Vol. 1, Issue: 6 | Date: June 08, 2009
Said one famous brand to another: “You gotta be a twit if you ain’t on Twitter!”
In the real world, birds chirrup to announce the beginning of a new day. In cyberspace, they tweet new updates, events and goings-on of brands.
Today, we discuss Twitter.com—the relatively new social networking website that’s grown so fast, it’s virtually become
the SMS of the internet. Its instantaneous ‘This is what I’m doing right now’ service has engaged users across the world. It’s no exaggeration to say that every moment, no less than a few million tweets fly around the globe.
But what does this mean for a brand?
Simply put, there isn’t a more immediate, more direct means of telling consumers what your brand is up to. Software updates, new releases, special offers, new menus—there isn’t a thing you can’t communicate on Twitter.com
Read on to see how world-famous brands have successfully used Twitter to engage audiences and exponentially increase their sales.
So what exactly is this new bird in the digital sky?
Twitter is a social networking and micro blogging service that enables its users to send and read other users’ updates known as tweets. It was created in 2006 by Jack Dorsey.
How does Twitter work?
At the heart of Twitter is Tweets—the text updates upto 140 characters that are displayed on the creator’s profile page. The creator/sender can restrict these updates either to a select group (his followers) or by default, allow anyone to access them. Users can send and receive these updates either on the Twitter website, via short message service (SMS) or other external applications. While the service is free to use over the net, other methods like SMS etc may incur costs for the user. 
Who else is tweeting?
According to PEW (a research organisation), though the Twitter audience is young, the median age of Twitter users is higher than those of other social networking users
(see charts).
The audiences are also estimated to be socially active online. This is evident from the list of website that they are reflected as frequenting (wefollow.com, tweetdeck.com, ow.ly, bit.ly, wordpress etc).
In terms of numbers, ComScore has estimated the global monthly visitors of Twitter at 19Mn (Apr 2009). This inspite of the fact that
PC usage alone is not representative of Twitter’s overall traffic as mobile web and text messages form a huge chunk of usage.
 
A recent Nielsen study indicates that 60% of the Twitter users fail to return in the following month.
 
Google trends estimates the daily unique visitors on Twitter are a little over 2Mn (last 30 days). What’s interesting is that in terms of traffic by region, India is amongst the top five.
 
Look who’s on Twitter!
Ashton Kutcher is the first Twitter user to reach the 1Mn follower mark. The CNN ‘Breaking News’ account and singer Britney Spears are in the second and third place respectively.
 
Los Angeles Fire Department used the service during October 2007 California wildfires
NASA uses the service to send updates on its projects
Barack Obama used Twitter extensively for his campaign
British Comedian Stephen Fry is one of the most followed celebrities on Twitter
Several top CEOs, including Virgin founder Sir Richard Branson, AMD’s CMO Nigel Dessau, Cisco’s CTO Padmasree Warrior, Sun Microsystems’ CEO Jonathan Schwartz and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg are on Twitter
 
Closer home, our very own Rahul Gandhi and brands like TCS, Acer, AOL India, Big Oye, Kingfisher Airlines, Fastrack, Wipro, Zapak and India Today tweet extensively
 
And believe it or not, astronauts in space! On May 12t, 2009, NASA astronaut Mike Massimino became the first man to tweet from space as he sent a status update that read: “From orbit: Launch was awesome!! I am feeling great, working hard and enjoying the magnificent views. The adventure of a lifetime has begun!”
 
3 compelling reasons why YOU should tweet
Consumers trust each other more than any marketer
Your brand is decentralised so you can no longer control/monitor a single destination for your brand discussion and
 
Twitter is a social utility being used primarily by the prosumers (early adoptors, highly engaged, pro-technology users who often influence and shape the direction for others)
 
Just how can you use Twitter?
According to PEW (a research organisation), though the Twitter audience is young, the median age of Twitter users is higher than those of other social networking users
(see charts).
One can use Twitter in a variety of ways:
To supplement your blog post, you could tweet about today’s topic and post a tiny url back to your site
 
To generate more eyeballs and potential sales, you could tweet about a special deal that you have just sent out in the market
 
To make more personal connections and network with influencers, you could live-tweet your whereabouts or provide real-time feedback on industry events.
 
It can also be used for networking, getting news that you could use,
as a research/feedback tool or simply staying abreast of what’s the local flavour of the day.
 
