This tweet showed up recently: “The Uni of Iowa is offering a $37K scholarship to its b-schl fr the bst tweet by a prspctive MBA student.”

Strange to see this from an academic institution… It makes the “de rigueur” misspellings that are so intrinsic to the Twitter format seem OK.

Still, if the University of Iowa’s Tippie College of Business wanted to break through the clutter and get attention from potential business school candidates, it certainly got what it wanted, for this tweet went viral with a whirlwind velocity. Why not? Seems an easy and quick way to vie for a full scholarship. Even business publications were all over this including Bloomberg, Business Insider and BusinessWeek blog, as well as the French publication Atlantico, albeit the latter promptly declared that this would attract mediocrity rather than motivated students.

Not necessarily.

It will also attract savvy students wishing to compete on a creative level rather than just on their background information. It also fits in very well with Tippie’s need to get more aggressive in finding students to fill their school’s full-time MBA program, considering that they only had only 307 applicants. Moreover, it keys in with the school’s admissions officers’ increased curiosity in knowing a candidate’s social media voice in addition to their academic achievements.

It’s a creative pioneering gesture to interest applicants through a medium that really belongs to that generation. But the required tweet to compete for the $37K is in addition to the regular application form and resumes, not instead of, and that seems to dull the ”newness” of it all. So, armed with all the traditional information required, except for the usual 800 to 900-word essay, just how much weight will the tweet carry when it comes to in winning the scholarship?

There is something that I do not quite get…. I am thinking of all those spelling bees that kids try so hard to win over their early years, only to have a college give permission to misspell as a lure to apply.

It’s a clever attention grabber, but a stunt none-the-less, one that does not seem to be on message for an institution of higher learning…or is it “hier lrning.”

Spirit Airlines jumped on Weiner-gate faster than most, with their well-known marketing prowess. From the same company that targeted Arnold Schwarzenegger a couple of weeks ago, they promoted, this time around, a Weiner Sale that is “Too Hard to Resist,” with the text of the offer reading, “Hurry to book now, before this sale gets hacked.” Tasteless? Definitely, but somehow irresistible and in line for a company who’s president/CEO once shoved himself in an overhead bin to defend his company’s carry-on charges.

And then there was Jon Stewart, with his spoof on his purported “best friend” (college roommate). And then Letterman and Craig Ferguson took off, elongating the tale and at some point, after a few more comics took their turns, the laughs cooled off and the ridiculousness of it all set in.

Curiously enough, the media circus itself sobered up and some even took offense at the ongoing tasteless battering of Weiner.

Still, repercussions from the comic frenzy continued. For example, in the wake of the Weiner scandal, actor Alec Baldwin might now seriously consider running for mayor of New York City in 2013 when it was Congressman Weiner that had been considered as the Democrats’ frontrunner. And Eliot Spitzer, who embarrassingly enough always gets asked for commentary on political figures involved in shocking sex scandals for obvious reasons, said he sympathizes with Rep. Anthony Weiner — naturally.

Imagine – a simple matter of a miss-key on Twitter, results in laying bare (pardon the pun) of personal habits and preferences, exposing personal moral digressions to an unforgiving public.

Miss-key or not, it is a gross lapse in judgment to even consider the use of a medium that is meant for public consumption in the first place. Political figures, by the nature of their chosen paths, give up a certain right to behaviors that can be seen as inappropriate to the “political image” that got them elected in the first place. They are held up to a far greater public moral compass than the ordinary man in the street.

It doesn’t take a trained political PR guru to understand that the greatest sin from the perspective of the public was not the miss-keyed Twitter moment, but rather not being truthful at the moment of crisis. It is a flaw in judgment which should not have happened, given the PR training he must have received on the way to becoming an elected official. He could have joked about it, made some attempt at “Oops, I did not mean to put it out there” (another pun intended) or any other type of Mea Culpa. But to blatantly lie about “questionable certitude” is such a PR 101 lesson – that it becomes incredulous. Where were his advisors?

Message to remember – social media is very social indeed, as opposed to private media.

Twitter can sometimes be foreboding. One logs in, takes a look at that ominous “What’s going on?” question and may think . . . “What is going on?”  And that person may not have an answer.  Sitting there? Drinking water?  Procrastinating on a project?

Looking for something to discuss, the “Twitter-blocked” may browse through the main feed searching for inspiration.

Stanlopez forget about it.

Covid My buddy broke his collar bone.

Xfdgg TOP 10 WAYS TO GET 10000 FOLLOWERS IN JUST 1 WEEK!!!!

Ronmalone My 12-year-old is great at Photoshop!

Xfdgg TOP 10 WAYS TO GET 10000 FOLLOWERS IN JUST 1 WEEK!!!!

Mikehilton Time to close the laptop.

Xfdgg TOP 10 WAYS TO GET 10000 FOLLOWERS IN JUST 1 WEEK!!!!

Nothing.

The Twitter-blocked may look around the office hoping for something to tweet about. Color of the walls maybe . . . or perhaps how quickly the coffee has gotten cold.  Nothing is clicking.

