The aptly named 140 Characters Conference hosted by Jeff Pulver focused as much on the personalities of the presenters and attending evangelists as it did on the uses and qualities of Twitter, the social media darling of the moment. Reflecting on this orgy of self-promotion, I finally have a read on the practical uses of Twitter for marketers. Here's what I learned:
1. Use Twitter to Take the Pulse. Twitter theoretically enables you to find out what's hot and what's not and capture the real-time essence of the vox populi. The only limiting factor is the so-so quality of Twitter's own search tool and the variable quality of search tools created by 3rd parties to achieve this goal. It is widely rumored that Google will establish a beachhead in micro-search by creating a better tool to search and mine tweets.
Assuming the search issue gets solved, the next burning question becomes are tweeters sufficiently representative of any given population to rely on them as a representative or as a directional sample of public or professional opinion? Here you have to balance sheer numbers against a qualitative judgment. Zillions are tweeting. But are they following some party or partisan line (think right wingers who bombard talk radio shows) or are they truly representative of the spectrum of opinion? Does the size and weight of the tweets offset any political or partisan skews? Do we have enough information to base a judgment call on?
This is a matter of individual taste or editorial policy. So far many mainstream media types are using Twitter as an opinion direction finder and are counting pro and con tweets as if they were straw polls. They are reporting on the intensity of opinions expressed and taking the Twitter community seriously.
For those participating in events or conferences or watching events on TV, Twitter is real-time reaction meter. By using the hash tag convention, you can group comments and make them more findable. Probably 99 percent of the 140 character participants were madly posting tweets during individual presentations; offering individual assessments of the crowd, the food, the swag, the venue not to mention the looks, words and attitudes of their fellow participants. It was a multi-taskers ball.
2. Join the Conversation. Tweeting is expressing an opinion -- everything from your mood to a point of view on any topic. Naturally by connecting your tweets to a broader conversation you gain traction and credibility. Similarly by attracting followers you spread your opinion and encourage others to retweet your words to even larger audiences. Brands have an opportunity to craft a Twitter page to reflect the marketplace posture they aspire to. The burden is on the author to say something interesting, different and relevant and to attract sufficient attention for that opinion to matter.
3. Outmaneuver Dictators. Because of its immediacy and broad use Tweeters can finesse government controls on websites, e-mail, SMS and instant messages. In the case of Iranian election protestors this might be short-lived since Tweets do leave a trail that the descendants of the SAVAK can use to hunt you down and arrest you. It has also temporarily gotten around controls of oppressive state regimes in several countries, though its long term viability as a revolutionary communications tool, even with the endorsement of the US State Department, is uncertain.
4. Augment Customer Service. Several brands, notably Dell, Starbucks, Zappos, JetBlue and Whole Foods have added Twitter as a customer service channel with results that customers have bragged about. We don't know if the channel per se or the small team working on it make Twitter a more nimble tool than an 800 number, e-mail, live on-site chat or web contact forms. Customer value seems to be derived by the perception that brands are listening closely, addressing issues one-to-one, moving quickly in close to real time and then telling others what they did.
Success turns on communicating the availability of this channel to your customer base, attracting significant numbers of followers and building buzz around your brand's responsiveness. There is also the possibility that by monitoring tweets about your brand that you can discern customer needs, create opportunities to improve customer satisfaction and gather marketplace and product intelligence.
5. Actively Promote Your Brand. Brands are using Twitter to announce new products and services, socialize news and communicate sales. By telegraphing branded information in short messages, marketers hope to borrow some of Twitter's high tech, fashion-forward equity and to impress online customers with their sensitivity and savvy.
Success depends on content, relevance, tone, manner and frequency. Brands have the burden to create followers or to inject branded messages into the natural context of ongoing conversations. Tweeters are fairly sensitive about over commercializing the channel and can quickly respond to perceived violations with negative tweets. You must also be forthright and overt about who you are and what you are selling -- all in 140 characters or less.
Twitter is a mass market online phenomenon. Growth trajectory of new users and defectors are both strong. Customers in every psycho-demographic cell and trying it out. It makes sense to experiment with micro-blogging by crafting a credible brand presence, building a following, following customers and/or competitors and participating regularly in the cycles of tweeting, listening and responding.
Advertising is extremely important. It is the fuel that brings in new customers from which you can create long-term repeat customers.
Posted by: Banner Stands | September 29, 2009 at 03:35 PM
Different social network channels as Twitter and Face book are source to build social channels irrespective of barriers to locations .
Posted by: Jeff Paul News | October 27, 2009 at 02:35 AM