Talk to a Twexpert

Somewhere between editing the newsletter and undertaking Larry’s social media networking initiative, I have become a self proclaimed Twexpert – my own euphemism (or so I thought until a quick search at UrbanDictionary.com showed it not to be original) for an expert on Twitter marketing and networking.  Twitter is a funny bird.  And it’s a funny word.

Twitter was never meant to be a full time gig for its developers.  The founders started in a neighborhood of San Francisco, in March 2006 – literally as a side project.  Now Twitter has evolved into a relevant source of information for people all over the world whether looking for breaking news or news from friends.  Twitter users (Tweople) Tweet messages of 140 characters from their computers, instant messaging devices, and their phones (known as Twexting).  Numerous applications have popped up on the internet for Tweeting now, Tweeting later, finding Twitter followers, and auto-following or un-following other Twitter users.

Founder Jack Dorsey grew interested in the simple idea of being able to know what his friends were up to.  He talked to his colleagues and they decided to build a prototype application.  Launched publicly in August 2006 Twitter quickly grew popular with folks around the world and in May 2007 Twitter Incorporated was founded.  According to Twitter, simplicity has played an important role in their success.  People are eager to connect with other people and Twitter makes doing so simple.   Twitter makes staying connected with friends, family, and coworkers easy and alleviates the responsibility of replying to every Tweet posted.  You respond to the items of interest, ReTweet items you think others would be interested in or amused by, or simply ignore the one’s that feel a little bit like information overload.

Twitter can be turned on and off, scheduled to deliver only certain Tweople’s Tweets to your mobile device, or to opt out of updates at any time.  For the technical, Twitter works on a web application framework known as Ruby on Rails.  Unlike Facebook or traditional search engines or even Google’s Gmail, Twitter has opted not to employ any revenue generating advertising streams.  That doesn’t mean that Twitter Users aren’t subjected to marketing messages from other Tweeters, only that Twitter the company isn’t profiting from them.

Twitter has many useful applications from connecting with your coworkers or your team to monitoring your child’s progress at ball practice to networking.  As a research tool, it can be used for Twesearch.  To put in a plug for a book, movie, or person, you could use Twitter to give a Twestimonial.  At The Goins Group we use Twitter to push out information from Larry’s TheCoachingClub.com to stay connected with members and we use Twitter to reach other potential real estate investors.  Personally I use Twitter to keep up with where Larry is jet-setting off to for speaking engagements and to follow the careers of other real estate investors and internet marketers that we’ve gotten to know.  Twitter allows me to get all the information I want, as often as I want it, without overload and limited to 140 characters per Tweet.   Twitter is sort of the next generation of Instant Messaging for those of you with speedy thumbs.  But there is no per-message charge.  And you decide whether or not you want to see what Johnny is doing in the break room or Jane is buying at the grocery store.  Twitter also allows you to experience a close connection to entities normally larger than yourself.  Remember when Ashton Kutcher and CNN went head to head to see who could get the most followers?  If you don’t, Ashton won.  Which probably speaks rather poorly of what our voyeuristic society is really interested in.

Think about how Twitter could have changed our experience of recent events such as 9-11, Columbine, Bill Clinton’s charges and deposition, or the bomb scares of the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta.

I encourage you to visit http://Twitter.com and create a personal Twitter account if you haven’t already.  If you don’t know where to start go ahead and follow me and Larry (shannan0 and larrygoins).  Perhaps follow your favorite sports team, coffee shop, crazy Aunt Zelda, or your kids.  If your kids then refer to your Tweeps, relax.  That is just Twitter Slang for your followers on Twitter.  I promise that Tweets will enrich your life.  You will get to feel a part of something bigger than life in little 140 character snippets.  Be sure to check out some of the great Twitter applications out there like Hummingbird or Twhirl or Twitteriffic.  I didn’t make those up, I promise.  If you employ other social media sites and tools, be sure to check and see if you can link those accounts to your Twitter account.  Many sites will let you auto-Tweet when you post on them (WordPress blogs for one).  If you like the idea of sharing cool stuff that you find online and feel others would enjoy, you will want to download HootSuite to your browser.  With a Hootlet link on your web browser toolbar you can create a quick Tweet about any site or online information that you find and want to share.

