Smart brands have always recognized that successful branding and marketing comes from using a suitable mix of mediums based on an intelligent strategy. Twitter is just one such medium that can be used as a powerful tool to quickly share information, gather market intelligence and insights, and build relationships with consumers.

Consumers certainly realize the potential of Twitter, with over 155 million Tweets sent every day and over 200 million registered users, combined with the influence it played in the recent London riots – both in good and bad ways – it demonstrates how powerful this social platform can be.

Using Twitter doesn’t need to be complex for a brand, as simple principles such as sharing, listening, asking and responding to questions and rewarding followers, gives them the opportunity to talk with people they might not usually come across, in a space where many of today’s consumers are active. A multitude of opportunities lie in the ability to have an active dialogue and offering value, as by using Twitter intelligently, it can put a brand directly into the homes and streets of their customers and provide a communication channel that talks directly with an audience, both existing and prospective. It’s a great way for a brand to understand what others are saying about products, services, or competitors, and for people to share positive experiences with others.

However many brands have not fully realized its potential and are missing the opportunity by just broadcasting their messages, with many Tweets being one-way, comfortable or restrained, rather than entering into an active conversation. The whole point of platforms like Twitter is to acquire and spread knowledge, so if a brand can build its reputation through a loyal following, these people will help spread their word. The more a brand can give, the more they will receive and the more its reputation can grow. Twitter is a great tool to help build a brand’s reputation and a personality in a transparent way. It’s a great way to drive traffic to an official website or e-commerce offering by enticing people to click through to find out more. Many of the well-known global brands are already offering unique or exclusive offers to their Twitter followers, which in turn also provides ROI measurement.

The Twitter advertising offering

Over the last few years Twitter has been slowly building its advertising offerings and is actually making money from them, however, there are still limited opportunities for brands on Twitter. Promoted Tweets can enable brands to buy a place in recommended followers’ lists and also to sponsor hashtags so they appear in the relevant searches, helping amplify messages to a broader audience. Working on a Cost-per-Engagement (CPE) basis, the Tweets that users engage with most tend to be insightful, conversational, fresh and timely, and crafted for sharing.

Promoted Trends then give brands the opportunity to feature in a related Trend, so when a user clicks on the Trend they are taken to the conversation and can receive massive exposure to kickstart or amplify a conversation on Twitter and beyond. Promoted Accounts, Twitter’s account recommendation engine, can highlight a brand’s account to users most likely to find it interesting by identify similar accounts and similar followers. Users find Promoted Accounts a useful part in discovering new brands, content, and people, whilst Twitter also offers two layers of analytics that can provide in-depth insight into both paid and unpaid activity.

Twitter’s ad offerings are currently fairly unobtrusive, and for users this is a good thing. Twitter, however, has the predicament of if it makes brand interactions too discreet, and users don’t even notice them, they’re not going to be effective for marketers. As a result Twitter is also currently considering creating Facebook-style branded pages as part of its drive to increase revenue. Branded pages, through which brands could deliver tailored messages would work in a similar way to Facebook Pages and provide brands with their own space to deliver content and encourage users to follow them.

When you try to compare the functions of Twitter and Facebook, each social platform differs greatly, and a brand needs to ask itself what it considers is the actual value of a ‘like’ or a ‘follower’? A ‘like’ on Facebook has potentially more value than a follower as through Facebook fans have expressed their location, age, gender, even their interests and hobbies, and a consumer has the ability to contribute, engage and add value to a brand experience.  Now they even have the option of purchasing through the platform – giving them status as real customers. On Twitter, brands know much less about their followers and in most instances they don’t even need to approve them. Facebook has done a good job of creating real environments for people to connect with brands, with opportunities to use effective media to drive awareness, consideration and even purchase. But the question will always remain, do fans and followers equate to adding value to a brand? Fans of brands on Facebook tend to be truly engaged, whilst followers of a brand on Twitter are generally passive and offer nothing to help advocate it to their friends.

However, saying that, ‘Following’ is one of the strongest and most loyal forms of affinity online. A follower is asking to receive brand messages and a follower tends to stay with you. Brands need to share their message with the consumers and online platforms like Twitter make this easier. Customer involvement creates a motivation for purchase and helps build a two-way relationship. It is about creating a brand personality that their consumers can connect with through trust and sharing of information. Just using Twitter in silo though is not enough, as it is essential for customers that more involvement through open source information sharing means that if a brand wants a healthy following, then they need to be thinking about integrating Twitter into their other channels, both on and offline, looking to key influencers who can advocate their feed to their trusted network, and consider a community management strategy that involves engaging with active conversations across all channels.

Buyer remorse is widespread, so the more support and reinforcement available, the better. However if a brand expects Twitter to function like an e-commerce store then they’ll be disappointed. Through Twitter, it’s the customers that do the selling, that’s how it works – they talk about you, tell others and should be able to call on you when they need you. All a brand needs to do is invest some of their precious time (and some money) in managing it.

At FITCH we understand that purchase decisions are emotional and not rational, so it’s important for brands to focus on the components that can connect with consumers on an emotional level. Twitter is just one channel and used intelligently as part of a wider marketing mix, and not in silo, can offer real time community building and drive purchase intent. The question we ask is can Twitter offer a brand this? Return on engagement is the new return on investment in this expectation economy, so branding requires that the relationship developed between a brand and the consumer is one that is built on trust. Consumers are driven by emotions to make purchases, and although some may be impulsive and instantaneous, they are always built over time from perceived notions, information and a relationship with the brand through many mediums, and in many cases Twitter can be an effective channel that can deliver against a brands objectives.

Stephen Beasley, is digital strategy director at FITCH