As we’ve mentioned in previous posts, 2009 is the year of Twitter. Not only has this three-year-old microblogging service caught on with the mainstream consumer, but it has also captured the attention of businesses. With its short format messaging and one-to-many communication abilities, Twitter enables businesses to communicate with customers and to share their story like never before.
Catchfire Media has been using Twitter since our business launched, continually updating our audience with social media resources and statistics, our latest blog posts, and events we are attending. We also use it to communicate with clients, prospects, and other professionals. By tracking our audience, the actions they take, and those that interact with us, we can determine the effectiveness of our company’s efforts on Twitter.
Corporate accounts are coming to Twitter, soon
The notion that Twitter will be offering corporate accounts with paid access to additional features is nothing new, but this now profitable company is getting closer. Last week screenshots circulated of one of Twitter’s first experimental features for businesses, called “Contributors.”
Contributors is the beginning of changes for businesses
Contributors takes a page from CoTweet, a service provider for the business Twittersphere, that allows companies to more effectively manage their Twitter accounts. One of the innovations from CoTweet, among many, was adding the ability to auto-tag outbound messages with a signature, or CoTag, from the person sending the message. You can see examples of these CoTags from Catchfire’s Twitter account below:
The new Contributors feature, built specifically for businesses, adds this method of signing tweets directly into the core functionality of Twitter. Instead of taking up characters in your tweet, the author’s name and account are linked directly below the tweet, alongside the other meta data.
While this seems like a minor feature, it’s an indication that Twitter is thinking about how to improve the system for businesses—as business users will be the paying customers.
Evaluate your system before changing gears
If you are using a tool like CoTweet to manage your business’ presence on Twitter, don’t worry about having to change your process right now. Twitter will likely continue to test and roll out additional features for the business audience, but you should evaluate the value they hold for your business before changing your own system.
As CoTweet discussed in a blog post, there will always be room for third-parties to provide additional functionality and value-added services. It is the business user’s responsibility (or that of their strategic partner, like us) to determine which tools make the most sense.
What features would Twitter need to add before you paid for a business account?
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
One of the first things I observed when I signed up for Twitter were relationships being built between the average person (consumers) and businesses. Especially local businesses in the Des Moines metro area. I have witnessed the businesses who effectively engage in the Twitter community by listening, sharing, retweeting and linking out have built a curiosity about their business and services. That curiosity grows as people ask questions, and if the business is freely open to the Twitter exchange, a willingness to do business with that company develops. Loyality being developed right on Twitter for FREE.
So why would a business pay for a paid Twitter corporate account? I would have to see the true value in it before i would invest in something like that. First, I would want to see an interest in my company from the Twitter community, then loyalty and the promotion of my company by others through retweets, linking to my business, etc. Then there is the money – I would want to see a return on my investment financially.
I have seen companies sign on to Twitter and all they do is self promotion. Some want followers, but don’t follow anyone back! These companies don’t partake in the conversation. How ignorant they are (although I’m sure they have not been coached, and just heard sign up for Twitter.) Many business people voice disbelief when I tell them that I have witnessed companies building loyalty and a following and NEW CUSTOMERS just from interacting on Twitter. I would hate to see more companies jump on Twitter because they believe a paid account might give them validity. The paid corporate account smacks almost of traditional advertising – so I’d hate to see companies pay for something that doesn’t bring a financial return – and then they go out and bad-mouth Twitter and its usefulness for business purposes.
Is having a corporate account going to gain a business the same type of loyalty a free account will – or will the paid account just end up making the company look greedy in some way. Because after all, I do believe Twitter is truly about building community through conversation. That’s transparent conversation filled with integrity and character.
Renda: Thanks for the well-thought reply! What you’re touching on here is very important for businesses to understand. Using Twitter to support your business is a lot different than traditional methods of advertising or marketing. It truly is about building a community with your followers through ongoing conversations – both outbound and inbound.
While there is no fee for using Twitter, I think we both know that participating on Twitter is not free. Whether you’re giving up something else to focus on Twitter or employing someone on your staff to monitor it, it does cost you to be engaged.
That being said, what I’m trying to get at with this blog post is that Twitter is already working on a “premium” version of the service for paying customers. They won’t be paying for relationships or connections, but rather for additional tools and features within Twitter that make the experience more beneficial. This could include metrics about followers, the number of interactions your business has, a sentiment analysis for your business, or just features that make using Twitter easier (like the Contributors feature noted above).
In fact, I would argue that paying for these additional features might actually make it easier for you to justify the use of Twitter and its impact on your business (depending of course on the capabilities of this paid account).
From my own experience in using Twitter for business, I would certainly pay for additional features that allow me to better justify and track the time invested in using the platform.