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REAL PROJECTS SPEAKS IN THE FINANCIAL TIMES

20 Jan 2010

To tweet or not to tweet is a business question

Is there a commercial use for social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook? 
 
This is an important question for many company owners, who have found themselves devoting precious resources to keeping online followers updated through Twitter tweets, while wondering if there is a bottom-line benefit to their businesses. 
 
Dell, the US-based computer retailer, recently attributed $3m (£1.86m) worth of revenue to its Dell Outlet Twitter account. However, for many other businesses, the benefits are less easy to measure. 
 
David Carruthers, user experience manager at Glasses Direct, the online spectacles retailer, claims that using Twitter is one of the most enjoyable elements of his working day as it puts him in direct contact with customers.  
 
"I use it as an engaging way of talking to customers," he says. "We're extremely proud of our customer service here, and this is another way of making sure customers are happy." 
 
Twitter is an excellent way to provide immediate feedback to customers, according to Carruthers. He cites a recent example where he came across someone using Twitter to complain about not being able to get his glasses fixed before an important business trip. He had not protested to Glasses Direct but had used the phrase "glassesdirect" in his tweet, which Carruthers tracked down through a search. 
 
"I found that tweet, saw he was a director of photography, so probably needed some specs, and tried to figure out what we could do," Carruthers says. Within a couple of hours, Glasses Direct had made a basic pair of replacement frames and had them in the Twitterer's hands the following day. 
 
But while such heroic tales of customer service can only help with Glasses Direct's profile online, Carruthers admits that Twitter is not a financially important area for the business. 
 
Alan Stevens, who advises company owners on social media use through his business, Media Coach, says: "I have a lot of examples of people who are using Twitter incredibly well and thousands more that are using it badly." 
 
Even the founders of Twitter are famous for failing to come up with a way to monetise their ingenious and addictive network.  
 
However, many companies use the technology to solve business challenges, such as finding personnel, improving staff productivity and finding new customers. 
 
Vena Ramphal claims she would never have created her business venture, Divining Femininity, without Twitter - because it was through chatting on the network that she hooked up with her co-founders. 
 
Her success is all the more surprising since, as a relationship coach, she had avoided social networking sites, believing that they were inferior to face-to-face communication. "I have been very pleasantly surprised," she says. 
 
Her new business will run weekend workshops for women to explore different aspects of femininity. The founders marked the launch with a tweet, and were surprised to have more than 300 people view their posting in the first few hours. 
 
Scott Hewitt of Real Projects, a six-person online teaching business in Norwich, bagged a multinational oil industry client in Norway through Twitter.  
 
When Real Projects decided to post comments about a new game it was developing as a learning resource for the energy sector, a senior executive from Simprentis - a training company in the Norwegian oil capital of Stavanger - picked up on the post and contacted Hewitt.  
 
Within an hour, the two were discussing business opportunities, having spoken over the internet telephony service Skype and the online conferencing facility WebEx. Being a technology company, Real Projects might be expected to be on top of technologies such as Twitter. However, Hewitt admits that he held back from using the network because he feared it would be a drain on resources. 
 
This sentiment is common among small business owners who have neither the time nor the manpower to throw at every new networking idea. 
 
Nevertheless, Twitter has proved useful for a number of small business owners as a recruitment tool. 
 
London-based software developer Huddle found its head of product, Martin Eriksson, because he was following the dynamic young company on Twitter. Eriksson claims he was not looking for a job at the time, but a tweet by Huddle co-founder Andy McLoughlin saying that he was looking for someone caught his attention. 
 
Ali Mitchell, Huddle's other founder, says he and his colleagues now rely entirely on social networks to recruit people because it has been such an effective medium for finding staff. Huddle's founders also track online "alumni" groups in which former colleagues update each other on their movements. "Everyone has noted that networking is important for their job, so they keep in touch via these groups," Mitchell says. 
 
Social networking can even be used by the staff of small businesses to build a sense of community within the organisation. This has proved to be the case for Melcrum Publishing, a research and training business that has 35 employees across four continents - half of whom either work from home or in small offices. 
 
The idea of joining a networking site, in this case Yammer, came from an account manager in London. He started using it as he was working with people in the US, South Africa and elsewhere. Soon, everyone at Melcrum was using it. 
 
Victoria Melcrum, the company's co-founder and chief executive, says that the technology was adopted because it was led by employees rather than a management edict. Yammer has created a team atmosphere in subtle ways, such as staff posting pictures to show colleagues around the world where they work.  
 
Although Melcrum has not tracked usage or cost-savings, she claims that Yammer has virtually ended the use of company-wide e-mails. And by unclogging inboxes, it has certainly saved both time and money.

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