Twitter the microblog of Selling Slogans ,Graffiti Taz and Gos

Twitter we are told in selling, is best used for  ‘listening to customers’ and ‘interacting with them’ yet the majority of tweets I see from suppliers do not ignite that many true conversations.

The tweets are in the main, a one way communication. Telling is not  always the same as  selling despite the public stereotype.

Maybe many of us still don’t really ‘get’ social or we don’t have time or just don’t want to make the time to be ‘social’.

The minimal effort required to ‘ retweet’ , ‘Share’, ‘follow’ and ‘like’ etc is deemed sufficient.

Yet even a simple request to retweet ( RT) can backfire as in the recent campaign of Kellogg Cereals and the unintended consequences of  #'1 RT =  1 breakfast for vulnerable child' tweet.

This was a most unfortunate unintended consequence for  breakfast cereals manufacturer Kellogg and their charity campaign for breakfasts for vulnerable children.

 It  might quite  possibly  a problem for Twitter as Twitter looks for increased advertising revenues after its spectacular NYSE launch.  

A client advertiser that has been 'once bitten twice shy ' as big as Kellogg is not good for the microblog site..

Commenting on twitter takes more effort – just take a look at twitter log entries and its proportion of written comments to re-tweets, shares etc. Few of us have a talent for eloquent tweets.

Twitter rely a lot on their mobile audience so for cack-handed all thumbs folk like me  mobile social  is too difficult and too much hassle. – maybe an age thing !

To the purists in social media and quite possibly Twitter itself all this one way communication is a misuse or poor use of the microblog.

I am not entirely convinced by the purists' argument  yet.

The one-way  so called ‘mis-use’ still gets you out there in the twittersphere and just as with junk mail , flyers etc  some messages do stick to the wall.

Maybe most business tweets are nearer to Graffiti Taz than  professional advertising hoardings slogans but  if integrated with other media perhaps it works sufficiently.

But as with most sales key performance indicators  in the end it is all about ROMI (return on Marketing Investment)

Effective Tweets have many similarities to  sales slogans

An effective sales slogan

• conveys product benefits (or brand benefits) for users (or potential buyer)
• differentiates  your product from the competition
• makes a simple, concise, clearly defined, and appropriate statement
• is eloquent, witty or takes on a distinct "personality"
• gives a credible impression of a brand or product
• makes the consumer experience an emotion; or creates a need or want
• is hard to forget — it sticks in your brain

Related links

Twitter and its antisocial social ways