“This post discusses whether #Twitterstorm can become main-stream and replace traditional blogging and press releases for brands.”
Marc Andreessen, Netscape founder and investor, recently started a new trend (#Twitterstorm) on Twitter, where he usually posts seven to ten tweets in a short interval to broadcast his thoughts on a topic. And if we sum up the total number of tweets, you get around 1400 characters or an approximately 300 word briefing, which is good enough to make an audience aware on a topic.
Taking a lead from Marc, Satya Nadella, Microsoft CEO, took a similar route and tweetcasted his vision in a similar fashion. His Twitterstorm has invited thousands of retweets, favourites, and multiple replies including people like @alexia (Co-Editor TechCrunch) and @pmarca (Marc Andreessen) , which means these tweets reach more than a million people.
In other words, both high profile initiatives became instant hits among tweeters and also been picked up by online/offline media to further spread the word. Now the question is whether #Twitterstorm will become the norm for brands and can be used in place of traditional blogs or press releases to reach out to their customers, suppliers or any stakeholders.
Looking at Twitter, people have shown reservations as they perceived this as spam and shown preferences for blog posts, which means businesses may face some resistance if they Twitterstorm to reach their audience!
@satyanadella @pmarca @evanspiegel No, Satya, don't multitweet! Don't do it!
— Owen Thomas (@owenthomas) May 28, 2014
@thisjay @satyanadella @pmarca @evanspiegel Difficult to follow, breaks chain of conversation, against nature of medium.
— Owen Thomas (@owenthomas) June 1, 2014
However, if #Twitterstorm is managed carefully, brands can use this as real alternative to blogs and press releases. Don’t overdo it; content should be consumer friendly things like deals & new product launches, and follow-up tweets and engagement must be prompt.
We are advocating #Twitterstorm over traditional blogs and press releases because first it could give businesses an instant real-time feedback on each specific point they are trying to make for a topic, and second, retweets, favorites and replies on twitter can reach to thousands of people immediately. However negative comment can go viral very quickly too, although this can be managed with planned and thought through follow up. Third, due to the high level of media (journalists) on Twitter, a Twitter post can be picked up faster than a blog or press release through the official channels like PR agencies or blog booster platforms.
We did a small experiment, where we tweet stormed on the #TwitterCommerce topic, and the result was we managed to increase followers by double digits, and retweets and favorites took our reach to thousands of people.
