The Tweet topic explorer-- a new branding exercise?
I've just come across this Twitter visualisation tool, where you can enter any Twitter account and it will generate a word cloud illustrating all the topics regularly discussed. Created by Jeff Clark at Neoformix, this cool interactive tool uses word cluster diagrams to show the frequently used words in tweets and how they are used together. The words are also colour-coded if they are found in the same tweets.
This is an example from our @creamhq account:
Having just graduated from a Masters in Marketing, I find this tool oddly reminiscent of the numerous brand diagrams I studied. Remember all those theoretical ways to discuss brand identity marketing students out there? Kapferer brand identity prism anyone?
Could the colour-coding word clouding device be a new more concrete way to analyse a brand? Is Twitter effectively a new branding exercise? A good corporate Twitter account isn't solely about broadcasting discounts and events, but also about expressing brand personality. In fact, in my view, Twitter has become a unique opportunity for brands to show their audience that they are more than just the product. So if a brand's tweets are in line with the brand identity, the 'tweet topic explorer' does an excellent job of delivering a visual snapshot of that brand's personality.