In case you’ve been living in a dark room, wearing ear mufflers you will know that the feisty 80’s quiffer Morrissey has released his autobiography. What interested me however was the contrasting ways of promoting the book on Twitter by two UK retailers; Waterstones and HMV.
Waterstones – Unique, Funny Content
Waterstones created a piece of unique and relevant content – a photo of the Morrissey book standing next to a book on the English Legal System (Morrissey has always liked a dig at the judiciary). Equal parts relevant and humorous the tweeted photo resulted in 133 retweets and 73 favourites. 
HMV – Stock Photography
HMV also tweeted about the new book. The same subject matter from a high street retailer just as well known as Waterstones (in fact more Twitter followers), yet this generated just 13 retweets and 12 favourites.
The moral of the story? It’s not enough to state that something has happened. Brands tweeting need to add their own perspective and brand personality to every tweet. A touch of humour and relevance and you’re away. This particular Waterstones account has just 47k followers compared to HMV’s 77k – so 30,000 less followers but a lot higher engagement levels!
Don’t even get me started on how brilliant the WaterStonesOxfordSt Twitter feed is in general…
Social Media Mashup 