3 Examples to Easily Engage your Audience in Twitter

Companies and brands are currently learning new things every day about the digital world. Sometimes is worth looking at others to see how they're performing so that we can get inspired and think of a new idea for our strategy or action plan. And this is what this post is about, an example of how a major company like Waterstones is doing at Social Media, so that we can get some inspiration.

I've written in the past about another English cult brand I love, @innocent, as a best practice for a digital strategy. And this time I write about another one of my favourite brands, Waterstones, the UK's number 1 bookseller.

The three examples are based on the same action, changing the corporate visual design, but for three diferent reasons:

1. Changing the corporate image for the promotion of a new product (in this case, a new book).
As a part of the launch strategy and with the aim of increasing the audience expectation, Waterstones changed the Twitter header and redesigned a new logo according to the colours of a new book that was about to be published. Specifically, they wanted to promote the book "Go set a watchman", by Harper Lee, and they also included in the creativity the other book of this author, "To kill a mockingbird" (a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel published in 1960 that has become a classic of the modern American Literature). This way they were promotioning two books from the same author, the new one and the old one (which had previously been very successful). This is getting a bit funny at this point, because as I'm writting the post I realize they actually wanted to kill two birds with one stone, and not only the mockingbird (it was my dad joke time, sorry for that).

2. Changing the corporate image to give visibility to your SCR (worldwide reach).
Tell your current and future customers about your Social Corporate Responsability. Which social causes are important to your company? Let your customers know about this through social media. Because they want to and they need to. They want to know what's your story about, your social values as a company, and not only your product features and benefits. If they know about the company, about the values, they can get involved and engaged with you. And engagement in Social Media is a stage your company needs to achieve when your final objective is to sell your products.

In this case, Waterstones is showing not only its implication with the refugees crisis but also its contribution. This is, "you, follower, you have to know that I do not only care about this but I also contribute my grain of sand. Would you like to join me?".

3. Again, changing the corporate image to give visibility to your social values (local reach).
Ahead of UK's National Blood Week in June last year, the NHS Blood and Transplant persuaded several high profile brands to remove the letters from their name. Odeon, for instance, dimmed the Os at its flagship cinema in Leicester Square and Green&Blacks Organic removed the As, Os and Bs from the Blood Orange chocolate bar. And Waterstones' Trafalgar Square shop lost its A and O (also Waterstones on Twitter lost the same letters in the account name and logo).

The Daily Mirror was also supporting the campaign. The missing letters were part of the NHS' new campaign "Missing Type", which was created by Engine. This was a very original campaign highlighting that if not enough new people donate these blood types in the next few years, there won't be enough blood available to help patients when they most need it.

There are two little differences between this one and the previous one:

1. The geographical scope of the social value for the company. This is, as a company, I'm corncerned about the things that happen in the world that I live, but I also care about the society in the country I live. At the end of it, it is also an indicator of something that you care about in the world: people, human being. But this time the company gets involved with an action that is being carried out in its country and they want to participate in it. So this is a nearest concern, more related to the UK people.
2. The combination and coordination of off-line and on-line actions, as they were not only using Social Media (changing the Twitter header and logo) but also conducting some actions at the store.

In all cases, the main objective is to give some dynamism to our Twitter account, so that our followers can realize something new is happening and we can encourage them to visit our profile and have a look at our recent timeline or simply make them aware of what we are now tweeting about.

By the way, I started saving these images as screenshots in October 2015. If you have a quick look again at the first one on top, you'll see how Waterstones had 122.000 users by that time. And Waterstones is currently followed in Twitter by 144.000 users, so they gained 22.000 new users in one year. Just as a benchmark to compare with others or even with ourselves and to decide whether it is a Twitter account worth following for you or not :)

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My previous [ENG] post: 10 Essential Marketing Keywords for your Speech/Report

Related post: [ESP]: Ejecutando una Estrategia de Marketing Digital - The @innocent way, ¿jugamos?

10 essential marketing keywords for your speech/report

No matter what you're analyzing or how brilliant your analysis is. If you don't include the right keywords for your audience in your report (or speech), the analysis will have been a complete waste of time.

