Apple recently launched the newest version of the iPhone, the 4S. Anticipation was so strong for this launch that it’s being blamed for the 1st ever dip in smartphone sales last quarter, with the thinking being that buyers were holding off on getting a new smartphone till they saw what the new iPhone provided. Apple said it was its most successful iPhone launch to date. Also, Sprint now offers the popular smartphone, along with Verizon and AT&T.
But there was one feature of the new iPhone 4S that caught my eye: Twitter is integrated with the phone’s operating system. That means Twitter is on the phone, and you can more easily tweet from the phone, if you take a picture you can quickly send it straight to Twitter, etc. It’s also led to an understandable spike in Twitter signups.
And then there’s this: Twitter users are five times more likely to share content on mobile devices versus Facebook users. And this study was conducted before the introduction of the iPhone 4S.
It’s not about understanding Social Media, it’s about understanding how and why your customers are using social media.
So as a business, if your customers are on Twitter, it’s definitely important for you to understand how to use Twitter. But it’s even more important for you to understand how your customers are using Twitter. For example, here’s some questions you could ask:
- Do our customers prefer to use Twitter when they are on the go (smartphones) or do they prefer to use Twitter at home (iPads and laptops)?
- The study mentions that Twitter users share more, what type of content are they sharing? Tweets? Pictures? Both?
- How are our customers using Twitter? For networking? Keeping up with friends? Sharing and finding out the latest breaking news?
- Does the way our customers use Twitter change when they are on their smartphone versus their laptop or iPad?
It’s very important to understand social media, but it’s far more important to understand your customers.