Research via Twitter: Email Marketing Services
I will be conducting a Twitter Research Workshop in November at the Highland Park Public Library in New Jersey. Here are some ideas on how one can use Twitter to research a topic.
How can one use Twitter for research? One can divide this into two approaches: active and passive.
Passive Twitter Research
Let’s say you want to explore email newsletters for your business or organization. A passive twitter approach might be to go to one of these Twitter search and type “email marketing” or “email newsletter” or “html email” and see what you get.
I went to http://search.twitter.com/ and typed in “email newsletter.” Here’s what I got:
So how can one proceed with this? One can now ask macmktg what she recommends for an email newsletter. Or one can examine the WordPress method that mmangen suggests.
When I type in “email marketing,” I found at least 2 people recommending a post:
Active Research
When I suggested asking macmktg what she recommends for a newsletter, that would be an example of active research – one is no longer just reading the information on the web, but actually researching out to a person on a topic in which that person may have some expertise.
Way back in August I asked about this topic of email marketing services while participating in my favorite chat group, @sbbuzz. (More on sbbuzz on this post). I got many response from some small business experts, such as:
- working_arts: @leoraw constant contact – very easy to use :-) #sbbuzz
- joemagennis: @leoraw Just moved from ConstantContact to AWeber. Scheduled messages according to signup date, number of posts etc very versatile #sbbuzz
- bradfordshimp: @leoraw I am in love with MailChimp. Super user friendly, and (this is important) fun! #sbbuzz
- bradfordshimp: @leoraw MailChimp doesn’t have triggers though, which is big for one of my clients. We use Big Response for that. #sbbuzz
Here are the websites of those services that were recommended: MailChimp, Constant Contact, Big Response, AWeber
Update from Bradford Shimp: “MailChimp now does offer triggers via their autoresponders, so I have moved completely to their service. I highly recommend MailChimp.”
I also got a response via my contact form from Andrew Creem of Data Buddy who suggested his website: www.databuddy.com.
Have you had a good experience researching a topic via Twitter that you would like to share?
Leora, nice overview of Twitter research. I love the idea to combine the passive and active searching. Reaching out to someone and asking their advice is a great benefit of Twitter that just doesn’t exist on traditional search.
Update on my recommendation. MailChimp now does offer triggers via their autoresponders, so I have moved completely to their service. I highly recommend MailChimp.
Thanks, Bradford. I’m going to add your update to the post.
Thanks for this nice detailed article with examples. I use search.twitter.com quite often after I heard from you about it at the library. I have looked up for tutorials, product/service reviews or even my fav blog’s server status to see if they are down (#isdown)
Dhaval, maybe you can come to the workshop at the library on Nov. 16? You could be a great help to others.
Thanks. Yes sure I will be there for the workshop.
Feedblitz is another one.
Thanks for the recommendation, Hannah. I’ve used Feedburner for a client, though I think the ones that are mentioned here, like MailChimp, have more features and are not necessarily connected to a blog post.
I find constant contact to be quite good. It gives a huge amount of metrics regarding who opened, forwarded and click on your emails
Check out http://www.ConstantContactUtility.com that allows multiple users (accounts) to work on an email blast in Constant Contact. This way, you can outsource the creative to someone else without giving them the keys to the entire account….cool utility (and cheap).
Your blog has given me some ideas to improve mine. Twitter research does work and I included a search option on my site for that purpose. Thanks.