First, a bit of a prelude. Probably 15 years ago, I was talking to someone who did marketing for a high end bike manufacturer. He was telling me about the amount of money the company was spending to really understand what their core customers (and their competitors core customer) was looking for in a bike…what did they really, really want? I pointed him to USENET group formed and populated by people passionate about bikes. “they are doing your research for you,” I said. My point was that technology now allowed people who were passionate about a product or category to form communities to explore and communicate about that love – and that smart companies should be looking to technology to better understand that bleeding edge customer. Plus, it formed an early warning system for issues, problems, competitive threats.
Fast forward a bit to when blogs were the old twitter – white hot with some good old media love. In talks to people, one of the points I made was that blogs, like USENET before them, gave companies an inside look at what was happening, not quite as good as focus groups, but good insight still. Technology again makes it easier to listen/respond to what customers are saying. And with blogs, the barrier to entry was even lower. In some ways this is good – more data is usually better, in some ways not so good, because now you didn’t just get the super committed, but the merely committed. But still, great early warning system.
Today, of course, Twitter is the new new new thing. Over the weekend, Amazon had a bit of a problem. It first showed up on Twitter, then spread to blogs, and then – pow – it’s in the NYT. Valleywag takes the opportunity to bash Amazon for failed communications, and the NYT looks at the ability for Twitter to serve as a early news service. As an aside, c’mon NYT. Twitter best known for its use “during the terrorist attacks in Mumbai last November and when a jetliner landed in the Hudson River in January. People were twittering from the scenes before reporters arrived.” I’m not sure those are the examples I’d pick (what about the time twitter saved a protester?), but whatever.
The point remains the same. Now instead of joining a club, or going to USENET or starting a blog, or creating a FB page, people tweet about what’s got them worked up. In some cases, being worked up is good – love love love! And sometimes, not so much – what the heck is going on with Amazon, or why does Motrin hate moms? But what is a constant is that smart companies/smart brands can use microblogging in the same way they’ve used previous incarnations of similar technology – as an early warning system, as an opportunity to hear from customers, as a way to see communicate, as a way to predict when the NYT might write a story.
What has changed is that the barrier to express passion is getting lower. Heck, with basically no effort, people can tell the world what they think. From a comms standpoint, this is good and bad. Good = early warning system. Good = ability to respond in the same medium. Bad = less direct relevance (aka – are the people complaining today about Amazon real customers?)
Smart communicators will look at this, and factor in the degree of difficulty, if you will in expressing an opinion. The media ought to as well. :) Please, no more trend stories about twitter mobilizing people against brands, okay?