Paul Chaney

Twitter a business tool...count on it!

I just returned from 140 | The Twitter Conference, held in Mountain View, CA, last week. BTW, despite indications to the contrary, it was the first Twitter for business conference. (Not exactly the same focus as TWTRCON, but business-centric nonetheless.)

The main takeaway for me is that Twitter IS a tool businesses should and will be using. There are ample case studies all along the continuum, from small businesses such as Naked Pizza, a New Orleans pizzaria that gained notice in local and national press, to enterprise-level companies such as Dell. 

If you had any doubt, allow me to reference a recent MarketingProfs poll which reported that "more than eight in 10 Twitter users, most of whom represent small businesses, expect their company's use of the popular microblogging tool to increase in the next six months."

One indication of Twitter's coming predominance as a marketing tool are the number of conferences about it, which now number as many as six. This leaves me to wonder why Facebook conferences aren't following suit. I mean, its value as a marketing tool is being proven even as we speak. 

You have to hand it to Twitter founders Biz Stone and Evan Williams. Whether they envisioned the app taking on such major importance as a marketing tool or not, I don't know. Considering their previous success with Blogger though, I'd have to say "once you're lucky, twice you're good." 

140 | The Twitter Conference... I'm going

In 2005, I had the opportunity to sponsor the country's first conference on business blogging, Blog Business Summit. The conference organizer was Steve Broback, CEO, of Parnassus Group. It was a ground-breaking event.

Tomorrow, I'm heading to Mountain View, CA for 140 | The Twitter Conference, which is, arguably, the first Twitter for business conference. I'm expecting it to be equally ground-breaking.

If you're going, let's hook up.

Oh, and if anyone would like it, I'm giving my Twitter for business ebook for free.

Roll your own micro-blogging with shout 'em

Luxury lifestyle blog Luxist is reporting on a "virtual smoking section" making mention of two sites, Social Cigar and Cigarshout. 

Now, I've been known to puff on a good CAO and Rocky Patel every now and again, but the emphasis on online cigar afficionado social communities is not what really caught my attention or why I'm posting this.

It's the fact that Cigarshout is using a, shall we say, "roll your own" micro-blogging platform call shout 'em. It functions very much like Twitter, but offers a number of features that Twitter doesn't. 

When I got to looking around, I found out that there is a plethora of these things, all with equally cute names: Twingr, buzzable and yonkly, to name a few. Add to that business-oriented micro-blogging platforms like Yammer, Present.ly and wiggio and you've got yourself quite a cottage industry growing here. (UPDATE: Let me add SocialText Social Messaging to the list as well.) 

Of course, this is nothing new. Every new, popular form of social media software has had its imitators. Think Digg and there's Pligg; Facebook and MySpace spawned Ning; If you go back far enough, you might remember custom search engines like Rollyo and swicki. 

None of this is a bad thing. It's all part of the evolution of what we've come to know as the social web. It's also a way of making things more palatable. I mean, try following only a certain category of people in Twitter and you see what I mean. Same with Facebook. 

Better than that, it's a way to "set a table of your own" and invite those who are interested in your brand, products, services or industry to join as participants in creating niche communities. I do try and follow this space very closely, but these caught me by surprise a little bit. (I've got to do a better job of staying on top of TechCrunch and Mashable!) 

Regardless, I'd be interested to know your opinion. Have you had experience with any of the above? If so, enlighten us, please.

Interview with Shashi Bellamkonda regarding Network Solutions' response to GoDaddy ad debacle

I had the opportunity to do a quick phone chat with Shashi Bellamkonda, Network Solutions' "Swami of Social Media," earlier today to get his reactions to the GoDaddy Superbowl 2009 ad debaucle. 

My intent was not to sensationalize or stir up controversy, but to try and view this issue through Shashi's eyes as well as to see what lessons could be learned and best practices gleaned. 

To give you some background, GoDaddy rolled out their usual tasteless, cheap, tawdry, tittilating, sexist, demeaning to women, <insert adjective of your choosing> ads, which featured Indycar driver Danica Patrick and other females showing off certain parts of their anatomy. (BTW, Patrick is an Indycar driver, not NASCAR driver.) A few years ago, it had shock value... you know, the first time they tried it... but, now, not so much.  

In fact, what it did was unleash a groundswell of negative sentiment within the social media sphere, namely Twitter. (Mack Collier did a pithy synopsis that I think best sums up the prevailing attitude, so I'd ask you to visit his post to learn more.)

Seeing Shashi on Twitter, I and a number of others (Connie Reece, KD Paine and Scott Monty to name a few) suggested he offer some type of discount to encourage people to transfer their domain to NetSol. Apparently, lots of people are taking him up on the offer too. 

To be clear, Shashi didn't "opportunize" this of his own accord. He responded to requests and suggestions being made by others he knew and respected. Not saying there's anything wrong with seizing an opportunity, mind you, which is why I suggested he do so. 

In response Shashi created a special offer for anyone wanting to transfer. 

Then, he waited and watched to see if the groundswell would respond in his favor, and it did. The post got retweeted numerous times (see Twitter search results on code here). Shashi's hope was that, rather than him tweeting about it, others would do so on his behalf and that hope seemed to be realized. 

Not only that, mentions of Network Solutions, which average between 6,000 - 7,000 per month normally, went up 10 fold, according to Shashi. 

Now, if you're a small business, you can pretty much do these types of things at a moment's notice. Not so if you're Network Solutions. 

Shashi had to alert his customer support and call center staff as to what was going on. Imagine the left hand not knowing what the right hand was doing? Happens all too often in online vs. offline world. Shashi made sure that base was covered. 

