What Opportunities are You Overlooking?

Toronto Rock Blackout Jersey

Twitter is often cited as a great new marketing tool that truly brings one-to-one marketing to the forefront.

But truly, what good is this tool if you don’t really use it?

A few months ago I was looking into getting a new cellular phone, and as there were so many fantastic new options, I really wasn’t sure what I wanted to get.  Knowing what a fantastic resource Twitter can be, I asked my network what phones they had and what they liked or disliked about them.  As I already have two iPods, my only requirement was no iPhones.

As expected, I got lots of terrific feedback from a wide variety of people.  But guess who I didn’t hear a word from?  A single person in the mobile industry.

This would have been a great opportunity for Palm and Sprint to jump into the conversation if not to put their two cents in, than to thank their customers who were speaking so highly of their products.  Or for T-Mobile to jump in to keep me as a customer, or Verizon to try and steal me away as I was no longer under contract.

Plenty of opportunities presented themselves all the way from the store level to the mobile brand to the cellular carrier, but not a single person took advantage of them.  Needless to say after three days of conversations on Twitter, I made my choice which I’m happy with.

Twitter Conversation

Recently I was surprised to actually have a company do on Twitter exactly what too few companies take the time to do.

The Toronto Rock saw my tweet regarding a specific product of theirs I thought I was out of luck on and responded with a direct link to it on their website.

(Well, at least the closest thing to it as the specific item I was lamenting was a game worn jersey auctioned off for charity.)

The result?  They made a sale.

It doesn’t matter how niche or mainstream your product is, plenty of opportunities exist if you’re genuinely willing to take the time to not only search them out, but respond to them individually in a way that shows you actually are paying attention and not just searching specific keywords regardless of context.

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