At our online travel marketing agency, we’ve been tweeting on behalf of a few clients for a while now and, for this reason, I was interested to read an article by Jason Falls ,who stated that there are four very distinct styles of Twitter marketing.

Jason went on to say that none of this styles was officially better than the other, but that they were all good in targeting different types of Twitter user. The Conversationalist Conversationalists may have their own business-based reasons for using Twitter, but most of the time they are happier to participate in the daily chit-chat. These marketers are more likely to be discussing the latest big topic on Twitter than talking to others about their sales message or latest product. So if the Grammys is trending in the US then this Twitter user is more likely to be discussing Taylor Swift’s outfit then the success of their online travel marketing agency.  

Jason disagrees with those people who believe that this method isn’t effective in marketing. He states that whilst their message may be a lot more subtle than that of other Twitter marketers out there it is still effective, albeit less direct and trackable. Conversational Marketer At LeadGenerators we seem to fall into this category. The conversational marketer regularly links to their blog posts, or reminds you of their latest product, but also takes time to join in with the Twitter conservation. Although Jason didn’t actually mention “trending topics”, this is something that we regularly use on our clients’ Twitter accounts. 

At the beginning of January, when everyone was tweeting about the excessive snow, we were using the trending topic #uksnow to suggest scenic walks that followers of our Ramblers Holidays Twitter account could undertake in the #uksnow. Although Jason doesn’t choose a preferred method, at LeadGenerators, we believe this method to be the most effective as it is chatty and informative without being spammy. The Salesman Whilst a conversational marketer may sometimes accidentally slip into the 50% territory, where half their tweets are conversational and half are sales based, ‘The Salesman’ regularly crosses over this threshold.

Some might claim that marketing like this is disingenuous to the social media audience, but Jason disagrees. He states that Salesman Tweeters often provide interesting links, observations or useful sale offers in their tweets. Jason cites The New Yorker and Chrysler as two Twitter accounts that fall into this category and, whilst he agrees that this form of marketing isn’t popular amongst the social media set, he does believe that there is always an audience for a sales-driven Twitter account attached to a quality product. The Broadcaster Although Jason hesitates to use the word ‘spammer’, this is how he first refers to this particular breed of Tweeter.

Spammers regularly self-promote and almost exclusively re-tweet replies from fans on how great their product is. They don’t join in the conservation and their tweets are usually coupons, reviews or product releases. Strangely though the broadcaster also has a place on Twitter. I instantly recognised a Vietnamese restaurant I followed as using this marketing approach.

However, with regular 15% off deals and drinks offers I am loathe to un-follow them should I miss out on the next best offer. The most interesting thing about Jason’s research was finding out that all of these four marketing approaches had their place on Twitter. 

So far, we’ve found the ‘conversationalist approach’ has worked extremely well for our clients’ Twitter accounts. However, after reading Jason’s research, we’ll definitely be open to experimenting with different styles in the future.