From Idiot to Genius: My First 7 Days on Twitter

Twit­ter . Heard of it? Sure you have–it’s that inane social net­work where peo­ple post ran­dom 140 char­ac­ter entries about what they’re eat­ing for lunch, or lis­ten­ing to, or how their kids are run­ning amok … right? The very def­i­n­i­tion of a pro­duc­tiv­ity killing black hole with lit­tle to no busi­ness value, right?

That’s what I thought too, and was the sum and sub­stance of most dis­cus­sions we’d had in our offices as we pon­dered wad­ing more deeply into our explo­ration of the social media sphere.

(This con­cludes the “Idiot” por­tion of the article.)

In fact, if you were to take Tweeter at its face value–what you see in the stream of twit­ter con­scious­ness on their home page–my idiot pro­nounce­ment would be true. Here’s an actual tran­script below, or check it out for yourself.

ser­ena: @DougH: That’s awful (the red­eye, not client meet­ings). Wel­come back to LA. At least the weather cleared up! less than 5 sec­onds ago
Darn­hall Observ­ing: space (17:24:07 +60:58:47) www.jb.man.ac.uk/vlb… less than 5 sec­onds ago
tightsweater: knows there is work to be done!..but is feel­ing oh-so-daunted! A Clay Aiken pick-me-up is needed. <3 less than 5 sec­onds ago
bybtwit @g10r3 che link metti su twit­ter che poi @bybtwit li apre e vede i fin­ley e sta male less than 5 sec­onds ago
ks1234_1234 つええな日経平均。先物序盤は「CMEなんで低いの? いっち まえ」「あ、配当落ち忘 れてた」みたいな動きだが、無事に保ってる。わし まっさかさまを覚悟してたのに。 … less than 10 sec­onds ago

See what I mean?

But, patience, grasshop­per. Judg­ing Twit­ter by its home­page is book : cover stuff. What’s really hap­pen­ing is this (and hold on because the “genius” part is just around the bend):

When you sign up for Twit­ter, you must form a com­mu­nity or else you’ll end up talk­ing to your­self. So, one-by-one you select peo­ple to “fol­low” while you gain “fol­low­ers” (those whom you choose to fol­low often return the favor.) In the seven days since I began, I’ve cho­sen to fol­low 65 peo­ple, and 31 peo­ple are fol­low­ing me. Among those 31, I know only one per­son from my actual life: Thom. The most pop­u­lar Tweeter is Leo Lep­orte who has over 65,000 followers.

(This marks the begin­ning of the genius part.)

A PhD Level Crash Course
If you choose to fol­low a herd of 16-year olds you’re likely to be fed a steady diet of OMGs and Brit­ney ref­er­ences (not that there’s any­thing wrong with that). On the other hand, if you choose to fol­low some of the bright­est minds in the mar­ket­ing and tech­nol­ogy indus­try, like those included on this list or this one you’ll be in the mid­dle of the world’s coolest vir­tual cof­fee house, read­ing and often engag­ing with peo­ple you’d likely never encounter unless you’re on the new media A-List. Um, I’m not.

I’m cur­rently following/being fol­lowed by and have had exchanges with: Guy Kawasaki, Jere­miah Owyang, Robert Scoble, Maki, and one hel­luva bassist, Jeff Schmidt.

Genius Point 1: regard­ing your need to stay abreast of new media and brand­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties, build­ing a Twit­ter com­mu­nity of experts can accel­er­ate your under­stand­ing of the social media space with remark­able speed and efficiency.

Brands in the Con­ver­sa­tion
As com­mu­nity is built, rela­tion­ships are formed, and trust is estab­lished. In my seven days I’ve observed a remark­able amount of social inti­macy and respect among my small group. And it’s in this con­text that brand rec­om­men­da­tions are freely shared and trust­ingly accepted. So, imag­ine six months from now that I’ve got sev­eral hun­dred fol­low­ers (which is not uncom­mon) and I start singing the praises of my Neo­r­est toi­let, telling my fel­low Twit­ter­ers “it’s like hav­ing a Fer­rari in my bath­room”. I would sug­gest that my endorse­ment of that prod­uct, made within a social con­text, among peo­ple who’ve grown to respect my opin­ions, is far supe­rior to any other sin­gle impres­sion in a tra­di­tional adver­tis­ing medium.

I’ve observed this dynamic on many occa­sions with peo­ple Twitting:

“I’m head­ing to Ams­ter­dam next week, where should I stay?” A hotel rec­om­men­da­tion was offered and accepted within minutes.

“I need to replace my old Treo, what’s the best new smart phone for me to get?” Sev­eral sug­ges­tions and micro reviews posted within minutes

… and these sce­nar­ios are hap­pen­ing thou­sands of times a day on Twit­ter alone.

Genius Point 2: Want to hear what peo­ple are say­ing about your brand when they think no one else is lis­ten­ing? Do a Twit­ter search for your brand’s name and you’ll see. What if no one’s talk­ing about your brand at all? Maybe you need to begin that dialogue.