The Twitter-blocked is generally not using Twitter to talk about “coffee” or “sitting there,” instead he/she uses Twitter to build a brand presence. The Twitter-blocked understands that endless tweets about the brand won’t work and that there needs be a genuine connection with the Twitter community. A trusted network builds meaningful relationships, thereby strengthening the brand. Sounds easy, right?

But what to tweet about?

When I have “Twitter-block”, I resort to my personal “C.R.A.S.H.” formula:

Comment
Reply
Ask
Share
Help

Comment
Every time you go into Twitter, tweet something. Anything.  It could be “Good morning, Twitter,” or “Sitting down to start my day,” or anything benign.  Just write.  Once you do that, the rest comes easy. The hardest part of filling out a blank page is writing the first sentence. Just get something out and be natural.  Twitter isn’t always about broadcasting your brand; sometimes you can just talk. Casual conversation builds trust within your network and identifies that the brand is supported by real people. It is easier for people to connect with a person than it is for them to connect with a logo or product.

Reply
Reply to someone. Find a tweet and reply to it.  It doesn’t have to be Shakespearean, just say, “@neatfollower Good point!” or “@hungryfollower Yeah, pizza sounds good now” or “@Xfdgg Why do I need 10,000 followers?”

Ask
Ask a question. The question could be something like: “How does one get past Twitter-block?” Or it could be a discussion question about your industry. Or something personal like “What is going on with all of you today?” Questions encourage conversation and the more people that you respond to, the more conversations evolve. Check your @replies frequently and make sure that you aren’t missing out on connecting with someone.

Share
Share something. Either tweet a link for a blog you’ve read or retweet something interesting someone else said.  You can pipe in many RSS feeds into FriendFeed and easily post them on Twitter straight from there.  You can even tie your blog into FriendFeed so that it tweets whenever there is a new post.  There are Twitter applets and Firefox apps that will help you tweet from wherever you are browsing. Make it a habit to simply share what you find as you find it.  Link retweets are the most popular type of tweet for a reason.  Most people are there to find news and websites, and if you post interesting things people will notice you more.

Help
Help people. Use Twitter Search (or some other 3rd party search system such as Monitter.com or any of the Twitter desktop applications) and find conversations that you can contribute to. Search by whatever your expertise is and jump in – give advice, help people that are asking questions and peddle your smarts.

Use hashtags (#) on your topics so that they reach a broader base of people, such as: “Writing press releases is good for your SEO! #PR #SEO”. When you use hashtags the tweet shows up in a feed on Twitter Search, which many people follow.

Using the C.R.A.S.H. formula once a day keeps you a valuable and contributing member of Twitter. Leveraging your own expertise and the benefits of your brand in each of those steps will build awareness. But most importantly, C.R.A.S.H. will help you get rid of that dreaded Twitter-block.

The British should be familiar with parodies.  After all they invented the form…

BP is ripe for mocking, as witnessed by the launch of the faux BP Twitter account, @BPGlobalPR,  which already has outdistanced BP’s real Twitter stream, attracting nearly 60,000 followers, compared to the company’s 7,000 followers.

While it is true that the company’s real twitter account @BP_America offers continued updates about actions taken toward a solution of the international calamity, no one buys that the effort alone is commendable.  And yet, in reading and watching all the hyperbole that the company puts out, all the gaffes made by its CEO and all the meager attempts at “talking” to a public through full page ads in the NY Times, daily, the company continues to exude a righteous behavior that is irritating and obnoxious, as well as arrogant and disdainful – certainly not characteristics that can endear a company to its many publics.

In the words of a tweeter, “The engineers (may) be busy but PR (folks) are (in) hiding.”

And so, while BP’s PR advisors seem to be AWOL, people turn to mocking.

It’s a real circus out there.

Twitterers are tweeting about the now “extinct mermaids” to the “sharks getting entangled in oil geysers” to changing the word catastrophe and agreeing to call it a “whoopsie daisy.”  The faux account has sold “BP cares” T-shirts with the profits from the sales going to the nonprofit Gulf Restoration Network. Apparently its humorous blasts have been re-tweeted by everyone from filmmaker Michael Moore to singer Michelle Branch.  And then there were preposterous headlines made by Kevin Costner and numerous TV appearances by Bill Nye, the Science Guy, the children’s show host who is apparently now an authority on the issue.

Apparently the faux twitter account’s fictional character “Terry” who has steadfastly remained in character, weakened and fell out of character when asked as to why this effort, to which he answered, “Companies screw up and then they hire folks like me to come in to make it look like they’re doing something while they figure out how to make money again.”

Well, there you have it – the public mocking of a company…

The curious thing is that according to a dialogue that Ad Age had with BP spokesman Toby Odone, he said that, “he wasn’t aware of any attempts by the company to have the feed taken down.” In playing the role of a real BP spokesman, the bogus one took the opposite stance – the one that the real BP should have taken in the first place by saying, “I’ve heard rumors of fake BP PR accounts, and I assure you if we find out who is in charge of them, we will annihilate them.” In further mocking the company, he added, “BP is doing everything we can to save our reputation and hopefully salvage some oil out of all this.”

