Wednesday, January 21, 2009
The hot topic in 2009 is the advancement of social media (SM) with Twitter being one of the more intriguing SM tools. Per its Web site, "Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?" However, to marketers, PR professionals, advertisers and most importantly, brands, Twitter is an invaluable tool. With all new things, though, Twitter does not come without varied opinion. Some love it, some don't see the value and a lot don't understand it.
My opinion on Twitter is this: it has the potential to be a beneficial resource for those individuals/companies to put forth the effort. It's a pretty unknown tool compared to Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn; but I think it has the potential to be a lot bigger. Why? The return is so much better than other forms of social media.
Imagine you're a small floral shop. You don't have the big budget for advertising, nor do you don't have the tools to put out a huge marketing campaign. Sure, you can put an ad in the local newspaper, you can place a coupon in the local pennysaver. But what is the return on those investments? More than likely, pretty small.
Now you have Twitter. It's a free service. The only real cost is the time you spend, or your employee(s) spend on it. Granted, that time could be used for other activities; but a quick 5 minutes on Twitter announcing "Dozen Roses $19.99" is a free form of advertising. I understand that larger companies would need to scale this approach quite drastically, but the concept is still the same. Why can't Polaris have a Twitter account? Why can't Best Buy tweet that they are having a 1-day sale?
The biggest concerns are security and control of content. However, I don't see why this should be viewed any differently than the content being placed on radio, print, etc.
There are a couple of good discussions out there regarding Twitter and social media. I'd encourage you to check them out. Social media is the new "it" in PR and advertising...jump on board!
Interesting read on social media in general - http://marketingpie.risdall.com/?p=700
Cost of social media via the MNPR blog - http://www.mnprblog.com/2009/01/cost-of-social-media.html
Happy Hunting!
My opinion on Twitter is this: it has the potential to be a beneficial resource for those individuals/companies to put forth the effort. It's a pretty unknown tool compared to Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn; but I think it has the potential to be a lot bigger. Why? The return is so much better than other forms of social media.
Imagine you're a small floral shop. You don't have the big budget for advertising, nor do you don't have the tools to put out a huge marketing campaign. Sure, you can put an ad in the local newspaper, you can place a coupon in the local pennysaver. But what is the return on those investments? More than likely, pretty small.
Now you have Twitter. It's a free service. The only real cost is the time you spend, or your employee(s) spend on it. Granted, that time could be used for other activities; but a quick 5 minutes on Twitter announcing "Dozen Roses $19.99" is a free form of advertising. I understand that larger companies would need to scale this approach quite drastically, but the concept is still the same. Why can't Polaris have a Twitter account? Why can't Best Buy tweet that they are having a 1-day sale?
The biggest concerns are security and control of content. However, I don't see why this should be viewed any differently than the content being placed on radio, print, etc.
There are a couple of good discussions out there regarding Twitter and social media. I'd encourage you to check them out. Social media is the new "it" in PR and advertising...jump on board!
Interesting read on social media in general - http://marketingpie.risdall.com/?p=700
Cost of social media via the MNPR blog - http://www.mnprblog.com/2009/01/cost-of-social-media.html
Happy Hunting!
Labels: Cost of Social Media, Social Media, Twitter
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