Yes I meant “revolutions” it’s not a typo.

A revolution can be defined in many ways but it can only mean one of two things. An overthrow of an established system / procedure or, course back to a starting point.

Only one type of revolution can help you make the upcoming year one to remember, at least from a marketing perspective.

Many companies get caught in a trap when it comes to marketing. They keep doing the same things over and over again. Round and round our marketing goes when it makes money we never know. The world changes too fast for anyone to think that doing the same old thing will produce new results. When it comes to marketing, that type of, “revolution” is the one to avoid.

Our customers are changing; in fact, you might even say they are creating a revolution of their own. There is no denying that the Internet has changed the face of business and marketing forever. One of the biggest changes brought about by the Internet is in customer behavior. We live in an on-demand society, a clickable culture where everything a customer wants is only a mouse click away.

Our customers have more choices and they can have whatever they want any way they want it whenever they want it. This limitless choice has created a very competitive environment for every type of business on the planet. You either work within the clickable culture or lose business to armies of competitors who are very anxious and willing to take your best customers.

In order to grow in the competitive Internet marketing landscape you are going to have to start your own revolution this coming year. Here are my 3 Internet marketing tips that will help you create a marketing revolution for your company.

Tip # 1 - Think like a customer

Sounds simple but in actuality it is very difficult. You must separate yourself from your products, services and solutions. Throw away what you know and put yourself in your customers place. When people search for products and services on the Internet try and remember that they do not search for the solution, they search for the problem. If they knew what the solution was they would not need you.

Does the content on your website speak to the problem or jump right into the solutions with industry jargon and other language a client may not connect with? Simplify things and get to the heart of the matter. What are the client’s needs, wants and overall issues that brought them to your site in the first place?  Review all the content on your website and make sure it speaks to the customers needs. Shake things up and start to change your writing style and messages to be customer centric or bottom up as opposed to top down.

Tip # 2 – Step out of your comfort zone

In today’s competitive marketplace a website alone just won’t cut it. We have to expand our reach and use more diverse methods to connect with connected customers. We’ve all heard of Blog’s and Podcasts, YouTube videos and MySpace pages but did you know that a lot of these communication tools are great ways to connect with customers? It’s true, corporate Blogging alone is one of the fastest growing marketing vehicles on the web.

Start using some of these tools. Look into creating a Blog, see what others are doing on YouTube and Facebook. Familiarize yourself with some of the new media tools and figure out how you can use them in your marketing. If you don’t step out of your comfort zone, your competition is going to step all over you.

Tip # 3 – Seek out opportunity

The best information to help your business grow will come form outside your industry. Stop looking at your competition when deciding what type of marketing to do or what should be on your website. The dumbest thing you can do is to do something just because a competitor is doing it.

When I sit with clients to help them create Internet marketing strategies they always give me the list of things their competitors are doing as if to say, “They are doing this so we should too”.

How do you know if what your competition is doing is actually working? Will they tell you? Probably not. You will end up spending time and money to create something that was doomed before you ever got started.

What you really need to do is figure out what your competitions not doing and then do those things. If your competitor has written testimonials on their website, you create video testimonials. Is your competition Blogging? No, then start a Blog. Are they Podcasting? No, do that.

Look beyond your industry for ideas. Seek out what has been successful for other industries that service your customers. If everyone is doing something and you do it to all you do is level the playing field. If you find something no one else is doing, you’ve found an opportunity.

Those are my tips that should help you break the oppressions of old tired marketing and get started on your New Year’s Revolution! Remember, most revolutions are started with a desire for a change from the norm; it’s only when you take action that true change takes place.

Written by Larry Bailin. Bestselling author of the marketing book,
Mommy, Where Do Customers Come From? ® Writen for Yahoo! Search Marketing Blog

I recently was invited to be a speaker at the Blog World and New Media Expo in Las Vegas where I gave a presentation titled, “Using social media to drive traffic to your Blog”. Personally I hated the title (not my choice) of the seminar. Being from New Jersey it’s hard to associate the term, “traffic” with anything positive. The word “traffic” sends the wrong message and is counterproductive to the thought process needed to succeed on the social scene.

