We surveyed over 200 people during social media week – people who came through Social Media Week events/participation or through social media via Twitter, FB etc. (and yes we vetted results – there was a “rationale” box for people to explain their answer with and the responses were pretty uniformly sharp and aware). Here were the general findings:
Most people would recommend businesses use Twitter over any other social media site: 40% to just 15% for Facebook
But – they’d pay for Facebook over any other site for their own use
LinkedIn came in second in both categories, beating Facebook for business use and Twitter for personal use
MySpace: DEAD LAST FOR BOTH. Ouch.
When asked which company was using social media best (their pick), top choices were Zappos, Obama and CNN (also NYT, NPR, Dell, Jetblue, plus a WineLibrary shout-out)
Social Media site most likely to die? ImInLikeWithYou.com (sorry Charles, don’t shoot the messenger)
SO, then, this was kind of interesting. Everyone thinks you should be on Twitter. But why? What good will it do?
I think there’s a bit of a dichotomy right now. The use of twitter as a tool for brands is becoming clear – be it the Tropicana thing that
Ryan referred to in his blog post the other day – or the immediate consumer sentiment tap that Tech Crunch writes about. But that’s about listening. A brand doesn’t need to actually register an account for that. And if they did register an account, what the hell are they supposed to do with it?
So, then, the last piece of the puzzle came in the other day. I was emailing with the good people up in Portland at
Substance trying to plan a meet up at
SXSW and I asked him where he was staying and he replied:
I was debating b/t the Hyatt and the Sheraton and put it up on Twitter… the Hyatt responded; Sheraton didn’t. So I figured at the very least I’ll hold Hyatt accountable for whoever is managing their Twitter account. Plus, they promised to have a couple beers waiting when we check in, and I couldn’t pass that up. I think I’m still young enough that I can walk a mile or two… or maybe I should just bring my bike with me…
And then it hit me. The answer is staring us right in the face. brands need to be on Twitter because their participating presence on Twitter is evidence in its own right that the brand cares a little bit more about its customers.
Let’s face it. Customer service is a
WRECK right now. There are some really great innovations happening in
CRM and customer service as a web app (
Get Satisfaction comes to mind, which is an amazing tool) but the fact of the matter is that customer service is a daunting, harrowing misery for almost everyone.
Earlier this week I came into the SF office and Justin was on the phone with AT&T. He had made a simple mistake when moving, exacerbated by AT&T’s own mess up, and he ended up paying his old phone bill, which should have been disconnected, and not his new one. He was on the phone for an hour, and it still was unresolved.
I mocked him as he was doing it, and he IMd me: “it’s the modern condition. We all have to go through this with someone very six months. Some two companies merge, or you move, and you enter into the customer service hell hole.” and he’s totally right.
A brand won’t being on Twitter doesn’t fix that completely, but it shows your customers you’re trying. I tweeted out about how I couldn’t figure out how to turn off the closed captioning on my Comcast remote the other day, and Comcast tweeted me back with the answers. Say what you want about Comcast, but that information was unfindeable on their website, and I was never going to spend 2 hours on the phone with them to try. But since they’re on Twitter, it got fixed, no muss, no fuss.
Twitter brings your brand closer to your customers. And it’s a test. There was a key word up there – brands that have a participating presence on Twitter.
We all know the challenges that carries for a brand. We need to make new processes in place to deal with it. Employees need to be assigned to Twitter. We need to reconcile our draconian PR, CRM and Customer Service policies. We need to abandon the “sales script.” In short, in order for a brand to participate on Twitter in a way that the Twitter population respects and appreciates, we need to get rid of everything that annoys our customers so much about interfacing with our company. Because being on Twitter and NOT being a good Twitter citizen will only lessen your brand (as we recently found out with our own brand when we Twitter-dumped 10+ Tweets simultaneously and lost a few readers).
So to do it right, you have to have dealt with – in some way – the stuff that consumers hate about dealing with customer service. Maybe you’ve got someone who’s “gone rogue” like
Comcast had Or maybe you got your agency (ahem) to work it out with you like
Agent Provacateur recently did. Maybe you managed it all by your lonesome.
But however you got there, by being there, and being available and responsive, you’ve shown your customers that you care – that you’ve cut through the bureaucracy and gotten down to brass tacks with them.
Think of becoming a good Twitter citizen as a litmus test for your brand. Are you ready and able to respond to your customers in the way they like?
