This executive briefing on how organizations can best leverage the Twitter social media platform was prepared by Reice Matherne while an MBA student in the College of Business at Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond, Louisiana.
Overview
Twitter has became one of the world’s most popular social media platforms in a short period of time, and provides instant content and breaking news to people around the world. People can tweet, retweet, or favorite a tweet on Twitter and provide content for others all at the same time. A business can use Twitter to provide their audience with interesting tweets, pictures, or videos all in 140 characters or less. Twitter reaches a wide audience as it is popular to people from all parts of the world and to both male and females alike. If a company can find the correct way to utilize the powerful platform the sky’s the limit for how their business can benefit from it. My suggestion is to get to tweeting away.
The Platform in Brief
Twitter is a way for people to connect throughout the world. It is a way for people to communicate in 140 characters or less and let them know what they are doing, things going on in their lives, or any important information they may want to share. The key to being a successful Twitter user would be making sure you are following the correct people. You would want to follow people or companies that interest you. A person can also make their own Twitter profile private where only by request can someone follow you or see your tweets. Twitter is used by businesses as a way to share important information such as updates about their products or even provide different forms of customer service. You will find almost all businesses on Twitter. If you have any interest in a particular company or have purchased one of their products following them on Twitter would be a good idea (Smith, 2012).
Twitter was founded in 2006 by a group of co-founders and was incorporated in 2007. Its’ headquarters are located in San Francisco, California. The first tweet was sent out on March 21, 2024 by co-founder Jack Dorsey. The origin of Twitter came from within Odeo, a podcasting company. Odeo was actually created by Ex-Googler, Evan Williams, and Twitter was a project code named twttr. When it became clear that the podcasting portion of Odeo would not be successful they focused on Twitter instead. Twitter currently has 3,600 employees in different offices around the world and half of their employees are engineers. Some of the locations of their other offices includes Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, New York, Berlin, London, and Sydney (Carlson, 2011).
Twitter has been in existence since 2006. It has one subsidiary, the popular video sharing service Vine, which Twitter created in 2013. Twitter currently has 288 million active users and more than three quarters of those come from outside the United States. 80% of Twitter's users are on a mobile platform and there are around 500 million tweets sent a day (about.twitter.com, 2015). Twitter’s demographics are dominated by the younger generations and surprisingly there is little difference between male and female users. This is typically unusual for a social media platform. Twitter does actually have 30 million users between the ages of 50-64, but the largest market comes from the age range of 18-29 with 95 million users (Brodzky, 2014). Another interesting statistic was that the largest market based on income of Twitter users was for the income range greater than $75,000 (Ahmad, 2014).
The Platform in Operation
Twitter has become a very useful tool for businesses to use. They are able to quickly spread the word about a number of things including sales, updates, or product launches. Companies such as Levi use twitter to promote sales they are having and show off their products in photos and videos for advertising (Thrasher, 2013). Then companies like JetBlue and Southwest use Twitter as a customer service tool to try and respond to as many people’s problems as possible (Van Grove, 2009). One thing I find important is for companies to try and make their Twitter account as personal to the brand as possible. You want people to recognize the Twitter account’s personality with the brand’s personality.
Whole Foods is another company that uses Twitter uniquely and tries to pander to their customers and market. On the Whole Foods account you will find a lot of recipes and even gift card giveaways for followers who participate with the account in things such as surveys and cooking tips (Thrasher, 2013). An interesting Twitter account to follow would be Zappos because the CEO of the company is the one who controls the account. He does not tweet often, but when he does it is usually him doing a great job of promoting his brand (Fisher, 2012). Each account for each company needs to be used to express the brand and promote the brand in the most appealing way possible.
The Platform’s Pros and Cons
There are many pros for businesses who want to use Twitter to promote their brand, but their are also cons to watch out for. One of the main pros for companies using Twitter is just how massive the audience base is. No matter how big or small the business and no matter what type of business you are there will more than likely be a market on Twitter for you to find. Another interesting pro for businesses using Twitter is that unlike on Facebook every tweet sent out will be sent to all of your followers. On Facebook not all posts are seen by everyone who has liked your page because of the way Facebook determines what is seen by who (GroSocial, 2013).
One pro for companies on Twitter is turning something negative into a positive. If a customer tweets something bad about your business using the @ whatever your Twitter handle is you will be notified that someone mentioned you in a tweet. This can allow you to respond to that customer and follow up about what is making that person unhappy and you may even be able to help fix the problem (Zwirko, 2014). There are also many pros for personal use on Twitter, not just companies. The best part of using Twitter to me as a personal user is the instant news and breaking news you find out. The way tweets are so quickly sent out other forms of media have no chance to keep up with the breaking news. People are also able to share their ideas freely and openly to all of their followers and then they can retweet it to their followers and more and more people get to see it. Other pros for personal use of Twitter is the ability to personally market and promote yourself (Drexler, 2014).
