Like blogs, Twitter has almost become a staple comms. tool for brands. But before jumping into the world of micro-blogging make sure your company can answer the following questions:
- What will your Twitter username be? Make sure it’s short, snappy and relevant. Use the company name if possible so fellow tweeters can find your easily
- Who will be responsible for updating the feed? Will it be a single person, a team of people – how much time will you allocate to Twitter each week? If it’s not enough you won’t get out of the starting block.
- What is the purpose of your Twitter account? Is it a news feed, customer support channel, lead generator, personality-builder, media engagement tool, event promotion, competition promotion, internal communications or simply amplifying another Twitter feed? Make sure your tweets serve a purpose.
- What is your follower strategy? How will you decide who to follow and who does the following?
- Who are you targeting with Twitter? Journalists, industry influencers, customers, competitors, celebrities, staff? There are numerous audiences on Twitter but make sure your tweets aren’t being lost in space – make them targeting and attract the people you want to speak to.
- What is your response strategy? What do you do if someone sends a reply or DM to you? Is it an instant response, do you have a 24 response time? Who manages the replies?
- What is the expected life-span of your Twitter feed? Is this something that will live for 6 months or indefinitely. Ask the question, if the answer is less than 3 months then Twitter probably isn’t the way forward for your brand.
- How will you integrate your Twitter feed across your other social platforms? LinkedIn, Facebook, Foursquare – they all allow you to further spread your tweets amongst your target audience.
- How will you measure the success of your Twitter feed? Be accountable, will you measure the number of followers you have, the number of leads you have generated or the amount of conversation created. Have a goal and you’ll find it easier to find success on Twitter.
Creating a Twitter account isn’t rocket-science but having an effective and useful Twitter feed isn’t easy. Only by questioning the role that micro-blogging will have for your brand and dedicating focused resource towards the platform will you ensure Twitter becomes an invaluable tool for your company, your employees and your customers.
Royal Pingdom has posted a great article on the top social networking sites by country using data from Google Insights for Search.
So lets kick things off. Which countries are the following social networking sites most popular in?
MySpace: United States
Facebook: Turkey
Hi5: Peru
Friendster: Philippines
LinkedIn: India
Orkut: Brazil
Last.fm: Finland
LiveJournal: Singapore
Xanga: Hong Kong
Bebo: Ireland
Imeem: Philippines
Twitter: Japan
How many did you get? Not many I’m guessing.
HMVis getting into the social networking act with the launch of getcloser.com – a site that has “been built by collectors for collectors”.
Knowing a few record collectors myself I can see this type of thing being quite useful. I commend HMV for not short-changing the humble collector by settling for a Facebook / MySpace widget and instead providing a dedicated area for people to discuss their collection.
Just think how long it would take this guy to sign-up though!
Bebo is an interesting concept for PRs and Marketers. Despite reporting strong viewing figures (11.4 million in the UK with visitors averaging more than 3 hours and 30 minutes on the site during the month) how useful / ethical / effective is it really when engaging with consumers?
There are many upsides to it – huge levels of personalisation, open to application developments, a captive audience to engage in any activity – however, I wonder about a couple of aspects of Bebo.
One of my main concerns about using Bebo as a tool to engage with consumers is that the site is aimed at a much younger teen and pre-teen audience. With advertisers being clamped down on advertising fast food to children and toy manufacturers getting lambasted for the same reason is it ethical to target them on social media sites where we know that they are likely to be spending a great deal of time?
Personally, I’m dubious, if I felt that the consumer in question was genuinely getting something out of the campaign other than brand messages being rammed down their throat I’d be ok with it, otherwise, I think on an ethical basis I’d be forced to advise my client against it.
Also, whilst Facebook is embracing mobile technology left right and centre, Bebo seems slow on the uptake – my 13 year old cousin has a mobile phone and a Bebo profile but never uses them both at the same time whereas I use my mobile and iPod Touch to access Facebook. It seems to me to be a missed opportunity both for marketers and for Bebo (a recent study by “3″ showed that 45% of respondents access web sites every day while 62% check their mails. A further 24% are using their mobiles to access their social networking sites).
This is the area I feel will be the next step for social networking sites (SNS) and marketers – truly embracing the link between mobile and SNS. There is obviously a cost element involved which puts off most Clients however, I can’t help but feel that there is a real missed opportunity to combine the two elements together – all it takes is for one client to give it a chance, it might work, it might not, but someone needs to be brave enough to give it a try.
Alex is part of Hill & Knowlton’s Digital team in the UK.
Okay so I still have a Facebook profile and it’s all about to change. Facebook is currently testing new profile designs and features. A screengrab of my (new) profile is below…
To view the way your Facebook profile will look once the BETA phase goes on general release just click here!
The World of Warcraft…er…world just got a little bigger with the launch of Avatars United. The new social networking site allows virtual gamers to connect outside of the game, share in-game photos and videos and plan special (and I do mean special) events.
The site has already attracted 2,000 users with 500 expected to join each week. Brilliantly the site was setup by Thor Olof Philogene – that’s his real name!
Facebook has, for me at least, now become nothing more than a way for me to keep tabs on in touch with old friends and ex-colleagues that I will probably never speak to again. It’s not that I don’t appreciate looking at tagged photos of myself looking worse for wear but I’m just no longer compelled to poke, zombie or quiz people on their favourite popstar. Facebook used to be fun, exciting and, critically, new. But that new social-networking smell has disappeared and I’m beginning to look at what value Facebook actually provides me.
Right now, it is nothing more than a dynamic address book. One that doesn’t need updating and can be accessed from anywhere!
If that’s Facebook’s grand plan then fantastic, but I doubt it. I’ll be interested to see the way Facebook develops over the next 6-12 months as it attempts to monetise it’s millions of members. I just hope it develops in the right way and looks beyond the useless widgets and into high-quality, valuable services that will benefit the people that use it.
Edit: Just found this – we may not have to wait that long!
