Think Before You Tweet
Is our brand on Twitter?
If you haven’t been asked that question by your company’s CEO yet, here’s betting that you soon will. For those unfamiliar, Twitter is a popular “micro-blogging” service that has captured the excitement of everyone from Oprah and Richard Branson to your next door neighbor. On the surface, Twitter is a seemingly less sophisticated version of other social networks like Facebook or MySpace. Users post short messages (up to 140 characters in length) and track updates from their list of contacts all in a single-page interface. Yet while Facebook is a closed, permission-based platform that requires you to personally know the people you add to your contact list, Twitter is deliberately open. The degree of access enabled by this freeform environment, coupled with the transparency and immediacy of a short “tweet,” ushers in a fascinating new chapter in the story of how social media is changing the way people connect to one another. The result is a rapidly growing phenomenon where everyday people are adding, following and interacting with authors, activists, celebrities, business leaders, and increasingly,
companies and brands.
From a brand perspective, there is a lot to love about Twitter. What started as a simple way for users to post their ever-evolving stream of consciousness has inadvertently turned into the world’s first real-time brand health monitor. With its search capabilities, Twitter allows JetBlue to monitor the Good (“Gotta say this JetBlue crew has been great. Hats off to them. Best airline customer service I’ve ever seen”), the Bad (“JetBlue had a better feel when it was smaller”) and the Ugly (“Ugh. JFK shutdown. JetBlue is sending in service to our plane here to ‘make sure lavatories don’t overfl ow.’ That’s pleasant.”)—all in a few clicks, all in real-time, all around the world. More than just brand monitoring, Twitter allows brands to “tweet” right back, creating a channel for direct interactions with customers—and not just any customers, but those who have signaled their interest in engaging brands by following them on the service. The possibilities are endless.
Comcast uses Twitter to field customer service issues and offer helpful tips (“Do you DVR American Idol? Be sure to extend the recording time. If you need help, let us know.”). Southwest Airlines tweets schedule changes, promotional fares and weather updates. Loved the cucumber-scented spa pillows you had at the Four Seasons in Costa Rica? Follow their tweets and you can find out how to make them at home. Finally, in an economic climate where marketing budgets are lean, Twitter also represents a highly efficient, low-cost, and measurable form of marketing and PR. For these reasons and more, Twitter has captured the excitement of CMOs and brand managers everywhere. Yet before diving into Twitter and tweeting with fervor, brands need to carefully consider a Twitter strategy as much as they should consider any other marketing or branding tactic. Here we explore three things every brand should consider before firing off their very first tweet:
Twitter, however compelling, should be just one part of a brand’s carefully considered social media strategy.
It’s easy to get caught up in the Twitter hoopla, yet despite its initial success, it remains too early to tell if Twitter is here to stay as the next media sensation or if it’s simply enjoying its fi fteen minutes of fame as the Internet’s latest passing fancy. For now, it lacks a sustainable revenue model, and its core offering is not so unique from a technology or user experience standpoint that it cannot be easily co-opted or leapfrogged by others. But regardless of Twitter’s own long-term viability, the phenomenon it has already created between brands and consumers has taught us valuable lessons on how to best harness the power of social media—lessons that can be reapplied to other social media tactics and brand communications. Through Twitter, we’re discovering a fascinating dynamic that exists when brands apply the principles of Access, Immediacy and Transparency in harmony. Where else can these principles be applied across a brand’s set of consumer-facing touchpoints? How might a brand’s other social media tactics – whether a blog, a Facebook or LinkedIn profi le, or a mini-site – be optimized with these principles in mind? All of these questions, as well as the other considerations below, should be answered as part of a comprehensive social media strategy developed at the onset.
Your brand has a voice. Do you know what it is?
A company’s brand voice is expressed through the distinct tone, manner and style of its communications. It arises in behavior and interactions with users, and particularly in contexts like Twitter where brands are having on-going conversations with consumers. The way you express your brand voice through advertising, product messaging or press releases should be consistent with the way you tweet. What does your brand sound like? Witty? Serious? Irreverent? Playful? If you’ve never thought it through before, now is the time. Anyone tasked with managing your brand’s Twitter account should be trained on
how to express your brand voice clearly, accurately and consistently.
Twitter may seem fleeting and impulsive, but this is a serious commitment for your brand.
Your personal Twitter account may be something you visit from time to time to check up on friends, but a corporate Twitter account is a signal that your brand is ready and willing to enter a dialogue with the world. Dialogues are inherently multilateral – consumers want to talk to you and about you as much as they want you to talk back. Regular updates are necessary or else followers will quickly lose interest and disengage. Aside from responses to individual tweets, consideration needs to be given to Twitter “programming.” Whole Foods tweets links to healthy recipes. REI tweets tips for outdoor ventures. Who will manage this for your brand? What will this person tweet? Do you have the resources available to commit to Twitter, and other social media ventures, full-time? Pizza Hut recently made news for inviting college students to apply for a social media internship, which includes among its primary responsibilities the management of the company’s Twitter account. While placing the reins of your social media tools in the hands of a 19-year old may be cost-effective, or even a way to come off as hip and cool, entrusting the brand voice and messaging to an untrained intern is an unnecessary risk. Perhaps brands today need to consider the creation of a new senior marketing role altogether, one that Chuck Brymer, the CEO of DDB Worldwide, refers to as the “Chief Community Offi cer,” that would be tasked with overseeing a brand’s social media endeavors. While Twitter may or may not be as prominent ten years from now, the brand-consumer interaction enabled by social media certainly will, and accordingly brands will need to push it to the forefront within their organizations.
Whether it’s Twitter, Facebook or the inevitable Next Big Thing that is surely being created as we speak, one thing is clear: social media gives companies an unprecedented opportunity to open up the doors to their brands and directly engage consumers. “Engagement,” for too long a favored phrase bandied about by marketers without careful consideration to its true meaning, is indeed the name of the game for Twitter and social media at large. Those that utilize Twitter with the principles of Engagement in mind – a commitment, a promise, an interaction – will thrive.
140 characters at a time.