Brands are starting to proactively follow Twitter users and reply to tweets that mention their brand name. Is this legitimate? Peer Lawther, Senior Online Marketing Executive for the Science Museum, talks through the rewards and risks for museums...

I met a man with a two-year child on the Tube, who I’d overheard was on the way to the Science Museum. I introduced myself and he seemed happy to chat. He mentioned that he was going to the Museum and asked me what was there for toddlers.
 I mentioned a guide on the website – he downloaded this to his iPhone - and also highlighted some areas of the museum that were great for younger children. He thanked me; he knew where to go with his child so neither would get bored easily.
 I saw him a little later on; he didn’t know which Museum café was the best for children so I recommended the Revolution Café on the ground floor. Again, he gave his thanks and went there with his son.
 An hour or so later he asked me about airplanes – he likes the engineering and his son enjoys playing with toy planes. So I told him to go up to the third floor via the lift, turn right and they would see the gallery ahead of them. And finally, as he was leaving I saw him one last time; he said that they’d had a great time, thanked me for the help. I wished him a pleasant journey.
This all took place one Sunday afternoon in January. However, I was 200 miles north of the Science Museum the whole time, at home in Leeds.
 As you may have guessed, all of this happened via the Science Museum Twitter channel with no physical interaction whatsoever. I had simply received an alert that he had tweeted (he’d initially used the keywords “science museum”) and responded.
 So, in this world of (near) real-time communication, was this marketing? Or was it customer service? Or, as anyone else following our Twitter channel could monitor the conversation, a brand-reach exercise? It even touches on revenue generation; recommending a Museum café. And there’s a bit of museum-focused content in there as well with the recommendation of the guide for toddlers, and directions for the Flight Gallery in an effort to make them stay and interact with the objects.
 It’s little bits of all of them, of course. The power of Twitter is not about putting marketing messages out but helping to build a reputation in real time, with real people, in an honest and transparent way. Once one gets through the confusion that surrounds Twitter it’s actually a brilliantly simple way of interacting with fellow users; social media is great at making this type of interaction happen. It’s also fraught with pitfalls.
 I’ve personally found that employing this approach of proactively following and chatting with visitors who are on their way to the Museum is very worthwhile. The rewards for engaging with users can be very healthy for the Museum – an extra touchpoint, helping to encourage a visit through the brand wanting to talk; a customer service tool for those visitors that are shy (I surmise, from the anecdote, that that person wanted to avoid physical contact in this way); an extra feedback loop; a way to reach new visitors and establish a strong brand confidence; and finally, a better reputational tool for the institution. In essence fellow followers can see that you’re proud to work for the organisation.
 So if you want to enter the world of “proactive tweeting” be genuine and helpful, without sounding overbearing – remember that most people can find their way to and through a museum without the help of a dutiful assistant sitting on a PC in the marketing department – and importantly, remember that the visitor might be “creeped out” by this approach. And I try to extend the same gratitude to all Twitter users, whether they’ve got one or 100,000 followers.
 But the number of followers they have doesn’t matter in the end; to return to the anecdote, Time Out’s Twitter channel (who follow us) posted praise for our approach that day that their followers would have seen as well. So rather than just a one-on-one conversation, as it seemed on that Sunday afternoon, we’ve helped one person but received positive feedback in front of two large external audiences (the visitor’s and Time Out’s), alongside the museum’s own – a potential audience of over 10,000 people.
 Of course, those snippets of praise, along with all real time information, only stays current for a short time and is only one very small piece of incremental reputation-building (as the social media evangelist Zeus Jones says, “real-time information loses value over time, timeless reputation grows in value”), but, importantly, it all helps.
 However, incredibly, this anecdote also led to an industry case study via the UKOLN website: “How the Science Museum is interacting with its visitors through Twitter”. All this goodwill and buzz from contacting one person that happened to post “I’m off to the Science Museum” on his iPhone a few months earlier. As Mark Zuckerberg, of Facebook fame, states in his famous (if idealistic) law, “More people sharing more information more freely tends to lead to more good things.”
 However, it’s not cigars all round and job well done just yet. As, in the same UKOLN blogpost, the author also ends his article with this intriguing question; “Is this a great example of a way in which cultural heritage organisations can see potential of new technology and use them to provide a richer experience? Or an illustration of the dangers of personal communications exploited by the commercial sector? The next time I tweet that I’m off to the pub, will I receive messages from lager companies?”
 And that’s the crux of the argument that we’ve wrestled with internally as it goes to the heart of how brands use the social web in this way, and how, for some, how brands have no place on Twitter.
 The hugely-influential ReadWriteWeb published an article earlier this year bemoaning proactive tweeting, entitled “This Machine Eats Tweets: The System Behind @Comcast and Others”. It related a story about how the author had posted a tweet about how he found speaking to Comcast (the US communications provider) “less fun than poking his eye out with a sharp stick”. Within minutes a customer service assistant, “ComcastBill”, was in touch asking if he could help.
 ComcastBill wasn’t just replying because he’d seen “Comcast” mentioned on a feed, or that he’d received an Google Alert, more that Comcast employed sophisticated software that extrapolated the “sharp stick” mention alongside the author’s Twitter followers/following stats (and “other online ephemera”, as the writer states) and had made a calculation that due to the author’s social media standing it was worth getting in touch, because otherwise the negative posting would harm the company if left to fester. ComcastBill was alerted to help mollify any bad press.
 This all sounds quite remarkable, if not unsurprising – social media monitoring has moved on leaps and bounds in the last 18 months. It’s good for companies to monitor social media channels, but for users, they could be “creeped out” even if we’re nice, and scared senseless if they’re contacted within minutes by a brand based on whether a “nuisance score” is high enough to warrant attention.
 As ReadWriteWeb caution, “It’s kind of a modern day horror story, isn’t it? Web 2.0’s potential benefit for humanity tragically sold short by social media because it fell under a fog of marketing software”.
 They step back from this alarmist analysis later by saying that “maybe it’s just a matter of changing our expectations”, but this is a technology blog highlighting this news to early adopters, and even they’re scared. What if this discussion was across the larger public realm? Do the likes of Comcast ruin the wonderful power of Twitter by applying cold algorithmic metrics to the equation when being human is the order of the day?
 As social marketing blog ImpactWatch mentioned in their take on the ReadWriteWeb article, “they (Comcast et al) may only start responding to influentials’ complaints, negative comments, or to sales opportunities. That’s not engaging in a ‘real’ conversation…the main concern should be the motivation of companies who engage in social media.”
 Perhaps, more than anything, we need to focus on that word, “motivation”; that it’s vitally important that if we all go and tweet proactively, to try and promote our organisations as social-media conscious entities, we must have the right focus before we start.
 Remember that there’s the division between the “me” and the “brand” when it comes to social media, and even if we call ourselves “ComcastBill” or even “Science Museum Peer” we need to remember that if we received a tweet out of the blue from an organisation our first reaction would probably be one of confusion.
 So, in essence, is the average user ready for this level of interaction yet? It’s all about the motivation. Are we, as organisations, looking for a short-term, free, sales-led opportunity with Twitter? Or, hopefully, are we looking for a long-lasting, no-strings attached, engaging relationship with the customer that they can end at any point, so those snippets add up to something larger over time?
 I hope it’s the latter, as if we all focus on this and befriend Twitter users to share great content we have within our organisations then we’re on to a winner with our visitors. If we scare them, or are too pushy in pumping the sales message, then the channel isn’t going survive long as a social media tool.

