Twitter for marketers

Twitter, the often maligned service that lets people tell their friends what they're doing at the moment, gets a bad wrap. Journalists join the service, send through a couple of updates, scan the timeline for a couple seconds and write a misinformed piece on why Twitter is sophomoric.

The truth is that we have to look to the core of Twitter to get the full scope of why this matters to marketers. There has been a lot written about this so far, so I thought I would show you in video.

Feed readers click here to get to the video.

Some key takeaways:

• Communicate one-to-many or one-to-one
  
• Publish to and receive updates from multiple mediums
  
• Social eavesdropping/trendspotting
  
• Twitter is real time
  

When it comes down to it, Twitter and services like it are personal. It's real-time. It's the pulse of the internet. I've found more breaking news on Twitter than in any other online source period. You get a first person account of what industry leaders like CC Chapman (twitter), David Armano (twitter), Joseph Jaffe (twitter), Robert Scoble (twitter), Drew McLellan (twitter), Steve Rubel (twitter), Greg Verdino (twitter), Mario Sundar (twitter) and Paul McEnany (twitter) are doing right now. You can't get that level of access anyplace else.

Could you shorten the queue in customer service? If your customers aren't always in front of a computer when they need your help it may allow you to be more responsive across other options. What could you do with real time customer feedback? Scary huh? This technology is powerful in the hands of the right marketers.

Want to know what I am doing right now? Click here to see my Twitter page.

Technorati Tags:
marketing, interactive marketing, user generated content, social marketing, mobile, Twitter, technology, Techno//Marketer, Matt Dickman, web2.0formarketers

Comments

[David Berkowitz]

Matt, great video and commentary, though I disagree with some of the value propositions you mention. For instance, it's great that it has all these industry leaders talking, but most of what they're saying falls into one of three categories: 1) Links to their blog posts; 2) inside chatter among their friends; 3) complete blather (e.g., "what a day what a day what a day" from one of your luminaries, "back from lunch... back to work" from another).

To me, Twitter shows the problem of what happens when communicating on a one-to-many basis becomes too easy.

[Matt Dickman]

David -- I completely see your point with Twitter itself. It's the wild wild west right now and anything goes. I, however, like the ease of one-to-many communications because it is insight that I wouldn't have been able to get as frequently. I am a complete media carnivore unlike most people who like to graze when they feel like it. To me the little chatter is really cool.

What excites me is the platform itself (re-branded and separate from Twitter). The potential for companies is huge. Companies have to be a) worth talking about and b) have people to talk about them for it to be beneficial.

Twitter could be adapted to more of a promotion tool to add more value to the general user. The only thing stopping it is the community.

[Doug Meacham]

Hi Matt,

Just watched your Twitter video. Nicely done. You mentioned using it to get access to industry leaders to see what they are doing. I am relatively new to the marketing blogging community. I am not in the marketing business, but really enjoy the conversation. I have found Twitter to be highly effective at creating new friendships with people who's opinions I respect. Moreover, Twitter's highly personal nature and ease of consumption has made it easy for those new people to learn about me. So while you can use Twitter to see what your friends are doing, you can also use it to develop new relationships.

As a side note, there is one vehicle for Twittering that you didn't mention. Using a mashup of Jott, Egorcast & Twitter, you can "phone in" your tweets for hands-free Twittering. Here's a link: http://nextup.wordpress.com/2007/05/03/jott-egor-twitter-mashup/

[Matt Dickman]

Doug -- First, thank you for commenting, it's nice to connect with you.

I'm truly glad that you found the video informative. The points you mention are the way I feel as well as far as the access level and the personal nature of the app. Relationships are everything and it lets you get close to people.

I will definitely check out that link. Sounds like voice recognition is a logical next step and it's good to see somebody is pushing that further.