Brands fail to capitalize on Twitter marketing opportunities
Posted by Rosemary Brkopac on Wed, Aug 11, 2010
During the spring of 2009 we received requests from our clients asking our opinion on the need for their brands to become (more) engaged with social networking sites. The demand was so great that we held a client webinar on the topic. One of the areas discussed was the potential of the social media phenom Twitter.
With 100 million users tweeting 65 million times per day, Twitter is a site that should be difficult to ignore by marketers and consumers alike. However, the reality is anything but, according to a recently released white paper published by the digital marketing agency 360i titled “Twitter & the Consumer-Marketer Dynamic”. After an analysis of more than 1,800 tweets published between October 2009 and May 2010, the researchers concluded that brands are under-utilizing the Twitter platform, and consumers are far more focused on personal tweets than on professional or promotional updates.
The unexpected findings are that “while consumers use Twitter as a conversational medium, most marketers aren’t using it that way and there remains a r
ipe and largely untapped opportunity for two-way conversations between brands and consumers. Currently, a mere 1% of brand mentions by consumers on Twitter represent dialogue between brands and consumers.”
360i researchers provide some actionable advice, stating “Marketers could benefit from looking for ways to engage consumers more fully on Twitter through a more conversational tone (e.g. asking questions and inviting response rather than simply passing along information). Encouraging and participating in a dialogue with consumers will encourage more re-tweets, as well as help promote deeper brand relationships.
The fifteen page report illuminates the reader on topics such as:
*who is tweeting?
*what do consumers tweet about?
*the anatomy of a tweet
*which brands are mentioned most often?
*motivations behind consumer brand mentions
Hopefully the report by 360i will ignite interest amongst marketers to step back and revisit their Twitter strategy. It is an easy and interesting read, and acts as follow-up to our webinar on social media engagement.