Most people think GE only makes light bulbs. Don’t lie, you’re one of them. GE’s goal on Twitter is to shift this mindset from only being a household appliance manufacturing company to also being an innovative and competitive science and technology leader. From personalized content and user-generated campaigns to searching and responding to questions about general science, GE has paved the way as one of the leading B2B and Fortune 500 brands on Twitter. Most importantly, GE takes sometimes-complicated business goals (like advanced manufacturing and big data) and translates them into smart, digestible tweets. In 2013, GE’s Twitter account acquired more than 91k followers (bringing the total to 177k), and accumulated more 61k @mentions and 32k retweets. The foundation for GE’s Twitter strategy is smart, daily creative content, including jumping in on trending hashtags that the brand can apply to their own marketing goals. Beyond that, GE uses the platform to create personalized content for fans, engage with fans about shared interests, and create fun “ownable" moments throughout the year. For example, in February 2013, GE brought National Inventor's Day into the social media spotlight by inviting fans to tweet their invention ideas. The brand had a team of designers standing by to create personalized blueprint sketches of the ideas that could be tweeted right back. Similarly on March 14th (3.14), GE celebrated the popular social media zeitgeist moment Pi Day by giving away over 314 pies to Twitter fans using the hashtag #PiDay. The brand owned 6.5% of the global #PiDay conversation on Twitter, garnering 5.6MM impressions. Later in the year, GE put its community management on display by owning yet another brand-related conversation on Twitter, this time by celebrating the world’s first 3D Printing Day. On December 3rd (D3 for 3D) GE gave away customized versions of 3D-printed gifts to fans on Twitter using the hashtag #3DPrintMyGift. The brand used heavy community management to take fans through four touch points of conversation: asking fans their prefered gift and color choice, and then showing them a CAD render, time-lapse video, and image of the finished product. GE was able to show each fan each step of the process in real time. The brand also uses Twitter to amplify national television commercial campaigns, three of which ran in 2013. More specifically, last fall when a GE commercial aired featuring the U.S.S Enterprise from Star Trek, the brand searched for fans tweeting about the commercial on Twitter. GE then sent fans who were excited about the spot a Soundcloud link to a custom greeting recorded in the voice of the ship’s on-board computer system. Using the platform’s direct messaging functionality, GE reached out to fans that were particularly receptive to the commercial and rewarded them with a personalized thank you card and Star Trek DVD set in the mail.
GE on Twitter: https://twitter.com/generalelectric
