Hello, welcome to this episode of The speak PR podcast. My name is Jim James and I am your host. I have been an entrepreneur and a person running their own agency for over 25 years. on this show, I like to share some tips and some thoughts about PR and technology and the convergence of communication and commerce. These are ways that I think I can try and help my fellow entrepreneurs to make the most out of what they know and what they do and to get noticed. So I was thinking today about the Warren Buffett, comment that it takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. And that's probably something that maybe even President Trump is starting to wrestle with now. News that Twitter have started to fact check His stories and his posts on Twitter. This is a first, because up until now he's been able to tweet with impunity. And whether or not you agree with his political leanings and intentions, he has used the first amendment in America in a way that politicians in other parts of the world certainly would not be able to do. So to now have started to fact check, because they're saying that some of his allegations about voter fraud and the attempts by a Democratic Party to to challenge the the rule of law on on on voting is, is frankly not true. Now, Twitter has some 300 million users on a daily basis, and it's been at the channel for Trump to go directly to his base and circumnavigate traditional media. The question is, is that something that You know you as an entrepreneur we as entrepreneurs should do. Now, it seems as though Twitter plays a certain kind of role for consumers, but possibly not as influential as even Twitter may think, on the Twitter website, they say that Twitter is the number one platform for discovery. And 79% of people on Twitter like to discover what's new, that 53% on Twitter are more likely to be the first to buy new products. And that 26% of people's time is spent viewing ads than on other leading platforms. So plainly, Twitter and business Twitter is a platform where you can connect with what's happening. And in the case of Donald Trump, you can connect with maybe what's not happening. Is it still The platform that we should be using, well, they have Twitter feed, which you can brand yourself. You can use hashtags. And you can use your own URLs. And you can create shortened URLs. But what people are really interested in, of course, is that you can start to interest based target your niche audience through the targeting tools that Twitter has got. So it is another tool that can be used by by entrepreneurs, which is free, of course to start with, and you can build a community using Twitter. And you can run obviously your own your own followers, and you can create your own hashtags if you want to cut across different accounts, and to have different people follow. For example, we were talking about the Reach for the razor campaign just the other day But the difficulty with Twitter, of course, is the volume of content that flows through Twitter is so fast and so great. And some research done in America found that people in America, especially men, were were not using Twitter to find out what to buy. So it seems as though Twitter has been used for sort of discovery, you know, what's going on what's trending and really very much a was like a ticker tape for headlines. But he's not an essential part of a brand building tool. Consumers in America, according to this survey, done some time two years ago with some 16,000 consumers show that actually men we're all influenced by blog reviews than women. And that One in five men would say that blog reviews influence their in store purchases. So actually, that's the long form article by a potentially trusted author, which is getting people to the to the store and to make the purchases. The question is how do people get to that in the store and to that blog? And the answer then is quite possibly on social media. And that is the role that Twitter can play. So Twitter really is very much a messenger. And as Trump has used it, it's very much a messenger of good or bad, and possibly factual or unsubstantiated stories. Now, Twitter is used not by that many people in terms of actually checking for products about what they're going to buy. But what it does seem is that Twitter is a medium For people to chat with a brand, so Twitter to some degree then can play a sales promotion and after sales function for brands, and so what we'll see is on Twitter is consumer brands, doing flash sales to their followers. And I've been looking in hearing about during lockdown, people are placing their orders using Twitter. So instead of having a website with an online chat to the website, then people are using Twitter. And this is sort of reminds me of what's happening in China with with WeChat which also has a messenger and to the stream of, of information flowing, but also is used indeed for chatting between one to one or two groups making purchases within app purchases. stores and customer support. And because Twitter and WeChat. So mobile native, they really play to the fact that a large section of the of the consumer paradigm now is on mobile. So, if Twitter is appealing to the younger demographic, nearly 60% of their demographic are under 35. So, we are looking at Twitter for a certain role for a certain consumer and therefore it can be very powerful, especially as it's free. The downside of course, is that it needs management. Because I find for myself to to move so quickly, that you have to keep constant flood of content going on there. Now that raises this issue that we keep coming up against and that's what automation Hootsuite One software that will enable you to add your Hootsuite your Twitter, and your Instagram, and your Vimeo and your YouTube feeds all directly and you post from one publishing platform. Now, the other interesting thing about Twitter is this theory that I've been talking about and written about on our blog. Under this, why Captain Tom created a viral sensation is that the the Twitter users, were saying that just 3% of them are influenced by celebrity endorsements. So only only 3% according to a survey by collective bias. Now, apparently, the same survey showed that 30% of consumers are likely to buy a product recommended by a non celebrity blogger or Twitter. In other words, consumers trust other consumers more than they do celebrities. Now, this is a theme that I've been coming back to time and time again. And this article by what an Dodds that says that it's more important to create a story that resonates with other people who are easily influenced than it is to reach out to one or two influences and