Here’s advice for BP: hire the faux twitter account owner for advice as to next moves or push your PR folks out of hiding and make them unleash a PR campaign that is based on critical thought and one that is substantive…

We introduce our fourth guest blogger of our monthly series on the 25th of every month, in celebration of our 25th anniversary this year, Tom Searcy, who helps companies in finding business solutions.

Tom Searcy, co-author of  “Whale Hunting: How to Land Big Sales and Transform Your Company”, author of “RFPs Suck!” and founder of Hunt Big Sales, is a sought after business solutions expert for small to mid-sized companies.  Follow Tom’s thought leadership through his blog: www.huntingbigsales.com or access his resources at www.huntbigsales.com.

I remember watching a documentary on nudists when I was of an age that I couldn’t yet buy my own “nudist” magazines at the drugstore…the ones with the brown wrappers…if they even bothered wrapping them. The documentary talked about the “freedom of nudity”, its “natural state” and “the beauty of the human form.” It was confusing as hell to me- because the human form, at least the ones at the colony, were not beautiful. Even at distance and with discreetly placed black-box-blockouts, these were some pretty unattractive people. Their nudity not only put me in a position to look at things I didn’t want too, but it answered questions about people, (surgery scars, stretch marks, the body’s response to gravity over time for example), that I was not asking.

The documentary was about a microscopic sliver of the population who had made a distinct choice. But we are all living naked now. You, me, our companies, our children. We are all naked. And we will be beyond naked very soon- (BTW, I don’t know what “beyond naked” means but I think it involves Flickr™ photos of our last set of x-rays and dental records). Are you ready to live naked?

YouTube™, Flickr™, Digg™, Twitter™, Facebook™, LinkedIn™ and the rest of the usual suspects of the social media revolution are creating a naked world. Every customer experience, every shipped product and online FAQ answer, each touchpoint in the chain of your business is open for scrutiny and discussion. You may be aware of this, which puts you ahead of the huge brands out there being lampooned every day in painful and direct ways. But what is your strategy?

I work with small to mid-sized companies who are trying to grow quickly. One of the things that we work on is their market image. One of the nice things about everyone being naked is that it’s easier to do the necessary research on a prospect company before you see them. But…It works in reverse…(sometimes when I work with companies they forget this part).

Here’s what I tell my small to mid-sized companies:

• Control – You don’t have it any more, so take a deep breath and stand tall, proud and naked. You can control your integrity and your authenticity. Focus on that. Don’t focus on the buttoning-down of over point of entry and exit to your perceived brand machine. That’s like trying to grab the wind with a sack.
• It’s Never Fair – Of course attacks are unfair. No one is trying to provide a ‘fair and balanced’ story, as if there ever is one. Don’t waste time trying to make their attacks ‘fair’ by offering your point-by-point answers. The bell has rung- you are not going to un-ring it. You can just respond.
• Fast and Good – A quick response that is reasonable is much better than a slow response that is perfect. Do you see Toyota out there floundering with the slow and perfect story? That’s because slow in the naked world is by definition imperfect.
• Find Your Voice – As a writer and speaker, I go through a number of exercises to make certain I am writing in my voice. Not what I think to be the “professional and homogenized” voice. In the heralded brands around the world, one of the key elements to the rankings is their consistency and authenticity of their voice. You need to make certain that the voice is an authentic voice.
• Be 3-D – All the movies are going 3-dimensional for the same reason; the audience expects a different experience. You have to be multi-dimensional in your market message. A website with a never-changing brochure of product/service lists doesn’t cut it. Customers want the multi-dimensional experience. Give it to them. Videos, photos, blogs and ever-changing content.
• Thousand Points of Light – Your brand is no longer just the crafted message of your marketing firm. The touchpoints are now your brand- employees, customers, vendors and competitors. You have to be out there knowing what is being said. You can’t survey once a quarter and keep track of the voices. This has to be a daily part of someone’s role. Key word searches and tracking make it easier- but it has to be done constantly.

On this blog-site, you can read past entries to see what it is like to live naked. Noemi’s blogs provide examples of how ugly in can look when big companies try to hide. This is especially true for those companies who have not yet realized that the emperor not only isn’t wearing clothes, but his wardrobe has been shredded. But the question for you should be “What is my strategy for living naked?”

When thinking through your strategy, include these questions:

1. On a simple Google search of my company’s name and my name, what comes up and in what order? Is it what I want to come up? How can I change it?
2. How do we tell our story to the world at the level of customer, employee and supplier? How is the world telling our story to us in the naked world at the level of customer, employee and supplier? What does it mean about us if no one is telling our story?
3. Who are the examples of companies, regardless of industry, that we look up too in the naked world? What can we learn from them?

Fortunately for me, living in a naked world requires neither diet, nor exercise nor surgery. But it does require confidence and a strategy. What’s yours?

Social media as a news reporting function became reality when Twitter became the first to report flight 1549’s crash landing in the Hudson River approximately 10 minutes before traditional media picked up on the story. “Citizen” journalism gained new respect and would play a vital role in the Iranian revolt six months later.

