MKT 345- Discussion 6
Aramis
345-mod61replies.docxTWITTER STRATEGY 3
Discussion 6
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Discussion 6
Makenzie Callahan
1. Name the pros and cons of asking for tax advice on Twitter. What specific social media marketing tactics does the company use to better manage the rush around the tax day?
There is more than one pro and con to asking for tax advice on Twitter. The outlet that TurboTax and Intuit created for their customers on Twitter was different than many other strategies that tax companies had turned to thus far. Intuit and TurboTax targeted Twitter for the sheer fact that Twitter’s audience is primarily end users (“Intuit’s Turbo Tax,” n.d.). One of the pros in TurboTax’s creation of a Q&A feed on Twitter is their turn around time. Because they only operate one short season out of the year, TurboTax dedicated a team of two people, initially, to return tweets and questions to those customers who needed answers. Later, the company increased their team to 10 or 12 individual social media experts. Their average return time was 4 minutes, which is extremely fast (“Intuit’s Turbo Tax”, n.d.). The speed of their responses only furthered their relationship with customers all over the globe. TeamTurboTax was created to devote allocate adequate resources to those customers that had questions throughout the rush of tax day and tax season. While the company expected Twitter to be used for more professional and general purposes, customers began asking personalized questions. This would be a con for asking for tax advice on Twitter. There are certain legal and ethical implications that one can get into when asking personalized tax questions, publicly, over the internet, and more specifically, Twitter. They used, co-founder Scott Cook’s method of “follow me home” to essentially follow the customers in their time of need. This increased company growth on Twitter to over 20 million followers (“Intuit’s Turbo Tax”, n.d.). Their following was made up of people about to finish a tax return, or already existing customers. Twitter only furthered TurboTax’s relationship with their customers. Our textbook suggests that Twitter is a good starting point for determining strategies for growing customer service satisfaction (Barker, Barker, Bormann, Zahay, & Roberts, 2017).
2. The article names word-of-mouth recommendations as one advantage of TurboTax’s Twitter strategy. What other advantages exist that weren’t mentioned?
Word of mouth was one of the couple advantages that TurboTax’s Twitter strategy presented to their company. Another advantage would be the fact that Twitter dominates the news category of social media (Barker, Barker, Bormann, Zahay, & Roberts, 2017). This increases brand recognition and brand equity for TurboTax. Increased efforts of year-round help from social media’s Twitter will give TurboTax the advantage where customers will remember their engagement and recognize their logo when tax season comes around. This is important for any seasonal brand. Customers should know exactly who to go to every season. If customers know that TurboTax was there for them throughout every season, they are more than likely to use them during tax season. By monitoring Twitter, TurboTax also will be able to improve content engagement and marketing effectiveness throughout the use of Twitter Analytics (Barker, Barker, Bormann, Zahay, & Roberts, 2017).
Kiana Soto
1. Name the pros and cons of asking for tax advice on Twitter. What specific social media marketing tactics does the company use to better manage the rush around the Tax Day?
The Advantage is that the twitter feed gave Turbo Tax’s customers a quick and easy way to ask any questions they might have about filing their taxes and using the software, however following the initial launch they soon realized they were under staff, due to the amount of people that wait to till the last minute to file their taxes. To fix this problem Turbo Tax increased their staff, many of whom were experts to communicate via twitter with their customers. This encourages customers “providing useful information, building the brand’s reputation and thought leadership” (Barker, Barker, Bormann, Zahay, & Roberts, 2017).
A con that may be concerning to Turbo Tax is the different topics being covered at once in the content. Having multiple streams on questions from customers/follower may becoming confusing and can prevent outside viewers from understanding the overall message that is being provided. It is important in “keeping a balance between different categories will make the content fresher and more engaging… each day’s tweet should be kept on a common theme or idea” (Barker, Barker, Bormann, Zahay, & Roberts, 2017).
2. The article names word-of-mouth recommendations as one advantage of TurboTax’s Twitter strategy. What other advantages exist that weren’t mentioned?
An advantage that is not mentioned is how Turbo Tax can take the feedback and information gained through their twitter feed during tax season, and it also fails to mention the advertising throughout the remaining part of the year. Their Twitter has also been more engaging and interactive than the ads that, making the customers become more trustworthy to the Turbo Tax’s Twitter page. They have notices that customers like to help each other, “sharing their expertise and helping others…TurboTax's community members, like a retired CPA answered over 50,000 questions within a year, and more than 5,000 customers viewed his content” (Dyer & Dyer, 2010). Turbo Tax’s social media tactics help current customers while engaging new customers to join their services.
Discussion 6
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Discussion 6
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