ICM - Leeds Design Agency

Lets face it, you can’t ignore Twitter – its everywhere these days. Rather than me banging-on about how Twitter works or why you should follow a pidgeon, Big Ben or Stephen Fry, I thought I would briefly show you some stats from our website.

There’s a few of us here at ICM that tweet regularly; some for gaining knowledge and information, some to network and some just to have a laugh.

In terms of driving traffic back to the ICM website in numbers, Twitter is fairly average, but as the graphic below shows, visitors from Twitter spend more time with us and view more pages (this is a snapshot from a single day):

I guess its because Twitter users are already in the process of ‘reading’ and taking in information.

Every day Twitter is starting to feel like less of a passing craze and is becoming more of a tool, I suppose only time will tell how powerful a tool it may become…

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I said to a friend of mine the other day ‘you’d really like Twitter’, he’s always on Facebook updating his status and interacting with others via status comments, effectively like a mini Twitter stream…

‘I’m no good at Twitter’ was his reply, ‘I’ve tried’.

No-one is good ‘at’ Twitter, but you can be good ‘on’ Twitter.

One of the big catchphrases of recent times when marketing anything is Return on Investment. When it comes to social media methods I much prefer the term Return on Engagement – what you get back from the time and effort you put in.

For me, Twitter really works when you interact, be it with a brand or an individual. Talking to a complete stranger is alien at first, but over time becomes quite natural within the medium of Twitter. Often its the time element that people, including my friend, struggle with. You wouldn’t walk into a room full of people and expect them to turn around and start having a meaningful conversation with you straight away.

Over the past year of Twitter use I have given feedback (positive and negative) to brands that I use, have found new friends within my industry, kept in touch with old friends and colleagues, won competitions, and have met new friends I wouldn’t have networked with in a more ‘normal’ situation.

All this shows (for me) a good Return on Engagement – taking time to interact; replying to questions, thanking people for retweets, asking questions, forwarding important news, and so on…

It’s not about how many followers you have, it’s not about what Stephen Fry says, its how you use it.

Have some fun, use it your way – there are no hard and fast rules. Oh, and as is usual at the end of these blog posts; you can follow (and interact with) me at twitter.com/richardpeacock or twitter.com/icmrichard...

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Before the likes of Twitter and Facebook if you wanted to get in touch with your local radio station to request a song you picked up the phone or sent an email. Now two BBC mainstream radio stations – Radio 1 and 1xtra are using the likes of Twitter, Bebo and Facebook to communicate with their audience.

If you go on the Chris Moyles show page on the Radio 1 website there is a list of all the many different ways that you can contact him. Using this wide variety of social media allows the audience to feel like they are a part of the show. If Chris plays a new song and asks for comment, the audience can easily go on Twitter and give them their response. This unlike email and text is faster as a twitter post only allows for 140 characters and will all appear of the same page, whereas each email would have to be opened individually.

It is not just these two radio stations that are embracing the use social media. The 2009 I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here site features a Tweet Tracker, a poll on which celebrity is being tweeted about the most, a link to follow the ‘I’m A Celebrity’ tweets and a link to become a fan on Facebook. The X-Factor site also contains links to become a Facebook, follow X-Factor tweet and to also place a twibbon on your photo stating who you want to win the competition.

Using these different applications also appeals to a wider audience who are already using these social networks and it gives them a chance to send in their opinion. I think that more radio and television shows will begin to use Twitter, Facebook and other site more to gain audience feedback and involvemen…

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