Every week it seems there is some fresh research establishing that Twitter is irrelevant to businesses and/or brands. Bloggers gnaw endlessly on reports dismissing the marketing possibilities of micro-blogging, calling for the death of Twitter.

I’d like to suggest these debates are largely meaningless because so many of these reports are hopelessly flawed.  I’ll demonstrate this point by asking you a simple question:

If you took a survey asking you to name the brands you follow on Twitter, would you name me?

I’m guessing that you wouldn’t, because you relate to me as a person and possibly even a friend, and yet I am certainly also a personification of my company and its “brand” on Twitter.  I would be overlooked in any research report looking for how people relate to “brands” on Twitter, wouldn’t I?  And lots of other companies would be missed, too.

For example,  Amy Howell is the personification of Howell Marketing of Memphis, but I am following Amy because I like Amy.  Megan Parker is paid to be a voice of GE on Twitter.  I love her irreverent spins on corporate news and sometimes don’t even connect that in fact, I am following one of the largest companies in the world.  Everyone knows how fun and effective Chris Brogan is on Twitter yet make no mistake that he is the personification of his growing new media fiefdom. When you follow Chris, do you even think about him as a B2B company?

Here’s the deal. If research focuses on the benefits of Twitter for “business-to-business” or “business-to-consumer” it’s doomed because this channel is ultimately about P2P — person to person.  In fact I would suggest that with few exceptions, ONLY “personal” brands thrive on this platform.  I can’t imagine following a bottle of beer or a restaurant chain on Twitter yet I would eagerly follow real marketing professionals from those companies who can enlighten, teach, and entertain me.

And that’s why so many of these research reports are missing the point.  They’re asking the WRONG QUESTION.  In fact I think it would be very difficult to measure the complete business value of Twitter across the social web quantitatively — many of the successes are “stories” of connection or qualitative data points.  But I’m sure companies will keep trying to reduce Twitter to a list of survey questions because it’s easy to do, it’s a hot topic, and it’s a way to get their name at the top of the wave for a moment. And so many of these reports are being rushed to a data-hungry blogosphere without regard for statistical validity!

So, how many of the individuals I follow on Twitter represent brands or companies?  Just about every one of them!   And THAT’S the point!

Does this make sense to you?

Now here is a headline that grabs the attention of any social media marketer: “Study: Most brands still irrelevant on Twitter.”

Only problem is the headline, which appeared in the digital version of Advertising Age yesterday, is bullshit. And I don’t use that word lightly.

If the headline writer and/or author had really read the report from digital agency 360i carefully and applied a little critical thinking, you would actually draw the opposite conclusion.

I am not a wild-eyed supporter of all-things social media. But I do want people to start looking at data critically before writing reports like this. Let’s look at the major conclusions, taken directly from the 360i report and see if Twitter is really irrelevant to brands.

CONCLUSION ONE:

“Twitter is primarily for people, not corporations. Those of us in the marketing industry tend to see Twitter as a marketing or professional networking tool, but it’s important to remember that it is a consumer-dominated medium. More than 90% of tweets come from consumers and only 12% of consumer.”

The AdAge article used this information to claim that “brands are finding themselves on the outside of the conversation.”

So here is the question that should have been asked:  How do you really know (and measure) if a brand was tweeting or not?  You see, the most effective conversations are not occurring between corporate icons and the masses. They are taking place between individuals representing their brands.

Here’s an example. Over the past few weeks I have tweeted back and forth between Bill Robb, the social media marketing director for SAP.  Bill didn’t “court me.” We developed a mutual admiration for each other and began a <shudder> “conversation!”  The tweets led to deeper discussions via email, which eventually led to a blog post about SAP and their cutting-edge marketing approaches. That blog post was tweeted out at least 70 times, had several thousand page views, and was referenced in two other blogs with who knows how many readers.

Now, did any of that activity show up on the chart above?  No. Was the SAP brand kicking ass on Twitter? Yes.

If you want another example of brand beauty personified on Twitter, check out @SharpieSusan who tweets up a storm for Sharpie pens.  Is Newell-Rubbermaid getting credit for a “marketer conversation?”  My point is that this metric is irrelevant and the AdAge conclusion is worse.

