eCommerce Analytics

Let’s just admit it: small retailers are the biggest abusers of Twitter. For every @KidBean there are 1000 merchants who spam their followers every day with one offer after another. But engaging in social media is different than direct email. Social media takes time and resources, both of which are in short supply at small and mid-sized etailers. So instead of engaging in conversations, the temptation is to use scalable shortcuts — shortcuts which happen to drive followers away.

Which of these Twitter shortcuts do the most damage to your budding online community? To find out let’s take a look at what a popular Twitter anti-spam tool, The Twit Cleaner, classifies as bad Twitter behavior:

1. Posting nothing but links. Posting link after link can be ok under some circumstances, but it may also be a signal that your account is nothing but an advertising tool. If you’re going to post a lot of links make sure they’re going to varied content: pictures, blogs, and other sites besides your own.
2. Tweeting the same links all the time. We get it. We should really check out your fantastic offer. Maybe we missed the first time you posted it, or the second, but certainly not the 12th. Conventional wisdom says you should limit purely promotional tweets to one in 10. One in 20 is better.
3. Few re-tweets and no @replies. Is Twitter is a one-way channel only for you? Using Twitter for eCommerce is as much about listening to your customers as getting your message out to them. If your followers don’t feel that they are being heard they may decide to unfollow you and drop the conversation all together. Or worse, they may take their conversation elsewhere.
4. Not following your followers (?). I hesitate to call this a shortcut even if The Twit Cleaner does. On the one hand, it’s important to be listening to what your customers are saying and, to listent, it helps to follow. On the other hand, Twitter users who have lots of followers but themselves follow few people are considered highly credible and authoritative. Given a choice, I’d rather be authoritative. But there is a middle ground that lets you follow your most vocal, valuable, and/or influential customers. (Fun fact: @Zappos follows 390,000 people and is widely considered the creme de la creme of retail Twitterers. @GapOffical, which pumps out nothing but promotional spam, follows 7.)