I focused my presentation on changing the point of view of the 150 people in the audience. If they were to truly succeed in the competitive social media landscape they would need to remove, “driving traffic” from the top of their goals list and replace it with, “driving customers”.

In order to succeed in the social scene everyone needs to stop measuring visits and start measuring victories.

After my presentation I was approached by Michael Mattis of Yahoo and he told me that he’d like me to write a blog post for YSM (Yahoo! Search Marketing Blog) with a few points from my presentation. We agreed that my examples of, “social rules” would fit the bill.

Offline business rules have always applied in the online space so it would be a safe bet that the social rules we all grew up with, the ones our loving parents drilled into our heads, the rules that kept us safe and happy would also apply when used in online social situations.

Social Rule # 1 - Choose your friends wisely.

It seems that building a large number of friends is the goal for most online socialites. The more friends you have the more popular you are In an offline situation, a good example of this is high school.   The less popular nerdy type only had a few friends which happened to be other less popular nerdy types with similar goals and interests.

By grouping together, sharing ideas and staying hyper-focused this social solidarity seemed to always achieve levels of success later in life that most of us could only dream of (Bill Gates for example) while the more popular captain of the cheerleaders ends up marrying and divorcing the adulterous football player and having to move to Arizona and balance being a single mom with two crappy jobs. That’s the way it happens on television anyway.

Summary: Social networking works the same way. Be choosy when selecting friends. A smaller group of like-minded individuals allows you to spread your message through a more targeted audience. Large groups of broad targets and views will muddy the waters and stop you from achieving the results needed to succeed.

Social rule #2 – Treat people the way you want to be treated.

You get what you give is a rule that has stood the test of time. You cannot expect people to do for you unless you do for them. If you are to make a mark on the social scene first you have to do for others. You need to participate, comment, visit and support others if you expect them to do the same in return.

Summary: By participating you become part of the community. People start to recognize you and appreciate your efforts. These efforts will not go unrewarded. I started my marketing blog (ConnectedCustomers.net) eight months ago. I spent the first six months visiting other blogs in the marketing category and commenting on them. I added some to my blog-roll and even sent personal messages to a few that I really liked. The result was others responding in kind. Within eight months I developed a following of over 15,000 readers.

Social rule #3 – If you have nothing nice to say don’t say anything at all.

This one is simple. Bashing and negativity runs rampant through the social scene. I’m not talking about negative comments. If you don’t agree with something you should post your opinion. Bashing someone is something totally different. If you are nasty or tend to post inappropriate negative comments all the time it won’t be long before a community labels you a jackass and no one will take you seriously. Obviously this is counter productive to your goals.

Summary: Take the time to think through your comments and actions. Try to give constructive criticism as opposed to a negative view. Choose your words wisely and it will showcase your expertise as opposed to your dark side.

Social rule #4 – If you keep doing that you’ll go blind.

Whether it is a website, blog, or MySpace page, take the user into consideration. Lots of renegade code, widgets and advertisements can not only slow down the site but may even crash a browser or two. Take the time to think about how every element will be seen and reacted to by your potential customer (which is what a visitor is). Will it have a positive or negative impact and does it enhance or detract from your message?

Summary: The point of this rule is to take the visitor experience very seriously. This is where the rubber meets the road. Make things that you want viewed easy to access. When a site is cumbersome to use people will stop using it, they will become blind to your existence.

Wrap-up

Follow these rules to achieve higher levels of success and create your own personal set of rules to socialize by. Social media is a two way street and the oncoming traffic will either help you or kill you – the choice is yours.

This post written from Starbucks in Somerset NJ 

Is Linkedin – out?

There are rumblings across the web that business social networking site LinkedIn is slipping in popularity.  It seems that those that are Linkedin are now Linkng-out and opting to use the social media powerhouse FaceBook to conduct their online business networking and marketing.

