Is being funny the right way to do Twitter for your brand?
Lots of social or digital agencies, including us at Bullet Social, will give you different ideas on how you should approach Twitter for your business to increase your followers and engage with your customers, but what Twitter business accounts do you follow and actually enjoy reading for pleasure?
Two brands that are doing Twitter differently are @arenaflowers, an online flower retailer, and @betfairpoker, the online poker site and part of the Betfair group. With 8,500 and 15,500 followers respectively, they might have got it right.
The idea for their twitter strategy was originally thought up by an unknown marketing consultant who noticed that @betfairpoker had a dormant twitter account with next to no followers. He had the idea to get writers to tweet funny stuff all day long (10-20 tweets a day) with presumably the strategy that this would increase followers. And it looks like it’s working.
Both firms have employed some extremely good comedy writers. Their tweets are constantly fresh, funny, sometimes risqué but never offensive.
The timeline for both of these accounts are a constant stream of quality content. Some of the best tweets getting hundreds of retweets.
Almost all of the tweets from both accounts have no relevance to the businesses themselves. Very occasionally, once, maybe twice a week will they tweet about an offer to nudge their followers who may be interested.
The accounts also rarely interact with their followers, they may occasionally retweet someone else’s funny tweet but the accounts are not used as a platform for feedback, conversation or customer service. Accounts are monitored by service teams and complaints or replies about service are picked up and managed through different Twitter accounts. This allows the writers concentrate and focus on creating funny content. The writers are also instructed to stop tweeting at the occasional times that service is compromised, for example if the websites go offline, this is to avoid annoying customers who may find it frustrating to see funny tweets posted at this time as it could be considered that issues are not being taken seriously.
So does it work? I think it does. I had never heard of Arena Flowers before I saw them on Twitter. Because I like their tweets I like their brand. Next time I need to send some flowers, probably after an argument, I will certainly have a look at their website. So for me it has worked.
As ever, it will be difficult for Betfair or Arena Flowers to measure the success of this strategy as click-throughs are unlikely to come directly via Twitter, but it certainly is a very new approach to advertising in social media.
Do you follow any Business/Brand accounts on Twitter who adopt a different approach to the norm? Let us know and comment below.
It may not be the right approach for every business or brand but I think this may be an opportunity which can be duplicated by others.
At Bullet Social we can tell you if it could work for you and deliver funny content as good as @arenaflowers and @betfairpoker