Twitter also makes immense sense as a business marketing tool. Marketers everywhere sat up and took notice in December 2008 when Dell outlet (@delloutlet) announced that it had generated $1Mn online by posting e-commerce links to its Twitter feed.
 
What did Dell do to make it happen, while others were playing the wait and watch game?
Dell was fast to adopt Twitter as a channel of distribution to sell their products.
They segmented Twitter users demographically by setting up different Twitter accounts (i.e. they started Dell Twitter for NZ users, Dell Twitter for UK users, Dell Twitter for Canada users). Each of these Twitter accounts spoke to users in a different country with localised product offerings.
 
Having adopted the segmentation strategy, Dell backed it up with special offers for each of these segments.
 
Dell leveraged its online brand identity and trust factor to create and build a large community on Twitter.
 
Once they had a following, they strategically leveraged their offers and promotions in the form of Tweets or messages on Twitter to their following.
 
Result: DellOutlet on Twitter, today, has 554,977 followers. That’s only one account. One can imagine the sales it would keep generating for Dell.
 
Today, brands are beginning to seriously integrate Twitter into their business operations.
How CoffeeGroundz doubled their sales!
J.R. Cohen, Operations Manager for CoffeeGroundz (@coffeegroundz) Cafe in Houston, Texas, credits Twitter with almost doubling his clientele and with opening his eyes to a whole new way of building communities.
Shortly after joining Twitter, Cohen started following members of the local Houston Twitterati and in no time had amassed over 1,000 followers. CoffeeGroundz on Twitter sends messages regarding product trials, promotions, discounts, new launches etc.
In October 2008, one of CoffeeGroundz’s regular customers sent them a tweet for a to-go order, which was responded to immediately. This simple exchange was extensively covered on Twitter and hailed as the first time that Twitter had ever been used to place a to-go order.
Seeing an opportunity, Cohen started taking to-go orders via ‘Direct Messages’ from his Twitter clientele. He went to the extent of making CoffeeGroundz wi-fi, so that customers could use Direct Messages to @coffeegroundz to order beverages and tasty bites from the comfort of their seats!
CoffeeGroundz also organized a Houston Tweetup that Cohen nicknamed ‘The Great Twitter Party’. Nearly 100 Houston Twitterites spent a lovely Sunday afternoon there at the largest Houston Tweetup to date. Cohen in return was rewarded with plenty of sales.
Today, CoffeeGroundz has 5,852 followers and they are following 5,541 Twitter users.
Tweet, but don’t be a bird-brain!
It’s easy to maximize on this cost-effective way of reaching consumers and other businesses, provided you follow these ground rules:
Rule 1: Book your name and/or brand
There are bad apples in every bunch and Twitter is no exception. There are enough and more trolls and squatters on Twitter who have snatched up prominent brand and personality names just so they can sell these to the highest bidder. Imagine what can happen to your brand if it finds its way into wrong hands.
Rule 2: Remember the golden rule of social media – Don’t sell, engage
Twitter is about engaging, connecting and carefully building relationships. So don’t be overly aggressive with your marketing efforts.
Rule 3: Talk to the right people
To grow your relevant network on Twitter, start by using the site’s own search function i.e. use keywords that are relevant to your overall business’s target audience.
If you want to get a little more granular in your research, you can use a service like TweetGrid or Twilert to search under multiple keywords and get email alerts when someone in the Twitosphere is talking about you/your brand/related subject keywords. Follow what these people are saying and join in the conversations at the right time.
It just so happened that a FedEx staffer saw the message and forwarded it to numerous company executives. FedEx drafted a response to the Ketchum employee. The last line of the letter says it all, "True confession: many of my peers and I don't see much relevance between your presentation this morning and the work we do." The story rapidly quickly spread across Twitter and the Internet.
Rule 4: Be careful about what you Tweet
Everything you tweet is permanently etched in Twitter’s digital fabric—and is traceable. If handled well, with strategic keywords for which you want to be found, Twitter can be a great tool for your business. However, if you’re not careful, it can become a viral tool for negative press.
Here’s a case in point: An employee working for the firm landed in Memphis to deliver a presentation to more than 150 people at FedEx. On arrival, he wrote the following on Twitter, "True confession, but I'm in one of those towns where I scratch my head and say, 'I would die if I had to live here!'"
You could also Tweet to a select group profile. ExecTweets, Twitter’s recent new commercial venture in partnership with Microsoft, allows users to find and follow the top business executives in Twitter. The application works by pulling in updates or tweets from its database of over 1,00,000 c-level executives and organising them under various industry verticals and topics, making it easier for the user to follow conversations relevant to him.
Rule 5: Make your tweet useful to followers
Don’t get bogged down by the 140 character rule. Make use of hash tags (#) to easily reference a more general subject. Also provide links to urls for followers who want to dig a little deeper.
Rule 6: Constantly monitor your presence and how it stacks up vis-à-vis competition
Twitalyzer is a great tool that helps you calculate your influence based on your signal-to-noise ratio, generosity, velocity and clout. It also allows you to calculate the score of any other user you want to keep tabs on. Additionally, it displays changes in influence over time, and is therefore a way to test the positive or negative impact of your new Twitter strategies. You’ll be glad to know that Omniture, the online marketing and web analytics company, has incorporated Twitter data into its analytics platform.
So how do you measure engagement on Twitter?
Any measurement always starts with defining a goal. This will help you make smarter decisions about your Twitter content stream, the types of ‘following’ behaviour, how you represent yourself/your brand and more. In addition to setting up the overall objective, put measurable objectives to your efforts. Here’s how you can find how influential/engaging your Twitter presence is:
Count the number of followers you have.
See how many of your posts are being retweeted. Retweets are viral marketing at its best. It means new audiences and potential customers/partners/friends.
 
