Mediarun Search Marketing News

Sony generates over £1m in sales through Twitter

March 1st 2010

Social Media Optimisation News

Sony Vaio's Twitter account has generated over £1 million in sales, people working in website marketing may be interested to know.

Speaking at the Social Media for Brand Building event, hosted by Marketing Week on February 25th, Sony head of corporate communications Nick Sharples said the company sees Twitter as a viable sales platform as well as a tool to amplify PR activity, New Media Age reports.

The technology giant launched a website promotion campaign for a special edition of its Cyber-shot camera range last year and used social media to extend PR coverage over nine months, resulting in over £12.5 million in revenue.

However, while speakers from brands including Diageo and MyDeco agreed that social media delivers results, at last week's event, held in London, many insisted it must always be used alongside more traditional channels.

Further, one social media commentator has suggested that brands and businesses that hope to profit from their social media campaigns may have the wrong idea.

Search engine optimisation (SEO) specialist Katy Woodrow Hill said that while "product focused brands" may look to use social media as a sales channel, for most brands it is a communication channel.

"For some people social media marketing has nothing to do with making money," Ms Woodrow Hill explained.

"For them it's about saving money and reducing costs elsewhere by using it as a customer services feed rather than a sales feed."

But she added that it was dangerous for brands to venture into social media thinking that they are just going to make money.

"You have to work with your consumers, your advocates and those that don't like you in order to develop a social media personality."

A recent study has shown that Twitter is the fastest growing social media channel among the Fortune 500 - the list of the globe's top performing companies.