The Truman Show 2009: Twitter.
Are you a twit for tweeting?
The Truman Show is a 1998 science fiction comedy-drama which chronicles the life of a man who discovers he’s living in a constructed reality soap opera, televised 24/7 to billions across the globe. All of the people present in the town are actors or film crew except protagonist Truman Burbank. Central characters simulate friendship or familial relations to Truman. His life is one long, boring, live TV show.
Twitter is a reality microblog founded in 2006 where anyone who can promote anything or chronicle their own lives by typing in their text and links, up to 140 characters. Think of it as texting for adults. Twitter describes itself as a “service for friends, family, and co-workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?”
A tweet is one of these tiny microblog posts.
And a twit is a silly, annoying person, or a fool.
For those of you who haven’t seen Twitter, the following are actual posts from users. Carefully read from bottom to top (oldest to newest) the significant information they send out (and that you’d receive if you are “following” them):
The people who “follow” you get your tiny updates along with all the others from people they follow. These updates appear on your Twitter homepage and, depending on how many updates are coming in, might stay there for as little as a second. It’s like an investment market ticker showing every single transaction worldwide in real-time for stocks, bonds, gold, foreign currency, pork bellies, and squawking super chickens.
Can social media work in marketing? You can see that very few people are going to read your 140-character post, and fewer are going to click through (the rule of thumb is: 2% maximum will click on the link you put in a tweet, or Twitter post).
Has it worked in creating actual money in the bank (besides the $92 million in venture capital raised by the Twitter company founders)?
Possibly. Here are results of successful monetization of social media:
- $60,000+ in about 7 months
- $250,000 in about three weeks
- $10,000+ in 12 hours
During the California gold rushes in the mid-1800s, a few individual miners found the mother lode via gold; most went broke following that vein. But the real money was discovered by suppliers and servicers of everything from pickaxes and shovels and rugged mining clothes (Levi’s jeans) and food and boarding houses to entertainment (including the ever-present very discreet personal services for lonely guys far from home).
In the 2008-09 Twitter gold rush, I’m seeing lots of suppliers, such as those who’ve built programs to help you use Twitter more powerfully, along with the ever-present “make money online” affiliates promoting “how to automatically add 30,000 Twitter followers in 30 days. Only $29.99. Learn more now.”
And in a quick experiment for a friend who manufactures lighting fixtures, I “accidentally” generated two hot leads immediately from retailers who had never seen the company’s products and now want to carry her line. (We’ll see if they order, sell out, and reorder.)
Like anything, it can work. And used intelligently with your other efforts, it can help. But most people are using the evolutionary strategy of fish: lay thousands of eggs with the hope that a few make it.
So what about you? Are you on Twitter? What do you think about it? Have you generated money from it? If so, please share the results. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this … good or bad. Add your opinions, questions, requests, and comments below now:
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{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Brilliant parallel with “the Truman Show.” Nice catch! Just like “lipstick girl” from the Progressive Insurance ads. That’s exactly what we remember.
I have been avoiding most all social media suckholes like My Narcissistic Space, or I, Me, My Facebook, or Twit Litter, and trying to use the more work-oriented sites like LinkedIn. At least there you can ask an intelligent question, and get some interesting answers from other professionals.
The massive Narcissistic Movement in the U.S. right now is almost oppressive, and the number of people who believe anyone would or should care if you prefer butter to margarine blows my mind. There’s got to be something more important to do!!??
I can’t imagine wasting my life either reading about someone else clipping their toenails, or telling the world about me clipping mine. God save us from “Who Loves Flava Flav’s money and wants to %$#@ Brett Michaels,” Twitter, and a general avoidance of actual substance.
Can we get back to fixing the economy, growing our businesses, and evolving?
