The Sales & Marketing Business Brief recently gave us a sneak peak at some of the new Twitter features to be added later this year that are specifically designed to improve the management of posts and communications for business accounts.
The new feature I find most intriguing is Direct Messages, which is a customer engagement feature that “allows users to send private messages to other accounts, regardless of whether they follow the company on Twitter.” The new feature allows companies to “engage customers in one-on-one exchanges in a non-public setting,” making “Twitter a much more valuable means of opening a dialogue with customers.” For those of you who have a Facebook account you are already familiar with this type of communication tool. As with Facebook, the Twitter Direct Messages feature allows you to send a private message via the application instead of posting a tweet that can be read by all.
As a result of the unauthorized use of celebrity names, or those of politicians, CEO’s, or company brands, Twitter’s new Verified Accounts feature will require an account to submit to a verification process in order to bear the emblem or “badge” that identifies their legitimacy as who or what they claim to be. This helps to protect the company brand as well as assure the user he is communicating with or electing to follow the “real company” and “not some imitator.”
Lastly, the new Contributors feature allows “multiple users to post to the same Twitter account without having to share a password. This means businesses can partner with one another to post to a joint account and make announcements that could impact both companies’ customers.” Whether you share a password or allow access via a number of different passwords, you still need to be aware of your brand or identity management. Establish post guidelines and policies that protect your company if you are going to allow access by multiple users. It isn’t a bad idea to have an account monitor who can quickly delete any posts that do not comply with your policies.
Hopefully the addition of these tools will help prove Twitter a valuable asset to businesses in their marketing efforts.
