1. Genuine Celebrities (Be They Globally Famous or Merely Geeky)
2. The Rest of Us

We Have Different Expectations of Celebrities
Celebrities, such as Ashton Kutcher, Demi Moore, Diddy, Martha Stewart, and even noted “tech celebrities” such as Robert Scoble and Guy Kawasaki, have a different experience than most of us, due to the number of people that want to follow them for various reasons or admiration. The Law of Reciprocity may or may not be used by celebs, but they attract plenty of attention anyway. You cannot compare yourself to them. When people find out they’re there, they often gain thousands of followers overnight.

The Rest of Us Are In a Popularity Game
People may not like it, but Twitter is as old-fashioned a popularity game as high school is, IF you want to use it to promote your business, products, services or special causes. It doesn’t matter if you have 50 followers, or 50,000, if you are a non-celebrity (remember, they are differently perceived than you), you will need to have some level of popularity amongst your friends and followers because you cannot extend the reach of your message without these people. By “being popular” I mean, you need to be liked and appreciated. This is not like traditional marketing – this is social marketing and being social requires a lot of interaction with other people. (Celebrities should pay attention to the rest of this article if they want their fans and followers to adore them beyond words. Acts of kindness by strangers are doubly appreciated when you admire the person already.)

This isn’t a magic “popularity” ingredient, nor can I ensure you’ll get followers by the droves if you take my advice. This IS however, a philosophical theory that can bring you benefits if you understand it and are able to take advantage of it in your self-promotional efforts.

I am not sharing this because I want everyone to think I have some super-sales twitter tactic for big-time business growth & thousands of followers or whatever the new crop of infamous “twitter marketers” are hawking. I follow lots of people, and I have seen (I think) virtually every kind of attempt to get followers and peddle one’s wares that exists. I see great businesses, big and small, that are sending out their info in an attempt to generate some interest in what they have to offer. And time and time again, I see some methods fail, or worse, suffer backlash from vocal users who like to point out shortcomings in others. I want to help those businesses understand how to use Twitter like I do (because after all, it works for me.)

Understanding The Law of Reciprocity
The simple way to describe the Law of Reciprocity is to equate it to The Golden Rule: do unto others as you would have them do unto you. But most of us were taught that in grade school and it still doesn’t help us win friends and influence people on Twitter! The actual, mathematical theorem depicted at Wikipedia is no help at all (except for you super-smart-geeks!) and what I am talking about is not spiritual in nature, though many students of spirituality and “law of attraction” believers consider this an important aspect of the universal condition.

I have some diagrams here to help illustrate my point. Each little spot on the circles is a “topic” of conversation on Twitter.

What I see companies and self-employed people do on Twitter, all the time, is operate like this circle on the left. They tweet, retweet and link to only that information which specifically talks about their company, a company employee, or company news of some type.

They may be friendly, and branch out a little bit over time, but their circles of interest revolve only around their own product, services, company or cause. I don’t think many businesses realize how this is perceived by others – they don’t necessarily intend to be self-serving only, so this is not a criticism but a different point of view to consider.

Popular (non-celebrity) users, on the other hand, tweet, retweet and link to information of all sorts. If a follower announces they’re having a baby, have graduated college or are getting married, they often excitedly tweet congratulations. They share items of interest that they feel others might like, even if they have no use for them. They participate sometimes in fun and silly games like #FollowFriday (where people make suggestions for people they recommend following) or #80sPhotoWeekend (wherein some of us risked ridicule by posting pics of ourselves that should have gone unseen.) They get into conversations that people are having, debating everything from the state of the economy to the controversial social practices to the best way to tweet. They share opinions, spread good and bad news, help new followers get on board and generally have a good time with the people in their Twitter stream.

“BUT @KrisColvin!!!” you might say, “I have no time for this! I am a busy business person who is all about business!” I hear you. I myself am neglecting about 12 other things simply to write this post. We are all busy. But this is NOT broadcast marketing. This is not a radio ad, tv spot, newspaper ad or direct mailer. This is social media marketing, and that takes the one thing we have even less of than we have money… it takes time.

I often refer to “pimping my friends” and have been told I’m an expert schmoozer… much of that is my particular, fairly social personality. I want to share information about the people, company and clients that I care about, but I know some folks don’t understand why they send me direct messages asking me to tweet something, and I ignore it. I do what I can, but can’t really tweet things out I have no relation to, sympathy for, understand or would use without seeming, rightfully so, fake. I try to share what I know about in line with the things people know I am interested in, mostly and just remain true to my character about it.