CONCLUSION TWO:

“Twitter makes the private space public. While marketers have a voice in the mix, Twitter remains an important tool for listening to what consumers are saying in a mostly un-filtered, un-moderated environment. There are ripe opportunities for brands to get to know their customers via online listening.”

“An important tool for listening.”  Hmmm.  Does that make Twitter sound irrelevant to you?

The report goes on to say that when it comes to talking about brands on Twitter, consumers are largely sharing news or information about the brand (43%) or reporting use of or interaction with the brand (35%). About one fifth of tweets mentioning brands demonstrate an outward opinion of the brand.  Irrelevant?  The opportunity to use Twitter for consumer research is enormous!  And the report says so.

CONCLUSION THREE:

“Companies tend to talk at people – not with them. The opportunity for marketers to become part of the conversation remains vast. For example, many brands use the channel to pass along information, but fail to capitalize on opportunities to truly connect with consumers via two-way conversations.”

If there is a vast opportunity, why is that irrelevant?

The report’s final conclusion states: “… there remains a largely untapped opportunity for brands to create deeper connections with consumers via earned media and to learn more about what motivates them with online listening through Twitter.”

I don’t think I need to say any more about the content of the report and the article.  AdAge simply blew it.

To make things much worse, the 360i report was based on a study of just 300 tweets per month over six months.  Are you KIDDING ME?  A study of national brands based on 10 tweets a day?  AdAge, do you really think that is a statistically-significant sample size to base a conclusion like this?  And 360i, you need to be taken to the shed out back for even publishing a report based on that sample size.

We already have a problem with the social media fluffs spewing mis-information and half-truths. When an article — even a bad one — comes from a reputable trade publication like AdAge, it gets reported as fact and paraded around the boardrooms of America.  This blog post won’t be, unfortunately.

These “suggested bids” reflect what advertisers have most recently paid to reach a demographic group based on CPMs (cost per 1,000 impressions) or CPCs (cost for every time a user clicks on an ad).

Some trends make sense — older (and richer) users are more expensive to reach than younger ones, for example.

But there are some counter-intuitive trends, too.  Japanese users are less expensive to advertise to than Russian users, even though the Asian country’s GDP per capita is more than three times as large.

Here’s a chance for you to participate in a live social media experiment and receive an interesting piece of free research at the same time.

Our friend John Bottom, a regular contributor to the {grow} community, is giving a talk at the IDM B2B Conference in London. To demonstrate the viral power of great content, he’s conducting an experiment over the next 24 hours (May 18-19) that involves YOU!

In preparation for this event, John asked 150 senior marketers attending the conference: “What is the single biggest benefit of social media to your brand – and what is the single biggest obstacle to achieving it?”

He compiled the answers in a snappy little eBook you can download for free by clicking HERE.

In fact, downloading the eBook is the whole point of the experiment.  John wants to achieve 1,000 downloads in a single day.  It’s free, fun, and there is no obligation whatsoever. So please, go ahead and do it.  I’ll wait. : )

Thanks!

A link that is possibly even more interesting is this one – http://bit.ly/bJbrb5 – which provides live blog coverage of the experiment throughout the day (May 19 in case you’re a little behind in your blog reading!)

By the way, I really liked the content in this little eBook.  One participant said social media is a chance to demonstrate brand humanity (isn’t that a great term?). Sounds like a potential blog post for somebody.

Thanks for stopping by today and helping John out.  Oh yes, it would also be great if you could click the little green tweet button at the top of this blog post and ask your tribe to participate too.

Disclosure: I have no commercial or financial stake in this demonstration. I am simply helping out a friend I met through Twitter with an experiment I believe in.

Update: Results of the Great Content Marketing Experiment from John Bottom ->  http://bit.ly/bJbrb5

I’ve had the most fun over the last few weeks working with Billy Mitchell, Martine Hunter and the incredible professionals at MLT Creative in Atlanta preparing their company’s first major webinar.

They gave me the license to think through the implications of new research and trends on corporate blogging and it resulted in some really fresh — even controversial — myth-busting ideas.  For example, have you considered:

• Actively selling <gasp> through your blog in a way that your customers will love?
• Dismissing customer comments as a measure of blog success?
• Market-segmenting your blog?
• The two possible conditions for an active corporate blog community?
• Why “entertainment” should be a cornerstone of your blogging strategy?

