Twitter, the social media platform for sound bite lovers, is celebrating its tenth year. The evolution of the platform has been fascinating, evolving from idle chatter, into a must for breaking news, brand awareness, and marketing campaigns.
The Face of a Brand – NASA’s Friendly Lander
Perhaps one of the earliest marketing successes was achieved by NASA which gave the Phoenix Mars Lander (@MarsPhoenix) not just a Twitter account, but a personality. During the Lander’s five-month stint on Mars, NASA posted 605 entries on Twitter, and amassed an astounding 40,000 followers on the then fledgling Twitter.
Twitter followers watched as she landed, sublimated water, and ultimately said goodbye to her faithful tweeters when the sun could no longer support her solar-powered operations. Her last post left us wistful, but imagining meeting her again.
“So long, Earth. I’ll be here to greet the next explorers to arrive, be they robot or human.”
Veronica McGregor, the head of communications at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California was the voice of @MarsPhoenix and she made NASA human and relatable again. For those of us watching, she also gave us an idea of the future of Twitter as a means of marketing, a future she would continue with Curiosity, the Mars Lander. Today, @MarsCuriosity has 2.41 million followers. The Mars robots became spokespeople and influencers for NASA which now has 16.2 million followers and a robust social media marketing campaign.
Creating Customer Buy-In
NASA probably couldn’t have become an online marketing powerhouse without leaning on its Mars influencers.
Twitter in partnership with Annalect, a division of Omnicom Media Group, conducted a study to investigate the value of influencers on Twitter. Influencers are individuals with a massive and engaged following. Their content is more likely to be read, shared, and to go viral than most social media users.
Turns out influencers have almost as strong of an effect as friends on whether users will engage with companies and their products.
When looking for product recommendations, 49% of respondents to our survey said they relied on influencers. That’s second only to Tweets from friends, who 56% of consumers sought for guidance. Furthermore, recommendations from influencers were amplified on Twitter, with 20% of subjects saying a Tweet from an influencer inspired them to share a product recommendation.
So even if you can’t tweet from Mars, investing some of your marketing team’s time in social media may very well help further your brand.
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