How Twitter is Changing Business

By James Richardson

Twitter is on everyone's lips - better yet - everyone is a-twitter with Twitter!

It is the latest piece of cool internet technology that has all the geeks entranced and all the non geeks battling to learn more.

You see, in today's economic climate, businesses really must take advantage of any and all means to remain one step ahead of the competition. 

It is a case of be creative or be left behind...

It comes as no surprise that Australian businesses are starting to embrace the Twitter phenomenon with open arms.

Typically, in terms of the uptake of new technology, Australia is known to be quite responsive. But when we are talking about new web technologies, in this case Twitter, businesses in Australia are sadly lagging.

In fact, companies overseas have been using this service for near on a year.

Australian businesses are now jumping over each other to catch up with new businesses, starting Twitter accounts and actively tweeting every day.

I asked Samantha Robinson, Senior Marketing Manager for Group Online Banking, ANZ, why her company is using Twitter as a marketing tool for its new product.

What is exactly is ANZ Money Manager?

ANZ MoneyManager is a new secure online service that aggregates all of a customer's personal finance information from various institutions, allowing it to be viewed on one convenient website, free of charge.

ANZ MoneyManager brings together financial data from different online sources - bank accounts, online share portfolio, rewards programs etc.

ANZ MoneyManager then automatically categorises the data, and presents the customers with reports detailing their spending (eg restaurants, clothes, fuel).

Customers can also set budgets, and track performance against the budgets.

When did you start using Twitter?

We started using Twitter when we launched ANZ MoneyManager into beta in October last year. ANZ MoneyManager is now out of beta.

Why did you start using Twitter?

We started using twitter as we believe it’s a great way to keep users up to date with the latest developments in ANZ MoneyManager.

Additionally, we feel that Twitter is good fit with the ANZ MoneyManager target audience.

Does new sign ups and Twitter correlate directly?

More people sign up for ANZ MoneyManager than follow us on twitter, but we have seen that when we get a big influx of registrations for ANZ MoneyManager, twitter followers increase too.

Now you have been using twitter for a period of time, how do you think it most benefits the company?

It is proven to be a fantastic way to get very open and honest feedback in real time from users as well as keeping people up-to-date with the service.

Do you use other social networking sites?

We use Facebook and Get Satisfaction for ANZ’s social online savings account SmartyPig, but to date, we have only been using Twitter for ANZ MoneyManager.

Do you see Twitter as being superior or less beneficial?

It is a very different sort of tool to other social networking sites, being a microblogging platform. With that in mind, we use it for different reasons to sites like Facebook.

Going forward what is your Twitter strategy?

We have different strategies for different products and services in different phases. Primarily though, it’s our aim to keep people updated while receiving feedback and hearing what they really think which helps us create a system that is constantly improving.

I say to Australian business', go forth and Tweet!

James Richardson is a Blogger, who consults with business’ on Social media trends and stratagies. For more information visit his blog www.jamesrichardson.info