Internet Marketing
March 9, 2009
Twitter: Your Weapon in the Internet Marketing War
Update: With all the interest generated by this post, we want to know how you really feel.
 Image via Creative Commons |
Word is out that social networking is more popular than email. I’ve seen a lot of content out there lately touting the power of Twitter as a branding tool. But, the usefulness of the social networking site from a broader marketing perspective was made evident after I listened to a webcast with Guy Kawasaki last week.
Repeatedly referring to Twitter as a “marketing weapon” last Friday, Guy gave an interactive audience his tips for using the popular micro-blogging site as an unbeatable business tool. A on demand version is now available for download. A recap of the webcast and related tweets has been published at Search Engine Watch.
 Image by Jamesdale10 via Creative Commons |
People are obviously interested in hearing how the next big thing in social media can help them achieve their business goals. Five hundred people registered for the hour-long webcast presented by Incisive Media in partnership with Search Engine Strategies New York. The event was a preview of the opening keynote Guy will be presenting at the Internet marketing conference, taking place March 24-26.
During the webcast, the co-founder of “digital magazine rack” Alltop spoke about his newest book, Reality Check: The Irreverent Guide to Outsmarting, Outmanaging, and Outmarketing Your Competition. Based on years of experience in the venture capital and tech worlds, Guy compared the book to a Chicago Manual of Style for business strategy. But when it came time for Q&A, questioners wanted to know about one thing: Twitter.
 Image by Christiaan Briggs via Creative Commons |
New statistics were released last week about the growth and user numbers for Twitter. According to Compete, the 33 percent growth in the last month brought the total of Twitter users to more than eight million people. With so many people adopting this young technology, it’s easy to see how some questions still remain in the minds of marketers. One attendee of the recent webcast asked: “Other than brand building, what’s the point of devoting resources to Twitter activity?”
Sounds like something I might ask. Branding is such a commonly used buzzword that it sometimes seems to be eating up the industry conversation. But Guy’s response opened my eyes to the reality of the situation. As he explained, businesses are in the business of building their brand. In other words, branding your business is your business. From your product to your sales pitch to your marketing to your customer service, everything you do, every move you make as a company is in effect building your brand.
Check out Guy’s Twitter stream for an example of how the master leverages Twitter. Then listen to the webcast. You’ll be trained the art of Twitter weaponry in no time.
Related posts:
- The Trust Factor of Internet Marketing
- Twitter Marketing Tactics
- How To Approach Ads, Content Distribution and Marketing on Twitter – SEM Synergy Extras
- Effective Brand Management using Twitter
- Why Social Media Belongs In Your Internet Marketing Campaign
@Dr Pete As usual, great response
[it's netmeg, not nutmeg]
I’m not particularly annoyed with him; just wasn’t my cup of tea. So I just went away.
Agreed with both graywolf and Dr. Pete, so I won’t repeat those observations.
What kills me is people’s ridiculous sense of entitlement. Sure, social media creates an unprecedented level of direct access with people like Guy Kawasaki, and that’s cool. But the expectations people then turn around and place on them is absurd. Guy has 80K followers. If even 1% of those people sent him a message in a given week, that’s 175 messages A DAY!
Come on. Get over yourself. If Guy doesn’t reply back, it’s not personal. He doesn’t think he’s better than you. He’s just busier than you. He doesn’t owe you a reply. He doesn’t owe you anything. If you think he does, you’re the one with the ego, not him.
I am a loyal Guy Kawasaki and alltop fan, but I’ve had a hard time following him on twitter.
I rarely hear Guy talk about himself or interact with others (although noticed the Rich Dad, Poor Dad tweet a few minutes ago). Generally, following Guy has made it more difficult to follow other people I’m interested in hearing from. I’ve dropped every other twitter spammer I’d previously followed, and it will be a sad day when I have to stop following @guykawasaki. Definitely will affect the brand.
Totally agree with @Scott Allen. People tend to be so caught up in their own user habits, they forget the saying, “To each, their own.”