Linkedin is becoming less effective as it grows. I’ve been a Linkedin member for years and have noticed a change. Lately I have received an above average amount of connection requests (connections are Linkedin’s version of Friends). These connection requests are from people that I have no connection with, not even if I stretch to try and find one. I’ve never met these people, they are not in my industry, they are not friends with anyone I am friends with, literally no connection.

The one thing I have noticed about those requesting connections is that they have an enormous amount of connections themselves. It seems as if people are just trying to build their connections no matter who those connections may be with. I’m all for having lots of friends (as I mentioned in an earlier post “You Say He’s Just a Friend”) but shouldn’t there be a reason for the friendship / connection other than the overall number one can compile?

Linkedin is supposed to be a business networking site. Mimicking a rolodex one might build over time by attending offline networking events. If we just build random connections what benefit does that have? Wouldn’t a more focused group of connections work much better? The answer is emphatically “yes”. From a business perspective a smaller and highly focused group of connections would yield more results that a large group of connections just for the sake of – well – connecting.

This connection building seems more the move on MySpace as opposed to Linkedin. MySpace has become a friend building frenzy for the MySpace masses. This has inevitably led to it’s ineffectiveness as a social networking site and turned it into a social party site. Like Linkedin, MySpace has also fallen from grace at the hands of Facebook. In 2006 MySpace was named one of the top 50 websites by Time Magazine. In 2007 it was named one of the 5 worst while counterpart Facebook is now sitting in the top 50 spot.

So is Linkedin becoming a business version of MySpace minus the spam? Oh I almost forgot – they have the spam too! Everyone in my company has been contacted by a headhunter / recruiter about a job opening they’d be perfect for. They all received a phone call with the greeting “I came across your information on Linkedin and I’ve got a job opening that would be perfect for you”. Perfect for me? You don’t even know me! And why the hell would you call me about a job opening at work!  Linked in is producing Spam by phone! It’s bad enough to sort through all the electronic Spam, pop ups, pop-unders and alike but this type of Spam is beyond interruptive, it is intrusive and well, just plain creepy.

Because Linkedin is a business networking site members make their contact information visible to all. We assume people would respect our information and use it properly because they are there to make business connections as well.  Social networking sites like Facebook treat your information differently. Your information is not open to the public and only available when a friendship is made. This method has just become a little more important.  

If abuses like this headhunting incident keeps running rampant through Linkedin my guess is that people will start removing their profiles in droves.

Are you Linkedin or out?

YouTube boasts 60,000 plus uploads per day with over 100 million videos already online and ready for viewing and that’s just YouTube. Start adding all the other video sharing sites like iFilm, Blip.TV, MySpaceTV etc. There seems to be no end in site for this online video explosion, but it’s not all fun and games. These videos are not all skateboarding dogs and know it all ninjas.

A new and possibly damaging trend is emerging. People are using video and other social media (blogs, forums, podcasts etc.) to forcibly get what they want. People are using social media to get satisfaction and others to get notoriety.

Armies of connected customers are using social media sites to spread buyer beware messages to the masses. Anyone who has ever been wronged by anyone or has had a less than favorable experience with just about anything has found their global sounding board. Legions of the wronged are now armed with video enabled devices and it’s given them the courage to do what they could not do in the past – be heard.

It may not have started with a video of the now infamous Vincent Ferrari who posted his efforts to try and cancel his AOL account but this sure was a rallying cry to the masses. Now everyone is a video vigilante that shoots (video) first and asks questions later all hoping to get their moment in the spotlight with Matt Lauer.

Social media has given the average consumer a way to fight back a way to take charge and throw open their windows to scream, “We’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore!” We can never be screwed again by angry waiters, inferior products or bait and switch marketing by less than ethical businesses. They could prey on us in the past but they better think twice before doing it now! This is great, right?!? Right?

