I’ve always looked at Twitter as just a form of micro-blogging: You follow people who talk about things that interest you or perhaps you have something interesting you want to talk about. Unlike blogs, you’re limited to 140 characters, so your message must be to the point. But what really opened my eyes to how powerful Twitter could be was when I was having trouble with a web site’s application.
I follow a number of different web comics on the Internet. I also follow the writers and artists of these comics on Twitter. They post things like funny quips, when they have new comics up, and a few them even post when they are broadcasting themselves drawing the strip live. Now this is just good general use of Twitter for people who have this kind of fan base.
On one occasion one of these artists tweeted that they were drawing the strip for the day on UStream (a service that allows pretty much anyone to start live broadcasting). I clicked the link in the tweet and went off to UStream to watch them draw on screen. Now computers are finicky sometimes and, for whatever reason, my browser decided it was going to crash when I went to UStream’s web site. I’d restart it and try again, but to no avail. Despite that I had used UStream with the same browser on the same computer in the past, today it wasn’t happening. Like any good tweeter who shares the minutia of everyday monotony, I had to tell the Internet of my frustration.
“Damn it! UStream keeps crashing my browser, and I want to watch Gabe draw!”
I hit send and knew that my handful of followers would know my angst. A minute or so later, I got a tweet from UStream saying, “I’m from UStream Customer Support. I can help you with your problem.” What? I didn’t send a message to them. How did they know I was having trouble? Well – and this is nothing new to you Twitter gurus out there – you can search for tweets. When you search for tweets, not only can you find the tweets with the keyword(s) you’re looking for, but as people make new tweets that contain the keywords you use, they show up in your results, as well. Essentially giving you a live feed of tweets containing the keywords you specified. So after a little back and forth with UStream, I was able to get things running again and watch the last half of the show.
Amazing right? Well, if you’re already familiar with Twitter, then maybe not. If you’re not, maybe I just blew your mind. What’s cool here is that UStream’s Customer Support set up a Twitter search for any tweets that contained the keyword “UStream.” Not only could they monitor what people were saying about their product, they could respond to people who needed help. Monitoring Twitter for what your customers are saying and using it for marketing is great, but getting customer loyalty by actually responding to their complaints and questions quickly is really something. I was impressed they felt it was important enough to have someone on their staff be responsible for monitoring and responding to tweets about their product.
For any business, it would be good idea to watch Twitter feeds that pertain to your brand and products. But don’t watch and absorb all the goodness just for your marketing research. Find ways to help and interact with the customer directly at the exact moment they’re having trouble or have questions. You may end up with a fan for life.
