6 down and dirty e-marketing tips (Small Business E-commerce Link Digest – June 12, 2009)

Your time is at a premium. You know it. I know it. So today, we’re going to dispense with the formalities and just answer some basic questions. Simply put, can you get business from Twitter? Can you turn traffic into sales? Can you connect with your customers more completely? Can I ask any more questions? Read on and see.

• Twitter is taking off for business. Bernhard Schindlholzer at Customer Experience Labs offers 5 uses cases for business on Twitter. Maybe you can be like Dell and sell millions via Twitter. Or just be like me and make a sale through Twitter, too.
• What other ways can Twitter help in business? Well, according to Reid Carr, the same writing style necessary to enlighten the world in 140 characters can help all your online writing. In my experience, I’ve found that customers will read longer pieces if you give them something worth reading. But, when in doubt, Reid is write… er, right: shorter is better.
• One more bit of Twitter tittering. This one goes back a ways, but some enterprising folks are now using Twitter in their outdoor advertising, too. Clever, but watch out for Twitter overload soon.
• Of course, getting traffic from Twitter – or other sources – is great. But do you know where it’s coming from? Your analytics tools can tell you, unless you exhibit these 10 signs you don’t understand web analytics.
• How did Dell turn Twitter into traffic and traffic into money? Testing. How can you get better at it? Well, Bryan Eisenberg provides a good overview of how to optimize conversion rates. Of course, it helps to know what to test first, too.
• And, finally, both Jeff Sexton at GrokDotCom and Robbin Steif at LunaMetrics look at UserTesting.com and like what they see. Jeff, in particular, offers great tips for getting the most out of user testing. Give ’em a read.

That’s it for this week folks. Enjoy your weekend and get ready to rock and roll next week.

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