Credit: Social Business Today, 2011
Inspiration for this post came directly from Socialized!, the book by Mark Fidelman on what it takes to be a social business. Not 25 pages into the book, a section entitled “People Are More Loyal to Socially Engaged Businesses,” prompted this ponderance (yep, a word coin) about how well-known brands engage on Twitter.
I’m going to pick on Harry and David, the 80-year-old grower of Oregon pears that has become one of the seasonal faves for online shopping during holidays. I recently thanked them for their wonderful customer service, so I’m a promoter of their brand after being somewhat of a detractor recently.
In this section in Fidelman’s book in which he references a study by Constant Contact and research firm Chadwick Martin Bailey of 1491 consumers 18+ about brand engagement and loyalty on Twitter, he shared:
- “60 percent of brand followers are more likely to recommend a brand to a friend after following the brand on Twitter.
- 50 percent of brand followers are more likely to buy from that brand.
- 79 percent of those surveyed follow fewer than 10 brands, and a whopping 75 percent of Twitter users don’t follow brands at all. “
Fidelman’s interpretation of this data goes like this:
“Depending on how you interpret the data, that can mean either opportunity or difficulty: opportunity in the form of a rich open field of Twitter users who want to engage with your brand or difficulty if most Twitter users don’t want to hear from brands.”
Think about that a minute; I’ll wait.
Harry And David Twitter Stream
After writing a positive blog post about the brand Harry and David and then reading this section of Fidelman’s book, Socialized!, I decided to take a look at the Harry and David Twitter stream to see if that business was functioning as a social business, a social media business, or merely monitoring and being reactionary on Twitter.
Here’s what I found:
- From December 17, 2012 to January 7, 2013, there were 47 tweets in the Harry and David Twitter stream.
- Of those, 24 tweets were oriented to responses for negative customer experience.
- 12 of the tweets were positive comments to customers’ experiences.
- 6 tweets were neutral about customer experience.
- 5 tweets were actual outbound content relating to product, shipping, holiday deals.
Let’s do a bit of analysis about the Harry and David tweet stream relating to interpretation about being a social business or a socially engaged company:
With the volume of shipments flowing out of the Harry and David distribution centers during the holidays flying to all corners of the U.S. there are bound to be customer service and delivery snafus.
Of the 24 tweets oriented to negative customer service experience, some of the issues were about tardy delivery, frozen fruit, lack of sender identity. Why would consumers use Twitter to report and/or complain about these issues? The Twitter team can’t do anything about that but ask for an email notification so the issue can be routed to the appropriate department.
A tally of only 47 tweets doesn’t indicate that much traffic during this prime time period of holiday deliveries. What that means is the Twitter team (probably also managing Facebook), didn’t have to always be reactionary. The team could’ve scheduled tweets to post during all hours of the day and evening across time zones to share news about deliveries, products, best sellers, donations to charities, storm interference with deliveries, etc.
The stream had few company-generated posts oriented to marketing and sales messages or brand amplification. This was a lost opportunity for the social media team to really boost its presence on Twitter with more than just “sorry you had a negative experience.”
After reading and counting so many “sorry/negative” tweets to make this analysis, I waffled on whether the company had a poor holiday season OR this was par for the course and the company was happy with the 2012 holiday season. I wouldn’t know that, but hopefully the marketing director does.
Tips on Using Twitter For Business
- Remember that all content posted on Twitter stays in the stream. Anyone can read posts from past time periods. Mix up the content so it doesn’t sound the same!
- There should be approved corporate messages about the company, its products/services, its team, its events, hours of operation, etc. that are scheduled throughout the day on Twitter. These filler posts help keep the brand fresh.
- Analyze your company’s usage of Twitter; is it reactionary? Are you using Twitter to respond only to negative customer queries/comments? If so, ensure you mix up the content postings to balance the net promoter scores.
- When you’re an online retailer, like Harry and David, with food products, tweet all day long about your favorites and best sellers. Moose Tracks have got to be a best seller next to the pears! Share something about that alongside the good news about mouth-watering sweet pears, for example.
- If the social media team is tired and working to maintain the pace during holidays, be sure and switch out some people with a fresher perspective. The tweet stream needs to maintain a liveliness that keeps people’s attention.
Brands have a huge opportunity to make a difference on Twitter. Keep it fresh, post content about the company, respond to customers, and engage new customers, too.
As a final thought, companies are not social businesses yet; many have just now begun to feel comfortable engaging and building communities on a variety of channels. What’s next is to really look internally to see that all departments are playing together inside instead of functioning in traditional silos.
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The vast majority of people on Twitter don’t use it the way marketers do. So, I wonder how relevant this research is to the larger customer base of these products. I feel like we are really talking about the people who are into Twitter and using it every day, which does not really reflect the majority of the user base. Still, I like having more data to look at and I will have to dig deeper into this study.
@susansilver I’ll be back to you, too, Susan…thanks for scoring a goal here being first to comment!
@susansilver The study is from 2011; it had a large response rate. There were more outcomes, but I chose these few to add in this post.
In this article, I’m not really speaking about consumers who use Twitter but companies that do. There needs to be a solid progression for companies to continue graduating to the next level of social engagement with better messages that prompt reasons why consumers should engage with a brand.
