Singing To A New Tune: CRM Via Twitter

 Ok, so Victrix is a little late jumping onto the Twitter bandwagon, but given the hysteria surrounding Swine Flu - with little justification as to why the WHO went to DefCon 5 - maybe a little ‘late to market’ isn’t such a bad policy after all?

This is a case study of how Twitter Intelligence (TI) can sometimes having a profound impact on our (the brand’s) understanding of the consumer’s perspective as well as the questions and concerns which are typically raised in a word-of-mouth scenario.   

And this is a major point: I’m not aware of anyone yet describing Twitter technology as a method to measure and monitor word-of-mouth, especially in metric terms such as ‘rate of diffusion’, ‘positive/negative’ sentiment, brand and competitor awareness.

In this example, we have comments, opinions and chats associated with one of Samsung’s most recent mobile phone releases, the Omnia touchscreen. Using PeerIn’s Sentiment Metrics platform we have tracked and quantified these references online - across typical websites, but more interestingly across social media and user-generated content. Included in this catch-all is Twitter communications.

 This analysis captures references to “Samsung” and “Omnia” and identifies more than more 20,000 items across blogs (including micro-blogging), forums, websites and news services. In percentage terms, the split is 51%, 26%, 15% and 8% respectively. Micro-blogging, or Twitter, accounts for just over 1% of all comments, which is relatively high for a product-related ‘event’.

However, what it lacks in scale, the Twitter channel more than makes up for in sheer chutzpah. In others words, when you’re limited to 140 characters, your opinions, questions and answers are going to be couched in a very concise, direct and forthright manner. There’s simply no room or patience to waffle, procrastinate or pontificate. Though there’s plenty of opportunity to market, or dare I say it, spam.

In the context of understanding a mindset, the Samsung-related Twitters are pure gold.  

“Phones I have my eye on Samsung Omnia and HTC Touch Pro2″

“got lots of games and most importantly a GPS for my Samsung Omnia that is free…holla!!”

“Does anyone want to swap a Samsung Omnia for an iphone?? It would make my day and I would actually think you are crazier than me”

“I returned the samsung omnia and got an htc touch pro…spent all day yesterday unlocking and flashing it…sweet as betch now”

“Goddamn Samsung Omnia. You’ve broken my heart and I’m thinking about leaving you for a Blackberry Curve. It’s not me, its you.”

“Nokia N97 comes with disappointing hardware. Samsung Omnia HD looks better and better every day.”

In these few examples, you have cases of competitor positioning (and awareness) as well as consumer insights into hardware and software configurations.

There are many other examples, but one thing Victrix has learnt very quickly about Twitter: don’t take everything on face value. While no doubt a flexible, responsive and convenient communications channel, Twitter is also increasingly susceptible to astro-turfing techniques, where product placements clumsily infiltrate innocuous Twitter comments. Case in point:

“What a beautiful sunset. I’m sitting by a blue lake and listening to Michael Buble from my Samsung Omnia.”   

And you thought the close-up of the Ford badge in Casino Royale was gratuitous!