Guest Post by Sanjiva Persad
What, no Twitter?
A few months ago, I read a great blog post by Ray Grieselhuber on the Ginzametrics blog about Trader Joe’s, and the fact that they, a major grocery chain, didn’t have an official presence on Twitter.
It seemed baffling, and Ray did an excellent job of identifying the benefits of having an official Twitter presence.
It made me think about the largest company in the UK without a Twitter account.
I didn’t specifically check that out, but I’d guess that Costa Coffee is high on the list. Costa is a major high street coffee retailer (and I should add that I love their coffee). Their loyalty program and mailing list work in sync, and they do a good job of keeping me posted with promotions without overwhelming me with emails.
So it was astounding to me that their official Twitter account hadn’t been updated since October of 2008. Costa is on Facebook, however, and their Facebook page has over 175,000 fans and is updated weekly.
So I did the natural thing; I emailed the company.
They replied very promptly, and in a nutshell, they’ve decided to limit their presence on Twitter to their parent company. (On a side note, they’re also working on reducing the size of the massive receipts they currently give every customer, but are not planning to eliminate them, as I suggested, anytime soon).
My initial reaction was one of shock, and I’ve decided to play Devil’s advocate and think of hypothetical reasons for this decision (since none were forthcoming from their communications representative):
1) They have a Facebook page, so why do they need to be on Twitter too?
2) They don’t have the resources to maintain a Twitter account, and if they do it, they want to do it right.
And that’s it. Costa Coffee are probably doing ok without Twitter, but I still think it’s a strange decision.
Can you think of any other reasons for a company NOT to be on Twitter?
Image: Simon Q via Flickr, CC 2.0
Sanjiva Persad is a London-based social media marketer and copywriter who specialises in helping small businesses build their brand online. His home on the web is sanjivapersad.com. He also blogs and tweets.
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@JamesGurd I saw this a moment ago and thought it was quite apt: https://t.co/VwgsUZUP
@gregpower yes and no – I think there is experience to Twitter but more limited – running competitions creates an experience
@jamesgurd – does the handle belong to Costa? I spotted this account ages ago set up under South West Water. Genius: http://t.co/VKrdNp7j
@priteshpatel9 I think so as the “RealCostaCoffee” comes across as a fake and I can’t find an active genuine twitter account
[…] Costa Coffee: Why Isn’t Twitter Brewing? (waxingunlyrical.com) […]
@Hassanmirza Thanks for the plug – much appreciated!
@Hassanmirza @sanjivapersad sure you’re right about costa sarnies but does a social media presence correlate to a good sandwich?
@Hassanmirza don’t be so negative! ;)))) lol
@emeraldfrogmkt @HazelLCottrell @Betfairpoker Definitley genius. I’ve broken my rule about only following #realpeoplerealfaces :)
@AnnHawkins @hazellcottrell Interesting post. I think there is a lot they could do with it though. Have you seen @Betfairpoker? Genius!
@argayah Thanks very much! I would hope that improving the overall customer experience is high up on most company’s agendas, even if there is debate around whether social media is a part of that process.
@HowieSPM I think you make a really good point. But to play devil’s advocate, a company like Southwest Airlines is doing just this, specifically w.r.t. Twitter – they are talking to people and actively engaging… and they’re obviously doing that because it has value for them, right?
Like @EricaAllison , I don’t think every company “has” to be on Twitter, though I do think they’re missing, at the very least, a monitoring opportunity. I don’t think it’s about how many or how few people are on Twitter. It’s about how many or how few of the people the brand is trying to reach are on Twitter (or whatever social platform they decide to be on). Huge difference.
@sanjivapersad I think @EricaAllison made a really good point. You don’t “have” to be on Twitter for your business to be successful, and it seems Costa Coffee is doing just fine without it. But could you be more successful “with” it? And/or – if you start out with it, then drop off, then decide to come back, how much more are you going to have to climb uphill to be on par with your competitors, or even just to get back to where you were before?
