I recently analyzed a company’s social media practices using R2i’s 4 Ways to Leverage Social Media.  What I realized is that most companies are adept in using the message distribution qualities of the tools, but are not as strong in using them to develop relationships with customers.

The irony in this imbalance is that companies already have powerful distribution tactics including email marketing and earned media like press releases.  What they don’t have, however, is a surplus of tools to really connect with people.

I wanted to design a framework for looking at social software features so that companies would know if they were actually distributing a message, developing a relationship, or aggregating conversations.  I used Twitter to try it out.

What I did was lump the bulk of Twitter’s features into three categories:

1. How can the brand develop relationships with customers?

2. How does the feature amplify the brand’s value proposition?

3. How do brands find and aggregate conversations using the service?

What I found interesting is that the majority of Twitter’s features neatly fell into these categories.  The end result is a quick cheat sheet for looking at social software features and whether or not the tool is suitable for your marketing goals.

Bonus points if you can name the two features that don’t fit the framework.  Let me know in the comments and I’ll send you an R2i hat if you are the big winner.

Download Three Ways for Brands to Think About Twitter’s Features in PDF.