DISQUS

Gawed · 4 months ago

i've seen the segmenting appear in some companies, some of them very cleverly for example, have created blogs for different verticals or markets and then a twitter account for that blog, that way they engage the segments separately.
i think you have an important idea that should have been logic and obvious to companies since the start.

connectme360 · 4 months ago

Hospitality brands such as @MGMGrand manage their uber-channels while allowing individual on-premise venues such as @WetRepublic, @TabuLounge and others to maintain their own accounts. They recently launched @tasteMGMGrand to aggregate information about all of their restaurants, whether or not they have an active Twitter presence.

The rise and fall of such sub-accounts mirrors the rise and decline of co-branded credit cards decades ago. Most mocked Shell Oil when they launched their credit card, reasoning that Shell Oil consumers would use their card to buy gas at Exxon. The mocks turned into a land grab when other gas companies -- and ultimately, lots of other marketers -- realized the gold mine of insight into consumer purchase behavior.

I foresee the same with Twitter - today, people can choose whether they want to get customer service from DMOs like #inPDX, chainwide concierges like @HyattConcierge or individual properties like @FSMaui. Consumers don't really want to be following lots of Tweeple and will ultimately resolve to those voices that deliver the best value. That entity may be a complete surprise: I could foresee a day when @oprah stands alone as the authentic voice best able to tell us where to go and what to buy once we get there.

Steve_Dodd · 4 months ago

Hi Dirk, I believe you are taking the right approach, especially for companies with multiple products serving various vertical markets. People want focus and to see content that is relevant to them. With too much noise, they'll lose interest. Although there are some corporate announcements and cross sell items that would need to be posted across the streams, mostly each stream should be self sufficient and focused. From a corporate point of view, this also makes measurement much easier and less subjective.

Ken Burbary · 3 months ago

Dirk,

The reality is that most medium to large business will have to segment for the simple reason that a single human being cannot scale across multiple business units, product lines, support departments, etc... Brands like Dell (who at last count had 35 separate Twitter accounts), McDonalds and Ford have organizational structures that are much too large to expect a single individual to provide the quality coverage from a single account needed to properly service customers. There are additional benefits to segmenting, as you have highlighted above, so I expect to see more brands take this approach.