Do you get social media? 10 brands on Twitter
Some people still don't get the idea behind social media.
Unfortunately for those that don't, it's very obvious to those that do.
Now, if you're an individual setting up your first Twitter account and dipping your foot in the boiling pot that is social media this should go relatively unnoticed.
However, if you're a global brand with thousands of followers simply off the back of your brand name, you need to be a little more careful.
What follows is a number of examples I've found of well known brands and their use of Twitter.
Habitat
Habitat have recently hit the news with a massive Twitter fail. Habitat, or an agency employed on their behalf, decided to use trending hashtags to promote their tweets to the Twitter audience.
Not only is this a terribly lazy piece of marketing, not to say unethical, but to make matter worse one of the hashtags was the #Mousavi tag. The tag at the time was being used to publicise information relating to the recent Iran election and the associated rumours of fixing.
Habitat are working to build bridges with their followers as they hope to recover from the mistake.
I personally hope they manage to learn from the mistake and go on to use Twitter to everyone's benefit. I've always had good experiences with Habitat from a product perspective and customer services, not so long ago tweeting about such an experience with the store in Manchester.
Adidas
Adidas have seemingly embraced social media in cross brand hug. There a numerous Adidas Twitter accounts including Adidas Football(actually Adidas Soccer, but being a brit . . .), Adidas Running and the unused Adidas Originals.
Visit the brands main website and links to other social media platforms such as Facebook are on the home page.
Adidas seem to have a mixed bag approach to Twitter, which can sometimes be excused in large global companies, but for something as relationship based as Twitter I would hope they'd have a global approach.
Adidas Running is an active account, providing followers with updates on internal news, but also participating in the Twitter community. With retweets of relevant links and conversational tweets to followers. A good example of a brand using Twitter.
Compare this to the Adidas Football account that is all branded up and with 1,222 followers (at the time of writing) but with no updates and you'll understand my concern about Adidas not adopting a global approach to social media.
FairTrade
FairTrade is a brand that I rely on for a number of their fair trade products.
They've been using Twitter in a similar vein to Adidas Running, with a mixture of product and news updates, related links and consumer engagement via conversations with followers.
FairtradeUK feels a lot more personal than the Adidas feed though and it's interesting to see them using a number of different products to tweet from. Amongst their last tweets are a selection for TweetDeck, TwitterFox and the Web interface.
This made me feel that it was more personable, travelling with whoever holds the role of chief tweeter at FairtradeUK rather than just an office based task. Something that I'd expect from a brand that stands for community and fair deals for all.
However, having only had the account since late November 2008 and only managing 89 updates during that period, it's still early days for the brand.
Sony PlayStation
Sony, like Adidas, seemed to have dived right into the social media mixing pot and have several official Twitter accounts running.
With accounts for Sony Pictures, Sony PlayStation and their Sony Ericsson Development Team to name just a few.
Sony seems the perfect brand to engage via social media, a young switched on, tech savvy community that will need no prompting to encourage online engagement.
With over 48,500 followers that certainly seems the case, far more than most of the other brands covered on here, with only Liverpool FC coming close. But if you look down their stream you'll struggle to find any @replies.
They do however participate in Twitter community trends such as the #followfriday trend, illustrating a good understanding of what folks do on Twitter.
Vans
Vans make some of my favourite footwear. I've been buying Vans ever since I was a long haired skater in my teens and still own several pairs of Vans today.
With their skate/surf following they are an ideal brand to engage their young customer base via the likes of social media.
Engage they do, Nikki S at Vans does a great job of getting down and chatting to all of their followers.
With over 2,600 updates their not being reserved about what they tweet about. They really get into the spirit of talking to their customer base with mostly @replies to followers.
Mixed in with new shoe release news and other relevant articles you get a real personal feel from the Vans use of Twitter. Hats off to Vans!
Liverpool FC
A team and a brand very close to my heart.
Liverpool FC have started using Twitter and Facebook to engage with the global following only recently.
It's an ideal use of the social media application, allowing to feel like you're following the team on the travels around the world.
With the addition of the odd photo from mobile devices and personal touches from the staff, it's a great example of a brand embracing social media. Granting fans insight to a previously unseen back room view of the team.
With a global following of avid fans, Twitter gives the team at Anfield the perfect interface to engage with followers.
Microsoft
I was pleasantly surprised by Microsoft's use of Twitter. I've had many dealing with Microsoft over the years during my time as a network/IT manager and not all of them savoury and I don't think any of them were personal.
