The most recent heartening news for social media marketers is Group Direct Messaging has just been launched on Twitter. Rest assured this will prove to be a veritable boon when it comes to connecting with your customers.
There is a variety of social media marketing platforms – each with its distinct characteristics eminently suited for some specialized tasks in your social media strategy – though all social platforms are not suited for all tasks.
For instance, with Facebook, users have the option of restricting the visibility of posts to defined groups of contacts if they so desire – in other words, they don’t necessarily have to share everything with everyone. Compare this with Twitter – up till recently, where a member wished to post something for a select group, everyone could access it.
Twitter’s latest innovation (Group Direct Messaging) offers an additional significant aspect to your Twitter marketing strategy. It is a group private messaging feature – enabling you to start a ‘private’ direct message conversation with a group of maximum 20 Twitter users.
Some may argue that this feature is devoid of any meaningful benefits. After all, if you’re promoting a brand, what possible reason could there be to limit the number of users to a meager twenty.
Of course, you would respect and value each of your customers and brand followers. Maybe occasionally the views of certain individuals are of special significance. If you are fortunate enough to count a select group of industry influencers amongst your followers, a DM Group could be the ideal business environment to isolate them from the general noise and pay them special attention.
There could be other scenarios. You’ve managed to get a public conversation initiated, and you are getting some noteworthy reactions.
A certain sub-group of followers are expressing views that you’d like to explore further. Segregating this group into a semi-private forum could be a useful way to achieve this.
Of course, trying out some innovative ideas on a group of 20 Twitter followers may provide a fresh perspective and there’s an extra scope here for taking advantage of the platform’s immediacy.
One should avoid a rashly expressed first reaction. Instead, one should try out something wholly revolutionary and gain more sales leads.
For instance, soon after Group DM was launched by Twitter, Adidas showed how it could put the new feature to rewarding use. A special campaign was invited to a 30-minute Group DM chat.
Remember that Twitter still has an important role to play in business houses. A private DM Group may be just the feature to keep the engagement going among individuals with niche interests in common.