Twitter ain’t twaddle

Melbourne Business School associate professor Mark Ritson argues that Twitter is a waste of time. In “The Emperor’s New Tweets” , he makes some interesting points but his logic is flawed. To make a coherent comment on Twitter, or any social networking site, as a marketing tool, you need a deep understanding of social media strategy and the technology behind it and that wasn’t displayed in the article. So let’s explore.

First, the facts. Ritson asserted that Twitter’s brand is in decline because it has been losing visitors to its site. Indeed the site has been losing visitors. But that’s because a rising number of account holders now access Twitter through mobile devices. It’s worth remembering that Twitter was originally intended to be a service that could be updated through SMS, which explains the 140 character limit. So an increase in mobile users is a sign of the platform maturing and succeeding.

Twitter is a micro-blogging service and it has gone through the same sort of evolution as full-scale blogs. People create accounts, then realise there is commitment involved. Some accounts become inactive. However, users that have a strategy and commitment use it to their advantage.

So while traffic to the Twitter site is declining, usage of the micro-blogging service is rising. In fact, one of the biggest issues Twitter faces is keeping up with demand. The football World Cup has caused so much Twitter traffic that the service has been near collapse under the pressure.

Ritson also criticises Twitter’s character limit. This misses the point. Twitter is used as an information stream. Each tweet can link to pages, videos and images – all with as much content as is necessary to get an idea across. It’s like picking up a newspaper and scanning headlines for stories you may be interested in.

Let’s look at the companies that the articles highlighted. Ritson was right. Some of them seem to be wasting their time. But not because the platform has no value. Rather, it’s their strategies that are failing. The article focused almost exclusively on the number of followers these brands have.

Wrong call. Social media engagement is about creating brand evangelists – or true believers. Australians are some of the highest consumers of social media in the world, in per-capita and time-spent terms, so any social media strategy needs to address this fact.

Commonwealth Bank of Australia and Telstra are doing a pretty good job on Twitter. They simply need to develop recruitment strategies and learn to stay focused. They started by just pushing out messages but are now engaging directly with customers. The engagement is good. Sticking with it and making their customers feel heard should become the most important part of their strategies.

The two companies may also want to think about messages that are worthy of being passed on – social, environmental or charitable work they are doing, for example. This type of information creates discussion on the social web.

The big challenge these two brands are facing is defining how Twitter fits into a wider social media strategy. Twitter seems to be a bit isolated. Telstra, for example, has more than 14,000 fans on Facebook. How are these two platforms working together?

The management of Rio Tinto, on the other hand, seems completely oblivious to how the social web operates. The messages they post lack coherence and seem random at best. The company has lots of information the public would be interested in.

Rio simply needs a way of engaging and communicating that makes sense. The company also need to focus on getting influential followers to make sure the right information reaches the right people.

Ford Motor Company in Australia has a lot to learn from its United States parent. The engagement Ford has created in the US is regarded as a social media case study. The car company creates activity across the whole social web, and the platforms – blogs, Twitter, YouTube and Facebook – work together. (See www.bit.ly/GwZUa to learn more.) Obviously, Ford US is employing social media monitoring tools.

What then does a good social media strategy look like? Social media, if used correctly, can be the biggest and most honest focus group imaginable.

So you need to start a strategy by listening. There are many ways to do this. Companies need to focus not only on what people are saying about their brands, but also on what is said about their competition and their entire industry. Listening provides context. Understanding how your market is communicating is important if you are going to engage with it.

At Gatorade in the US, staff are taking this strategy all the way. The mission control room in the marketing department is filled with screens showing social media data visualisations so the marketing team can make informed strategic decisions. This data is feed into every element of the marketing strategy. Gatorade understands the importance of monitoring and facilitating conversations.

Once it is actively listening, a brand needs to define its goal. Social media can be used for customer service, customer acquisition, brand awareness or public relations. But trying to do everything at once will produce unfocused results.

Next, platforms need to be carefully chosen. Twitter, Facebook and YouTube are a few of the big ones. But there are many more, each focused on a different demographic. There is also the possibility of creating a platform that fulfils a need that may only exist for your market.

Establishing performance measures is an important step of any social media strategy. There are many ways to do this. One of the most effective measures is the increase in positive sentiment – basically getting more people on side.

Finally, your social media strategy needs to create a voice, or a tone, for how you will communicate. Get this right and your market will follow.

Ritson also suggests that marketers are fickle and social media is comparable to “the emperor’s new clothes”. I disagree.

Smart marketers realise that their customers no longer trust conventional techniques. They want to be heard. Social media makes this possible and it provided measurable results compared with some of the fuzzy numbers that other forms of marketing produce.

The closing sentiment in Ritson’s article was spot on – we should take note and take action. Treat your market with the respect it deserves and customers and other stakeholders will listen. That’s what a social media strategy does.

Mark Cameron is chief executive of media and marketing strategist Working Three.

Mark Cameron is chief executive of media and marketing strategist Working Three.

BRW

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