Week 3 : How can using a Twitter help build my brand? What are the strengths and weaknesses of using Twitter as a SMM tool?
On average, around 6,000 tweets are tweeted on twitter every second, which corresponds to over 350,000 tweets sent per minute, 500 million tweets per day and around 200 billion tweets per year. Surprising, isn't it?
While I began taking Social Media Marketing course, I signed up my Twitter account for the first time in my life! Along with my classmates and professor, I followed several organizations that I thought it could help me build my own brand. Recently, I have followed 'Korean Air', 'Nat Geo Travel', 'Nat Geo Photography', 'Airbnb', 'Canon USA Imaging', and 'Canon USA Corp.' Twitter accounts. As you can see, all the accounts I have followed are related to photography or travelling, and that's what I'm most interested in, taking photos while travelling around the world.
By following these certain Twitter accounts, I'm sure that I could get more information and learn about each organization's upcoming news in real time. One of the most differentiated service that Twitter offers is a word limitation, which is a distinctive feature that is compared to other common social media. Until 2017 of November, the word limit was only 140 words, but Twitter doubled the character limit to 280 words just few months ago to help users be more expressive with their thoughts. Since Twitter have set a limit, users tend to summarize their ideas and only deliver the key point, narrowing down their opinions. Also, Twitter uses a '#', which is known as a hashtag, to show the specific topics(for example, #travel, #losangeles) that people are interested in and easily help find other tweets that have been tagged with a similar subject. These kinds of features will allow me to build my own brand by only gaining the essential information that I need in a fast and simple way.
As I mentioned earlier, the word limitation can be a very great advantage in social media because people can express their thoughts very quick and intensely. Twitter also has a 'RT(retweet)' function which allows the tweets to spread rapidly in real time just by clicking a RT icon. However, the word limit can also be the weakness since people can not deal with in depth problems and opinions in just 280 characters. Also, as more people participate in the communication the more tweets appear and the message tends to be temporary and vanishes all of a sudden when it's unnoticed. So, in order to be a successful marketer to brand ourselves, we certainly have to consider both pros and cons of using a Twitter as a marketing tool.
Mia, this is a great idea to only follow the area you're interested in which is traveling and photography. If you wants to develop you're own brand, what about following economics papers or inspirational people ? Leaving the area you're comfort in is the best way to get new ideas, open minded and learn new things !
ReplyDeleteOMG after reading your page, I would like to tweet Korean Air too!! Thanks for reminding me that :) Also, I agree with your point that # hashtags links with topics, since I use it on instagram. I didn't know that more tweets appear and the message tends to be temporary and vanishes all of a sudden when it's unnoticed, which seemed interesting. Thank you for sharing your ideas with us!
ReplyDeleteMia, I after I read your post I was surprised that i didn't come up with the RT function of Twitter! I definitley agree with your opinion. And It's so great to follow Nat Geo cause they have tons of information. I look forward to see you at Twitter!
ReplyDeleteThank you for the Nat Geo recommendation - I'm going to add it now! And thanks for the hashtag reminder, too. I forget to @ companies in mentions sometimes and mentally kick myself afterwards,
ReplyDeleteYes you're right we share the same passion apparently. I'd like to see your photos someday!
ReplyDeleteYour analysis was very detailed and complete as you found and used several data and examples.
I think I remember now that Twitter is the social media that created the Hashtag (as a tool) and made it popular. Thanks to that we all can search for content we like easily and reach people that talk about what we like instantly.
Liked reading you bye.
I like you mention the word limit of twitter. That a very good point. Also, you talked about "hashtag". That is really helpful to find people that share same interest.
ReplyDelete