How Twitter is Teaching
Business the Lost Art of Conversation
By Kalena Jordan (c) 2009
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So it's happened. Twitter has gone mainstream. As Twitter users, we
knew instantly when Mumbai came under terrorist attack. We laughed at
the photo of Stephen Fry stuck in an elevator when he tweeted his
predicament, we were there when Ashton Kutcher beat CNN to 1 million
followers, we caught the first glimpse of passengers being evacuated
from the ditched plane on the Hudson River and we all suffered the lag
time when Oprah Winfrey sent her first ever tweet on live TV.
Industry pundits and bitter journalists regularly diss Twitter as a
time-wasting, "look at me" fad, destined for Forgottensville in 2
years. In fact New York Times reporter Maureen Dowd is quoted as
saying to Twitter founders Evan Williams and Biz Stone:
"I would rather be tied up to stakes in the Kalahari Desert, have
honey poured over me and red ants eat out my eyes than open a Twitter
account."
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So is Twitter really just an emergency beacon and "a toy for bored
celebrities and high-school girls" as Dowd gleefully claims?
Thankfully, no. The latest wave of Twitter users are business
executives. They range from home busíness owners, SME's, middle and
upper management, marketing executives, brand evangelists and CEOs.
Take a look at ExecuTweets and you'll see some well-known names with
very active Twitter accounts: Richard Branson of Virgin, Lisa Stone
Co-founder of BlogHer, Tony Hsieh CEO of Zappos and Steve Case
Co-founder of AOL, to name a few.
It's not just individuals either. Some of the world's most recognized
brands are Twittering. I found a number of super brands on Twitter and
asked my followers which of these they were following:
• Amazon 19%
• BestBuy 2%
• Dell 7%
• DunkinDonuts 2%
• Etsy 4%
• Motorola 0%
• Overstock 5%
• Starbucks 12%
• Threadless 16%
• UrbanOutfitters 2%
• WholeFoods 14%
• Zappos 18%
Other major brands with Twitter accounts include:
• JetBlue
• ComCast
• Vodafone
• TheHomeDepot
• H&R Block
• Qantas
• Virgin
• Forrester Research
• Ford
• Samsung
• Kodak
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Twitter as a Business Tool
So why would companies be interested in Twitter? Because they know
that conversation is a powerful, persuasive business tool and right
now, Twitter is where the conversation is happening.
Here are some recent stats about the micro-blogging site from Nielsen:
- Twitter is the fastest growing community site on web
- Twitter experienced 1,382% growth in the 12 months to Feb 09
- The largest user group on Twitter is 35-49 year olds
As the Internet morphs from Web 2.0 to Web 3.0, conversation has
quietly ousted content and taken the throne as King. The Web has
always enabled businesses to reach new markets. But Twitter allows
them to engage directly with customers and potential customers in real
time in front of an impressionable public. The opportuníty this
provides is unparalleled. As an effective advertising tool, the dusty
old Yellow Pages seems positively prehistoric in comparison.
So just how are companies using Twitter as a business tool? To find
out, I set up a poll and tweeted the question: "If you represent a
business using Twitter, what is your/their *main* reason for doing
so?"
The results were quite interesting:
• Branding 7%
• Driving traffic 23%
• Reputation management 7%
• SEO 0%
• Internal communications 0%
• News / product announcements 11%
• Service status updates 2%
• Customer interaction 37%
• Fun 5%
• Other 9%
A couple of things stood out for me here. Firstly, the majority of
companies who took this poll are using Twitter primarily to interact
with their customers and drive traffic. That's understandable. But
very few are using it for reputation management and none of them are
yet using it for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) reasons. It was also
interesting to see that a few businesses are using Twitter purely for
fun.
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Asked why he thinks Twitter is a good fit for business, Overstock's
Social Media Manager Josh Austin says:
"Twitter allows for a personal, real-life brand presence, while
fostering better communication, engagement and attention to our
customers."
Customer Interaction on Twitter
So just how do customers interact with businesses on Twitter? I wanted
to find out, so I launched another poll:
POLL QUESTION: Have you ever communicated directly with a company
using Twitter? What was your main reason for doing so?
• Yes to resolve an issue 25%
• Yes to give positive feedback 18%
• Yes to give negative feedback 6%
• Yes for another reason 16%
• No 35%
It was encouraging to see that 65% of poll respondents have conversed
with a company using Twitter. When you consider that nearly half of
those people had an issue to resolve with the company they
communicated with, the potential for customer loss and retention is
lit up like the proverbial Christmas tree. Then there's the number of
respondents giving companies direct feedback via tweets. That's enough
to get any PR Department salivating!
Meg Geddes, a Search Marketing expert and power Twitter user related
her recent positive experience with a business on the micro-blogging
site:
"At the end of December, there was a special one-day only promotion
through Intuit and Staples (an office supply) for buying Quickbooks
Pro where you'd get a full rebate. I ordered it and filled in my
rebate paperwork but it was illegible and had to be refaxed. The date
on the revised paperwork sent by Intuit didn't match my order date
(and I didn't notice) so my rebate was denied. I was bitching about it
on Twitter and within half an hour, someone from Intuit sent me a
tweet asking if she could help. I laid it all out for her, and she got
it approved; I got my rebate very shortly after that. I was very
happy, as I had been expecting to have to sit on the phone for hours
with Intuit and/or Staples."