Some are saying that social media has leveled the playing field and created accountability in the business world but that may not be the case at all. The playing field may actually be tipping in the direction of the consumer at the eventual cost of, well, the consumer. Businesses are now fighting a painstaking battle to manage their reputations and guess who will pay for that in the long run?

Connected customers apparently would rather have a bad experience to share on video than actually resolve the issue in question. Issues that seemingly can be easily resolved by simply asking to speak to a manager or owner are now escalated to extreme levels in an instant. To make matters worse, in some cases you only get one side of the story and the accused is not given the opportunity for rebuttal.

When you post a video on YouTube you have the option of allowing comments or not allowing comments as well as having comments instantly appear or await moderation. This is also the case in Blog’s and other community type websites. A growing trend of swaying comments in favor of the customer has businesses concerned and rightly so.

An example of this is a video on YouTube of a woman returning a vehicle to a car dealer. She was not the actual buyer nor was she present during the sale, her mother purchased the vehicle a few days earlier. The story she tells is that her mother was lied to, told one thing and sold something different (that old story) or something to that effect. The video contained snarling comments about thievery, scams and bad business practices at this local car dealer. I watched the video and noticed that the woman never gave anyone a chance to say anything. She never asked for the manager, owner or anyone in authority. She made no attempt to get the whole story. It seemed very one sided so I decided to post a comment which read, “why didn’t you try to resolve this issue with the owner? You were not there when the car was sold so maybe there was a miscommunication?” My comment never appeared and when I tried to re-post, it seemed that I had been blocked from posting altogether. Seems like a clear cut case of “If I want your opinion – I’ll approve it”.

To make matters worse, within an hour of the video being uploaded more negative comments we’re posted by other users. I thought, wow, was this woman right? Maybe this car dealer really is a thief? Upon further examination, all the people that commented in this woman’s favor had just joined YouTube within the last hour. Hmmm, all these people that happened to buy a car at this dealer all joined at the exact same time as this video was uploaded and all commented on the this particular video and never commented on any of the other 100 million videos on the site. This is a perfect example of someone engineering an opinion. There would be no way anyone from the dealership in question could defend their name.

Now that the public has a little power, some are abusing it by using it as a form of intimidation. People are storming in the doors of businesses around the country with cameras in hand demanding to get things done their way or else. Any attempt on the business owner’s part or store clerk to try and deal with the issue off camera and the customer makes a beeline to the nearest WiFi hotspot to upload the video and seething comments of their dissatisfaction coupled with the standard “Buyer Beware”. Seemingly businesses are being bullied and even held hostage with little or no recourse. 

Don’t get me wrong, I think the tools we have available to use are great and can be very powerful and helpful when used properly. Having a voice that can be heard by so many may actually help improve the sad state of customer service in this country. What I’m not a fan of is people using these tools just to gain notoriety or engineering a one sided point of view without concern of who it affects. In the long run it will affect us all.

We live in a clickable culture where one single voice, one single post or one single video can make a difference but this does not mean we can abuse the power we’ve been given. The ability to be heard must be respected before everyone stops listening.

This post written from Starbucks in Manhattan - 31st and 6th ave.

There is a lot of buzz lately about social media and web 2.0 super communities Facebook and MySpace.Both are in a heated battle for the top social networking spot on the web. 

MySpace, an obvious player in this arena is the largest online social networking portal on the web with over 61 million registered users. It’s the second largest destination on the web by page views and it demographic splits 50.2% male, 49.8% female with an average age of 16-34. The site attracts 220,000 new registrants daily and there are 50,000 groups including fashion, marketing health, wellness & fitness, sports and recreation, music, film, TV, etc. 

Comparing the numbers side by side, Facebook is not even a close second – but this seems to changing rapidly. 

