eBay Marketing, Twitter and Woot - Building Social Networks, Mircro-Blogging, Sourcing Product

What on earth is twitter and why is everyone talking about it?

Ok - let's define first. To me, twitter is a mini-blog social network. You create an account, make posts about what you're doing in 144 words or less, and follow friends who do the same. It's yet another place to follow those you know and trust and maybe add some others that you're not sure about yet. You can do it via Web, cell phone or any other IP connected device. Some of the post can be inane time-wasters, but like all things Web, people are being creative and making good use of it. Here's the WikiPedia definition of Twitter.

So what's the eBay relevance? A guy I follow on twitter wrote a blog post about applying twitter to Woot and eBay. Essentially, you can use twitter as a sale broadcasting medium, much the same way use MySpace to do the same thing. The key is that the information needs to be "newsworthy." There has to be some timliness to it. It can't just say, here's my eBay store. Something like, "I'm uploading five new hammocks to my eBay Store -- scored em cheap" is more appropriate. Like anything else marketing, you need an audience. You'll need to build a twitter friends list and cross promote your twitter page in your other marketing materials, in emails, on your web sites, and in your eBay listings and Store.

Here's a good quote to put it all into perspective. It's from Patsi Krakoff's Next Level Tips Blog: "I rephrase this concept found on several wise sites: technologies don’t drive anything. Rather, they enable people to do things they have always done, only better, faster, or cheaper. The most effective and successful social networks are addressing universal human needs using an improved technology component.

It’s not important that you familiarize yourself with all the latest social media tools, neither should you be on the leading edge of all the cool trends.

However, it is important that you and your business connect with people, both your internal and external customers. It is still and always will be about relationships, credibility and trust.

Now there are new ways to create those relationships."

Now, how about sourcing... As I was reading the article on twitter and Woot, I couldn't help but think about sourcing. A place like woot could be a great resource eBay product. The prices look good, and with these twitter updates, you could swoop up a bargain and flip it on eBay quite easily.

Any thoughts? Does anyone have experience with any of these ideas? Please share here. Thanks.