Social and e-commerce service provider Appozite has launched CheapTweet Stores, an extension of the company’s existing CheapTweet service. DealTaker.com, Overstock.com and VacationRentals.com are partners in the initial launch of the platform, which aggregates Tweets with promotional offers under a company-specific header.
“CheapTweet was a way of searching Twitter and pulling in deals, making them searchable and helping filter out bad ones” with user ratings, said Hayes Davis, founder and
CEO of Appozite. “But we saw an opportunity [to add more value] for larger brands.”
The benefits to larger e-commerce marketers using CheapTweet Stores are threefold, Davis explained. First, it allows them a platform to reach a large audience of people who are actively seeking out deals on Twitter. It also prevents deals from being lost in a sea of Tweets on Twitter users’ friends lists, and allows companies with multiple Twitter accounts — such as Overstock, which lists separate deals on Twitter sites for its e-commerce and auction sites — to consolidate those deals under one umbrella.
“For us, different folks want different strokes,” said Stormy Simon, SVP of marketing and customer care at Overstock.com. “I think the advantage of this service out of the gate is that it’s new way to talk to consumers who are using Twitter as a ways to communicate. It’s good for all of us to figure out this Twitter bug, so CheapTweet is a good way to reach consumers who use this channel instead of e-mail [to communicate] or to research products.”
“We see it as an opportunity to broaden our reach in the Twitter
sphere,” added Kevin Strawbridge, president of DealTaker.com, which
already has a robust presence
on Twitter. “We post maybe 20 to 30 Tweets a day, and we see it as a
natural progression [to post them] where people are going specifically
to find Twitter deals.”
CheapTweet stores are viewable from a link on the CheapTweets homepage. Currently, only the three launch companies are listed, but Davis says Appozite is preparing for expansion. This includes both big brands and smaller independent store owners; both categories have posted deals on Twitter, Davis noted.
“We want to talk to any property that’s offering deals and meeting the needs for value-conscious consumers,” he said. “Our plan as the service grows and we get more stores in is that we’ll have greater search capability to find the items that are right for you. We’re looking at multiple integration points.”
This includes “sponsored Tweets,” an idea similar to sponsored links in the search marketing world. Companies can flag Tweeted deals they want to feature and have them appear at the top of the search engine results page.