If you missed this webinar, MLT has made the entire session available by clicking HERE.

But it gets better!  MLT has also provided a free eBook on Corporate Blogging (has some different information than the webinar) which is available HERE.

There were so many questions at the end of the webinar that it will take 15 consecutive blog posts to answer them all. To see answers from see really interesting blog-related questions, visit the MLT blog over the next two weeks or so.

Many of the ideas in the webinar are against the grain of social media convention, but I think represent a realistic assessment of the role of blogging in the corporate world today.  I’d love to hear your take on what I’ve presented!

Planning on using the social web to market to B2B decision-makers?  According to just-released research from London’s Base One Group, you might consider the age of your target audience.

In a comprehensive study of 503 UK B2B purchasing decision-makers, those under 30 years of age were twice as likely to be fans of the social web and use it actively as an information-gathering tool.

The report does a nice job breaking out the information channels used by B2B decision makers by demographics and industry, but also by the stage in the decision-making process.

For example, decision-makers under 30 counted on blogs, Twitter and Facebook at the exploratory stage of a supplier search about 30% of the time compared to about 6% for those over 30 years of age.  The one exception was LinkedIn, where both age groups found equal utility.

Important implication of this –  the upcoming generation of professionals is relying heavily on new media as an information gathering tool.

Blogs rule?

Another thought-provoking nugget in the study, is that when B2B procurement decision-makers were finding potential new suppliers, Twitter and blogs were considered as a more influential source of supplier information than any other information channel, including word of mouth, seminars and industry publications.

However, the most popular sources of information across all ages remains decidedly “old school:” web searches, supplier websites, seminars, and the industrial press.  

In fact, when asked how their information gathering behavior had changed, procurement professionals cited the greatest increased use of web searches (up for  64% of respondents) and supplier websites (up for 61%). Social networking sites Facebook and Twitter experienced 6% and 10% net increases respectively, and LinkedIn saw growth of 19%. Online videos/webinars/podcasts were also a strong source of information with an increase in usage of 36%, consistent with other B2B research that has been featured on {grow}.

Base One Group commissioned the new research in association with B2B Marketing Magazine.  The study had a diverse industry profile including manufacturing, business services, financial, public administration and healthcare. About 50% of the respondents had 1,000 employees or more.

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A recent research study by IBM indicates that micro-blogging sites like Twitter can be a powerful internal workplace communications tool.

The study said that despite the inherent simplicity, microblogs are evolving into a richly-nuanced medium for maintaining awareness, building relationships, and finding and sharing valuable information from internal and external sources.

The study analyzed more than 5,000 microblog posts from a group of IBM employees who used both a proprietary internal tool to post and Twitter to post externally. The internal IBM micro-blog, called BlueTwit, has many of the same features as Twitter except it had a limit of 250 characters instead of 140 and could only be used internally.

Some key findings:

Real-time Information Sharing and Awareness — IBM heard repeatedly from employees that the value of Twitter was to get access to good information sooner than through other sources. It provided access to thought leaders without having to know them personally. For instance one person said:

“As far as Twitter is concerned the value is two-fold: learning much of what is happening in the marketplace, picking up trends, and picking up news… get a lot of news items earlier that way than any other way… With Twitter I know it’s a human who has selected the information and is saying that you should read this article. RSS feed is robotic selection for topics while Twitter is human selection based on the quality of my network”

Collaboration and Connection — Reading BlueTwit allowed employees to become aware of what their colleagues were working on in areas of the company they would not normally access.   BlueTwit was also used for social purposes. For example, some people used BlueTwit to broadcast lunch and dinner plans asking others if they were interested in joining. An important side effect of microblogging is that mobile and remote workers felt more connected to the company.

Employees  equated interaction on BlueTwit as “family conversation.”  Users could engage in constructive criticism of company products since all discussion was internal. They would avoid doing that on Twitter because they did not want to give the company a bad name.  Contrary to a common perception that microblogs are really just for posting messages about personal activities, IBM found that workplace employees are mostly using the tools to post business information and to engage in brief directed conversation with other employees.

