Santa Claus is Now Following Me on Twitter

I know that Santa sees me when I’m sleeping, and he knows when I’m awake. But now, if I happen to mention my latest weekend of debauchery on my Twitter account, he knows all about that too. I didn’t know Old St. Nick was that tech savvy, but he’s even gone as far as to separate the naughty from the nice using the new ‘Lists’ feature.

This is incredible! If Santa is following me on Twitter, then I don’t have to bother sitting on his lap this year to tell him what I want. I can just post a tweet saying:

“Hey @SantaClaus25, I want an XBOX 360! You know where to leave it!”, and it’ll be under my tree for sure.

Then I noticed, there are more than a few Twitter users claiming to be that portly, red-faced gift giver (shocking, I know). They all say they’re from The North Pole, but there’s no way to be certain. Looks like I’ll be the tallest one at the mall in line for Santa’s Workshop again this year.

**Deep sigh**

Although, all hope of using social media to help me stuff my stocking with things I want is not lost. Recently, I’ve heard about more and more companies not only using social media (mostly Twitter), but using it effectively to listen in on what consumers are saying about their brands and products and responding directly to offer gratitude or customer service.

For example, here’s a recent tweet from @gadsbyO3world: “There comes a point in a man's life when he has to say: "these are the best bbq potato chips ever" #popchips”

Shortly after, Popchips responded through Twitter to thank him for the kind words, simply because he expressed his like of Popchips. As if he didn’t already love their product, now they’ve personally reached out to him to say “I’m glad you like it.”

Getting a company to pay attention to what I have to say was always done on their terms in the past. Calling, emailing, filling out a contact form, or using whatever channels they told me to use to reach them. Twitter and any other channels that allow companies to hear in real-time what people are saying about their brand, whether actually directing comments at the company or not, are key for this shift in power back to the consumer. Especially since Google is now including Twitter updates in their search results.

There are a handful of effective ways that companies are using Twitter, and I personally think that proactively listening to what the customer says, is one of if not the most important.

So even if @SantaClaus25 is not really Chris Kringle, I’ll say to him or whoever else happens to be listening, “Contact me and I’ll tell you where to ship the Xbox 360.”