analysis of social media with specific focus on twitter

8/9/2019 Analysis of Social Media With Specific Focus on Twitter

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Anand Khamar Gaurang Patel

Social Media Analysis

.. An In depth study with specific focus on Twitter

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N.R. Institute of Business Management

Gujarat Law Society Campus, Ellisbridge,

Ahmedabad - 380006.


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Table of ContentsResearch Methodology ................................................................................................................................. 5

1.1 Introduction to Social Media: ............................................................................................................. 6

1.2 Current Trends in India: ...................................................................................................................... 7

1.3 Literature Review, Identification of Gap ............................................................................................. 8

1.3.1 Identification of Gaps: .................................................................................................................. 9

1.4 Objectives of the Research Study: ...................................................................................................... 9

1.5 Need For The Research Study: ............................................................................................................ 9

1.6 Scope of the Research Study: ........................................................................................................... 10

1.7 Description of Research: ................................................................................................................... 11

1.7.1 Type of Research Design: ........................................................................................................... 11

1.7.2 Data Collection: .......................................................................................................................... 11

Methods of secondary data collection ............................................................................................... 11

1.7.3Sample Design: ............................................................................................................................ 12

1.7.4 Data Analysis: ............................................................................................................................. 13

1.7.5 Chapterisation scheme: ............................................................................................................. 14

1.7.6 Limitations of Report: ................................................................................................................ 15

An Introduction to the Social ...................................................................................................................... 16

Media Landscape ........................................................................................................................................ 16

2.1 Introduction ...................................................................................................................................... 17

2.2 Social Media ...................................................................................................................................... 18

2.3 Distinction from Traditional Media ................................................................................................... 20

2.4 Forms of Social Media ....................................................................................................................... 21

2.4.1 PHOTO SITES .............................................................................................................................. 21

2.4.2 BLOG........................................................................................................................................... 22

2.4.3 MICROBLOGS ............................................................................................................................. 24

2.5 Some of the famous Social Media Networking Sites ........................................................................ 27

Twitter..... Introduction to Features and Processes ................................................................................... 31

3.1 Twitter - Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 31

3.2 Functioning of Twitter ....................................................................................................................... 32

3.3 Twitter User ...................................................................................................................................... 33

3.4 Twitter Popularity ............................................................................................................................. 33


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3.5 Twitter as a marketing tool ............................................................................................................... 34

3.6 Get Started on Twitter ...................................................................................................................... 35

Twitter- A powerful social Media Tool .................................................................................................... 47

4.1 Twitter and Its Successes .................................................................................................................. 48

4.2 The Power of Twitters Immediate Feedback ................................................................................... 51

4.3 Instant Access ................................................................................................................................... 53

Brand Building with Twitter ........................................................................................................................ 54

5.1 Introduction ...................................................................................................................................... 55

5.2 Create a Story .................................................................................................................................... 58

5.3 Portraying Brand with Companys Profile......................................................................................... 60

5.4 Tweet Style - Creating Value ............................................................................................................. 62

5.5 Repetition .......................................................................................................................................... 72

Third-Party Tools of Twitter ........................................................................................................................ 73

6.1 Tweet Later ....................................................................................................................................... 74

6.2 Twitterific .......................................................................................................................................... 76

6.3 Twhirl ................................................................................................................................................ 77

6.4 Twitterfeed ....................................................................................................................................... 78

6.5 Twist .................................................................................................................................................. 79

6.6 Twellow ............................................................................................................................................. 80

6.7 TweetBeep ........................................................................................................................................ 816.8 TwitterCounter .................................................................................................................................. 82

6.9 Tweet Deck ........................................................................................................................................ 83

6.10TwitThis ............................................................................................................................................ 84

6.11TwitPwr.com .................................................................................................................................... 86

Indian Companies on Twitter - A Usage Study............................................................................................ 87

7.1 Introduction ...................................................................................................................................... 88

7.2 Social Networking in India Milestone @2009 ................................................................................ 88

7.3 Twitter and Indian companies .......................................................................................................... 90

7.4 Observation Criterion: ...................................................................................................................... 91

7.5 Key Findings: ..................................................................................................................................... 92

7.6 Twitter Applications .......................................................................................................................... 95

7.6.1 Customer service........................................................................................................................ 95

7.6.2 News Broadcast ......................................................................................................................... 97


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7.6.3 Promotion & Buzz ...................................................................................................................... 97

7.7 How Indian Companies Use Twitter.................................................................................................. 99

7.8 The Road Ahead: ............................................................................................................................. 101

Questionnaire Analysis ............................................................................................................................. 102

8.1 ANALYSIS OF QUESTIONNAIRE ........................................................................................................ 103

8.2 ANALYSIS OF HYPOTHESES .............................................................................................................. 138

8.3 FACTOR ANALYSIS ........................................................................................................................... 145

Key findings: .............................................................................................................................................. 151

Conclusion: ................................................................................................................................................ 152

Recommendations: ................................................................................................................................... 153

References: ............................................................................................................................................... 154

Annexure ................................................................................................................................................... 156

Glossary ..................................................................................................................................................... 163


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Chapter 1

Research Methodology


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1.1 Introduction to Social Media:

Social media involves a natural, genuine conversation between people about something of

mutual interest, a conversation built on the thoughts and experiences of the participants. It

is about sharing and arriving at a collective point, often for the purpose of making a better

or more-informed choice.Social Media isnt about the content itself: it is about the way in

which consumers of content are connected and about the conversations that result. Social

media is an effective guidepost. Social media can be used to gather valuable information

about how the product, service, and brand are perceived in the marketplace.

Social media in the business context is based on the degree to which the actual

experience matches the expectation set.: Recent studies of Nielsen have shown that of the

estimated 3.5 billion word-of-mouth conversations that occur around the world each day,

about 2.3 billion of them roughly two out of three make a reference to a brand,

product, or service. Word of mouth is increasingly manifesting itself through digital social

media, where it spreads both farther and faster. This use of the Social Web is increasingly

important to marketers.

Social media differ from traditional media (industrial media) like television, newspaperand film by its nature of interactivity. Users generate as well as consume content which is

shared, distributed and discussed. Photos, videos, audio or text are the formats this content

is shared in. Facebook, Flickr, YouTube or Slide Share are a few of the most known websites

reflecting the typical characteristics of Web 2.0. These websites and alike are summarized

under the term social media.

One of the youngest and currently most referred to social media services is Twitter. Twitter

is a so called micro-blogging service that allows users to exchange short text messages. This

research paper introduces Twitter and investigates its potential for customer service and

branding for Indian companies. Finally recommendations show best practice to use

Twitter.


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1.2 Current Trends in India:

Corporate social media presence: Many corporate In India now has started up with

the social media marketing, In India, Kingfisher was the first airline in India to build a

full-fledged formal presence on Twitter and embrace social media. This initiative has

added to Kingfisher Airlines convenience factor because it allows the airline to send

instant updates to its customers. Kingfisher Airlines is also putting the Twitter

platform to good use to enhance its service, get feedback and interact with its

customers directly without the use of intermediaries.