->Back to 25 PR Defining Moments

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We introduce our second guest blogger of our new monthly series on the 25th of every month, in celebration of our 25th anniversary, who encourages, in the below blog, those who are still hesitating to engage in social media to do so.

Jeffrey Gitomer, author of The Sales Bible and The Little Red Book of Selling and president of Charlotte-based BuyGitomer, gives seminars, runs annual sales meetings and conducts Internet training programs on selling and customer service at www.trainone.com. He can be reached at salesman@gitomer.com.

It started like a small bunch of burning leaves. A little MySpace, here and there  –  a blog or two. And then the wind picked up. Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn. Growing from a windstorm to a firestorm, social media is a tornado running wild over the Internet plains.

How social are you?

How serious are you about social media?

REALITY: You can’t ignore it. Hundreds of millions of people are involved so far, and it’s just a few years old.

I tried to ignore it for a while, but it soon became apparent that this was the new, new wave – about a year ago I became a player.

I admit I have an edge. I have a lot of readers and followers who are interested in what I have to say and want to know what my immediate thinking is. That’s two of the values in social media – it’s immediate and it’s informative. It’s also fun – that’s why Facebook and YouTube are worth BILLIONS

The major networks in social media are growing by the second…

• For photos, it’s Flickr – worth billions

• For videos, it’s YouTube – worth billions

• Social networking for the younger set starts with MySpace – an original

• Social networking for the growing and grown set, it’s Facebook – worth billions

• To get connected and network with the business set, it’s LinkedIn.

And for that private message, there’s texting – it’s easy for me – I have an iPhone.

And that is just a partial picture. There’s more…

• For individual expressions, there are weblogs, or blogs.

• If you want to say a few words, there’s micro-blogging and interconnecting – also known as Twitter – worth billions.

• For chronologging, it’s Wikipedia – worth billions.

• And, of course, there are your personal website and business website. Priceless.

All of these medias are, or try to be, socially engaging – sticky if you will. All of them are, or try to be, passed on – viral if you will. Or, better stated, if you tweet, are you good enough or bad enough to be re-tweeted?

I have made a serious commitment to “socialize,” in other words, to expose more of my personal self and my business self through social media. I will still maintain my value-based philosophy, but I will personalize it, and humanize it to a point that others are attracted to it, benefit from it, and want to pass it on to others.

I will be social and viral at the same time.

So, what does this mean to you?

What’s the opportunity to you and for you?

Why should you get involved?

Social media is an opportunity, a new frontier, a space in cyberspace that gives you an individual place to play, build awareness of you and for you, brand yourself, and potentially profit.

You have to ask yourself …

Where’s the beef?

Where’s the fun?

What’s the value, both to you and others?

And how – if desired – do you monetize it?

Well, unless you’re one of the few people in an ownership or founding position of these social medias, your monetizing opportunities are at the moment limited – in spite of various claims by “experts.”

Here’s what I recommend to get going and get positioned, so that your value – either in social, business, fun, or money — can be realized:

• Sign on.

• Establish an account on each of the major medias.

• Post something.

• Tweet something.

• Connect with someone.

• Do it yourself.

• Do it every day.

And learn by updating as much as you can on your own.

Social media is fluid – it moves and changes daily. It’s text, audio, photo, and video. It’s every media and it’s every second. It’s current and it’s constant. Ever see a section of a website labeled “latest news” and when you click it, the last update is from 2004? Not good.

The Internet is instant. Social media is instant. And you have to be ready to participate consistently, and in a meaningful way, if you want to win.

Please don’t wait.

© 2009 All Rights Reserved

You do not want to be Chase Bank these days.

It has just suffered a public humiliation by a single customer whose several requests for negotiating overdraft fees went unanswered by Chase and who, despairing at the lack of response, resorted to waging a YouTube war against Chase’s customer service — or better yet, lack thereof.  In a You Tube video (watch below) Chase was called – evil.

It’s the classic tale of David winning over Goliath, a real vindication for all of us who have, at some point, been rendered completely helpless in trying to solve a need or problem whether banking, retail, warranty or other, via an 800 number, that then asks us to punch in number after number only to get more and more recorded messages that finally leads us to a “thank you for calling, goodbye,” message, without ever solving the problem in the first place.  Or, if lucky, you can leave a message for a supervisor knowing full well that chances of a return call are about the same as becoming famous overnight.

Chase can take an example from companies on the edge of consumer trends that have begun to equate social media with customer service. Those companies ‘get’ that today’s customers view social media as a communication tool for dealing directly with a company’s customer service and have created a platform for dealing with each, in real time.

But it’s not only about Chase.  Southwest got hit recently when film director Kevin Smith tweeted that the airline kicked him off a plane because he was too fat, a photo of which subsequently landed in the mainstream print and broadcast media.  Happily for Southwest, its blog, Nuts for Southwest, addressed the news story giving it a social media bullhorn in which to respond.  But the company did have to publicly apologize.

