Interactive Buzz - April 16 '08

Super short and late (by only a few days!) posting. Sorry about that. Enjoy anyway.

TWITTERING as a Marketing Tool

So I’ve been infatuated by Zappos lately (as Darcy is well aware!). (Zappos is an the #1 online-only shoe retailer). Surprisingly, not because of the shoes. I read an article about how Zappos is using Twitter ( A microblogging tool) successfully to market their brand. Not many companies are doing this so I signed up to follow Zappos Twitter feeds. Turns out the CEO of Zappos is who is Twittering (31 year old Tony Hsieh), which is even more intriguing. Who doesn’t want to know what the CEO of a very successful company does every couple hours of his day. (For those of you who say "not me, what a waste of time," I'd likely guess watches no form of reality TV. The benefit to this is I'm following a really smart entrepreneur and new-age marketer. Maybe I'll learn something.)

He twitters about his wait at the airport, his martini at dinner, his family, the speech he's giving, who he's having dinner with, etc... And of course – throws in a percentage of “marketing pushes” back to his site. But he doesn’t over push. That's the key. He’s a smart guy I’ve discovered. (Like the fact that he took a $500,000 company to a $600+ million company in a few short years doesn’t already qualify him for that.) He’s giving away shoes and trips and other such things to his twitter followers. He’s asking for feedback on his next venture – Zeta (Zappos on steriods). He’s building a ‘face’ and a ‘personality’ to a brand that is faceless – since it’s online only.

I can honestly say that last week if you asked me "what's the first thing that comes to your mind when I say 'shoes'", it wasn't Zappos. This week, that has changed. This week, I’m a fascinated voyeur wondering what the Zappos guy is doing today. Oh, you’re giving a speech...and there is a sale on shoes so I should go visit your site? Ok.