After opening the site up to more than just college students last September, Facebook took an amazing leap forward in popularity. Currently there are over 25 million users, growing 3% per week, which amounts to 100,000 new users per day! Projections indicate that Facebook will reach 50 million users by end of 2007. Facebook is the 6^th most trafficked site is the US with over 60 billion page views per month. Facebook users seem to be loyal as well (which is rare in the social networking space), 50% of the registered users come back to the site every day. 

While MySpace continues to skew to a younger demographic (just ask my 16 year old cousin who practically lives on MySpace), Facebook’s fastest growing segment of users are in the 25 and older crowd which makes it very attractive to advertisers and marketers.  Many of the social networking masses and business marketers alike are making a shift from MySpace to Facebook stating that MySpace has become too juvenile and spam ridden. The site is slow and the failures are becoming more frequent. The main reason for the failures is that MySpace profiles can be heavily customized if you know how to code in HTML. Rouge HTML code and scripting is causing browser crashes and incompatibilities. Facebook by comparison is much cleaner and does not allow the level of customization that is causing problems on MySpace. Instead Facebook allows the use of approved applications that work on top of their platform. 

To make matters worse for MySpace, in 2006 it was named one of the top 50 coolest websites by Time Magazine and this year it made the list of the 5 worst! Has MySpace fallen out of favor?  Could this be the beginning of the end for MySpace? Will armies of marketers and legions of social networkers just simply move to Facebook or is MySpace “2 legit to quit?”  I use MySpace and Facebook (as well as many other social networking sites) as a vehicle for marketing my book and as a marketer I’m not convinced that the fat lady is quite ready to sing over in the MySpace camp. 

Here are some of the stats I’ve gathered from the website for my book. 

I have roughly an equal amount of friends on both MySpace and Facebook and spend an equal amount of time cultivating each. 

On average over the last 3 months MySpace accounted for more than 25% of the visits to the website for my marketing book (MommyWhereDoCustomersComeFrom.com), that’s more than the visitors from Google and this Blog combined! LinkedIn (yet another social networking site with more of a business focus) sent 8% and Facebook a mere 3%. 

As a marketer, MySpace is still a viable marketing vehicle - period. As a user I totally agree with all of the MySpace rhetoric, it’s slow, way too many failures, too much spam and yes it skews to a lower age group. As a fellow Blogger (and a MySpace friend) commented in one of my earlier posts (Twitter De – Twitter Dumb?), “I am also too old for a MySpace page and I have one of those too”. The part of that comment that jumps off the page, “I have one of those too”. 

It’s my opinion that MySpace is in fact 2 legit 2 quit. As long as they keep adapting and making smart choices that address the concerns of their connected customers, this social media behemoth will not be going anywhere anytime soon. 

The one caveat to that statement is that when I spoke at Affiliate Summit in Miami this year I did attend a session where a MySpace exec stated “we don’t really see Facebook as a competitor”. The last high profile technology company to underestimate their competition was Netscape, they didn’t see Microsoft as a competitor and Microsoft crushed them like a hammer to a grape! 

Recently Microsoft did strike a pretty big deal with Facebook. I hope MySpace wises up before I have to write another MC Hammer inspired post titled, “Please Hammer Don’t Hurt ‘Em”. 

This post written from Starbucks in Newark Liberty International Airport, Terminal C.

Marketing has changed dramatically in the past few years. Social networking and social media continues to stir traditional marketers into frenzy.  Conventional marketers such as ad agencies have barely come to grips with the proper usage of the Internet as a sales and marketing vehicle. They continue to disregard cornerstones of successful website design such as usability, load times, strategic content development and search engine friendliness. Instead these traditional marketers tout the benefits of creativity and unique design elements that go against the grain. Creativity ends up blocking communication and no one but the agency benefits.  The proper usage of the web continues to elude a lot of marketers but they seem to be slowly coming around as businesses become better educated on what works and what does not. 

Now throw social media into the mix. BLOGs, viral video, Podcasting and social networking sites such as MySpace, LinkedIn, Facebook etc. Most agencies I come in contact with have no idea how to deal with this ever changing medium. Businesses for the most part have no idea what to do in this space and more often than not dismiss the notion altogether citing reasons such as. “Only kids are doing this stuff” or, “We don’t have the time for that”. 

