Are You A Brand That Tweets?

The use of social media has grown exponentially in the past year. Mashable.com reports Twitter alone as grown by 752% in 2008. December had 4.43 million unique visitors. Those numbers prove that social media is the platform to reach millions of consumers, sometimes using only 140 characters.

Smart brands are starting to use social media as a marketing and research tool. Still, there are thousands of brands choosing not to embrace social media. Here are some ways in which brands are using social media and ways your brand might think about starting to:

1. Research marketing
Brands that are using Twitter can monitor what consumers are saying about their product. It’s a nonintrusive way into the hearts of your market. The data is not compiled into a nice business report, but if you want to see the impact of a recent social media campaign (just look at Motrin’s) or new product release, follow your market on Twitter.

2. Branding Personality
Lou Cohen made an excellent point that brands have personality. Social media allows brands to show their personality to their market through non traditional advertising. Some brands have moved into the blogging community, take a look at Alltop.com’s corporate blogs to see some. For instance, Clorox bleach has a blog with cleaning and useful tips for using their product. Sure, they could take the approach of publishing a quarterly magazine or advertisement with the tips but instead they decide to engage their consumers with non-direct marketing approach.

There is an immense amount of discussion on whether or not brands should be on social media such as Twitter. The fact is brands that want to be in tune with their consumers, NEED to be. The right way for a brand to use Twitter is to listen and respond to consumer needs. Avoid the blasting marketing campaign as consumers may take offense to the disregard of their opinion. If your brand who wants to build a reputation for being in touch with consumers, don’t let the social media boat sail by. Jump on board and get in the conversation.