Words like twitter, tweet and follower become more and more integrated in our language. The word ‘twitteren’ was even chosen as the word of 2009 in the Netherlands. Tweets appear in newspapers, and twitter is used for politics and marketing too. However, twitter is not often used for marketing. Research shows that only forty-two companies of the ‘big’ companies in the Netherlands make use of twitter. Why does only the minority of the companies use twitter, while Twitter is still growing?
They do, or they don’t
One reason companies do not use twitter, is that a lot of companies are researching what their opportunities are with this new media. They want to use twitter in a right and appropriate way.
Some companies already know what the desires of the customers are. Marketing is about fulfilling the customer desires. If there is a desire of customers to find answers or information on twitter, the company will provide these online.
First of all, despite of the fact companies have a twitter account or not, people are talking about their brand. It is a good idea to create a twitter account, to prevent abuse of your brand name. Twitter is a free ‘country’ and you do not have to identify to create an account.
Furthermore, it is important for businesses to be online. They will know when positive or negative information will appear online and they can try to control this information. In the case of negative information they can’t prevent this, but can limit damage by taking action. Twitter is the perfect place to start a discussion about your brand or product.
Good twitter use
Compared to other (social) media, twitter is free and easy to use. The minority of the businesses has realised that it is important to be online. UPC started a webcare team in 2006 who is responsible for twitter and other social media. If customers are online, UPC will be online too. Twitter is used for answering questions and arranging complaints. The customers accept the presence of UPC on twitter, because they give personal and fast answers. ING uses twitter for daily problems and questions too, but for ING is twitter the biggest communication channel of the webcare team. Research of this team showed their target group can be found on twitter. De Postcode Loterij (Dutch Lottery, where you can win large amounts of money) uses twitter to answer questions, but also to communicate with lottery winners. When the winner of the ‘kanjer’ (a lot of money) is announced, the ‘postcode loterij’ gets more followers every moment.
Remarkable is the fact that these companies use Twitter next to their normal marketing program, instead for commercial activities. That there will be a lot of unexplored opportunities for twitter, will be clear now. Companies should continue researching their chances and keep looking for new possibilities. Some people say twitter is temporary, while others learn more and more about this new media and call themselves twitter experts. We do not know what the future will bring us, but for now I will use twitter and should recommend businesses to do this too.
Source: Tijdschrift voor marketing
woensdag 19 mei 2010
maandag 17 mei 2010
Haul Queens
Okay if you have read any of my blogs, you know about all the possibilities of the Internet. I have talked a lot about internet and companies, but last Saturday I read an interesting article about a haul on YouTube. A what? A haul on YouTube, you haven’t heard of it?
Showing your purchases
Telling about your newest purchases and showing this to the whole world by placing the movie on YouTube. Especially young girls really use this possibility by showing their new clothes and make up, as if they are telling about it to a friend. Other girls tell about their experiences with certain products. These girls started their own YouTube channel and tried to get as much followers and views as possible. When I read about these new trend I could not imagine it was a big deal. Some of these girls have more than a million views of one video and thousands of followers.
Marketing?
Make up and clothes companies must have noticed these development. When we are talking about a lot of numbers, they are starting to think of marketing strategies. A few girls receive free products to experiment and of course tell about it online. You still think you would not want to be a haul queen? I can tell you about two sisters from America. Blair and Elle Fowler started their own YouTube channel for fun are now called Haul Queens and have their own agent. They really have an influence on potential shoppers. After they have praised a Guess watch, the website of Guess was crashed. A perfect combination of shopping and technology. Something that according to psychologist are features of the generation Y (born somewhere between 1970 and 2000).
Dark side
Unfortunately some companies offers these girls money for a positive review on YouTube. This damages the sincerity and honesty, but it is hard to control what’s true. Offering girls free clothes is questionable too. What started as a fun idea, has became a new marketing tool.
I am wondering why these videos are often viewed. Teenage girls telling other girls about new clothes and make up. It seems a bit superficial… Although, a lot of people nowadays write or tell about what they like. Blogs and movies about strange hobbies can be found all over het internet. Why wouldn’t these girls tell us about what they like? Maybe I have to start a YouTube channel, I might earn some money ;-) What do you think?
Showing your purchases
Telling about your newest purchases and showing this to the whole world by placing the movie on YouTube. Especially young girls really use this possibility by showing their new clothes and make up, as if they are telling about it to a friend. Other girls tell about their experiences with certain products. These girls started their own YouTube channel and tried to get as much followers and views as possible. When I read about these new trend I could not imagine it was a big deal. Some of these girls have more than a million views of one video and thousands of followers.
Marketing?
Make up and clothes companies must have noticed these development. When we are talking about a lot of numbers, they are starting to think of marketing strategies. A few girls receive free products to experiment and of course tell about it online. You still think you would not want to be a haul queen? I can tell you about two sisters from America. Blair and Elle Fowler started their own YouTube channel for fun are now called Haul Queens and have their own agent. They really have an influence on potential shoppers. After they have praised a Guess watch, the website of Guess was crashed. A perfect combination of shopping and technology. Something that according to psychologist are features of the generation Y (born somewhere between 1970 and 2000).
