Most companies are on Twitter nowadays, some do it extremely successfully, some might wish they never made an account, and there are others, which frankly you wouldn’t have known signed up. The fact of the matter is though, Twitter allows businesses to target a huge, wide reaching base of customers with 140 cleverly written characters. All age ranges and demographics can be reached cost effectively, and it has never been easier for customers to talk directly to a company.

So what are the dos and don’ts of Twitter? What should companies be prepared for when they sign up? How can companies increase brand awareness without consumers passing it off as boring advertising?

Well first let’s start with history. Not too far in the distant past, 2011 to be precise, Audi launched their new R8 with an advert in the primetime slot of the American Superbowl. Watched by over 100 million worldwide, this advert ended with a hashtag, the first to ever be used in a TV advert (ignitesocialmedia, 2011). The effect this had was an explosion on Twitter, Audi got a whole lot more than just a 30 second advert, this reached millions across the ‘Twittersphere’ and got people talking, a real plus for brand awareness (win-win).

But what about a don’t? Well nobody is immune to bad Twitter campaigns. Take McDonald’s for example. Back in 2012 they launched the hashtag ‘McDStories’, trying to get customers to talk about great experiences they’ve had at McDonald’s restaurants. It backfired horribly. ‘McDStories’ went viral as customers shared their worst McDonald’s stories, not discounting times of food poisoning, and the company were forced to ride out the barrage of tweets that resulted (Business Insider, 2012). A bad campaign for sure.

So what about the ugly? What could a company do that would be considered ugly by twitter users and commenters alike? Well, using disasters wouldn’t be a good place to start. Exactly what Bing did back in 2011, after the Japanese earthquake. Bing proposed that they would donate $1 for every retweet, up to $100k. Admirable right? It didn’t take that way, it was seen as an attempt to create brand awareness out of a disaster, not something well received, and another ‘anti-bing’ hashtag was set up, which gained many more retweets. In the end the company issued an apology and paid the $100k, saving as much face as they could (Business Insider, 2012).

So there’s an example of a good, bad and ugly Twitter campaign. But what do the experts have to say about it? Is there a real guide to using Twitter? Well with approximately 73% of the Fortune 500 companies being on Twitter (Barnes et al., 2012, cited in Swani, Brown & Milne, 2014), there must be, surely? Bennett (2013) speculates some immediate don’ts. “If you’re not prepared to chat online, then you’ll not get the business benefit of Twitter”. “Budget time and resources” he says, “create a Twitter strategy and stick to it”. Sound advice. Etter (2014) states that Twitter is ideal for a company looking to raise their public relations and corporate social responsibility. As we know this has some potential drawbacks though (see McDStories above).

If you are looking to market on Twitter, experiments completed by Jin & Phua (2014) suggest that using celebrities to promote your brand has a positive impact, although probably costly, and there’s no guarantee it’ll come off. 1-800 flowers use of Justin Bieber to promote their flowers on Mother’s Day resulted in 75,000 retweets and over 50,000 favourites (Brandwatch, 2014). Huge brand awareness.

Another option is focusing on real-time marketing, but there have been instances of this backfiring, such as The Huffington Posts ‘irrelevant and ‘racist’ tweet “Uganda be kidding me” upon Lupita Nyongo’o’s academy award win (imediaconnection, 2015). If real time marketing is to be used, it needs to be good.

Having read around, I’ve compiled my own list of dos and don’ts for a company looking to start up on Twitter:

Overall, Twitter can make or break a business. There’s no such toolbox for success though, and the ‘Twittersphere’ that exists can ‘jump on the bandwagon’ either way, causing unprecedented positive feedback or the very opposite, 280 million active users (Twitter, 2015) aware of the small mistake that your company has made. You only have to think of the potential for sales if you get it right though…

References

Bennett, B 2013, ‘Using Twitter in business’, NZ Business, 27, 5, p. 53, Business Source Premier, EBSCOhost, viewed 28 March 2015.

Brandwatch, 2014. Accessed 28 March 2015 < http://www.brandwatch.com/2013/10/celebrity-twitter-endorsements-regulations-allegations-and-selling-out/>

Business Insider, 2012. Accessed 22 March 2015 <http://www.businessinsider.com/13-epic-twitter-fails-by-big-brands-2012-2?op=1&IR=T>

Etter, M 2014, ‘Broadcasting, reacting, engaging – three strategies for CSR communication in Twitter’, Journal Of Communication Management, 18, 4, pp. 322-342, Business Source Premier, EBSCOhost, viewed 28 March 2015.

Ignite Social Media, 2011, accessed 24 March 2015, <http://www.ignitesocialmedia.com/social-media-examples/social-media-marketing-examples-of-super-bowl-xlv/>

Imediaconnection, 2015. Accessed 28 March 2015, <http://www.brandwatch.com/2013/10/celebrity-twitter-endorsements-regulations-allegations-and-selling-out/>

Jin, S, & Phua, J 2014, ‘Following Celebrities’ Tweets About Brands: The Impact of Twitter-Based Electronic Word-of-Mouth on Consumers’ Source Credibility Perception, Buying Intention, and Social Identification With Celebrities’, Journal Of Advertising, 43, 2, pp. 181-195, Business Source Premier, EBSCOhost, viewed 26 March 2015.

Swani, K, Brown, B, & Milne, G 2014, ‘Should tweets differ for B2B and B2C? An analysis of Fortune 500 companies’ Twitter communications’, Industrial Marketing Management, 43, 5, pp. 873-881, Business Source Premier, EBSCOhost, viewed 28 March 2015.

Twitter, 2015, accessed 26 March 2015, <https://about.twitter.com/company>