Okay. I'm all about new technology. I have wireless speakers streaming music off my laptop at home. I long for an iPhone. I have a website, a blog, a Facebook page, a LinkedIn page, etc. I regularly collaborate on music projects with a friend in New York with the help of the internet. I video conference with my parents when they're in Florida for the winter. This is all normal to me. Modern technology is part of the air I breathe.
But i DON'T Twitter.
For the rest of you who don't, Twitter is a sort of "Mini-blog" that allows you to post short (140 characters or less) "tweets" to your Twitter page, that other users can view. Part of the appeal of Twitter is that many cell phones, etc., can post to it, meaning users can update their Twitter pages from virtually anywhere.
I don't get twitter. I appreciate digital technology for what it allows me to do more thoroughly or more speedily, and I honestly feel like Twitter is a dumbing down of human interaction. (If you've already got the cell phone in your hand and you want me to know what you're up to, give me a call, my friend! Then we can have a conversation about it that will likely use more than 140 characters!) But it looks like I'm probably wrong.
Last week, Oprah devoted her entire April 17th show to Twitter. She "tweeted" for the first time with Ashton Kutcher, who was live on the show via satellite to the delight of housewives everywhere.
Now, there could have been some confusion that day. Perhaps several of her viewers thought that Twitter would somehow enable them to chat with Ashton Kutcher. But whatever the reason, the day Oprah's Twitter episode aired, traffic to Twitter's site was up an incredible 43 percent, with 37 percent of their overall traffic that day representing first-time visitors. THAT'S CRAZY.
There are many lessons here, not the least of which being the confirmation of television's staying power and ability to reach a wide audience in an increasingly digital world.
But the biggest lesson, to me, is this: If Oprah thinks Twitter is a useful enough tool to spend an hour talking about it, what's my problem??
You'll be finding me on Twitter soon, but for now you can find Twitter at Twitter.com.
Despite my slowness to adopt a new technology like Twitter, Meyer & Wallis exists on the cutting edge of technology. Our broadcast production, media buying, and account supervision workflows all make use of great digital tools that help us communicate with our clients better and create ads for them in a more cost-efficient manner. Wanna know more? Contact us today.
Posted by: METROmilwaukee.com on Friday, May 1, 2009
If I may, I'll suggest Twitter may be understood in the same context as many of us learned when beginning our careers advertising, promoting and marketing ourselves, our products or our services we represent. That is, we were taught and encouraged to refine an "elevator pitch" using a 30 second ride to train ourselves to get right to the point lucidly and in a manner relevant to those we were speaking with. Well, that is Twitter in a nutshell; an elevator pitch using up to 140 characters of text. METROmilwaukee.com will soon release a software service called METROtweet which will make Twitter even more enjoyable and without question, what we assert to be exponentially more efficient regarding your time management. Interested persons may remain informed by registering with Twitter and choosing to find and follow METROmilwaukee, by simply loading http://twitter.com/metromilwaukee or byloading our homepage from time to time to discover when our METROtweet service will be released. Why? Because you are the news!