Dri­ving Traf­fic to Your Web­site
For­ward think­ing mar­keters are estab­lish­ing their own branded Twit­ter accounts. Jet Blue, for exam­ple, announces lim­ited offer air­fares to its fol­low­ers, Car­ni­val Cruise offers sales and news, while the Dell Out­let offers check­out coupon codes. Your brand’s oppor­tu­nity to engage in this medium is only lim­ited by your imagination.

Genius Point 3
The front in the bat­tle for con­sumers hearts and mind is con­stantly shift­ing, and you need to fol­low them to where they’re con­gre­gat­ing. As the graph below shows, Twitter’s growth is remark­able, and as it suc­ceeds, other micro-blogging sites will appear, offer­ing the same kinds of oppor­tu­ni­ties for brands to par­tic­i­pate in the social dia­logue. Now would be a great time to begin explor­ing this oppor­tu­nity with the goal of becom­ing, at a min­i­mum, more flu­ent in this emerg­ing medium.

(credit: twit­ter­facts)

In clos­ing, I’m still awed by how com­pletely wrong I was about Twit­ter. My igno­rance of Twit­ter nearly pre­vented me from dis­cov­er­ing a brand com­mu­ni­ca­tions chan­nel that is noth­ing short of inge­nious. I encour­age you to get a Twit­ter account for your­self and see if you agree with me.

As we con­tinue to explore the future of brand­ing in the social media space, I look for­ward to shar­ing my Face­book expe­ri­ences and insights with you in our next “Get Social” post.

Addenda: Jere­miah Owyang just posted Social Media FAQ #3: How Do I Mea­sure ROI? that offers an excel­lent overview of social media ana­lyt­ics. Make sure and read the Comments–Sam Lawrence’s links, in par­tic­u­lar, are illuminating.

This recent Busi­ness­Week arti­cle also serves notice that social media is approach­ing crit­i­cal mass.

And, of course: fol­low me, and I’ll fol­low you.

Posted on Monday, February 25th, 2008 at 9:10 PM. Filed under: Uncategorized RSS 2.0 feed.

9 Responses to “From Idiot to Genius: My First 7 Days on Twitter”

1. Uncommon Sense | Intelligent Inspiration for Marketers » Global Popularity of Social Networks says:

   February 27, 2008 at 9:56 AM

   […] had lots of inter­est­ing con­ver­sa­tions fol­low­ing our recent post From Idiot to Genius: My First 7 Days on Twit­ter . This data visu­al­iza­tion from Le Monde (click to enlarge the graphic) is fur­ther evi­dence of the […]

   Reply
2. drt says:

   February 29, 2008 at 4:29 PM

   I’ve book­marked your site and would be back to read it thor­oughly. May be I’d become one of your followers.

   Reply
3. Hock says:

   March 3, 2008 at 8:26 AM

   I too joined Twit­ter just a few days ago. I’m still try­ing to get a sense of what I can use it for. Thanks for the insights you have posted here.

   The key is to have a com­mu­nity of like-minded peo­ple who are com­mit­ted to updat­ing their tweets. Oth­er­wise, it will become a monologue.

   Reply
4. admin says:

   March 3, 2008 at 8:51 AM

   @Hock. Glad you’re get­ting your Twit­ter feet wet. As you noted, the com­mu­nity you build is crit­i­cal to your expe­ri­ence and the ben­e­fit you’ll gain. I approach it as though I’m curat­ing a col­lec­tion of peo­ple, and try to be selective–picking peo­ple who both inform and enter­tain me.

   Thanks for your comments.

   Reply
5. drt says:

   March 15, 2008 at 5:50 PM

   As promised, I join twit­ter and of course become one of your fol­lower.

   Hope you’re okay over there. No tor­nado, I mean.

   Reply
6. A Tanone dot Net » Blog Archive » Another Request for Helping another Baby from Timor says:

   March 16, 2008 at 5:27 PM

   […] twit­ter yes­ter­day after read­ing Doug Karr’s post­ing. When I saw Doug’s post, I remem­ber Rick Julian’s post­ing I found from blog­ging­zoom few weeks ago. That was the rea­son I wrote this post­ing to see if any of […]

   Reply
7. Nick R Thomas says:

   September 9, 2008 at 5:07 AM

   The clear­est expla­na­tion I’ve seen of what Twit­ter is about.

   Reply
8. rjulian says:

   September 9, 2008 at 5:17 AM

   Thanks, Nick. Six months later, Twit­ter con­tin­ues to impress me with the sense of com­mu­nity it offers par­tic­i­pants. There are peo­ple who use it as their pri­mary con­duit for busi­ness com­mu­ni­ca­tion. Mind you, it takes a while to build a crit­i­cal mass of fol­low­ers and a base­line of rela­tion­ships, but once that’s accom­plished, remark­able oppor­tu­ni­ties can present themselves.

   I’ll be writ­ing a new post about my cur­rent expe­ri­ences with Twit­ter soon.

   Reply
9. BradandPitti says:

   October 14, 2008 at 9:45 AM

   cool site

   Reply