What's Your Twitter Game Plan for the 4th Quarter?
Monday, February 2, 2009
Ok, you've just made a 100-yard interception return for a touchdown. Congratulations. But, it's only the end of the first half. What's your plan for the rest of the game?
Brands can earn a lot of positive attention for simply being present on Twitter. Have an account. Be human. Watch what people are saying about you, and respond.
But, brands need to be wary of letting short-term campaign goals get in the way of achieving long-term Twitter success.
Remember Second Life? Say what you will about the worthlessness of the entire virtual reality platform, brands had a few successes and a lot of complete failures with their attempts to use the once hot new digital space as a marketing tool. Brands failed in Second Life because they had no long-term vision for what they could do there. All they wanted, and all they got (if they were lucky enough to get in early) was a PR bump.
If all you're looking for from your online marketing efforts is a PR bump (whether traditional with magazines and newspapers, or version 2.0 with the attention of bloggers), then that's the most you can hope for. And you're going to miss out on some big long-term opportunities in the process.
Twitter offers brands an opportunity to build a strong community of avid supports, to engage in almost real-time dialogue with that community, and to respond to new fans and critics as new conversations arise. Over time, a well managed Twitter account can become a powerful communications tool. But, it takes time and patience.
Showing up is only the first step. The game doesn't get interesting until the 4th quarter.
Brands can earn a lot of positive attention for simply being present on Twitter. Have an account. Be human. Watch what people are saying about you, and respond.
But, brands need to be wary of letting short-term campaign goals get in the way of achieving long-term Twitter success.
Remember Second Life? Say what you will about the worthlessness of the entire virtual reality platform, brands had a few successes and a lot of complete failures with their attempts to use the once hot new digital space as a marketing tool. Brands failed in Second Life because they had no long-term vision for what they could do there. All they wanted, and all they got (if they were lucky enough to get in early) was a PR bump.
If all you're looking for from your online marketing efforts is a PR bump (whether traditional with magazines and newspapers, or version 2.0 with the attention of bloggers), then that's the most you can hope for. And you're going to miss out on some big long-term opportunities in the process.
Twitter offers brands an opportunity to build a strong community of avid supports, to engage in almost real-time dialogue with that community, and to respond to new fans and critics as new conversations arise. Over time, a well managed Twitter account can become a powerful communications tool. But, it takes time and patience.
Showing up is only the first step. The game doesn't get interesting until the 4th quarter.
1 Comments:
Nice discussion of twitter. You recommend that we watch what people are doing, respond, build relationship, dialogue, etc. I think this works for the small guys starting up.
But I've noticed that some of the most successful twitter accounts do none of these things. Take the top 20 tweeters--they all provide 1-way rock-star content, but nothing close to a two-way relationship. Thoughts?
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