Emphasis on real-time data: Sites that provide transactional data and news in real

time will always be in demand. These include news sites, Google Blog Search for

updated blog commentary, Marketwatch.com for US stocks and Moneycontrol.com

(Indian stocks), Twitter.com for the latest news, and Twitter commentary.

Twitter in India:

Twitter is witnessing a mind-blowing traffic growth worldwide and India is no

exception the micro blogging site has registered 74% traffic jump (in terms of uniqueusers) in the month of March.(Source: www.com score.com).

Infosys team recently closed a deal successfully using Twitter. The prospective buyer

posted a query on Twitter, which Infy team tracked (yeah, a lot of B2B companies track

keywords on social media sites). Infys sales team got in touch with the buyer

and closed the deal, marking their first successful sale in the twitter world.


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1.3 Literature Review, Identification of Gap

For the purpose of getting more insights about the social media and twitter the

researchers have made brief literature review and found out that, Twitter was

launched in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey, Noha Glass, Biz Stone and Evan Williams

(CEO). Twitters capital consists of founding and venture capital and is valued at

around 60 million US dollar (Arrington, 2008). Around 6 million people are signed in

to Twitter and 55 million people visit Twitters homepage monthly (Kazeniac, 2009).

Twitter is a messaging service that shares a lot of characteristics with communication

tools you already use. It has elements that are similar to email, IM, texting, blogging,RSS, social networks and so forth. But a few factors, particularly in combination, make

Twitter unique:

Really easy to write and read.

One can readily meet new people on Twitter.

One gets an opportunity to be interesting for people opting for his/her

Updates

Fit with nearly anyones workflow.

Twitter for Business:

Recently, Twitter has been adopted by companies of various professions. In the USA

companies have been using Twitter earlier than in India. The American carriers

Southwest Airlines or JetBlue, the communications company Comcast or the online

shoe retailer Zappos have become well known for their Twitter usage

(SOURCE:www.twitter.com). Twitter becomes better known in India, too, as

companies are discovering this service as well. The way companies use Twitter differs

highly.


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1.3.1 Identification of Gaps:

The researchers has found out how Twitter could be utilized by companies to extend

their customer service approach. Since Twitter has been launched in mid 2006

companies used it for different purposes.

E.g. Dell and Vista Print give out discounts exclusively via Twitter and CNN and the

New York Times feed short news and links to their articles via Twitter. Now, some

companies start to provide customer service via Twitter (Source: Perez, 2009).

In India however things look differently. Twitter has not yet established very well in

India and even unknown by most India. Thus only few companies can be found onTwitter and those using this service are mostly from the field of media, advertising or

marketing. To find Indian companies providing customer service in the proactive and

communicative way American companies do is very hard. Some of the companies

mentioned above do however communicate actively with their followers and use

Twitter to exchange information rather than to solely give out information.

Thus, in order to give insights to the various companies in India about the various use

of twitter in their branding exercise and also about the twitter users profiles in India

their preference and expectation from the twitter, the researchers had decided toexecute the research.

1.4 Objectives of the Research Study:

To evaluate Tweeter as a social media and identify its unique propositions.

To evaluate Tweeter as corporate strategic tool for brand building.

To obtain insight in the current twitter behavior of Indian twitters in order to define

a set of criterion & rules that gives advice to Indian companies how to use twitter for

their customer service approach.

1.5 Need For The Research Study:

The researchers wanted initially to find the gap existing in the Indian market wherein

extensive use of Twitter as a marketing tool was still not established. Thus, to justify


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the existence of this gap and to propose better options to Indian corporate for

flourishing, this research study was conducted.

1.6 Scope of the Research Study:

The study of the Twitter users had been done to understand the usage pattern of the

users and accordingly suggest Indian corporate to make use of Twitter as a marketing

tool. Research for the preference for twitter was carried out randomly online, which

includes places around India. Respondents from various cities like Mumbai, Delhi,

Masoori, Baroda, and Bangalore had submitted their responses online. And from

various places within Ahmedabad city personal survey has been conducted.

Twitter users who were focused for the survey are a homogeneous mixture of men

and women again of different age groups.

The users comprise of skilled working men and women, businessmen, housewives,

students, college goers (youth).

Educational Background of the target audience would be classified into the following

categories. College goers (Graduates and Post Graduates) and School goers.


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1.7 Description of Research:

1.7.1 Type of Research Design:

As the researchers wanted to know about a particular group of people, i.e. youth and were

trying to describe its characteristics for twitter usage. The other reason was that the

research was pre planned and structured .Therefore descriptive research design has been

used in this project.

1.7.2 Data Collection:

To achieve the objectives stated, the researcher has collected the data of both the kinds,

primary as well as secondary data. To analyze it was necessary to collect the data.

Secondary data collection:

The secondary data is necessary to get the information about Twitter, its usage all over theworld and particularly in India. Some of the key statistics are only derived by the externally

published online secondary sources. So the researchers have made secondary data

collection.

Methods of secondary data collection:

Secondary data is mainly collected by the following means:

o Internet databases

o Industry Publicationso Catalogues & brochures

o Journals

o Research papers

Primary data collection:

The researchers have found out that in order to gain insights about Twitter user of India, it

was necessary to collect the primary data, which means that the data obtained for this

research only. The primary data is mainly quantitative in nature and has been collected

through questionnaire.


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About the questionnaire:

The questionnaire has been designed to collect the primary data. It includes both open

ended and closed ended questions. It also includes questions wherein statistical scales like

rank order scale, likert scale etc.

Methods of primary data collection:

The following methods of primary data collection were used:

Online Survey Tool i.e. www.surveygizmos.com

Personal survey using questionnaire

The link of the online questionnaire was published on the various social media

platforms e.g. Face-book, Orkut, LinkedIn etc. so as to get the questionnaire will besubmitted by the relevant user only

1.7.3Sample Design:

Sampling Unit

The sample consisted of the internet users, mainly youth, which includes students,

executives and professionals.

Sample Size

500 Internet Users as defined in the sampling unit.

Sampling Technique

The sampling techniques used for the research are

Non probability sampling

Convenience sampling.
http://www.surveygizmos.com/http://www.surveygizmos.com/


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1.7.4 Data Analysis:

The researchers have used inferential statistics in order to draw conclusion. Result

of the study has been put in tables and graphs for easy understanding of the findings

of the research. Also SPSS 17 software has been used for the same.


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1.7.5 Chapterisation scheme:

The Chapterisation scheme for the research is shown as follows:

CH. 1 Research Methodologies

It contains the details of the methodologies adopted for the execution of the projectright from sampling analysis to data analysis in a precised format

CH. 2

An Introduction to Social Media Landscape It contains the details of various types of social media and their uses including

blogging, micro blogging, video & photo sharing etc.

