Gas Logs and Sweet Tweets

I stopped at a local business to get information about some gas logs for my fireplace. I went there because a friend told me about the store. Otherwise, I would not even have known where it was.

While I was there, the manager mentioned that she also sells high efficiency and ecologically beneficial, tankless water heaters. I was intrigued.

My conversation with the manager naturally worked around to social media marketing and some of the things we can do for her business. She was intrigued.

We only lightly touched on Twitter because I was in a hurry and other customers were coming into the store. But I made these suggestions:

1. Tweet your followers about any sales you plan or new models that come in. I cautioned her not to make all of her Tweets be sales pitches because people would get annoyed. So I mentioned…
2. Tweet a link to interesting articles about gas log safety or cooking in the fireplace or other items that might interest her customers. That helps her store become “a respected source of useful information.” Customers are much more likely to trust a name they know rather than one they don’t know, even if they know nothing else about the company.
3. Notify her followers of new posts or blogs on the store’s Facebook page or website. (Don’t have one? We can help you there as well.)
4. We can also help her parent company’s bulk and commercial divisions by doing the same types of things for them that we can do for her retail store.

The manager and I traded business cards because she wants to know more about how SingleTree Media can help her increase her customer base, increase the loyalty of her current customers, and as a result increase her sales.

But here are some things I want you to take away from this true story. First, I would never have known about the store, never mind go to it, if my friend had not told me about it when we talked one day. But ask yourself how most friends “talk” these days. They “talk” on Facebook and Twitter. Now ask yourself how well you are leveraging this electronic “word of mouth” advertising. If you are not happy with your honest answer, call us.

Second, when I was in her store the manager told me about a product that I had not thought about but that I will probably buy in the near future. Think about how many people she could tell about this product if she was tweeting them about it instead of waiting for them to come into her store. I think a healthy percentage of people would be interested if they just knew about it.

Perhaps your business could benefit if you talked with us. Just sayin’.