I’m not sure if they were first to do this, but they certainly were the first to get my attention: Last night, I saw a Best Buy TV commercial that featured their Twitter URL instead of the customary home page at the end of the spot.

That may not seem groundbreaking, but think back to the late ‘90s when it was groundbreaking to start seeing home page URLs at the bottom of the screen.

Now add in fact that the commercial was for Best Buy’s new Twitter-based Twelpforce customer service initiative, and it became even more impressive.

A Double Shot of Brilliance

First, the very idea of driving traffic at something other than a home page is just brilliant.

Think about this in terms of your hospital. Why encourage somebody to go to the top of your Website and then have to dig down if you are trying to promote something specific—especially if it’s something new, such as a center of excellence, facility or event?

For example, if you work at “Generic Hospital,” your hospital’s URL is either going to be obvious (e.g., generichospital.org) or at the top of a search engine result page. On the other hand, offering an alternative (and more focused) alternative (e.g., twitter.com/gh_NewCenter) is a fantastic technique for maximizing the investment made in a print or TV spot.

Second, using Twitter as a way to not only provide real-time customer service but as a hip, cutting-edge and branded technique is, again, just brilliant.

It’s becoming painfully redundant to trump the communication and transparency benefits of an effective social media strategy. Still, they’re not only still extremely valid points, but are something that should more than raise the eyebrows of hospital administrators that are still resisting Web 2.0.

The Twelpforce model is an ideal example. Not only did Best Buy find a way to brand something every company has—customer service—but they did it in a way that took advantage of a red hot phenomenon (Twitter) that has the added benefit of being maintained by somebody else…for free, as compared to having to develop, install and maintain a proprietary Twitter-like system!

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 28th, 2009 at 10:13 am and is filed under Industry Trends, Marketing, Pop Culture, Social Media, Things 'n' Stuff, Web 2.0. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.