The Revolution Will Be Tweeted

Some ramblings on mainstream media's newest darling, twitter. This ran in the latest issue of Marketing Magazine in Singapore, Hong Kong and Malaysia. As an aside, I find the headline especially telling as just this morning, the New York Times reports that anti-government protests in Moldova were "fueled" by twitter. Read on... 

Twitter's success is testament to the social media tenant that everyone can publish. With the entire online population empowered to report, stories will increasingly break online. The new model seems to be Twitter stories leading to more in-depth analysis in traditional media channels.

These channels are also seeing Twitter as a source of content and viewer collaboration. Sky News has appointed Ruth Barnett as Twitter correspondent, and increasingly Twitter is being used by broadcast outlets such as CNN for real-time talkback (twalkback?) on topics of the day.

But when journalists themselves turn to Twitter, you have to wonder about the way in which news will be broken. Reuters editor in chief David Schlesinger in effect scooped his own company when he tweeted George Soros' Davos statement "the global economic collapse could end up being worse than the Great Depression" - ahead of posting over the traditional Reuters wire.

From a corporate perspective, there are more and more tales of Twitter-centric business and branding success.  Dell, for example, is widely credited to have used Twitter with producing US$1 million in revenue over the past year and a half through sale alerts. In essence, people who signed up to follow Dell on Twitter received messages when discounted products became available from the company's Home Outlet Store.

When under attack for a bad taste advertisement that showed a cartoon calorie committing suicide, PepsiCo turned to Twitter.  In response to criticism, Communications Manager Huw Gilbert, tweeted: "Huw from Pepsi here. We agree this creative is totally inappropriate; we apologise and please know it won't run again."

Twitter critics saw the post as a positive and authentic response, and were generally supportive of Pepsi's quick action.

So what does all of this mean for those of us in PR? Will Twitter go the way of the dodo? Is it bubble waiting to burst? A qualified "highly likely" to both, but the reality is, the growth and popularity of this tool and similar services such as China's fanfou, Taiwan's buboo, and Thailand's Noknok cannot be ignored.

Twitter offers companies a chance to foster conversations with their key stakeholder audiences. Whether it be journalists (who are increasingly tweeting themselves) or customers, a tweet or direct message on Twitter can help create both an instant response and a initiate lasting relationship.

Whether through 140 character Twitter pitches, real time updates from events, direct customer communications, breaking news, early alerts on issues, or growing maintaining relationships with influencers and constituents, it seems if the answer to "What are you doing?" isn't "spending time on Twitter", you're missing a trick.