Lately I’ve been inspired with the whole Web 2.0 marketing idea. Sure, I’m about a year and a half behind the curve on this, but only recently do I think that this concept really is relevant. Before, while the idea of Twitter may have been able to kill your business, it lacked the following of the masses to actually do much damage, unless your industry is one of those that adopted Twitter early on. Think high tech, Apple geeks, etc.
It’s probably no secret that @the_real_Shaq is the reason why Twitter went mainstream. Some think it was only a matter of time, but let’s face it, when the big guy is all over the news giving away free tickets and interacting with fans (even telling them where he is, to the intersection) no one else will jump on board.
Fast forward to know, and get back on topic. Twitter brings a whole new avenue of “advertising” to the business/customer realm. Instead of using large money in print advertising, or putting people out on the ground to pass out fliers, Twitter bridges the gap between business and consumers. I’d almost go as far as saying it’s the only REAL bridge. Why? Simple. Previously, what interaction was made between potential clients and companies? Normally, not much. Instead, you relied on other people to post reviews online about a certain company, or if you were crazy, you took the company’s testimonial page to heart and followed suit to place your order.
If you weren’t this adventurous however, you could spend countless hours scouring the internet, trying to find answers for the credibility, quality and general professionalism of the company you were debating to use. This adds countless hours of worry and frustration, and depending on the amount of money needing to be spent, sometimes I ended up just going to a local store to have it done. At least there I know they won’t be gone when I come back to get my order.
Twitter acts as a new wave Forum, if you will. Instead of posting long, all capital lettered rants about people/companies as can happen often on forums though, Twitter forces people to be creative and direct with their messages. This in turn makes it very easy to search for results and browse a page of Tweets while consuming all of the information. What would take a few hours to find and digest online, now can take literally only 30 seconds.
The other important thing I’ve noticed, is that companies are now directly responsible for monitoring their own PR. Newspapers and radio shows used to hold all the leverage in this department, but now with Twitter, your word of mouth is essentially amplified, by as many followers as you have. This means that instead of me telling my friend about the great job you did on the project I paid for, I’m telling my friend, my other friend, and maybe even some people I may not know. The power of this for the consumer is outstanding, because you now control a portion of the PR that is associated with said business.
It’s not all bad for business. The trade off for having customers updating info about your products/services is that if you provide a good experience and quality product, you will get attention. I’d be more inclined to purchase from someone who’s last 5 Tweets all said something positive about the company, EVEN if their prices were higher than a company who is unknown and cheaper.
Twitter can be exploited. It’s our job as active users to police Twitter-if for nothing else than our own user experience. I’m not talking about correcting people’s spelling or grammar here, either. Companies who Tweet spam promotions and don’t provide any dialogue between them and other users are generally toxic to the user experience with Twitter. It’s only a matter of time before it becomes completely commercialized, so using it for what it’s ability is now is the best idea. The businesses that embrace the abilities provided by a service like Twitter will reap the benefits, if not in direct profit, then in public image and brand recognition. Weeding out the spammers on Twitter and promoting the beneficial users is the only way this will survive, and we might as well keep our work space tidy.
