Can you afford it?

Can you afford not to have your brand on Twitter?

One of the objections that I hear often whenever Twitter is mentioned as an integral part of an overall integrated marketing and customer service strategy, is: “We don’t have the resources for this.” This from companies who spend thousands – sometimes even millions of Euros on automatic systems that only serve to get users frustrated. The other common lament is “If we go in there we will be bashed by all of those angry customers, and for that, we have our dealers or retailers”

If people care enough to speak about your brand (good or bad), it means that they are emotionally attached to it. Even those who use Twitter or one of the many other social mediums to say “Hey ‘brand name’ I could not give a damn about you!” they still hope that you will listen to them and act on whatever it is that’s frustrating them. Fundamentally, customers WANT brands to hear them.

To the “We don’t have the resources…” the answer comes in the shape of another question: “Can you afford not to be where your clients are?” But this is not the only problem facing brands who are not embracing Twitter, and Social Media, in general. There are, most definitely, bigger things at work.

Enter Google’s Real Time Search

If you haven’t read about it yet, Google’s Real Time Search is simple to describe: You enter a search term and you get what is being said on Twitter (and other social mediums) about that search term. Live. Real time.

The time for excuses is over. Brands who don’t get Social Media and who are not willing to embrace it will be severely affected by this. The time of being an option, a plan, something to think about is also over. Brands should get to it – like right now.

And if you are reading this and you work for Audi, I would really like to review the Q5. And I think that my feedback will be more than a little valuable to you.