Almost 500,000 Twitter accounts were set up every day last month, taking the site to an estimated 225m registered users worldwide. The figures serve to make the network an attractive place for brands.
It emerged last week that Twitter executives are considering Facebook-style branded pages (Marketing, 6 April). The site also now offers geo-targeted promoted tweets and an analytics dashboard to help companies understand more about who their followers are.
Twitter's current worldwide ad revenues are estimated at $45m, compared with Facebook's $1.9bn, so it is easy to see why its top team are looking at ways to bring in more money. The big question is whether brands want to change the way they engage with customers on Twitter. We asked six marketers from across the industry what they are seeking from the platform.
STAY TRUE TO PURPOSE: LET CONSUMERS LEAD THE WAY
Emma Harris, Director of sales and marketing (UK & International), Eurostar
Twitter going down the brand-page route means breaking the premise upon which it was formed. These pages lend themselves to Facebook, as this is how consumers use it - it's a magazine page for the individual. Visiting pages is the norm.
The beauty of tweeting, however, is that the messaging is led by the consumer; it's all about raw conversations that brands can interact with, at best try to influence, but not control.
We are happy having our own platform and interacting with Twitter from there, rather than from inside it. We invite people to visit, but are conscious we are pulling them into our world.
The danger is that if it decides to expand capability and integrate uploads too, it will simply become another Facebook.
I would ask that Twitter stay true to its original purpose: it is an information network led by consumers, not brands.
IMPROVE MEASUREMENT TOOLS TO ADD REAL VALUE FOR BRANDS
Ben Ayers, Head of social media, Carat, and ex-head of social media at ITV
Twitter will be rightly envious of the success of Facebook Pages in establishing a deeper, more profitable relationship with brands. They were a significant hook for Facebook when it came to attracting advertising money.
A move to branded pages would help Twitter increase sales of its Promoted Account ads. Crucially, if brands see they can get more value from a Twitter presence, they may be more inclined to invest in ads.
The opportunity to create more-immersive experiences that will then reverberate around the network is exciting. More in-depth ways of measuring responses on Twitter are essential and a free insights tool would add real value for brands.
It will be interesting to see how other users react, but I am certain that brands would welcome the opportunity to enhance their presence and better understand the impact of their activity.
MAKE THE MOST OF WHAT'S ALREADY AVAILABLE
Jakub Hrabovsky, Head of web relations, Vodafone
It is vital for brands to listen and, where relevant, dip into customers' online conversations.
The beautiful thing about social media is the variety of platforms. It wouldn't be appropriate for brands to try to alter the environment by forcing new marketing features. Rather, they should explore and make maximum use of what's currently available in a non-intrusive way, using the tone and communication style consumers are accustomed to.
This approach allows for a more personal and sophisticated customer engagement, ultimately driving positive word-of-mouth.
Vodafone UK has two dedicated Twitter channels, used primarily for customer engagement and care, blogger engagement and early issues detection, as well as identifying opportunities to sell.
As any Twitter user would expect, we offer a highly personalised experience and the speedy interaction required by the very nature of the platform.
ADD BRAND-FRIENDLY FEATURES THAT WON'T RUIN USERS' FLOW
Matthew Walls, Vice-president of marketing, Hotels.com
Twitter pages for brands is an interesting prospect, so long as they maintain the platform's dynamic, yet simple, nature. Such pages should enhance a marketer's ability to manage Twitter activity, but not affect the flow of the user experience.
There would be value in having a broader presence on Twitter, rather than being limited by the profile and background that it now offers. We would love to see an area where we might be able to display legal copy or notifications for customers during our campaigns. Or, for brands with multiple accounts, an area where we can feature them for our customers.
We are always on the lookout for tools to help us manage our Twitter activity better, centred on real-time customer services and monitoring brand conversations. So far, our needs have been met by free and paid-for third party applications.
GET IT RIGHT AND STEAL A MARCH ON FACEBOOK
Anna Jones, Digital and strategy director, Hachette Filipacchi UK
Elle UK has more than 250,000 followers on Twitter, making it one of the most successful women's magazines on the platform. We handle it all in-house.
For us, branded pages are a divergence, as we use Twitter to bring readers to our content and flag up interesting things. From a publisher's perspective, Facebook hasn't cracked it yet as we can't use it to create revenue. If Twitter managed that first, it could steal a march on Facebook.
A single tweet might be limiting, but consumers engage with this short content in a different way and we have found that it drives overall engagement. Brands ask us to include Twitter mentions or links to ads on our Twitter feed. But we won't simply use it as a standalone advertising platform - nor would we, or our readers, want to.
DON'T DETRACT FROM THE CONVERSATION
Vicki Franks, Marketing director, Kao Brands
Our brands are already active on Twitter; John Frieda, for example, has more than 1700 followers. Both the Twitter feed and the Facebook page are managed by social media agency Holler.
The immediacy of Twitter makes it very different from Facebook and the danger for it is that in launching branded pages it will simply become a 'me too'. Facebook already delivers this function and we don't want to drive our fans to two different platforms.
Consumers don't want lots of information from us all the time. The beauty of Twitter is that it allows us to have a direct conversation with our consumers and it is important not to detract from that.
Social media presents marketers with a challenge and there are brands that have simply jumped on the bandwagon but have nothing to say to consumers.
MARKETING.CO.UK READERS' OPINIONS
Charlotte Clark Sounds interesting, but what I like about Twitter is its simplicity and how you can integrate it with your own site. It's important that brands consider in more depth how people enter the buy-flow through fan pages. As for advertising, I've followed several 'promoted account' campaigns which seem to have gained very little traction. The whole idea of social media is that the audience has control.
Jon Clarke Importantly, UK ad agencies want to contact a real person at Twitter, so it would be good if the US office created that opportunity, and quick, or advertisers will constantly walk away and work with third-party Twitter ad solutions.
Rosie Duncan There is the potential for ... branded pages on Twitter to become quite irritating. If brands were trying to get onto people's feeds through tweets, their messages could become akin to junk mail.
Matthew Hunt 'We're not making any money so let's copy someone else's idea that's not making much money.' Is that really good business sense? (It) won't make money this way, but should go for a paid subscription model instead.