Do brands use Twitter‘s website to post tweets, or official Twitter clients, or third-party tools? Do large companies use one social media management system, or do they rely on different tools? Which of these third-party tools are most popular? These are the questions that website monitoring service Pingdom attempts to answer.
The study is based on Interbrand’s list of the top 100 global brands for 2011. They studied the most recent 20 tweets, from the Twitter handles of 96 of the 100 brands which maintained an official Twitter presence, and analysed how these tweets were posted. Here are the key insights emerging from the study:
- The most-used third party tool is HootSuite – used by 20 of the 96 brands – including IBM, HP, Ebay, Nivea and Gap, among others. It is used by 20.8% of the brands.
- 16.7% brands, or 16 of the 96 brands, including Audi, Louis Vuitton, Dell and Nestle use TweetDeck, which started out as a third party tool, but was acquired by Twitter in 2011.
- 42 different apps are used by the 96 brands. Other popular third party tools are SocialEngage, Vitrue, Buddy Media, SocialFlow, Sprinklr, Crowdbooster and several others.
- Interestingly, many brands do not stick to only one tool and use different tools at different times. Examples are H&M, Dell and Cisco which use a combination of tools, official Twitter mobile clients and the website itself for posting tweets. This might indicate that there is currently no tool that meets all the posting needs of a brand.
- 28 brands – or 29.2% – do not use any tool at all, and use the Twitter website to post content. Additionally, 67 brands had at least one tweet from the website.
- Mobile clients are also being used – Twitter for iPhone is used by 14 brands, and Twitter for iPad and BlackBerry are popular as well.
- Instagram is used by 5 brands, predominantly fashion and beauty brands like L’Oreal, Armani and Gap.
- Some brands like Nike and Pepsi also use custom-made tools to tweet.
What tools do you use to post content to Twitter? Which tools do you feel are the most intuitive and easy to use? Share with us.
