How Pork Pies Could Open Your Eyes
Running a business and want to promote it a bit on Twitter? Great. The only things you need to avoid are the three Bs:
Boring. Boastful. Banging on and on.
Easy.
There's a caveat though. You're allowed to do those three things (a bit) if - and only if - you have a personality. A real personality, that is. Not just a business face.
A great example of this is Sarah Pettegree of Bray's Cottage Pork Pies. Many of her 'tweets' are full of news about her business, mentions of awards she's won, orders she's secured, and general talk about pork pies. If you're not that interested in pork pies, those tweets have the potential to be quite dull. But they're not dull at all. And the reason for that is that Sarah's personality shines through in every tweet.
More importantly, perhaps, she also tweets about many other things that are totally unrelated to her business. And she really communicates with people, having proper conversations. I don't mean dopey marketing/business 'conversations', I mean real conversations. It explains how she's managed to not only build up a good Twitter following, but also a massive amount of goodwill. It helps also that she's always out and about and always happy to meet people for a chat. It's why everyone is so fond of her.
On top of all that, she's got the one truly essential thing that can make a business succeed: a fantastic product.
I wrote some time ago about what businesses should do if they want to make the most of Twitter. I'd say that Sarah does it better than any other business I follow. So if you're a business person - particularly if you're running a small, local business - you could do worse than follow Sarah in order to pick up a few tips and get the measure of how it should be done.
And remember those three Bs.
No, wait, don't bother with that nonsense. Just remember to have a personality. And to behave like a normal human being. After all, it's not always good business to always do business.
Blimey. My very own aphorism: "It's not always good business to always do business." I can feel a book coming on...
Follow Sarah (@brays_cottage) on Twitter here.
Thursday, July 1, 2010 at 03:19PM
Reader Comments (4)
I think 'personality' is absolutely the best way to sum it all up. Twitter isn't about promotion, it is about relationships - and as with all relationships being genuine is the best way to make it last and make sure both parties get something positive out of it. Develop strong positive relationships with other genuine people and the benefits for business will happen almost by association and happy coincidence. I don't subscribe to any Twitter feed with the expectation of being on the receiving end of an automated news service or a drip-feed of marketing blurb.
Top line blogpost – Sarah is a fine example of a business behaving correctly on twitter – mixing a little business with plenty of personal and mostly saying something worthwhile. The fact I haven't had the pleasure to eat her pies, but am desperate to try one speaks for itself.
Now where is the pie man?
I'm the opposite, never read the blog, probably never will... but love the pies. We buy three every Saturday from the Green Grocers. Without fail!
Best pork pies this side of Yorkshire - in fact best pork pies full stop