Dark side
Unfortunately some companies offers these girls money for a positive review on YouTube. This damages the sincerity and honesty, but it is hard to control what’s true. Offering girls free clothes is questionable too. What started as a fun idea, has became a new marketing tool.
I am wondering why these videos are often viewed. Teenage girls telling other girls about new clothes and make up. It seems a bit superficial… Although, a lot of people nowadays write or tell about what they like. Blogs and movies about strange hobbies can be found all over het internet. Why wouldn’t these girls tell us about what they like? Maybe I have to start a YouTube channel, I might earn some money ;-) What do you think?
donderdag 13 mei 2010
Save people, use social media
Twitter and other social network sites are used for a lot of different reasons. Sharing interesting thoughts or just using it to tell your friends what you had eaten yesterday. A few days ago I read an interesting article where twitter was used for more serious reasons. Using twitter to offer help in times of a disaster.
Testimony
Ory Okolloh invented Ushahidi, which means ‘testimony’ in Swahili. Ushahidi is a new technology which collects the information about the consequences of a disaster, given by regular people, and visualizes this information into a geographical map. Everyone who owns a mobile cell phone, an e-mail address or has access to internet can contribute information.
Purpose
First, it was used after the post-election fallout in Kenia to report violence. Because it was used by many people, they decided there was a need for a platform that could be used by people all over the world. Nowadays, their goal is ‘creating a platform that any person or organization can use to set up their own way to collect and visualize information’.
Haiti
After the earthquake in Haiti thousands of messages were send to provide information about the situation or where injured people could be found. During this disaster most information was send by mobile cell phone, while little people have access to the internet. After the messages were checked to be true, they were integrated in the geographical map. Hulporganisaties could use this information to work efficiently and are really enthusiastic about Ushahidi.
I have talked about a changing internet world and this is another example of the power of social media and the community. Ushahidi gives people the possibility to contribute during a disaster and makes it easier to offer help to victims. It is an example of crowd sourcing. Let the people participate and together they can create something. Maybe social media is not that bad after all…
Testimony
Ory Okolloh invented Ushahidi, which means ‘testimony’ in Swahili. Ushahidi is a new technology which collects the information about the consequences of a disaster, given by regular people, and visualizes this information into a geographical map. Everyone who owns a mobile cell phone, an e-mail address or has access to internet can contribute information.
Purpose
First, it was used after the post-election fallout in Kenia to report violence. Because it was used by many people, they decided there was a need for a platform that could be used by people all over the world. Nowadays, their goal is ‘creating a platform that any person or organization can use to set up their own way to collect and visualize information’.
Haiti
After the earthquake in Haiti thousands of messages were send to provide information about the situation or where injured people could be found. During this disaster most information was send by mobile cell phone, while little people have access to the internet. After the messages were checked to be true, they were integrated in the geographical map. Hulporganisaties could use this information to work efficiently and are really enthusiastic about Ushahidi.
I have talked about a changing internet world and this is another example of the power of social media and the community. Ushahidi gives people the possibility to contribute during a disaster and makes it easier to offer help to victims. It is an example of crowd sourcing. Let the people participate and together they can create something. Maybe social media is not that bad after all…
maandag 10 mei 2010
Sharing your opinion
Internet can be used to do a lot of different things. Playing online games (I told about this in one of my previous blogs), sending e-mails and sharing information and opinions. Sharing your opinion is a big part of the internet. There are a lot of ways to do this. You can use the old fashioned forum, add information to a Wikipedia site, use social network sites like twitter and facebook to give your opinion or express your opinion about an online article on the website. Unfortunately not all websites offer the possibility to express your opinion. When something is missing, some new tool will be invented, namely: Google Sidewiki.
What’s Google Sidewiki?
Google sidewiki is part of the Google tool bar, which can be downloaded on www.google.com/sidewiki . If you have downloaded the tool bar, a panel will appear on the left side of the website you are visiting. You can click on the link ‘Read this article’ (Artikelen lezen). Then a list with reactions of website visitors is shown.
Possibilities
To use this tool you must have a Google-account. This gives you the opportunity to read the reactions of visitors, or indicate your appreciation to the given comment too. Experience of other users of Google Wiki show that it takes a while before your comment will appear.
An advantage, which is a disadvantage too, is the absence of a moderator. Normally on a website or forum there is one person responsible to check the comments to prevent inappropriate reactions to appear. The possibility to use sidewiki takes a risk for website (shop) owners. Negative publicity can easily be added and can have a negative influence on your website (shop). Google knows this problem too and has add the option ‘misbruik melden’ (report abuse) to the tool bar. To read comments written in different languages an option on the google tool bar can be selected. Of course there is a possibility to share your comment by e-mail, facebook or via twitter.
I am really curious how many people will use this tool. Will it only be used by critical readers, who like to express their opinion? Or will it be used by the majority of the website visitors? We will have to wait and see…
What’s Google Sidewiki?
