Representatives from Dell said, at a Twitter for Brands event hosted by New Media Age in London on Friday, that it has seen tangible uplifts in sales which can be directly attributed to marketing on Twitter. The brand’s Twitter account has driven $3 million in sales since it began operation in 2007, Dell said.
Moonfruit, a website builder, also said Twitter campaigns have helped the brand. Moonfruit said it spent around 10,000 pounds ($16,400) on prizes for the campaign, and that it brought in more than twice that amount in a single month in new subscriptions, reports ClickZ.
The Moonfruit campaign – which gave away a MacBook Pro each day for 10 days to someone who had sent a message using the hash mark and keyword #moonfruit – was extremely popular, though controversial. It was criticized because it was thought to be spamming users without adding value to the community.
Twitter and Facebook are go-to places for brands hoping to be seen as trendy and in-the-know. But the effectiveness of such branding efforts is questionable. Only 8% of advertisers and consumers think it’s a very effective promotion tool, according to results from a LinkedIn Research Network/Harris Poll.
The study also found that advertisers are more likely than consumers to know about Twitter and are more likely to believe in the microblogging tool’s future power to help promote products and services.
