Companies all aTwitter
Since the phenomenal rise of Twitter in to mainstream popularity (thanks to Ashton Kutcher and CNN’s highly publicised race to a million followers, then of course Oprah’s praise of the tool), an interesting shift has happened. And no, I’m not referring to the influx of celebrities now imparting their wisdom and profound insights on to the site. Over the last few weeks there has been a rapid surge in businesses of all sizes now taking the micro-blogging service very, very seriously.
Twitter’s recent explosion has been nothing short of staggering. According to TechCrunch, the internet sensation has enjoyed exponential growth from 10 million users in February, to more than 32 million today. And this growth is still accelerating, with 13 million new twitizens (sorry) recorded in April alone. Of the major social media sites, Twitter now surpasses all but Facebook, which reigns supreme with around 200 million unique users.
This extraordinary adoption of the service has lead to a noticeable trend in business – newly created positions of ‘social media specialist’ and ‘social media coordinator’ are dramatically on the rise. And as social media networks become more popular, opportunities in this field are further expected to increase.
Companies such as Southwest Airlines, Virgin Blue and SBS are hiring professionals to promote their brands, generate discussions, monitor conversations and respond to what the public are saying on sites such as YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook and now Twitter – responsibilities that many organisations are seeing as increasingly essential.
Twitter in particular is considered a form of customer service and reputation management, a channel in which to communicate to customers who are both loyal and disgruntled. Done correctly, Twitter can reap considerable rewards, done incorrectly however, havoc can arise.
As reported in the New York Times recently, some companies have cunningly turned their hunt for the right candidate in to a promotional tactic of its own. Murphy Goode Winery of California has become over-whelmed with applications for the US$10,000 a month job to essentially drink wine and post on blogs, Facebook and Twitter. Sounds pretty good, doesn’t it?
Annemarie Hunter – Search Marketing Specialist
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