Thai companies join Twitter stampede

Even though Twitter has been recognised in Thai society as an overnight micro-blogging sensation due to its political use, it is currently the most popular social- networking medium in the business sector, playing an increasingly important role at little cost.

This phenomenon was confirmed by hundreds of marketers who attended the first Twitter for Business conference in Thailand, called TWTCON BKK 09.

Conference host Poramate Minsiri, who is chief executive of Bundit Centre - an owner of kapok.com - said that although Twitter was no longer "the hype", it had become a real-time tool for business that was changing the approach to marketing, customer service and crisis management.

Twitter is also opening room for new, emerging business opportunities at the intersection of geo-location and the real-time Web, he said. Along with other real-time platforms, Twitter is revolutionising the way companies do business.

A strategic marketer, Thunyawat Chaitrakul, said Twitter was playing an important role and marketers could not afford to ignore it. However, marketers needed to be aware of two things about the powerful 140-character micro-blog: first, its technical features and second, how to successfully apply the new medium in real business.

"Marketers should be concerned not only about Twitter, but also Facebook. Both of them change the communication paradigm, especially Twitter, which provides users with a real-time conversation. Businesses can use these real-time conversations to monitor or track their marketing campaigns and get immediate feed back," Thunyawat said.

Social media like Twitter are more than a fashion; they are a trend that will impact on business. Twitter's first impact as a communication channel has been the advent of "viral marketing", which effectively offers greater impact than world-of-mouth, he said.

The manager of DTAC's Strategy and Business Development Division, Worawisut Pinyoyang, said his company was applying social media and new media like Twitter to provide customer support. By opening its @dtac3g Twitter account, the company is able to communicate directly with its customers in real time in order to provide instant support and services.

More than 100 Thai companies of all descriptions have already boarded the "new-media bandwagon" by opening a Twitter account , Worawisut said. He gave as examples Boon Rawd Brewery (@Singha_Beer), Central Department Store (@Centralnews), Fuji Resaurant (@Welovefuji) and Kasikornbank (@KBank_Live).

He said businesses could use Twitter for many purposes, including public relations, contact building, customer service and sales.

Whatever the purpose, companies should first identify an objective for using Twitter and then exploit their brand identity on Twitter such as colours, logo and character. Then they should build "Twitter equity" by following their customers, listening to them and interacting with them. Last but not least, they should regularly evaluate their use of Twitter according to their original objectives, whether these were public relations, sales or customer-relationship management.

Pawoot Pongvitayapanu, president of Thailand's largest e-commerce websiteTarad.com, advised that several tools were currently available that companies could use along with their Twitter accounts. For example, he said to evaluate marketing via Twitter, companies could use TwitterCounter.com, TweetStats.com or Trendrr.com, as well as Monitteer.com, Tweetgrid.com, Twubs.com and Twitdeck.com.  

"These websites can be used along with Twitter to enhance online marketing channels most effectively with the least cost," Pawoot said.

More and more businesses are now adopting the new media as their marketing tools, he said, including Dell Thailand and HTC Thailand, as well as Tarad.com and Thaisecondhand.com.

Panutat Tejasen, founder of Jimmy Software and Chiang Mai Digital Works, said Twitter was the most powerful of social media, not only as a real-time interactive medium, but also as a crisis-management tool for business. It creates a paradigm shift in communication platforms and offers both positive and negative impacts to businesses, depending on how they deal with it.

More and more business organisations have become aware of Twitter and are concentrating on this technology, he said. In his opinion, to be successful in using Twitter as a business tool requires a significant number of "followers". Therefore, businesses will begin using software to "tweet" for them, as a trend for business use of the medium.

"This is an early stage [of the relationship between] Twitter and business in Thailand. But businesses should not ignore this medium as it expected to be much more powerful when people stay online all the time via their mobile phones over the next couple of years. If businesses ignore it and do not pave the way for [their use of] it, it might be too late for them. This will change the whole paradigm for doing business in the future," Panutat said.

Panutat said his company was developing software related to Twitter - such as a Twit Bot programme - and software related to other new media expected to impact on the business sector in the future.