There are cons for using Twitter though for both businesses and personal use. Some of the cons for businesses include there being so many tweets sent out that your tweet may be lost in there and people not see it. That is a downside to such a large audience. A big downfall can be the fact that tweets can only contain 140 characters so you are not able to send out large bits of information (GroSocial, 2013). Another con is the ability to have a social media blunder which is more prevalent than one would think. This could be tweeting an image you did not want or a link to something inappropriate. This can cause backlash for the brand as well as the loss of followers and more importantly customers (Zwirko, 2014).
There also cons for the use of Twitter in ones personal life and one of these is just the way Twitter takes up so much of your time and is a great distraction. A person may not get as much work done if they are constantly feeling the need to check their Twitter feed and see what has been tweeted since last check. Another con of personal Twitter use is the fact that if your Twitter is not set to private everyone has the ability to look up your account and see what you have tweeted, retweeted, or favorited. This can be especially daunting when going through a job search and potential employers have the chance to look up some of the past tweets you may have regretted sending out (Drexler, 2014).
Analysis
I believe Twitter will continue to be very successful and only expand their user base. I do not see Twitter having the same problem that Facebook has encountered where it has shifted over to a lot of older users and this has chased away many of the younger users. Twitter is a platform that people of all ages and genders seem to be able to coexist on. I also believe Twitter will continue to try and improve their service for users as well as businesses.
There is a lot of opportunity for business to gain followers and in turn customers from using this social media platform. Businesses need to look at fellows companies to see what has worked as well as failed when using Twitter to gain a better understanding of how to utilize this tool for their benefit. Also it is a must to not commit a social media blunder while tweeting. You want to gain followers not lose them. I see Twitter continuing their success into the next few years and while more and more people come to understand its power and usefulness. Twitter needs to ride the momentum they have as a platform now before the next big thing comes around.
References
(n.d.). Retrieved February 12, 2015, from https://twitter.com/
About Twitter, Inc. | About. (2015, January 1). Retrieved February 12, 2015, from
https://about.twitter.com/company
Ahmad, I. (2014, January 1). #SocialMedia 2014: User Demographics For Facebook, Twitter,
Instagram and Pinterest - #infographic. Retrieved February 12, 2015, from
http://www.digitalinformationworld.com/2014/10/social-media-user-demographics-linke
din-tumblr-facebook-and-more-infographic.html
Brodzky, B. (2014, January 1). Social Media User Statistics & Age Demographics for 2014.
Retrieved February 12, 2015, from
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20141118182103-28964915-social-media-user-statistics-age-demographics-for-2014
Carlson, N. (2011, April 13). The Real History Of Twitter. Retrieved February 12, 2015, from
http://www.businessinsider.com/how-twitter-was-founded-2011-4
Drexler, D. (2014, January 1). The Top Pros and Cons of Life in the Twitterverse. Retrieved
February 12, 2015, from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peggy-drexler/the-top-pros-and-cons-of_b_5213691.html
Fisher, L. (2012, January 1). 40 Brilliant Twitter Brand Accounts You Can Learn From | Simply Zesty. Retrieved February 12, 2015, from http://www.simplyzesty.com/Blog/Article/September-2012/40-Brilliant-Twitter-Brand-Accounts-You-Can-Learn-From
Grove, J. (2009, January 1). 40 of the Best Twitter Brands and the People Behind Them. Retrieved February 12, 2015, from
http://mashable.com/2009/01/21/best-twitter-brands/
Smith, B. (2012, January 1). The Beginner's Guide to Twitter. Retrieved February 12, 2015, from http://mashable.com/2012/06/05/twitter-for-beginners/
The Pros and Cons of Twitter. (2013, October 30). Retrieved February 12, 2015, from http://www.grosocial.com/blog/pros-and-cons-of-twitter/
Thrasher, M. (2013, September 6). The 50 Best Brands To Follow On Twitter. Retrieved February 12, 2015, from http://www.businessinsider.com/best-brands-to-follow-on-twitter-2013-9?op=1
Zwirko, E. (2014, July 31). Pros and Cons of a Company Twitter. Retrieved February 12, 2015, from http://torquemag.io/pros-cons-company-twitter/
Twitter has became one of the world’s most popular social media platforms in a short period of time, and provides instant content and breaking news to people around the world. People can tweet, retweet, or favorite a tweet on Twitter and provide content for others all at the same time. A business can use Twitter to provide their audience with interesting tweets, pictures, or videos all in 140 characters or less. Twitter reaches a wide audience as it is popular to people from all parts of the world and to both male and females alike. If a company can find the correct way to utilize the powerful platform the sky’s the limit for how their business can benefit from it. My suggestion is to get to tweeting away.
