Twitter and Marketing

Twitter and Marketing twitter-follow-me-post.jpg

Abstract

In 2006, Jack Dorsey founded a micro-blogging, social-media network site that goes by the name Twitter and took the world by surprise. Twitter.com is an online network that allows people all over the world to connect in various ways through means of social-media networking which asks you, “What are you doing” in under 140 characters or less. Users have the ability to create profiles and communicate anything on their mind. Twitter has emerged as one of the leading digital media companies in existence. Twitter has developed its own way of sharing and linking information to the public in a variety of ways. Twitter may have started as a digital media site for friends and families to use and update their accounts with news, pictures, links, common trends, and in any case, for the fun of it. Today, Twitter has developed a strong backbone in the marketing and advertising markets for various companies, celebrities, political campaigns, sports teams/players, and self-promoting musicians and fans.

Advertising and Rhetoric on Twitter

In the social media world like Twitter, companies using Twitter to relay information and sales or promotions are futuristic in acquiring the basic digital writing/media ideologies as the technology progresses and generations grow. There has been a shift from a peer to peer experience to an increased public display of commercial retail media. In other words, Twitter has become a place to attract a customer audience and sell or promote one's self, corporate, or private business by means of “Tweeting."

" I have been arguing that technologies are social, that to see technological structures as separate from people's social interactions is to misunderstand how people and technology interact and how people experience new media as new. The structures of different communicative technologies are suggesting social ways of interaction and social narratives that people then have to respond to. People have to decide whether to incorporate, change, or reject these social narratives" (Gershon 2010).

Who is Advertising

When discussing marketing on Twitter, companies and corporations aren't the only people advertising. Bands, groups, athletes, celebrities, TV stations, and Political campaigns also fit in the description of advertising artists. These different types of profiles all have a sense of marketing, alone by having Twitter. Their pages are followed by other profiles, and offer a sense of recognition and personal attraction to the page. Many companies will go to the extent of putting the Twitter logo on their merchandise. This pretty much says, "Follow us on Twitter." This allows to give people a chance to follow them on Twitter and receive updates and even coupons through their Twitter feed.

Who is Being Targeted by Advertisers

We are all victims to advertisement. Everybody is a public to advertising accounts on Twitter. Not everybody follows every account on Twitter but we fall subject to their advertisement on TV, in magazines, on buses, on the radio, on the product, on the coupons, and through friends. Anytime you see the 'little blue bird' account holders are telling you to follow them on Twitter so they can produce their 'Tweets' in your feed, and offer coupons or deals. Or even just to have presence while you scan your news feed. "Persons and their social positions must not be visible in their speech. Speech becomes impersonal. Speakers hide behind their speech. Speech seems to be disembodied, De-contextualized and self-grounded"(Harris 2006). Using Twitter is the idea behind Harrison's passage. Tweeting something could be considered the same as saying something. But often times, many sales pitches are 'Tweets' which don't have any textual information. Simplicity is great on Twitter. This is one of the reasons 'Tweets' are limited to characters. This is also useful for the people "Tweeting' because they don't want to overwhelm you with information, just the basics.

How companies use twitter to target specific Users

Account holders with the means of promoting itself, uses Twitter as a guide to their marketability. For example, when there are sales going on at a store, that store will 'Tweet' the subject matter on the sale and this 'Tweet' can become a trend on Twitter and more and more people will be aware of this sale, and possibly become a consumer of the product or merchandise on sale. So many people use Twitter as a news feed and the more 'Tweets' from a specific account holder, will trigger more attention to the 'Tweet'. This is a prime example of companies advertising though Twitter. Companies know what the public is interested in and what is fashionable or trendy outside the digital atmosphere. Having this knowledge enables marketability through social networking sites like Twitter strictly because more and more people are becoming account holders in these networks, and this holds a huge target for and marketable objective.
Great advise for marketing through Twitter can be found below:

1. Be USEFUL to the reader,
2. Provide him with a sense of URGENCY,
3. Convey the idea that the main benefit is somehow UNIQUE; and
4. Do all of the above in an ULTRA-SPECIFIC way.

Conclusion

The overall conclusion to this page is to show you how and why Twitter has evolved into a typical attribute to companies that choose to market or promote products, people, groups, organizations, political figures, and many more through Twitter. It is a new phenomena which has some explanations to depict. This site should help you in understanding why companies display the Twitter logo on their products, commercials, and anywhere else you see the 'Twitter Bird'.

References

http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/new-twitter-stats-500-new-employees-2400-advertisers-and-a-3-5-conversion-rate_b16233
Harris, J., (2006). Rewriting: How To Do Things with Texts. Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press.
Gershon, I., (2010). The Breakup 2.0: Disconnecting over New Media. New York: Cornell University Press.
Picture: http://b2b-marketingblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/twitter-follow-me-post.jpg