Event Review : The Bold and the Blogging

Event: The Bold and the Blogging, March 24, 2009

Twicks and Tweats from Two Canadian Twitterers

Marketing budgets are being cut and companies are struggling to find ways to continue to reach their customers. It is a great time to learn how you can connect with your customers and potential customers using free social media tools like Twitter.

Two Canadian twitterers shared their insight and experiences on using the free micro-blogging tool, Twitter at “The Bold and the Blogging” event hosted by Profectio. To set the tone, Steve Mast, vice president and managing director of Delvinia Interactive started out by showing a video, “Twouble with Twitters” of how the normal everyday Joe doesn’t get the value of Twitter. Very cute, watch it.

Most popular tool on the block
Twitter has grown 13% since 2007. Steve attributes this growth and gain in popularity mainly to President Obama using Twitter as part of his election campaign. Celebrities, like Jon Stewart and Ellen DeGeneres are also talking about Twitter more and more cites Steve.

Twitter as a monitoring tool
“Social media tools are an opportunity to listen, get insight and monitor the competition”, said David Alston, vice president of marketing and community at Radian6. Twitter is one of many channels. If your customers choose to reach out on it then monitor it.

On Twitter, people send “tweets” (140 character messages) about what is happening and who is saying what at the event. It can also trigger discussions. Those not at the event can monitor the tweets by searching for the hashtag about the event (#boldnblogging09 was the hashtag for this one). This allows twitterers not attending to find out how interesting or useful the content and speakers were at an event. It may motivate them to go to the next event. As David put it, “you are missing half the event if you are not on Twitter.”

How do you monitor credibility? “It is amazing how well the community monitors itself,” revealed David. In social media people will figure it out. They can sense it.

“Once you grow past an individual, use an enterprise type application to track, monitor and respond to tweets,” advises David, “that’s what Dell and Comcast do.”

Twitter case studies – who’s using it right
JetBlue is a great example of how a company is using Twitter to ensure great customer service. They are monitoring Twitter and paying attention. They don’t let things slide. “It has to be realtime monitoring,” said Steve. JetBlue’s Twitter account, @jetblue reached 100,000 followers because of their realtime solutions to problems that were tweeted. They even offered 10% off flights for March Break on Twitter.

Random House created a Twitter account for its active community of readers at BookLounge.ca. They have 5-6 people always twittering and they have been successful using Twitter. “Volume is not necessarily important,” said Steve, “quality over quantity.”

“Everyone has a voice,” said David, “Dell answers every tweet.” Zappos and Comcast were other companies mentioned that have great customer service and are using Twitter successfully. But, if you have bad customer service then you’ll be bad at social media.

Twitter as problem solver, resource and getting results
Use Twitter as a crowd sourcing tool to ask questions and solve problems. Steve mentioned Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos and Randy Matheson, creative content specialist at Delvinia, as being great examples of how throwing an idea out to a crowd and asking questions really work.

As a resource, Delvinia created AskingCanadians™ and its French counterpart Qu’en pensez-vousMC, an online research panel of individuals, who are also set up on Twitter. These consumers share their opinions on products and services through online surveys. Steve stressed the importance of having a French version and said that it is overlooked constantly.

An amazing example of how using Twitter got measurable results is the personal effort of David Armano of Critical Mass. Dave turned to his community on Twitter and asked for help for a family in need. He raised over $16,000. Steve also mentioned the recent Twestival fundraiser in Toronto. Both show the power of the digital community to get results.

Reverberation…word of mouth
If you find something of value to a community on Twitter, it will reverberate, shared David. Especially if you find a community for an event, like Chris Brogan and David did for a twebinar featuring some of the world’s social media leaders (which they invented and is a cross between a traditional video webinar and Twitter). They had 1500 signed up for the first event just through Twitter.

David also shared a personal story that equally demonstrates how quickly bad news spreads if it reverberates within a community. He had an issue with U-Haul and tweeted about it. People started responded with their problems with U-Haul and it took off on Twitter. He tried reaching the CEO, but he never called back. U-Haul wasn’t monitoring Twitter, so their issues now have a shelf space on the Internet, just Google Ogilvy PR and U-Haul. David finally got an email six months later saying someone wanted to talk to him. He was offered a $30 off certificate and told them to give it to charity. They obliged.

Twestimonials, Spread the RT love
If people tweet nice things about your company, thank them right away and add the tweets to your favourites. So when someone asks you “what are people saying about your company”, you can show them.

Twitter is about sharing things about yourself and things relevant to your community that will be of value. It is also about sharing what others have done.

Who do you follow?
If someone is talking about an area of interest to you, follow them. It is like a “digital handshake” said David. It may start a relationship at some point in the future. It is important when building your community to follow people with similar interests to yours. If someone doesn’t have a bio or picture and the ratio of who they are following and who is following them is very far apart, then don’t follow.

If you are going to send a message back to those following you, personalize it. Don’t send an auto-message with a sales pitch. Make a comment about their latest blog post, for instance. It shows that you took the time to check them out and it may start to a relationship.

Should you jump on the Twitter train?
Twitter is a social media tool that has a very quick learning curve and has been adopted quickly by the older generation more than the younger generation. It is also easy to incorporate it into your workflow and lifestyle because it works on many applications like TweetDeck and devices like the Smartphone.

Steve emphasized that “you need to have a micro-blogging strategy versus a Twitter strategy before engaging in social media.” He shared that he did advise a big client not to just jump on Twitter. “They couldn’t just jump on because their competitor was already there,” said Steve, “they had lots of regulations and therefore they needed to develop a strategy before getting on Twitter.”

You shouldn’t set up a twitter account or even a Facebook group just for a campaign. Incorporate it into a program that will build on the brand. As David puts it, “brand is the sum of all conversations.” If it is for an event, then it is ok to set up an account. But it has to clear that it will start up again the following year. But, recognize that conversations still continue after an event.

Steve emphasized that “people will communicate on their channels,” which are not necessarily the channels you choose as a company. David agreed. It is important that your customers know that you are trying to resolve their problems. You’ll get kudos if they know that you are doing something even if you don’t have the answer right away.

Twitter Resources
Twitter
Twinfluence
Tweetlater
Twitterrific (for the iPhone and iPod touch)
TweetDeck
TwitterBerry
Twirl
TweetBeep (like Google Alerts for Twitter)

What Twitter applications do you find useful?

Do you have a great Canadian Twitter story to share?

How do you decide who to follow on Twitter?

Maria Koukopoulos has more than 13 years of writing experience in the fields of media relations, public relations and marketing in the technology, corporate, and non-profit sectors. Her first passion is writing, having a flexible skill-set to write for a variety of audiences. Her second passion is promoting Canadian people, events, products and services.

Maria runs her company, Media Scribe, and is currently a member of the International Association of Business Communicators in Toronto and is the Director of Communications for the Alliance of Independent Practitioners.