Is it Time for Corporations to Get a Twitter Presence?

Todd Jordan (Tojosan), presented the third idea for a post I solicited on Twitter this week. It comes at a very good moment in our customer conversation at FC Expert blogs as today I am discussing a few things your customers have learned with the help of social media. Until two weeks ago, I had no idea that this tool would open such conversations and opportunities for me so I'm curious to learn what you think.

We throw this weighty question out there just when some organizations are cautiously dipping the corporate feathers into blogging. Vaspers the Grate posted 7 reasons not to Twitter, how about some positive reinforcement for those of us who work inside organizations? I admit I was quite skeptic at first. With a self imposed grueling rhythm of posting here, at Fast Company, and other online publications, I thought I could not spare one more minute of my day on social media.

Twitter is an interesting tool. Imagine you have an advisory council who will give you feedback on things that are of interest to them (note the emphasis on *them*). Then wrap around that concept the thought of community. And voila', you have some sense of what the advantage could be. How you employ this force is up to you. Let's build on the list of points Vaspers provided as potential objections and explore some possibilities:

1. If you don't like to see your message buried by other brands and companies, stay relevant. That's what pundits mean when they suggest to be part of the conversation. What can you add that has value to your readers? When I see the wealth of intellectual capital inside organizations that gets no play I wish I had clones of myself to get the downloads where they matter -- in the hands of the people who have the intention and power to make something of it.
2. Speed counts for something. Speed reading for example leads to better comprehension. Speed thinking may lead to less censoring during the creation time so the ideas have a fighting chance to be fleshed out some, if not by you, then by others in the stream.
3. You don't always need to be the smartest or quickest reply in the space. In fact, being a great facilitator with the knowledge and experience to further an idea through conversation and solicit the right type of input can be more valuable.
4. Ah, my favorite -- brevity has a place. Get your idea out simply. What it is, what it does, etc. More words don't make it better, they just complicate it or worse yet, bury it. Raise your hand if you've read a corporate statement where the lead was not buried in the last paragraph or somewhere on page two. Yes, I too thought brevity could not be done. I survived just fine.
5. Relative anonymity may be good for business, especially to build relationships on a peer level -- no baggage good or bad, just two people having a conversation. Sometimes the brand stands in the way of innovation. If you're curious about this, or have examples to offer, I'd love to hear your take.
6. The truth is nobody really makes you do or share anything that you are not prepared to do and share. That was one of the biggest revelations I had with the use of social media.
7. And maybe, just maybe, you find a way to get your creative juices going once again -- this time you have the chance to ask the community what they would like to read about/buy/test. I know many companies do this with their customers, that they keep an ear to the ground and a pulse on the marketplace. This is one more outlet, one with less filters if you get out of your own way.

Your customers are becoming more and more comfortable sharing more than just their opinions online. They've been researching products and services and are now happily finding alternatives that fit their needs. Do you really want to ignore the ways in which they may express their opinions about what you offer?

Comments

[RandellFever]

I think that it is time. Twitter has given me a huge ego pistol whipping by forcing me onto an equal peer playing field. It has forced me to stop rambling on with opinion and just simply get it out there. My friends can keep up with me and encourage me throughout the day and none of us are tied to our computers (phone tweets). I don't know how to implement it corporately yet but I am already using it as a tool at work to keep me on task and even measure time wasted. I will start a conversation about it in the office today and see what kind of ideas come up. Great question by the way.

[vaspers aka steven e. streight]

Randell Fever says it all, quite succinctly, too, I might add, prolix as a slomo blogger.

The level playing field, where each Twitterer is just an avatar like everyone else, is a special attribute of Twitter. Each tweet is judged for relevance, humor, insight, value on its own. Based on recent tweets, we evaluate whether or not we wish to Follow a Twitter user.

I say user, in the drug sense, for Twitter is the crack of blogging. That's why it scares many conventional, slomo bloggers. It's addictive, partly due to the swift response you can get.

We share links to cool or relevant sites. We brag about new toys, like Logitech UltraVision webcams or Blue Snowball USB microphones, and link to the corporate sites of the gadgets we discuss.

We scold, amuse, inspire, and argue, sometimes quite aggressively (or drunkenly, not me of course) with each other.

Why should a business care about Twitter? A technology or marketing company has to be on Twitter, or be left in the dust. Some consider Twitter, with all the brightest geeks in your Followers and Friends community which takes a while to build, to be their primary news and tech update source.

By carefully assembling a good crew, judging the Twitterers by recent tweets, you form a special elite community that you learn from and interact with.

Sharing insights, art, music, questions, complaints, fears, hopes, dreams, tips, warnings with each other: that's Twitter.