CH. 3

Twitter : Introduction to features andprocesses

It contains of the entire details of twitter, its scope, its activities, its informal andformal usage and its possible applications

CH. 4

Twitter, a powerful social media tool It gives a brief about the powerful application of Twitter as a marketing/media tool

CH. 5

Brand Building with TwitterIt explains the usage of Twitter for the Brand Building of various corporate in India and howthey can incorporate Twitter as an Integrated Marketing Communications Tool

CH. 6

Third Party Tools of Twitter

It gives details of the applications of Twitter generated by Third Party programmersand used as open source elsewhere


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1.7.6 Limitations of Report:

Some of the respondents who have been contacted online have left some of the

question unanswered and Reluctance on the part of the respondents to provide

exact details when contacted personally. Time constraint as stipulated by university norms

CH. 7

Indian Companies on Twitter: A UsageStudy

It identifies the usage and application of twitter by the Indian corporate to keep inpace with the ongoing global scenario

CH. 8

Data Analysis The interpretation of data derived from the survey statistically and its analysis are

explained in this chapter

CH. 9

Key findings & Conclusion The final chapter which concludes with clear explanation of all the key findings

and their derivations


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Chapter 2

An Introduction to the Social

Media Landscape


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2.1 Introduction

Once upon a time, anyone could be a media publisher. All one needed was several million

dollars, a team of editors and writers, a printing press capable of shooting out a dozen

copies a second, and a distribution network that would put the publication in stores across

the country.

Unless, of course, someone wanted to go into radio or television. In that case, things were

just a little harder.

The result was that information came down. People didnt talk among themselves; they

were talked to by writers, editors, and producers, who chose the subjects and told them

what they thought. If people liked what they were reading, they kept tuning in and the

company made money. If people didnt like it, they stopped buying the magazine or they

switched channels. When that happened, advertisers turned away, and all of the millions of

dollars required to create the publication disappeared.

Today, its all so very different. It can cost literally nothing to create content and make it

available for other people to enjoy. That low cost means that it doesnt matter if its notread by millions. One can focus on a small marketeven one interested in stamp collecting

in Mozambiqueand still find enough people to form a community and maybe even make

a profit through advertising and product sales.

Its called the long tail, and the Internet has made fantastic use of it.

But the low cost of publishing online has had another effect: People arent being talked to

by professional writers and publishers anymore; theyre talking to each other.

Average folk like you and methe kind of people who didnt study journalism at

university, who never spent years as a cub reporter covering local court cases, and who

were never even very good at Scrabble, let alone putting together articlesare writing


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About the topics they love and sharing their views. And theyre hearing back too. The

conversation is flowing in both directions.

Anyone now can launch a Web site, write articles, or even create videos and put them live.

And anyone can comment on that content, affecting both its nature and the direction of thepublication.

Thats social media, and its a publishing revolution.

2.2 Social Media

Social media can be all sorts of different things, and it can be produced in all sorts of

different ways. Perhaps the best definition of social media, though, is content that has been

created by its audience.

Social media is media designed to be disseminated through social interaction, created using

highly accessible and scalable publishing techniques. Social media supports the human

need for social interaction with technology, transforming broadcast media monologues

(one too many) into social media dialogues (many to many). It supports the

democratization of knowledge and information, transforming people from content

consumers into content producers. Businesses also refer to social media as user-generated

content (UGC) or consumer-generated media (CGM).

Social media can be said to have 3 components

1. Concept (art, information, or meme).2. Media (physical, electronic, or verbal).

3. Social interface (intimate direct, community engagement, social viral, electronic

broadcast or syndication, or other physical media such as print).


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Facebook, for example, is not a publishing company. It doesnt create any of its own

content. It doesnt write articles or posts, andit doesnt upload films or images for people

to view and enjoy. It allows its users to do all of that on its behalf.

Create a group on a site like Face book and users wont be expected to supply all of the textand all of the images. Youll be expecting other group members to add their stories and

photographs too. Even bloggers, when they write a post, expect their readers to join the

discussion by leaving comments at the bottom of the post that take the argument in new

directions and add new information. This is the social part of social media, and it means

that publishing is now about participation. Someone who uses social media successfully

doesnt just create content; he or she creates conversations. And those conversations create

communities.

Thats the real beauty of social media, and while it may or may not be the goaldepending

on the sitethe result of social media can always be firm connections between the people

who participate. When those connections are formed around businesses, the results can be

the sort of brand loyalty and commitment that sales professionals have been dreaming

about since the first days of direct marketing.

At its narrowest, it describes one way in which publishers and marketers can put their

messages in front of thousands of people and encourage them to build strong connections

and firm loyalty.

However its defined though, social media has proved incredibly popular.

Twitter, which was launched more than two years after MySpacea lifetime in Internet

termsisnt quite in the same numeric league, but its growth has still been phenomenal.

According to the sites own blog, around half of all Twitterers follow and are followed by

just 10 people. The top 10 percent of Twitterers have more than 80 followers and follow

more than 70 people.


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2.3 Distinction from Traditional Media

Social media are distinct from industrial media, such as newspapers, television, and

film.

While social media are relatively inexpensive and accessible tools that enable

anyone (even private individuals) to publish or access information, industrial mediagenerally require significant resources to publish information.

Examples of industrial media issues include a printing press or a government-

granted spectrum license.

One characteristic shared by both social media and industrial media is the capability

to reach small or large audiences; for example, either a blog post or a television

show may reach zero people or millions of people.

The properties that help describe the differences between social media and industrial

media depend on the study. Some of these properties are:

1. Reach - both industrial and social media technologies provide scale and enable

anyone to reach a global audience.

2. Accessibility - the means of production for industrial media are typically owned

privately or by government; social media tools are generally available to anyone at

little or no cost.

3. Usability - industrial media production typically requires specialized skills and

training. Most social media do not, or in some cases reinvent skills, so anyone can

operate the means of production.

4. Regency - the time lag between communications produced by industrial media can

be long (days, weeks, or even months) compared to social media (which can be

capable of virtually instantaneous responses; only the participants determine any

delay in response). As industrial media are currently adopting social media tools,

this feature may well not be distinctive anymore in some time.

5. Permanence - industrial media, once created, cannot be altered (once a magazine

article is printed and distributed changes cannot be made to that same article)

whereas social media can be altered almost instantaneously by comments or

editing.


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2.4 Forms of Social Media

2.4.1 PHOTO SITES

Ever since cameras went digital, theres been a need for a low cost or even freeway to

share those images with anyone who wants to see them online. Both Facebook and

MySpace allow their users to upload their images, but neither of them is a dedicated

photography site. Images are just one form of content that users are free to share on those

sites, together with videos, personal histories, group discussions, etc.

