Using Twitter to communicate with affiliates

TAGS: Affiliate marketing

Last week I outlined some of the different channels that you should use to ensure that your affiliates are kept up to date with your program. Good communication is absolutely essential for a successful affiliate program, and this week I am going to look a little further into one of the most popular and growing methods of communicating with affiliates: Twitter.

Why should I use Twitter?

Some affiliate program mangers may think that because they already communicate with affiliates through newsletters, email, phone and forums they don’t need to concern themselves with another communication channel.

Twitter is already widely used by affiliates, and is still being adopted by many more so it should be seen as an opportunity to not only reach affiliatesd who already know you but also those who may not.

Some affiliates already claim that Twitter is their preferred method for finding information and keeping up to date with affiliate programs.

What can I use Twitter for?

Twitter can be used for various purposes, and is a great way of delivering information directly and instantly. Because people have chosen to follow you, you can be confident that they want to hear what you have to say and won’t ignore your message. Here are just a few of the ways you can use Twitter to promote your affiliate program;

• Announce new product releases
• Announce new sales/best sellers
• Release voucher codes (maybe even Twitter exclusive codes)
• Introduce new affiliate program launches
• Announce affiliate incentives and commission changes
• Recruiting new affiliates

You can of course use other communication channels to communicate these things as well, but the benefit of Twitter is the immediacy that it offers. An affiliate may not pick up an email for days after you send it by which time the information in it may be out of date. If you have a short term offer that has just gone onto the site, or if your product has just been mentioned on TV you can Tweet about it instantly and affiliates can make use of it there and then.

Short but sweet tweets

Because the number of characters you can use in a Tweet is limited to 140 characters, it forces you to be concise and clever about what you write and how you write it.

Again, this can make it more noticeable to the affiliates. If it stands out it is more likely to take their attention and generate a response from them. This is also where you can integrate Twitter with your other communication channels by including a link through to your blog, website or forum post with more details on. Affiliates will receive many emails and communications every day and will often skim read to see if it is worthwhile following up on – often the key information can be buried away within the email and it won’t get a response. By delivering a quick and concise message through Twitter, there is more chance it will get a response.

If you Tweet something that is really useful or interesting, you might find that one of your followers ‘re-tweets’ it on their page and it becomes available to people who may not have seen it or been aware of you previously, providing another opportunity that you might not have had without Twitter.

There are a lot of Twitter sites out there that are used as a sort of PR machine to simply relay information to people that follow them, but there is no interaction with these tweets as they don’t follow anyone and look a bit faceless and lacking in real value.

So it is important to try and give your Tweets a more personal touch. Follow other people within the industry so that you can interact with them and join in with debate and discussion.

I would also suggest you allow only one or two people to update your Twitter account so that the same ‘personality’ and style is apparent through the Tweets.

These points demonstrate why embracing Twitter within your overall affiliate communication strategy makes real sense. Providing affiliates with important and useful information instantly can help to increase your affiliate’s promotional activities and open your program up to a host of potential new affiliates that you may not yet have discovered.

You can follow Silverbean Affiliate Twitter updates @sbnaffiliates for all the latest info and discussion on our affiliate programs.

Steven Lynch is Client Services Manager at Silverbean. If you have any questions or would like to discuss how Silverbean can help you achieve your marketing objectives through affiliate marketing; please contact our resident affiliate marketing services expert using one of the following.

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