Everyone is all a Twitter of late, so thank you to Sam Phillips for forwarding me a blog post that touched on the question of how brands can best use Twitter.
Twitter is interesting from a targeting and Influence perspective. There are your friends you follow, people like Stephen Fry who 205k follow, those that like to shout out their views and those that just like to sit back and listen. Understanding who is doing what and how they influence others is going to be more and more valuable to us.
There are some purists out there that will argue that brands have no place on Twitter because it is all about people to people communication, but as Cohen (@obilon on Twitter), a writer and social media strategist points out on mashable, Twitter is opt in, so there is no reason why brands and people can't live side by side. If you chose to opt in, it simply demonstrates the level of Permission you have given a company to speak to you.
As Seth Godin would no doubt tell you though, the important thing about Permission Marketing is that when someone has given you permission to talk to them, it needs to be very carefully managed, valued, and not wasted. Smart brands use it in ways that are meaningful, adding value to peoples lives. With this in mind, the blog sent has kindly summarised 40 of the best Branded Twitter campaigns for us to learn from.
The examples highlight that like people, brands have personalities too. In short, the Twitter community will decide whether you are worth following or not, so here's a few tips:
1) Learn from those doing it well
2) Be relevant, interesting, entertaining and informative
3) Don't just talk about your brand, think about related topics that will interest people
4) Be human, not corporate
- Sam
Comments