The Revolution will be Tweeted

It was just a little less than 8 years ago, when I was frantically surfing the web, trying to get on any news site, trying to get any information. And while occasionally I would be able to get a full story loaded, for the most part, finding out information from the web while 9/11 was happening, was, at best, a near-impossible task.

Not to compare the two events in a sense of loss of tragedy, but when Michael Jackson died a few days ago, the web also came crashing to a halt.

This time though, it was different. Not only were you not able to access website for news, but various Social Networks - which didn't exist in 2001 - also slowed. Twitter, Wikipedia, an even AIM - AOL's popular instant messaging service - had outages for some of its users.

And it was through the Social Networks where I first found out about Jackson being hospitalized, and where I first found out he passed.

It was a Facebook post from a friend that announced he had been rushed to the hospital.

It was a tweet on Twitter where I first saw that website TMZ had reported his death.

A subsequent post by me on Facebook reporting that death led to one of the longest trails of response comments to anything I've ever posted on that site.

Interestingly, I didn't have a problem with any of the aforementioned outages on Twitter. It was my ongoing source for news, and perhaps because I use a third-party application to follow Twitter and send tweets, I was unaffected.

And apparently, I was far from the only person using Twitter to find news on Jackson and discuss it further.

Twitter as a tool to disseminate news is nothing new, in a relative sense.

It played a heavy role in Barack Obama's presidential campaign, and certainly some of the success of that campaign can be attributed to Obama's team understanding, and harnessing the power of Social Networks. It was used as a communication tool by an American student arrested in Egypt, and probably was what led to his release.

It has been used prominently as a communications tool in fighting large forest fires, and it was a way to spread eyewitness accounts of the terror unfolding in the 2008 attacks in Mumbai.

The first photos of US Airways Flight 1549 that crashed in the Hudson River off of New York City, were uploaded to the web via Twitter.

And of course, Twitter has been used prominently in the uprising over allegedly fraudulent vote totals in the recent Iran Elections. It played such a prominent role that the U.S. State Department asked Twitter to delay scheduled maintenance and downtime while the uprising was in full swing.

Times have changed dramatically over the last eight years, in a multitude of ways. I certainly wonder what might have been different about September 11, 2001, if the victims, rescue personnel, and people starving for news at home would have had Social Networking tools at their disposal.

Social Networking is not something that is just here for the moment, a mere flash-in-the-pan. Much like the internet itself, it is here to stay, and will play an even more prominent role in our lives as it matures.

Resistance is futile...

Recently, on a message board I frequent, the topic of Social Media came up. I was somewhat shocked by the comments of some of my peers, who seemed indifferent at best about it.

"I don't find (Twitter) particularly novel or useful technology, and predict it will have a very short lifespan," said one poster.

"I'm not very optimistic about the $$ to be made in Social Media Marketing, to be honest," said another.

While the advancement of technology is definitely something a lot of people are unsure of, it came as a surprise to me that people in their 40s, who work as lawyers and scientists and other fields that require a reasonable amount of time spent in academia, seem resistant to an emerging new way of doing things.

After all, these are also people who have probably had computers most of their adult lives, are obviously capable of using them and spending time online posting on message boards, playing fantasy baseball, and probably even doing research.

Yet the simple notion of instantly being able to reach out and organize a mass number of people (as we have seen in the remarkable uprising in Iran as a result of what many feel are bogus elections, or using these tools in a way that can be both far-reaching and targeted at the same time, is an notion that seems lost on many.

Currently, Social Media Marketing is a cottage industry, but it is starting to boom. It's in the news nearly every day, and people are finding a way to make money using it. It reminds me of the early days of the internet.

What if you had been one of those people who got on board early? What if you had been someone like Mark Cuban, who started Audionet in 1995, altered it a bit in 1998 as it became Broadcast.com, and then turned around and sold it a year later for 5.9 BILLION DOLLARS. Yes, billion with a "B".

Now, obviously, Social Media is a slightly different situation, unless you're the folks who actually started Facebook, Twitter, et al.

But the premise is still the same. Those who get on board early - and despite the influx lately of Social Media all over the place, it is still early - will be the ones with the advantage.

I also think of the music industry. A decade ago, Napster emerged. It was the first big-time and easy way to download large amounts of music, for free.


Yes, it is now illegal. Yes, it was akin to stealing. Yes, it can currently cost you a lot of money to illegally download music.