Mechanics of Pro-Active Tweeting: I use:

Twitter Search: set up a search for the keywords “science museum” and then grab the “RSS feed” for the results and adding it to my iGoogle homepage (or a feedreader of your own choice)
Backtweets – to see if users have posted one of our web addresses

Tweetdeck: a wonderful application for monitoring feeds and reacting quickly

Tweetbeep: if you know Google’s automatic news alert emails this is much the same – it sends an email on an hourly basis when there someone’s talking about your brand

 When someone tweets saying that they’re on their way to the museum, I receive an alert, and I reply to them saying something along the lines of “I hope you enjoy your visit and if you need any help let me know”.
As soon as I’ve done this, I remember to “follow” the user. This isn’t about gaining another follower for your channel, more that they then have the ability to send a direct message without having to follow us back. This is important as it provides a get-out clause for the visitor from the start, or a way to talk without feeling forced to follow yet another brand. In the social web, this is vital.
 Once this is done, I hold fire. It’s tempting to get in touch with the visitor and ask them how the visit is going, if anyone can be of help, or even to remind them that they can get 20% off stationery in the museum shop. But then I bite my tongue and wait.
 If they reply before or during a visit, then I’ll offer help and advice; I’ll check to see if they’re talking on Twitter via an iPhone or Twitterfon application – in that case they can probably download a guide, so I offer that. Or I check Museum website visitor guides and report back, so they don’t have to go looking themselves.
 If they reply after the visit (and the majority you contact will do this more than during their visit) then I thank them for their custom, and offer them the chance to leave feedback. I only continue the conversation if they continue to chat, and at all times, I remember my manners!

Peer Lawther - NMSI Senior Online
Marketing Executive

Peer gave a paper at our ‘How to Develop a Social Media Strategy’ seminar at The Museum of Brands, Packaging and Advertising in Notting Hill, London, on Wednesday 27 January 2010. To find our more about the event and watch highlights please visit www.museum-id.com