The Punny Business of Twitter Marketing

I love writing jokes. I love how words can be twisted in a different context to enlist a small chuckle from the reader. I love how Puns can make people go anywhere between LOL!!! OMG!!! ROFL!!! to flat out blocking you for just how much you sound like their father.

In one of these random wordplay sessions, I ended up having a rather friendly conversation with the folks at Cure Fit. What followed, was a series of punny tweets highlighting Cure.Fit's various product offerings in a casual, fun(dare I say funny) manner.

The tweet got a respectable 5000 impressions and a few Retweets (not from the brand sadly) and overall made me feel pretty chuffed. Had the brand retweeted, had more twitter influencers got into the game, perhaps Cure. Fit may have gained more followers on twitter and increased brand awareness. Not to mention, a healthy number of folks would actually be aware of their product offerings.

It got me thinking, why don't more brands engage in such genuine, implicit product promotions? Why don't most companies use Twitter to engage in similar conversations, planned or unplanned with influencers, creative people and think of creative ways of promoting their products?

Take a look at the twitter feed of most of the top B2C startups and business in India and you get a threadbare version of press releases about product launches, the odd link to a newly written blog post and the occasional retweet of the rare "customer review/testimonial" that is actually positive. Twitter, the typical startup guru would say, is a channel for Customer support. Customer complains using twitter and the brand reacts almost immediately with a semi-automated/automated message, nipping a potential PR crisis in the bud. There is little else being done on a channel that currently engages over 34Mn users, largely in the NCCS A category of social-economic classification.

Then, there are the Media houses such as Netflix who reign supreme on their approach to Twitter. Using shows and gifs from shows to talk to users who have feedback about shows. Asking the odd inane question to engage users and making "friends" out of their follower base. An experience, even I have been glad to be part of.

Save for Zomato, it seems the Indian startup space has largely forgotten the true potential of Twitter. Zomato remains one of my favourites when it comes to using social media for creative branding through social media. It has created a rampant following on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram through witty oneliners and memes, cleverly postulating the benefits of their product or in some cases just simply winning hearts through genuine tweets.

Companies should invest more in creating similar campaigns on social media. It helps in creating free(or semi paid) PR, improving customer engagement as well as in an overall brand building. Perhaps, the future for Marketing on Twitter is Punny.