Check the number of @replies and direct messages.
Twitter’s only getting better and better!
Samsung has introduced Twitter on TV. The brand has released a Twitter widget for use on its new network enabled LED 6000,7000 and 8000 series LCD screens, as well as the 6 and 7 series models. So get set to tweeting via your TV.
Twitter is all set to introduce some really cool features into its search service. TwitterSearch, which currently searches only the text of a tweet, will soon crawl the links included in the tweets and also index the content of those pages. This real time search trump card on Twitter could soon be potential competition for Google. TwitterSearch will also get a reputation raking system. So all tweets will not be equal; a Twitter rank will be calculated for each user, based on a number of criteria such as number of followers, number of retweets and so forth.
e-Comic
Getting caught in the ‘web’
With convenience and interactivity as its plus points, Web TV has emerged in a big way in India. According to an online survey conducted by Nielsen, of the 45 million internet subscribers in India, nearly 63 per cent stream or download content on a PC or portable device. There’s been a rise in the usage of streaming content from the web, including audio tracks (66 per cent), music videos (59 per cent), ads or movie trailers (57 per cent), TV shows or TV clippings (46 per cent), full length movies or movie clips (42 per cent), and video games (32 per cent).
News
Online shopping in India rises despite slump: Survey
  Despite the bleak economic climate, Indian customers shopped online more frequently in the fourth quarter of 2008 than in the same period the previous year, reveals MasterCard Worldwide. Their survey, which covered 5,037 respondents across 10 markets, found that the average frequency of online purchases increased to 2.9 in the fourth quarter of 2008, up from 2.6 during the same quarter in 2007.
46 million websites added to Internet in Jan-Apr 2009: Study
  According to Netcraft, the number of websites added to internet has increased from 185.5 million at the beginning of 2009 to 231.5 million in April 2009, an increase by 46 million in just a few months. Interestingly, that’s more than the number of websites added in the entire 2008 year when the number of websites increased by 29.9 million. Much of this recent increase, according to Netcraft, is due to websites
served by the blogging service of a Chinese social network QZone, reports Royal Pingdom.
Addicted to gadgets
 

Indians are increasingly growing addicted to their computers and mobile phones. The Technology Tracker 2009 survey asked nearly 1,900 men and women (54% males, 46% female) in 38 cities about the gadgets they used on a daily basis. Almost 59% of the participants said that life would be very tough without the mobile. That’s an increase of 8% from 2007. Two years ago, 21% of the respondents said they could
get by without a mobile. This time only 18% constituted that category.
Ready to tweet? Contact Ignitee right away!
Ignitee has over a decade of experience in the Internet industry. Only recently, Sony Entertainment Television engaged us to promote their new serial Bhaskar Bharti on Twitter among other social media platforms.
To know how we can power your brand in the online world, email Harminder - Chief Strategy Officer, at harminder@ignitee.com