You may not be microblogging yet (maybe you’re here to learn why you should be), but your customers are.
In my opinion, registering usernames in the name of your business ought to become second nature these days, just as it has with registering domain names.
Google Search is Out, Twitter Search is In
At Highlight Midwest in October I sat next to Kristi Colvin (@kriscolvin), creator of soon-to-be-released Twitterface, in a presentation from Adam Coomes about Social Radar, a product from Infegy that tracks mentions of keywords and brands in social media. As we were listening to his presentation, we did what any tech saavy, multi-tasking audience members would do: tried to find more information about him and his product.
However, these days I don’t go to Google to search for things, I search Twitter or reach out to my network there. Kristi fired up Twitterific on her iPod Touch and I launched Hahlo on my iPhone, each of us searching Twitter for an account named Social Radar or Infegy. To our surprise, neither account had been registered yet.
Since then, the Infegy team has created a Social Radar (@socialradar) account complete with background image, website link, bio and avatar, but the account doesn’t have any registered activity. It IS following Infegy’s team, both Adam Coomes (@adamcoomes) and Justin Graves (@justingraves), which tells users where they can go to see discussions from the team and about their product.
Even if You’re Not Ready, Think of it as an Informational Placeholder
Unlike putting up an “Under Construction” page on your website, registering microblogging accounts where your key customers are is a great first step to take. It allows you to secure your brand or product name, give a short description and include a website link for more details. Also, like Infegy did with Social Radar, you can also follow members of your team (if they already have personal accounts) to give inbound users a place to seek more information.
Nathan T. Wright (@nathantwright), founder of Des Moines, Iowa-based Lava Row, a social media firm, recently registered a Twitter account on behalf of his company (@LavaRow) in an effort to capture and redirect conversations aimed at his brand. Though the account doesn’t have much activity, it does successfully identify the Lava Row employees on Twitter and their company website.
People are Expecting to Find Your Company in Social Media
An article from eMarketer published on October 10, 2008, clearly states “consumers await on social networks“. eMarkerter quotes a recent study as reporting that nearly 60% of Americans who use social media interact with companies on social media websites and 85% of social media users thought companies should interact with their consumers through social media.
Mike Hollywood, director of new media at Cone, the company that commissioned the September 2008 study conducted by Opinion Research Corporation, made the following statement, “Americans are eager to deepen their brand relationships through social media. It isn’t an intrusion into their lives, but rather a welcome channel for discussion.”
Final Thoughts
In most microblogging circles, the question about whether or not businesses should get involved in this space is no longer being debated. The short answer is they should be.
The question that remains is what are the best ways to get involved and engage this eagerly-waiting audience of consumers?
Hey Mike, thanks for the shout-out. We snagged the @lavarow handle because we knew we had to, and quite honestly we're still trying to figure out what to do with it.
In our case, if people want to know what's up with Lava Row, they are used to following @nathantwright and @hillabean. But you never know how things will shift, so from time to time we use the handle in conversations and notice that people start following it, and perhaps some day we'll start tweeting from it.
Great article and good stuff here at Microblink!!
Reply · PermalinkI completely agree with the strategy of snagging your company name right away and directing people to the other active avenues.
Of course having an active twitter/social account is better than a dormant one, but that's not an option for everyone.
If you don't know what you want to do with the name it is better to have it secured and have no activity than have sporadic activity, or to have it just mirror a personal account. I'd rather follow a person than a brand.
Reply · PermalinkI couldn't disagree stronger with the message of this piece. While I'm the first person to stand up with you that companies and their brands (2+ entities depending on number of brands) should be on Twitter, Facebook pages, etc., I retreat with your urging companies to "register microblogging accounts now."
As you probably know, many firms lack the time to do anything online, evident from their out-of-date websites. Companies will not jump into Twitterville just because x number of random people (who to them are not and will never be customers) think they should.
Education and hands-on learning is the way to turn the tide, not echoing what I and countless others have blogged and spoke about for months.
I'd rather see an entreprenurial individual snag a Twitter brand name and write in the bio it's unofficial until the company is ready to take over the handle. But forcing a company to get onto Twitter because of this or that; hardly the tact I use. Baby steps is key. No?
