Comments on: All of a Twitter

By: John1278

John1278 — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 09:35:18 +0000

Very nice site!
http://training.cvc4.org/pharm1/14274/4.html

By: Rob Cottingham

Rob Cottingham — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 22:49:32 +0000

Thanks much! (And I understand that if any Viagra spam attack lasts for longer than six hours, you’re supposed to contact a physician.)

By: Jon Clements

Jon Clements — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 22:13:44 +0000

Rob - thanks for the comments and please forward any Viagra spam you no longer require.

Cartoon credit and link now in place - now I see you’ve got a shed full of cartoons, I’ll be back!

By: Rob Cottingham

Rob Cottingham — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 20:11:08 +0000

Hi, Jon - Glad you liked the cartoon! (I’m happy to see them used around the web - I just ask that they be linked back to their original page on the Social Signal site.)

My heart was warmed by reading that you’ve pulled Twitter ideas from PR proposals. Too many times, I see brands jumping into spaces they don’t understand, only to be baffled when they’re treated as little better than V1agra spammers. And while I can choose whom I do and don’t follow on Twitter, the place could still easily be spoiled for me if I start getting deluged with pitches and come-ons.

Yet I think there’s a place for brands in Twitter, and in other social media spaces. The key thing is to remember that these are conversational spaces. Yes, you can broadcast if you want to - and if you’re broadcasting information that’s valuable to your audience, they’ll listen. But the real power of the place comes when you genuinely engage with people: not just “Oh, you didn’t like Brand X? Try our Brand Y!” drive-by tweets, but true conversation… probably with a lot more listening than talking on the part of the corporate communicator.

By: Jon

Jon — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 12:16:22 +0000

Stuart, they’re certainly good examples, though I’ve just found a quote from Bob Pearson, head of communities and conversation for Dell, playing it down: “A million dollars isn’t a lot of money, but it shows that people want to sign up for feeds.” Nice if you can be humble about a cool million!

I guess that even when companies are using a social media platform such as Twitter for in-your-face sales promotion, the Twitterati have a choice to follow or not.

While I’m at it, if you haven’t seen this already, Twitter has shown itself to have all manner of uses:

http://mashable.com/2008/10/31/great-twitter-moments/

By: Stuart Bruce

Stuart Bruce — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 11:53:16 +0000

Jon, Dell’s $1m in sales from Twitter is an example of how brands can be very commercial without ‘violating’ any social media code. I would have zero interest in Dell’s sales Twitter, but it doesn’t matter as I don’t and won’t follow it. ActionAid’s current anti-Tesco campaign is a great example of a brand (charities are brands) using Twitter for ‘commerical’ (achieving its objectives) purpose.

By: Jon

Jon — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 14:23:06 +0000

Stuart - you’re right about the events/conference Twitter usage, as your post describes (I too was following proceedings from the relative comfort of my desk!). But if brands want simply to broadcast there are long-established methods of doing that. Isn’t using social media for that purpose inherently anti-social, in that it potentially invades a social space with a big, fat sales message that’s not necessarily relevant nor welcome?

By: Amusing and funny Twitter cartoon | Business on Twitter

Amusing and funny Twitter cartoon | Business on Twitter — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 14:19:23 +0000

[…] From Rob Cottingham - see the full post here […]

By: Stuart Bruce

Stuart Bruce — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 13:36:53 +0000

I think the crux of this is that while there are WRONG ways for brands and companies to use social media, there is is no limit to the number of RIGHT ways. Twitter is a fantastic tool and doesn’t have to be used in any one way. If brands want to use it as a ‘broadcast’ messaging system then that’s fine, because people choose and are in control of who they follow. Some of the most interesting examples of corporate Twitter is around events and conferences, where can be a great way for brands to interact with people who can’t be involved in the event - who can follow it from afar and Tweet in their own messages and questions. The key to it all is transparency. There should be a way of finding out who the people are who are Tweeting on behalf of the brand.

By: Jon Clements

Jon Clements — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 12:54:16 +0000

Rob - and an excellent comment.
As Todd Defren writes in Social Media Predictions for 2009: “How does the corporation - by nature a conservative beast - confidently move forward into such a riotous environment with so few roadmaps to guide them?”

Marketers could do worse than read all the social media predictions for 2009:

http://beingpeterkim.typepad.com/files/Social%20Media%202009.pdf