My First TweetUp... Where Social Media Gets Social

If you are a big tweeter on Twitter then you know what a TweetUp is, I guess.


I tweet.  I have a bunch of people I do not know following me.  Those whom I follow write some funny stuff, some football talk and a lot of marketing and arts talk.  Me?  I have been using it to try to find a job.  I post stuff that I hope makes people believe I know what I am talking about when it comes to marketing. They call it thought leadership.

It was in that same spirit that I attended last night's TweetUp at The Lime in Tampa.  I was hunting for a lead on a job.

The TweetUp was basically a happy hour organized for the Tampa Bay Twitterverse.  I assumed there would be well-connected social media mavens who could help in my job search.  Networking...  Pass out some cards. Maybe they would pass them on at the office the next day. In fact I heard about this TweetUp from the CEO of a company for which I'd love to work.  His company was one of three who were sponsoring it.  He told me his marketing people would be there and maybe I could connect with them.

I also assumed that I would be the only person there over 40, and to be honest, I thought even that was being optimistic.

I arrived a little early and for the first 15 minutes the crowd consisted of me and several young women who were, gratefully, very social and made me feel comfortable, even the two who were sitting at the bar, furiously tweeting on their phones while asking me about me.   "Why aren't you tweeting?"  "What kind of phone do you have?"

The crowd grew over the next hour and I noticed that there were actually several of us who were over 40.

The surprise of the night came when the CEO who had urged me to attend, arrived himself.  It was great.  I was able to introduce myself to him.  We spoke for a while and got along well.  I handed him a card, thanked him for his time, and continued to mingle. Over the course of the next hour I saw everyone else who was over 40 take turns cornering him. The poor guy probably left with a pocket full of business cards from middle-aged job seekers.

All in all, though, it was a nice time.  People were all exchanging Twitter handles.  The beer was cold.  I made a terrific contact with a great company.  There was some interesting conversation about social media.  I learned some things.  And the beer was cold.

Will I go to another TweetUp?  It probable depends upon who is sponsoring it because that gives you an idea of who you might meet.  And if you think about it, that attitude ties right in with what social media marketing is really all about. 

Think about it this way:  Consider all of those people who follow me on Twitter who I don't know.  I follow them back, most of them, because that's what is expected.  That's how you expand your number of followers.  As a result I receive hundreds of tweets each day.  I "mingle" through those tweets the same way you would mingle through a crowd at a cocktail party, looking for one or two or three contacts that might really be beneficial to me.  Truthfully, if I didn't think that those few "beneficial" tweets would show up each day, I probably wouldn't wade through all the rest.

The same is true if your company is active on Twitter.  You are casting a wide net out there that brings in a slew of followers but you know that only small percentage of those you attract are going to do business with you.  If you were not confident that you would reach that small percentage by sending out a tweet, you probably wouldn't worry about Twitter.  But it works.  And that is why you continue to try to build up your Twitter following, to increase the size of that small percentage.

Brands Must Still Think Like People

Today I'll let someone else do the writing for me.  I have provided a link at the end of this post to an article about how important some very human traits are to marketing, particularly as marketing gets more and more technical. 

Let's face it, today's marketing director has to know his CPM's from his CPC's from his CTR's.  He/she has to know how to manage a complex CRM program.  She/he has to keep an eye on what's new in traditional media, and internet marketing, and mobile marketing, and social media marketing that really can span all the different media.  And that stuff is changing every day. 

I wrote a couple of weeks ago about how I felt that honesty is an important marketing strategy.  This article takes that point much further.  Brands must still think like people, even as their marketing becomes more technical and automated.  It's good advice.  I hope you read it. 

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=159397#

Just Watch a Teenager

Yesterday's posting about You Tube was all about media usage.  If you make your living marketing to consumers, this is something you need to be constantly studying.  How is media consumed today?  How will that change tomorrow? 

And if you are curious as to how tomorrow's consumer will take his media, simply watch a teenager today.

My son is 20 years old.  He's a consumer.  My bank account can assure you of that.  

And he's a consumer of media, the likes of which needs to be seen to be believed... and understood.

He knows who the latest, hottest bands are, but he prefers the lesser-known, more artist acts.  He listens to new, cutting edge music yet he never listens to the radio, probably can't recall a single local station, and never visits a music store.  His mp3 player is over-flowing.

