The Week that was Twitter (and What your Company can Learn)

Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+ have all received the Versio2 marketing guide treatment – now it’s the turn of Twitter, but with a twist. We highlight some recent events from the Twittersphere and their significance in the world of social media marketing.

1. Give your Twitter followers what they want

According to the Guardian, Pope Francis (@pontifex) is granting time off purgatory to people who follow his Twitter page, bringing the pontifical practice of awarding ‘indulgences’ for faith-related tasks into the 21st century, social media and all. 

Whether you agree with what the Catholic church is reportedly doing or not, it is an example of an organisation’s attempt to modernise and offer traditional services through new online channels, and to offer followers a little of what they want and perhaps expect.

Give your followers something of interest that’s relevant to your company and business activities. For example, product discounts, related news and the opportunity to engage directly with company representatives.

2. Know what you’re doing on Twitter

Unfortunately, it would seem that Denver’s Chipotle Mexican Grill (@ChipotleTweets) did not. Both the Huffington Post and BuzzFeed reported on what appeared to be a series of 12 meaningless tweets posted yesterday. To the credit of Chipotle, they’re still there for all to see – you can see them for yourself below or head to the Chiptole Twitter page.

Bizarre marketing stunt? Perhaps. But as it's such a new Twitter account, it seems more likely that it's a mistake of some kind. Regardless, it does rather give the impression that someone at Chipotle didn’t know what they were doing – a very bad idea when it comes to very public social media.

The moral of this little story is, if you're going to handle community management in-house, ensure adequate training. Otherwise, outsource the job to an experienced community manager or an agency, both of which you should spend time with developing a communications strategy and approval process.

3. Show a little Twitter conviction

One of the biggest mistakes companies make when they first start tweeting is to not take Twitter seriously enough. If you want to Tweet as a way to promote your business, be sure to dedicate some time or resources to engaging followers, sharing interesting content and syndicating your own content. 

In short, have plenty of ‘Twitter conviction’. @MasoneDylan, according to Marketing Pilgrim, ran on to the field last week during a televised baseball game. Why? Because he said he would if he received 1,000 retweets, which he did.

While we would never recommend such a ridiculous stunt for the sole purpose of stirring up Twitter engagement, his followers did have an expectation of him that he was obliged to fulfil. The lesson here is do be conscious of what you tweet and follow through with your promises. 

How important is social media when it comes to driving traffic and generating leads? Download Marketing Benchmarks from 7000+ Businesses for charts on not only social media, but landing pages, website pages and blogging as well.