Not certain why. Especially with hoot suite when they could broadcast to both twitter and facebook at once! Will think about this some more Shonali!
Thanks,Rajka
@HowieSPM @Shonali When commenting, I hate to cop out and just say “what he said” — but Howie nailed it.
I will add that it is fitting that you referenced the post about Trader Joe’s because that organization, more than most, underscores the point that large brands can achieve high levels of customer service without Twitter. They were recently ranked #2 in the US for major brands in NPS score (Net Promoter Score — a measure of customer satisfaction). I agree that keeping in touch with strong brand ambassadors and detractors is important, but for large organizations scaling past that can be a challenge and produce a questionable return.
My first thought on their lack of a twitter presence was “how refreshing” – as a user of twitter I try to minimize the number of persons/organizations I’m following. There’s CNN for example as well as our local Office for Disaster Preparedness (ODPM) and such so that I’m aware of the major happenings locally and abroad. For the most part, all else is considered clutter and spam. I’ve actually stopped following people I like simply because they tweet more than I care to read. And after considering this post I’ve come up with a few plausible reasons as to their course of action:
1. There is no need for a twitter account (as per a needs analysis conducted as part of corporate strategy)
I’d imagine that their lack of a presence may perhaps be in line with some aspect of corporate strategy. For some companies the acquisition and continual growth of a customer base is key to their survival. Other companies may decide to focus on quality of service. Others still may be focused on making such a quality product that it literally sells itself, thereby reducing the need to spend on marketing – if I am able to find a store that consistently offers a quality product that I need at a reasonable price then I’m hooked, especially if the product is easily accessible. This would negate the need for frequent promotions and those sort of activities, thereby further reducing costs in this respect.
2. There is too much effort required to sustain a twitter account (the need has been realized but this has been deemed either too low a priority in the grand scheme of things or the resources required are more than can be mustered).
3. There is a need for a twitter account but this need was not correctly recognized by the corporate stakeholders.
All in all, I’m of the opinion that some companies spend way too much time and effort on hyping their product instead of making deliberate efforts to improve quality or facilitate easy customer access. And I would like to think that efforts not expended on advertising is being spent on improving the customer’s overall experience (although I do realize that this line of thinking on my part may be naive).
Nice article by the way. I like how you target issues like these that warrant further analysis.
My first thought on their lack of a twitter presence was “how refreshing” – as a user of twitter I try to minimize the number of persons/organizations I’m following. There’s CNN for example as well as our local Office for Disaster Preparedness (ODPM) and such so that I’m aware of the major happenings locally and abroad. For the most part, all else is considered clutter and spam. I’ve actually stopped following people I like simply because they tweet more than I care to read. And after considering this post I’ve come up with a few plausible reasons as to their course of action:
1. There is no need for a twitter account (as per a needs analysis conducted as part of corporate strategy)
I’d imagine that their lack of a presence may perhaps be in line with some aspect of corporate strategy. For some companies the acquisition and continual growth of a customer base is key to their survival. Other companies may decide to focus on quality of service. Others still may be focused on making such a quality product that it literally sells itself, thereby reducing the need to spend on marketing – if I am able to find a store that consistently offers a quality product that I need at a reasonable price then I’m hooked, especially if the product is easily accessible. This would negate the need for frequent promotions and those sort of activities, thereby further reducing costs in this respect.
2. There is too much effort required to sustain a twitter account (the need has been realized but this has been deemed either too low a priority in the grand scheme of things or the resources required are more than can be mustered).
3. There is a need for a twitter account but this need was not correctly recognized by the corporate stakeholders.
All in all, I’m of the opinion that some companies spend way too much time and effort on hyping their product instead of making deliberate efforts to improve quality or facilitate easy customer access. And I would like to think that efforts not expended on advertising is being spent on improving the customer’s overall experience (although I do realize that this line of thinking on my part may be naive).
Nice article by the way. I like how you target issues like these that warrants further analysis.