Clearly, a well-oiled company’s social media effort like Ford’s, does not wait for ignored customers to vent, offering a platform for interaction where the customer can get heard.  In other words, they have “invested” in online conversations with their customers.  Ford also understands that social media is threading its way through not only marketing and sales, but also through research and development and, most importantly in this case, customer service departments.

And then there is Comcast that “invested” in online live chats with a Comcast service representative allowing for an open forum, as well as its online community forum, where customers can get answers from fellow Comcast customers and moderators.

Another company that understands this is Best Buy.  In my blog of July 8, 2009 titled, “Sales, Service And Twitter, An Ideal Threesome” I wrote about Best Buy’s Twelpforce, which was launched on July 19, 2009 with a 500 person sales team that was to engage with consumers by Twittering away, entering into 140-character conversations with those who are both consumed with consumer electronics as well as those who needed answers to product uses or other questions. Best Buy had basically made a “pay forward” move, which now, eight months later, has the service humming away with happy customers.

The Chase video is yet another example of how social media has put the power to undo companies’ reputations in the hands of customers. Not bothering about customer care today is akin to loosing loyal customers tomorrow.  It takes people to react to people…

Recorded messages and 800 numbers are so yesterday.

Advertisers are on the prowl again, this time around with checks in hand, to recruit Twitterers via the newly launched Sponsored Tweets, a new Twitter advertising platform that connects advertisers with Twitterers.  Now, those who tweet as a lifestyle (really most, per the headline in ClickZ, July 30, 2009, “Twitter Surpasses Facebook as Top Link in E-mail”) have the opportunity to get paid by advertisers for their tweets when tweeting about products and companies.

Well, there goes the “neighborhood,” so to speak, or the end of Twitter as we know it…

Look, getting paid for blogging about a company’s product, etc. is not new. It’s known as a “sponsored conversation,” which is a social media marketing technique in which brands provide financial or material compensation to bloggers in exchange for posting social media content about a product, service or website.  In fact I devoted a blog to the topic last June 11, titled “The FTC Steps in, Lightly” questioning the credibility of paid bloggers and noting FTC’s watchful eye hovering over it all.

And now enters the next iteration of “paid-for-opinions” online, in the pay-per-tweet platform. It somehow seems more invasive with Twitter, which originally was set up as a quick communication path for keeping up, almost hourly, with the minutest details of everyday life with friends near and far.  It even became a conduit for transmitting first hand news in real time (as in the plane that landed in the Hudson River trumping all news outlets).

This all begs the question, “how much is your Twitter soul worth?” Getting paid for tweets really sounds like a Twitter “sellout” to me…

By all accounts, I have plenty of company in that thought.  Per Mashable’s Adam Ostrow, “Personally, I think any review – on a blog or on Twitter – is immediately de-valued if the author is being paid to write it, because the objectivity is lost.” And according to an article that appeared on Mashable on the launch of Sponsored Tweets, “when you throw Twitter in the mix, there’s always the potential that your followers won’t understand that your sponsored tweet has been commissioned, even with the obligatory “hashtag” (or disclosure in the ad copy, which may, in the hurry to scan 140 characters, easily be overlooked).

Still, looking at the brighter side of things, it’s not really a bad thing for those unemployed Twitterers, and could potentially be seen as a “boost” to the hordes of still unemployed whose unemployment benefits may soon be at the brink of running out.  It could mean pocket change, a lively entrepreneurial business or a potential goldmine for Twitterers who can set their pay rate and find opportunities to tweet on behalf of advertisers, getting paid per tweet and/or click.

Interestingly enough, the cost per tweet (CPT) does not run cheap for the advertiser.  It can run between $2 and $30,000 per tweet for a 140-character message. The message goes from one Twitter account to as many people as the person has following.

Apparently there are already 200 paid Twitterers, among them celebrities who are ready and willing to be compensated for the appropriate Twitter advertising campaign.  I suspect that Sponsored Tweets will have a runaway crowd of Twitterers waiting in the wings for advertisers to beckon.

Who would have thought that the old lunch truck that traditionally rolled up at construction sites serving mostly greasy fast foods could have evolved into a gourmet fad, adopted by hordes of hungry twitter-addicted truck junkies?

Well, that’s exactly what’s happening across the streets of America.  Apparently a soured economy, coupled with a saturated restaurant market and available social media technologies (as in find where your favorite food truck is located, by following its Twitter feed) has triggered a movable feast.

Trucks rolling in cities carrying anything from grass-fed organic beef (Let’s Be Frank); and desserts from former pastry sous chef at famed Manhattan restaurant Le Cirque, www.desserttruck.com; crunchy coating on fried chicken, shrimp or avocado at www.mightycone.com; eco-friendly hamburgers, falafel and fish tacos (Green Truck on the Go); architecturally inspired ice cream sandwiches (Coolhaus); tonkatsu burgers on rice patties (Marked 5); sushi rolls (Fishlips Sushi); vegan sausages (the Franken Stand); to all manner of “fusion” tacos (Kogi BBQ, Calbi BBQ, Bool BBQ, Don Chow Tacos).