I’m one of those followed, un-followed, re-followers of @guykawasaki. I started using twitter as a personal communications tool (follow & unfollowed Guy), but then eventually wanted it to offer me social media news as well (re-followed). User habits change, so usage of tools change. Aren’t the web and digital tools all about flexibility?
So to sum it up – take a chill pill people and just enjoy the interwebz.
Twitter is just a tool, not a lifestyle or a community. To use it effectively depends on the expectations of your audience. As Guy says, it’s all opt-in, so unfollow if you don’t like what you get. This post of mine yesterday explains further the mistaken assumptions that many people seem to have about Twitter:
http://www.scottfox.com/2009/03/4-annoying-twitter-myths.html
I wanted to reiterate there is a significant contribution to Twitter from GuyK as well. He delivers as much as he take away from Twitter. He might be selling alltop, but whats the product? It is content aggregation, knowledge and easy way of following a group of topics. Imagine its because of GuyK that I now follow easily on few topics of my interest in under 2 min. There are hundreds of uses of Twitter: GuyK sells, I consume with other 80K followers, some use it as a web-based bookmark, blah blah
I love twitter because I can get the info I want. If someone’s tweets are irritating, I just shut them off. Why is everyone whining about not liking Guy’s Twitter style. Just shut it off. Complaining about this is like buying a house under an airport flyway and then complaining about the noise.
Posted comments to this effect last week on my blog. Guy is using the system as it should be used or exploited. Its a network system and in the end you can listen, follow, or opt out of the process. Don’t blame the tool, blame yourself!
It is funny how good he is at morphing to the the challenge of a new market – you have to agree he is clearly one of the best!
Twitter is *not* IRC or a chat. How many times you did follow someone that posted something uninteresting or inappropriate? I do prefer links to a bunch of “going to sbuck for my latte” messages and if you don’t like what he writes, how about removing him from your follow list? I think that the sad truth is that many twitters are jealous of what Guy accomplished (even long before twitter) and obviously make him an easy target.
Cheers
David
Funny thing, I’ve only email-conversed with Guy on one occasion(very congenial fellow). He follows me on Twitter (not like I post anything of interest), and we’ve never talked since (almost 6 months ago). No big deal. He’d not miss me if I didn’t follow him. Oh, and then there is this, don’t follow him if you don’t want his “spam”. Unsubscribe/remove/block him or whatever. All this grousing is getting old. He’s using it well enough for his purposes. Let’s move on.
Lisa, You do realize that you posted a comment about Guy, in response to a blog post referencing Guy, and started an entire thread about how Guy uses Twitter? Most people wouldn’t mind branding like that.
There is no defacto measurement for success on Twitter, nor will there be. One individual’s 100,000 followers *could* be just as valuable as another individual’s 10,000 based upon who their audience is, what information they’re sharing, how they’re leveraging that audience, and a host of other variables. Needless to say, firing shots at someone’s use of 81k followers with no frame of reference probably won’t instill a lot of people with confidence in your judgment. Especially, when just doing simple math alludes to the massive undertaking it would be (with no clear ROI) to actually do what you’re suggesting.
Guy is doing something right & it works for me (and 80,918 others). The one very important piece of constructive criticism I’d give Guy that his Twitter background burns my retina. Lucky for him I have TweetDeck or he’d be at a lowly 80,918 followers!
@kbuckmaster
The poll is a nice addition, I love data.
I see I’m in the minority, and honestly, I started feeling some guilt in comparing Guy to ill-fitting underwear (no matter how true). I wouldn’t have followed him in the first place if I hadn’t found what he had to say interesting, but frequency is difficult to judge before following (at least for me). We all have our preferences.
I love watching Guy’s stream, yeah I don’t click on every link but I often find things that spark a thought, its Twitter, if you don’t like it unfollow.
I follow Guy, and seem to recall a brief exchange or two with him outside of “here’s a link to my stuff.”
I just generally don’t go in for angst about what Twitter “should” be for or about. Between follow, unfollow and block, you can get something resembling whatever kind of experience you want out of it without a lot of work … and others can do the same for themselves.