Yet when I visited the Microsoft Twitter stream it was personal. There was a good mix of news promotion mixed with several @ replies.
While they only seem to have been using Twitter on a consolidated global basis for a relatively short period of time (2nd July 2009 from what I can establish), they seem to be embracing the personal nature of the medium and have even had the time to say hello to fellow OS producer Linux
Microsoft's team are obviously elsewhere on Twitter representing various departments, I've talked numerous times with Mel Carson and also follow Microsoft's Ad Team, but this is their first go at a consolidated presence I believe.
Let's hope Microsoft continue to keep it personal.
Ford
I couldn't write a post on global brands using social media without mentioning Ford.
Ford, driven by their head of social media (yes, that's right, they have a head of social media) Scott Monty, have for many epitomised the adoption of social media by a large brand.
Using the tool for what it was designed for, developing relationships through personal conversation, Ford have been a leading light for all to follow in the adoption of social media.
Many have talked about Ford's adoption of social media and I'm sure the media attention they've drawn through this has more than justified the strong position.
If you want to see how to use social media with a global brand, you could do far worse than use Ford as an excellent example.
Virgin Atlantic
Virgin Atlantic, the cool Trans-Atlantic airline brand have recently got themselves up and running with a Twitter account and seem to be doing an okay job.
Thankfully, unlike too many of the others above, they've followed most of their followers back. This is something I'll talk about at the end, but congratulate Virgin Atlantic on this move.
They've been using Twitter since March 2009 and adopted a relatively personal approach with the tweets, which is nice and in keeping with how I perceive their brand. Using brand strap line's such as the "hello gorgeous" throughout there tweets to further strengthen brand association with other campaigns.
I'm liking Virgin Atlantic's pitch on Twitter, they just need make sure they get the details right after I spotted a photo wrongly labelled in one of their tweets.
P.S. This typo has now been rectified, so hats off to Virgin Atlantic for listening to their stream.
The North Face
With my interests in the world of outdoor extreme sports, I thought I'd hunt down a related brand that we all know, The North Face was the first that sprung to mind that I thought everyone would know.
Having originally registered the account way back in October 2007, they didn't really start using the account significantly till February 2009.
At which point they seemed to have taken to a nice mix of personal replies and brand promotion through the feed.
Unfortunately since May there have been very few, if any, replies what so ever and the whole stream seems to have gone to a simple broadcast channel.
After having the insight to sign up to Twitter all those years ago, I hope The North Face have the planning in place to return the feed to a more personal feed, addressing the needs of the customers on a one to one basis.
One observation through out this quick study was the number of brands that don't follow their followers back.
Form my personal perspective I felt a little disappointed by this. Whilst I fully understand a global brand such as Sony PlayStation would have many followers (Sony PlayStation at the time of writing has 48,446) and managing all of those would be a bit of a nightmare, using tools such as TweetDeck groups could alleviate this issue.
Following your followers back I think is an essential part of social media. Sure you don't need to follow everyone back (I've stopped following those that promise $10,000 overnight) but most of your followers are going to want to feel part of your special community.
It's interesting to note how many of these accounts have only really taken off with the rapid growth in Twitter this year.
The other interesting factor I noticed was the variety of tools that some of the brands used to communicate on Twitter.
If you're genuinely engaging with your community all of the time, you'll struggle to use just one tool. Some of the more developed Twitter identities, such as Vans, were using HootSuite which I can only imagine is to allow them to gauge success.
All in all, it was an interesting post to research and pretty much all of the brands above were giving true social media engagement a go. Sure some had made mistakes, but that's inevitable I feel in a market that is so new. Fair play to those that have managed pick themselves up rather than hiding by stopping the account.
If you know of any brands you think are doing a great job on Twitter, I'd love to hear about them.
Interesting related links:
Sportsonomics - Adidas Hose Party http://sportsonomics.blogspot.com/2009/04/adidas-house-party.html
Amy Mengel - Social media smackdown - Mountain Hardware vs The North Face http://www.amymengel.com/2009/04/13/social-media-smackdown-mountain-hardwear-vs-the-north-face/
Related reading:
Why bother with social media? - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/06/why-bother-with-social-media.html
Twitter to Friendfeed migartion - How far will it go? - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/05/twitter-to-friendfeed-migartion-how-far.html
What is the cost of social media? - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/04/what-is-cost-of-social-media.html
Hashtags - Communicating via Twitter . . Faster - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/03/hashtags-communicating-via-twitter.html
Unfortunately for those that don't, it's very obvious to those that do.
