Consumers Tweet What?!

Very interesting blog post by Forrester’s Josh Bernoff today on Summize and TweetScan. Both tools allow you to search Twitter for certain key words and find tweets that correlate. My first thought as a PR person? What a great way to track what people are saying about my product!

As young PR pros, it is important for us to keep tabs on emerging consumer voices via social media to listen to what they are saying about the products and companies we represent. The tools mentioned in Josh’s blog post allow us to do so; to easily find what people are saying on Twitter.

Josh also has some interesting recommendations on how we can take action and respond to consumers via Twitter, in a very “non-creepy” sort of way (I hope). This is what he has to say:

If your product is just getting started or has a tight niche audience, then it's valuable to respond to many of your customers, with an @yourtwitterhandle type reply. This can have a "voice from the sky" quality so open the conversation carefully, e.g. "Saw your tweet, hope you are enjoying our product, tweet back if you have questions." For customers having problems that you can solve, this may be a great way to turn a detractor into a fan (if you can solve the problem, of course).

Just another way social media enables us to establish and maintain a positive relationship with our consumer base.

(BTW, I still hold firm on my prior claim that we shouldn't tweet pitches at reporters) :)