There's something else he did that I appreciate. He didn't trash the competition just to drive traffic to his offer. Nor did he need to. This is a situation where a measured response was all that was called for. "Discretion is the better part of valor," as they say and Shashi certainly displayed that characteristic. If that is also the character of Network Solutions, I applaud them. 

It is too early to determine if there will be any discernable positive ROI for NetSol, or the adverse for GoDaddy. In tracking Twitter mentions of the two, GoDaddy is receiving tons more. However, most of those are of a negative tone and the conversation is beginning to morph over into GoDaddy's alledgedly poor customer service.  

If you think all this is overblown, I would remind you of what happened a few years with a small bicycle lock company called Kryptonite. (See Google search for background if you're unfamiliar with the story. It still lives to haunt them to this day.) Also, consider the Motrin Moms controversy as another case in point. 

If you think the same thing can't happen again, you're mistaken. It can and in spades. 

The saddest thing of all is that GoDaddy has at least one staff person assigned to monitor Twitter, GoDaddyGuy, who, at the time of this writing, had yet to respond to any of the commentary.  I think that's inexcusable! One thing is for certain, Twitter users are bombarding him with their opinions. 

I suspect there is much more to come before this issue becomes yesterday's news. Perhaps it is the controversy du jour, but I believe there are lessons that can be learned that having bearing on how companies do business in the era of the social web. 

Twitter business model to present at OMMA Social

Today is the big day when I and three other hand-picked contestants present our Twitter business plan ideas at OMMA Social. As a refresher, here's mine: Twitter should offer a premium version for biz use, similar to Yammer. Create private networks. Charge based on # of users.

I've given this idea more thought, obviously, and fleshed out additional details. (If you recall, Cathy wanted these in 140 characters or less.) This is what I've come up with.

TWITTER BUSINESS MODEL

Twitter should offer a premium version of the platform similar to Yammer, but with a twist -- Twitter sells the service as an OEM solution. They license part of the application for use by third-parties like Tweetdeck and Twhirl as well as enterprise users. These third-parties resell the service to businesses and organizations based on either a per-user fee (per "seat" license), message volume or combination of both. 

The essential ingredient is the ability to create private groups (an intranet) in which members can message others individually or the group as a whole. There would also be the ability to create sub-groups within groups (Departments, project teams, etc). 

Why this model? 

A premium services model offers several unique advantages to others, advertising and usage fee models in particular.

Advertising

An ad-based model is fraught with problems. First of all, it's, well, advertising. We all know ads have not bode well in social media. Click-through rates are low, CPM rates are declining and ads are interruptive. Our love affair with them ended long ago. 

Usage fees

Charging users a fee is an equally bad idea. Twitter has been around for almost three years and has always been free. While hard-core users like me would be willing to pay a fee, I think a lot of people would be pissed off and defect to apps like Plurk. Certainly, it would dissuade casual users from becoming more active and will slow the growth/adoption of the application. 

Why offer it as OEM?

The problem with Twitter creating something they offer directly to consumers is that no one uses Twitter's interface. (Not anyone who's been using the service for any length of time.) 

Keep in mind, part of the problem faced by services such as Yammer is that they run independently of Twitter. Another profile/login is required and another interface is necessary. 

The genius an OEM solution provides is that the premium functionality is built right into the client interface. Tweetdeck, for example, would be perfect for such an integration. 

The other part of the "secret sauce" is that the wealth is shared (President Obama would approve.) Twitter wins by providing an OEM solution, service providers win by being able to monetize their offerings, and users win because they don't have to deal with ads or pesky usage fees.  

So, that's what I came up with during the several hours on the plane from New Orleans to San Francisco. I'm sure there are other things relative to this model I"ve not considered. If so, please feel free to offer your suggestions. But, do so before 4:00 pm pacific time, because that's when the panel ensues.

If I were a _________, I'd use Twitter to... series

Years ago I remember The Blog Studio's creative director Peter Flaschner doing a series on how people in different industries could use blogs. (I attempted to find the series but was unsuccessful in my attempt.)

I thought it was a good idea then, and, now, considering that Twitter is the next form of blogging, I'm starting a similar series called "If I were a _______________, I'd use Twitter to..."

However, instead of coming up with my own ideas, I'd rather crowdsource the whole thing.

My first attempt at this is, "If I were a restaurant, I'd use Twitter to..." If you'd like to answer that, please do so via Twitter. If you're not following me, I'm @pchaney.

To answer the question of why I'm doing this, one word: Book.

Pretty much everything I'm doing these days social medially speaking has to do with my book on social media marketing that's coming out in the fall of 09. However, I may also print the replies to this series in an ebook along with a credit to each of the contributors (or screen shot of your tweet). So, please, do reply.

"If I were a restaurant, I'd use Twitter too..."

Twitter automation, a terrible trend

A trend I'm seeing develop on Twitter is the use of automation for such things as auto-follows, auto-responses (which often include a pitch...visit my blog at www...) and scheduled tweets.

I think this is a terrible trend that should be avoided at all costs.

To me, Twitter is the most personal and conversational of all social media applications, at least those with which I am familiar. To turn it into a "machine" flies in the face of that.

I realize that many are using automation apps like TweetLater with the best of intentions. It's a way to make sure you don't overlook any new followers and/or as a means of scheduling retweets of important or timely announcements.

It's time-saving and efficient. And perhaps that's the main things wrong with it...it de-personalizes the interactions.

Are blog comments a dying art?

I'm a member of the LinkedIn Bloggers group where this question was recently asked, "What do you think? Is commenting (on blogs) a dying art?" The blogger referenced this post by a fellow member.

I responded by suggesting the real issue, and one us long-time bloggers may have trouble adjusting to, is the fact that there are now so many other places to comment than a few years ago. For example, I had a Twitter exchange with someone yesterday who read my latest post. He made several comments, none of which ended up on my blog.