What do Chris Anderson, Sir Richard Branson, George Colony, and Tony Hsieh have in common? Besides being influential and successful business leaders, thinkers, and public figures, they all use the microblogging Web site known as Twitter. Twitter is one of many social media Web sites that have burst onto the scene and quickly gone global within the span of just a few short years.
Other popular social networking Web sites include Facebook, MySpace, and YouTube; LinkedIn is a social network for professionals. These sites, which are sometimes collectively referred to as Web 2.0, enable individuals and companies to interact using the Internet. Twitter users post short messages ("tweets") of 140 characters or less from computers and mobile devices such as cell phones and BlackBerries. Once an individual has signed up for Twitter, he or she can attract "followers" who read the tweets.
But how can global marketers use Web 2.0? To help answer that question, many companies are turning to social media consultancies for help in navigating the new digital landscape. Sir Richard Branson, the charismatic founder and chairman of the Virgin Group, typifies the type of corporate leader who uses Twitter. Two of his companies, Virgin Atlantic and Virgin America, have their own presence on Twitter (www.twitter.com/virginatlantic and www.twitter.com/ virginamerica, respectively). As Sir Richard told BusinessWeek, "With more than 200 Virgin companies worldwide, my days and nights are filled with exciting service launches, product announcements, parties, events, and consumer opportunities. I'm regularly asked what a day in the life of Richard Branson looks like, and Twitter helps me answer that.
It also enables communication no matter where I am." Other corporate chiefs report similar experiences. Mozilla's John Lilly says, "Mozilla is a huge community of people all around the world-different time zones, countries, companies-and Twitter lets me follow both the mood and the substance of the community sort of in my peripheral vision." Tony Hsieh, CEO of Internet shoe retailer Zappos.com, confesses that he is hooked on Twitter as well. Hsieh uses Twitter as a media-sharing device; many Twitter postings include CASE 15-2 Global Marketers Discover Social Media links to articles of interest from various news sources. "I generally get all my news through Twitter," Hsieh says. Despite such enthusiastic endorsements, many people aren't sure what Twitter is, why they would want to use it, and how it is different from, say, Facebook.
This is understandable; as noted in the Financial Times, "Operating at the juncture of blogging, texting, and social networking, the service defies easy categorization." Descriptions of Twitter often include "community," "conversation," "engagement," and similar words. Twitter was launched in 2006 by Silicon Valley entrepreneurs Biz Stone and Evan Williams. The service has some interesting features. For example, Twitter is integrated with Facebook, so users can choose to have their status-update tweets automatically appear on their Facebook page. Twitter is also designed to work with third-party apps.
For example, TwitPic is an app that allows users to share photos via a link in their tweets. Twitterific is an app available from the iTunes Store that gives iPhone users direct access to Twitter. Users must master some new terms and symbols. Members of Twitter's online community are known as "tweeps." "Tweet" can be both a noun and a verb; when users update their pages, they are "tweeting"; each individual entry is a "tweet." It is possible to "retweet" ("RT"); that is, forward someone else's tweet. Each Twitter user can choose other users to follow. Twitter is searchable; entries marked with a # symbol (a hashtag) are a group of tweets about a particular subject. The @ symbol is used to link a tweet to another user. Twitter has been embraced around the globe.
According to industry estimates, Twitter's reach is broadest in Brazil, where nearly one-quarter of the population uses the service. By contrast, Twitter only reaches about 10 percent of the U.S. population. Twitter is also growing quickly in Japan, thanks in part to media coverage and its adoption by public figures, such as Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama. Also, a smartphone app developed by Softbank, a fast-growing cell phone company, is attracting new users. Twitter has been a key communication channel for breaking news stories such as the political turmoil in the Middle East and the death of Osama Bin Laden.
Even so, it is unclear whether Twitter will achieve the levels of global popularity enjoyed by, say, Facebook. Although the founders insist that they will never charge for the basic service, they may ultimately charge business users for access to premium services. A redesigned homepage helps people understand how they can use the site to discover what is happening around them. As Stone explains, "In the long run, we need to make Twitter the product more relevant to more people."
Discussion Questions
1. Twitter seems to have a polarizing effect on people; some are excited by it, others seem angry or even scared. What is the explanation for this?
2. You have just been hired as director of social media at a global company. This is a newly created position. What will you do during your first week on the job?
3. In the long run, how will Twitter generate revenues? Will it be through advertising, promoted tweets, or some other source?