TWITTER INTERACTIVITYLecture 5

#Manship4002

SUPER BOWL ADVERTISING & TWEETS Can you give examples of how Super Bowl advertisers &

brands used Twitter to communication, engage, etc?

What were some trends that you observed?

HASHTAGS

NEED FOR INTERACTIVITY

“Social media sites such as Twitter provide organizations with the ability to interact directly with publics.” - Saffer, Sommerfeldt, Taylor 2013

Technology has potential for organizational-public relationship building

“… it is how the technology is used that influences organization–public relationships” – Kent, Taylor 1998

INTERACTIVITY

http://mootee.typepad.com/innovation_playground/2007/08/3-most-frequent.html

HOW TO FOSTER INTERACTIVITY? Tell good, personal stories

Don’t try to “manage” conversations.

“Loud design and a bold headline does not make the cut anymore, since it works when you’re the only few in a crowd who is yelling. […] The most important thing you need to remember is if you can provide an environment that your customer is comfortable in sharing their stories, you are off to a very good start.” - Idris Mootee

The best content or stories are those that: 1/ Reads like my life experience 2/ Relates to my life experience 3/ Speaks to me in my language and 4/ Something that makes me want to share them with my

friends.

http://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d8351b44f853ef00e3933c0e448834

INTERACTIVITY

Functional interactivity: includes the features found on a site that allow users to interact in a number of modes. Can you think of examples?

Contingency interactivity occurs when users’ roles are interchangeable and “interactants” are responding to one another Can you think of examples? Noninteractive, when a message is not related to previous

messages Reactive, when a message is related only to one immediately

previous message Interactive, when a message is related to a number of

previous messages and to the relationship between them

EXPERIMENT Students assigned for 2 weeks to:

High interactivity account (Starbucks) Low interactivity accounts (Gatorade or Target) *Interactivity = number of replies an account had with its followers

Hypothesis: High organizational Twitter interactivity will positively affect the perceived organization–public relationship: Trust - One party’s level of confidence in and willingness to open

oneself to the other party. Control mutuality - The degree to which parties agree on who has

the rightful power to influence one another. Although some imbalance is natural, stable relationships require that organizations and publics each have some control over the other.

Satisfaction - The extent to which each party feels favorably toward the other because positive expectations about the relationship are reinforced.

Commitment - The extent to which each party believes and feels that the relationship is worth spending energy to maintain and promote; involves emotions and behaviors.

RESULTS

Students assigned to high interactivity account (starbucks) perceived greater trust, control mutuality, satisfaction and commitment to the brand/organization than students assigned to the low interactivity accounts.

“To communicate with frequent Twitter users, organizations should dedicate more time and resources to maintaining two-way communication via their social media.” - Saffer, Sommerfeldt, Taylor 2013

BUT…

“a majority of organizations are not using Twitter beyond one-way messaging…” - Saffer, Sommerfeldt, Taylor 2013

“Twitter as a social media platform is functionally interactive. Organizations can use the platform in the contingently interactive sense by being both the sender and receiver of messages – not just the sender.” - Saffer, Sommerfeldt, Taylor 2013

So, what strategies should organizations (or individuals) use to build and maintain quality relationships?

BOTTOM LINE

Spend more time listening

Follow and subscribe to your consumers

Get involved in related communities. Take some time to monitor the discussions that are happening around the web that are relevant to you, and gauge the appropriateness of joining in (according to whether it is ethical, whether it will be perceived as genuine, etc.).

Set goals and dedicate time to engagement

http://socialmediatoday.com/rgbsocial/1746606/building-relationships-proactively-initiating-dialogue-social-media

http://vimeo.com/38650978

USING HOOTSUITE