Some are chef-inspired, such as San Francisco’s www.spenceronthego.com, serving French cuisine by chef Laurent Katgely, who also owns Chez Spencer, an upscale French restaurant. Others serve upscale bistro food cooked in a converted Airstream trailer such as Seattle’s www.skilletstreetfood.com or Cambridge, Mass.’s cloverfoodlab.com which sells only vegetarian items from a truck fueled by fryer grease.

Innovators like Los Angeles’ www.kogibbq.com have propelled a profusion of truck-borne foods.  Whether used only as a marketing ploy – a rolling “billboard” for an existing restaurant such as Border Grill and even corporate behemoths like Taco Bell and Baja Fresh Mexican Grill or for trying to cash in on the trend, or as a cost saving measure (the comparatively low cost of launching a truck as opposed to a restaurant) such as Barbie’s Q,  the popularity of nouveau food trucks cannot be ignored when you consider that some truck borne food companies such as www.kogibbq.com now boast 37,000 followers on Twitter.

There is the case of the owner of a crème brulee cart in San Francisco, who according to an article in the New York Times, July 22 headlined, “Creme Brulee Man Becomes Twitter’s Poster Boy,” started out only to sell to friends his particular delectable version of the dessert, when a single “tweet” appeared about it.  Now he has 5,400 twittering about where the cart will appear next.

According to the Los Angeles Times, “Food trucks may be more than just an emblem of culinary fusion or a clever use of social networking technologies. They may actually herald a significant change in the mobility patterns of young, middle-class urbanites known as “millennials.”

I have always felt that society has a way of righting itself out of need.  Here’s one industry that is keying into today’s mobility phenomenon and its resulting changing habits…

If you are a retailer in the time of an extended recession, what do you do when you open your doors and ever so few walk in?  Despair for one, panic, hand out pink slips or – innovate.

And that’s just what Best Buy did.  According to a report by Bloomberg news last week, headlined, “Best Buy Uses Twitter to Create Sales, Service Team” the company is first in reaching out to the Twitter community to search out people who really care about their consumer electronics – you know, those who chat about what’s new, what works, what brand has more clarity, where to find it, and so on.

Enter Best Buy’s Twelpforce, on July 19.  A clever play on combined words as in Tw for Twitter, elp, for the second half of help, and force as in sales, Best Buy’s 500 person sales team will engage with consumers by Twittering away, entering into 140-character conversations with those who are consumed with consumer electronics and want to devour as many facts, figures, technical tidbits, cost comparisons and whatever else anybody wants to know about consumer electronics.  And guess who will be their “sidekick”…

So, engage first, sales next.  How clever is that?  It has usually been the other way around as in “buy now, and call us if you need help.”

Considering that all this is innovative, we were curious and took a quick straw poll over the 4th of July weekend, as to whether Best Buy’s “Twelpforce” Use Of Twitter To Create Sales Is Hot Or Not.  We found some surprises.  When asked by age groups, 18-24, 25-34. 35-54, and over 55, it was the youngest group that was 100% not sure whether it was a good use of Twitter.  In contrast, the two middle age groups thought it was good use by an average of 60%.  When asked by gender, women outweighed men as to a positive use of Twitter, by 67% to 56%.  When asked by different job categories, more surprises came up. It turned out that academics, marketing and PR people were 100% not sure whether it was a good use of Twitter, while product and sales people were 100% sure.

It’s clear that the jury is still out.  But you have to hand it to them. It’s that old line, that if buyers don’t come to you, go to them.  Traditionally it’s been about going to them through advertising, promotions and coupons.  But this time around it’s the contemporary way, actually going to where their potential customers hang out, listening to what their “wants” are, and communicating directly one-on-one.

Moreover, it’s a frugal way, for it leverages the downtime of employees in the stores. By tapping the Twitter platform, Best Buy has basically made a “pay forward” move, which should pay off in brand loyalty down the road and translate into sales.   It is also the first, to take the next evolutionary step for how sales and service can meld with Twitter.

Marketers take note…

The brilliant article entitled, “The Ten Ways Twitter Will Permanently Change American Business” on 24/7 Wall Street this week, in which it examined Twitter’s model and its future impact on business, is essentially a “state of the art” of Twitter today. In reading the article I was struck with awe, but also with a measure of watchfulness at the fast pace with which Twitter has enmeshed itself into every aspect of life in America.

The “awe” comes from the fact that Twitter has rapidly become a place where companies build brands, do research, send information to customers, conduct e-commerce and create communities for their users. Moreover, Twitter had supplanted traditional media as a source of information, news and entertainment.  According to author, Douglas A. McIntyre, “some industries, like local retail, could be transformed by Twitter… for it has the potential to drive substantial amounts of business to retailers.”

While Twitter’s potential commercial value as a way to communicate with customers cannot be overstated, there are some brands that will do better than others in their effort to engage the community.  Tweeters are opinionated and, as such, will choose which firms they are willing to get messages from directly (such as promotions, sales, new products, etc.) and brands that key into contemporary culture or style, will surely have a larger ‘following” than brands that don’t.

