You learn a lot from the savvy traveler who has to fly coach.  Of course they all carry on; and they’ve learned to stand as close to the miserable airline representative collecting boarding passes as is socially acceptable.  This way they are positioned to sail forth with alacrity onto the jetway when their row is called. 

This is critical because it guarantees a prized overhead luggage spot  - you’re two steps ahead of the vacation travelers bearing overfilled diaper bags and scary-looking back packs with metal paraphernalia hanging off the sides.  Fail to position yourself at the gate, and you go straight to on-board luggage check .  Which of course means arrival purgatory.

This is a classic example of thinking through your strategy and executing flawlessly.  Good practice for business.  Execute well and someday you’ll be enjoying that scotch in a real glass in the first-class seats.  It’s precisely what you need to do today if you’re thinking about using social media and social networking to market your business. Today you can get onto the “jetway” very quickly through all the new channels but to win the prized spot you have to be there with a powerful message.            

The  myriad of new media channels for communicating with customers - is the equivalent of marketing on a “coach” budget - it’s cheap and easy to fly.  However, you’re not going to secure your spot unless you get your customers’ attention.  Setting up a Twitter account is easy; it’s what you say that’s hard.  Blogging is a matter of setting up Word Press.  The hard part is what to write about.  

One of my summer reads has been David Meerman Scott’s best-seller, The New Rules of Marketing and PR, second edition.  Meerman’s book sites how savvy organizations are blowing by competitors with smart use of cyber-marketing.  No longer tethered to the money-pit of traditional advertising, they are publishing cool stuff and their customers are finding them on blogs, Twitter, Facebook, You Tube and through direct news releases (which don’t go to the press, but to customers, online publications, etc, avoiding the “middle guy”).  With all that viral buzz they’re generating on a small “coach budget” they can probably afford to buy their own corporate jets.  

But just like maneuvering onto the plane, execution is everything.  The message must be right.  It can’t be self-serving.  It can’t be about you.  It has to be about your customer.  If you think like a “publisher” as Meerman suggests, as a “purveyor of information,” you write articles, blogs, white papers, e- books, webinars that are of real value to the people who might buy your product or service.  Good social marketing gets your customer thinking about you as a problem solver, not a pusher.  

We just completed a project helping one of our clients start a library of  customer “stories” - to use in their sales presentations.  To be sure, these will be a powerful new tool in getting a real conversation going with customers.  What’s great is that if they wish, this client could easily repurpose the stories in a social media strategy.  They could turn them into white papers, articles for online publications (third party endorsement), or on their own web site.  Taken a step further, their CEO or SVP of sales could record a video and post it on You Tube.  Or they could write about it in the company blog.  

The point is that stories like the ones we developed have multiple purposes in cyber marketing.  On a coach budget, you can get great results.  Just remember to tell a story.  Give your customers a real-life example of how you can help them.  You don’t need a “first class” marketing budget to look “first class” all the way.  A good customer story will get people to pay attention, faster than you can say “tweet.”  

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I twitter, therefore, I twitter.  

You can now follow me on twitter:  http://twitter.com/CEOCoachBates 

It was simply impossible not to.  Why?

It’s not because I’m a techy.  It’s not because I aspire to have 1,009,023 followers (yet).   It’s not even because I’ve been hounded at several conferences lately (PRSA, NSA) where people are atwitter about twitter.  “You’re kidding; you don’t have a twitter account yet?” “We have GOT to get you TWEETING!”

No it’s for none of the reasons above.  It’s very simple.  Twitter is cool.  Really.  In fact so cool that right now I’m in danger of getting sucked into a twitter vortex.  It’s so immediate.  It’s right now.  And not everybody is talking about what they’re having for lunch.  There are some interesting conversations going on out there.  

Now, should you Twitter?

If you’re an entrepreneur, author, business owner, expert or consultant it’s an absolute no-brainer.  Not just because you can promote your own stuff… but because you will get into the flow of the conversation in your topic area.  You get insights about the people you follow that you simply can’t glean even from their blogs. 

What about business?  Does twitter have a legitimate use in the corporate world?  Well, we can see that more and more people are plugged in - and in today’s social marketing world - you want to plug in where the people are.  Similar to blogging, it’s a way to get your views out there and also manage the conversation (and reputation) of your company.  

There’s no question that people are jumping on board.

According to Sysomos Inc, over the past few months, Twitter has experienced explosive growth, attracting celebrity users and a growing mountain of media and blog coverage. 

Social media analytics company Sysomos Inc. conducted an extensive study to document Twitter’s growth and how people are using it. After analyzing information disclosed on 11.5 million Twitters accounts, they say they discovered that:

• 72.5% of all users joining during the first five months of 2009.
• 85.3% of all Twitter users post less than one update/day
• 21% of users have never posted a Tweet
• 93.6% of users have less than 100 followers, while 92.4% follow less than 100 people.
• 5% of Twitter users account for 75% of all activity
• New York has the most Twitters users, followed by Los Angeles, Toronto, San Francisco and Boston; while Detroit was the fast-growing city over the first five months of 2009
• More than 50% of all updates are published using tools, mobile and Web-based, other than Twitter.com. TweetDeck is the most popular non-Twitter.com tool with 19.7% market share.
• There are more women on Twitter (53%) than men (47%)
• Of the people who identify themselves as marketers, 15% follow more than 2,000 people. This compares with 0.29% of overall Twitter users who follow more than 2,000 people.

“We wanted to take an extensive snapshot of Twitter that goes far beyond anything done to document Twitter’s use, growth and demographics,” said Nick Koudas, Sysomos’ co-founder and chief executive. “While Twitter’s growth has been well documented, we wanted to put the spotlight on how people use Twitter, as well as identify many of the key trends in their backgrounds, demographics and activity. Our study, based on the most comprehensive dataset of Twitter users, provides a wealth of information for anyone interested in getting in-depth details about Twitter.”

What impact will Twitter have on advertising and marketing?  In a July Harris poll, 45 percent of advertisers believe Twitter is still in its infancy and will grow exponentially in the next few years.  It isn’t there yet; only 12% of consumers agree.  69% don’t know enough about it yet.

Look, I don’t really know what’s happening either.  But I’m going to find out.  I’m going to get into the groove.  All I can tell you is that…it’s pretty darn fun.

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