Multi-Channel Marketing - 140 Characters at a Time

For interlinkONE, Twitter has been a valuable tool. Because we strive to post content that can help someone grow their business, more and more people look to our company as a resource that can truly help them.

Over the past couple of years, interlinkONE has greatly increased its use of social media as part of its overall marketing strategy. Initially, we created one account for our company, twitter.com/interlinkONE. Since then, we have created multiple accounts to help represent our company in various tones and ways. Our CEO and vice president of sales have an account, along with separate accounts for people in our marketing and development departments. While each account pushes out different content, and has a unique “voice,” they all strive to meet the same company goals.

We use Twitter to post interlinkONE-related information, such as a new blog entry or a video we would like to share, as well as informative articles on the subject of marketing, or printing or fulfillment. We also take time to engage in conversation with other people on Twitter. Of course, we look for people that are in our target audience.

Twitter has benefited our company in many ways. Among the multiple accounts that fall under the interlinkONE umbrella, we have thousands of followers. If we post something that they like, they may in turn tell their own network, helping to greatly increase the size of the audience that we reach.

Additionally, we have used Twitter for customer service by posting tips and tricks, screen casts and other helpful content. Twitter has also helped us when it comes to event promotion by driving traffic to our booth. We are able to engage beforehand with people that will be attending the show and continue the conversation with them after the show ends. Twitter also supports our sales pipeline with prospects and leads, connected us to influential people in the print and marketing industries.

Tips to Getting Started:

1. Get on board! If you do not have an account create one today.
2. Build your network—use tools such as Search.Twitter.com to find people that are in your target audience.
3. Engage with the network you have built—post useful content, but also spend time listening to what your potential prospects are saying.
4. Be consistent—post every day, if at all possible.
5. Track and analyze—use social media measurement tools to see how many people are clicking on the links you post.

John Foley, Jr. is the founder, president and CEO of interlinkONE. He is widely recognized for his visionary approach in designing Internet business applications that meet the changing needs of print, fulfillment and mail service provider organizations, also known as marketing service providers.