Among others, Twitter is currently considered as quite a popular tool in our marketing efforts. No doubt, it helps in reaching a much wider and targeted audience, as compared to other social media marketing tools. People can now connect with each other far more easily as also send and receive twitter updates and direct messages (DM) among themselves. As a matter of fact, more number of people you follow, more popular you become. Of course, when you cross 5,000 followers mark, you become recognized as part of TOP 500 on Twitter.

‘That’s OK’, you might be observing, ‘but how can I connect my blog with Twitter?’ will be your obvious query. But there is no problem there, too, if you follow me.

TwitterFeed

Just login to TwitterFeed.com with your OpenID. This will be required as you will be prompted to confirm your ID after logging in. However, after the confirmation, you will again be directed to the TwitterFeed site. Now, click ‘Go to my Twitter Feed or create a new one’. This is the time to add your RSS feed URL and that’s about all that you need to perform. Henceforth, whenever you post on your blog, it would be displayed as your twitter update on twitter.

TwitterCounter

However, if you now feel curious to know how much attention your blog is receiving, you can add a TwitterCounter plug-in on your site. It will display the number of followers from your twitter account. But you need to download the plugin first. Nevertheless, it would take at least a day’s time to take effect. So, you need not panic if you do not get immediate result.

Social media marketing calamities

You may, however, be wrong if you think social media marketing is a route that is covered by ‘roses, roses all the way..” A flash poll conducted on 1225 IT executives from 33 countries revealed that social media calamities caused organizations a total of $4.3 million in damages in 2010. Also, due to the viral nature of the internet, a mistake committed by a single employee has in some cases resulted in devastating consequences for organizations. It helps to digital promotion.

An instance of social media mishap highlights ace designer Kenneth Cole’s Twitter mishap in 2011. It happened when Kenneth Cole tweeted, “Millions are in uproar in Cairo when they heard our new spring collection will be available online”. Unfortunately, this became public when the Egyptian Revolution of 2011 had taken a devastating turn. However, Kenneth Cole quickly realized his fault and responded with a statement apologizing for the tweet.

Apart from the above case, numerous online marketing mishaps occur now and again. Examples include a YouTube video of a Domino’s Pizza employee doing awful things to pizza ingredients, which went viral on the internet.  A Twitter hashtag posted by McDonald’s in 2012 attracted attention due to several complaints and negative events customers experienced at the chain store; while a 2011 tweet posted by a Chrysler Group employee that no one in Detroit knows how to drive forced the automobile giant to offer unconditional apology to all.. When the Link REIT opened a Facebook page to recommend old-style restaurants, the page was flooded by furious comments criticizing the REIT for having forced a lot of restaurants and stores to shut down; it had to terminate its campaign early amid further deterioration of its corporate image.