But don't be so serious all the time
But where some interactions are serious, others trend toward silly.
Consider Dunkn' Dave, who helms the Dunkin' Donuts Twitter account.
While a donut outage may be cause for alarm (especially in the Northeast), that eventuality (thankfully) has yet to occur. So what does Dunkn' Dave tweet about with the company's 10,000 followers?
Donuts. It's just that simple.
"[Using Twitter] we've found what we've always known to be true: our customers are extremely passionate about the brand and love Dunkin' Donuts," says Michelle King, director of global public relations for Dunkin' Brands. "We love the real-time feedback. Recently, Dunkin' Dave, sent out a tweet asking our followers about their favorite donuts. We got a lot of responses, and watching them flood in was exciting. When Dave has some time, he's going to sort through the answers and announce Twitter's favorite Dunkin' Donut."
While that announcement will likely boost sales, that's not the real point of the account. King says the primary goal of the account is to acknowledge the customers for their contribution to the brand.
For DEI Worldwide, the agency that handles Kraft's Twitter initiatives for its Philadelphia Cream Cheese, the customer's passion for the brand is critical, but equally important is the fact that the brand is able to engage the customer on their own terms.
According to Tyler Starrine, VP of campaign development at DEI Worldwide, Kraft's presence on Twitter serves a multitude of functions, from advertising, to customer service, to PR. But at their core, each function is about letting people connect to the brand, and each other, through a network that is essentially for, and promulgated by, people who love cream cheese.
Of course, with donuts and cream cheese, it's kind of hard to have a dissatisfied customer, which is why brands like Texas Instruments are using Twitter to give customers an extra level of support that wouldn't be possible through a standard call center.
According to a company spokeswoman, Texas Instruments has begun letting various members of its engineering team field questions from the general public via Twitter, and in many cases, that has led to product support from people who actually designed the device in question.
The result has been a kind of two-way street. For customers using Texas Instruments' more complicated products, the customer service has been greatly improved. But for the company’s engineering team, Twitter exchanges have led to insights into how people use the products they make.
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