The Platform in Brief
Twitter is a way for people to connect throughout the world. It is a way for people to communicate in 140 characters or less and let them know what they are doing, things going on in their lives, or any important information they may want to share. The key to being a successful Twitter user would be making sure you are following the correct people. You would want to follow people or companies that interest you. A person can also make their own Twitter profile private where only by request can someone follow you or see your tweets. Twitter is used by businesses as a way to share important information such as updates about their products or even provide different forms of customer service. You will find almost all businesses on Twitter. If you have any interest in a particular company or have purchased one of their products following them on Twitter would be a good idea (Smith, 2012).
Twitter was founded in 2006 by a group of co-founders and was incorporated in 2007. Its’ headquarters are located in San Francisco, California. The first tweet was sent out on March 21, 2024 by co-founder Jack Dorsey. The origin of Twitter came from within Odeo, a podcasting company. Odeo was actually created by Ex-Googler, Evan Williams, and Twitter was a project code named twttr. When it became clear that the podcasting portion of Odeo would not be successful they focused on Twitter instead. Twitter currently has 3,600 employees in different offices around the world and half of their employees are engineers. Some of the locations of their other offices includes Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, New York, Berlin, London, and Sydney (Carlson, 2011).
Twitter has been in existence since 2006. It has one subsidiary, the popular video sharing service Vine, which Twitter created in 2013. Twitter currently has 288 million active users and more than three quarters of those come from outside the United States. 80% of Twitter's users are on a mobile platform and there are around 500 million tweets sent a day (about.twitter.com, 2015). Twitter’s demographics are dominated by the younger generations and surprisingly there is little difference between male and female users. This is typically unusual for a social media platform. Twitter does actually have 30 million users between the ages of 50-64, but the largest market comes from the age range of 18-29 with 95 million users (Brodzky, 2014). Another interesting statistic was that the largest market based on income of Twitter users was for the income range greater than $75,000 (Ahmad, 2014).
The Platform in Operation
Twitter has become a very useful tool for businesses to use. They are able to quickly spread the word about a number of things including sales, updates, or product launches. Companies such as Levi use twitter to promote sales they are having and show off their products in photos and videos for advertising (Thrasher, 2013). Then companies like JetBlue and Southwest use Twitter as a customer service tool to try and respond to as many people’s problems as possible (Van Grove, 2009). One thing I find important is for companies to try and make their Twitter account as personal to the brand as possible. You want people to recognize the Twitter account’s personality with the brand’s personality.
Whole Foods is another company that uses Twitter uniquely and tries to pander to their customers and market. On the Whole Foods account you will find a lot of recipes and even gift card giveaways for followers who participate with the account in things such as surveys and cooking tips (Thrasher, 2013). An interesting Twitter account to follow would be Zappos because the CEO of the company is the one who controls the account. He does not tweet often, but when he does it is usually him doing a great job of promoting his brand (Fisher, 2012). Each account for each company needs to be used to express the brand and promote the brand in the most appealing way possible.
The Platform’s Pros and Cons
There are many pros for businesses who want to use Twitter to promote their brand, but their are also cons to watch out for. One of the main pros for companies using Twitter is just how massive the audience base is. No matter how big or small the business and no matter what type of business you are there will more than likely be a market on Twitter for you to find. Another interesting pro for businesses using Twitter is that unlike on Facebook every tweet sent out will be sent to all of your followers. On Facebook not all posts are seen by everyone who has liked your page because of the way Facebook determines what is seen by who (GroSocial, 2013).
One pro for companies on Twitter is turning something negative into a positive. If a customer tweets something bad about your business using the @ whatever your Twitter handle is you will be notified that someone mentioned you in a tweet. This can allow you to respond to that customer and follow up about what is making that person unhappy and you may even be able to help fix the problem (Zwirko, 2014). There are also many pros for personal use on Twitter, not just companies. The best part of using Twitter to me as a personal user is the instant news and breaking news you find out. The way tweets are so quickly sent out other forms of media have no chance to keep up with the breaking news. People are also able to share their ideas freely and openly to all of their followers and then they can retweet it to their followers and more and more people get to see it. Other pros for personal use of Twitter is the ability to personally market and promote yourself (Drexler, 2014).
