Social media millionaire
Wow, what a fascinating little social media online adventure.
The CNN Breaking News vs Ashton Kutcher race to be the first to reach one million Twitter followers.
Ashton Kutcher — part of the self-described “new guard” of media — hit the million mark just a few minutes ago — tragically, I watched it live. Here’s his post just seconds after reaching one million followers:
And with CNN Breaking News used television to push towards their million followers, Kutcher went live on the internet via Ustream TV to keep talking to his fans, watching the countdown and also helping promote a non-profit cause helping fight malaria (to which he donated US $100,000 as the Twitter follower winner):
And the champagne flowed in reaction to the win. CNN Breaking News of course covered it, falling just under 1,700 followers short in the race!
An interesting little episode in the life — and power - of social media!
Still Not Convinced Twitter Is For Business?
Twitter is one of those growing online phenomenons that still has some users wondering what its business application really is.
To me, the brilliance of Twitter is that it is another “media” platform: a way to communicate your message — to a super-targeted audience, because it’s 100 per cent opt-in — “tweople” on your list (Twitter people) have subscribed to read what you post (they’re your “followers”).
In that way it’s similar to opt-in email, but acts more like SMS, because the messages reach users’ Twitter accounts both on the computer and on mobile/cell phones or other internet enabled devices.
It’s simply a micro-media messaging platform within a larger media (the internet).
And it’s popularity is growing fast. It’s still not up there with Facebook, who passed the 200 millionth user mark in the last few days, Twitter is only around the 9 to 10 million user mark (so there’s plenty of room for growth)… but it has definite potential for businesses, especially with “early adopter” customers.
There was a story in the papers just today talking about Twitter’s first millionaire — the race between CNN Breaking News, Ashton Kutcher and Britney Spears to reach 1,000,000 followers on Twitter. As of posting this article, their numbers are 960,506 for CNN Breaking News, 943,888 for Kutcher and 927,817 for Spears.
(Just in the 3 minutes checking their profiles, each of them gained 70 to 100 followers!). And yours truly the humble author has only 215 followers in TOTAL at the time of writing! Kutcher has gained over 24,000 followers since the story was published at 12:33pm today, less than 11 hours ago. CNN picked up over 12,000 and Britney over 13,000 new followers too).
I imagine the “winner” of the race will be declared in the next day or so, given the media interest — and I see from another Twitter user I follow (@WarrenWhitlock) that CNN is giving a prize to entice followers (update: so is Ashton Kutcher, for the millionth follower, if he outdoes CNN Breaking News).
Warren had a very nice way of putting it:
CNN offered (me) a prize for following them, but I follow you because I like your tweets.
Nice!
Interestingly, aside from the Spears twitter account which itself follows 77,547 people as of writing, the Kutcher and CNN accounts both follow less than 100 people (just six in the case of CNN and 72 for Kutcher). So their own Twitter feed of updates from followers is quite small (and would be easy to follow, unlike Britney’s, which would be overwhelmed by “noise” with so many other tweople being followed).
Email vs Twitter
Here’s four difference between email and Twitter, in Twitter’s favour:
Firstly, the size of the message — Twitter is limited to just 140 characters — it’s like just receiving messages a little bigger than an email Subject Line (even smaller than the 160 character limit on an SMS).
Secondly — and one major reason for the growth in followers on Twitter accounts — everyone on Twitter can see who follows you, and who you are following.
So, if you’re “one of the gurus” amongst your raving fans, very likely, because they want to be just like you, they’ll also follow the people you follow.
Thirdly — while people are more protective these days of their inbox, it doesn’t yet seem the case with Twitter, it’s easy for them to follow you because they’re in full control: they choose when to follow you — they choose when to unfollow you, there’s no need to rely on an “unsubscribe link” that you put in your emails. You can’t also send html like with email, so you can’t track “reads and open rates”, although you can see from spikes in traffic and referrer logs when users follow a Twitter link to go to a web page.
So that user control is a strong benefit to your followers.
Fourthly — reading Twitter messages is usually a “virus free” experience — although Twitter accounts do get hacked and like emails, links can be malicious and should be treated carefully (here’s an example of a Twitter “worm” virus at work just in the last few days).
Gaining Followers
Also, there’s a raging debate amongst Twitter users about following people just to get them to follow you back (and build your own list of followers — some people think it’s good Twitter etiquette to follow back, but not all users agree) — to the extent that some Twitter utilities let you follow masses of people in the hope of picking up some of them as your own followers (and they you stop following the ones that don’t reciprocate — and sometimes start/stop incessantly).
