Violet Mae Lim

Twitter continues to be a hot topic and the social media darling. More mainstream users are joining Twitter and people are proving to be very passionate about the micro-blogging, real-time, communication platform. You know how the old saying goes: with great power comes great responsibility. 2 days ago, Twitter caused frustration, anger and even disappointment in many users.

Twitter decided to make a “small settings update”. This update meant a Twitter user would no longer see the conversations their friends are having with people whom they are not following. People went nuts. The following morning, Twitter was overwhelmed by all the feedback they got. Later that day, Twitter explained their reasoning behind the changes and assured users they were coming up with something bigger and better. They continued to get push back from Twitter users (tweeple? tweeps? twitterati? twits?) and published yet another blog post further explaining the changes and technical difficulties behind the original setting.

Whew! What a story! Now what can your business or brand learn from this?

Ask for Feedback BEFORE implementing change:
You know you’re brand is adding value, doing good and changing the world (I would hope so, anyway)… that’s why you have such a strong community around you (once again… I hope so). Asking for feedback not only will help you figure out who your most passionate users are and what they are saying but also give you a chance to actually listen to what they think about your service and see what they value about you. A reality check, if you will. These passionate users are your brand evangelists. They are the ones spreading the word about you, wearing your t-shirts and bringing you up in their everyday conversations. Listen to them.

Communicate:
After the round(s) of feedback, either thank your loyal users and let them know you appreciate them OR let them know you’ll be making some changes. Explain why you’re making the changes. Explain clearly and frequently. In Twitter’s case, they could have easily sent out public tweets, put a notice out like they do when they are planning a scheduled maintenance in addition to blogging about it. This would have eased the minds of many users.

Stick to Your Decision:
People in general, do not like change. They want what they are most used to and will probably kick and scream all the way home. There is also a mob mentality that can take place (especially with Twitter and the ease of visually seeing the top trending topics). Let’s face it. Some people just like complaining for the sake of complaining. Assuming you’ve done your research and you have a competent team behind you, you know ultimately know what works and what doesn’t work behind the scenes or on the back-end of your service.

Twitter promises something bigger and better. Those guys are smart; I trust they will implement a social discovery system that will not only reduce noise but be smoother and more efficient. Nonetheless, opening up the lines of communication would have eased the minds of many and simply put, a better experience for users. Really. The last thing you want to do is piss off your community.

Social networks come and go. Think: Friendster, Myspace, Facebook, Twitter and all the ones that have come in between or are struggling to keep up (Plurk, Pownce, Jaiku etc). As someone who uses social networks both professional and personally, it’s important to identify and understand these trends. As a brand, understanding these trends will keep you above your competition and relevant in your industry.

Social Networking Life Span:
1. Launch
2. Growth
3. Peak
4. Plateau
5. End
*Some social networks won’t ever get pass #1.

Once a social network peaks, you’ll hear about it everywhere from the mainstream media and all throughout the blogosphere. Everyone and their grandmothers will be on the site. The site will eventually become over saturated with users, companies, brands and ultimately, spam. Additionally, there will be other social networking sites that are able to fill the
needs/wants/desires of users and grow with the user base (I hope to revisit this topic at another time).

As a marketer, It’s during #2 (growth) and #3 (peak) where it is most beneficial to join the site. Build your reputation, “social capital” and community while the social networking site is growing. Thrive during stage #3 as more users join the social network. All the while, keeping your ears and eyes open for the next, up-and-coming social network. As the first social network starts to plateau, utilize the second social network. As previously mentioned, when a social network plateaus, it is infiltrated with spam, glittery icons and too much music (think: MySpace). You (of course) are not spamming your community, but they are getting spam from elsewhere in the social network–perhaps your competitor who hasn’t a clue how to effectively or strategically use it.

What’s important to remember: if your messages and interactions are in the company of spam and junk, you are no longer relevant. Your community gets bored and your messages are drowned out. Marketing is an arms race. You have to understand how your communities want to receive, see, “hear” and consume your message and use the appropriate technologies to implement your strategies. At the same time, marketers also need to be aware of the life spans or social networks while keeping an eye and ear open for the next up and coming sites. Doing so keeps you relevant as a brand and ensures your engagement and interaction with your customers, consumers and communities are maximized.

There’s so much buzz around the term “social media” lately. People seem to be obsessed with social media, Facebook fans, Twitter followers and the “killing” of traditional media. People and brands have become obsessed with adopting social media as their sole marketing strategy. Unfortunately, people presume social media = solely the newest social network (ie: Twitter). What they sometimes don’t always know is that there is so much more to social media.

Social media is an essential part of marketing, but social media has many parts. Social networks are a small part of social media. As a brand, you ought to be learning and adopting social media into your marketing/communications/community outreach plan. Keep up with all the evolving web strategies but weave them into your traditional marketing/PR strategies when appropriate. Know how you can tie your social web presence together to effectively communicate with your online community. Make you sure you understand how social media also ties into customer service, SEM, SEO, content creation and even basic web development (amongst many other things). Simply starting a blog on WordPress.com will not be effective if the bigger picture isn’t considered. Starting a Twitter account and following everyone you think might be interested in your new product and calling that your “new media campaign” won’t cut it either.

Having an understanding of social media really is will enable you to set your goals and achieve results. Social media is a multi-faceted approach to B2C communications. If you know this and understand how your customers prefer to communicate with you, you’ll do great on the social web. Lastly, if you don’t have someone who is knowledgeable in social media or digital strategy, please hire someone. And by someone, I don’t mean a summer intern to tweet on your behalf or upload videos to your YouTube account.

There are two kinds of people on Twitter: those who use it as a platform for status updates and those who see the “hidden culture” behind Twitter. Those who use it as a channel for status updates will Twitter about their morning coffee or going to the mall. Those who understand the culture of Twitter do much more- engage, share, network and solidify their online relationships with offline meetings. It should be noted that at this point, surveys have shown that most people on Twitter are early-adopters or tech-savvy. Though we keep hearing about Twitter in mainstream publications, it is not nearly as popular as other social networking sites like Facebook or even Myspace.

Most of the people I know are very intelligent and educated but they are not early-adopters of technology or social networks by any means. Whenever Twitter enters a conversation, the most common question I hear is, “wait… so Twitter is just status updates like Facebook and that’s it right?”

Based on all these conversations and observing the intersection of the mainstream users and the early adopters on Twitter, I am starting to wonder whether or not Twitter will bring enough value or content to the everyday user. Status updates (a la Facebook) and news feeds from mainstream channels like CNN can be interesting but are they enough to sustain an entire social network? Are these basic uses enough to monetize? Will mainstream users adopt the Twitter culture? My gut reaction says the everyday, average user will answer Twitter’s prompt “what are you doing”, very literally. And that the only thing that will keep Twitter running is the sheer fact that Facebook will eventually jump the shark and people will want a new social network to play on.

However, I’ve been wrong before, though that has never stopped me from musing.