Article

Fast casuals leverage the power of Twitter

How brands are finding value in real-time communication via the microblogging site.

June 16, 2009 by Valerie Killifer — senior editor, NetWorld Alliance

As the Salad Creations marketing coordinator, Jewels Hall starts her day by logging onto the Salad Creations' Twitter account. She spends the first 15 minutes of her morning twittering from the Salad Creations page (@saladcreations), tweeting anything from a new store opening to menu additions to daily specials. She also answers general questions about the Salad Creations brand.

"I keep the page open so I'm constantly on," she said. "We are following 1,830 and have 1,198 following us. We follow everyone that follows us."

Hall, who is the Salad Creations marketing coordinator, took on the task of learning Facebook, YouTube and then Twitter after it became evident social Web sites were becoming a consumer mainstay.

According to digital measurement company comScore's latest figures, Twitter had 32 million users worldwide in April. That number is far below Facebook's 200 million, but it's still a substantial figure given Twitter's only recent rise in popularity.

And while Twitter doesn't release information about the number of people using the service, media research firm The Nielsen Co. estimates Twitter's users grew more than 1,000 percent between February 2008 and February 2009 to 7 million. By April 2009, that number multiplied more than four times.

Nielsen also found that only 40 percent of Twitter users continue to maintain their accounts after only one month.

So far, Salad Creations' management team has had nothing but positive feedback from its Twitter tweets and retweets.

John King, the company's vice president of marketing, said the service builds on itself based on retweets (tweets that get forwarded to friends, also known as RTs).

"Obviously, it depends on the right messages, too, and what you're trying to promote," he said. "We're in our infancy so far in this program, but we're very excited about it."

Connecting the dots

Although Salad Creations is in its twinfancy, it seems to be doing better than competing, larger brands.

While Panera Bread has 1,139 followers, it is only following 11 and its last tweet was made June 9.

Twitter Lingo

Beetweet: a buzzing tweet; a "hot" tweet.

BigTweet: a bookmarklet that helps you post to Twitter. (i.e. HootSuite)

Co-twitterer: a partner that tweets on your Twitter account

Detweet: The tweet you wrote but erased before it was posted

Retweet: The reposting of an interesting tweet from another twitterer

Twatters: Two people who have extended Twitter sessions with each other

Tweek: A comment tweeters add to a retweet before sending it.

Tweeps: Twitter people that follow each other from one social media/network to another.

Tweets: Posts on twitter by twitterers

TweetDeck:A desktop application for handling all of your tweets

Source:www.Twittonary.com(the online Twitter dictionary)

In order to be effective, tweets must be made daily and should consist of more than one.

Adam Sarner, research director at IT consulting firm Gartner Inc., which specializes in social CRM — tools that help brands connect online with customers — said companies who familiarize themselves with tools like Twitter will be ready for the next technological development.

"The need to communicate (stays the same) but the technology and where people are going to communicate does change," he said.

And just because Twitter is a free application, brands can't approach appearing on the site without doing their homework.

Salad Creations' Hall took the time to learn about Facebook, YouTube and Twitter before embarking on the online venture.

"Twitter I picked up fairly easy," she said. "I did a lot of research on it and read Twitter spam rules, which probably helped." (Click here to read the Twitter rules.)

For example, what constitutes "spamming" on Twitter is if an account has a small number of followers compared to the amount of people it is following; or if updates consist mainly of links, and are not personal updates.

Finding purpose and value

To see a return on investment from a Twitter site, brands need to have a purpose, such as increasing online buzz or drawing in-store traffic. It's also necessary to develop a value proposition that ensures the communication is good for the brand while also interesting its customers. Most importantly, the brand must maintain a balance between its purpose and value proposition, Sarner said.

The best online customer-brand interaction exists in some type of community, like a Twitter following. Brands need to manage that community just as they do other communication.

To stand out from the chatter, Sarner said, the communication needs to have contextual relevance as well as a call to action. It must engage the consumer without being too much about the brand or allow the consumer to move the conversation completely away from the brand.

Having an online community does not mean giving up control of brand messaging. The brand does need to "put up guardrails" as well as prepare for negative messaging, he said. The key is providing a channel in order to direct customer problems to the corporate office that will address those concerns.