I wouldn't say i was the only person on the internet who has a problem and tweets about it in the hope that venting the anger will speed up the resolution, it never does. This type of action is something i find interesting because lately tweeting about your problems can help resolve them quickly.

This article is about how Twitter can be the tool that saves your brand as a company, it is also an article about how Twitter can help you solve problems faster, and lastly it's a post about the damage Twitter can have on your brand.

The inspiration for this article comes from my experience with companies on Twitter and personally the majority of companies i have had contact with have been very helpful and their help has restored hope in their brand, for others it has not been quite a picnic.

How Companies Are Using Twitter

It's hard to find a company that isn't on Twitter these days, but its hard to find a company that uses Twitter correctly.

Using Twitter incorrectly would typically be a company posting about their latest press releases, all information people who are interested can get anyway. Some companies (ecommerce) have been using Twitter to just tweet about their products and "special offers" constantly, this isn't good for followers.

Companies using Twitter correctly tend to use it to provide support to its users primarily and then post occasional updates about their products, events and other announcements that the majority of followers are interested in.

By no means does this apply to small companies unless the small companies have a huge presence on Twitter, so small ecommerce companies keep doing what you're doing because you may reap the rewards at the end of it.

Examples

As i mentioned earlier i have been involved with some companies over Twitter who normally respond to me venting my anger about their products or company, these tend to be the companies using Twitter for the greater good instead of as a free promotional tool.

Play.com - @playcom - Bad

Play.com is the largest entertainment online store, they also have Twitter, they use Twitter very badly and as a large company it is the best example of poor Twitter usage.

Play.com simply use Twitter to post information about their products such as new releases or special offers, in fact the products they promote are all the same products they promote in their newsletter.

At no point have Play.com replied to customers who are hoping to communicate directly with them through the Twitter medium. In fact at one point Play.com even jump on a trend and highjack it with tweets about tickets and DVDs relating to this trend, something i would class none other than Twitter spam.

O2 - @o2 - Good/Bad

O2 are using Twitter for the greater good, but at the same time have seriously damaged their brand by doing so. In June when the iPhone 3GS was announced O2's Twitter account inundated with questions because the announcement was not clear, in the days that followed O2 released more and more information which resulted in people being annoyed and upset with O2 and vented their anger on Twitter.

For around a week O2's very own trend #o2fail was amongst the most trending topics on Twitter and because of the public outcry on Twitter O2 received a lot of bad publicity from mainstream media also.

The image above shows the number of Tweets for June and July which was the time of the iPhone 3GS announcement and release and the majority of tweets were efforts to resolve the negativity. Another big month was March however i'm unsure what happened in March for it to get almost the same number of Tweets.

On a positive note however O2 have used their Twitter account to answer support related questions from being who direct a question at them, they have also been able to squash negative press by responding quickly on Twitter to currently events.

BT - @BTCare - Good

I hate BT, it's that simple, i have never been a fan of BT and the monopoly on the UK phone lines, so when my phone line was switched off because of a error at BT's end i went to Twitter and made my views known. I received a response within the hour from BT about the situation and they attempted to resolve the issue, unfortunately the issue got resolved the same day by BT anyway.

This is good because it adds another level of support for the company, a company that outsources all of its support to India which gets a lot of people annoyed, the fact they were able to help me over Twitter gave them some positive points.

Carphone Warehouse - @guyatcarphone - Good

Another company i have had nothing but bad things to say about is the Carphone Warehouse. Recently i published a post about how much i hate the Carphone Warehouse, one article in a series, but this negativity came shortly after support on Twitter.

I had issues with a crack on my iPhone, a well known problem that no one would help with, shortly after my tweet about it someone from Carphone Warehouse got in touch offering her personal help in getting my problem resolved.

Within hours i had figured out how to resolve the issue thanks to the customer service representative on Twitter, the story wasn't quite as positive once i went to shop.

Web Companies

Something you may have noticed at these are quite big brands on Twitter and their soul business does not reside online (excluding play.com), which brings me to internet based companies.

we7 - @we7 - Good

Over the last few months i have become nothing more than a true fan of we7 and everything they have done with legal streaming of music, i have on numerous occasions expressed my opinions on Twitter and on my blog.

Something we7 have utilised very well is Twitter, after all their company has a very social aspect behind the music because they want people to share. we7 have used Twitter to promote new music, but something we7 have also done is replied to people on Twitter who mention we7, normally helping people who haven't asked for it.

I recently promoted a blog post on Twitter about my ideas for we7, within hours i got a reply from someone at we7 who had read my post and gave me some positive feedback regarding the post. The following Monday i saw 2 comments on my blog from people who work for we7 leaving some more positive feedback about the post and my ideas, this sort of communication from a company is rare and is something that made me love we7 more.

Any company that takes on what people say about the company gets some credit, but companies that actively leave feedback about ideas for the company gets extra points and furthermore if the founder replies to a blog post then they get triple points.

TuneUp - @tuneup - Good

TuneUp is a piece of software that adds album titles, artist names, track names and album art to your iTunes library, the software is distributed online through their website and as expected the company also utilise Twitter.

Again i got reply because i was shouting my mouth off on Twitter about how their software was causing me problems. Within the hour i received a reply from TuneUp explaining what i was doing wrong and what i could do to fix the problem. This fixed the problem.

How To Be A Good Twitterer

Being a good Twitterer is not hard at all for companies, they just need to find a balance between spam and helpfulness and need to stop using Twitter as promotional tool and more as a tool to communicate with your customers.

• Don't use Twitter as a promotional tool
• Support your customers
• Stop the negativity before it spreads
• Take on board what people say, action it within the company (like we7)
• Don't jump on trends, unless they are about you
• Keep you eye out of search for mentions of your brands
• Don't wait for people to contact you, you need to make the first move

These are just some of the things you should be doing on Twitter but these points are not necessarily right, afterall Play.com has 30x more followers than me and all they do is spam, so maybe it works.

Finally...

This is just advice based on my opinions, i'm not saying i'm right, i'm not saying what companies do is wrong, all i'm saying is that unless you want to annoy me personally follow the steps above because i'm certain i'm not the only one who feels this way.

If you think i'm wrong then feel free to leave comments or if you feel i have missed something then please leave a comment.

Keywords: twitter, brand protection, brand, bt, o2, carphone warehouse, play.com, iphone, social media, social, tweet, statistics