Reply · PermalinkDon't forget the threat of "twitter squatting" if you don't snatch up your company/product name - http://getanewbrowser.com/2008/11/twitter-squatting/
Reply · PermalinkGreat article... and not because I'm mentioned, but because I think it's one that I want in the hands of every marketing department in every serious company that hasn't already braved the social media waters.
Adam & Andy, I agree with you that Twitter-squatting is real, and it's annoying not just to the companies that eventually come into a site and find their brand names (many of which are registered trademarks) in use, but it's annoying to customers and users of these social sites that search for their favorite brands and find some random individual instead. Companies can get back brand names by using the Twitter support site, but there are rules about it being dormant, etc. and why go through the pain when the LEAST you could do is go and register your brand name (if it's not already taken) and post a message saying "We're not on Twitter yet but looking into it... leave us a message and let us know why you want us here!" Literally, it would take a few minutes time, and you can come back to the account to use it later or not.
Ari, I really disagree with the idea of "an entreprenurial individual snagging a Twitter brand name" because something that is free now, could be held for ransom by a greedy individual or used in an inappropriate manner. As I pointed out above, it's a waste of users time... they don't want to deal with a squatter, they want to deal with the company/brand (out of brand loyalty, or because of customer service issues.) Nothing makes me more irritated than people stealing other people's brands, for whatever excuse they have.
Microblink, please attempt to get this message out beyond the microblogging community. People who aren't into social media YET need to understand how to help themselves now. Maybe a wider press release or something?? The advice is not just good, it's timely.
Reply · PermalinkSocial media "handle" squatting is the new "domain name" squatting.
While I understand and appreciate Mr. Herzog's position (I'd rather see people actively embracing social media tools than merely grabbing names out of fear of loss), I cannot help but think of the damage that DN squatters caused in the 1990's.
Slow-to-react corporations often found themselves paying ransom to protect their reputation. Regrettably, many organizations are only inspired to participate by reacting to a negative consequence. It's unfortunate, but the thought of loss is the motivation to propel stodgy corporations to take tentative steps to participation.
Reply · PermalinkI've heard some great arguments both ways, but I think the old adage 'an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure' is very telling for situations like this. If you've already got your name locked up before someone else grabs it, you don't have to deal with any of the ramifications of squatters defaming your name or the hassle of getting it back. At the very least, you've introduced the company to microblogging, so you've already gotten one of the important steps taken before you've even done anything.
Reply · Permalink@Ari. Having someone snag the profile and hold it for a company sounds like an even bigger headache. Wearing my business hat this would be just another roadblock from me jumping onto the service.
Check out what Wells Fargo has done with their Twitter account (http://twitter.com/wellsfargo). They have a team dedicated to Social Media and was quick (april of 2007) to snag up their twitter handle. They have a few posts, created a great staging ground and acknowledge that they see the potential and want to be a player here.
It should be known I do work for WFC however I don't work in that group and I think they are doing a lot of things right in Social Media.
Reply · PermalinkAgree with Rob - Grab your company's Twitter handle before someone else does. Then, develop and execute a plan for it. It's OK to let it lay dormant for a bit while you (or your marketing team) learns about Twitter. No need to "force" your communication into a microblogging channel until you've done the necessary experimentation and education.
Reply · PermalinkThanks for the great article. While I'm still a fresh face in this arena, I knew that it was just a matter of time before all the good handles were gone. Even with a business website under construction, I know that when I'm ready to utilize Twitter in conjunction with other social networks to get my message out to the masses, it's there.
Reply · PermalinkI've heard that you can just write Twitter and they'll give you the handle if it belongs to your biz.
http://twitter.com/larskjensen/status/1003811729
Reply · Permalink@Jacob Twitter does have a pretty simple process for releasing names, but we'll be talking about that in another post. ;)
Reply · PermalinkAgree with Kristi. There is a land grab for social media brand names. Don't end up like many organizations who had to hire legal teams to rest their domain names away from squatters.
But, if you *do* set up a Twitter account or a Facebook page and do not have a marketing team to populate it daily with good content use one of the many tools to feed news and updates to it.
-R Stiennon
Reply · PermalinkOh gooooood! Cos my page ranking just dropped due to a failure to import most of my previous blog posts from a previous webhosting server!! Is there a better way to find people by topics twitted other than Monitter.com ?
Thank you for all the great info!
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