There are cons for using Twitter though for both businesses and personal use. Some of the cons for businesses include there being so many tweets sent out that your tweet may be lost in there and people not see it. That is a downside to such a large audience. A big downfall can be the fact that tweets can only contain 140 characters so you are not able to send out large bits of information (GroSocial, 2013). Another con is the ability to have a social media blunder which is more prevalent than one would think. This could be tweeting an image you did not want or a link to something inappropriate. This can cause backlash for the brand as well as the loss of followers and more importantly customers (Zwirko, 2014).
There also cons for the use of Twitter in ones personal life and one of these is just the way Twitter takes up so much of your time and is a great distraction. A person may not get as much work done if they are constantly feeling the need to check their Twitter feed and see what has been tweeted since last check. Another con of personal Twitter use is the fact that if your Twitter is not set to private everyone has the ability to look up your account and see what you have tweeted, retweeted, or favorited. This can be especially daunting when going through a job search and potential employers have the chance to look up some of the past tweets you may have regretted sending out (Drexler, 2014).
Analysis
I believe Twitter will continue to be very successful and only expand their user base. I do not see Twitter having the same problem that Facebook has encountered where it has shifted over to a lot of older users and this has chased away many of the younger users. Twitter is a platform that people of all ages and genders seem to be able to coexist on. I also believe Twitter will continue to try and improve their service for users as well as businesses.
There is a lot of opportunity for business to gain followers and in turn customers from using this social media platform. Businesses need to look at fellows companies to see what has worked as well as failed when using Twitter to gain a better understanding of how to utilize this tool for their benefit. Also it is a must to not commit a social media blunder while tweeting. You want to gain followers not lose them. I see Twitter continuing their success into the next few years and while more and more people come to understand its power and usefulness. Twitter needs to ride the momentum they have as a platform now before the next big thing comes around.
References
(n.d.). Retrieved February 12, 2015, from https://twitter.com/
About Twitter, Inc. | About. (2015, January 1). Retrieved February 12, 2015, from
https://about.twitter.com/company
Ahmad, I. (2014, January 1). #SocialMedia 2014: User Demographics For Facebook, Twitter,
Instagram and Pinterest - #infographic. Retrieved February 12, 2015, from
http://www.digitalinformationworld.com/2014/10/social-media-user-demographics-linke
din-tumblr-facebook-and-more-infographic.html
Brodzky, B. (2014, January 1). Social Media User Statistics & Age Demographics for 2014.
Retrieved February 12, 2015, from
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20141118182103-28964915-social-media-user-statistics-age-demographics-for-2014
Carlson, N. (2011, April 13). The Real History Of Twitter. Retrieved February 12, 2015, from
http://www.businessinsider.com/how-twitter-was-founded-2011-4
Drexler, D. (2014, January 1). The Top Pros and Cons of Life in the Twitterverse. Retrieved
February 12, 2015, from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peggy-drexler/the-top-pros-and-cons-of_b_5213691.html
Fisher, L. (2012, January 1). 40 Brilliant Twitter Brand Accounts You Can Learn From | Simply Zesty. Retrieved February 12, 2015, from http://www.simplyzesty.com/Blog/Article/September-2012/40-Brilliant-Twitter-Brand-Accounts-You-Can-Learn-From
Grove, J. (2009, January 1). 40 of the Best Twitter Brands and the People Behind Them. Retrieved February 12, 2015, from
http://mashable.com/2009/01/21/best-twitter-brands/
Smith, B. (2012, January 1). The Beginner's Guide to Twitter. Retrieved February 12, 2015, from http://mashable.com/2012/06/05/twitter-for-beginners/
The Pros and Cons of Twitter. (2013, October 30). Retrieved February 12, 2015, from http://www.grosocial.com/blog/pros-and-cons-of-twitter/
Thrasher, M. (2013, September 6). The 50 Best Brands To Follow On Twitter. Retrieved February 12, 2015, from http://www.businessinsider.com/best-brands-to-follow-on-twitter-2013-9?op=1
Zwirko, E. (2014, July 31). Pros and Cons of a Company Twitter. Retrieved February 12, 2015, from http://torquemag.io/pros-cons-company-twitter/
Contact Information
To contact the author of this article, “What You Need to Know About Twitter: An Executive Roadmap for Social Media Success,” please email the author at [email protected].
To contact the author of this article, “What You Need to Know About Twitter: An Executive Roadmap for Social Media Success,” please email the author at [email protected].
The mission of the College of Business at Southeastern Louisiana University is to provide educational experiences for personal, professional and intellectual growth, enable the creation and sharing of knowledge to enhance learning and to advance the practice of business, and engage communities through service to positively impact their future. The Accounting and Business programs in the College of Business are accredited by the AACSB International.
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