Google sidewiki is part of the Google tool bar, which can be downloaded on www.google.com/sidewiki . If you have downloaded the tool bar, a panel will appear on the left side of the website you are visiting. You can click on the link ‘Read this article’ (Artikelen lezen). Then a list with reactions of website visitors is shown.
Possibilities
To use this tool you must have a Google-account. This gives you the opportunity to read the reactions of visitors, or indicate your appreciation to the given comment too. Experience of other users of Google Wiki show that it takes a while before your comment will appear.
An advantage, which is a disadvantage too, is the absence of a moderator. Normally on a website or forum there is one person responsible to check the comments to prevent inappropriate reactions to appear. The possibility to use sidewiki takes a risk for website (shop) owners. Negative publicity can easily be added and can have a negative influence on your website (shop). Google knows this problem too and has add the option ‘misbruik melden’ (report abuse) to the tool bar. To read comments written in different languages an option on the google tool bar can be selected. Of course there is a possibility to share your comment by e-mail, facebook or via twitter.
I am really curious how many people will use this tool. Will it only be used by critical readers, who like to express their opinion? Or will it be used by the majority of the website visitors? We will have to wait and see…
woensdag 5 mei 2010
Personalized advertising
I already wrote a blog about online relationships with your customer. This blog will illustrate one way of maintaining the relationship with your customer, by using e-mail marketing.
What is e-mail marketing?
E-mail marketing is sending e-mail newsletters to your customers. Companies can inform their customers about the latest news, tell them about special sales actions and try to sell more products. Customers can sign in for this newsletter and can make their own choice which newsletter they will receive.
Personalized marketing
According to the results of the National E-mail marketing Research 2010 (Nationaal E-mailmarketing Onderzoek 2010) only 55% send personalized e-mails to their customers. Every day we receive a lot of brochures about clothes, shoes and other products. Trough this overload we do not read all these brochures. Wouldn’t it be much better if we could receive personal offers? By using e-mail for promoting we could specify the offers for the consumers. Personalized e-mails are the keyword.
Personal and personal
Before I continue I have to explain that there are two different meanings of personalized in the marketing world. First of all, personalized can mean that you add the name of your customer to your newsletter: ‘Hi Piet! We have a nice offer for you’. The other meaning of ‘personalized’ is categorizing your customers on different characteristics. Differentiate for example between new and old customers, but more categorizations can be made. Therefore, the newsletter will be personal and relevant. Someone who has bought a laptop a few weeks ago will not receive another offer for a laptop and old customers can receive extra sales.
More personal communication, special offers which are relevant for you for at a low-cost price. Furthermore, you can measure the effect of e-mail newsletters. Did people open the e-mail and clicked in the e-mail to go to the website? All of this can be registered and the communication can be more specific and effective.
You will ask yourself, why is there 45% who does not use personalized newsletters? Personal newsletters can be a privacy matter. It is possible customers do not want to receive special offers, because they do not want the company to store data of them. Therefore, customers have to sign in themselves for a newsletter. Furthermore, I like to receive a paper brochure of the offers of Albert Heijn. Some things never change…
More information on: http://www.frankwatching.com/archive/2010/05/04/onderzoek-e-mailmarketing-in-retail-kan-veel-persoonlijker/
What is e-mail marketing?
E-mail marketing is sending e-mail newsletters to your customers. Companies can inform their customers about the latest news, tell them about special sales actions and try to sell more products. Customers can sign in for this newsletter and can make their own choice which newsletter they will receive.
Personalized marketing
According to the results of the National E-mail marketing Research 2010 (Nationaal E-mailmarketing Onderzoek 2010) only 55% send personalized e-mails to their customers. Every day we receive a lot of brochures about clothes, shoes and other products. Trough this overload we do not read all these brochures. Wouldn’t it be much better if we could receive personal offers? By using e-mail for promoting we could specify the offers for the consumers. Personalized e-mails are the keyword.
Personal and personal
Before I continue I have to explain that there are two different meanings of personalized in the marketing world. First of all, personalized can mean that you add the name of your customer to your newsletter: ‘Hi Piet! We have a nice offer for you’. The other meaning of ‘personalized’ is categorizing your customers on different characteristics. Differentiate for example between new and old customers, but more categorizations can be made. Therefore, the newsletter will be personal and relevant. Someone who has bought a laptop a few weeks ago will not receive another offer for a laptop and old customers can receive extra sales.
More personal communication, special offers which are relevant for you for at a low-cost price. Furthermore, you can measure the effect of e-mail newsletters. Did people open the e-mail and clicked in the e-mail to go to the website? All of this can be registered and the communication can be more specific and effective.
You will ask yourself, why is there 45% who does not use personalized newsletters? Personal newsletters can be a privacy matter. It is possible customers do not want to receive special offers, because they do not want the company to store data of them. Therefore, customers have to sign in themselves for a newsletter. Furthermore, I like to receive a paper brochure of the offers of Albert Heijn. Some things never change…
More information on: http://www.frankwatching.com/archive/2010/05/04/onderzoek-e-mailmarketing-in-retail-kan-veel-persoonlijker/
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