I bet you have gone at least once or twice to hospital for an emergency. Have you ever listened to yourself (or to others) talking to the recepcionists? My kid ... football ... leg ... hurts ... pain ... temperature .. cough, ... Bla, bla, bla. This is all noise to them. You'll probably be asked to take a seat and you'll be waiting hopefully for a couple of hours to be assisted. But try to include in your speech a word like ... HEART. And see the recepcionist reaction. Or say something like "DIFFICULTY FOR BREATHING". You won't know how it happened but in less than 20 seconds you'll be surrounded by several doctors and find yourself connected to any kind of medical device. This is because they have their protocols. There are some words that capture their attention and make them react in one way. They are the "medical urgency keywords".

These thoughts came to me from a personal experience in the past (which fortunately ended ok) and reminded me that in business happens kind of the same. If you're preparing your report or speech and your audience will be a marketing team or you'll be addressing it to the general manager and the marketing manager, make sure you include some of these words in your presentation. Otherwise they will be disconnecting from it in less than 10 minutes.

What keywords will let you connect with your audience in marketing?

(1) product strengths and weaknesses
(2) market opportunities and threats

No mystery in these two first keywords for marketing or market research people. We all know whatever you're analyzing needs to end up with a diagnosis, previous to define your objectives, strategies and action plan. And this diagnosis needs to be explained in terms of conclusions on the internal analysis (product) and the external analysis (market) you conducted. Yes, this is the typical SWOT diagnosis of marketing plans and books, with SWOT standing for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. You need to know your strengths in order to potentiate them in your communication. Your weaknesses to correct them. Your opportunities will give you ideas for new projects and you also need to be aware of your market threats in order to face them in the best conditions you can.

(3) purchase drivers
Translate what you found out when analyzing your data. Uncover what makes your customers buy your product. Why you. This will let everybody know how your customer is and behaves. Consumer behaviour information! This is pure gold for a marketing or general manager.

(4) compelling reason to buy (also purchase boosters)
Knowing about your customers behavior will let you understand what attributes you can focus on in your advertising and communication campaigns, this is, those things you do in order to increase your product sales.

(5) brand awareness
Are your customers aware of you? Do they know you exist in the market? Because, as a marketing manager or general manager, I will understand that if they don't, I will need to focus on a communication strategy. And if they do, if we do have a high brand knowledge and awareness but people do not buy me too much, then I'll understand that my priority should focus on a product strategy, to find out what's happening with my product.

(6) consumer barriers
Is there anything holding my customers back? Is there any negative opinion or perception that restrains them from buying my product? Of course, it will be very related to my product weaknesses. And I need to know it in order to change it or at least to minimize the impact if I can't avoid it.

(7) competitors
Inevitably, whatever you say about my competitors will prick my ears up. This is good information about how my market works: market information! Again, pure gold.

(8) customer engagement
Talk about what you found out about this. What actions make your customers connect with your company in social media. What does make them retweet or like something? Virality is a response to something they feel engaged with. And virality will bring you more product knowledge. Knowledge, virality and engagement will set the basis for increasing your sales through social media channels. Again, "increasing sales", two perfect words to keep their attention.

(9) market positioning
The market positioning is an association that your customers will build in their minds between your brand and some attributes. And if you want to succeed with a right positioning you need to define your relevant attribute and your differential attribute. The relevant attribute is the one that matters to the client. And the differential attribute is the one that will differentiate you from other competitors. The market positioning has a direct connection with your marketing strategy and therefore with the marketing team/manager.

(10) value proposition 
The value proposition connects with your business strategy. It goes further ahead from positioning your brand on one attribute. It's the whole experience your customer will have when purchasing and using your product: his/her balance between a combination of costs (negative little experiences) and benefits (positive little experiences). You can't go anywhere without clearly defining first your value proposition and second your market positioning and the general manager and marketing manager know that. So whatever you tell them related to this, they will be listening carefully.

There is more and more data. And more and more tools to analyze this data. And maybe we're getting to a point where we don't need so much data and so many tools but more analysts that can make the most of this data with these tools. At the end of it, the marketing manager and the general manager do not care much about data and tools. They want the analysts to work with all that, so that they can finally tell them about the only two simple things they care about:

1) What's happening to my product/brand/company and
2) What do I have to do (this is, you, analyst that analyzed all data and took conclusions out, what do you recommend me to do?)

Marketing people tend to sort their thoughts within these two dimmensions. And also the general manager does. So take for granted that these 10 marketing keywords will allow you to connect with them, as you will be sorting thoughts in the same direction (within the same dimensions), as well as speaking the same language.