The Winner In You: The Impact Of Social Media on Business Growth: The Twitter Case Study

Friday 3 May 2013

The Impact Of Social Media on Business Growth: The Twitter Case Study

"Twitter is an online social networking website and microblogging service that allows users to post and read text-based messages of up to 140 characters, known as “tweets”. Launched in July of 2006 by Jack Dorsey." Source: Twitter, Huffington Post, eMarketer

I chose to write on this topic because of the uniqueness of this social media - Twitter.
You see, this social media works on a principle of amassing followers. Now, you can tell a man's worth by the number of followers (ears that listen) the individual has.

Upon researching about twitter, I found out that they have a total of 554,750,000 active users with a daily number of 135,000 new users. Amazing, isn't it?

The question now is, how does this affect corporate organisations?

With the advent of the internet age, Corporate organisations can no longer hide in the dark by forcing information, down the throats of consumers.

We have entered an age of corporate accountability and social responsiveness. This means that when a consumer speaks, you had better give a concrete answer because a careless response can and will be used against you by the public (the individual and his myriad of followers).

For instance, a consumer that has over 200,000 followers is definately not someone you want to mess with. This is because, if that individual or organisation should cough, an average of 90,000 followers or more will catch cold (meaning, they will see his/her remark).

All it takes is for an angry individual to comment and a spiral effect of counter comments can emanate (plus retweets from followers, and his followers-followers (and so on). Its like an air bourne viral infection.

Now that is the power of influence. Do not be deceived, there is strength in numbers or how did you think the Arab Spring and various"occupy" events were organised?

Given the above, it means organisations can no longer leave the handling of company issues on twitter (especially) in the coffers of small minded personnels. This is serious business. It is a Public Relations issue. Organisation will need to control the kind of information that is passed out and control the kind of response you give to customers issues.

Twitter has bridged the gap between society's high and low in the society. Now, the Techy fellow in rural India wants to know the kind of tie Warren Buffet is wearing to work. He is interested in the type of product Samsung is coming out with. People can now tell Apple the flaws in their latest product. People now have voices and Corporations can learn the current needs and trends of consumers and even predict possible business opportunities to harness from (through customer feedback).

In all, Corporations can use this social medium to restore consumer confidence and retain consumer loyalty. So don't just stay in that cossy pent house office overlooking the myriads of ever hustling populace. Get a twitter account, tell people what you have to offer, listen to them, feel them, talk to them and you will be on your way to having a true consumer-centric family.