I always worry about Facebook. When you don’t own the page/site you risk losing a major investment in time/money and connections between you and prospects/customers.
If it was me running things I would have a presence there. It is not that hard to do and provides another way to engage/interact.
@HowieSPM @Shonali Thanks very much for this, Howie, especially for breaking it down quantitatively. You also mentioned something important that I left out; that brands should listen. It’s a too-often overlooked part of social media.
@EricaAllison Thanks for your comment, Erica! That is indeed the magic question/magic bullet, and I’d be really interested in the results of your case study. I don’t buy into the “social media will immediately revolutionise your business” school of thought, but I do think it brings opportunities. Whether those opportunities are worth the extra investment is another thing altogether
@timepass Thanks for the comment and the kind words, timepass. I think you’ve laid out the thought process that companies need to go through in determining their social media strategy (or if they need one at all). it was just surprising to me that such a large company (and a consumer brand at that) decided to leave Twitter out of the equation. I guess it can be viewed as either a thoughtful allocation of resources, or a missed opportunity.
I have blogged about this and we have discussed this here before. Scale. Social media can not scale. facebook is easy its like your web page. And Twitter is more active you promote and respond. But think of a big company. You can not engage with your customers. Imagine if just 1 million of Starbucks 300million customers talked with them on Twitter each day. 0.33% of customers. What would it be like? How could they possibly respond to them all without 1000’s of employees. Will it help sell more coffee? Does even them just posting on Twitter and not responding do anything for sales vs the sign everyone sees driving around? What if there is only 5,000 talking on Twitter to you. That is almost zero customers. Do you allocate resources for that? Doesn’t the customers checking in foursquare and saying they are at starbucks enough? Starbucks has 20mil Fans on facebook they rarely post. They get about 400 to 500 Fan posts per day. Divided by 20million that is zero. Divided by 300million and that is negative infinity.
@Shonali had a point of well if people are there and they want to talk shouldn’t we even if it only makes a few brand ambassadors and I agree yes. But With so few active people on Twitter world wide each day (about 30million) I don’t see the value for a big company when they have to reach so many more people.
I personally don’t think any of the Worlds 3000 brands need to be on Facebook or Twitter except for listening. It isn’t increasing sales enough to give upper management bonuses or move the stock price. You proved that by showing this company is so big and successful. Where I am open to a position change is show a hungry competitor of theirs stealing big market share using Twitter. Until then there is no urgency to be there.
@tech_tt That would be a shame, especially for such a major consumer brand.
Excellent post and question! I have wondered that myself lately for various other business that seem to be progressive or on the ‘edge’ of marketing efforts, but have no real presence on Twitter. One case that shocked me completely was a panel of 30 y.o. Entrepreneurs who are “rockin’ it” with their businesses (truly). I immediately went online at the conference to find them on Twitter and was shocked! They had very little presence and really didn’t know how to use what they did have. I’d like to do a case study on it (now you’ve inspired me to do so); but my immediate conclusion (hypothetical of course) is that they are doing just fine without it. There, I said it. It is possible for a business to be quite successful without Twitter. However, it begs the question: could they be even more successful with it? Magic question/magic bullet…
Thanks so much for the additional nudge to explore this topic further!
They just don’t understand it or it’s value.
i’d like to approach the question with a slight change – Can you think of any other reasons for a company NOT to be on (fill your social media platform here)?
If you have enough presence online and other offline systems for customers/prospective customers to reach out to you then why create one more? There are a few perspectives as far as I see , one would be to have as much avenues present to allow for customers to reach you – benefits are clear, you get to hear from everyone rather everyone can reach you.
The other would be don’t complicate things for yourself – keep it simple and efficient so that you can ensure every customer is given attention ( I assume less avenues means better quality attention) and you don’t spread yourself too thin. Another point to consider is if the social media platform – twitter in this case – has enough traction or presence of your customer? If it doesn’t have a certain critical mass why spend your time and energy on it?
Anyways, nice post Sanjiv, thanks for giving me something to think about.