But the point there is that instead of embracing this new technology, the music business tried to stop it. Partially as a result of this, sales began to decline, and ultimately, plummet. Now, digital sales and legal downloads are booming, while traditional CDs may actually got the way of LPs, cassettes, and 8-tracks, in our life time, when only 20 years ago they changed the music business and became the reason why cassettes and LPs became essentially extinct.

If the music business had the foresight to embrace this emerging technology, maybe they, instead of iTunes, would be making the money, and maybe they won't be in the financial free fall they can't seem to emerge from.,

So why fear something new? Why run from it, cower from it, and disparage from it. You can only benefit yourself - and your business - by attempting to learn how to harness its power for you, and your company.

What's in a number?

Much has been made on the number of followers one has on Twitter.

While that's always been one of those pinball like numbers (who has THE HIGH SCORE??), I don't know that it really became the measuring stick it has until the whole Ashton Kutcher vs. CNN "who's gonna get a million followers first??!?!!" nonsense earlier this year.

The fact of the matter is that while getting commas in your follower count (you know, 4,815 followers; 6,324 followers; 162,342 follows) looks pretty, it ultimately doesn't matter if your followers are not your target audience.

Would you rather hit 10,000 people who don't care at all what you're saying, or 1,000 that care enough to not only listen, but to even pass the word on to their friends?

Sure, if you have a large enough number of followers, you're bound to get a few people in that bunch who do care. That's basically the infinite monkey theorem at work. And they might even pass it on to some of their friends.

But generally speaking, those pretty numbers don't amount to a hill of beans if they're not really paying attention. Who cares about a follower that doesn't really follow?

Having a large number of followers where only a few are the audience you're trying to reach also seems to defeat the purpose of Social Media Marketing. Whereas before we'd beam an ad across the television waves and bludgeon the masses, hoping that a few will blindly follow, now we have the ability to target those we want to reach, and thus, draw them in with material, information, and interaction they actually care about.

So be forewarned. If you're seeing those folks who promise to "GET YOU 10,000 FOLLOWERS WITHIN THREE DAYS!!!!", think carefully if you want a bunch of followers who don't really care about what you have to say. Think carefully about paying money to someone who is going to give you something you don't need.

If you don't know how to drive, and you can't afford your own driver, you're not likely to buy a car, so why would you do something similar here?

Then again, if you 10,000 followers, and they're your target, and they're paying attention, well, you've struck Social Media gold, but I honestly believe the only way you're going to build a following like that is if you mine it yourself, or with the help of someone who knows who to build something, not how to send out a million invites to follow you.

What do I do? Is there even a title for someone like me?

Note - this is more contemplative and curious in nature, and not so much an in-depth plumbing of the topic...

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The internet as we know it has been around for just about 15 years. Dare I say that no invention has changed our world in a global sense, ever. Sure, without electricity or home computers or any of the like, we wouldn't have the internet. But, the lightening quick way in which it has changed the way we live our day-to-day lives in the new millennium places the creation of the modern internet at the top of the list for me.

And now, we're hitting what is called Web 2.0. The changes and such will not have quite the sudden impact that the Web first did when it sucked some of us in with a new browser called Mosiac, and the subsequent decade that saw the 'net explode in popularity.

So my question is this - what is someone who does what I do, called? Perhaps it's already been decided. Perhaps not. Even someone knows, tell me, so I can stop contemplating such frivolity. :o)

People who create and run websites are called webmasters. But what about those who create and run Web 2.0/Social Media sites and campaigns. Web2.0 Masters? Social Media Masters? Something more creative and original? Help a brotha out!

Social Media Marketing and you

Let's face facts.

Joe's Burgers up the block is not likely ever going to have the marketing budget of the McDonald's across the street. The simple fact that I can use McDonald's as a basis of comparison speaks volumes about the power of their brand name - there are probably a relative few people on the planet who don't know the McDonald's name.

So what do the folks who run Joe's Burgers need to do to get the word out? Well, they can hope people just come in. That works sometimes, but not usually.

They can do some TV ads, some print ads, maybe even some banner ads on the internet. That certainly worked in the past to a certain extent, but they'd still be getting drowned out by the big boys of the burger world, and those ads can also be expensive, and not necessarily go to the target audience.

Ah, there's a clue. What is the target audience? What is the niche for Joe's Burger? Are they going to get the die-hard McDonald's fans? The ones who NEED their quarter-pounder with cheese fix? Probably not.

But if the burgers are good enough, they'll pull in that crowd that loves a good burger, and many places, through a few good reviews and some fantastic word-of-mouth, have blossomed into viable businesses that have been around for the long haul.

