There has been a lot of talk on the business blogs about the rise of social networking, and the power of peer-to-peer recommendations, particularly on Twitter. (I’m not linking to anything in particular here, but by all means check out any of the 28,600,000 items my Google search produced).
Blatant product plugs by suppliers don’t appeal to me, and followers whose only rationale for following me is to sell me something get blocked very quickly.
But having said that, I follow some commercial websites and suppliers who, in my view, offer real value. They may be funny, they may be interested in the views of the people interacting with them on Twitter, they may talk about their lives as well as their products (these are probably my favourites). At the heart of all of them is the fact that there is a real human being, not just a PR machine churning out product puffs.
Obviously, most of these are small enterprises whose customer service strategy is to offer a personal touch, but not all. Some of the major companies have very canny PR, who are able to make you feel very wanted and needed. Am I being taken in by flagrant hypocrisy on the part of the supplier?
Do you know, I really don’t think I care. That warm fluffy feeling is very attractive, I’m always going to turn to these people before a chilly just-give-me-your-money enterprise. I doubt I am alone in this and it is certainly a lesson that more online businesses need to learn in this dog-eat-dog world.
So here is my blogroll of favourite food orientated Commercial Sites and Suppliers who Tweet (in no particular order other than as they are listed in my Twitter following list) :
Green & Black Chocolate: greenandblacks
Hawksmoor Steakhouse: HawksmoorLondon
RecipeGirl.com : RecipeGirl
Peter’s Yard Bakery: PetersYard
The Sole Bay Cheese Company: SoleBayCheeseCo
The Marmarati : Marmarati
Mat at the Chelsea Fishmonger (OK, not the company site, but he does a damn good PR job for them and should get promoted!! ) Chelseafish
The Food Network: foodnetworking
The Essex Gourmet: essexgourmet
Purely Pesto: PurelyPesto
The Scandinavian Kitchen: Scanditwitchen
Bray’s Cottage Pork Pies: Brays_Cottage
Breckland Orchard Drinks: breckland
Food Safari: FoodSafariUk
Absolute Press: absolute_press
The Rare Tea Lady: raretealady
The Guardian : Word of Mouth: guardianfood
MyDish.com: Mydish
Hi, Good post about Twitter. I think Twitter is going to be one of the better networks because of the fact that it is supported by so many industries. I also think when Twitter reveals some of it’s new functions, returning traffic will increase to show the real growth of the network. Keep up the good work!
I agree whole heartidly that i should get promoted however the next position in the company is owner and i can’t see him promoting me to that.
Anyhow, Great article
Twitter: josordoni
replied:
True true… but maybe co-owner? LOL Or maybe invent a really high level totally overthetop paid all expenses no more bus type of position?
I’m just getting into this whole Twitter thing, so feel a bit left behind here. Ironically I thought the same thing, that I should have a personal account and a business account – however, as I’m rather overzealous and run three businesses, keeping four Twitter accounts would be a shackling task, not only that the content of it would become dull very quickly.
My conclusion, I Tweet about everything that interests me and about most things I do – on ONE account. If I were to include a link to any of my sites or interests, it will be at about each fifth tweet – I hope that method will increase followers and interest. I know I’m keeping all my eggs in one basket, but my companies are very human and I don’t have a huge PR team behind me. I would like people to like and trust me and not to feel bombarded with URL links.
Like most marketing methods, I will test it and see what gets the most response. So far so good.
I had not bothered to start a blog, or a Twitter account until October and while the Twitter account was supposed to be for cheese business only it soon got attention for my other business which is market information.
I think the social:business Tweet mix (don’t even think about using @Tweetmix) is really difficult to achieve and you only really know when it’s gone wrong. I have kept my information ID separate because we do business with corporates, not individuals, some of them around the defence sector and views about things like sex and Iraq are not welcome there. Buying cheese – well, some people want to talk about other things and some don’t. I do. Yesterday I was accused of saying “look at me, I said bum in public,” on Twitter, presumably because the occasional post is about sex.
The rambling point of this is that for my cheese business my call is cheese is part of personal life, so is sex, so I should Tweet about both. That is my judgement for that business, not my recommendation for anyone else. For the research/information business that would be the wrong decision. Which is not entirely fine with me, but I do want some information business. Discussing other Twitterista’s appendages (even with their permission and participation) would not go down well (no, Matron, don’t) in that persona. You see? I’m useless at this!
Twitter: goodshoeday
I do have a separate business twitter ID which I used for a while. But there were a number of things weren’t working for me with it so I mostly don’t use it. My ‘goodshoeday’ account actually links to my business website not my food blog anymore, and has done for a while. I do a very small amount of ‘open’ business tweeting and also ‘DM’ stuff. I don’t tweet links though as like you I find them irritating.
Its a whole interesting area and I agree with DBL that people want to do business with people not some corporate style churn.
Twitter: goodshoeday
I agree with what you say, Twitter can be very useful for business but its hard to get the balance right and also to know whether to have a separate business account from the personal one when you are a small business. Getting the mix right is critical to using Twitter succesfully.
Twitter: josordoni
replied:
goodshoeday: Yes, I totally agree it is very difficult to decide what to do. Personally I have two accounts, josordoni which is both my personal id and originally my business id for Josordoni Collectables. When I started A Greedy Piglet I created a new id TheGreedyPiglet meaning to keep that for pigletty things, but I find that I am just doubling up on both ids at the moment. But A Greedy Piglet is new so it will be interesting to see what happens.
Do you have a business Twitter id yet? Do you think you would tweet differently there to your personal id?
I heard it said at a business event once that the the business/banter mix of twitter should be 80/20 the smaller being the business element. I’d prefer 90/10 as I think that people do business with people before they do business with a corporate image (or façade for that matter).
Twitter: josordoni
replied:
DBL: Personally, I prefer Tweets to be 100% about the people, mentions of what they are doing work wise is fine, but just a straight link? No thanks. I just ignore it, I don’t click on a straight sales link at all.
But, if someone talks about doing or making something that sparks my interest, I will go and look at their profile, and click on any links, so I think it is very important that the link on the Twitter profile page takes the reader to a site that will promote the business.