The Company Your Company Could Tweet Like

Earlier this week, the Man Your Man Could Smell Like (whom his fans affectionately refer to as "Old Spice Guy," and who seems to have a mysterious connection via a parallel universe to actor and former NFL player Isaiah Mustafa) spent two days personally responding to Tweets and Facebook posts addressed to him.

Old Spice Guy is not the first to converse with Facebook fans and Twitter followers on behalf of the company he represents. However, he is the first to carry on that conversation through over 150 YouTube videos recorded and posted over two days while in a bathroom, wrapped in a towel. Here's a sample:



In other response videos, Old Spice Guy answers fans' questions, gives shout-outs to celebrities, offers manly wisdom, sweetly reassures skeptics, and even proposes to a man's girlfriend for him. But you'll have to find those videos yourself.

As of this writing, each video has received between 33,000 and 1.9 million views. Most of the videos have received a few hundred comments each. And a few received comments like, "I went out and bought Old Spice TODAY because of this video!"

The Old Spice brand image has come a long way in a few short years. Not too long ago, Old Spice seemed...old. My grandfather used Old Spice. My guy friends did not.

But now, Old Spice seems young. Strong. Robust. Adventurous. Manly. Daring. Thanks in large part to a well-executed campaign surrounding Old Spice Guy, making the claim that wearing Old Spice can help men to smell like a "ridiculously handsome" man who rides horses and whales with equal ease, uses wolverines to apply body wash, bakes gourmet cakes in a kitchen built with his own hands, and wins medals for exotic car-throwing.

Old Spice has created a new image for itself with clever videos that make hilariously absurd boasts of manly strength. Because it has created content that people enjoy watching, it has been able to reach audiences and start converting viewers into fans. And now its amazingly funny personalized video responses have furthered those fan relationships.

I'm not saying that your company needs to start conversing with customers via individual YouTube videos of a man in a towel. In fact, you probably shouldn't. But you should look for ways to connect with customers in an enjoyable way that surpasses expectations and aligns with the brand reputation that you want to have.

If personalized video response tweets is the way for your company to do that, then go for it.

My Apologies to the Twitterverse

Yesterday I was enlightened by a survey.

Not a survey that I administered. Not a survey in which hundreds or thousands of consumers responded, and which I, the marketing researcher, analyzed to glean data on consumer attitudes and interests and perceptions.

No. I was enlightened yesterday by a survey that I took.

It was a survey from Twitter, asking about respondents' Twitter usage. In addition to basic demographic information, it asked things like, "Through which applications do you use Twitter?" and "What kinds of information do you like to find on Twitter?" and "What kinds of information sources would you like to find more easily on Twitter?"

The part that enlightened me was my response to this question:

"What is your main reason for using Twitter?"

The choices were something like (a) To give information; (b) To receive information; (c) To connect with other people; (d) Other.

My first instinct said "a". I use Twitter to give information - blog posts, local news, funny quips, interesting retweets.

And then my marketing brain kicked in. I remembered all of my marketing training - that marketing is about building relationships with customers so that marketers can learn how to serve them better, not just throwing products and advertisements at consumers. That marketing should be interactive. That marketing communication is about dialogue, not monologue. That marketers need to listen to their audiences, so that they can learn what customers want and need and desire and prefer and like and dislike.

And so, for a moment, I was tempted to choose the "right" answer - (c). But, for the sake of honesty, I had to stick with my original answer, (a).

Now don't get me wrong - using Twitter to provide information is a fine thing. People want to gain information from the individuals they follow - be it local news information, lifestyle updates from celebrities, sports scores and standings, personal comments about life from friends, or any other of the many types of information.

Providing this information to one's followers is a good thing. But one needs to be listening to his followers, customers, fans, audience members, critics, etc., before he can provide them the information that they are interested in hearing.

Celebrities and organizations and marketers who do not interact with their Twitter followers can still be listening through other sources - other online forums, blogs, polls, other social media networks, focus groups, surveys, in-store conversations with customers, etc. I, however, have not made it a priority to do these things - listening to people on Facebook, on my campus, on other authors' blogs, or on Twitter. This act of only pushing, never listening, is what gives marketers a bad name.

And for this, I apologize. To the Twitterverse, and to the universe of customers out there. I'm sorry that I haven't been listening.

And to my readers especially, I want to do a better job of listening to you. I want to hear what you are interested in, what you are passionate about, and what you would like to see my write about. Please feel invited to share your thoughts with me at any time here on my blog, or on Twitter (@HaleyDD).

From now on, I'll be listening.