Yes, well, hello to Ripper Marketing and to you too Ian,
I agree that there must be something more important going on in one’s daily life than sharing insignificant details. What am I up to? While researching ways to jump-start our non profit focused on sustainable agriculture, canoe culture and building community I came accross Ripper Marketing. Further investigative work revealed this page. I felt compelled to respond to Ian’s intelligent comment on a correlary example of networking using brainless consumption of dialogue intended to give meaning to an otherwise dull existance promoting an even more meaningless future. The jewel here? Find passion for life in Twitter and you may have something. In the mean time, let’s begin our own grass-roots movement and find a way to make peace profitable. Tweet that and raise the awareness folks. Thank you very much.
Bob Bogle
Ama, Project Coordinator
Sustainable Agriculture
and Community Building
dragonseyelearning.org
Bob,
Thanks for your comment.
You mention:
“. . . to give meaning to an otherwise dull existence promoting an even more meaningless future. . . . In the mean time, let’s begin our own grass-roots movement and find a way to make peace profitable.”
In the coming months, I have something I will share with everyone that I think will excite you and everyone else: using sacredness in marketing as a leader in order to unite people in a holy cause greater than themselves. The result: followers gain “meaning to an otherwise dull existence.”
It’s based on Mass Persuasion — which I’m starting to share with folks now — but goes far beyond it.
Hi Bill.
This topic interests me. I have a Twitter account that I haven’t used yet. Interestingly enough, I have a handful of followers even though I don’t tweet (I estimate less than 20 followers). I also have a Facebook account and Linkedin account which I use primarily on a social basis.
I have, however, given thought to posting tweets to help me business wise (selling auto insurance). My idea is to post a tweet every time I sell an auto policy. For example, I would tweet “just saved someone $300 (18%) on their car insurance.” Hopefully, this would both increase the number of potential prospects and gain more followers.
At this point, it’s just a thought. Your thoughts?
Reid I Fukumoto, CPCU, LUTCF
Sales Representative
Liberty Mutual Insurance
Reid:
It’s a great thought, and one to build on.
With Twitter, you (and anyone else) has two things to consider:
Who do I have follow me?
(One aspect of Twitter is that many people automatically follow those who follow them. This is good.)
Reid, since you’re in Hawaii serving only the Hawaii insurance market, that’s who you want.
STEP 1A: Find them:
Using the following tool, I found about 1350 Twitter accounts in the Hawaii time zone:
http://twittercounter.com — helps you quickly see your following grow (last week, last months, last 3 months)
Search tab: enter hawaii in the search box
Run other searches, such as Honolulu and other cities to find other Hawaii Twitterers.
STEP 1B: Follow them:
Click the FOLLOW button below their picture.
(Since you can follow 2000 people regardless of how many are following you, and since you have only 1350 people identified as being in the Hawaii time zone, you won’t have a problem.)
For you folks in local areas with tons of Twitterers, you’ll need to narrow it down a bit. Two quick tactics:
Tweet and keep in contact (and send them somewhere):
Like any communication, you can think about it in a handful of ways:
PUSH:
You can tweet blindly and push messages onto people. Depending on what you say, the real message they get may be simply you’re pushing product.
PULL:
Instead of “Sale Ends Soon click this link,” push messages, you can offer enticing bits that arouse curiosity and pull people into wanting to click that link:
In 2009 alone, folks like you and me lost $45,000 EACH due to this preventable insurance disaster. You at risk? http://bit.ly.bogus.link
Yep — this takes some forethought and imagination to write your 140-character posts.
If you send folks to a mix of pages — information only and products to buy — you’ll offer more value than if you merely entice them to link but send them to “buy this now” web pages.
RIDE:
You can keep on top of what topics are being tweeted geographically with this tool:
http://www.trendsmap.com
For example, if a hurricane is headline news for days or weeks, you can ride this by tweeting insurance-related promos. Or in anticipating the rainy season by months, you can start tweeting about flood insurance, prevention, and maps to 100-year-old flood plains.
Those are some brief thoughts to get you started.
Hope they help a bit,
Bill