Twitter: Myths and Opportunities (Part 1)

Part 1 of 6:

In our previous post, “TwitterTown USA – Is It Worth The Trip?” we presented two cogent articles, both from the Harvard Business Review, that argued both sides of the viability questions regarding Twitter.  Both articles have there merits, but our opinion, and more importantly the strategy we believe springs from it, are worthy of exploration.

Basically, the questions surrounding  Twitter as a business strategy, both in these articles and in others we have carefully reviewed, fall into six categories which will be the subject of this, and our next five posts on the Jericho Blog.  Let’s take a look at the first “Myth and Opportunity” from this series:

1. Myth:  Businesses (at least successful ones) are too busy to bother with Twitter.
2. Opportunity:  While this is certainly true in many cases, there is growing evidence that Twitter is being adopted by all types of successful businesses and even municipalities.  Here are just a few examples, both small and large, that have made the press recently:
   • Naked Pizza (as reported by TechhCrunch), a uniquely healthy pizza joint in New Orleans, has replaced its “call for delivery” billboard in favor of  its Twitter handle. The restaurant now features a large Twitter bird above its storefront, inviting passersby to follow ‘NAKEDpizza‘ for special deals.  One day in April of 2009 Naked Pizza tested out the value of using Twitter and posted a special on Twitter.  This Tweet on Twitter brought in 15% of the business for that day.
   • Dell Computer has taken enormous advantage of Twitter (follow their Twitter account), and is one company that has empirical data to prove it.  Dell has over 65 corporate Twitter accounts and the Dell Outlet account is credited for bringing in over $3 million in sales.  Dell has well over 400,000 followers currently on Twitter between all accounts.
   • Southwest Airlines is doing a superb job of monetizing Twitter.  On Twitter (follow their Twitter account) they currently have over 574,000 followers.  In addition to being on Twitter Southwest is also on Facebook, flickr, Linkedin and YouTube and takes oride in its company blog at www.blogsouthwest.com.
   • CoffeeGrounds, a coffee house in Houston Texas (follow their Twitter account) started coffee history when their operations manager was intrigued by Twitter and shortly had a following of over 1,000.  Today CoffeeGrounds takes orders over Twitter, hosts “Tweetups” that produce many new customers as well as substantial business. and has over 8,000 followers.
   • The City of Arvada Colorado has increased the ways it communicates with current residents as well as future residents.  This has helped build the city’s image and reputation. They are blogging (Inside the Center), Microblogging with Twitter (follow their Twitter account), are using video (see their YouTube account) as well as sharing photos (see Flickr photostream) and even have a fan page set up on Facebook (see their Facebook fan page).

   These are just a few of the most recent examples that tell the same story: Twitter is the newest phenomenon birthed by the Social Media explosion, and is neither a fad or a foible. It is a viable strategy and should take its rightful place in today’s business arsenal.