I came across this article on Mashable noting that CoTweet is making it’s move into the Enterprise. While a smart move for CoTweet I have to question how any CIO or CMO with common sense will justify the $1500 per month that they are charging. While this is small change for any Enterprise company, two things immediately turned me off:
- Invitation only. Not only is CoTweet asking for a lot of money for its service, you can’t get it unless the bouncers let you into the nightclub. Exclusive offers may be a good marketing play but feels like the wrong approach for a company helping us to openly work with customers.
- Twitter is but one channel…
While Twitter must play a role in your 2010 Social Media Plan, it is still but one arm of your overall communication and engagement strategy. As Enterprise CXOs think about their social channels and tools consider:
- If your use of social media is still immature I would recommend sticking with a free tool like Gist and using additional free applications to tie together the analytics..
- If you are further along with your social efforts moving forward with CoTweet seems to be a limiting decision. To be clear, I have not played with Enterprise CoTweet and am purely going off of my experience using the free version of CoTweet combined with the article I noted at the beginning of this article. However, I am currently checking out Radian6 and, based upon early results, I am impressed by it’s ability to gather data across channels (blogs, twitter, etc..) whereas CoTweet is limited to Twitter.
If anyone has more information on CoTweet Enterprise please share.
John
November 10, 2009 at 8:38 pm
Hi John,
I’ve been using CoTweet (and other tools) for a few months and from what I understand, it will still be usable for free, except there will be added functionalities for the $1500 plan.
While I definitely agree this is steep, I also think the free features can be enough for many scenarios as long as associated with other analytics tools.
We’ll see how it plays out but I am pretty confident free alternatives will still be widely available.
Alex @CIOsConnect
November 10, 2009 at 8:57 pm
Thanks for the comment. I also love the free version of CoTweet and am looking forward to continue working with it.
I have to give a thumbs dn on the Enteprise Version but still waiting for Jessie to convince me I’m wrong.
John
November 10, 2009 at 2:36 pm
Social comments and analytics for this post…
This post was mentioned on Twitter by JohnFMoore: Why @CoTweet Entrps is 2 steep 4 #CIO #CMO #CFO to consider: http://bit.ly/3p5Vml Waiting 2 be educated…
November 10, 2009 at 1:44 am
You might want to check out viralheat.com instead of radian6
November 10, 2009 at 12:29 am
Oh yah, the exclusivity nonsense is exactly that! CoTweet: you are not *that* good!
November 10, 2009 at 12:06 am
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by John Moore, John Moore. John Moore said: Why @CoTweet Entrps is 2 steep 4 #CIO #CMO #CFO to consider: http://bit.ly/3p5Vml Waiting 2 be educated [...]
November 10, 2009 at 12:02 am
I agree with you, John. As you said, at $18k/year + license/support it’s relative pennies. Fortune 500 Marketers will do it if only so they can add a slide to the deck at next exec meeting with the CEO, and to tell customers “We’re aboard with Social Media! We’re listening to YOU! We’re hip and cool!” and so on. $18,000 a year for that(whatever it is)…they’ve done worse things
CoTweet surely knows this. They’ll get a few big boys as testimonials, use their feedback to add to the product, then will segment their offerings for low and mid markets, especially as competition in this space heats up.
I was shocked, too, and agree that there are some great productive and insightful things to be had for next to nothing(well, $-wise, at least). But, again, since when has this ever stopped anybody from throwing money away.
If you’ve saved even one SMB from spending this money for now(maybe later, different story), then you’ve done a great service
Thanks!
Russ
Seattle, WA
http://www.twitter.com/russhatfield
November 10, 2009 at 12:08 am
Well said on all fronts and the strategy the approach your outlining for CoTweet is in-line with the one I would follow myself. However, would have preferred for the sake of businesses everywhere that they had gone into an SMB offering at a reasonable price-tag without the exclusivity nonsense followed by offering the Enteprise offering.
Oh well, it’s always easier to write about it from the sideline but the world would be a better place if people checked in with me first.
John