The fact of the matter is your average business owner is a wimp, afraid of spending money and failing or afraid to admit that they just don’t understand it enough to make a go of it. They don’t know where to turn since their traditional marketing channels are as bewildered as they are so they do nothing and hope for the best. 

Hope is not a strategy - Get over it! In the fledgling days of the commercial Internet there were many businesses that simply dismissed the internet as kids stuff or a fad. The ones that looked beyond conventional wisdom and took a chance online are reaping the rewards and the naysayers are licking their wounds and try to play catch up. 

As the title of this article states, “it’s hard out here for a wimp”, business is not for the faint-hearted, it’s tough and marketing is risky, but how is this different from any other time in history? Business has always been complex and marketing has always been a gamble. You cannot dismiss new ways to connect with customers as fads or simply ignore them and pray your business will flourish as it has in the past. The greatest business leaders of our time did not achieve greatness because they were timid. Good businesses do not become great businesses with a play it safe strategy. 

You think social media is going to go away? For the sake of argument, let’s say you’re right. Sites like Second Life or MySpace will eventually fade away. The fact still remains, they exist now and so does the opportunity. One of the foundations of marketing is identifying opportunity and exploiting that opportunity until it no longer has value. When it stops working – move on. So who cares where these sites will be in six months or a year? They are here now and represent an opportunity. 

You simply cannot keep doing the same things over and over again and expect to thrive. In order to grow you must keep moving forward. Don’t have time to BLOG, find the time. Don’t have the time to create a social media strategy, hire someone to do it for you. Contrary to popular belief it does not take that much time to get out there and make connections with your customers. A few hours a week is all you need to get started. 

Yes some people do get carried away and spend far too much time seeking out online friends and get completely wrapped up in the social aspects of this type of Internet marketing. I won’t deny that you can go overboard to the point where you are wasting so much time with social networking that it becomes counter productive. That’s why you never venture into any type of marketing without planning. It’s critical that you create a strategy for this type of marketing. Outline a detailed blueprint of where you want to be, how to properly use the tools and how much time can be allocated to these efforts. 

Your customers are out there connecting with new and exciting medium and you need to be there too because, you can be sure your competition is. 

You don’t have the time – make the time – before all you have it time (think about it). 

This post written from seat 7A on JetBlue flight 525 from New Jersey to Florida on my way to speak on the “website conversion clinic” panel at Affiliate Summit Miami..

In 1988, “The Diabolical” Biz Markie sang (I use the term, “sang” loosely) “you say he’s just a friend” and went on to tell his “baby” she got what he neeeeeeds. I wonder how those lyrics would have differed if the song were written today?
“You say their just MySpace, Facebook, Blog Catalog, LinkedIn, Flickr, YouTube, twitter friends. You say their ALL just friends. Oh BAbY YOooouuu, got the friends that I NEEeed – thank you for the add I said thank you for the add” (I took that a little farther than I thought I could )

Anyway, you get the picture. In today’s connected culture, with all of our advances success still hinges on who you know, perhaps even more important, how you know who you know? You can be very successful but if your MySpace page has no friends, you’re just a big fat loser (making the “L” sign with my fingers on my forehead – which is awkward because I’m on a plane and now people are staring at me. I think someone just alerted the air marshal).

Having online friends is critical. Social networking is fast becoming the status quo. If you’re not out there you’re nowhere. I have more friends then I know what to do with and I want more! Acquiring friends is addictive! The more friends you have the more visible you are. If you don’t think social networking is vital to spreading your marketing message, just take a look at any of our 2008 presidential hopefuls. Hillary, Rudy, Obama they all have MySpace pages! They are all vying for votes by creating online supporters (combined they have over 100,000 friends on MySpace alone) and MySpace isn’t the only place they are trolling for friends. YouTube, Friendster, FaceBook, LinkedIn…they are everywhere!

