Selling Domains On Twitter – A Success Story

Okay, first I have to take you back to New Year’s Day 2012.

I work from a home office (this site’s header is the view from my porch) and living the Domaining365.com mantra, I was on Twitter that morning putting out a few tweets about expired domain names.

Anyone who follows me on Twitter knows that I like to tweet recently expired domains that are available to hand-register. Sometimes I muse on how they might be simply monetized or I share my thoughts on what kind of business could benefit from buying them (from you of course).

The flip side of the expired domain tweets is when I use Twitter to promote domains from my own portfolio. I don’t do it very often because that’s not what my Twitter account is about, but I thought I would share a recent domain sale that I attribute directly to a tweet.

For the record, on 1-1-2012, I did not have a hangover.

"After this let's go tweet about our hangovers."

I did however notice several very funny tweets from others who were discussing the previous evening and the ramifications thereof.  They all had a hash-tag for #hangover so use your imagination…or just go search Twitter.

I immediately realized that I had the ideal audience to market one of my domains to.  With so many people using #hangover in such hilarious tweets I knew it would be a very highly searched hash-tag.

Timing is everything

I was pretty sure that I would have to wait another 12 months before so many people were discussing their hangovers at the same time.  And if I knew this, then other businesses knew it too.  And if those businesses were using hash-tags to find people to follow and therefore market to, then I wanted those business to find me as well.

I knew a blaring “This Domain For Sale!” approach wouldn’t work

What I really wanted to do was join in the hangover fun, while at the same time making it clear that the domain CureForHangover.com was A) valuable and B) available for purchase.

I thought if I wrote a compelling enough tweet that I could get people to click the domain, and at that point I would have a surprise waiting.

Here’s the tweet (with 6 characters to spare):

The CureForHangover.com link was live and it sent anyone who clicked directly to a GoDaddy Premium Listing with a Buy It Now price for the domain. 

Well, yesterday morning someone bought it.  Since it was registered privately I don’t know whether it was a business or an individual, a domain investor or an end-user.

The fact that it was a four figure sale ($X,XXX) and that no one ever called or emailed with a lower offer immediately leads me to believe it was an end-user. I think they paid a fair price, maybe even on the low side. Not only am I pleased with the sale, I truly hope they have a cure.

In any case,  congratulations to the new owner of CureForHangover.com and until I receive confirmation otherwise, I’m going to chalk this domain sale up to my tweet.

A special thanks to everyone who had a little bit too much to drink on New Year’s Eve 2012. There’s a warm special place in my heart for all of you.