There are sites, however, that specialize in photography. They depend entirely on the

photos that users upload to bring in other users. That broad-based content sourcing

already makes sites like Flickrone of the most popular photo-sharing sites, and now

Figure 2.1 Flickr is the big daddy of photo-sharing Web sites.

Owned by Yahoo!part of the social media phenomenon, but Flickr also has the

networking power of those sites.

Like Facebook and MySpace, its possible to create long lists of friends, and you can join

groups where you can submit images, enter competitions, and join discussions about the

best way to lighta childs portrait or which lens to use in which conditions.


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Flickr also allows its members to mark images as favourites and to place comments

beneath them. Both of those activities can be valuable ways of adding new friends. Pro

members, who pay a subscription fee of $24.95 per year, can even see stats that indicate

how many views, and comments each image has produced, and even where their visitors

came from.

Every day, images are licensed and prints are sold on Flickr, and its all based on content

created by the sites users and promoted through careful networking.

Thats classic social media.

2.4.2 BLOG

A blog (a contraction of the term "weblog") is a type of website, usually maintained by an

individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material

such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order.

"Blog" can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog .

HISTORY:

The term "weblog" was coined by Jorn Barger on 17 December 1997.

The short form, "blog," was coined by Peter Merholz, who jokingly broke the word

weblog into the phrase we blog in the sidebar of his blog Peterme.com in April or May1999.

Shortly thereafter, Evan Williams at Pyra Labs used "blog" as both a noun and verb ("to

blog," meaning "to edit one's weblog or to post to one's weblog") and devised the term

"blogger" in connection with Pyra Labs' Blogger product, leading to the popularization

of the terms.

TYPES OF BLOG:

Personal blogs

The personal blog, an ongoing diary or commentary by an individual, is the traditional,

most common blog. Personal bloggers usually take pride in their blog posts, even if

their blog is never read by anyone but them. Blogs often become more than a way to


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Just communicate; they become a way to reflect on life or works of art. Blogging can

have a sentimental quality. Few personal blogs rise to fame and the mainstream, but

Some personal blogs quickly garner an extensive following. A type of personal blog is

referred to as "micro blogging," which is extremely detailed blogging as it seeks tocapture a moment in time. A site, such as Twitter, allows bloggers to share thoughts

and feelings instantaneously with friends and family and is much faster than e-mailing

or writing.

Corporate blogs

A blog can be private, as in most cases, or it can be for business purposes. Blogs, either

used internally to enhance the communication and culture in a corporation or

externally for marketing, branding or public relations purposes are called corporate

blogs.

Genre

Some blogs focus on a particular subject, such as political blogs, travel blogs, house

blogs, fashion blogs, project blogs, education blogs, niche blogs, classical music blogs,

quizzing blogs and legal blogs (often referred to as a blawgs) or dreamlogs. Two

common types of genre blogs are art blogs and music blogs. A blog featuring

discussions especially about home and family is not uncommonly called a mom blog.

While not a legitimate type of blog, one used for the sole purpose of spamming is

known as a Splog.

By media type

A blog comprising videos is called a vlog, one comprising links is called a link log, a site

containing a portfolio of sketches is called a sketch blog or one comprising photos is

called a photo blog. Blogs with shorter posts and mixed media types are called tumble

logs. Blogs that are written on typewriters and then scanned are called typecast or

typecast blogs; see typecasting (blogging).


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By device

Blogs can also be defined by which type of device is used to compose it. A blog written

by a mobile device like a mobile phone or PDA could be called a mob log. One early blog

was Wearable Wireless Webcam, an online shared diary of a person's personal life

combining text, video, and pictures transmitted live from a wearable computer and EyeTap device to a web site. This practice of semi-automated blogging with live video

together with text was referred to as surveillance. Such journals have been used as

evidence in legal matters.

2.4.3 MICROBLOGS

Social media sites tend to want their members to contribute as much content as possible.

They may restrict that content to just photographs (or, on Flickr, video now as well), or

they may restrict membership to a select few (in the case of my membership site, to

dedicated Internet marketers; in the case of dating sites, to dedicated singles), but on the

whole, they want their members to offer as much content as possible.

Microblog sites place strict limits on the content that can be uploaded . . . and they find that

those limits encourage creativity.

Twitter

Twitterthe site that has really set the standard in microblogging.

History

The service was founded by programmers Evan Williams, Jack Dorsey, and Biz Stone in July

2006. Williams was a serial An Introduction to the Social Media Landscape 19 entrepreneur

who had founded a company called Pyra Labs that made project management software. A

note-taking feature on that software went on to become Blogger, the free blogging service

later bought by Google. According to one theory, it was Williams who first used the term

blogger to describe people who write Web logs.


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In 2004, Williams left Google to form podcasting company Odeo and, two years later,

created Obvious with Biz Stone, a programmer who had joined Blogger after its acquisition

by the search engine giant. The new company bought Odeo, which it later sold to a

company called Sonic Mountain. It now focuses on Twitter.

The original idea for Twitter came from Dorsey, an Odeo employee. In an interview for

ReadWriteTalk.com with Sean Ammirati, VP of Business Development and Product

Management at mSpoke, Stone described the moment when they first discussed the idea:

A fewof us were thinking about what are some interesting

ways that maybe we can merge SMS to the web, he said.

[Dorsey] had come up with this idea where if you just look

at only the status field of an instant message application

like AIM, and you just look at that as a sort of really small

version of what people are already doing . . . and you just

make it super simple, Heres what Im doing. . . . [W]e kind

of went off in a corner and we worked for two weeks and

we created a prototype. We showed the rest of the team

and everyone just sort of giggled. They all kind of loved it.

It was really fun. We used it over the weekend. We found

it very compelling and we decided that we would keep

working on it.

That was in March 2006; initially, Twitter was used by the companys employees as a fun

form of internal communication. (Tech companies, it seems, might have lava lamps and

space hoppers, but they never seem to have water coolers!) The service launched officially

in October 2006, picked up a South by Southwest Web (SXSW) Award in March 2007, and

by April was a separate entity headed by Dorsey.


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Figure 2.2 Twitters iconic fail whale. Designed by Yiying Lu,

the beluga whale supported by twittering birds is now a brand in its

own right after its frequent appearance on an overstrained

Twitter site.

Helped by the publicity generated by the SXSW award, boosted by references on Blogger

(where the company had good connections, of course), and most importantly making itself

attractive with an open platform that let other developers extend the service, the site

started to take off.

That has led to some problems. In 2007, Twitter was reported to have had just 98 percent

uptimea loss of three whole days over the yearand tended to suffer
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/de/Failwhale.png


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Particularly badly during major tech conferences (which says something about many of its

users, too).

There are two things that really distinguish Twitter, though. The first is its simplicity.

Although the service now has piles of additional tools and add-ons which extend its use, atits core, Twitter remains nothing more than a way of describing what youre doing in no

more than 140 characters. That brevity and simplicity have always been key, and theyre

what brought Twitter its second characteristic: critical mass.

