Follow Me! Global Marketers’ Twitter Use

Abstract

Social media have grown into a powerful marketing communications tool in the global economy. Marketers dedicate their time and resources to build trust and rapport with consumers through social media, yet a dearth of academic research addresses their use of Twitter. The present research undertakes an exploratory content analysis, focusing on 44 global brands’ Twitter use. The results indicate that marketers try to imbue human personality into their brands by using human representatives, personal pronouns, and verbs in the imperative form. In addition, information such as brand names and redirecting cues is frequent in brands’ tweets. Overall, marketers tend to exhibit their brand presence and personalities in their Twitter accounts, thereby building relationships with current and potential consumers. This article concludes with some social media marketing implications and future research directions.