25th Mar 2009
It's all about Twitter

You can't move for the column inches on Twitter at the moment as celebrities, magazines, TV companies and household brands all jump on the latest social media bandwagon. But beyond telling your 'followers' - friends, colleagues, enemies, fans, competitors what you are doing - does it serve any greater purpose.

 

The biggest benefit of Twitter is the ability for people to post real-time updates so for a news journalist when there's a big breaking news story- it's mannah from heaven and just like the emergence of cameras on mobiles, it's also aiding in the creation of citizen journalists but for brands is it more than just the latest big thing. The key thing to Twitter is it's a communications tool and even in these recessionary times, brands like to and need to communicate with customers- whether it's 1 million customers or 10 customers, they need to tell their customer group what they are upto and why the customer should continue to use them.

 

Perhaps the biggest benefit of Twitter for brands is that it gives them the ability to disseminate information to a targeted group. They can invite certain customer groups in and can then use them as either mini focus groups or just as brand ambassadors who they can then rely on to spread the information far wider.

 

It's an interesting social communication model and one that isn't going to work for all brands but if you have the relevance and the consumer following then it's one that is definitely worth exploring.