John Doe is eating Rice Krispies for breakfast
In under a year, Twitter has skyrocketed to one of the most used micro-marketing sites in the world.
Nielsen recently reported amazing statistics on Twitter users, including the rate of growth and demographics of users. Many of these stats, point to Twitter being an excellent tool for businesses.
Twitter asks it’s users a rhetorical question; what are you doing? Several users take that question literally, tweeting about what they’re eating for breakfast, when they go running, when they go to bed etc.
While these kinds of updates may seem useless to businesses, in my opinion, businesses can and SHOULD be using this to their advantage.
For example, John Doe, who’s tweeting about what he’s having for breakfast, is also a consumer and if his local grocery store tweeted that they’re now selling his favorite breakfast cereal for half-price he might go down there and buy four boxes. Businesses should be using Twitter to inform the regular Joe’s what they have to offer. Not only is it an effective marketing tool it shows customers that they’re on top of the latest technology.
Twitter gives businesses the unique opportunity to reach a large audience about a new product or service for zero cost. A recent Social Media for Marketing Survey done by March Second, Inc (http://www.marchsecond.com/) shows that even though Twitter is a relatively new service it is rated as the third most important social media tool for new businesses, only falling behind Facebook and LinkedIn.
Twitter itself might not last forever and according to Nielsen it’s a fad (http://www.internetnews.com/webcontent/article.php/3817946/Is+Twitter+a+Fad+Nielsen+Says+It+Just+Might+Be.htm ). In my opinion, whether or not Twitter lasts forever, the idea will.
Does your business use mundane information about John Doe’s activities to market products and services? Tell us how.
Amber YakeAmber Yake is a third year journalism student at Thompson Rivers University, who is completing a summer internship at Communication Solutions in Kamloops BC. She tweets at http://twitter.com/AmberYake.
Tags: facebook, linkedin, March Second, marketing, Nielsen, technology, twitter
June 3rd, 2009 at 8:18 am
Nice post Amber! I agree with your major points.
Twitter is neither the second coming nor the end of civilization.
It’s just a neat texty thing to connect people. Whether it is a blip, as Jeremiah Owyang of Forrester Research says here http://www.techvibes.com/blog/forresters-owyang-on-the-future-of-the-social-web (based on 10 million users versus Facebook’s 200 million plus), or it eventually outpaces other social networks or gets swallowed up by Facebook, Google, or any other brand, I agree, the functionality will remain in some system.
The trick in social media is to not get too enamored with any particular platform - they come and go - what matters is where your audience/community is at any particular point in time.
As to the naysayers who love to dwell on the mundane aspects of tweeting, here’s a news flash: humans are often boring in real life too! What I mean is that all conversation, the very nature of speech, is there are flashes of brilliance interspersed with filler. “Pretty crappy weather today eh?” “How about those ?” We are a species of ums and ahs, why would Twitter be any different?
Furthermore, Twitter is self-correcting; if someone gets carried away with the filler, you can easily unfollow! Freedom of choice reigns. Like at a cocktail party where you can disengage from the boors, a few clicks and you can restore your signal to noise ratio easily.
Engaging with customers and prospects is such a great idea, it is practically self-evident. Think old-school general store merchants who knew their customers by name.
I’m old enough to remember people squabbling about whether a web site was necessary for a business. Humans don’t react well to change, especially the upheaval we’re seeing in the communications business. But the social web WILL impact your brand, reputation, products, sales figures, stock price, competitiveness and more. Some companies get it and are diving in and learning early, others play ostrich.
Here are 16 major brands that are diving in: http://www.searchenginejournal.com/16-examples-of-huge-brands-using-twitter-for-business/7792/.
So when you see a social network do you see a threat or a chance to connect with customers and stakeholders?
June 3rd, 2009 at 10:21 am
I agree with what you’re saying–Twitter provides businesses with a unique glimpse into ‘water cooler’ conversations. And once we all get over the hype surrounded twitter, smart businesses will be able to analyze this information and use it to their advantage (as some already are)