Enterprise Social Media

Much ado about Twitter

Posted on 29. Apr, 2009 by Tom Diederich in Corporate Blogs, Social Media, Social Media Tools

For companies (brands), Twitter isn’t a replacement to existing communication channels. It is, however, an additional channel.

I think of Twitter as a news ticker (like those annoying streams of text headlines scrolling on the bottom of your TV screen during the morning news). For brands, it’s a way of driving traffic to specific content on their websites — or a specific call for action.

People interested in your brand will follow your company on Twitter. If you’re a B2B or B2C company, you could use Twitter to call attention to a new product, a new blog post, an interesting discussion in the forums, etc.

Why bother with Twitter?

• Most folks don’t think to check your site every day.
• Email is not always effective at providing information — particularly eNewsletters.  Most marketers know that email open rates are generally around 12-20% and CTRs are 2-5%.  Plus, you have to take some action for email (even if it’s to delete it); whereas the Twitter feeds just jam on by.

Given the massive growth rates, chances are becoming higher each day that your customer is on Twitter (and Facebook) every day (or at least a few times a week).

So Twitter is an “onramp” to your community.  I suppose you could think of “tweets” as billboards along the highway. When someone sees something that catches their eye, they follow the link in your tweet.

If you’re a store, say a supermarket (Kroger, Safeway, etc.) or a clothier (The Gap), for instance, you could use Twitter to call attention to a sale or you could “tweet out” an online coupon. Another onramp.

Comcast uses Twitter to connect with customers to strengthen the brand and escalate issues to support as part of the company’s social media monitoring and response program. Some recent tweets:

@annaonthemoon Can we look into it for you?

@peteskomoroch757 The modem was connected and responding properly to me. Pings looked good. I did reset it. What lights are on modem?

@kekil Is the modem new or used? If used could be registered in different area. You may need to call to have set up, should be easy

Motorola’s Developer Program uses Twitter to connect with members, informing them on a wide variety of topics. Some recent “tweets” include:

• 5 Mobile Development Headaches by Mike Riley at Dr. Dobb’s Portal - http://twurl.nl/6ddu1n
• great mtg at the Silicon Valley Android Developers Meetup. could on only stay for first two presos on AdMob and Flurry. http://ow.ly/3JhB
• talking about customer service & mobile apps on http://blogtalkradio.com/mo… #android

Both Comcast and Motorola don’t just use Twitter to broadcast, they also use it to listen — and when appropriate, to then respond.

How are you using Twitter? And is your company using it? Or thinking of using it?

    |      Email This Page
Did you enjoy this post? If so, please subscribe to our RSS feed