Sunday, June 14, 2009

Should marketers tweet carefully when promoting brands on Twitter?

AdAge brings up very important point for marketers Tweeting their brand: "Proceed With caution." The article warns brands engaging in discussion on Twitter to be prepared for negative buzz and try to avoid directly advertising through social media. I agree with both of these points, but I'd like to layer on and add some perspective of my own.

Brands should also be transparent and reciprocal while engaging in social media. A lot of brands have a presence on social networking sites such as MySpace, Facebook and Twitter. I do not keep up brands using social media which simply talk about themselves as much as I do with brands that interact. It is great that a company has a Facebook page or a Twitter profile. How does having a Facebook page or a Twitter profile help me though?

I expect a brand to be transparent and reciprocal. Let me know why you are on Twitter and answer my questions in a timely manner. This is not to say that I do not enjoy updates, because I do. I read almost every Ford product update that Scott Monty tweets. Scott has interacted with me as well, the few times I reached out to him. In fact, Scott Monty commented on my blog at on point, which truly impressed me.

What are your thoughts on brands using Twitter and social media as a tool to reach customers? Do you feel brands should be transparent and engaging?

3 comments:

Lee, Blogger's Workshop said...

Trasparency is essential to successful branding. Companies have two options when using social media - talking *to* people or talking *at* people. It's my opinion that talking *at* people is highly ineffective these days.

Donald said...

While people may have different views still good things should always be appreciated. Yours is a nice blog. Liked it!!!

Ronald Coyle said...

Thanks for the comments!