Tag: twitter

By Posted on Posted in Web 2.0/Social Media Tagged with , , , , , ,

Mari Smith is a brilliant young marketer who has absolutely seized the reins of Facebook and Twitter and become a social media rock star. We had a conversation a couple of years ago when I was keynoting a conference she was attending, and she was the one who finally pushed me over the edge to get set up on Facebook. I’d already been on several other social networks without any visible results, but under Mari’s guidance, I found Facebook indeed quite useful.

Yesterday, Mari put up a great new blog post that I really like, jumping on the news that Oprah has begun Twittering and featured Twitter (and actor Ashton Kutcher, who is the first Twitterer to have a million people following his tweets–and in just a couple of days, has jumped to 1,201,192–that’s another 200,000 people! Most people have fewer than 500 total) on a recent episode.

Mari issued a call to become a “conscious twitterer.” That’s been my approach all along, and I’m delighted that Mari has given it a name.

Speaking of conscious social media: this blog is likely to be pretty quiet the next ten days. I’m leaving the country and made a “conscious” decision to leave my laptop behind. I do have one post queued up for later in the week, just to keep the search engines from thinking I’ve abandoned it.

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By Posted on Posted in Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, Reviews, Uncategorized, Web 2.0/Social Media Tagged with , , , , , ,

Reviewed by Shel Horowitz

A very good basic introduction to the most important social network platforms–and some truly extraordinary content about how and why to use video to achieve massive conversion rates. A nice Q&A section answers several common beginner questions, very sensibly.

Clearly written, and delightfully formatted for easy on-screen reading.

Shama also walks her talk. In the six or eight months since I first saw her name, I’m running into her everywhere: on Facebook, Twitter, as a teleseminar guest with various other expert marketers…all using the no-cost social media techniques she describes in this e-book.

I’d recommend this highly for those just starting out in social media, as a way to jump-start your education. And if you’re experienced but haven’t done video marketing yet, or have not found it effective, that short section will be more than worth the price.

Shel Horowitz, author of Grassroots Marketing: Getting Noticed in a Noisy World and six other books

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By Posted on Posted in Marketing Trends/News, Transparency vs. Secrecy, Web 2.0/Social Media Tagged with , ,

This is a company that is confident in its product and comfortable with social media. Go to https://skittles.com/ and you’ll see (Gasp!) the results page for a Twitter search on “skittles,” in real time.

The “real” nav bar is a window superimposed over the Twitter page

Especially remarkable considering that the product is much-dissed in literature as a quick sugar high that too often substitutes for real nutrition (going all the way back at least to a Doonesbury strip that has Mike asking incredulously, “Skittles is your DINNER?”–must be 15 years ago). And one post that’s visible on my screen as I write this is about “skittlefisting.” Abig BRAVO to them on the transparency front!

I can’t remember another example of a major corporation saying to the world, “we’re not going to control or filter what you learn about us on our own website, we’ll leave it to the randomness of the world.” The only control the site is exercising is demanding to know the age of a viewer and acknowledgment that the company isn’t responsible for the messages.

For people who’ve never used Twitter, it must be really weird. But then again, among the demographic Skittles most appeals to, Twitter use is probably very widespread.

How did I find out about this? I saw a Twitter post from my friend Patrick Byers over at the Responsible Marketing Blog. There’s apparently a whole #skittles thread running at Twitter (the hashtag allows people to search easily for topics).

Speaking of transparency, why did I put # at the beginning of my headline? My blog feeds automatically into Twitter (and from there to Facebook). So by putting the # at the front of this post’s title, I expect that this post will be on Twitter’s homepage briefly this morning, until it gets knocked down out of sight. As a grassroots marketer, I want my 15 minutes of fame. 🙂

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By Posted on Posted in Web 2.0/Social Media Tagged with

I had to miss the first Western Massachusetts Tweetup since I joined Twitter a few months ago, because we’re in the middle of a serious blizzard and I live several miles from town on winding, hilly country roads.