Personally, I like the idea of natural, organic growth in followers — you follow me because you’re interested in what I have to tweet about, not simply because you want me to follow you, and this is your way of getting my attention.
Also, some people have twitter pop-up every time one of their friends adds a tweet — it pops up like an automatic instant message or announcement of new email — but to me that’s a severe interruption of my day. I control when I view Twitter, and it’s only once or twice a day!
But wait, there’s more!
That millionaire race isn’t the main reason for this post!
Twitter For Business
So, can you really use this micro-messaging platform for business?
Yes you can.
So long as people know who you are, and your Twitter account can be business or organisation based (like CNN mentioned above), your followers may be following you to hear about business updates.
For example, here’s a few ways you could use Twitter from a business perspective:
- Make brief announcements. Run a recruitment agency? Tweet new job posts.
- Announce special offers — publish a coupon discount code just for your Twitter followers
- Announce your latest sale items, specials and pricing
- Announce events
- Survey your followers for their opinions on a topic of interest
- Get your followers to contribute their thoughts to an idea you have
- Link Twitter to your blog (I do this with this blog, via the Twitter Tools Wordpress plug-in). That way, your Twitter followers know when you’ve made a new blog post
- Share resources you find online with your Twitter followers
- Give tips and helpful hints via Twitter
- Run Twitter-based competitions that may involve followers finding the answer on your website (and getting to know more about your business)
- Praise staff or customers — publicly acknowledge them and say thanks
- It’s OK to have more than one account for different purposes or parts of your business. For example, CNN has both CNN and CNN Breaking News, amongst others.
- Some web applications make it easier for key people to contribute tweets to a single account, so it’s an improved way to keep the conversation going and increase the number of relevant announcements you can make to your audience
- Some businesses use Twitter to keep an open dialogue with their customers. It’s like a publicly trackable version of an instant message service, so it’s an open, transparent and instantaneous way for all to see the business’ responses.
So Twitter isn’t just all bubble and squeak — there’s useful information and communication you can have with a targeted audience.
And Google indexes tweets — so that gets into Google (so watch what you tweet!).
There’s also a script for the Firefox Greasemonkey add-on that puts real time Twitter tweet results on page one of your Google search results: again, making your Twitter activity more valuable to your business.
BakerTweet
On Springwise this week — my favourite brain juice for new business ideas — there was the story this week about BakerTweet, a device that allows bakeries to keep their customers informed — via Twitter — of when baked goods have just come fresh out of the oven … time to pop down to the bakery and get the freshest produce!
Bakers setup the device on their computer and establish a free Twitter account, and then just have the BakerTweet device installed in the kitchen (see the above video at BakerTweet). Baked goodies are fresh out of the oven, and the baker just twists the dial to the right message and presses a button — and all of their Twitter followers know there’s hot, fresh, bakery goodies ready for purchase.
It’s not hard to see how this push-button simple device makes it easy for a business to keep their customers informed!
Of course, business goes MUCH FURTHER on Twitter than just this example.
And it’s easy to see how such simplicity could later be linked to a service like Twitpic (a way to share photos via Twitter) to post both messages and images for customers to view.
Email Universe vs the Twitterverse
Despite Twitter’s popularity, this of course pales next to email in terms of the size of the media, usage and audience.
Twitter is approaching 10 million users (Comscore.com blog news from last week) — that’s UP around 700 per cent from a year ago and more than 10-times its numbers from when I joined in August 2007.
However, according to Pingdom, in 2008 there were 1.3 BILLION email users sending 210 BILLION email messages every DAY!
That’s 1,300,000,000 vs 10,000,000 — or 1,300 times more email users than Twitter users.
To Twitter Or Not To Twitter
I certainly wouldn’t ignore Twitter, as it has some helpful ways to get attention and traffic for your business. At the rate it is growing, it certainly is an audience worth considering.
Given of course email and other ways to communicate and build relationships, Twitter should still only be one small part of your overall strategy to get your message out to your audience.
If you haven’t already, sign up for your Twitter account!
The Mental Intensity of Golf
I love watching the big golf tournaments, and seeing the “mental game” play out on the world’s best golfers.
It proves time and time again that golf — at that level — is still 99% played mentally.
Right now I’m watching the closing holes of the 2009 US Masters at the Augusta National Golf Club (on television, not live unfortunately).
