Just last night Twitter has just reached its 20 Billion Tweets! which I've got the news from of course while browsing twitter.
Source: Mashable
Twitter has been around for quite some time, which some of you would've probably know what it is. Basically it provides social networking and microblogging services, which users can update "status" called "Tweets" online using what's similar to texting, which the Tweets can be written up to 140 characters (Wikipedia, accessed on Aug 1, 2010). Well, nowadays, Twitter is, I think, one of the essential social media tools that businesses should use.
From a little browsing, I came across this link Top Brand on Twitter, which measures brands that are using Twitter as one of their social media tools. The site measures the brands based on number of followers and also "influence" statistics (more about "influence statistics" next blog).
The Fanpagelist.com allow us to browse through all the brands that are using Facebook and Twitter (I will only mention twitter today), which the site also divided the brands into corporate and product brands.
As you can see from the two pictures which I captured from the site, most brands that we are familiar with are now using Twitter as one of their tools to interact with their customers. One real life story I want to share which my housemate was the one who's experienced it. It showed how a brand/product can interact and create value with customer using Twitter.
My housemate was ordering Domino Pizza online, when the pizza arrived the toppings that she ordered were all wrong, so she tweeted @domino (yes, Domino Pizza is on Twitter!), which Domino responded very quickly and actually e-mailed her to apologise and they also told her that they will make sure the store that she ordered from is monitored so that they keep the service consistent. I mean, even though my housemate did not get the right topping, at least Domino took certain level of responsibility and apologise for the mistake.
As what I said before, other popular brands are now on Twitter, interacting with their customers such as Starbucks, Apple, Google. But from what we can see on the list, that as Twitter provides microblogging services, so many brands that made the top 10 are mostly "media-typed" brand such as CNN, Time Magazine etc, which these brands use Twitter to tweet the latest news to the world.
During this moment I'm typing, many new twitter accounts are being created, therefore, no doubt that Twitter should become one of the many tools that businesses should consider using!
P.S Hope you enjoy some small facts about Twitter in my blog and feel free to comment, suggest and follow me on twitter. Next blog, promise to have a list of people that are very interesting to follow on Twitter.
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Nice post, Ju.
ReplyDeleteI do wonder whether companies are using Twitter appropriately? Is it sufficient for Dominos to say they'll "keep an eye" in the futuer, rather than take the next step and fix the problem immediately?
Maybe Twitter is just a passing fad? What do others think?
I really like the way Telstra (yes those pricks) use Twitter. If you watch their feed, you will see people recommending certain Twitter handles over other, as they have grown their own personality and escaped the dreaded 'Telstra Branding'
ReplyDeleteI find it interesting that many companies are utilising Twitter as a source of customer feedback to improve their products/services. It's a good and inexpensive move by companies but will consumers see this a being 'stalkerish' and invading of their personal online environment?
ReplyDeleteNice inspiration to me. I used to see firm's Twitter as a promotional tool only.
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