Why Mobile Phone Advertising When Twitter Is Free?

Posted on 02 June 2010

There are a lot of similarities between the short messages sent and received through Twitter and mobile text advertising. Twitter’s short message service (SMS) allows users to send and receive messages with a 140-character limit on any device, including computer, phones and pdas.

You may have noticed that Twitter is even now offering paid tweets, called promoted tweets, which are paid for by advertisers and viewable by the entire Twitter user community. Thus far, only large advertisers such as Starbucks and Best Buy are being offered promoted tweets, and with Twitter boasting a community of almost 106 Million, it may be awhile before small business owners can afford a piece of that pie.

But why wouldn’t a small business owner use Twitter’s free service as a means to promote their business? Why would they need to use mobile text advertising as well? Here are a few things to consider:

1. With Twitter, your messages, or “tweets” only reach those users who have chosen to follow you. While you can and should certainly attempt to get your customers to follow you if they use Twitter, the fact of the matter is that not everyone does. Yes, 106 Million sounds like a lot and it is. But believe it or not that figure is less than twenty percent of all people who use the Internet. And believe it or not, there are those customers who still even use the Internet infrequently or even not at all. But, most of those people, 82% of all Americans, have a cell phone.

2. Tweets on Twitter can come and go very quickly, which you have probably experienced if you have ever used it. Immediate responses from those who see your tweets can be favorable, but the effectiveness can wear off very quickly. This makes Twitter a good option for building brand loyalty, but not the greatest source to promote an event such as a sale or a limited time coupon offer. A direct mobile advertising message is much more effective to reach your customers for that type of promotion.

3. Mobile advertising, unlike Twitter, offers mobile keyword technology which makes it a more powerful targeting option for a small business advertiser. Most small businesses want to target specific types of customers, which mobile keyword technology can do, as opposed to the larger advertisers like Starbucks and Best Buy. People can simply text your mobile keyword right where they see it – at the cash register, webpage, event, or even when hearing an advertisement on the radio. It is even possible to import cell phone numbers into your campaign, so you aren’t building your contact list from scratch.

Twitter cannot replace the power available to the small business owner in a well planned mobile advertising campaign, although it too has a place in the overall marketing strategy. With affordable options and the ability to start out on a month to month basis at a low cost (it can be as low as $10/month), mobile phone advertising is a great addition to the small business owner’s marketing plan.

Be sure to stop by SmallBusinessMobileAdvertising.com to learn much more about how entrepreneurs can use mobile phone advertising to expand their business. Make sure to sign up for your free mobile phone advertising trial (and mention the promo code “mobilenow” and receive double the credits during your free trial period).

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