For all those in the UK who feel Twitter is just an American phenomenon and seems to be going great guns only in the United States, here is a reality check. According to a recent study conducted by Hitwise Intelligence,

“Twitter receives the largest amount of its traffic from the USA, but its penetration is greater in the UK market. For the week ending 17/01/09 www.twitter.com ranked as the 291st most visited website in the UK, accounting for 0.024% of all Internet visits; while in the USA it ranked 350th, picking up 0.020% of all Internet visits. However, the US may overtake the UK the week following the surge in Tweets during Barack Obama’s inauguration. The new American President is already the most followed person on Twitter, with over 144,000 followers.”

The presence of Celebrities like Stephen Fry, John Cleese, Andy Murray and Jonathan Ross has further worked a magical spell in alluring tons of fans in the UK to flock to Twitter. So what is it about Twitter which has got even the celebrities onboard? As we know most people today are “money rich – time poor” and need a swift way of communication. Twitter definitely seems to be the answer to this requirement. It is a micro-blogging site where you deal with just 140 characters. That is as good as SMSing over a cell. Even the busiest of folks can within a matter of few minutes keep in touch with their friends, family, fans, clients, customers or to sum it up any followers. Another great advantage of Twitter is that you don’t have to be hooked onto your browser all the time. There are various third party desktop applications like Twhirl, Tweetdeck which make working on Twitter a breeze. The real icing on the cake is you can tweet(message) using even a cellphone or any net enabled device. The picture below shows the top social network sites in the UK.

Twitter seems to be attracting mostly the youth in the UK but an interesting fact to note is that 17.3% of the UK visitors to Twitter are between 35-44 age group. Presence of users from diverse age groups means great news for digital marketers who can use Twitter to generate traffic to their website, keep track of trends, check whether their client’s brand has a positive or negative image among the tweeps and also provide customer service to those who express grievance on Twitter. The traffic on Twitter is growing manifold and in the process is generating big opportunities for marketers in the UK. There is no denying the fact that this is not just a fad and is definitely here to stay.  (via Hitwise Intelligence ).

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Respect the consumer’s intelligence.

Don’t patronize them. Don’t constantly paint a rosy picture about your product. Instead give them a community, a comments feature or a forum on your site to enable them to express their views. Once you have the feedback ,interact with them and use their suggestions. For instance: In one of the laptop manufacturer’s forum many consumers complained about how the keyboard wasn’t smooth to use. In their next release of the laptop series they modified the feel of the keyboard and the result was an increase in sales.

Listen to consumers even on other sites.

If a consumer is annoyed about your product, he is more likely to go to a third party site and spread a negative word of mouth. Apple has its own forum but if I wanted to pour my frustration about unavailability of copy/paste option on iPhone, I would rather do it on a third party site like iphonedownloadblog.com to express my discontent. Its important for companies to regularly keep track of such forums to better understand their market.

Buzz about your product in the digital space.

Say you launch a product. Is it creating the right buzz online is the first question you need to ask yourself. Visit sites like digg.com and Del.icio.us to know your product/service popularity. Companies can also use influential bloggers to generate a buzz. For example: Samsung can generate more buzz about its latest plasma TV by giving it away free to a top blogger at engadget.com and asking him to right a review with no strings attached. “No strings attached” is very important or else the blogger may place a negative review or worse allege that the company was trying to bribe him.

Remember its about conversing and not just selling.

Once you have an online community and a huge consumer base flocking to join the conversation, its quite natural to feel tempted to bombard them with marketing messages. Don’t. Don’t Don’t. The moment the consumers get incessant messages they feel that they are being used as a bait by the company and tend to immediately leave the forum. So never take the route of selling instead of conversing in communities.

See which Web 2.0 tool suits you.

One person’s meal is another person’s poison. Go out there and explore whether its social network sites like twitter, facebook; virtual world sites like second life or tools like blogs, wikis, forums which suits you. Make a list of all that which falls in cohesion with your overall marketing strategy. Then try integrating them and turning them into killer digital marketing tools to drive customers into your kingdom.

Today if consumers are the “bees”; then blogs, social networking sites and virtual worlds form the “honey”. The information Holy Grail (internet) is now not just a geek’s way of showcasing talent but has become a company’s way of showcasing its products/services. Web 2.0 is not just about a one way stream where companies’ fire marketing messages at consumers instead it’s now a two way channel where consumers interact with each other and the company.

Smart companies are using the blogosphere and social networking sites in their marketing efforts. The ones who are still relying on the traditional TV; print media etc are not seizing a remarkable opportunity unfolding in the digital space.  Facebook, second life etc are like a company’s dream come true as they bring people (target audience) together. It is this “dream-come-true” feature that is pushing companies to develop and unleash social media marketing tools. In most of the cases it is possible to measure the effectiveness of such a digital marketing effort making it a powerful way to make the most out of every marketing dollar.