Selling with Content: The $877.9 million Twitter content strategy

In July 2009 Amazon.com bought online shoe retailer Zappos.com for $887.9 million from entrepreneur Tony Hsieh (pictured).

At the time, Amazon was selling many products online: books, consumer electronics, movies, toys, and tools. Why spend all that money just to add shoes when Amazon could have easily added a shoe line of their own?

Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, said he was motivated to buy because Zappos had a unique corporate culture and brand. But it was Hsieh's ability to communicate the essence of these using Twitter that captured a national audience and created a competitive selling advantage. Hsieh opened his Twitter account in June 2007 and by 2009 had over 1.5 million followers, one of the 100 most followed in the country.

Surprising to many Hsieh, did NOT Tweet about: shoes, online retailing, or Tweet special shoe offers. In fact, Hsieh only owned 10 pairs of shoes and was rumored not to know much about any of them.

Here is what Hsieh did Tweet about: his obsession with customer service. Why was Tweeting about this, and not shoes, such a successful content strategy? Two reasons:

1. The people side of customer service is far more interesting than shoes. Even if you are a shoe fanatic, there are thousands of shoe websites to visit. One more Twitter stream would not make a difference. But as a customer service obsessed CEO on Twitter, Hsieh was the only game in town.

2. Customer service is the key issue holding back most first time shoe customers from buying online. Think about it. Selling books online is easy because the book you buy in a store is as good as the same book you buy online. But a when buying a pair shoes, their fit is critical. In a store, you try them on, and the fit is assured. But buying shoes online is a big risk unless the online retailer has a high enough level of customer service to overcome the “fitting” problem.

Customers who might worry what happens when the shoes do not fit or how fast returns can be made need a lot of assurance to keep them from just visiting a local shoe store.

But customers who bought into Hsieh's obsessive view of customer service were more likely to give online shoe shopping a try. First sales with new customers became the defining moments in the Zappos success story because about 75% of Zappos sales came from repeat customers.

One more thing, Hsieh used Twitter to tell a whole story, not just share a series of short, clever Tweets. Here is his explanation:

"Think of each tweet as a dot on a piece of paper. Any single tweet, just like any single dot, by itself can be insignificant and meaningless. But, if over time, you end up with a lot of tweets, it’s like having a lot of dots drawn on a piece of paper. Eventually there are enough dots for your followers to connect them together. And if you connect the dots, in the aggregate it paints a picture of you and/or your company, and it’s that total picture that is your brand.

Think of each tweet as a dot on a piece of paper. Any single tweet, just like any single dot, by itself can be insignificant and meaningless. But, if over time, you end up with a lot of tweets, it’s like having a lot of dots drawn on a piece of paper. Eventually there are enough dots for your followers to connect them together. And if you connect the dots, in the aggregate it paints a picture of you and/or your company, and it’s that total picture that is your brand."

The essence of a great content sales strategy is that it both attracts an interested audience and delivers content that Positively affects that audience's buying behavior. Hsieh's Twitter program did both. Think about your organization's content. Does something bigger happen when you connect the dots?