Ever heard of Twitter at www.twitter.com? It is one of the few useful social networking sites. It could also be called a microblogging site. When you setup an account on Twitter you can “follow” other people on Twitter and see what they have to say. Other people can follow you if you let them and they choose to follow you.
Are you interested in skiing?
Are you feeling a little unnerved about the peanut butter salmonella scare becaue you or your kids like to eat it?
Do you want to be able to quickly get information about unfolding events like the plane that crashed in the Hudson River?
Do you want to see what people are saying about search enigne marketing?
Concerned about the TARP bailout that is sucking all the tax payer dollars from US citizens?
Maybe you just want to see what people are saying about Obama.
Whatever you are interested in, you’l find a conversation about it on Twitter.
Unlike Facebook and MySpace that just have random stuff from various people with no particular order to it, you can instantly find a conversation on almost anything on Twitter.
Not only do people discuss current events and hobbies on Twitter, they talk about products, brands and experiences with companies.
What to see what people are saying about Subaru and find people to ask about thier Subarus? You’ll find it on Twitter.
Need to find a place to open a checking account or get a mortgage and considering Bank of America? You’ll find people talking about Bank of America on Twitter.
Thinking about buying a new home and considering Toll Brothers? Do a search on Twitter and see what people are saying about the company, Toll Brothers homes and the stock performance.
Twitter is growing by leaps and bounds but it is still one of the social networking types sites that many people and companies are not familiar with. How could Twitter change that? Use PPC Search! Search done well is a conversation. The consumer turns to a search engine, types in a query which is in effect a question. By linking the keyword triggered search ads to relevant Twitter search pages, Twitter can potentially introduce millions of people to Twitter by dropping the in the middle of a conversation about the topic they are seeking infomration on.
Presumably at some point Twitter wants to make money to generate some kind of return on the 250 million or so it has received in investment capital. Those with the big pockets are companies pushing products. What better way to introduce large companies to Twitter than to bid on their brand names and link to a search page of Twitter results with a conversation about the brand? Since lots of big corporate types don’t know the Internet from a billboard, dropping them right into a conversation would be the best way to get them to pay attention to Twitter without having to sell them on it.
Once Twitter has the attention of brands, retailers and other businesses, it will be much easier to turn Twitter into a company that makes money and work with advertisers to figure out an advertising or subscription model that makes sense and money for Twitter.
Take some of that investment cash and position Twitter as the answer to millions fo search queries and watch the membership begin to skyrocket!
What does it take for a business to succeed in a challenging economic climate? The same things it takes to succeed in any business climate – Vision, Direction & Focus! They are just a little more critical when the economy is in the tank and consumers and businesses are more hard pressed to justify spending limited resources.
Does your company have Vision, Direction and Focus? It is relatively easy to tell. If your company has been laying off people left and right and not replacing the ones who move onto other companies, there is probably something amiss with the organization. The company could be getting more efficient and doing more with less but more likely there is less to do because the company lacks either Vision, Direction and/or Focus.
Your company should have a vision for the future that transcends whatever the current business climate is. What is this company aiming to do now and in the future? Is the company skating to where the puck is going to be as Wayne Gretsky always did or is the company chasing the puck trying to catch up with it? Judging by the number of layoffs and bankruptcies in the marketplace today there are an awful lot of companies merely chasing the puck and some without any idea where the puck is even going. A vision must be easily articulated by the owners/leaders/managers of a company. When you go into work each day do you feel that you know where your company is headed and where it needs to go? Do you feel like you know how you fit into that vision or are you unsure? If you are unsure, then you need to get some clarification so you can tell if you are in a company that will survive the current economic crisis. If your company has no vision for itself or for you as an individual then it is time to start looking for greener pastures and move on.
Does your company have a strong sense of direction? Do you know why you do different things and how they affect the bottom line for your company or the clients of your company? Whatever your or your company does should be well thought out, well planned and have a tangible benefit. Often times that tangbile benefit needs to be one connected to serving your customers or the customers of your clients better (in the case of an agency or professional services firm, particularly those in marketing) and not just trying to boost your bottom line.
The final key ingredient to a successful business is focus. Unfortunately in business, the idea of multi-tasking is one that is highly valued. Multi-tasking is the ability to do a whole bunch of things and do none of those things well. Multi-taskers often find it hard to focus whether they realize it or not and the quality of output suffers whether they realize it or not. Just as driving while on the phone, texting, eating lunch or makes one much more likely to get into an accident, multi-tasking almost always reduces the quality of the output of any of the individual tasks at hand.
A person or company with a clear vision, a clear direction and a laser like focus at the individual and company level is must more likely to succeed and be an enjoyable and profitable place to work than one that is missing one or more of the three key elements of successful people and companies.
Do you know the vision of your company and does it align with your personal vision (asuming you have one)?
Is your company going in a specific direction (other than downsizing or bankruptcy) that you can articulate that alighns with the direction you wish to move in?
Is your company focused on moving forward with specific goals that will work toward the company vision and move the company and your career in a positive direction?
Regardless of the current economic climate, if you want to be relevant in the next few years, you need to develop your own sense of vision, direction and focus and do everything you can to pursue it even if it means moving onto a new job, going back to school or restarting your career in another field.
Great job of taking old TV clips and setting them to the new Lady GaGa – Just Dance! video. Not much more to say just a cool medly of music & video clips!
Despite a tough economy, slowing e-commerce sales and a glum outlook for 2009 and beyond, Affiliate Summit West 2009 scheduled to kick off in Las Vegas on January September 11, 2009 SOLD OUT. For as long as the Internet has been around, affiliates have been running circles around agencies and in-house teams when it comes to marketing, selling and making money online by aligning their websites and search campaigns with the way people search for, think about and want to buy products and services. Simply put, affiliates let analytics and performance guide their decisions and budget outlays rather than putting a bunch of overpaid clueless people in a room to brainstorm like they are coming up with irrelevant [to the web] creative concepts for the next national Pepsi television campaign.
Affiliate Summit West 2009 will be packed with some of the best marketers in the industry – the ones that can actually sell things instead of the ones that just talk about seling things and make up metrics to justify online advertising campaigns.
The event will be held at the ROI Hotel & Convention Center in Las Vegas which should be a nice place to have the conference since the hotel and convention center will both be in one place.
I’ll be getting in the afternoon of Janaury 10th and staying at Planet Hollywood through the morning of the 15th. Will probably be meeting up with Online Marketer for the traditional all you can eat sushi at Todai Sushi right in the Planet Hollywood mall. The Steelers will also be beating up on the Chargers so will be watching the game somewhere in Vegas as well.
Stay up to date with the latest info on Affiliate Summit West 2009 Vegas on Twitter and come meet some of the best marketing mind in the business who actually know how to sell stuff.
