Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much!
As the New Year dawned Amber Naslund @Ambercadabra threw down the gauntlet with a challenge to the dwellers of this social media swamp to bring more solid business skills to the social media table.
The vast majority of business people out there still don’t understand what’s really going on here yet, they think Twitter and social media are just some new advertising flash in the pan that will just come and go in a New York minute.
I don’t care about social media gurus or experts or mavens or whatever. That whole thing is going to settle itself out eventually, when the good work starts getting more concrete, and the people actually doing the work continue demonstrating and illustrating their learnings and results.
What concerns me far more than some nerd slinging his Facebook skillz around the fishbowl is the fact that in so many disciplines – social media included – we’ve got legions of people out there that are missing fundamental business acumen.
Newest member of The Social CMO group is Glen Gilmore the @TrendTracker and he shares with us 4 Reasons For Brands to Tweet.
1. Twitter is knocking out the competition.
While Twitter is still more than a bit confounding to those not tweeting, its exponential growth is knocking out the competition in the world of messaging. What was previously viewed as a fad for the techie fringe, is now the darling to daytime talk shows, sports figures, newscasters, and nearly anyone hoping to have their message heard.
More importantly, moms and dads are tweeting, teachers are tweeting, and a whole lot of other mainstream people are in the process of signing up to enter the conversation.
The question of “What are you are you having for lunch?” has been replaced by, “Where are you going for lunch?” “What specials are they offering the Twitterverse?” Ditto for computers, shoes, vacations, and much, much more.
2. Twitter creates the opportunity for brands to find and connect with new customers.
A great example of this is United Airline’s (@UnitedAirlines) Twitter campaign offering special incentives to the first 10,000 twitterers who follow their account. @TrendTracker was one twitterer who took the bait. The result? To participate in the special offer, one had to have or open a frequent flyer account with United….And @TrendTracker did just that then. So Twitter can not only provide a forum for creating new connections to potential new customers, but it can even create the buzz to make it happen.
Want another example? Visit one of the many Dell computer Twitter accounts, such as @DellHomeOffers, to discover how they sold $3 million of additional wares thanks to their Twitter presence.
3. Twitter creates a critical listening post and damage-response base that brands ignore at their own peril.
You live and learn. Without belaboring it, one of the most glaring examples of the dangers of ignoring the Twitterverse was the failure of Domino’s Pizza to quickly pick up on and respond to the buzz in the Twitterverse of a terrible brand attack by a couple despicable, now former, employees. Domino’s ultimately succeeded in putting out the firestorm, but it would have had a better response if it had been listening to the social media buzz and sharing a home within the social media community. It is now doing both and doing both well. (Visit @dpzinfo)
4. Twitter is a community that shares.
Twitter is a community that shares — just about everything and at lightening speeds. This can be good or bad: good if you’re listening, have established credibility, and earned a tribe; bad if you are ignorning what is being said, have no presence and no tribe that will share your message when you need it most.
Brands that understand Twitter, get to be treated like an equal member of the community: they’ll get important tips, they’ll get to share their own message (yes, even when it’s commercial in nature!), and they’ll develop relationships that someone, somewhere will be able to quantify as an important return on the investment of listening and sharing in this incredible forum.
And if they listen and share in somewhat equal portions, there is no doubt that they will discover that their brand has gotten just a little bit better than the one they brought to the conversation….
For more thoughts on Social Media, follow @TrendTracker on Twitter.
When I was a boyscout I learned how to best set and build a fire. First you needed the right place, then some kindling, small wood and finally to lay on the logs. Then comes the most important element required to bring a roaring fire to life and that is when you strike the match or scratch out a spark.
Over the last several weeks we have been learning to build a new kind of fire by combining people, ideas, technology and community to build something called The Social CMO. This upstart social media fire began with the construction and linking of two simple WordPress blogs in combination with the @TheSocialCMO Twitter account.
The kindling for this fire was collected imperceptibly through participation in a growing network of likeminded tweeters, great people like Amy @HowellMarketing, @TedRubin, @KentHuffman and @EricFletcher to begin with. And of course every team needs some cheerleaders and one of our most fervent from the start has been Cheryl Burgess @ckburgess!
Shortly thereafter we were joined by @SamDecker, Ryan @sauerscomm, @AnneDGallaher and of course the one and only @b2bspecialist Chris Herbert!
The small glow already emanating from this modest group led us to believe that something more was happening here but clearly some really large logs were now needed. However, it turned out that not elongated chunks of wood, but social media and community pros @Ambercadabra, @TreyPennington and @TrendTracker Glen Gilmore were all that was required to fuel the spontaneous combustion that is now taking place.
It took man thousands of years to fully understand and harness the power of fire to form tools and sharpen weapons, melt sand into glass and launch ourselves into space. But there seems little doubt this new fire will have the strength to not only improve us all as individuals, but also to create and deliver grand new discoveries through this collective entity The Social CMO.