However, it’s not all roses. A certain unease comes from the fact that social media can be used against a company by any disgruntled Tweeter with his/her own agenda, as seen this week by the Starbuck’s multi-million dollar campaign in which the company had put up billboards in six major cities and then encouraged Tweeters to hunt for the posters — and be the first to post a photo of one using Twitter.  But, according to Alternet.org, filmmaker Robert Greenwald, who had a critical video in the “can” ready to go about the way Starbucks treats employees, entered the Twitter contest, basically hijacking the contest as a way to get out news about his short video.

Among other worrisome aspects of Twitter, is its potential impact on financial markets.  According to the article, Twitter can easily become a platform for discussing stocks, offer opinions and exchange information, whether correct or not.  Per the article, “The Twitter audience makes it possible for groups interested in one stock to post opinions on that company, trades, research, rumors, and data directly from the company in real-time.” At some point federal government agencies such as the SEC will surely need to get involved, for per McIntyre, Twitter has the potential to be one of the most disruptive technologies to become part of the financial markets in decades.

Like many social network sites, Twitter is “self governed” by its members.  Companies must take that into account as they join the service — and also keep an extra measure of watchfulness…

It seems it was all done backwards…. First came the innovation, then the run-away successes and then – oh dear, how do we get paid?  Take the freebie online publication dilemma. Who thought that one up?  Now comes all the chest beating, albeit a bit late, in light of the need to make money – or as we used to say, manage a sustainable business.

Look, hindsight doesn’t work.  You don’t get to charge once ‘you’ve given away the store.’

Rupert Murdoch, chief executive of News Corp. is mumbling about the need to end a “malfunctioning” business, per Eric Pfanner’s article in the International Herald Tribune of May 18.  According to the article, other publishers including The Guardian Media Group in Britain and the New York Times Company said they were examining ways to get readers to pay for digital news.

Even the ever-growing and popular two-year old Twitter is getting concerned about getting paid.  It wants to steer clear of advertising, per company cofounder Biz Stone in an article on CIO.com, on May 19, 2009, but needs to consider options.  Apparently, the company is developing tools and services that it may offer on top of Twitter’s free microblogging service.  According to a videotaped interview at a recent Reuters event, Stone offered, “I think by the end of the year we’ll have something out there.  It doesn’t have to be this super home run in terms of making billions of dollars. … But it has to show a little bit of signs of life, telling folks, ‘Yes Twitter can be a sustainable business.”

Let’s hope…

Lawmakers in France have come up with a whopper (pardon Burger King) of a plan to fight against unauthorized sharing of digital music and movies, in the hopes of having consumers pay for such services.  The approved law simply threatens such pirates with the loss of Internet access.  Good luck…

There seems to be an answer amidst all this brouhaha, and the example can be taken from the music industry.  It’s about packaging, that is, not charging for what the customer expects to get free, but offer add-on services as a package — and then charge.  Example: unlimited music, packaged with broadband subscriptions or other purchases.

But just think — it would not be a bad business model if digital news were to be packaged in a similar way, with legitimate offerings consumers actually want.  Basically, sell something other than basic services, which can then remain free.  Clearly there some other attempts at getting paid for receiving the news electronically, such as subscriptions to Amazon’s Kindle DX tablet and the soon-to-come Reader from the New York Times.

One expects business paradigms to change, but in the end, business has, and always will be, about getting paid for services or products.

I think that the original allure of the Internet, with its infinite possibilities, had us all jumping into the water but, apparently, not with feet first…

President Roosevelt once eloquently said, “There is nothing to fear but fear itself.”

In the last 48 hours fear has outweighed actual facts and reason.

The histrionic media coverage of the potential for a pandemic of swine flu disease, in light of only a few hundred cases, has elicited fear globally. It got exacerbated with the new swine flu Twitter service, launched Sunday morning with only 50 users who had signed up to receive the latest swine flu news, and which grew exponentially, in the thousands, within 24 hours.

According to an article by Eric Bland posted on MSNBC on April 28,  “Powerful disease-tracking tools, including those currently monitoring the spread of swine flu across the world, were once reserved for officials at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO). No longer. Today, anyone can see the spread of diseases such as swine flu in real time, and alert public health officials to potential new cases by using Google, and now, Twitter.”

Twitter tracking makes me nervous… The popularity of swine flu on Twitter presents both a boon and burden for the CDC.

According to John Browstein, a physician at Children’s Hospital Boston (CHB) who, along with fellow CHB computer scientist Clark Friefeld, created the HealthMap swine flu tracking service said that, “the Health Map was too slow for the amount of information we’ve been accumulating, so we had to switch to a Twitter feed instead.”  The benefits are clear.  The more people who use the site, the sooner an outbreak can be reported and the sooner public health officials can work to contain it.  Moreover, tweets can note emerging cases or community outbreaks in real time.

But Twitter tracking also presents a burden.  According to Bland, “so much information can lead to false positives and install public fear.”  Tweets are obviously scientifically unreliable and, as such, present a real danger that statistically incorrect data can spread virally.

