Twitter is one awarding of a broader category called microblogging. You've seen it on The View, you've watched it creep into night time dramas, you've heard information technology in the news, you've seen Larry King take on Ashton Kutcher with their one meg follower challenge. Ashton Kutcher got over one million followers and beat Larry Male monarch / CNN. Ashton had 1,230,000+ and CNN had 980,000+ where the match really bought malaria nets for children in Africa. Isn't this a bang-up awarding of social media; helping kids?

Then of course, that led to the Ding-Dong Ditch where Ashton Kutcher "punked" Ted Turner the owner of CNN. If you're non familiar with the Ding-Dong Ditch; you ring someone's doorbell, and then when answered, y'all begin throwing Ding-Dongs, literally. CNN lost, so they bombed his house with Ding-Dongs. I learned that even Demi was Ding Donging with the rest of them.

Back to discussing Twitter though. Twitter is text messaging on steroids. Recently, I was in Atlanta presenting to Jerry McGuire'due south clients (Leigh Steinberg), and there were more Super Bowl rings in the room than I had e'er seen before. I made the same statement and this oversupply went dead. Steroids…non a good thing; the marketing moral is, know your audience.

a twitter about twitter

On Twitter, you lot voluntarily select to receive text messages from people that yous respect then yous "follow" them. People who respect you receive your text letters or "follow" you. Someday you get an inspiration or something intelligent to say, ship out a Tweet. When others have something intelligent to share (and sometimes non and then intelligent) they Tweet information technology and you run into it. This manner you lot're instantly informed. That's all in that location is to it.

At my most contempo conference, we had a Twitter Roll on a separate screen at the front stage. It was a laptop connected to the Internet that simply received whatsoever text messages sent via Twitter that mentioned the briefing. That way anytime someone in the audition had something to say about what was being presented or any questions, I could address them immediately in real-time. A phenomenon I recognized for the outset time, was nosotros had as many questions from the briefing audience on the screen as we had from people from effectually the world, not at the conference. I'd answer their questions and people would Tweet my answers back out to the Twittersphere.

Everyone keeps asking me almost Twitter metrics; how tin you make coin using Twitter. Whether it's Twitter or whatever other social network, it takes time to build your trusted network, but when you lot practice, they're there for you. Hither's one case written report that makes it easy to see the ROI. If you haven't already seen Gary Vaynerchuk, you have to go and await at some of his videos. Gary has produced nearly 700 videos almost vino. He's a Bailiwick of jersey male child. He took over his dad'southward wine distributorship, which had annual revenues at well-nigh $5M. He started using Twitter and creating short, self produced videos about wine and inside 36 months built his company to $50M. And recently, he signed a $1M contract to write a series of ten books on social media marketing. That's the ability of this genre. Click hither to heed to my conversation with Gary 5: http://www.thesocialmediabible.com/2009/02/27/gary-vaynerchuk/

In December, Gary wanted to understand the value of his twitter relationships. He wanted to specifically compare conventional marketing that we are all comfortable with, with this new Tweet stuff. He started past creating 3 different codes that when entered on his wine Web site would give the client gratis shipping on their next wine order. This discount would range from $9 on one bottle of wine to $49 on a example of wine. He so created a direct post piece, which offered ane of the codes. He did a billboard on one of the local highways with its own code then he sent out a text message (a Tweet) on Twitter with the third lawmaking. Here are the results.

The direct mail slice cost him $15,000 to produce and postal service. Nosotros've all been there; $15,000 is a reasonable price for a decent directly mail campaign. This conventional marketing technique acquired Gary 200 new customers. He got 200 new customers for $xv,000 using directly mail service. The ROI or Cost Of Customer Acquisition was $15,000 divided by 200 or $75 per new customer. His billboard cost him $vii,500 and he generated 300 new customers. His ROI or CCA here was $7,500 divided by 300 customers or $25 per new customer.

His one costless text message, a Tweet using Twitter, brought in 1,800 new customers. This marketing was 100% complimentary. What was the ROI here; $0 divided past 1,800 customers or infinity. That's the power of Twitter. That's the power of social networks. That's why this stuff is and then of import. People follow yous, people trust you. They'll heed to you when you have something to say.

Read more of Lon Safko's Social Media Bible web log

Lon Safko is the co-author of The Social Media Bible: Tactics, Tools, and Strategies For Business Success . He is also an innovator and professional speaker with over xx years of experience in entrepreneurship, marketing, sales, strategic partnering, speaking, training, writing, and due east-commerce. He is the founder of viii successful companies, including Paper Models, Inc.


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