Now, if you're an individual setting up your first Twitter account and dipping your foot in the boiling pot that is social media this should go relatively unnoticed.
However, if you're a global brand with thousands of followers simply off the back of your brand name, you need to be a little more careful.
What follows is a number of examples I've found of well known brands and their use of Twitter.
HabitatHabitat have recently hit the news with a massive Twitter fail. Habitat, or an agency employed on their behalf, decided to use trending hashtags to promote their tweets to the Twitter audience.
Not only is this a terribly lazy piece of marketing, not to say unethical, but to make matter worse one of the hashtags was the #Mousavi tag. The tag at the time was being used to publicise information relating to the recent Iran election and the associated rumours of fixing.
Habitat are working to build bridges with their followers as they hope to recover from the mistake.
I personally hope they manage to learn from the mistake and go on to use Twitter to everyone's benefit. I've always had good experiences with Habitat from a product perspective and customer services, not so long ago tweeting about such an experience with the store in Manchester.
AdidasAdidas have seemingly embraced social media in cross brand hug. There a numerous Adidas Twitter accounts including Adidas Football(actually Adidas Soccer, but being a brit . . .), Adidas Running and the unused Adidas Originals.
Visit the brands main website and links to other social media platforms such as Facebook are on the home page.
Adidas seem to have a mixed bag approach to Twitter, which can sometimes be excused in large global companies, but for something as relationship based as Twitter I would hope they'd have a global approach.
Adidas Running is an active account, providing followers with updates on internal news, but also participating in the Twitter community. With retweets of relevant links and conversational tweets to followers. A good example of a brand using Twitter.
Compare this to the Adidas Football account that is all branded up and with 1,222 followers (at the time of writing) but with no updates and you'll understand my concern about Adidas not adopting a global approach to social media.
FairTradeFairTrade is a brand that I rely on for a number of their fair trade products.
They've been using Twitter in a similar vein to Adidas Running, with a mixture of product and news updates, related links and consumer engagement via conversations with followers.
FairtradeUK feels a lot more personal than the Adidas feed though and it's interesting to see them using a number of different products to tweet from. Amongst their last tweets are a selection for TweetDeck, TwitterFox and the Web interface.
This made me feel that it was more personable, travelling with whoever holds the role of chief tweeter at FairtradeUK rather than just an office based task. Something that I'd expect from a brand that stands for community and fair deals for all.
However, having only had the account since late November 2008 and only managing 89 updates during that period, it's still early days for the brand.
Sony PlayStationSony, like Adidas, seemed to have dived right into the social media mixing pot and have several official Twitter accounts running.
With accounts for Sony Pictures, Sony PlayStation and their Sony Ericsson Development Team to name just a few.
Sony seems the perfect brand to engage via social media, a young switched on, tech savvy community that will need no prompting to encourage online engagement.
With over 48,500 followers that certainly seems the case, far more than most of the other brands covered on here, with only Liverpool FC coming close. But if you look down their stream you'll struggle to find any @replies.
They do however participate in Twitter community trends such as the #followfriday trend, illustrating a good understanding of what folks do on Twitter.
VansVans make some of my favourite footwear. I've been buying Vans ever since I was a long haired skater in my teens and still own several pairs of Vans today.
With their skate/surf following they are an ideal brand to engage their young customer base via the likes of social media.
Engage they do, Nikki S at Vans does a great job of getting down and chatting to all of their followers.
With over 2,600 updates their not being reserved about what they tweet about. They really get into the spirit of talking to their customer base with mostly @replies to followers.
Mixed in with new shoe release news and other relevant articles you get a real personal feel from the Vans use of Twitter. Hats off to Vans!
Liverpool FC A team and a brand very close to my heart.
Liverpool FC have started using Twitter and Facebook to engage with the global following only recently.
It's an ideal use of the social media application, allowing to feel like you're following the team on the travels around the world.
With the addition of the odd photo from mobile devices and personal touches from the staff, it's a great example of a brand embracing social media. Granting fans insight to a previously unseen back room view of the team.
With a global following of avid fans, Twitter gives the team at Anfield the perfect interface to engage with followers.
MicrosoftI was pleasantly surprised by Microsoft's use of Twitter. I've had many dealing with Microsoft over the years during my time as a network/IT manager and not all of them savoury and I don't think any of them were personal.
Yet when I visited the Microsoft Twitter stream it was personal. There was a good mix of news promotion mixed with several @ replies.