Although swine flu is big on the social networking site, tweeting has a responsibility when it comes to a health issue.  Comments like, “Maybe my computer has this swine flu thing” as said by user Ifoch, are out of place.

Tracking such a serious disease on Twitter should be taken with “a grain of salt.”  One would hope that HealthMap would use blogs and Twitter messages sparingly.

Of course, I knew it would happen.  Ghost writers have invaded the intimacy of “tweetidom” according to an article by Noam Cohen printed in the International Herald Tribune last week.

Apparently high-profile celebrity twitterers, some with a following of hundreds of thousands of people, got bored, tired or too busy to continue to twitter and hired ghost twitterers to do the job they had intended to do themselves in the first place.

In this transparent world, it is downright disappointing…

This really violates the original concept of Twitter, which was founded on the premise that fans would have a direct connection, an intimacy if you will, with the rich and famous. Ghost twitterers are breaking that premise.

Not so with corporate or political tweets. There has always been a tacit understanding that staffers or assigned representatives do the tweeting. This follows along the original Twitter premise, for organizations to have an open dialogue format and direct interaction with consumers or the public-at-large.  In this case it does not matter who tweets, as long as the communication is interactive and honest.

But with individuals, celebrities or not, there is an assumption that the contact is direct and personal.  I cannot imagine that when fans find out that they have been following a celebrity ghost twitterer, that they will take it lightly. The trust factor will be tarnished and could easily lead to a mass exodus of disillusioned followers.

Moreover, in the case of celebrities, I am not sure that followers will knowingly want to hear from yet another layer of handlers who pick and choose what tweet to post or write those that fit in with the public persona being created, or one that follows a particular promotional strategy.  And then, considering the speed of daily tweets, most ghost twitterers will tweet with their own voice by necessity, rather than that of their client.

So much for direct contact…

The idea that someone else is doing the tweeting for the likes of rapper 50 Cent or Britney Spears, who is currently actively recruiting ghost twitterers — is absurd.  If that becomes the norm, then Twitter will simply meld into the Hollywood marketing mix, lose its original innovative intent and then fade away.

Some get it.

According to Cohen’s article, Shaquille O’Neal said,  “If I am going to speak, it will come from me,” adding that the technology allows him to bypass the media to speak directly to the fans. And Lance Armstrong, only hours after breaking his right collar bone, tweeted about it himself, while Charlie Villanueva, a forward for the Milwaukee Bucks, tweeted at halftime from the locker room on March 15 about how “I gotta step up.”

Is it really so hard to think through and type in 140 characters every so often?

There is no question that the news via user-generated, would-be photographers, and opinionated bloggers, travels at an unfathomable speed and, more often than not, trips up venerated mainstream journalists and photojournalists.  (Witness the images of US Air Flight #1549′s water landing taken by a person who just happened to be on a nearby ferry and who snapped a picture with his iPhone , then uploaded it to his Twitter stream, before US Airways was able to issue a statement.)

The idea of getting a “scoop on the news” is more or less out of reach today for professional journalists, with few exceptions such as frontline international news made in the hinterlands of the world, first hand government initiatives, diplomatic maneuvers, etc.

Ok, that’s today’s reality, so what’s the problem?

Would-be journalists are not trained to be reliable sources for news.  Their “news” is often subjective and, in the speed with which it is dispersed, is rarely fact-checked.  If understood as such, it makes a fine addition as a mass communication avenue.

But it becomes a problem when one takes note that there is a whole segment of the public out there that takes “amateur” journalism at face value with little consideration for the difference between them and the venerated journalists, who know how to frame the news within context, have a talent for building a story while understanding the complexities of its terrain, and who have the grasp for giving us contrasting points of views, allowing the reader to form an opinion based on our trust in them.

I think I will stick to the professionals for staying informed.

It was not the Super Bowl ads that mattered so much to the brands that paid an obscene amount of money to have their ads aired on the biggest Advertising Sunday of the year…  It’s what happened afterwards, or as in Denny’s free breakfast for America, what happened the “morning after.”

What pushed the staying power of the Super Bowl ads this year was the intensive twittering effect.  You would think that all the tweeting would have happened between football and advertising fans.  But no, the biggest “chatter” emerged from the brands themselves, according to AdFreak.com, brand managers who worked the twittering from the vantage point of a well-planned marketing campaign.

So much for spontaneous twittering…

Anyway, none of the ads this year got the five stars from Fanfest (or, for that matter from any other reviewers) that would propel them into national stardom vis-à-vis consumers and resonate with them for any length of time.  Maybe nothing can.  Maybe we’ve seen it all…

But there are those of us who do remember this year’s 25th anniversary of the introduction of Apple’s Macintosh in 1984, the one that came out with a foreboding futuristic theme that brought out both wonder and astonished terror in the viewers.

That had staying power, beyond a twittering effect and well past any “morning after” sales gimmick.  It had staying power because it broke through all creative boundaries ever tried before.  And as The NY Times wrote in today’s edition,  “people still talk about it” 25 years later.

Oh well, as a diehard optimist, there’s always next year….