Even Lowe’s tweets!

Lowes, the home improvement store has taken another digital step to improve their customer relations. This Fortune 100 Company has loosened its brick and mortar roots and expanded from bird houses to tweets. Lowes joined Twitter in January of 2009 and has evolved its tweet marketing approach constantly.

Initially, the Lowes approach to twitter marketing was to provide an outlet for special promotions and advertisements for current sales. During the first three months, there were absolutely zero replies or interactions with any following twitter users. During this initial period, the tweets from Lowes evolve from a purely promotional advertisement into a friendly mention of possible DIY projects. By the first week of March Lowes began answering questions from its followers and creating an interactive experience for its followers. Just one month later, Lowes completely opened itself for interaction by asking its followers for input on what changes they would like to see on the company website.

The implementation of Lowes’  twitter page has allowed the company to become attentive to its customer’s experience. By finding and responding to tweets of horrific customer service, Lowes has the opportunity to rectify that individual customer’s view of the Lowes brand as well as any follower who may have stumbled upon the comment.  This technique makes the Fortune 100 Company appear approachable and understanding to any consumer who may stumble upon these tweets. This subdues any “sneezing” effect that the unsatisfied tweeter may have spread to their followers. Though hard to measure, this is an extremely significant benefit for the Lowes brand name.

One challenge Lowes seems to be approaching through its Twitter presence is the promotion of its supplemental websites such as its YouTube site and its creative ideas site (http://lowescreativeideas.com).  Sites like these are not often pushed to the consumer in conventional marketing avenues. By integrating links to these sites into tweets, Lowes is attempting to elevate its follower’s awareness of these resources without the large investment necessary for traditional marketing. As mentioned above, customer dissatisfaction is an issue that the Lowes Twitter page is attempting to correct as well. According to the Sysomos resource library, most Twitter users have less than one hundred twitter followers. By assuming that each complaining tweet has at least 20 followers, Lowes can in effect persuade 21 possible future customers for a relatively small investment of interacting with one customer.

Lowes has not published any results directly correlated with the implementation of its Twitter account, but according to twittercounter.com, the site has seen a steady upward trend in its number of followers since the inception. Within ten months, the Lowes Twitter page has gained over three thousand followers. On average, the Lowes page gains seventy-five new followers a day.

One lesson to take away from the Lowes Twitter experience is the ability to tailor the corporate message to the form of delivery. Lowes approaches Tweets regarding home improvement as an individual working on their own home projects and intends to inspire its followers. For a Fortune 100 Company, this technique is very unique and effective. A second noteworthy idea to take away from the Lowes Twitter page is the fact that they integrate their other forms of social web 2.0 (Facebook and YouTube) into their tweets. This technique allows Lowes to leverage the idea of “six degrees of separation” through more channels of social marketing which leads to further penetration into the daily lives of current and potential customers.

Sources:

Retrieved on November 20^th from http://twitter.com/Lowes

Retrieved on November 20^th from http://www.jobbankusa.com/employment_jobs_career/fortune_500/1-100_rankings.html

Retrieved on November 19^th from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_degrees_of_separation

Retrieved on November 19^th from http://twittercounter.com/Lowes/all/followers

Retrieved on November 17^th from http://www.sysomos.com/insidetwitter/