Social Media – Twitter
Published: 22 February, 2012
Imagine a worldwide market of 300m customers – a market that is adding some millions of new ‘customers’ a year. And a market that is instant. Want it? Then it all starts with a simple tweet, writes Sean Kelly
The 140-character online social networking and micro-blogging service has revolutionised countless aspects of life and business. Up and down the country shopping centres, towns and other retail destinations and from Brighton’s Churchill Square (@churchillsquare), to Bangor’s Deiniol centre (@deiniolshopping) and beyond are all tweeting news about openings, discounts, events and prizes in order to both communicate with – and influence - their customers.
Six years since its creation, Twitter has become a critical channel of instant communication and inspiration. And not just for retail destinations. Businesses, executives, opinion formers, celebrities and shoppers are using it to reach out to communicate either with customers, colleagues, friends and the rest of the world.
BCSC’s report Social Media: Do We Really Know What We’re Doing?, published late in 2011, indicated, based on a survey of 84 shopping centre managers, that 64 per cent of them had a Twitter presence. However a survey of 504 UK consumers for the same report indicated that 37 per cent use Twitter. Aside from that there are issues about messaging and control. It was noted that only about 33 per cent of centres had a content release control policy for their Twitter site. Furthermore, a US report on Twitter in Feb 2012 said that only 36 per cent of tweets received were of any interest with 25 per cent being “actively disliked.”
BCSC deputy chief executive Edward Cooke (@BCSCedcook) was on the steering group for the project, and he has been tweeting since July 2011. “Tweeting as a phenomenon continues to roll on unabated, and with good reason,” Cooke says. “It acts as the perfect free communications channel that should be used to complement other messaging through, for example, blogs or the mainstream press. Without doubt, if used properly, it supports brand awareness and recognition and performs an important networking function, not least of all as it breaks down barriers when you meet someone for the first time in the physical world.”
Mark Shaw (@markshaw), author of “Twitter Your Business”, is a small business champion who advocates using Twitter to beat the big guys. He says that not only should businesses be using Twitter as a customer engagement tool for sales and information but for customer service in order to build what he terms as a “community of advocates”.
“The game changer for business is Twitter,” he says. “Traditional ‘push marketing’ is the battle of the big boys. Moreover it comes down to who has the deepest pockets wins the game. With Twitter it’s not about how big your pockets are.”
Shaw, who gave up medical product sales and only started tweeting in April 2008, says it’s radically changed customer relationships.
“A few years ago if you told someone you liked or hated something you maybe told five people. Now you can tell five million people. It means that businesses need to up their game. They can either join in and be a part of the conversation or die a quiet death.”
“Think about the 4-Rs of Twitter,” concludes Shaw. “Real people talking about real stuff in real time right now.
Case study 1
Twitter lights up Meadowhall’s big Christmas switch-on
Meadowhall’s annual Christmas Light Switch-On Concert was bigger than ever this year, as a 10,000-strong audience turned out to see Matt Cardle, Tinchy Stryder, Ronan Parke and more perform. The set included the presence of a giant TV screen at the side of the stage, which was used to broadcast the concert to the crowd.
“We took the opportunity to use Twitter on the screen, with the concert’s presenters encouraging the crowd to tweet @LoveMeadowhall and send us comments and shout-outs to friends,” says Richard Pinfold, Meadowhall marketing director. “We worked to filter the tweets we were sent, and fed the best ones onto the screen for the audience to see.”
Pinfold says Twitter added to the event’s success: “Using Twitter in this way was extremely successful – the audience felt able to interact with the artists and presenters on the stage, the concert trended nationally on Twitter and fans increased by over 500 during the show and in the hours that followed.
Case study 2
Back to Birmingham with Bullring
“The civil unrest and riots last summer had a noticeable impact on footfall in the affected cities including Birmingham. The marketing team at the Bullring centre set to work re-building consumer confidence within the Birmingham community, launching a ‘Back to Birmingham’ campaign on Twitter.
“We asked local people to tweet when they were coming back into the city and what they were doing on their visit,” says Louise Hammer-Brown, head of marketing at Bullring. “We asked them to use the hashtag #backtobham so that everyone could read the 207 tweets that immediately followed. “
Within two hours of the launch, it was the top trending topic on Twitter in the region. The campaign exposure continued for a month. The efforts of the retail BID and, additionally, a Royal visit from the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, helped to keep up the campaign’s momentum in the following days and weeks and restored favour with Birmingham’s loyal shoppers. By the end of the year, confidence had clearly returned as Bullring’s footfall over the Christmas trading period was up 15 per cent on the previous year.
“We see Twitter as a vital and immediate communication tool, and the ‘Twitterati’ are influential, busy working people who need to digest information quickly and like to share,” Hammer-Brown adds. “Many journalists tap into Twitter for breaking news and updates, and @ITVCentral re-tweeted our #backtobham tweet, so we are careful to make sure that messages are clear, accurate and to the point without losing our brand tone and personality.”
Case study 3
Creating a buzz at West Orchards
Andy Talbot and his team at West Orchards, Coventry
(@WestOrchardsCov) are hot on the digital marketing trail and, for the most part, liking what they find.
“The secret behind Twitter and Facebook is to realise it’s labour intensive and to manage that process,” says Talbot, centre director of Redefine International’s 45-unit West Orchards, which includes Debenhams and M&S as anchors and a 700-seat food court.
“We try and market across the popular media from newspapers to radio and roadside,” Talbot says. “We also target the more specialist networks like NetMums. We aim to be where the customers are even when they are not physically with us.”
West Orchards uses the Centre Buzz system to integrate retailer and centre posts promoting new fashions, trends, stock, discounts and promotions to Twitter and Facebook. “In theory Facebook and Twitter are fantastic, but reality is that it can be quite labour-intensive to keep the audience interested in what’s going on.” Talbot explains. “Centre Buzz identifies and edits our feeds which they then also supplement with bespoke information and competitions and national offers from our retailers.”
Talbot says that digital engagement is critical whether it be Twitter, email or in-mall screen messaging.
“We’re a small shopping centre so the numbers may be conservative compared to the big centres, but we have 1,500 followers on Facebook (up from 1,200 in January) and 429 followers already on Twitter,” he says. “It’s still early days for us and for many other centres. It’s just nice to be able to ‘talk’ to customers regularly and get the message out there.”