It takes a special push to get a social media site snowballing to a size big enough for

everyone to feel comfortable about climbing on board. For Twitter, it was the boost it

received with its SXSW Award, which had everyone talking about the service as the next big

thing. As long it has that critical massand with more than three million members it

certainly has thatTwitter is always going to be the microblogging service to beat.

2.5 Some of the famous Social Media Networking Sites

ORKUT

Orkut is a free-access social networking service owned and operated by Google. The

service is designed to help users meet new friends and maintain existing relationships.

HISTORY:

Orkut was launched on January 22, 2004 by Google as independent project of Orkut

Bykkkten, a Turkish software engineer.

The community membership was originally by invitation only. At first year, United

States had the largest user base.

Although Orkut is less popular in the United States than competitors Facebook and

MySpace, it is one of the most visited websites in India and Brazil.

In fact, as of May 2009, 49.83% of Orkut's users are from Brazil, followed by India

with 17.51%.


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FEATURES:

A user first creates a "Profile", in which the user provides "Social", "Professional"

and "Personal" details.

Users can upload photos into their Orkut profile with a caption.

Users can also add videos to their profile from either YouTube or Google Video with

the additional option of creating either restricted or unrestricted polls for polling a

community of users.

There is an option to integrate GTalk (An instant messenger from Google) with

Orkut enabling chatting and file sharing.

Currently gtalk has been integrated in orkut. Users can directly chat from orkut

page. Scrapbook: "Scrapping" is popular among the Orkut community as a form of offline

and online communication. In December 2007, the ability to pop up alerts when a

scrap is received was added.

Themes: The new features in orkut is Themes. Users can change their interface from

a wide range of colorful theme library.Themes are currently only available in India

and Brazil.

FACEBOOK

Facebook is a social networking website that is operated and privately owned by

Facebook, Inc. Users can add friends and send them messages, and update their

personal profiles to notify friends about themselves. Additionally, users can join

networks organized by city, workplace, school, and region.

HISTORY:

Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook with his roommates and fellow computerscience students Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes while he was

a student at Harvard University.


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The website's membership was initially limited to Harvard students, but was

expanded to other colleges in the Boston area, the Ivy League, and Stanford

University.

It later expanded further to include any university student, then high school

students, and, finally, to anyone aged 13 and over.

The website currently has more than 250 million active users worldwide.

FEATURES:

The media often compares Facebook to MySpace, but one significant difference

between the two websites is the level of customization.

MySpace allows users to decorate their profiles using HTML and Cascading StyleSheets (CSS), while Facebook only allows plain text.

They include the Wall, a space on every user's profile page that allows friends to

post messages for the user to see, Pokes, which allows users to send a virtual "poke"

to each other (a notification that tells a user that they have been poked)

Photos, where users can upload albums and photos, and Status, which allows users

to inform their friends of their whereabouts and actions.

A user's Wall is visible to anyone who is able to see that user's profile, depending on

privacy settings.

In July 2007, Facebook began allowing users to post attachments to the Wall, whereas the

Wall was previously limited to textual content only.

LINKEDIN

LinkedIn (pronounced /lkt.n/) is a business-oriented social networking site.

Founded in December 2002 and launched in May 2003. It is mainly used for professionalnetworking. As of 11 February 2010, LinkedIn had more than 60 million registered users,

spanning more than 200 countries and territories worldwide.


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HISTORY:

Founder Reid Hoffman, previously CEO of LinkedIn and now executive vice

president of PayPal, oversees day-to-day operations and is also Chairman of the

Board. Dipchand Nishar is Vice President of Products.

LinkedIn is headquartered in Mountain View, California, with offices in Omaha,

Chicago, New York and London. They are funded by Greylock, Sequoia Capital,

Bessemer Venture Partners and the European Founders Fund. LinkedIn reached

profitability in March 2006.

On June 17, 2008, Sequoia Capital, Greylock Partners, and other venture capital

firms purchased a 5% stake in the company for $53 million, giving the company a

post-money valuation of approximately $1 billion.

FEATURES:

The purpose of the site is to allow registered users to maintain a list of contact

details of people they know and trust in business. The people in the list are called

Connections.

This list of connections can then be used in a number of ways:

A contact network is built up consisting of their direct connections, the

connections of each of their connections (termed second-degree connections) and

also the connections of second-degree connections (termed third-degree

connections). This can be used to gain an introduction to someone a person wishes

to know through a mutual, trusted contact.

It can then be used to find jobs, people and business opportunities recommended

by someone in one's contact network.

Employers can list jobs and search for potential candidates.

Job seekers can review the profile of hiring managers and discover which of their

existing contacts can introduce them.

Chapter 3


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Twitter..... Introduction to Features and

Processes

3.1 Twitter - Introduction


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Twitter is a micro-blogging site - meaning user can state his thoughts, views, opinions and

links, but in a super-compact way. In fact, with Twitter, user only gets to use 140 characters

for each post, affectionately known as a tweet. At first glance, someone may think 140

characters can't possibly give him enough room to say anything of value, but once he jumps

into the flow, he'll be amazed at the way Twitter can change his social media marketingworld.

3.2 Functioning of Twitter

Twitter works as a real-time social media platform for users to update their followers with

tidbits of information, chitchat, tips and tricks and other short messages that are broadcast

to a group of users who have chosen to stay updated to your messages. While there are

over 6 million users on Twitter, according to the latest statistics, individuals choose who

they want to interact with by "following" them.

Every user gets a profile page, with room for a short bio, a photo and a link to the site of his

choice. The profile page also includes a button people can click on to begin "following" him

- which means they will have access to all of the updates from that user.

The more followers user acquire the stronger his networking capabilities become on

Twitter. Twitter functions as an ever increasing network as each person interacts with

their following, who then connects them to their own group of followers and on and on it

grows.

When the user create his user account and choose some people to follow, they have the

opportunity to follow him back. As users followers start to get to know him, they will look

to him to promote other people on Twitter and when they find people they relate to, they

will begin following them as well. This tell two friends who tell two friends who


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tell two friends" networking will expand the users network faster than he can possibly

imagine.

3.3 Twitter UserAt the rate Twitter is growing, it won't be long before the answer to this question is

EVERYONE! Twitter is growing at a pace of over 7500 users every day, with a total right

now of over six million users! Twitter is a great place to connect, both in business and

personally, for anyone who is looking for a platform where they can reach out to a wide

network of people at one time.

Twitter is popular with many different kinds of people. In business, the users will find

lawyers, realtors, writers, web designers, Internet marketers, coaches, entrepreneurs,

bloggers, small business owners, large corporations, and politicians - even the President of

the United States! Users'll find famous people, infamous people, unknown people - the truth

is, Twitter is being used by folks from every walk of life you can imagine to connect with

others and market their businesses.