Twitter is buggy, never really improves, and provides inauthentic error messages (or confusing ones like "bring that beat back"), but it's where Robert Scoble brought us during the Mean Kids / Kathy Sierra debacle, and we like it better than Jaiku or Pownce, though they have some clear superiorities over Twitter.

It's all about community and communal love. Not very capitalistic, but you can softly, occasionally, promote your junk there, if you must.

:^)

[B.L Ochman]

What a difference a couple of weeks makes.

Readers of MarketingProfs jumped all over me a mere two weeks ago when I said marketers needed to pay attention to Twitter. http://www.mpdailyfix.com/2007/10/i_spend_a_lot_of.html

And I was practically tarred and feathered when I said twitter was important to marketing back in July http://www.mpdailyfix.com/2007/07/social_networks_are_multiplyin.html and last April http://www.mpdailyfix.com/2007/04/why_i_heart_twitter_more_every.html

Glad to see companies might start paying attention now. The key is to tread lightly and add value to the conversation.

[Valeria Maltoni]

@Rendell -- honored that you would take the time to share, thank you. I smile when I think of email and the way it used to be seen in organizations. Same thing has happened to these tools. I think that experiencing them in first person helps to get where the fit is in your mix.

@Vaspers -- "relevance, humor, insight, value on its own" that is probably the part that appeals the most to me. The folks who start every sentence with "when I did this, when I did that" never do get to enjoy the flow of the conversation. Even if that were true, how does *that* make you a better community member now? What can you do for this group who follows you now?

@B.L. -- different audiences respond differently. Also, I've been building up to this question all week with conversations around ROI, culture, and meaning. And, unless you do spend the time (whatever amount feels right for you) to figure out how a tool works within your context, you may not know how it would fit. I saw the comments. Not everything works for everyone ;-)

[Mario Vellandi]

@BL: I originally commented on your first review of Twitter in December (I believe). I thought it was interesting, but just not for me.

I like the technology, sure. But the whole: "What are you doing?" still throws many people off by defining the application to a specific use or context. That in my opinion, is a thorn in its product messaging and will hinder effective adoption rates. I learned to ignore the phrase and move on.

Should twitter change it's positioning? Perhaps. Why not post some videos of actual users and how they use TW to interact with friends/acquaintances? To show that it's more of a distributed chatroom, than a me-centric messaging app.

How about some more testimonials that shed light on other uses? Let's give examples of how the application and conversations don't necessarily have to be about novelty. Let's show how RIAs like Tweetr (my tool) can change the experience and perception.

It's about better communication and customized user experiences.

[Carolyn Ann]

Well, I'll stay a "slomo" bogger for quite a bit longer, thank you very much.

How condescending, that Vaspers is.

Carolyn Ann

PS There's a difference between brevity and obfuscation, Valeria. The prospectus' and corporate warblings I've read are more about obfuscation than they are about actually saying something! Brevity is for a copywriter, eloquence is for writers and poets, and obfuscation is for corporations and politicians. :-)

[Valeria Maltoni]

@Mario -- you have some very good suggestions. I had no trouble figuring out where Twitter fit in my personal mix. Then again, I love sharing information and I often have a lot more than I can do something with. Plus seeing who is at conferences and being able to connect people I know who did not know each other remotely was a great experience. It made me part of the event, even if I wasn't there.

@Carolyn Ann -- I wouldn't be put off by Vaspers, he's actually a really articulate and sweet person, truly. As for brevity, I crave it. Man, we can;t say anything in less than huge paragraphs and convoluted speak, as if those where in and of themselves proof of value. It's in the delivery of the promise! I do like how you articulate the difference ;-)

[Todd Jordan]

Spot on. Thanks for the link. Twittering is a what you contribute. Good point made.

[Carolyn Ann]

I don't know Vaspers, Valeria. What I do know is condescension.

The thing about brevity is not, to put a fine and pedantic point on it, to shorten the number of characters required to make the point. It's to say what you mean in as succinct a manner as possible. Sweeping generalizations are precisely that: sweeping generalizations. They aren't succinct, they lack brevity and Ann Coulter undoubtedly produces a score of them before breakfast.

I have no objection to Twitter as a medium for anyone interested in it. I'm not, as I've made clear in my blog. What I object to is the condescension that Vaspers puts on display. He seems to think that anyone not in accord with his line of sentiment to be some sort of Luddite. I'm not sorry, but I'll take the the sort of lengthy articles that "Foreign Affairs" and "The Economist" provide! I'll also let the blogger set the pace, with their words and phrases, not some technical limit of 140 characters.