In business, networking is nothing new. Networking is how good businesses become great ones. Social networking just takes it to extreme levels. Your network becomes viral and connections extend through armies of online friends in the blink of an eye. You make a friend and instantly all of their friends are exposed to you and you to them. You connect with a friend of a friend and it happens again, more people are exposed to you.

There is a downside to being madly connected online; you’re now exposed to thousands of people. Every move you make can now be seen, scrutinized, commented on and can spread quicker than the sizable woman sitting in the seat next to me went through her kosher meal.

An online community of friends is nothing new. Chat rooms and forums were among the first Internet community applications. Forums are still pretty popular. In an online forum, like minded people gather initially discuss a common topic or theme but eventually they end up discussing everything as friendship connections build.

A good friend of mine belongs to a specific Harley Davidson forum. Recently when we were out to dinner he told stories about how his forum members often rally to help their online brethren through rough times. Raising money for members with illnesses or those who have fallen on hard times is a common occurrence. They also act as a global support group or sounding board for those going through divorce, tragedy, loss of a pet or just about anything affecting their lives.

Social networking is going to be a critical marketing component for businesses in the very near future. Email marketing, Podcasting and Blogging have already made significant inroads into the marketing world and social networking sites are closing in fast. If you think MySpace and other social networking sites are kids’ stuff you may just want to rethink your stance - in the words of Biz Markie, “they got what yooou neeEEeed” – friends.

This post written from Starbucks in Oakhurst, NJ

I keep an open mind and try to look at everything from an optimistic point of view. There is not much happening on the web that I don’t get or can’t spin into a marketing strategy but I have to admit that when it comes to twitter – I don’t get it?

For those that don’t know, twitter is a social networking application that appeals primarily to the 18 – 24 year old group. If Blogging were reborn as an extreme sport it would be twitter.  Twitter allows anyone to create a profile and post (twitter) snippets of their lives as they happen (in 140 character increments). Users twitter what is happening in their lives at that very moment. No matter how boring or mundane the activity, people twitter away. They twitter from their web browser, IM and from their cell phones. Twitter describes it as, “A global community of friends and strangers answering one simple question: What are you doing?”

As you can imagine, twitter messages are mind-numbingly trivial. Here is a sample of average twittering:

• Breathing deeply
• Relaxing on the couch
• Trying to wake up and go for a run before it heats up out there.
• Less than 5 hours till I see Transformers movie.
• On my way to work
• Going to bed

My first reaction to twitter was not positive. Do people really have nothing better to do? Have our lives become so boring that we need to read blow by blow updates on the rest of the populous? Are people that self absorbed that they think others want to live vicariously through them? Do we really need to catalog every minute of our lives? – Apparently.

There is no denying twitter’s popularity. I’m wildly impressed with the amount of people twitter has connected with. Not sure what the motivation is to twitter the day away or mindlessly scroll through random twitterings but you can’t argue with success. Twitter found an audience of loyal customers. They twitter in the morning, they twitter in the evening, they twitter all over this land.

As useless as I think twittering is I’ve come to the realization that just because I don’t use something does not make it worthless (it was a hard corner for me to turn). If you really put your mind to it you can extract value from almost anything. Try this on for size. If you have a product or service that targets the 18 – 24 year olds, before you finalize your marketing strategy you may want to spend some time on twitter. You can gather some truly amazing insight into where, how, when and why that age group does, well, everything. From a marketing and customer intelligence perspective does it really get any better then that?

Maybe twitters future is in customer intelligence? Possibly a global marketing focus group or part of another application? Perhaps it will just fade away when the twitter throng move on to the next hot thing?

Right now twitter is hot and the twittering masses are giving the world a glimpse into the happenings of their lives and people seem to like it so I say go for it. Twitter your brains out. Twitter until your fingers bleed but, if you crash into my car while you’re twittering on your cell phone I promise that your next twitter will be “getting my ass kicked”.