A Bird of a Different Color

Twitter has landed in our backyard and no one is really sure about this strange bird. To some it is a phoenix rising from the ashes of first- and second-generation network communications. Others may compare it to a noisy yardbird that is about to become the victim of a pouncing cat or well-cleaned sliding glass door. Whatever the claim, everyone agrees this bird is different.

Twitter’s rise has been followed by high drop-off rates. Has a fad taken flight? I don’t think so. I’m hesitant to predict the fate of the current Twitter application, but suffice it to say that its foundation is part of the future of communications. Its evolution will bring it into the mainstream. What is that foundation? According to Twitter, it is announcing what you are doing.

I started out a Twitter skeptic.  The first tweets I received were all mindless announcements like: “Ate too much Mexican for lunch… ready for a nap”. However, my experience has slowly evolved. As I became more critical of whom I chose to follow – people who shared my business interests or lifestyle – the quality of tweets improved. Even some of the people I originally chose to follow have graduated from noisy twits to more interesting tweeters. Subtle changes to tweet style can make a difference, such as: “Ate lunch at Frontera…their chicken tortilla soup is awesome.” This observation has led me to conclude that the best tweets are pronouncements, not personal announcements. Twitter is the official record of these pronouncements.

Despite my “aha” moment, in its current form, Twitter might have a hard time moving beyond the grand social experiment we have made it. Twitter is a disruptive technology, but not unlike the web in the mid-1990s. Back then companies with thousands of customers had a difficult time justifying the expense for a few pageviews each day. Then Google came along and gave the search engine to the masses. It became the killer app that made Internet content accessible. Twitter is still waiting for its killer app. Many developers seek the Holy Grail, and while none has found it yet, the proliferation of Twitter value-add applications is at least moving us in the right direction.

If you’re a marketer you’re probably asking: So what does this mean to me? Well frankly, a lot. To understand Twitter’s potential is to begin to use it effectively. Here are six tips for marketers using Twitter:

1. Twitter is a social record. Check your record, participate in it, respond to criticism, promote positive opinion, and accept transparency. Pay special attention to personalities that broadcast information about your industry or topics of particular interest to your customers.
2. Twitter is a rich data mine which will only become more valuable. Use Twitter data mining tools to assess actions, moods, trends, and influencers.
3. With Twitter, the same rules apply as with posting to other social networks: people prefer information from those they trust – starting with friends and expanding outward (e.g., friends of friends). There is a caveat: follower ≠ friend in the Facebook sense. The followship model is based on perceived value of the broadcaster. In this context, the information tweeted defines the value and trustworthiness of the broadcaster. Personal relationships still trump unknowns. Using individuals who are accessible to represent your brand is a nice alternative.
4. Social networks are perceived as more valuable when the broadcaster considers the receiver or more generally the audience segment as he/she writes. For this reason, a well-defined purpose or mission statement to guide tweeting is important to keeping your audience intact and growing.
5. If you create an account for your business, be ready for questions and requests. As a nice touch Zappos includes contact information in the background to reroute a variety of inquiries to the right channel. However, this does not negate people from commenting to @zappos without viewing their wallpaper. Be prepared to avoid customer service slip-ups by having a response plan.
6. While Twitter is designed as a synchronous tool, think about it as an asynchronous platform too.  Although a vast majority of tweets lose their value on delivery, more people are learning how to qualify web content by republishing links and retweeting. This content is often scanned using search filters after publication, much like custom newspaper headlines. Publish keeping this in mind.

Finally, experiment with Twitter to see what works. For example, test to see if articles or promotions are more likely to get retweeted in your business? Twitter is a low cost sandbox. Now is the time to learn what works for your business, so that when Twitter soars, you do too.