Let's take "The Economist"; the articles in that news-weekly are the very model of brevity. Hardly a word is spared the Editor's sharp incisors! The "New Yorker" is pretty much the same, except they allow the reporter the luxury of providing some atmosphere. Neither would think of summarizing a complex subject in 140 characters, including spaces.

If Vaspers is so keen on Twitter, why is he still maintaining a blog? (That was a rhetorical question; I wouldn't dream of asking you the answer to a question more appropriately addressed to someone else.)

Vaspers makes the mistake of confusing technical limitations for brevity, and a new toy for religion. Brevity is nice, but Twitter is not a replacement for considered analysis.

And I'm sure Vaspers is a really nice person. But as I said in my blog, I'm not sure I'd like to go for a beer with him: I simply can't imagine how he converses, having such disdain for (gasp?) conversation.

Sorry, Valeria.

Carolyn Ann

[Valeria Maltoni]

@Todd -- thank you again for providing the question. It was interesting to come up with a scenario and possibility.

@Carolyn Ann -- this post was really about imagining how companies could use an immediate tool like Twitter with its embedded limitations. I find myself at the opposite end of the spectrum in organizations, where lengthy me-centered pages of material are seen as good and valuable information for customers and prospects. More often than not, there wasn't enough time to edit -- and that is an important part of writing. The points offered by Vaspers were a mere departure for launching a conversation here. And some days I will Twitter a thought in several installments ;-) Hard for me to be brief being born Italian, it takes forever to say anything in that language -- espresso is the coffee only. Thank you again for a thoughtful and information-rich comment.

[Joe Cascio]

As much as I love Twitter, I haven't yet heard a convincing approach to how it might be used by corporations. That's not to say there isn't one, but I just haven't heard one yet.

To me, the biggest obstacle to corporate use is that it's inherently a personal medium. So that's constraint #1: a non-person will never be followed. If a corporation or organization creates an account under its own name, that's fine, but it must be only one person that converses on it. You have to have a personality on Twitter. You have to be an individual and act like one.

The show Rocketboom has a Twitter account, and multiple people use it, but they identify themselves (e.g., "Drew" or "Elle"). Of course, Rocketboom has a huge amount of street cred in the online community for its leadership in internet video production. But the curious thing is that they very rarely announce a new show or feature through Twitter. It's more about where they're ordering lunch from, or little insights into what content they're working with and how. In other words, it's putting a human face on an otherwise inhuman entity (a company).

So maybe that's Twitter's role for organizational use: putting a human face on. Sort of ironic since the goal of most corporate PR exercises is to create an impersonal, "professional" aura.

[scottwitter]

I don't see my clients on twitter nor do i want to see them there. JuliaRoy is playing with a demo of a business model Mimobot that is interesting. Followers can link to the site where winners of a game will recieve $50 worth of product, somehow i am too busy to play at the right times. But, it attempts to engage rather than Yahoo's "the 9" which just fired off lame bot like messages spewing trash to everyone.

I do remember as a kid in the 70's people trying to call into radio shows to win free tickets and vacations and it being a big deal. Possibly with the iPod touchs, iPhones, and other wireless WiFi devices LIVE webcasts and textmessaging contest may be a way to get people involved. but image control is impossible through crafted messages. People don't care for it and don't have time for it.

Fire and forget.

Corporations under Law are considered as having identity but any corporation on twitter is going to be a slick talking marketing dude or a well crafted group message?

I would prefer that i have access to individuals in a corporation who act as ambassadors, happy employees who choose to act like normal twitter folk and sometimes twitter about corporate matters. If these people leave the corporation then i still have a friend.

I say for corporations let your employees twitter away without forcing control. For every well crafted corporate message there are easily 100 people in the wings, holding blackberries, with the real truth, or with opinions. How is that going to work ?

BigCorp : sale on socks starting in 10 mins

BigCorp : negotiations with India are going well

BigCorp : another VP just got fired and i think I'm next, it was good while it lasted all 6 months of it, my real name is peter.

BigCorp : the board just sold the building and we are moving to a smaller space, TTYS peter

Peter : I'm out looking for work, do i have a story for all my friends out there !

Twitter is for people.

I want to know who i am talking to.

Because i am participating it does matter.

