Arabians are Such Twits….and How it Relates to Social Media Marketing

Republished with permission from Yellow Barn Media

Horse crazy little girl was the way I was referred to by most of my friends when I was young.  I started out on a Pinto pony.  As we learned new disciplines together at local 4-h shows, and moved my way into a big chestnut Quarter horse gelding.  As my knowledge grew and I learned about all the different breeds – strengths and weaknesses – I knew I was a stock horse girl for life.  There was something about Quarter horses, Paints and all the other stock horse breeds that I loved.  I had friends that showed Arabians and I never understood the draw.  From my limited knowledge of the breed, I saw them as spooky and just plain crazy.  My whole life I found myself judging a person by what breed of horse they owned.  If they happened to have an Arabian – watch out!

Now you are probably asking yourself, “What this has to do with social media marketing?”   One of the things I hear most often from business owners is that they do not use social media because they just don’t like it and do not see the relevance.  When I probe and ask them deeper questions, it is revealed that they have not even researched or evaluated the option of social media.  They are fine with what they have always used and that’s that.  Twitter is the perfect example of this social media scrutiny.

The number one piece of feedback I get is, “Twitter is just stupid”.  Have you yourself ever uttered those words?  I sure have and I do this for a living!  When I started learning of all the new social medias out there and I previewed Twitter I thought how stupid is this; 140 characters, are you kidding me?  I felt the same way about Twitter as I did Arabians.

In time, I realized that this form of marketing must be worthwhile if popular, large companies were using it successfully so I started doing my research, very skeptically I might add.  As I talked with business owners that were utilizing Twitter and they were sharing success stories with me, I decided to jump on board and try it for myself (which I highly recommend).  I delved into the demographics to learn what types of people spent time on Twitter, tweeting about hot topics.  It turns out that many of my potential clients were spending time there.

Here are THREE simple steps to get started on Twitter:

1. Set up Twitter account with as much information as possible, including your website.  Do not leave the background or profile page as what it defaults to.  You want to customize it so you stand out and your Twitter is branded to match your website, Facebook and other marketing outlets.  (www.twitter.com)
2. Start using Twitter by selecting a few others to follow.  An easy way to do this is to visit a few website of companies or people that you enjoy and click on their Twitter icon.  You can also use the search feature in Twitter to search for others with similar interests as you.  It is customary to follow someone if they follow you, but not absolutely necessary. (I recommend you start by following these individuals: Mark W Schaefer, Stanford Smith, Gary Vaynerchuk & Sandi Krakowski)
3. If you are already using a Facebook page you can set it up so that when you post Facebook those same posts also post on Twitter.  That will aid in the time management of your social media account. (You will want to read The Tao of Twitter to fully understand how & when to post)

So, the question remains, “Will you step out of your comfort zone and try something new?”  People that want to talk about you, that want to brag on you, are on Twitter whether you like it or not!

As for me, I learned later in life that Arabians are intelligent, smart and have stamina that goes for miles.  I learned that their personalities match that of many of my friends and that is why they owned them.  Although I am confident that I will always own stock horses, I now see the tremendous value in this breed.  I learned that giving something a chance before judging how it may affect me has allowed me to gain many new clients and make more money.

For any of you that are still not sure, here is something to chew on.  As of May 2012 there were 532 Million people using Twitter.  For the sake of this example let’s say 10% of Twitter users are horse lovers.  So that would be 53,200,000 horse lovers and for fun let’s reduce that number by ½ of 1% of that number and that gives us 266,000 potential customers.  Even if we took that number and took 1% of that, we have 2600.  I am confident that there are at least 2600 people on Twitter that want to hear about your services, product or dynamic stallion you have standing at stud!