3.4 Twitter PopularityOne of the reasons Twitter is so popular is that Twitter is so popular! In other words, so

many people are using Twitter that it is rapidly becoming THE place to connect on the web.

In fact, mainstream media has started using Twitter- and talking about it. CNN and Fox

News both discuss Twitter and use it as a way for viewers to offer input on various stories.

In the recent Presidential election of USA, President Obama's campaign used Twitter as

part of their massive campaign efforts - with obvious success!

Twitter's popularity comes from its ease of use. It's also quite addictive! Many people who

questioned whether Twitter was worth the effort find they love the fast-paced interaction


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of the site. Twitter is all about immediate connections and real-time relationship building.

Human beings are social animals who thrive on relationships and interaction with each

other. Twitter provides immediate contact with others- no waiting for return emails or

finding people on various Instant Messengers. The users can jump

on Twitter any time, day or night, and connect with someone immediately. Often, just

taking five or ten minutes to tweet with others is all it really takes to build the list

followers, bring people to the users website or break through a struggle.

3.5 Twitter as a marketing tool

Twitter works for marketers for a couple of reasons. The first, and most important one, is

Twitter is different from a lot of marketing techniques. It really is all about making

connections and creating relationships. Yes, it sounds impossible to believe that

communicating in short little bursts can actually foster real relationships, but it's true.

Perhaps it's because of the real-time interaction.

It could be because when someone has to focus on the word choice, with only 140

characters, He/she takes the time to make sure every word counts. It could come down to

the fact that Twitter is downright fun - and addictive!

Of course, some folks will tell that, Twitter is a great marketing tool because the marketers

can find a targeted audience who CHOOSE to follow them and read their messages and

they'd be right.

The truth is Twitter works for a variety of different reasons. The good news is, thosereasons all add up to the reality that Twitter DOES WORK! Even though it is a serious

marketing tool, there is something about the way people get real on Twitter that someone

just don't see in many other platforms, that lets him get to know people's real personalities.

That is what inspires trust and creates bonds that lead to sales.


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Let's look a bit closer about how to get started on Twitter, so anyone can begin using this

amazing networking tool in his business today.

3.6 Get Started on Twitter

The easiest way to get a real understanding of the power of Twitter is to create an account

and get started. It only takes a few minutes to set up the account.

Setting up an Account

Go to http://www.twitter.com and click on the Get Started - Join link.


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Figure 3.1

The interested person will be taken to a form to create his account that looks like this,

where hell enter his first and last name in the Full Name box. (Easy so far, right?)


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Figure 3.2Then follow the steps to create the username. The username is the name everyone will

know him by, so give some thought to the name before choosing it.

Every time user posts a message, known as a tweet, on Twitter, users name and profile

picture will be displayed, so users definitely don't want to choose a username made of

random numbers and letters.

Twitter lets user to use up to 15 characters (with no spaces) for the username, so use them

wisely. If he chooses not to use his actual name, try to create a name that tells people what

he/she is doing. The users can use his business name, but very often,


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Something a little more personal is more effective. Remember the key to social media is the

social part, so you want to choose a username that lets people relate to you as a person.

Keep in mind, also, that if you choose a random username made up of assorted letters and

numbers, people may think user is a spammer and block him.

The next step is to enter the email address. Make sure to enter an actual email address that

is being used on a regular basis. Twitter will not send spam email, but they will use the

email address to alert to new followers and direct messages, if the user chooses to be

alerted later in his profile. He will also be notified, via email, if he loses or forget his

username or password.

Once user creates the account, he will be taken to a screen where he can check to see if

anyone he knows is already using twitter based on various email address.

Next is a screen with some suggested followers. User can scan through if hed like or he can

choose to skip this step as well. Now the user reached the area that will help him market

himself and his business. This is where user starts personalizing the profile.


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Figure 3.3


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In the upper right hand corner is the navigation panel, with links to move around the

backend of the Twitter account. Click on Settings to continue personalizing theTwitter

account.

Figure 3.4


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Once user reaches the settings page, hell notice some things are already filled in for him.

The name of him, Username (this is what makes up the URL to the profile page) and the

email address. If user wants to change them feel free to do so now. He ll need to re-enterthe password if he does.

After user gets those items the way he wants them, there are two important fields he needs

to fill in so that people can find him and his business.

1. The first is the "More Info URL." Use this to add a link to the website, blog,

Facebook page or any other significant link user has that gives people an

opportunity to find out more about user and/or users business.

2. The other field user needs to fill in is the "One Line Bio" field. Here he has one line

(160 characters) to share some more information about himself. Make this as

interesting as one can in the space allotted. This bio will be one of the ways people

decide if they will follow the user or not, so tell them who you are and what you do.

The settings page also allows user to add the time zone and the location. So be sure to

complete those too.

Finally, on the bottom of the page is a box user can check if he wants to protect the updates.

If user checks this box, people will only be able to see his/her updates if they have special

permission. This option is not recommended especially when user is trying to build a

network of followers. Unless he plans to use the Twitter account to communicate only with

a select group of people, you should leave this box empty. When user is finished filling in

the settings, be sure to click on Save at the bottom of the page.


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Use of Twitter with the Cell Phone

On the right hand side of the home page, user will see section towards the bottom labelled

Device Updates with a link Set up SMS Device.

Figure 3.5

If user wants to send and receive the Twitter messages from the mobile phone or an instant

messenger, he can add that information here. Keep in mind however, if he uses his cell

phone to communicate on Twitter, he may be charged standard text messaging rates for

your tweets.


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Notification Options

Click on the Notices tab and user will find options for receiving email notifications when

people follow him or when he receive a direct message. A direct message is a private

message sent from one follower to another, without showing up in the general stream of

tweets for others to see.

Figure 3.6

It's a good idea to select the email option for direct messages (or DM's, in Twitter-speak) asuser doesn't receive any other notification that he has one. All DM's he receives do show up

in a special section on the home page (labelled Direct Messages) but other than checking

this area periodically, he won't know they are accumulating without the email notifications.


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It's also nice to receive an email when user gets a new follower so he has the opportunity to

follow them back and/or send them a "welcome" message. (This is a great opportunity to

let them know a bit more about user and his website, but dontmake it too sales pitchy.)

Show them:

The next step in preparing the Twitter profile is to upload a picture to be shown with the

tweets and on the home page. Click the Picture tab and upload the photo of choice.

Figure 3.6


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This isn't the time to be shy. Use a real photo of ones own self. User should want the

followers to see him as a real person, so they choose to interact with him and a real photo

goes a long way toward helping people connect with him. It helps to use the same photo

user uses on other social media sites as well as on the own site or blog.

Give Page Some Personality

Finally, user can customize how the homepage looks under by clicking the Design tab.

This feature allows him a small amount of flexibility in the look of the homepage.

Figure 3.7

There are a few default design backgrounds user can choose and he can change the colours

of the background. It can be helpful to use colours that complement the website or blog


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Chapter 4

Twitter- A powerful social Media Tool


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Its big, and that makes it unique among microblogging services (if not among social media

sites).

