I think one of the most important lessons New Zealand businesses could learn is to listen to customers on Twitter. The really interesting story is Telstra in Australia (http://xebidy.com/2009/04/finally-a-great-twitter-case-study/). Like Telstra VodafoneNZ started as a disaster forcing a message down the channel instead of engaging the users.

You are absolutely right that Stuff and Air NZ should be people – how cool would it be if we could pitch Stuff directly through Twitter in only 140 characters (save them reading forced PR statements).

Michael Carney I think you should just be one account – we are interested in your personal opinion, recommendations, etc instead of what you think when wearing different hats. That is the idea of social media – it is beyond the corporate and about the people.

Dan @xebidy

We @PocketSmith use Twitter to connect with our users (feedback, updates on product development, suggestions,etc…). It goes hand-in-hand with our philosophy of transparency and interactivity.

The only drawback is due to the fact that Twitter is a mainstream media. We have to balance reactivity and productivity. Good challenge to tackle :)

Francois @kaedron

Tweeting on behalf of a company brings up what I believe to be one of the biggest branding challenges companies will face as they really embrace social media – the personal brand.

People want real, human communication and that’s pretty hard to have with a brand. But you can have a real, human conversation with another human being.

The question that faces companies is, how do we successfully manage that integration between company and personal brand?

(And, coincidentally, that’s the key question we at iJump are working to help companies answer.)

I agree with you about having a customer service presence on twitter. While I can do a certain amount customer service, having the ‘tech heads’ and support staff right there is the ultimate goal, and certainly something that I am championing internally.

There are also several Orcon staff using twitter, often providing personal insights into what is going on here (for example Gavyn Jones, one of our developers – http://twitter.com/gavyn and Sergei Filippov, one of our customer service staff – http://twitter.com/SergeiFilippov). We certainly don’t discourage anyone from posting about work, although simple common sense rules apply.

My experience thus far has been extremely positive, and I hope that more Kiwi companies will begin to take it seriously as a way to engage with customers.

Duncan Blair
Head of Brand and Communications
Orcon
http://twitter.com/Orcon

Radio stations in New Zealand especially the likes of Radio Live and Newstalkzb are the ones that are lacking any Twitter initiative. Sure they post their news stories via a bot but wouldn’t Twitter be the ideal way of gaining feedback from their loyal listeners. I’d love to be able to bag Murray Deaker via Twitter every night between 7 and 8.

The best example I’m aware of is the BBC’s Radio Five Live 606 show @606ItsYourTweet.