Watch this space!