Its got buzz that other sites just dont have.

And its growing at the kind of phenomenal rate thats already forced the social media

giants to look over their shoulders and copy it.

But its not the only service that allows people to broadcast shortmessages. People already

seen that there are plenty of other sites that offer the same service in one form or another.

But Twitter is by far the most powerful microblogging service currently available, and

marketers absolutely need to be aware of it.

4.1 Twitter and Its Successes

Researcher mentioned that at its simplest; Twitter is just a means to send short updates to

people who want to receive them.

The most basic way to do that is to log into your Twitter account on the Web and type

tweet into the text field. Anyone can see all of the outgoing tweets if they choose to look at

users profile.

Followers can also see a list of tweets from everyone they follow when they log into their

Twitter home pages.

User Twitter experience, then, will be made up of sending their own updates and readingtweets from others.

But thats just the start.


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One of the inspirations for Twitter was the idea of combining Web-based updates with

mobile information. So Twitter makes it possible for mobile phone users to send updates

from their handsets, and in some places to receive them on their handsets, too.

So if user had just agreed a joint venture with a marketing partner while sitting in a bar at aconference, and user wanted to share the news right away, user could just pull out their

mobile phone and send a quick message to twitter.

Yes, user might have to pay for that SMS message. User wouldnt pay Twitter. But user

would pay to their mobile phone company . . . for one message.

Twitter will then pass that message on to all of their followers, including by broadcasting

further SMS messages to people who have chosen to receive their updates on their mobiles.

Initially, Twitter footed the bill for that service; later, they negotiated agreements with

companies in the United States, Canada, and India. However, users in the United

Kingdomwhere Twitter failed to broker a deal with communication companiescannot

receive updates by SMS and have to use one of the other mobile services, such as

m.twitter.com or Twitter Berry.

For the rest of us though, Twitter can function as a powerful, low-cost SMS broadcasting

station.

The benefits that can bring can be huge. Researcher mentioned that the Red Cross have

already spotted Twitters potential and use the site to provide updates related to ongoing

disasters.

Thats a service that relies on Twitters speed, numbers, and mobility.


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Figure 4.1 The American Red Crosss tweets (twitter .com/redcross) provide

information and disaster-related updates.

Red Cross volunteers are able to send an SMS about a new shelter opening or the changing

direction of a brushfire and have lots of people read it at the same time.

But Twitter also brings the benefit of immediate feedbackand that can have tremendousadvantages for individuals.


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4.2 The Power of Twitters Immediate Feedback

Twitters speed means that user can send out an SMS to Twitter from wherever they are

and have lots of people read it immediately. Thats a service that was really meant for fun,

but its proven itself to be hugely valuable as a way of asking for help.

In June 2008, Pastor Carlos Whittaker (twitter.com/loswhit), Service Programming

Director at Buckhead Church in Atlanta, Georgia, found he stuck at the airport in Dallas and

was told he would have to wait six hours for the next flight. Tired and not too happy at the

thought of spending a night on the airport floor, he sent a tweet about his predicament.

Within just two minutes, he had received seven e-mails, three phone calls, and a huge

number of tweets. (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter)

In April 2008, for example, James Buck (twitter.com/jamesbuck), a journalism student at

the University of California at Berkeley, was arrested with his interpreter, Mohammed

Maree, while photographing an anti-government rally in Egypt. Sitting in the police van, he

was able to use his mobile phone to send the one-word message arrested to his followers

on Twitter. They immediately alerted the U.S. embassy and his college, which quickly

obtained a lawyer for him. James continued to provide updates about his arrest via Twitter,

and was released the following day, which he announced on Twitter with the word free.

His interpreter was less lucky: Maree was held for 90 days, beaten and abused, and was

only released after a hunger strike.

(Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter)

Both of those examples relied on Twitter followers taking action outside Twitter. But thats

not usually where the responses take place.


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One of the most enjoyable aspects of Twitter isnt updating friends and family about the

small details of your life. Thats fun, but it only works one way.

Twitter is a two-way communication tooland thats very important.

Figure 4.2 the tweet that freed journalism student, James Buck,

From an Egyptian jail.

It means user can ask questions and request help to very specialized problems, and get the

expert advice you need.


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4.3 Instant Access

Usually, people will be holding that conversation with friends or customers. But because

Twitter has such a well-educated and professional group of followers, it can also function

as an always-open help centre for just about any subject user can imagine.

Look at peoples Twitter pages and user will see this time and time again.

Hidden among the announcements about the type of music theyre listening to or the work

theyre doing, youll see questions

About how to fix this problem, where they can buy that gizmo or even what they should

have for supper. (Twitter users do seem to think about food a lot!)

Some of those questions are a bit silly. Some, though, are very technical, but Twitter can

actually answer them.

If you want to know what that is, dont ask me; ask someone on Twitter.

So thats the history and thats where Twitter came from. Its an incredibly simple tool that

has already had a massive impact on peoples lives. Growing out of social media sites to

focus on just one tiny action, its become hugely popular with some of the worlds smartest

people and highest earners. Its pulled innocents out of prison and given a lost pastor a

place to sleep.

Its useful, its important, and it can generate earnings for any business, online or offline.

But user has to know how to use it.

Chapter 5


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Brand Building with Twitter


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5.1 Introduction

Online advertising has really spoiled everyone. Not only can advertisers now finely target

where their ads appear, making sure thattheyre only shown to people most likely to find

them interesting, they can also track what happens after those ads go up.

They can measure how many people see the ads, how many clicks on them to learn more,

and most importantly, how many actually buy as a direct result of seeing their commercial.

With thatkind of targeting and data, its no wonder that Google, with its leading Ad Sense

system, is worth billions of dollars.

But the old advertising system didnt disappear. Drive down any highway, and youre still

going to see giant billboards drawing your eye and advertising businesses.

Times Square still has its neon lights, and even TV hasnt rid television programs of

commercial breaks every 10 minutes.

The Internet might have changed some of the ways that advertising works, but brand-

building is still important. If you want people to know who you are and remember the name

of your business, you have to keep putting it in front of them, and you have to continue to

interact with your buyers.

Thats what traditional advertising has always aimed to do. An advertiser who bought a

radio spot in the 1950s wasnt expecting to see a spike in sales immediately after his ad

was broadcast. Buthe was expecting to see his products name recognition increase.


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Figure 5.1 Southwest Airlines is just one company that uses

Twitter to talk to customers and build a brand.

Customers would become familiar with the product and, over time, as they absorbed the

advertising message, theyd trust it and theyd buy it.

On the Internet, thats been done with banner ads that keep a products name visible at the

top of a Web page, and with campaigns that pay for each 1,000 views rather than for each

click that the ad receives.

And it can be done now with Twitter, too.


