CIOs Branding Enterprises through Twitter

Jack Dorsey and Mark Zuckerberg, never in their wildest dreams (and their dreams do get wild) must have had imagined that their creations be one day be a potent marketing weapon among the king-pins of the technology driven corporate world. But my oh my, with social networking platforms like Twitter and Facebook, viewed as a paragon with traditional marketing tools, their fortune, not withstanding their dreams, couldn't have taken a better turn, reports Michael Krigsman of Enterprise Irregulars.

However, many of the CIO's are still caught in a catch-22 situation as they precariously weigh the pros and cons of implementing such a trend in their marketing policy. Their only area of concern is probably security of their most intimate data as such a breach could be fatal for the enterprise.

The most recent incident of LinkedIn where it was hacked and around 10,000 passwords of profiles made public, must be feeding into their fears and foreboding them from embracing this trend and incorporating it as a marketing medium.

But still, such a fear cannot overshadow the fact that it does have an impact on the marketing scenario provided it is used in a judicious manner otherwise prominent CIO's such as Oliver Bussmann from SAP, Seton Hill University's Phil Komarny, and the General Services Administration's CIO, Casey Coleman wouldn't have fallen for it.

One of the distinguished faces of Indian corporate industry, Anand Mahindra, who has a staggering 5, 00,000 approx followers on Twitter lends his expertise as to managing such a magnanimous bunch of fans. He quips, "To summarize, when people ask me, "why are you on this (twitter) ", I say, "It helps build my company and the brand. How does it help you build the brand? You can use it as a broadcast channel and it is enormously useful as the numbers multiply. Say, if you have half a million followers, there are very few English language newspapers that can boast that kind of circulation. So, there is a broadcast value to get your message out."

As such there are 5 cardinal rules for CIO's to adhere to while using Twitter in branding their products or ideas so as to be present in the hearts, minds and the eyes of their followers. They are basically:

1. Quality over Quantity - The number of people who follows you shouldn't matter as to the genre of people. When you have more of your colleagues or your CEO following you than your own family members, close friends or relatives, then you know that you are doing the right job.

2. Avoid being monotonous - Nobody is going to indulge in a boring book or a boring movie. Likewise, when your tweets are boring and monotonous, the number of followers will gradually decrease and so will your strong hold.

3. Generating interest is the key - In order to engage more and more followers, you have to be interesting and intriguing in your tweets.

4. Speak your mind - Being honest has its rewards. Although you can't be too honest when it comes to your corporation, it is quite helpful when you are free spirited and straight minded when you are tweeting.

5. Reading the follower's mindset - This is the most important rule of all times: understanding the consumers. If one can decode what actually goes on in a consumer's mind and acts accordingly, a whole new set of followers will ensue.

If a CIO can follow these five golden but simple rules, they can exploit to the fullest the unexplored realms of opportunity in Twitter in effectively marketing their product.