Tag Archives: Twitter
Big Stories on Twitter
As much as we love reading Tweets about Kim Kardashian’s martial status, Twitter is also home to remarkable stories that began with just 140 characters. Like Chris Strouth who found a kidney donor after he tweeted “Sh*t, I need a kidney.” Or the Japanese fishermen who sell their fresh catch on Twitter before they reach the shore. And NASA astronaut Mike Massimino who sent the first extraterrestrial Tweet.
For more inspiring examples, check out Twitter Stories. Have your own story? Share it by using the hashtag #twitterstories, and yours could be the next Tweet heard around the world.
Party on Twitter. No Hangovers.
Any term with the word party in it has to be good. And, indeed, Twitter parties are emerging as a tool for brands to engage their customers. Companies throwing Twitter parties include the high-altitude set, like the Harvard Business Review, IBM and Gevalia, and baser needs like Huggies Diapers, Crest toothpaste, barbeque sauce, and even some ad agency grumble fests.
So what exactly is a Twitter Party? It’s an online free-for-all that draws information hungry, brand evangelist types – like your customers. They share interests as diverse as camping, computing, barbeque or interior design. To join the discussion, Tweeters follow the event’s with hashtags, which you have heavily promoted. The leader or host of the party introduces subjects and guides the discussion.
The opportunity for a brand is to field experts, a guest host, or a celebrity. Just like guests at a real party expect their hosts to cough up some clean paper cups and peanuts, your Twitter guests will expect contests and brand swag. No, not iPads! Whip up giveaways that relate to your brand, even if it’s just a cool T-shirt.
A Twitter party is also an event you can weave through all of your other marketing: blog posts, Facebook, Print ads, and a landing page to capture social information and leads on your website.
The potential ROI from these online events is enormous. Companies report from 1,500 to more than 1,000,000 mentions. And remember, these count as interactions with potential customers, not just ad impressions. Compared to most other tactical options, a Twitter party is downright cheap.
Next steps? Follow some Twitter parties on your own to see how they work, and learn more about Ideopia’s ssocial media capabilities.
Ideopia Showcases B2B Marketing Work
A new b2b mini site from Ideopia showcases business-to-business marketing for clients in the medical equipment, industrial manufacturing, private aviation, business newspaper and restaurant categories. Ideopia’s philosophy as a B2B agency is to emphasize creative work that make complex to commodity products interesting and entertaining to prospects. The projects highlighted on the site include a web design for Hamilton Caster, an ad campaign that helped a business newspaper eliminate its competition, and a branding campaign that injected new life into a mature product.
The site also gives prospective clients a peek at Ideopia’s broad tactical capabilities, which include web site design, public relations, social media, advertising and web marketing.
Ideopia’s b2b accomplishments include 19 years of successive growth for a medical equipment manufacturer; a 40-fold increase in sales for a national computer hardware distributor; and sales and market share growth for clients through two recessions.
More information about Ideopia/B2B is available from new business director, Mike Bober, at 513-947-1444.
Twitter Research: Go with the Crowd.
One of the biggest 
casualties of the recession is market research. Some marketers, like Ideopia, have turned to Twitter for directional information on ideas before making a full-blown commitment. Before you get crazy about confidence levels and standard deviations, let’s be clear: This isn’t a substitute for a quantitative study or even a focus group.
What Twitter offers is insight into how your followers might behave. For example, you might tweet a teaser about an event, “Want to see cows play hockey? Let us know.” Let’s assume that your Twitter following fairly accurately mirrors your target audience. So if you have 1000 followers and none of them reply to or re-tweet your post, you may have a dud on your hands.
Another strategy is to pit two ideas against each other to see which one catches. Twitter research allows you to take the temperature of your idea by crowd sourcing your followers. Give it a try!
Internal-Only Twitter Clients Thrive in Workplace
Looking for someone to grab lunch with? Tweet it. That’s what employees at a division of LG Electronics do, using BizTweet, the company’s internal-only version of Twitter.
In an age where companies and organizations face irrelevance for not using Twitter, companies like LG have found their social media niche developing unusual applications.
The informality of BizTweet has helped foster a positive culture within the company. Employees there tweet meeting updates and chat about customer support, as well as the occasional aside on traffic or sports.
In the healthcare industry, professionals may use Twitter internally to bid on work shifts, share patient trends and tweet live from medical conferences.
The possibilities are endless. Do you use Twitter outside the normal broadcast norms? Tweet us @Ideopia. Let’s get the discussion started.