Kenny Perry played a huge few holes to end up with a brilliant tap-in birdie at the Par 3 16th. That gave him a 2 shot lead over Chad Campbell and Ángel Cabrera.
All he needed to do — assuming the other two played to par (which they do) — was to have a bogey and a par to finish one shot in the lead and win the Masters.
And they flashed up a statistic on the screen that he’d played the preceding 22 holes without a bogey.
So two more holes without a bogey… should be easy, right?
After all, he just walked off the 16th green after an incredibly good birdie. He’d be “pumped” about that.
But this is major championship golf. For many players it is “the tournament” of all tournaments. To win the coveted green jacket and be crowned Masters champion. As Gary Player says, the Green Jacket is a symbol of massive achievement.
And that intense mental pressure showed yet again how big a factor it really is, especially at the money end of the tournament.
Because Perry not only took one bogey in those last two holes — but two. For fans, it was excruciating to watch. His first two bogies in 24 holes, happened to be the last two of regular play for the 72 hole event.
An outright win was not to be.
A play-off is now underway. Campbell, Perry and Cabrera head back to the 18th tee.
Perry shows great mental courage by playing the same club as he played in regular play, which put him in the bunker. This time it puts him in a great place on the fairway. Cabrera will need a miraculous save to get out of the trees — he goes for it, but rather than finding the green, still finds the fairway, but a long way back.
Perry’s approach finishes wide of the green.
The mental pressure is at it again. As Faldo says in the commentary, that’s the first time all week that Perry has “lost the ball right” as he did.
Campbell’s turn. He finds the sand. Head down, he’s feeling the intense pressure too.
Of the leading three players in arguably one of the world’s greatest tournaments, not one could find the play-off green in regulation. It gives Cabrera a chance to stay in the tournament — his 3rd shot lands well, giving him a chance to one putt for par.
What will mental pressure do to Campbell and Perry for their third shots on this sudden death play-off hole?
Can they hold the mental pressure together to hole it?
Perry goes VERY close. He’ll make par for certain. That might be the winning shot.
Now it’s up to Campbell from the sand … he must hole it to win, or get it “up and down” to stay in the play-off. He misses, but both he and Cabrera have makeable putts to stay in it — both putts are under six feet.
But this is the Masters, and what will the mental pressure do?
Will they putt it in to stay in the play-off? What is racing through their mind? What visual and mental processes do they employ to stay on focus?
Cabrera sticks to his routine and nails the six footer. He’s still in the play-off. Campbell’s turn. This put to stay alive… … … he misses. He’s out of the play-off, it’s down to just two.
Campbell’s tournament was interesting. His first round and a half rocketed along, and then his golf stayed steady after that (his score near the end of round three was not much different than the end of round one). Not enough of a rocket boost to really break away.
So Cabrera and Perry move on to the 10th. They nail their drives. The play-off continues.
This is no better demonstration of the mental intensity of golf. From making a run of birdies to the bogies that cost Perry an outright win. The stories are tumultuous.
Whether you’re a regular club player, a weekend hacker, or one of the world’s best, it’s the mental game that makes such a difference. Sure, you need a consistent, repeatable swing to reach the top. But whatever your level, you need a strong mental game to make sure you hold up to the pressure.
I know from what I’ve learned from giants like Tony Robbins that it really is the mental game that makes the difference. I wish I had that knowledge when I used to play regular club golf and pennant through my school years. Work got in the way of golf … it’s my goal this year to be out on the fairways again more regularly (plenty of Rotary golf tournaments will help with that!) — and mentally enjoy it much more.
And the Masters play-off? The pressure gets to Perry again — his approach to the second play-off hole, the 10th, misses way left. Cabrera hits the putting surface. He’s on in two. Perry’s chip stays on the green, but several metres past where he’d like it. His turn to putt, for par. A miss will give the Argentinian Cabrera two easier puts to win.
Perry misses. Cabrera’s turn. It’s interesting to look back on the first play-off hole, from the trees, when Cabrera struck a tree and ended up on the fairway, a long way from the green, he didn’t look dismayed. He was wide eyed and alert. His mental game was fine tuned and focused enough to see him still make a par from adverse circumstances.
Cabrera comfortably two putts, and wins the tournament. The first Masters winner from Argentina (erasing Argentinian world golfing champion Roberto DeVicenzo’s misfortune from 1968). Not the crowd’s favourite like Americans Perry or Campbell, but he deservedly gets a rousing ovation. The Green Jacket is now his, adding to his first major win at the 2007 US Open (20 seconds later, the win is already part of his bio entry on Wikipedia!).