I think Scott Allen said it best.
How many of us could walk into someone’s office, such as Guy’s, and request to see him, and the receptionist just puts you through? Hahaha!!! If you think that would happen, you’ve never been in sales.
Just because you have the privilege through Social Media to follow someone does not automatically mean they have lowered all of the protections they have in place to protect their time and their priorities. If Guy posts a lot of links, I am sure it helps him bring in Revenue, which I would assume helps him pay his bills. I could hear the argument now if Guy blocked his Twitter account…”That snob, he’s so arrogant he won’t allow ‘the little people’ to follow him!”
Give me a break people!
Twitter has taught me two things: I should admire Shaquille O’Neal more and other people less. Mr. Kawasaki is still a net plus to my universe (and bookshelves) but the smug reaction to honest disagreement leaves a bad taste.
I take exception to the reference of Guy Kawasaki as a Twitter spammer. Really, there’s no such thing as Twitter spam anyway because it’s opt-in. Also, I rec’d a DM from him two weeks ago. I follow a whole lot of folks (who I know personally and who have a fraction of his following) who have yet to DM me. Lastly, Twitter (to me) as a micro-blog site presents a diverse range of interesting content. That happens to be what Alltop does. Twitter and Alltop compliment one another well. Imagine having to search for all those resources on your own? Holy Kaw!
I came so close to un-following Guy so many times but there was always something to keep me from pressing that button. Now I’m resigned to his style. Why does Twitter have to be a conversation not a blog? It is what I want it to be. For me, it has replaced RSS, blogs (when I can opt to follow instead), the Delicious home page and it added the aspect of being in a room with smart, interesting people of my choosing. Guy is on my invite list.
I absolutely agree with Lisa’s first sentence: “I would definitely not recommend anyone follow Guy Kawasaki’s method of Twittering.
”
I absolutely disagree with everything she said after, including “Guy uses Twitter *horribly*” and “He doesn’t talk to anyone. He doesn’t respond to anyone. He doesn’t engage anyone,” and especially “he really is missing a huge opportunity to build his brand”
And I completely agree with Nick’s comment above.
Guy Kawasaki is a genius. I think most folks are a little jealous that they can’t build the same following as him. I really became a fan of him only AFTER I got to know him through twitter.
In my short experience, I have found Guy to be the most effective Twitter user, period. I consider what he is doing to be an extremely graceful form of marketing.
Why were my comments attributed to Peter Vader above?
I take exception to the reference of Guy Kawasaki as a Twitter spammer. Really, there’s no such thing as Twitter spam anyway because it’s opt-in. Also, I rec’d a DM from him two weeks ago. I follow a whole lot of folks (who I know personally and who have a fraction of his following) who have yet to DM me. Lastly, Twitter (to me) as a micro-blog site presents a diverse range of interesting content. That happens to be what Alltop does. Twitter and Alltop compliment one another well. Imagine having to search for all those resources on your own? Holy Kaw!
Lisa Barone is right. I dropped Kawasaki just days after following him because he is an incredibly annoying twitterer. His following has been established because of his credibility elsewhere and I’m not dissing the guy at all, he’s a genius. But his Twitter stream sucks.
Just because someone is at the top of his field doesn’t mean he always does things right, and for people who use Twitter to actually converse rather than push information blindly, Kawasaki is obnoxious.
Want to see a celeb who does it better? Stephen Fry. His tweets are personal and interesting and he engages on some level with his followers even though they number into the hundreds of thousands. He is there to share, he is there to be with the community, and the community loves that. (Which might just be why Stephen Fry kicks Kawasaki’s ass by about 140,000 followers… just sayin’)
“If a person uses Twitter in a manner that you dislike, unfollow them and move on?” “Why is everyone whining about not liking Guy’s Twitter style. Just shut it off.”
Because he’s giving advice to other people on how to use twitter, and a lot of people find this way of using it extremely annoying and will unfollow you if you do it as well