Twitter is 1 application of a broader category chosen microblogging. You've seen information technology on The View, you lot've watched information technology pitter-patter into night time dramas, you lot've heard information technology in the news, you've seen Larry King take on Ashton Kutcher with their i one thousand thousand follower claiming. Ashton Kutcher got over one million followers and shell Larry King / CNN. Ashton had 1,230,000+ and CNN had 980,000+ where the match actually bought malaria nets for children in Africa. Isn't this a cracking awarding of social media; helping kids?

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

Dorsum to discussing Twitter though. Twitter is text messaging on steroids. Recently, I was in Atlanta presenting to Jerry McGuire'south clients (Leigh Steinberg), and at that place were more than Super Bowl rings in the room than I had ever seen before. I made the same argument and this crowd went dead. Steroids…not a proficient thing; the marketing moral is, know your audience.

a twitter about twitter

On Twitter, you voluntarily select to receive text messages from people that y'all respect then you "follow" them. People who respect you receive your text messages or "follow" you. Anytime y'all go an inspiration or something intelligent to say, send out a Tweet. When others have something intelligent to share (and sometimes not then intelligent) they Tweet it and you run across it. This way you're instantly informed. That'south all there is to it.

At my almost recent conference, we had a Twitter Roll on a split up screen at the front end stage. It was a laptop connected to the Internet that but received any text messages sent via Twitter that mentioned the conference. That mode 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 start time, was we had as many questions from the conference audience on the screen equally we had from people from around the earth, non at the briefing. I'd reply their questions and people would Tweet my answers back out to the Twittersphere.

Everyone keeps asking me near Twitter metrics; how tin can you make money using Twitter. Whether it's Twitter or any other social network, it takes fourth dimension to build your trusted network, just when you practice, they're there for yous. Hither's one case study that makes it piece of cake to encounter the ROI. If you oasis't already seen Gary Vaynerchuk, you accept to get and wait at some of his videos. Gary has produced nearly 700 videos most wine. He'due south a Jersey boy. He took over his dad's wine distributorship, which had annual revenues at almost $5M. He started using Twitter and creating short, self produced videos about wine and within 36 months built his visitor to $50M. And recently, he signed a $1M contract to write a series of ten books on social media marketing. That's the power of this genre. Click hither to listen to my conversation with Gary V: 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 comfy with, with this new Tweet stuff. He started by creating 3 dissimilar codes that when entered on his wine Web site would give the customer free shipping on their next wine guild. This disbelieve would range from $9 on one bottle of wine to $49 on a case of wine. He then created a direct mail piece, which offered one of the codes. He did a billboard on one of the local highways with its own code and so he sent out a text message (a Tweet) on Twitter with the third code. Here are the results.

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

His one free text bulletin, a Tweet using Twitter, brought in i,800 new customers. This marketing was 100% gratis. What was the ROI hither; $0 divided past one,800 customers or infinity. That's the power of Twitter. That's the power of social networks. That's why this stuff is then important. People follow you, people trust y'all. They'll mind to y'all when you take something to say.

Read more of Lon Safko's Social Media Bible weblog

Lon Safko is the co-writer of The Social Media Bible: Tactics, Tools, and Strategies For Business organisation Success . He is also an innovator and professional speaker with over 20 years of feel in entrepreneurship, marketing, sales, strategic partnering, speaking, training, writing, and east-commerce. He is the founder of eight successful companies, including Paper Models, Inc.


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