Winning here comes from holding your nerve to simply make par. No explosive birdies or eagles, just par. Golf played in regulation format, against all of the mental pressure going on around you.
Perry’s television interview — he admits he was nervous, and said he had a lot of fun … but he admits too it was his tournament to win, and his golf wasn’t in control after the 16th when he walked off the green “juiced”. Impressively, he shows his true character by graciously congratulating Cabrera on his win — Perry is a wonderful ambassador for golf.
That’s the mental game on a world stage. Golf might look to some people like watching grass grow, but when this kind of mental pressure comes into play, it’s incredible to watch.
PS: What’s a marketer/copywriter talking about golf for? If there’s a marketing lesson here — it’s the ability of a golf tournament to get the attention of the sporting world — how it stands apart from its competitors (both other golf tournaments and other sporting and leisure activities). But what’s most evident, with my marketing “hat” on, is the stories that capture the imagination of the target audience… the emotions of golf, the trials and tribulations, the roller-coaster mental ride each player lives through on our screens. For me, it’s watching with much interest how golfers tackle the intense, mental pressure — now that’s exciting.
Weekly Twitter Tweets at 2009-04-12
- WTF? Setting up new Toshiba laptop, Vista Business “may take a few minutes” … 1 hour so far … painfully SLOW … is this 1960s or 2000s? #
- I just shared my best swiping strategy… I sign up for events using a 2nd email, so I get messages for both responders and non-responders #
- Back from visiting Brunswick Probus club — offering Brunswick Rotary’s support for the club’s plans, nice to meet the Brunswick Probians! #
- Watching @tonyrobbins tweet about Namale — what a wonderful place that was to visit back in 2002 … hmmmm exquisite!! #
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Gotta Be Believable
Sleepily for me, it’s nearly 3am. I was watching a late movie last night, and dozed off near the end … snoozing soundly on our lounge room couch, until our beloved cat suddenly woke me 15 minutes ago (yes, he wanted his “staff” to attend to his needs) asking for a refill of his now empty bowl.
Before I turned off the tv, I couldn’t help but have a quick look at the guide and notice the overnight infomercials. And without surprise, sure enough there was one for a product I hadn’t yet seen.
This one was for a garden trimmer (the Total Trimmer).
Typical format for a US informercial, although this time they’ve got an Aussie voiceover for selling to the local market. That’s good, except he still read out “gas” instead of “petrol” — but at least it was a “local” voice.
Alternatives
And the presentation of alternative options in black and white, instead of colour, wasn’t surprising either. It’s a way of visually saying “those old style methods” that are no longer the best option (using black and white attempts to signify they’re less appealing as well as dated).
It was kinda frustrating to watch though — because the presentation to me didn’t look believable.
Having helped my dad for several years during high school when he had a lawn mowing business, garden trimmers are something I’m a little familiar with (don’t have one now, but used one plenty of times, even as a teenager).
Now, you should find all the “frustrations” of alternative methods and use them.
But showing someone trying to put gas/petrol into a trimmer from more than ten inches away — and no funnel in sight — that’s just plain ridiculous. People use FUNNELS and it’s EASY. Real people also don’t simply splash gas/petrol all over the place like the rather pathetic and dangerous depiction in the ad.
Do they think I’m an idiot?
Would you do that with pouring milk into your cereal bowl?
Would you hold it a couple of feet away and slightly tip the upright bottle so the milk runs all over the bottle and onto the bench, rather than tipping it “the normal way” so the milk goes into the bowl?
No? You wouldn’t splash it everywhere? Here they expect you do that with petrol.
I’m not sure about you, but an inexpensive plastic funnel for a couple of bucks would solve that problem for me.
Scores a negative for me because I don’t think the depiction of an alternative method is credible.
Here I am, watching the ad, and instantly arguing and solving the objections myself — this is not the thinking you want your prospect to be doing!
Also — seeing a petrol trimmer in action — with heavy duty nylon cutting cord coming out of the head of the trimmer, it’s a far superior result than this plastic looking device.
And on this one, they stop, and have to manually adjust the angle of the head to change the trimmer’s ability to trim areas like lawn edges.
On our trimmer, we just flipped it over in no time at all and kept going, with the fast trimming action now on a different angle and no need to stop and press any buttons or adjust the head of the machine!
So this advertised machine’s limited looking ability scored a negative for me too (knowing how alternative options really work).