And this was a bummer–I was very much looking forward to seeing old friends and meeting new online-only friends.

What do I like about Twitter?

I am amazed by the powerful networking on Twitter, and the great resources people constantly post. I’ve also gotten a speaking gig and a serious client nibble, plus continue to build my own brand identity and interest in the book I’m writing. Plus it’s a great source for free advice. After just a few months, I have 509 followers, including some pretty heavy people in the Internet world.

I also love the way spamming is basically impossible. If your page is full of junk, I either won’t follow you in the first place or will unfollow you.

In short, of all the social media where I participate, Twitter has rapidly become my favorite. The way to get followers is to post really cogent content and great links, retweet a lot, and do a lot of @ replies (include context). And the followers will come to you.

You’re welcome to follow me on twitter–I’m at https://twitter.com/shelhorowitz. I promise I’ll visit your page (though maybe not right away) and if I like what you have there and find it relevant, I’ll follow back.

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By Posted on Posted in Web 2.0/Social Media Tagged with

Twitter is the latest evolution of many-to-many online networking, something that started with Usenet newsgroups, for-pay proprietary services like Compuserve and AOL, and online BBSs more than 20 years ago.

I was an early adopter of many-to-many discussion platforms online; I experimented with them when I briefly went online with a Compuserve account in 1987 (though between the command-line interface that I had to relearn each time and the noisy 300 bps phone lines that kept throwing me off, I didn’t stick around very long). I wrote about them back in 1991, and began using them actively in 1995. At that time, I mostly used e-mail discussion lists.

Thirteen months ago, I began migrating to social media platforms by signing up first for Facebook and then Plaxo, CollectiveX, Ning, and, this summer, Twitter. I’d made a stab at it earlier; I’ve had accounts on LinkedIn and Ryze for several years, and put up a MySpace page a couple of years ago. But I hadn’t really used them, and other than LinkedIn, I’m still not using those networks.

Facebook was the first one that (excuse the pun) clicked for me. The interface was intuitive, it was easy to find both old friends and people with common interests, and it conveniently notified me by e-mail when someone shared anything with me. Plaxo and CollectiveX are similar. I was drawn to CollectiveX in particular, because it seems to be where a lot of discussions about environmentally sustainable and social-venture triple-bottom-line business take place, and it has a wonderfully international scope that I find refreshing.

And then in August, I finally signed on to Twitter. It’s hard to believe that such a simple idea can be so powerful. Or how much can be said in 140-character installments!

I’m shocked, amazed, and delighted by how much I like it, and what treasures I find there:

* Tons of resources: useful articles and blogs, audios, upcoming teleseminars
* Access to movers and shakers (I’ve exchanged messages with luminaries like Guy Kawasaki and Mark Joyner; I’ve sent messages to Obama’s Twitter account, but am not convinced that anyone actually reads it. He has over 120,000 followers and follows nearly all of them back.)
* Powerful ways to grow my own community and get connected with people I ought to know about
* Media leads of reporters looking for sources, by following @skydiver and @Profnet
* Ability to flag useful articles, including some that I write, or events I put on
* And yes, a number of new friendships

All this with only a few hundred that I’m following. I have cut drastically down on the number of e-mail discussions I participate in, so that I have time for a few visits a day to Twitter. I don’t quite understand how so many people manage to follow thousands of people, but I see myself reaching that point.

Twitter is at the Model T stage. I don’t think anyone could predict the full impact in, say, ten years, any more than in 1995, people would have predicted that by 2008, a lot of people would be not only shopping but paying bills, managing databases, running surveys, doing full-scale audio and video, and actually cataloging the world’s knowledge over the Web.

I may not know where we’re going, but I’m sure excited to be on the journey. And it’s FUN!

Want to follow me on Twitter? https://twitter.com/shelhorowitz

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