I saw my first television commercial with a Twitter call to action in lieu of a phone number or corporate website. Best Buy had a commercial on National Geographic where they had the url Twitter.com/twelpforce across the screen for the length of the commercial. As a direct marketer, I don’t really like this idea for a few reasons:
1) Unless they have a special deal with Twitter, they can’t track the results (how many people visited the page)
2) They are building Twitter’s brand, not Best Buy’s brand
3) It’s difficult to remember the url, and if a visitor typos it, they get a Twitter error message, not a Best Buy 404
4) Not everyone knows Twitter – presumably much less than people who know Best Buy
5) Many people that know Twitter don’t use it
6) Could lead to a very short and annoying user experience if visitor is not familiar with Twitter
IMO, if Best Buy wants to encourage people to visit or befriend its Twitter account, they could have sent people to Best Buy’s website with a backslash for Twitter. They could explain why people should use Twitter and why they should follow Best Buy on Twitter. For people who don’t use Twitter, this would be a nice lesson about what Twitter is and a real world example of the power of Twitter.
With this call to action, if someone who is unfamiliar with Twitter visits the site, they might leave unsatisfied, whereas if they visited the Best Buy website, they could at least navigate to other Best Buy pages. The irony of the situation is that Best Buy has a call to action on its Twelpforce page, encouraging Twitter visitors to visit BestBuy.com/Twelpforce – ironic, no?
At least had they sent people to the Best Buy website initially, they could track the number of people who typed it in when the commercial aired and could further track the customer experience on their site. By sending the visitors directly to Twitter, they can’t track the visitors or the return on their investment.
Absolutely, couldn’t agree more…
It looks like many of the stores have accounts too. I followed that page you mentioned, (which just redirects to some other page that aggregates a Twitter feed), and I ended up on their Danvers, MA store. http://twitter.com/BestBuyDanvers That page had a link to that store on their main site http://stores.bestbuy.com/533 — great, now if I was on THAT page, how would I know that store or corporate was on Twitter? Unless I see and follow the “BBY Connect” link in the footer, I’d have no idea.
LOL, look at their “YouTube” link on that page. Just a disclaimer and nothing being posted at all.
I do like how they are embracing social media, but I think this part of their strategy is flawed.
1) This is completely untrue. They can track the results. There are plenty of 3rd party services that let you do this (CoTweet, for example).
4 – 6) Enough people know Twitter in order for Best Buy to realize its importance. BTW, Dell has over 25 Twitter accounts too. (Dell.com/Twitter).
@ John
I use Co-Tweet. In real time, how can I see how many people are visiting Twitter.com/elliotsblog? I looked around for stats and I can’t find them. I know you can track bit.ly and other url shortener links, but I don’t see how the account holder can track type-ins.
Best Buy CO and CMO are two of the Twitter elite who have among the top ten followers of corporate execs:
http://www.minnpost.com/businessagenda/2009/07/24/10470/twitter_co-founder_cites_best_buy_in_cnbc_interview
From Owen’s link, it appears that Best Buy is using an in house solution:
“Best Buy uses applications like spy, which it developed in-house, to monitor what Twitter users are saying about the company.”
@ John
Yes, but I don’t know of any services that allow you to track how many people type in twiiter.com/elliotsblog or other user ID, which would be a way to track results from the commercial, which was my point. Sure, it’s easy to track what people say – and Best Buy is GREAT with this and with follow-ups. They are way ahead of their competition, IMO.
I simply don’t think it was smart to direct people to their Twitter page in their commercial rather than to a page on their site where they can link to their Twitter account – like BestBuy.com/Twitter or some other page to keep them on site.
If you can find a service that allows tracking type-ins or visits to your account page, I am very interested.
twitter is everywhere these days, tv shows give out their twitter url or username, radio hosts do it (Ryan Seacrest does it on the american top 40 radio show). Best Buy might be going about it the wrong way but twitter users would probably be good customers for best buy. Companies are really embracing social media, and twitter allows up to the minute, easy contact.
It’s an excellent idea but a terrible Twitter name (and it should supplement their website URL, not be instead of it).
Despite BestBuy’s generally accepted success, its astounding that large companies like Best Buy are the first to scream “No, that will dilute our precious brand!” if a generic domain name is shown that it can increase their business, are doing exactly that now, but worse–willingly diluting their own brand with a hard to remember URL! Amazingly poor corporate decision.