Chapter 11 PowerPoint

Chapter 11: Microblogging

By: Mike, Aldo, Zeniyah, Kris

What is Microblogging?

• Microblogging is a form of blogging, with the main difference being significant limits on the lengths of posts, typically consisting of short sentences.

• The messages are required to be short, most often no more than 140 characters.

How Did It Start?

• It took off in 2006 with the launce of twitter.• Twitter has over 400 million users.• Tumblr is also an example of Microblogging. • Microblogging sites offer varying features and

post guidelines, which draws a lot of different demographics. – For example, Jaiku draws 38% of its traffic from

Taiwan

Different Uses for Microblogging

• The uses are broken down into two main categories: one is to convey information, and the other is to start a discussion or to participate in an ongoing conversation.

• The give-and-take nature of most microblogging sites makes communication available from many different directions.

Brand Building With Twitter

• One of the most powerful twitter features is the ability to search users, posts, and subjects.

• Twitter is the largest and best known microblog site online.

• Using the search function to navigate through twitter is helpful for building a portrait of the target audience.

• The profile page plays an enormous role in a viewers decisions to follow someone or not.

Tweet Content

To be appealing:

• Interesting

• Fun

• Valuable (timely and relevant)

• Keep it fresh (varying content)

• Shortened URLs to links

Zappos on Twitter

How a company can effectively use Twitter:• Employee Engagement• Customer Engagement• Transparent Brand Tracking

Build a Twitter Following• Mass Follow

• Very difficult and unrealistic

• Equal Ratio

• Equal follower to following ratio—following all followers back (slow approach)

• Targeted Follow

• Following those with similar interests/ideas and amount of followers (better chance of getting followers)

• Mentions (shouting out person you have followed)

• Purchasing

Crafting an Effective Twitter Channel

• Twitter can become an extremely effective marketing channel, but only when it is used with forethought.

• Making a profile pay off over time will require a commitment of time, energy, and attention to detail.

Self-Promote Cautiously

• Promote but not too much. • To distinguish oneself from crowd of

advertisers, focus on relationships. • Best Twitter advertising will come as a result

of mentions or recommendations by contacts and followers, so making connections early on by promoting others is key.

Choose Optimal Tweet Times

• People don’t always see your tweets so post at reasonable times.

• Recognize your audience and when they are sleeping.

• Adapt the posting schedule to allow more viewers to see and react to each update.

Respond To Questions

• Quickly respond to consumer questions and comments.

• Creates a sense of closeness.

• Providing useful information can build a brand’s reputation and thought leadership.

Gather Feedback

• Ask for opinions and product reviews is a cheap and simple alternative to focus groups.

• Seek feedback whenever possible.• New Twitter polls• Acknowledge followers and don't leave them

unappreciated.

Turbo Tax Experts Take Over Twitter( Case Study )

• Turbo Tax is a leading tax preparation software whose maker is ‘Intuit”.

• They have won recommendations from the New York Times, PC Magazine, and CNET.com

• They have a serious problem. They try to rewin their customers each tax season.

• With a year round engagement, twitter happened to provide a channel that was unexpected which helped the firm retain their customers.

• Scott Cook and Tom Proulx founded Intuit Incorporation in the year of 1983. The company was on the road to success with a personal financial management application called Quicken.

• In 1990, Intuit was the leading US developer of personal finance software because Quicken became one of the “Best Selling Software Applications” in the world.

• Intuits brands (including their “Powerhouse Brand Turbo Tax”) created twitter feeds in 2008 by Seth Greenberg (the director of online advertising and internet media at intuit), and his team.

• He thought that twitter would be an “Ideal Medium” for reaching consumers interested in Turbo Tax because twitters audience is primarily made up of “End Users”.

• In 2009, the company partnered with Google to create display advertisements, which incorporated tweets from the Turbo Tax Twitter Feed.

• Twitters visitor counts went from less than 5 million in January 2009, to more than 15 million in April 2009.

Turbo Tax Experts Take Over Twitter ( Case Study )

The Challenge & The Strategy • Turbo Tax's customers find them very useful,

and are passionate about them, but only for a short period of time.

• The company has to rewin their customers annually. This is why they used their new approach with Twitter.

• An excellent customer retention program was created. The founder Cook created a concept called “Follow Me Home”. He stood outside of staples until people brought his products in the beginning of Intuit’s history. He then went home with them to see how easy or difficult it was for the customers to use his products. Now Intuit’s employees have that concept instilled in them.

• Turbo Tax now has 20 million customers because of Twitter. The customers are interested in the company every year.

• On Twitter, “The company is able to engage with the users who are interested, and comment on their taxes.

• Turbo found out that because of Twitter, customers can help each other.

• The company has used Co-Tweet to engage with incoming customers.

The Results • Turbo Tax found out that most

of the people who needed help with their taxes were existing customers.

• Those customers were 71% MORE likely to recommend Turbo Tax because of their interactions with the company on Twitter.

• In Conclusion, “Turbo Tax’s expanded efforts on Twitter became a great Customer Retention Program”.