SMSS: Guy Kawasaki on making the most of Twitter
Guy Kawasaki kicked off the Social Media Success Summit last night, sharing some sound advice for Twitter users of all stripes. Whether you represent a business which has yet to establish a Twitter presence, or you’re a grizzled Twitter veteran, Kawasaki’s presentation was full of real-life examples to expand your brand’s reach.
Among the key takeaways, courtesy of SmartBrief’s Abe Silk:
- Engage with your readership. To illustrate this point, Kawasaki used the example of Virgin Atlantic, which offers in-flight WiFi access to all its passengers. The airline — like many companies these days — monitors what its customers are saying about it on Twitter. One customer did not receive his dinner in a timely manner, so he tweeted about it and someone from corporate radioed the pilot who had a flight attendant fix the situation right away.
- Sell to your fans. Kogi BBQ, a Korean street vendor in Los Angeles, uses Twitter to let its customers know where it will be on a given day. People line up for blocks at lunchtime because they know where the mobile vendors will be. This would not be possible via traditional advertising.
- The more the merrier. Kawasaki stressed the importance of getting as many fans as possible, and the best way to do that is provide good content via interesting links. He suggested establishing your niche and tweeting articles of interest from StumbleUpon, Tweetmeme, and, of course, SmartBrief.
The keynote concluded with Kawasaki proclaiming that retweeting is now the sincerest form of flattery. Do you agree?
This presentation was just the beginning of the month long, 100% online Social Media Success Summit. For access to the whole session and many others, sign up here.
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Posted by CMac on May 5th, 2010 at 3:45 pm
Not entirely sure I agree with the last point. It's one thing to have 20,000 authentic followers… but if you only engage with 20 of them on a personal level, are the other 19,980 really benefiting your cause? And what about the 6,000 spammer accounts that are following you… they aren't doing anything for your brand. I think you should focus on engaging with your followers, where you have 10 or 10,000, and forget about your "number". That's how things happen on Twitter.
My recent post Three Things My Dad Taught Me About Website Designers
Posted by CMac on May 5th, 2010 at 3:45 pm
Not entirely sure I agree with the last point. It's one thing to have 20,000 authentic followers… but if you only engage with 20 of them on a personal level, are the other 19,980 really benefiting your cause? And what about the 6,000 spammer accounts that are following you… they aren't doing anything for your brand. I think you should focus on engaging with your followers, where you have 10 or 10,000, and forget about your "number". That's how things happen on Twitter.
My recent post Three Things My Dad Taught Me About Website Designers
Posted by @ajsilk on May 5th, 2010 at 5:18 pm
Guy actually spoke to this, and gave the example of Dell Computer Outlet. Initially they had tens of thousands of dedicated followers and several hundred thousand in sales. Now they have over a million followers, but the sales have not increased proportionally. Still, he felt that leveraging the power of many followers was more important than worrying about the quality of those followers. This is just his take; I'm sure there are people in both camps.
Posted by Storytelling Social Media Marketing PR Business & Technology Curated Stories May 5, 2010 on May 5th, 2010 at 1:51 pm
[...] Social Media Success Summit: Guy Kawasaki on making the most of Twitter Published: May 5, 2010 Source: SmartBlog On Social Media Guy Kawasaki kicked off the Social Media Success Summit last night, sharing some sound advice for Twitter users of all stripes. Whether you represent a business which has yet to establish a Twi… [...]
Posted by Dimitris on May 6th, 2010 at 6:54 pm
Concerning the first example with Virgin Atlantic, I would just complain to one of the airplane hostess. Why do we have to do all this "circle" in order to get the customer service we deserve? I'm sure we will be laughing after some years when we will be reading these case studies of the use of "new" technology.
Posted by Ad Chic on May 7th, 2010 at 12:49 pm
Do NOT agree w/the last point. Having a lot of Twitter followers does NOT equal influence. Edelman PR has a GREAT Tweet Level Monitor to calculate your influence not only based on number of your followers, but how many people you follow, your dialogue with them AND how often you're RT.
For those who watch Bravo TV's Housewives series – You know "Countess LuAnn" she has over 14,000 Twitter followers
Lacoste – the brand I've know since I was a child – has 95,000 Twitter followers
Me – I have just over 900 followers …. and guess who ranks higher on Edelman's Tweet Level Monitor….Me
http://twitter.com/Ad_Chickadee/status/1314159280…
What's your Twitter influence? Check it out – it's kinda cool!
My recent post Ad_Chickadee: How Staples found its Tweet voicehttp://bit.ly/bh14Qu
Posted by Ad Chic on May 7th, 2010 at 12:49 pm
Do NOT agree w/the last point. Having a lot of Twitter followers does NOT equal influence. Edelman PR has a GREAT Tweet Level Monitor to calculate your influence not only based on number of your followers, but how many people you follow, your dialogue with them AND how often you're RT.
For those who watch Bravo TV's Housewives series – You know "Countess LuAnn" she has over 14,000 Twitter followers
Lacoste – the brand I've know since I was a child – has 95,000 Twitter followers
Me – I have just over 900 followers …. and guess who ranks higher on Edelman's Tweet Level Monitor….Me
http://twitter.com/Ad_Chickadee/status/1314159280…
What's your Twitter influence? Check it out – it's kinda cool!
My recent post Ad_Chickadee: How Staples found its Tweet voicehttp://bit.ly/bh14Qu
Posted by @ajsilk on May 7th, 2010 at 1:59 pm
This is a good point. I don't think Guy necessarily meant that having more followers was directly correlated to increased influence. His main point was that generally it's better to have more followers than fewer, and he then described how to go about getting them. Again, this is just one man's opinion, everyone's entitled to their own.
Posted by @ajsilk on May 7th, 2010 at 1:59 pm
This is a good point. I don't think Guy necessarily meant that having more followers was directly correlated to increased influence. His main point was that generally it's better to have more followers than fewer, and he then described how to go about getting them. Again, this is just one man's opinion, everyone's entitled to their own.
Posted by Comic Booked: Life and Times on Twitter 2010-06-01 on June 2nd, 2010 at 7:32 am
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Posted by Guy Kawaski on Making the Most Of Twitter | Connect To Bloggers on November 1st, 2010 at 1:55 pm
[...] http://smartblogs.com/socialmedia/2010/05/05/social-media-success-summit-guy-kawasaki-on-making-the-... Guy Kawaki, a social media expert, shared some useful advice with the attendants of the Social Media Success Summit this past May. Regardless of the type of business or association you may be involved with, the following 3 key strategies will prove to be beneficial in the stratification of social media awareness: [...]
Posted by Carlton Hobbs on November 12th, 2010 at 4:59 am
I have always admired Guy Kawasaki. I feel that he is a nice Guy. Super smart, too. He is able to continue to tweet on a wide variety of subjects without ever being annoying, repetitive or intrusive.