During my presentation to the Digitas marketing team yesterday, there was a healthy amount of chatter about the movement toward "constant partial attention" and the rise of always-on social media platforms like Twitter, Radar.net, Ustream.tv and Stickam. We acknowledge that this is going on and that it might actually represent an important shift in how consumers create content and connect with their digital communities, but what does it mean for marketers and how do we harness it?
I think it's too early to say for sure, but it's not too early to see that these tools provide yet another forum for consumers to talk about brands. Here is just one example, from a Twitter member who goes by the handle Geek_Kittie.
OK, so we don't control what people say about our brands (we never have) and maybe Kittie's confession isn't "on message", but you could argue that Geico has certainly made a meaningful connection with at least one person. :-)
Now, bear in mind that Twitter posts are stored online indefinitely (unless the user deletes them or Twitter goes out of business) and, just like blog posts, they get indexed by Google and show up in search results. So like it or not, Kittie's tweet has now become just one more (tiny?) piece of the Geico brand story. Even if it's not yet clear how marketers "use" Twitter, it's abundently clear that we do need to pay attention to it.
(Props to John Swords for finding and pointing to Geek_Kittie's tweet.)