hope that they will do the work for you. And this Twitter shows very much that that's the case. Now, for our own companies. What is great then is if we can reach out to our customers and to our staff and to our consumers, and engage them to start to play a role on Twitter, to support us and to do that by sharing pictures and news. And of course, the real point about Twitter is it's dynamic. So it's great for short term, and short for information that we can share that has an immediacy to it, for example, like a flash sale, or an opening time trying to get rid of reduced inventory. But it does take some management. What you can do, of course, is use the targeted advertising the Twitter of God. But it must, of course, then come back to a longer form piece of content that's ideally placed on your website, and leading into a funnel. Now, I tend to look a little bit more at the technology behind Twitter, and the good people at Sprout Social, and also, the people on the Twitter website itself talk about the new algorithm for Twitter that was launched in 2017, which essentially changed Twitter from being about the latest posts to being the post that they believe will be most relevant for you. So there's a fundamental change in the way that Twitter provides and displays your information. And you can toggle this little star at the top of your screen, which gives you the opportunity to go to either the the time base chronology or to tweets that they think will be most interesting for you. Their algorithm is now starting to send you information, which has the highest engagement levels. And engagement is a function of other people either reposting or liking or is being an example of content that you have expressed an interest in before. So Twitter has become much more again, like Facebook where it's sending you content that you might like. Now, as a brand owner, what does that mean? It means that we need to be starting to send sent out through Twitter on a more frequent basis, the people at Sprout Social, have a tool set and some metrics where they are saying that you should be sending basically with high frequency during the day, because your continued presence on Twitter will increase the likelihood of your tweets being shared and engaged. They're looking at different timelines. And suggesting that first thing in the morning and throughout the period of the day is key. And so all the way through the working day, people will be receiving and looking at tweets. They're also suggesting that the content that you send in terms of the format is key that the content that includes short videos, is the content that goes most viral most quickly, whereas plain text really doesn't go anywhere. They're also saying that social media encourage consumers, that posts to entertain, get some 67% of all likes, and some 55% of shares. Interesting enough, posted inspire 57% will be light and post that teach only 46 posts that tell a story 38 and discounts and sales. Only 37% will actually like that, but 38% will share that. So what we're seeing is this idea that Twitter is sort of almost just a constant stream. So if you've got constant, entertaining content for your brand, that is referring to something relevant for your audience, then Twitter could well be the platform for you to use. Finally, in Sprout Social, they talk about response times and people's expectation on Twitter is that they will get a response in less than four But most brands apparently respond in closer to eight. So many brands, many companies are not managing the expectation within the consumers and those people looking at twitter. So if you're going to have Twitter be prepared for the volume of content, the nature of the content, and the expectation that you're creating of having a dialogue with those audiences. So Twitter's to be used, but it's also to be managed very, very carefully, in order to get any kind of effect. And that's all down to the algorithms since 2017. The new updates in 2020 that have made chronology less important than relevance and engagement. In China, people use the QR code for their WeChat and also for their Weibo, as a calling card and all of their material. That doesn't really happen very much. with Twitter, in Europe and the states, but what we are seeing is, of course, that people are using Twitter as kind of a random messaging platform. Now, Trump, of course, is proving that he can be press more random, and he's messaging the most. But as leaders, we have to think maybe back to this other great concept of the Stockdale paradox, which is after one of the highest, the highest ranking American officer James Stockdale who was caught in the Hanoi Hilton during the Vietnam War. And it's brought out by Jim Collins who had met and spoke with with James Stockdale at length. The paradox was that Stockdale said, well, the people that survived, understand, understood and had absolute faith that they would survive. from day to day, we'll eventually see through the situation as it is today. But there are not optimists there are realists, they were able to confront the challenges of what's going on. But they believed in their long term ability to get through this trouble. Now as we have with the Coronavirus, all of us don't really know when this problem is going to end. And we can use tools like Twitter to communicate how we're feeling. But we must also obviously manage the narrative. And as I keep saying about narrative being compassionate, optimistic, values based informative and digital, Twitter represents an alternative for people to communicate directly through to their audiences without going via the media. That means it's direct and impactful, but it also has a slight risk to it. And as we're seeing in the case of Donald Trump, his own integrity now is being undermined because a third party is started to censor him in a way that it doesn't censor anybody else. So as a leader, credibility is a paramount importance. And that's what Admiral James Stockdale had done in, in, in the Hanoi Hilton was to lead with the great integrity. And as leaders during this time, that's what we must all do to almost use the tool sets of PR to communicate our own integrity, and to reassure our customers, and our staff, and partners that we're all going to get through this together. So thank you for listening. If you've got a Twitter account, please follow us on at East SPR. And I look forward to hearing any feedback or thoughts you've got about how you and your company using Twitter. And in the meantime, I wish you to be safe. I wish your business to be profitable. And I pray Pray that you keep communicating. Thank you so much. Bye bye