I think the most confusing thing for most marketers to wrap their head around in using Twitter is that there really are so many ways to use it. The reality is you can use it for driving sales, improving customer relations, reaching new audiences – the question is what makes the most sense for your organization? I came across this great article from Mashable that highlights forty different brands using Twitter. There are some interesting travel and entertainment brands that I think you should definitely read about including Marriot, Marvel, Luxor Las Vegas, 92nd Street Y, Carnival Cruises among many others – at a minimum it should trigger some ideas for your organization.
This article is from January, so it is a bit dated (which is scary that five months is considered dated!) – but here are some interesting quotes I pulled from the story.
So why is JetBlue tweeting?: “Our goal would be to make ourselves available, help whenever possible, and to show that our brand is built by real people who care about our customers.”
Lessons learned by Southwest Airlines: “Be honest, be real, be quick, be FUN.”
On how Carnival Cruise Line promotes their Twitter account: “…it’s not in your face. Our online guests visiting carnival.com, our Facebook page or one of our blogs find links to the acct. We let word of mouth do the rest.”
How Twitter is affecting the day to day at Marvel: “Well, it’s an important part of our day to day activities for Marvel.com and our staff & creators have gained more exposure.”
In short, Twitter works – whether it works for your organization is a different question. It will depend how smart you use the technology, what your marketing goals are and what resources you put to it.