Political expedience — Microblogging can increase the visibility of a topic compared to discussing it over email or instant messenger. Since microblogs are generally public and searchable, more people have access to it. Some employees reported using microblogging intentionally when they wanted to get more visibility on an issue. “Value as an employee is to be visible inside the company,” said one employee.  Another participant mentioned, “If I only ask questions then people will see me as someone who only asks questions. But if I answer, people will see me as someone as who knows and who can help.”

Crowd-sourcing — The report mentioned that one of the benefits of microblogging that has not received as much attention is its use for “crowdsourcing”.  Participants said they got a more rapid response to questions because more people beyond their normal network, including many technology experts, were awares of their problems.

Confidentiality — There was no ambiguity about posting confidential information; all participants exercised common sense and were very clear that they would never post any information that might be construed as confidential on Twitter or even BlueTwit.

Negatives:

• Participants mentioned that the sheer amount of information on Twitter can get overwhelming, and not all of it is useful.
• Some users had concerns about spending too much time wading through various pieces of information. Finding intelligent ways of filtering information in microblogging tools such that only information relevant to an individual user is visible is needed for widespread use of microblogging in the workplace.

IBM found opportunity in using micro-blogging with employees.   Is it happening in your company yet?  Why or why not?

Illustration: Scott Hampson: “Twitter Bird In Real Life”

One of the most pervasive mantras of the social media hype circus is that it’s “all about the conversation” with your customers.  But if you look at what’s really happening out there I think you can conclude this is a load of hooey.

To understand the shortcomings of “conversation” on the social web, let’s look at what happens in the old-school format of the focus group.  The focus group is one of the most popular qualitative methods for determining consumer wants and needs because it’s a relatively inexpensive and quick way to get feedback and ideas.  There are many formats, but generally you get a group of consumer volunteers together and, with the help of a skilled facilitator, conduct a “conversation” about the company, product, service, etc.

The biggest downfall of the focus group is that is nearly  impossible to get feedback that represents the true views of your target consumers. First, a lot of people simply aren’t interested in participating in these groups and second, the feedback tends to center around the most dominant members of the group. A real danger is that feedback of an entire group can be influenced by the forceful opinions of the brash few.

In most cases, the social web does not represent a true “conversation” with customers.  It is, at best, an un-moderated, non-representative focus group dominated by aggressive personalities likely to complain and force their view on others. Are you really having a “conversation” with your customers and prospects  if …

a) It’s only in English?

b) It’s only with people who have time to be active on the social web?

c) It’s with the minuscule percentage of people who are likely to engage on a subject?

d) It’s with people who may not even be the core users of your product?

e) It excludes people who are simply shy or quiet?

Experienced marketers can see this trap. We can also look at the wonderful opportunities of the social web and put them into proper context.  But I’m afraid the “social media conversation” is another over-hyped sound bite from the new age gurus eager to play on the fear of somehow being left out. If I hear “it’s all about the conversation” one more time I think I’ll lose my cookies.

Look, there are TREMENDOUS opportunities presented by the social web and there are lots of ways to have social conversations that are meaningful. The {grow} community on this blog is an example.  Tapping into real-time sentiment is another. Every marketer should be immersed in this channel to figure out what really makes sense for their company and brand. But don’t check your brain at the door because you’re afraid of being left out of this “conversation.”

I’ve been invited to be a presenter on an upcoming B2B Blogging webinar (announcement forthcoming!) so I’ve been studying many company blogs that I regard as best practices.  As I moved from site to site, I noticed something surprising.  There were very few comments.  In fact, there were virtually none.  It was kind of an “a-ha moment.”

As an example, I would direct your attention to General Electric, a gold standard for corporate blogging.  Their site is a glorious mix of art, entertainment, news and inspiration. GE combines beautiful writing, graphics and video to tell their story in a compelling way. And there are no comments anywhere.

Does the fact that there is no engagement on this forum mean GE is failing?  If one of the largest and best-managed companies in the world can’t create a community through their blog, how do we hold out hope for our own clients and company blogs?

