Marketing with Twitter : investigating factors that impact on the effectiveness of tweets

Abstract

The increasing use of Twitter by businesses has created the challenge of how organisations can use Twitter most effectively for marketing. Using data across several years of Twitter activity by both leading global brands and a non-profit organisation (NPO), this thesis presents measures that can be used by practitioners and researchers to assess the effectiveness of marketing communications on Twitter. It discusses the factors that predict consumer and stakeholder engagement with organisational tweets, and different Twitter strategies that have been successfully (and less successfully) used by leading global brands and a large non-profit organisation. The thesis consists of four separate but inter-related papers that have variously been published or accepted for publication. Each paper analyses different aspects of organisational Twitter activity, including an analysis of tweet features that impact on the frequency of retweeting of brands’ tweets and examination of reciprocity within the network of an NPO and its corporate partners. The thesis contributes to the literature by assessing what has been done on Twitter, what works and what does not, and by showing what it is possible to achieve on the platform in terms of effective communications. Firstly, the research evaluates Twitter activity both in commercial organisations and within the network of an NPO and its supporters by analysing their Twitter accounts’ activity, follower engagement and tweet structure. The research also compares and contrasts Twitter activity over a two-year period by both commercial brands and an NPO and therefore provides insights into the evolution of Twitter use. Secondly, the research develops and tests a theoretical model that predicts electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) on Twitter by assessing the effect of different tweet features on retweet count. The research also provides an approach to estimate minimum and maximum threshold levels for some tweet features that can be used repeatedly in tweets (e.g., hashtags and photos) and which can thus have a non-linear effect on retweeting. In addition, the research evaluates how consumer involvement with the product category, as represented by different industries, impacts on consumer responses and engagement with brand communications and subsequent eWOM on Twitter. This is important as the findings suggest that different industries need to use different communication strategies, depending on the brand context, in order to be successful on Twitter. Thirdly, the thesis discusses what it is possible to achieve on Twitter, in particular by reviewing how the medium can be used for reciprocal promotion within a network of organisations using co-branding and co-created tweets, even among those who compete. Finally, the thesis discusses implications for organisations using Twitter for marketing communications, and for further research into the use of Twitter for marketing