Just remember your Twetiquette (Twitter etiquette, of course).

Twitter usage is up 132.5% over the last three months.  That is phenomenal growth.  While compared to some of the older and bigger social networking sites Twitter has room to grow, you don’t want to be the last person to Twip in do you?

I’ll Twee you next month,

Shannan

Now for the winners of the Follow Larry on Twitter contets, the following Twitter IDs need to contact me to claim their prize!

Investoropolis
KWBRENNER
TampaSteph
RealtyDynamics9

If you don’t currently follow us on Twitter, check out @larrygoins, @thecoachingclub, and @shannan0

As an internet marketing gal, one of my many roles with Larry has been to grow our presence on the internet.  Sounds easy enough, right?  Seeing as how I’ve been driving targeted, quality traffic to people’s websites for nearly 13 years you’d think I could just sort of wave a magic wand and Larry would have more traffic to his many real estate investing web sites than he could shake a stick at.

Over the last couple of months we have really made serious leaps and bounds into our social networking presence online.  Larry has become a Master Tweeter.  He has blogs, and The Coaching Club, and is active in Yahoo Groups and web 2.0 real estate communities.  What we hope to do in this column is to help you, Larry’s student, grow your internet presence in the same way that we have grown ours.   We will talk about things that have worked and things that haven’t worked.  We will share some stories of our successes and failures to help you be more successful.  So read on!  And welcome to another great column of The Ultimate Investor Report!

One humorous look at how a lack of communication can muddy the waters in your marketing efforts follows.

Larry has a Twitter presence of http://www.Twitter.com/larrygoins.  Larry joined Twitter again, and found that his name was already taken.  So he joined as http://www.Twitter.com/larrygoins1.  Now you might think Twitter would be smart enough to alert us that we now had multiple Twitter accounts but no, they don’t do that.  Therefore we’ve both been working on building a stronger Twitter persona for Larry but with two different and unique Larry Goins accounts.  The really funny part is that neither one realized what the other one was doing!

The lesson here is that as we’ve both worked on building a Twitter experience for Larry’s students, we’ve actually been competing against each other.  The good news for you, is that we are going to let you learn from our experience AND we are going to give one lucky student a prize each month for learning from us.

Hopefully by now as a Web 2.0 student you realize that being a valued member of Twitter means having followers, following others, and posting useful or informative or humorous Tweets.  Since here at The Goins Group we have inadvertently created an internal competition between the two Larry Goins Twitter accounts, we are going to make it an all out competition.  Right now, larrygoins1 has more followers than larrygoins.  Go figure.  I hate to lose.  So, we are going to compete to see which one of the accounts can get the most followers before the September issue of the Ultimate Investor Report goes to print next month.  One lucky follower of both Twitter accounts will win some really cool stuff from Larry.  Could be a book.  Could be a digital download of a full length course or boot camp.  Could be a cruise.  Could be an Inner Circle or could even be a free membership to TheCoachingClub.com.  The more followers we get, the more we will give away.  So go right now to http://www.Twitter.com and follow larrygoins.  Tell your friends.  Tell your fellow real estate investors.  Retweet our coolest tweets.  But tweet away!

Oh yeah, Larry would want you to give him a fighting chance to keep his extra Twitter account alive and well by following larrygoins1, too.  But let’s face it, I’m cuter.  So you will want to follow larrygoins first!  Larry and I will see you on the Twitter world – and don’t forget next month we will be giving away something really cool to a lucky Twitter follower.  But even if you aren’t the big Twitter Winner, you will benefit all month long from the great Twitter content Larry will be sharing!