While they only seem to have been using Twitter on a consolidated global basis for a relatively short period of time (2nd July 2009 from what I can establish), they seem to be embracing the personal nature of the medium and have even had the time to say hello to fellow OS producer Linux
Microsoft's team are obviously elsewhere on Twitter representing various departments, I've talked numerous times with Mel Carson and also follow Microsoft's Ad Team, but this is their first go at a consolidated presence I believe.
Let's hope Microsoft continue to keep it personal.
FordI couldn't write a post on global brands using social media without mentioning Ford.
Ford, driven by their head of social media (yes, that's right, they have a head of social media) Scott Monty, have for many epitomised the adoption of social media by a large brand.
Using the tool for what it was designed for, developing relationships through personal conversation, Ford have been a leading light for all to follow in the adoption of social media.
Many have talked about Ford's adoption of social media and I'm sure the media attention they've drawn through this has more than justified the strong position.
If you want to see how to use social media with a global brand, you could do far worse than use Ford as an excellent example.
Virgin AtlanticVirgin Atlantic, the cool Trans-Atlantic airline brand have recently got themselves up and running with a Twitter account and seem to be doing an okay job.
Thankfully, unlike too many of the others above, they've followed most of their followers back. This is something I'll talk about at the end, but congratulate Virgin Atlantic on this move.
They've been using Twitter since March 2009 and adopted a relatively personal approach with the tweets, which is nice and in keeping with how I perceive their brand. Using brand strap line's such as the "hello gorgeous" throughout there tweets to further strengthen brand association with other campaigns.
I'm liking Virgin Atlantic's pitch on Twitter, they just need make sure they get the details right after I spotted a photo wrongly labelled in one of their tweets.
P.S. This typo has now been rectified, so hats off to Virgin Atlantic for listening to their stream.
The North FaceWith my interests in the world of outdoor extreme sports, I thought I'd hunt down a related brand that we all know, The North Face was the first that sprung to mind that I thought everyone would know.
Having originally registered the account way back in October 2007, they didn't really start using the account significantly till February 2009.
At which point they seemed to have taken to a nice mix of personal replies and brand promotion through the feed.
Unfortunately since May there have been very few, if any, replies what so ever and the whole stream seems to have gone to a simple broadcast channel.
After having the insight to sign up to Twitter all those years ago, I hope The North Face have the planning in place to return the feed to a more personal feed, addressing the needs of the customers on a one to one basis.
One observation through out this quick study was the number of brands that don't follow their followers back.
Form my personal perspective I felt a little disappointed by this. Whilst I fully understand a global brand such as Sony PlayStation would have many followers (Sony PlayStation at the time of writing has 48,446) and managing all of those would be a bit of a nightmare, using tools such as TweetDeck groups could alleviate this issue.
Following your followers back I think is an essential part of social media. Sure you don't need to follow everyone back (I've stopped following those that promise $10,000 overnight) but most of your followers are going to want to feel part of your special community.
It's interesting to note how many of these accounts have only really taken off with the rapid growth in Twitter this year.
The other interesting factor I noticed was the variety of tools that some of the brands used to communicate on Twitter.
If you're genuinely engaging with your community all of the time, you'll struggle to use just one tool. Some of the more developed Twitter identities, such as Vans, were using HootSuite which I can only imagine is to allow them to gauge success.
All in all, it was an interesting post to research and pretty much all of the brands above were giving true social media engagement a go. Sure some had made mistakes, but that's inevitable I feel in a market that is so new. Fair play to those that have managed pick themselves up rather than hiding by stopping the account.
If you know of any brands you think are doing a great job on Twitter, I'd love to hear about them.
Interesting related links:
Sportsonomics - Adidas Hose Party http://sportsonomics.blogspot.com/2009/04/adidas-house-party.html
Amy Mengel - Social media smackdown - Mountain Hardware vs The North Face http://www.amymengel.com/2009/04/13/social-media-smackdown-mountain-hardwear-vs-the-north-face/
Related reading:
Why bother with social media? - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/06/why-bother-with-social-media.html
Twitter to Friendfeed migartion - How far will it go? - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/05/twitter-to-friendfeed-migartion-how-far.html
What is the cost of social media? - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/04/what-is-cost-of-social-media.html
Hashtags - Communicating via Twitter . . Faster - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/03/hashtags-communicating-via-twitter.html
Labels: brand awareness, brand engagement, social media, social media marketing, Twitter
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posted by Ed Richardson at
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