TO: High-Level Business Executives
FROM: The Executive Whisper
If you haven’t yet found business success on Twitter, stop trying – or don’t start in the first place.
More and more companies are realizing it’s not for them, and are abandoning their efforts.
Certainly, some businesses, large and small, have found Twitter a useful tool as a sales generator, PR platform, or customer service vehicle.
Good for them. Some people win the lottery too.
But a truly positive ROI on the micro-blogging platform remains elusive for most.
Before I get into the negative examples, here’s the obligatory homage to all those who love to Tweat:
Twitter has become an invaluable medium to connect, share ideas, generate buzz, and encourage viral marketing among its legions of heavy users, now numbering in the multi-millions. It offers an immediacy and reach not found in any other platform, including Facebook and Google – both of which are adopting many of its more popular features. The success of celebrities, like Ashton Kutcher, far from denigrating the experience reinforce the power of Twitter for those who understand and can capitalize on its appeal. Most companies and people (like me) erroneously label it a fad because we simply don’t get it and will eat our words as it continues to grow and provide utility to its users. It is here to stay. Get over it.
OK. Now back to the world of making money.
As I mentioned earlier, the efforts of most companies on Twitter fail for a host of reasons. Chief among them are low number of followers and inactivity. For example,
- Verizon, a company that spent more than $1 billion on advertising in 2009, has around 5,000 followers
- Coca-Cola, the world’s most recognizable brand, has only 15,000 followers
- Chevrolet, I’m told it’s a car company, has 1,600 followers
- Delta Airlines’ Twitter page went from June 17 to Dec. 22 last year without a single update
- For the record, Apple’s not even on Twitter
The list goes on – and it’s long.
The failings of companies, however, says less about Twitter – it is what it is and some people like it – than about the efforts businesses put towards it, and perhaps even the concept of companies using it at all for marketing as it’s understood today.
VentureBlog reports that Procter & Gamble execs recently told venture capitalists that they did not think Twitter was ”particularly relevant to what they’re doing on the brand-building and advertising side” and that “they do not believe that Twitter will ever approach what they get out of a Google or Facebook.”
Note, one of the world’s largest marketers isn’t proclaiming Twitter sucks. Just that it doesn’t derive much value from it. And they’re pretty much giving up on it.
Then there’s Geoff Cottrill, CMO for Converse, quoted in a recent BrandWeek article that ”Twitter is a little bit overrated. There will be a new media toy that will replace it in a year or two.”
And Joel Ewanick, Group VP of Marketing for Hyundai, says in the same article, “I’m not a big fan of Twitter. My Twitter meter has gone down.”
Here’s one last thing to consider before you commit more resources to Twitter, and this may be its dirty little secret:
It seems every article, presentation, and water-cooler discussion about companies successfully using Twitter invokes the same names and case studies:
- Zappos
- Dell
- Comcast
- Intuit
- Best Buy
Sure there are always a few anecdotal examples from smaller companies sprinkled in to pretend the success is wide reaching, but really, it’s never empirical or replicable. The stories always seem to be more of the gee wiz, I-got-some-business-this-way kind. Where’s the evolving and growing case study list?
And let’s be honest, no social media conference is complete unless Zappos’ CEO Tony Hsieh speaks about his Twitter experience.
So, in the end, good for Tony. He of course has won the lottery five times over with Zappos’ recent sale to Amazon.
For the rest of the companies out there, it’s tough to recommend using Twitter or buying lottery tickets.
