Twitter has the hearts of marketers aflutter. It is the new must-do medium as it grows its number of users and elevates in status as a “cool” social networking platform. According to ComScore, Twitter had about 10 million site visitors in February 2009. Now, the curiosities of businesses kick in – “How can Twitter help our business?” “Should we be using Twitter to reach customers?” “Do we use Twitter the same way we use e-mail or our web site?”
Twitter is a channel for reaching an audience, just like mail, telephone, Internet, radio, and so forth. The 140-character maximum for a Tweet (a Twitter message) obviously limits how much information can be delivered. Add to that limitation the question “What would people want to hear from our company when we Tweet?” Is it sales information only? Conversations between employees and users that serve to personalize the customer service experience?
Check out B.L. Ochman’s list of 10 reasons your company probably shouldn’t use Twitter in the link below. Her list is on-target. As a social networking platform, Twitter is a medium for conversation. It is all about interaction. Marketers that treat it like more traditional one-way communication mediums (e.g., advertising) will likely find their Twitter experience unsuccessful. On the other hand, Twitter seems to hold much promise for companies that actually want to hear from their customers and are willing to open a channel for that dialogue.
Link: Ad Age Digital – “Top 10 Reasons Your Company Probably Shouldn’t Tweet”