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Twitter has proven a very valuable branding tool, and it hasnt been lost on many big

corporations. Just some of the companies you can find on Twitter include Carnival Cruise

Lines (twitter.com/CarnivalCruise), Delta Airlines (twitter.com/deltaairlines), JetBlue

(twitter.com/JetBlue), Dell (twitter.com/Direct2Dell), Amazon (twitter.com/amazondeals),

Forrester (twitter.com/forrester), GM (twitter.com/GMblogs), and my favorite, M&Ms(twitter.com/msgreen and twitter.com/mmsracing).

All of these companies (or products) are using Twitter to build a loyal following with their

customers and promote their brand. In this chapter, Ill explain some of the most important

things to bear in mind when you do the same thing for your business.


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5.2 Create a Story

At its most basic, branding can simply mean putting the name of a product or a company

where people can see it. That makes the name familiar so that a customer recognizes it on

the shelf.

In practice, of course, branding does much more than that.

It also attaches the products name to a story, so that when the customer sees it, he trusts it

and associates with it. Its that trust and attachment that are key to successful branding and

both start with a story.

Before user begin using Twitter to brand their company then, they first need to think about

what they want that brand to say. Do they want their product to look cool and streetwise,or luxurious and exclusive? Do they want it be associated with ideas of health and nature,

or would it sell better if customers considered it to be at the peak of technological

development?

Take a look at how competing products sell themselves and decide how users want their

product to appear in the market. Usually, rather than trying to create a brand from scratch,

they will be able to create a variation on a general theme used in their industry.

Internet marketers, for example, might be a pretty mixed bunch, but many of people like to

appear in suits. That shows that while we might spend our days writing Web content and

creating products, they are really traditional business people who broker deals and

negotiate partnerships. They will then try to mark themselves out within that niche with a

brand that represents their own unique personalities.

One product that does a very careful job of creating the right story for its marketand

which also does it through Twitteris M&Ms. By giving different colored candies different

personalities, Mars, the manufacturer, is able to appeal to different kinds of buyers.


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Twitter therefore, has a timeline for green M&Ms (twitter.com/msgreen) which is targeted

towards women, but it also has another timeline written by the red M&M

(twitter.com/mmsracing) which associates itself with NASCAR to appeal to men.

Figure 5.2 M&Ms uses two types of brand images on Twitter.

The green M&Ms are more popular.

Its likely that you already have a good idea of the kind of story you want your brand to

portray. So how can you use Twitter to put that story across?


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5.3 Portraying Brand with Companys Profile

Background of the profile can be a useful way of providing companies followers with more

information than one can squeeze into a bio data.

By creating a sidebar on the left of the page, company can send followers to their other

Web sites, where they might be able to do a range of different things from clicking your ads

to making purchases.

Those are direct results. When company using Twitter to build a brand, though, they dont

need their followers to type a URL into their browser or make a purchase right away.

Company just want them to remember brand.That means producing a design that makes companys brand memorable and that sums up

their company. Southwest Airlines, for example, uses an image of its planes tail as its photo

and chose the sky as its background image.

Figure 5.3 M&Ms old Twitter page used the green candy to push

the brand in the run up to Valentines Day. Note how they matched

the color scheme and graphics with the subject of the campaign.

See immediately whose page theyre reading and they understand what the company does.


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Mars has gone a little further in its branding of M&Ms. Not only did the company create two

pages, but it also changes the pages designs so that the brands image suits the current

campaign. For Valentines Day 2008, for example, the company used Twitter to promote

the idea that green, not red, is the color of loveand that their green candies were symbolsof love too. The profile used a green background with a picture of Eros as a green M&M, and

the companys Web site linked to the Twitter page, where people could discover love tips,

quips, and personal appearances.

It was certainly memorable, and the image alone was enough to help the page to stand out.

But the profile doesnt have to be spectacular to convey the story of your brand, be

instantly recognizable, and stick in the mind. Whole Foods Market

(twitter.com/wholefoods), for example, simply uses a plain green background to match its

green image and uses its logo as its picture.

Thats very simpleand still very effective.

Figure 5.4 Whole Foods Market goes for green, pure and

Unadulterated, for its Twitter background.


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When company are using Twitter for branding, then, their background image is going to be

important. They can choose an image thats complex and carefully designedand change it

as they change their marketingor they can opt for something very simple that still does

the job.

More important is the style company use in their tweets.

5.4 Tweet Style - Creating Value

Clearly, there is a danger for companies using Twitter to communicate with customers and

build their brand. When they putthemselves in the public arena, theres a chance that theycan do more harm than good. Firms that get social media wrong look like interlopers,

uninvited guests who have gate crashed the cool peoples party.

That doesnt just mean that theyre missing out on all of the opportunities that the social

media site offers. It can also show thatthe company just doesntget it. That could have as

negative an effect on their sales as good tweeting can have a positive effect.

There are a few things that the company needs to do to blend in on Twitter and make sure

that the image its putting across on the site strikes a chord.

The first thing it needs to do is to be human.

Comcast, for example, takes a huge amount of flack on Twitter. Twitterers are constantly

complaining about the companys poor phone-based customer service.

No one though seems to be complaining about its Twitter-based customer service at

twitter.com/comcastcares. Its run by Frank


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Figure 5.5 Comcast shows that it cares by giving its tweets a

human face.

Eliason, the Director of Digital Care for Comcast, who puts his own picture rather than the

company logo on the bio, includes an e-mail address for people to contact the company, and

broadcasts tweets that look like theyre coming from a Twitterer, not some company rep.

Note how the company puts together a whole bunch of different strategies here:

Its chosen a name that doesnt just reflect the company butthat refutes a common

criticism made of the corporation on Twitter.

Its used the background image to keep pushing that message home.

Its tweets are written by a named individual who converses with the companys

customers, and doesnt just broadcastmessages to them.

And it follows about the same number of people that follow its tweets to show that

its listening as well as talking.


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As well see, these are characteristics that appear in the timelines of many other successful

companies on Twitter. Theyre also characteristics that are missing from companies that

are really trying to make the most of Twitter . . . and failing.

Like Comcast, BestBuy (twitter.com/gina community) also uses a real person rather than alogo to front its corporate Twitter page. Unlike Comcast though, BestBuy makes all sorts of

mistakes that serve up a valuable lesson for any business thinking of using Twitter for

branding.

First, the name is wrong. Twitter.com/bestbuy has been taken, but it has no updates, is

following no one, and only has 26 followers. Twitter doesnt allow cyber squatting and has

been known to take away accounts from individuals who tried to use a company name, so

that URL should be available to BestBuy if they wanted it. Its possible that there is a good

reason that the company doesnt wantto use twitter.com/bestbuy .

Unless its so that no one actually sees the profile picture.

While Frank Eliason looks happy, friendly, and approachable in his image, Gina looks like

shes been locked in a hote

analysis of social media with specific focus on twitter

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