Brilliant Use of Twitter by Phil Wickham

Today I saw a great use of Twitter, exhibited by musician Phil Wickham (@philwickham). He tweeted this around 1:30pm:

"I just found out that the Houston show is sold out tonite, but I'll put two tickets under the name Forest Gump by 6:30. 1st come 1st serve!"

How brilliant! I love it! In less than 140 characters, Phil has done the following:

1. Rewarded his followers with [a chance at] free tickets to a sold-out show.


2. Endeared those followers to himself ("Aw, how nice! Phil saw that the show was sold out, and put two more tickets out there for free to anyone who wants them!")


3. Gotten more followers to come to the venue for a shot at the free tickets. Even if a follower isn't the first to show up as Forrest Gump, maybe she will find people outside the gates who are willing to sell their tickets. Or maybe she will buy merchandise as a consolation prize.


4. Convinced a few more followers to attend the concert when they otherwise would not have come; now they will come because they might be able to get an invaluable item (tickets to a sold-out Phil Wickham concert) for free.


5. Kept his Twitter feed fresh with new and intriguing content, thereby encouraging his followers to keep following.


6. Possibly attracted new followers thanks to current followers who tell their friends, "You won't believe what Phil Wickham just tweeted today!"

How can you reward and gain followers (and customers) through your Twitter account? More basically, how can you add value to people through your Twitter account? Do your Tweets actually provide something worthwhile (i.e. inside information, humanization, interesting tidbits, wisdom, humor, the occasional giveaway), or are you wasting time and bytes?

Musing about Twitter

I've been on Twitter for a few months now, and am still trying to explore and understand all of its potential uses. Recently, people to whom I have no connection have started to follow me. This set me to thinking and wondering:

1. I'm new to this phenomenon of having businesspeople I don't know start following me on Twitter.


2. It's weird. Perhaps I should be happy and honored, because ostensibly it means that more people are reading what I have to say, that they like what I have to say, and that they might someday be interested in hiring me.


3. But I wonder if they are just following me because they hope that I will follow them back.


4. How did they find me, anyway?


5. Is this what most companies are using Twitter for? Following others just to get them to follow back? Cialdini's old "reciprocity" principle?


6. I wonder if there is solid data yet on how and why companies are using Twitter?


7. Maybe it's just the sleazy, value-less ones who are doing this "serial following." Is it akin to spamming and pop-ups?


8. A couple of the strangers who just started following me seem to subscribe to services like www.TweepMe.com ("Get 4,000 Twitter followers for $19.95"); www.GetMeFollowers.com (Register; follow/refer users; get points; get more followers); www.TopFollowed.com ("reciprocal following"), etc.


9. Why? Reciprocal following makes sense, if it's organic. But why manufacture it? Why follow/be followed by people you don't care about? Do you really want quantity instead of quality?


10. Are there people out there whose goal is to get thousands of followers on Twitter, simply for the sake of being able to say they have thousands of followers on Twitter?


11. Why?


12. Are they viewing Twitter as a new [business] toy? Whoever has the most followers wins?


13. Is it based on the human desire to be heard?


14. Is it because they're expecting those followers to turn into new customers?


15. Don't they believe that if they truly have a great product or service, that they will gain loyal fans anyway? And those loyal fans will then want to follow them on Twitter? Not the other way around?


16. There's another stranger following me on Twitter, who tweets 20 times a day, posting links to other peoples' online articles. I wonder why.


17. Most of these people who seem to be "serial followers" (aka they try to follow as many people as they can, in order to get as many followers as they can), may have numbers of "following" and "followers" in the hundreds or thousands, but they have more they are "following" than they have "followers."


18. It seems to me that a well-known, successful company who is known to be excellent and has lots of loyal customers, will have a lot more followers than people they are following. As in 100:1 or 1000:1. Or maybe they don't follow anybody at all, but all of their customers/fans follow them.


19. That would be my measure of success for Twitter: is your Followers/Following ratio greater than 1?


20. If you're following more than you are being followed, it tells me that you don't have much of value to say. And why are you following so many people anyway? Are there really that many people whose words are meaningful enough that they are worth your time to follow them? I haven't found quite so many sources of excellence whom I want to learn from and emulate.


21. But perhaps I'm on Twitter for a different reason than these people are.


22. As for the people I don't know who are following me on Twitter, it would please me more to see them follow my blog instead.


23. If they follow my blog, it tells me that they like what I have to say.


24. If they like what I have to say, maybe we can have a conversation. Maybe they'll want to do business with me in the future.

But maybe I just don't "get" Twitter yet. Maybe I should read all those hundreds of articles on Twitter and why companies must use it.