It used to be that word-of-mouth was like that old Faberge TV commercial. If you spent any time at all watching TV in the 70s, it stuck in your mind:


These days, that word of mouth can be multiplied exponentially, not fractionally. Why tell just two friends, when you can tell hundreds of friends? or even thousands of friends? And in some cases, tens of thousands, and maybe even hundreds of thousands of friends.

That's where Social Media Marketing and online networking come into play. A fan page on Facebook, an active blog, or a well-followed Twitter account can get you in the ear of lots of different folks, and it can do so at a time that is convenient for them, when they're more willing to hear what you have to say. A nicely groomed ning.com site can give a forum for customer feedback, where you can easily be an active responder.

The New York Times touched on how this brave new world can really play into the hands of small business. Whether you prefer the term grass roots or DIY, there is something very much organic about using these tools within an arm's reach to grow your business.

You've already dug the dirt, planted the seed, watered it a bit, and watched it sprout. Now is your chance to truly help it grow and blossom, and without breaking the bank to do so.

Social Media is growing by leaps and bounds, and while some major companies like Starbucks are learning quickly how to harness its power, others are either slow to respond, or because of their size, not capable of doing so.

This is a fantastic opportunity for small businesses to make a move, to increase market share, to maximize growth and potential, and also, of course, work on making the business both sustainable and profitable.

Sleep on it now, and it may be too late later.

Why do we Tweet?

I am probably going to make a lot of posts about twitter. It’s in the news daily, and its use had exploded over the last year.

And, I'm a big believer in the power it wields, as long as you learn to harness that power.

When I mention Twitter to family and friends, the first question is usually "Why?" followed up with a question akin to "Why do people care when I go pee or eat breakfast or take a nap?"

And my response is just they do, that they seem to develop a vested interest in your words and actions, and that once I stopped worrying about the whys, Twitter became much more interesting, and much more useful.

But for whatever reason, that "Why Wall" is a big one for some people, and they just can't climb over it and enjoy the revolution...

That's one of the other reasons I plan to write about Twitter a lot. I believe it's a useful tool for personal communications, and a very beneficial one for businesses trying to maximize whatever it is they do.

Not real writing

Writing a blog is simple. Simple to the point that anyone with a tiny bit of drive, and the ability to string together a few words to make a sentence, can create, write, and update a blog.

Because of that, I think, people and companies tend to be dismissive of blogs. And I think that's a big mistake.

I'm not sure what makes someone a "real" writer. Is it a degree in writing? Some sort of accreditation? Or is it just, the desire and some ability to, well, write?

Of course, there is plenty out there to dismiss. But to just put a blanket dismissal on blogs it to not only miss out on some sources of excellent information, but from a business standpoint, to see what the people are saying about your product or company.

And that's important. In pretty simple terms, if a lot of people are saying good, or bad things, about you and/or your company, that's obviously something you'd want to know, right? If there is a response, do the credentials of the responder truly matter? Again, exceptions to every rule, but for the most part, these blogs matter.

A really fantastic analogy I've heard - something I first read in David Meekman Scott's fantastic book "The New Rules of Marketing and PR" is that most people still think of the internet and blogs as an extension of traditional newspapers.

But that couldn't be further from the truth. Bloggers, for the most part, have never claimed to be "real journalists". So instead of seeing the Web as a broader version of a newspaper, see the web as a giant city, filled with individuals and individual opinions.

Scott said "It is better to think of the Web as a huge city teaming with individuals, and blogs as the sounds of independent voices, just like those of the street-corner soapbox preacher or that friend of yours who always recommends the best books."

I think that sums it up perfectly. Some blogs you can just walk past, and chalk it up to them being a bit of whack job. But other blogs are vital sources of information, and to bypass them is to bypass something so simple and quick and chock full of knowledge that could end up helping you and your business.

Don't be so quick to dismiss the blogosphere. There is vital stuff out there.

Interaction, not interruption

The premise is simple. No longer are we, as sales people and marketeers, invited to interrupt. We are now, with permission, allowed to interact.

The consumer grew weary of our TV ads, our radio spots, our print ads. We would disturb them no matter what they were doing.

Now, they are no longer content to be told that THIS IS A MUST BUY, HURRY WHILE SUPPLIES LAST, IF YOU ORDER WITHIN 24 HOURS GET THIS FREE GIFT!!!!

Instead, they want to spoken with, not spoken to. They want to discuss with themselves, and sometimes, with us, what they know about a certain product, place, or what have you.

This is the future.

This is the present.

This. Is. Right. Now.