I read a blog post recently that reflected what we had been talking about in the office for a while now: how brands (the ones we look at most closely is technology brands because that’s what we specialise in) are using Twitter in different ways. Specifically, how some brands are using it purely as a tool to distribute content, and others are using it as a way of talking to their customers.

Twitter is similar to RSS feeds, a well known broadcast medium, in that you use it to put your headline (limited character) content out there, with many posts containing links to read more. However, the Twitter interface allows you to view all your favourite ‘feeds’ in one place; it enables you to view who is receiving your ‘feeds’; and most importantly, it facilitates conversation between Twitterers. These are the main differences between Twitter and RSS feeds. Some brands are anonymously (the Twitterer is not named) sending out links to blog posts, news, offers etc without encouraging feedback or being conversational in delivery. I don’t think there is anything wrong with using Twitter as a broadcast medium; however I think brands are potentially missing out on some valuable insight and brand building as a result.

In my opinion it is fine to use Twitter as a broadcast medium, but I would advise brands doing this to think about adding another Twitter channel to use for conversational and customer relationship building purposes. Or maybe consider introducing more conversational tweets at a later time to your current broadcast account, once you have decided on your style and approach to conversational Twittering.

To get the most out of Twitter I think a brand should take advantage of all the different ‘hats’ a Twitter account can wear: customer service tool; broadcast medium; opinion tool; brand builder. You may choose to do this using several different accounts, as many of the larger brands do (be careful to track activity of all your different Twitter accounts though to retain consistency and work together in the best way possible) or in one account.