Last week I wrote a fairly controversial post about John Mayer whoring his Twitter account by selling ad space in his Tweets. The piece split the Twitter community with strong opinions on both sides of the fence. Many agreed with my position of maintaining a community free of paid product placements. Others were less sensitive and saw paid Tweets as a commercial reality for the service moving forwards. Having made my opinion abundantly clear on how I believe Twitter shouldn’t be used to market, it’s only fair that I provide some input on the type of positive contributions I believe marketers can make within Twitter. So without further adieu, here’s my guide on how marketers can avoid becoming dirty Twitter whores…
It’s all about the (unpaid) referrals!
First things first, I should clarify that I do believe referrals present the greatest marketing opportunity for businesses on Twitter. Why? Because Twitter is a conversational medium. Twitter is little more than word of mouth brought into an electronic environment. The only real difference is that the conversations are no longer private. Everyday on Twitter, thousands of people ask for and receive reviews of specific products and services. Just like they do in real life. It’s one of the most common uses of the service.
However… paid referrals simply aren’t the answer. They hold no credibility. Marketers have never been able to manufacture word of mouth with cash. Just ask John Laws. The cash for comments debacle remains one of the Australian media industry’s most infamous scandals. Consumers trust each other. They don’t trust corporations and they don’t trust John Mayer on his choice of soup.
The best way to organically influence genuine word of mouth has always been to deliver great customer experiences. Plain and simple. The same principle applies to the online environment and Twitter. If you create great experiences people will talk about them. They will recommend your company. And that’s where the real marketing opportunity lies. In generating referrals. Referrals are the currency of the Internet. After all, isn’t Google little more than an automated referral system? Twitter provides an alternative to Google’s algorithm by using people power to generate the referrals. And unlike Google, people are far easier to influence. All you need to do is take the time to connect with them.
Smart marketers have realised that Twitter is actually about people. They’ve realised it’s about creating great experiences now so that when the time comes, customers volunteer positive referrals on your behalf. It’s about paying it forward. Comcast are probably the most famous example with their proactive customer outreach program. And Telstra are following in their footsteps by pioneering the customer support approach in Australia.
These businesses are successful because they embrace the strength of the medium – personal contact and real conversations. Unfortunately, Dell are giving people reason to think the same old marketing tactics can succeed within Twitter.
The broadcast approach
Dell aren’t bad when it comes to corporate social media implementation. They lead the field in many ways. But when it comes to Twitter, they’ve reverted back to broadcast. Dell uses Twitter in much the same way as email. They blast out offers and discounts en mass. The problem is it seems to be working to some extent, with claims they’ve made over $1 million via Twitter. This apparent success makes it easy for marketers to stick with what they know best – broadcast.
The problem is that Dell is the exception rather than the rule. You don’t have as many customers as Dell. And your product probably isn’t as good either. A direct response strategy is only going to work for companies with a highly engaged database that really want their products. If that’s not you, forget about a Dell style Twitter broadcast approach… because people simply won’t care. Many have tried, but few have truly succeeded. Jetstar and Virgin Blue are two Australian brands with large customer databases and a sought after product (discount travel). If neither of them has been able to effectively leverage Twitter (albeit with pretty lame attempts) do you think you’ll do much better…?
Going back to the future
So what does this mean for businesses? Rather than trying apply broadcast techniques, marketers need to recognise the nature of the medium and adapt their strategies accordingly. A lot of people asked me why I was so offended by John Mayer’s “paid Tweets”. It’s not that ads offend me. I am a marketer after all. It’s that the marketers are ignoring the nature of the channel. It’s lazy marketing. Just like the principles of effective print advertising don’t translate to television, the core principles of broadcast marketing don’t translate into Twitter.
Marketers that want to succeed in Twitter need to go back to the future and embrace one-to-one customer communication. It’s what Twitter is all about. Only real interaction will generate great customer experiences. And only great experiences will foster genuine referrals. It’s time to start talking to your customers again…
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Ah James.
Don’t we all love watching the smashed up cars as we drive by?
I think at the bottom of this all – people don’t like what Mr Mayer did because it stunk. It was a bad message, out of place, there was no correlation between the celebrity and the product – not even a rainbow connection between the two.
If he was plugging Maton’s range of new acoustic’s or ear plugs that protect your ears but don’t make concert’s sound awful – i doubt anyone would have noticed.
And spot on – Twitter is about about the interchange.
Also spot on – Dell… still didn’t get anywhere with my complaint – 2 calls, 4 emails, countless biaching on twitter and nothing – I gave up!
Funny you mention lazy marketing. in my book lazy marketing is using an example that doesn’t prove your theory – Dell. At least go into more detail (than 2 sentences) on the failed twitter campaigns of Virgin Blue and Jetstar.
Dude, don’t use the words “Dell”, “product” and “good” in the same sentence every again!
interesting perspective re people power in twitter. for brands to effectively use twitter its more than just broadcasting, its about responding to customers and generating conversations on twitter.
@Brett – Dell’s approach to Twitter is especially intriguing considering the work they do in other social channels to connect with customers (blogs, forums etc). Just seems strange that they don’t do the same thing via Twitter. Perhaps some time in the future…
@Fraser – I guess we’ll just have to agree that laziness is a subjective matter. I suspect some would consider not clicking through on the links provided to the Virgin & Jetstar accounts lazy. A quick view would have revealed failed broadcast attempts in Twitter. I’m trying to respect my regular readers time as I profiled both recently in a post discussing Australian brands on Twitter:
http://onlinemarketingbanter.com/australian-businesses-and-brands-on-twitter/
@Chris – A Dell hater I see. I’ve never actually used one of their products and I know some of them suck. But relatively speaking, they’re likely to suck a lot less than products put out by many other companies. I may be wrong, but with that much cash they must invest a lot in product development.
@Matt – Amen. And that’s something you won’t ever be able to do via Yammer…
Interesting article. Good to read. But as it is said in the above comments don’t use the name of the brands… Rest is all good
Awesome post — brought me to your blog (I like the brand names!)
I’m trying to apply all this to online drama and comedy series on my web show blog
http://www.storygas.com
- the same rules, unsurprisingly, seem to apply to web series where the shows are marketing themselves ‘in character’ on twitter.
Thanks James. Helpful article. I’ve just started using twitter as part of my social media strategy. Cheers.