Most large companies now use social media platforms for a range of purposes and with varying results. At the heart of many of these efforts is the objective of influencing consumer behaviour. However, the success of these initiatives is very patchy in terms of raising brand awareness and driving sales. This is partly due to the relative novelty of such platforms but also because engaging with customers and prospects in these interactive environments presents new challenges to companies which they did not face with traditional marketing approaches based on a broadcast model of information flows. This paper considers the efforts of the largest 50 UK retail groups and their use of Twitter to promote their retail brands. The research goes beyond simply counting Twitter followers and volumes of tweets as indicators of effectiveness and utilises social authority scoring from the digital marketing analysts, Moz to present a more nuanced analysis of their Twitter activity. The data is examined within the context of the 3-M framework to evaluate the different approaches adopted by the retail brands.

1. Push and Pull Approaches to Using
Twitter as a Marketing Tool
Martin De Saulles
University of Brighton
European Conference on Social Media
July 2015
Porto

2. ECSM 2015 (Martin De Saulles) 2

3. “everybody else is on Facebook so we thought we’d set up a page….”
“we’ll be able to join in ‘the conversation’…”
“it’s the only way to reach young people…”
“we used to have a Twitter account but we never got many followers…”
No clear rationale
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4. Just as with SERPS
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5. Organic reach is getting harder
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6. But we need to think beyond CTRs,
CPMs and Reach
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7. How are companies using social
media?
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Broadcast
Stimulate
Interact

8. How might we model that?
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3-M Framework
Megaphone Magnet Monitor
Gallaugher, J. & Ransbotham, S. (2010) Social media and customer dialog management at Starbucks.
MIS Quarterly Executive, Vol. 33, No. 4, pp 197-212

9. The 3-M Framework
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Gallaugher, J. & Ransbotham, S. (2010) Social media and customer dialog management at Starbucks.
MIS Quarterly Executive, Vol. 33, No. 4, pp 197-212

10. Rationale for this paper
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11. Objective of study
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“To test the applicability of the 3-M
framework to the social media
activities of a collection of
commercial organisations.”

12. Design of this study - data
• 50 largest UK retailers by revenue
• Their use of Twitter – customer-facing
accounts chosen – 62 different retail brands
with active Twitter accounts
• Twitter usage and activity from Followerwonk
social media metric service
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13. Design of the study - metrics
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Source: http://followerwonk.com

14. Applying metrics to framework
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15. Results (1)
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Note: Correlation coefficient of only 0.29 in relationship between age of the Twitter account and the Social
Authority score

16. Results (2)
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17. Conclusions
• Metrics in this study appear to be usable in
applying 3-M framework (further quantitative
and qualitative testing needed)
• The model presented here may be useful for
companies to benchmark their social activities
against competitors
• Incorporation of sentiment analysis data may
be useful to refine the model
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18. Final Thought
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“…brands are less needed when consumers
can assess product quality using better sources
of information such as reviews from other
users, expert opinion, or information from
people they know on social media.”