Two things I’ll call out –
1) “Why would consumers use Twitter to report and/or complain about these issues? The Twitter team can’t do anything about that but ask for an email notification so the issue can be routed to the appropriate department.”
The Twitter team is usually a heck of a lot more effective at getting an issue resolved than the actual customer service department. A friend of mine recently needed to talk the Fraud department at her bank. Guess what happened when she called the line? It hung up on her. She went to her bank branch, and the employee there got hung up on, too. Whereas with Twitter, she got results within 90 minutes.
Also, I like to see that a brand is responsive about these things (a la https://soulati.com/pittsburgh-pirates-social-media-swing-and-miss/). But as Susan remarks below, I am not the “typical” twitter user by any means.
2) May I suggest something about tip 2? You absolutely do not want to sound canned. I do schedule some tweets throughout the day, but I try not to sound canned. Which I know you know Jaymejaymejayme, but you have so many readers now who knows what people know.
3) for your consideration: https://geofflivingston.com/2013/01/07/why-email-and-search-outsell-social/ I’m thinking about this, would love your thoughts too.
@jennwhinnem I will be back later when I can think again…thanks for coming over!
@jennwhinnem Thanks, Jenn. I think the rules for Twitter are slightly adjusted for we 24/7 plugged-in leaders. Good to know that some social media teams can solve an issue, although having an internal service department be incapable of answering a phone call is ludicrous.
Scheduling of tweets is very necessary, however, for brands wanting to fill the pipeline with basic information about the company, hours, specials, etc.
I think sounding canned and scheduling tweets are different, actually. You can schedule and not be mundane.
@jennwhinnem testing; trying to isolate tech issues plaguing me; ignore please!
@jennwhinnem P.S. I just thought of a company that is always on top of things via Twitter and that’s @Livefyre. They #RockHot when it comes to Twitter response and service for issues management. I’m so impressed.
If that’s not a reason to use their comment system, then nothing is.
When the posse wakes to help with Lili i will write a bombdiggity response. Love the post. I am very opinionated on this subject as with most things lol
@HowieG Hah. Looking forward to it! How is the little lovely? Nearly 1?
@Soulati | B2B Social Media Marketing actually will be 2 in June!
Good Morning Jayme,
As you know I tweet for my employer, @ikminc, a Pittsburgh-based commercial architectural firm. Your informative post here caused me to pause and check out the recent history of our tweets as a compilation or collection. Yes, in general, I try to follow the rules of not promoting too much and trying to keep a good balance of self-promo, vs. information, vs. sharing…but I hadn’t really checked lately. I was pleasantly surprised. Seems like we do have a decent mix, even possibly erring on the side of not enough self-promotion (if that is possible).
I particularly liked your comment, “…I decided to take a look at the …Twitter stream to see if that business was functioning as a social business, a social media business, or merely monitoring and being reactionary on Twitter…”
Jayme, you and I spoke nearly 6 months ago about the architecture industry continuing to discover social media tools, and I believe that continues to grow today. One of our goals for 2013 is to improve our depth in social media; perhaps that means we will move more toward becoming a social business. Thank you for your informative insights. And based on your comments, I think I’ll get the book, too!
@pmswish I love that you took a look at your stream to see what it sounded like in hindsight! I love more that you’re satisfied with what appears there!
How are you measuring your success with your efforts? Notice I didn’t say ROI b/c I really believe it’s still elusive and organizations have to begin by measuring metrics they elect are right for their business (beyond likes, follows, RTs and plus 1).
Knowing your firm has you on board to push it into social on deeper levels is the best foot forward to becoming social businesses — where social becomes culturally infused firm-wide. Thanks for coming over…hope to see you in spring or at another conference!
OKie I am here =P
I always look at brands on twitter to see if they use it, how they use it etc. But as with Social such a small % of your customers will follow or fan you via social and of that only a small % will engage. I took issue with the
“People Are More Loyal to Socially Engaged Businesses,”
This needs to be corrected. Socially Engaged People are more Loyal with Socially Engaged Businesses. Which is very true. And I feel even if you can only get 5% of your customers to follow and 5% of them to be engaged they can be a powerful influence on your business success. Especially for a small business.
Funny enough when I do the numbers social still in my view hasn’t impacted big brands very much in terms of their bottom line. But definitely can negatively impact if they do something wrong.
The question for businesses is are they willing to invest the time for twitter and social. It is very labor intensive vs say buying TV ads. probably the most labor intensive activity outside of customer service and doing whatever they sell (product or service). Resource challenged businesses often put the money where the biggest bang faster vs say the bigger payoff down the road sadly.
@HowieG Thanks, Howie, for your insight as per usual…I have always loved your brain. No lie.
You’re so right; what we do is highly labor intensive. Trying to be the G+ poster for a client who contributes little to no content direction is trying even for me. We know what it takes for brands small and large to be ever present on Twitter — the channel that requires the most engagement (in my view).
But, when you do the numbers and see that social hasn’t impacted brands UNTIL THERE’S SOMETHING NEGATIVE, that’s why brands need to do it. Control of the message, responsiveness, and taking that first step into being a social business.
IDK, becoming a social business will require intense strategy and focus from the top down; can brands master that? Maybe big ones with the right culture; maybe mid-tier companies more nimble. It’s a fascinating time; I’m really excited about the opportunities we have to lead.