No side-by-side comparison, no testimonials in sight either!
Presenting Price
What got me though was the price presentation.
They had a big “$300″ crossed out on the screen for what you wouldn’t pay for some other “old fashioned” gas/petrol trimmer (with a far superior result in my eyes).
Yet the price for this flimsy-looking, lightweight plastic thing was $279.70 (5 payments plus postage handling and insurance) … hardly much different at all (less than 7 per cent).
I’ve only gotta look in the online Bunnings catalogue and they have an electric hedge trimmer for $49.90 and an electric line trimmer for $59 — $108.90 is far LESS anyway than $279.90 for this trimmer with the hedge attachment. Even the cordless Bosch model at Bunnings is only $199. $23.90 for a 25m extension lead (pretty damn easy to roll that up without the tangle they’re showing me), and $12.98 for garden shears, and to me I’ve got the same setup, and probably more effective equipment, at just over HALF price.
Plenty left over for a $15.90 extension cord reel… less than $162 (plus a trip to the store, always fun, and instant purchase) versus $279.90.
It’s scary to think what the other useless optional attachments are worth.
More Potential Objections
One black and white picture shows a tangle of cords in the garage. I can easily “solve” their problem of having to use a cord with a long extension lead by rolling it up around my elbow, or on a reel, like used with a hose — problem solved. Now if they had showed a cord trailing across the lawn, and someone potentially tripping over it — that’s a different problem that really could be a useful objection against alternative choices … but I didn’t see that raised at all!
Now, this thing might not be flimsy in real life, but it sure looked that way to me. To me it looked painfully slow and ineffective. The head hardly made an impact on the lawn edge or the hedges.
And who uses a trimmer to cut their entire lawn? No way!
This thing looked to me like it’d lose a fight against 3 tough blades of grass — not much more power than a kids toy.
There wasn’t real grass flying everywhere, the nylon line would do a much better job! And the nylon line comes in several strengths, there are heavy duty lines (much better than the cheap stuff — look around and find the decent stuff) that spin fast and get the job done.
So this is another objection that hasn’t been raised and addressed — other than them saying it’s lightweight, which is good for some people.
Their demo around the fountain? They were also claiming it’s less straining, but then they’re leaning over on one foot to try and just cut down a few blades of grass — want too much effort for little result.
Around the garden gnomes? Again, the machine looked slow and ineffective, taking more effort than it should for that kind of trimming.
And being battery operated might be a good thing — although it’s only got UP TO a 60 minute charge, and the demo didn’t show the trimmer as having much ability to effectively do the job, so that time is probably eaten up long before your job is finished and you’ll be stuck waiting for a recharge before going back out to get things done.
Again, an objective not addressed … so they leave the viewer to decide on the answer — something you should not do in your own copy.
Find all the objections you can — raise them and answer them! The more the better. Be thorough. Be realistic and believable and have a credible argument. Don’t hide anything … if a prospect thinks about it, and you haven’t addressed it, THEY get to come up with the answer, and it probably misses points you’d want to include.
Doing this shows you really know your product — so you’re the expert and perceived with more trust and value — and you can be more persuasive because you get to influence the answer to the objection, rather than letting prospects think up their own answer. It also avoids insulting the intelligence of your prospective audience by showing alternative scenarios that don’t look at all realistic.
In regard to this garden trimmer, to me (one of those who don’t think the presentation is realistic), it’s fair to say that now I don’t believe you about this … I’m most likely to also start thinking that what else you say also might not be believable.
At that point, you’ve lost me as a prospect because I’m not convinced at all about your presentation.
To me, you ain’t fair dinkum.
Now I’m probably in the minority — I MUST BE, as this ad is running in its current form and probably worked very successfully in the US market before it was imported here — so I’m probably not your ideal prospect anyway … in that case, your ad is doing a good job, even if I don’t believe it.
This is my opinion of course — you’ll have to watch the ad for your own assessment.
And personally I can think of several ways to improve this ad to be more influential (although like I said they probably aren’t looking to address a potential prospect like me). There are several credibility tools and copy arguments that could be used here that I think are missing.
In any marketing … being believable … for trust and credibility … that is ESSENTIAL.
People are skeptical, and getting even more so as time goes on, so if you fail to address these issues in your marketing, you’re “leaving money on the table” and not being as convincing as you can be.
(Now the NEXT informercial that’s now showing, about the Contoured Cloud sleeping mattress — they’re doing a more convincing job than the trimmer!).
Okay, time for me to get some sleep!