[Doug McCaughan]

I think corporations will have to have a presence on Twitter but I am not sure that I would follow any. What I believe needs to come first is service organizations like the Red Cross. Everyone should follow @Redcross. The Red Cross has shown the best use of Twitter yet by letting people use Twitter to add themselves to the Safe and Well database! http://realityme.net/2007/10/26/put-redcross-in-your-twitter/

A couple of presidential hopefuls have caught onto the value of Twitter, namely, Fred Thompson, Joe Biden, John Edwards, and Barack Obama. I have listed the candidates and their twitter accounts: http://realityme.net/2007/10/10/presidential-hopefuls-and-their-phones/

Joe Biden even used Twitter to let people submit questions during a live chat. http://realityme.net/2007/10/19/joe-biden-catches-onto-twitter/

Twitter has so much potential. We have only begun to scratch the surface. I can see corporations using Twitter to facilitate better customer relations. Perhaps Twitter will replace the wasted time on hold. Instead of calling an 800 number, we will twitter our phone number to the company and be placed in the customer service or tech support queue and they will call us!

[Mary Reagan]

I definitely think corporations or any level of business enterprise have a place on Twitter. Some people seem to thing it's an either/or situation. The question "If you like Twitter, why are you still blogging?" has already been mentioned. I see Twitter, as with blogs and other social networking, to be just one aspect of online communication. Just because you see the value of one, doesn't mean you don't value the others as well.

News companies are already making a lot of use of Twitter. It's acting as another sort RSS feed for them. Companies that run conventions are using them to spread the word before, during, and sometimes after the events. And it's just the start of the corporate world getting involved. They may end up posting announcement type items more than entering into conversations, but they are getting their message out. It's just one more communication avenue for them.

And as Doug said, we've only just begun to scratch the surface of how we can use sites like Twitter. In six months or a year, we may look back and wonder why this was ever a question to begin with,

[Valeria Maltoni]

@Joe -- the ebb and flows of what we want organizations to do are also a consideration. One day people want a human face, as you put so well, the other they want to know this is a legitimate operation with processes and systems coming first. I think as always the best spot is in the happy medium between the two. For some organizations, we may want to learn about their product releases. Can you think of anyone? I think I saw Apple on Twitter ;-)

@scottwitter -- I think life in general is for people, yes? Companies may have used depersonalization to their advantage for cost cutting and other activities. However, without people, entities are all quite boring and similar to each other. The scenario is usually more like the following:

Boss: I think we should utilize Twitter to sell more. Go out there and develop leads.

Jane Doe: well, that is not exactly how it works, but maybe we can try meeting some of the folks who might be interested...

Boss: just as long as you stay on message and remember that it's about selling.

You can see where the conversation might be going ;-) We call it lead generation internally, but who wants to be a lead? I don't.

[Valeria Maltoni]

@Doug -- That is a pretty good start. I tend to focus more on the attitude because once you get that (the spirit), then you generally figure the rest out. Why, then what, then how.

@Mary -- bingo: it's not either/or. As you, Doug and everyone else pointed out it's a matter of putting the right people on it. When I correspond with Richard@Dell, it is really Richard I am talking to, not Dell ;-) Thank you, a very good conversation by all here.

[Paul Chaney]

I'm a bit late in joining this conversation, but, then again, I've just started reading your excellent blog.

In the days BT (Before Twitter), I would practically live my life on my blog. Even though it was designed to focus on a given set of topics, invariably I'd interrupt with anecdotal stuff that had no bearing on the core content. Then, along came Twitter.

Twitter gives me a place where all that miscellany can live and in a concise form. Between it and my Facebook page, my blog is relieved of any burden to carry content that's not pertinent to the topic at hand.

I see this as part of an evolutionary process. Use to be that many business bloggers (think Robert Scoble for example) lived there life online vicariously via their blog.

In my view, blogging's purpose has morphed. Now, it's all about providing real value in terms of quality content. You're seeing more and more thoughtful, in-depth posts, and less in the way of spur of the moment quick hits.

As to the Twitter "What are you doing?" issue, I think most people pay little attention to that question. We're making Twitter conform to our needs, rather than adapting to what it was ostensibly designed to be -- a "presence" app.

Of course, did the the visionaries behind Twitter conceive of it as a marketing/business communications tool? Maybe so, but I view it the same way I view Facebook, as an app designed for teens and 20-somethings, that folks like us have adopted for our own use. It's not a perfect fit (yet), but we're making the best of it.

One last thing... I've known Steven (aka, Vaspers) for a number of years. He's always been snarky and a bit combative. IMO, he's really a nice guy. I wouldn't be too put off by what might be considered a "condescending" attitude. (My two cents; He doesn't need me to come to his defense. Heh.)

Great (or should I say "grate") post. Valeria, you've made a fan out of me for sure!

[Valeria Maltoni]

Paul:

Thank you so much for joining this conversation. I've seen your blog around and will be adding it to my reading list.

Yes, Twitter is perfect for letting us digress, progress, and ingress conversations as we see fit, much better than blogs. Yet, it is also a repository of information that when viewed broadly can uncover patterns for the pattern seer in us.

Steven is cool, I know ;-)