He has some television shows that he never misses.  But he rarely watches them on a television set or at the time that they are broadcast.  He never picks up a newspaper or a magazine and yet he knows what's going on in the world, as well as what's going on in his much smaller world of personal interests.

And he knows exactly which brands he wants to buy, where he can find them, and how much they will cost.  He knows all of this without the benefit of a lot of traditional advertising.

He is not an anomaly.  His friends are all just like him.

To understand all this, you need to watch him as he sits at his computer.  He will sit there and watch an episode of the BBC hit series "Top Gear" while conducting several different conversations with several different friends simultaneously through Facebook, while flipping over to another internet tab to research the car he wants to buy.  And he's doing all this while he's doing his homework on yet another window on his computer screen. (The kid can multi-task.  His grades are just fine.)

Sometimes he will replace the video portion of this picture with some very loud, esoteric pop music, typically in the form of a music video.  Sometimes he will blow off his homework and sit there with his guitar in his lap, teaching himself how to play the song he's listening to by pulling up the song's tablature from a website.

And while he's doing all this, he's also picking up ideas on which clothing lines are cool, what food, which drinks, pretty much anything that he wants to buy.   He's hearing all about it.

Believe me.  He ALWAYS knows exactly what he wants to buy.  He doesn't need any suggestions from me or my wife.

And let me say again...  He is not an anomaly.  His friends are all just like him.

That's a portrait of the consumer marketers will likely be targeting more and more heavily in the years to come.  How are you going to do that?

That's why I am always researching and studying the new breakthroughs in digital and emerging media.  How are you preparing?

— Pete Nikiel combines 20 years of marketing experience with clear, forward thinking.  He is available to help out companies and agencies in a number of different ways.  Think of him as your utility player on call.  If you need any sort of help in marketing, branding and advertising contact Pete.  Freelance.  Project work.  Part time.  Full time.

You Tube Takes On the Boob Tube?

The folks at Google are not talking.  But plenty of others are!

Google owns You Tube.  And the word is out that they are "finalizing contracts" with program providers to launch "more than a dozen "channels featuring regularly scheduled content."  My source here is an article from The Wall Street Journal and can be found at this link: 

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204422404576593410081464864.html?mod=dist_smartbrief


According to the article's sources You Tube is paying anywhere from "a few hundred thousand to several million" dollars to providers.  That sounds pretty serious.

Consider the broadcasting industry.  Here's a new competitor, completely unregulated by the FCC (no fines for wardrobe malfunctions) driving up the bidding and increasing the prices for good programming.  As if cable hasn't already provided them with enough competition.  And You Tube has no technical limitations on how many channels they can provide.

Consider the cable and satellite industries.   These two have brought broadcast to the point where if it wants to reach a mass audience, it has to go through cable or satellite.  You Tube bypasses everybody.  Ah... you may suggest that they are dependent upon the internet provider which is often the cable company.  But the cable company will not stay fat and happy when home cable subscriptions decline and home internet service stays stable.  Also, You Tube is also already available in the mobile space.

Now you want to talk about the viewing experience.  PC's, laptops, these are not exactly viewing stations for a family.  However, my 46" flatscreen has a PC input.  I'll bet yours does too if you bought it in the past year or two.  Plug it in and you're watching the internet on your tv.  Don't be surprised if in the future they are also able to receive and display mobile signals.  Will all of this be in true HD?  Probably not at the start.  But you can bet they are working on that just as you read this.

Will You Tube be able to monetize this?  Let's count the ways:  First of all, they can run commercials if they wish, long and limited, short and frequent, anyway they want.  Then they can also, or instead, post display ads around the video player window.  Change them as often as they like.  Target them to the subject matter of the show.  Make them clickable to receive more information after the show.  Yes.  I think they can monetize this.  Oh I'm just scratching the surface here. 

Can You Tube (or some similar internet video service) take on the television industry?  Doesn't it seem inevitable?   I already have a Blu-Ray player with built-in wifi which we use to watch movies from Netflix (or whatever they're calling themselves today) right from the web.  No dvd's involved.

Think down the road, after they get an operable business model in place.  I can see them going for exclusive rights to sporting events, serial short features available on demand, full length features.  I can even see them accepting news programming, maybe from existing news operations but probably not. 

It won't happen tomorrow or by this day next year.  But I do believe that you will one day be able to add broadcasting and cable tv to the list of industries that have been brought to their knees by the internet, like the postal service, travel agencies, newspapers, phone directories, etc, etc, etc. For now, keep an eye on You Tube.