Local Twitterers, Local Followers?

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

In the quest to use Twitter for local marketing, many requests flooded in over the past month that we add the ability for local advertising. Of course, the only way to do this is to permit only those Twitter users within the vicinity of a given metro area to actually tweet the link. But, that now has raised a question: what level of certainty do we have that a Twitter user in Indianapolis, IN is being followed by other Indianapolisians?

So, with the initial launch of a very tediously-created local advertising feature, at the cost of much hair pulling and cursing Google Maps API, we delivered local ads. Now, I need to figure out if the yet-unsatisfied twitter advertisers from whom I have been contacted are indeed a loud minority--a squeaky wheel, if you will--or in fact presenting a concern worthy of more consideration. And I need your help...

Imagine that you needed to advertise locally... say it was a garage sale, a local restaurant, or real estate listing. Knowing what you know about Twitter, which of the following best describes what you see as a viable solution:

I would be willing to pay for tweets from anyone in my area, realizing they may have followers outside the area, but that risk is acceptible.
I would be willing to pay only for clicks where the IP address of the clicker could be geo-located from the area of my business.
I would be willing to pay for national exposure, understanding that even those who don't live in my area might share the info with those who do.

Or, if you have any other relevant input, by all means do share.

Labels: Advertise, API, Local Advertising, Real Estate, Twitter, TwitterMLS

2 Comments:

Aimee said...: Assuming I was an advertiser which I am not, but I have been in the past, I would choose

"I would be willing to pay for national exposure, understanding that even those who don't live in my area might share the info with those who do."

Twitter is such a unique platform that it allows people all over the world to communicate as though they were near each other. The search feature allows us to find what we're looking for regardless of our own followers.

By limiting to a location I think advertisers will lose out in a big way. For example was the advertiser who was limited to Indianapolis successful? Did they receive enough tweets to spend their quota? Did it result in sales driven to the site or at least increased traffic? You have to weigh the variables and decide if limiting yourself is the right thing to do. I doubt that advertiser saw the success that the others have seen.; June 17, 2009 8:14 AM
Denyse said...: I really Agree with Aimee, I have considered doing some advertising with this platform. I currently have a large following, but would like to get into a few other streams. I would want the national exposure as well. I would know, just from the nature of twitter, that many would not even click on my ad if they had no interest in the area I was trying to reach or if they had no interest in the product.
I know that the gal from Boston that did the cosmetics had people that were not from Boston as I had people in my stream tell me about the wonderful products they found on her site.

I guess it is going to be a personal preference, but I think that any advertiser that limits their ads then also limits their sales. Who is to say that someone in say CA is not thinking of moving to IN, well they never would have seen that ad as we were not allowed to tweet it. However, someone that lived in IN might have tweeted it to their stream and still reached that CA customer. Not all followers are from our area. There is a map on one of the sites and you can see where your tweets are from. I looked today and mine were worldwide.
Again, these are only my opinions; June 17, 2009 8:31 PM

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