D1

By KYLE MULLIN
For The Daily Gleaner

Stumble Upon

del.icio.us

Digg

Facebook

Print

Email

Speak Up

Radian 6 has discovered something that may be more powerful than a $50-million marketing budget.

Enlarge Photo

STEPHEN MACGILLIVRAY PHOTO

SHHHHH: chris ramsey, vice-president of business development with radian 6, shows the dashboard of a website explaining the Twitter secret.

Chris Ramsey, the local IT firm's vice-president of business development, said it has found a way for corporations to use social-networking sites to spread messages and get instant feedback online.

"On social networks, any one customer can have a voice that's louder and more powerful than a $50-million marketing budget," he said.

Corporations should use social networks such as Twitter - an online community linked by short, informal blogging - to get noticed and to better understand and address those customers' needs, he said.

Radian 6 analyzes the traffic on social networking sites to help public-relations and advertising professionals better communicate with their customers.

David Alston, the company's vice-president of marketing, crafted the idea during a recent side project.

The experiment was designed to address what he thought was one of Twitter's biggest flaws - users can supposedly only type 140 characters in the social network's messaging services.

"That's quite limiting when you think about it," said Ramsey. "If you actually want to say something, you can maybe get a sentence out in such a limited space, and that's it."

However, after toying with the service, Alston realized that a standard twitter message could contain up to 920 characters.

Rather than posting or broadcasting the discovery, he tried using less conventional means to get the word out.

Alston began sending other users a cryptic message, which read "I know the twitter secret, message me if you want to find out."

He said within seconds people began replying franticly, looking to find out what the secret was.

"In response to that, we would tell them the story of how we discovered it, but we'd say don't spoil this by posting it somewhere, just pass the message along," he said.

It soon became a viral chain letter, and within three hours of kicking off the experiment, Alston found that the phrase 'Twitter secret,' was the most mentioned word on the site that day, with more than 700 messages that had sprouted from the first one he sent.

Alston said it acted like a near-instant poll, showing what improvements users wanted on the site.

He said if companies are creative, they can do exactly the same thing to connect with their customers quickly and easily.

"People are chatting about everything under the sun on these networks," Alston said.

"It's an easy way for you to be listening and engage in the conversation with customers. Then you can know how to serve them better, rather than just pitching them something."

He said the idea could rewrite the book for online marketing.

"Now you can completely track how word of mouth spreads and evolves as it's happening. Through a network like Twitter, that word of mouth can spread like a virus.

"It's important for any brand to figure that out, so when they try to broadcast marketing messages in the future, they can understand the psychology of what customers connect with."

* * *

Forward Thinking is a Thursday feature that explores research and development, as well as new technologies in our community. Send your comments and story ideas to news@dailygleaner.com.