As I’ve stewed on this issue, I’ve determined that we need to re-think the whole notion of engagement on company blogs.  In fact, we need to forget about it in most cases.  There are two reasons why.

Nobody’s home

I am blessed with a vibrant, intellectual, caring community on {grow}.  It’s not unusual for me to receive more comments in a day than GE and many corporate blogs receive in a year.  I believe the distinguishing factor is that there is a face to the {grow} community. You know me as a person and once you bump around a bit, you start to know the other community members too.

Company blogs are usually written by a team of people.  There are notable benefits to this approach:

• Diversity of views and topics
• Spread out the workload
• Consistency of coverage even during vacations and attrition

So I’m not criticizing this blogging strategy.  But the downside is that there is no personality to connect to. People are unlikely to form a community around an anonymous team of people.  If you’re employing this approach, I think it’s a long-shot to expect meaningful engagement.

Example of an exception: Randy’s Journal, the personal Boeing blog of Marketing VP Randy Tinseth. Real guy. Real community.

Let’s look at the numbers

A recent study by Compendium shows that 92% of B2C companies claim that 60% or more of their blog traffic are first-time visitors and a vast majority of the time, more than 80% are newcomers every day.

The numbers for B2B are a little better with 64% of companies claiming that 60% or more of their visitors have never been there before on any given day.

In other words, visitors to a company’s blog are not a core group of loyal community members. It’s a constant churn of people who have never been there before … and may never be there again.

Re-thinking the meaning of engagement

For those who have been chanting the “it’s all about community” mantra, there are some pretty shocking — but also exciting — implications to this:

1) Except in very few cases, engagement as measured by subscriptions, return visitors and comments may not be a realistic or desirable goal for your company blog.

2) The data show that corporate blogs act as superb targets for search engines. We already knew that but perhaps it’s time to codify that and respond with an appropriate social media sales strategy. You probably have dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of strangers buzzing by your blog every day. Stop trying to engage them.  Just get them to pause.

3) The B2B data show that prospects are almost twice as likely to stick around a B2B blog than a B2C blog. This is great news for the B2B marketer. The B2B sales cycle is long and buyers need lots of information to make decisions. While visitors may not be engaging, they do seem to be reading and coming back for more.

If you’ve made your living touting the engagement benefits of corporate blogging, you’re probably either reaching for your oxygen mask or your flame-thrower.  In any event, I’d like to hear from you in the comment section. What do you think of this re-framing of the objectives of a corporate blog?

A few years ago, I was in a graduate leadership program at Carnegie Mellon University and took a class from a talented educator and author named Robert E. Kelly.  Dr. Kelly had just written a book called “How to be a Star at Work.” (disclosure: I am receiving no affiliate income from this or any other book!)

Honestly, I thought it was going to be one of those kick-your-feet-up, blow-off kind of classes, but it ended up being one of the most interesting sessions of the program.

We all know that certain people tend to rise to superstar level at work. They may not be smarter or harder working than others, but they have a certain “something” that seems to push them up the corporate ladder.

Dr. Kelly had a research grant to determine the factors that these high-fliers had in common. After all, if you could actually test for these factors, wouldn’t that have a powerful impact on corporate recruiting and training?  Turns out it wasn’t that simple, but after years of investigation he eventually found the magic formula.

According to Dr. Kelly’s research, one of those key characteristics of a corporate rock star is an ability to effectively network and find information quickly.  Let’s say you had two employees — Tom and Tammy — equally well-educated, enthusiastic and nattily-attired.  But Tammy had just one advantage — she knew how to use technology to rapidly find the people and resources she needed to accomplish a task while Tom picked up a phone and started calling people in the company directory. The research showed that Tom had no hope of ever catching up and the more complex the task, the further Tammy would outshine him.

It makes a lot of sense.

I’ve already written about the importance of personal “technological adaptability” as an increasingly important life skill. But Dr. Kelly’s research seems to indicate that expert networking skills like an ability to navigate the social web can also be a crucial differentiator in your career.

So there.  Now you can explain to your spouse that all that time you’re wasting on Twitter is actually a career-advancement opportunity! You may be just 140 characters away from the tweet smell of success.

Illustration: toothpastefordinner.com