I recommend using Twitalyzer to find out where you stand in terms of being generous with others. If you enter my name, you’ll see I am not scoring very high on “Generosity” because I don’t retweet things as much as others do. Yet, many of my followers perceive me as generous, because they’ve witnessed me trying to help someone else. We all have our own ways of being helpful, but this information is good for me to know because I do in fact, read more links sent out than I retweet. I should step it up a bit and share those more. Seeing me help someone else, or retweet something for someone, creates the goodwill of the Law of Reciprocity – whether I have helped the person observing this or not. This is good to know, but this is where the Law also gets a bit complex. Coach John Agno explains it well at his site:

The law of reciprocity is not what can best be described as “transactional reciprocity.” Baker says that, “Many people conceive of their business dealings as spot market exchanges–value given for value received, period. Nothing more, nothing less. This tit-for-tat mode of operation can produce success, but it doesn’t invoke the power of reciprocity and so fails to yield extraordinary success.”

Baker explains, ”The lesson is that we cannot pursue the power of reciprocity. When we try to invoke reciprocity directly, we lose sight of the reason for it: helping others. Paradoxically, it is in helping others without expecting reciprocity in return that we invoke the power of reciprocity. The path to reciprocity is indirect: reciprocity ensues from the social capital built by making contributions to others.

The deliberate pursuit of reciprocity fails, just like the pursuit of happiness. Acts of contribution, big and small, build your fund of social capital, creating a vast network of reciprocity. And so those who help you may not be those you help. The help you receive may come from distant corners of your network.”

In reality, understanding how these dynamics work is just the first part of the challenge. We must genuinely like people to benefit from social media, because if you like someone, your intention is naturally more reciprocal and less self-serving. If you have a bit of an introverted or anti-social personality, this may be hard. If you are very intellectual and suffer from an intolerance of small talk, even harder. It might be a good idea to enroll someone to help you and to tweet on behalf of your business if this is the case. Your spouse, best friend or loyal employee might be able to do a better job than you may with this technology and new way of marketing. Empower them not just to “toe the company line” but to BE social… to chit-chat, to talk about random thing, to share the good news, links and informations shared by others, and to show their unique personalities online.

It is not when you are focused on the Law of Reciprocity that it will work for you – it’s when you’re not. I have literally gone on a mini-Facebook rant and moments later received a direct message from a prospective client wanting to know if Fresh ID does social media optimization. I worry about some of the things I tweet because I am highly opinonated, but not too much. Everyday, people both follow me and unfollow me. Focus on getting to know the people who have done you the honor of following you BEFORE talking about your business.

Rather than trying too hard to promote your business, mention it when something appropriate comes up. Talk naturally about your day (a benefit of frequent tweeting) and that will include aspects of your work. Share advice when you see questions. When a need that has to do with your industry is mentioned, you might be the first expert someone thinks of, and you will now be familiar to them so their recommendation will go to you. That’s how it works. It’s not a “tactic”, not a “strategy”, but you, being normal, with strangers in a social space just like you would at a party or public event. But for the Law of Reciprocity to work you have to let go of the controls and rules about how you use this medium.

Scott Stratten, aka @unmarketing on Twitter, has a great mantra that people love to share when they see it, that sum up this advice in less than 140 characters. It is:

The Five Steps of Twitter Success: Follow, Reply, Retweet, Share, Repeat

As per my habit, I want to break these down and go into some detail, because a lot of businesses may feel they are doing this already, and don’t understand why it’s not working.

Follow LOTS of people with varying interests… not just the folks that you think will buy what you’re selling.

Reply to anything you see that you have an answer in your head for (within reason.) People LOVE to be acknowledged, and sometimes we put something out we think is funny or interesting or needed and it just falls flat. Reply to people often – it is the only way to truly get to know them and become friends.

Retweet things that both apply and don’t apply to you and your mission. If it seems beneficial to many folks, or it gave you a hearty laugh, those tweets are great candidates for retweets and have nothing to do with your business (but it promotes lots of goodwill!)

Share all kinds of information. If you pick up some things at lunch at the mall because there is an incredible sale, share that – let people know because it might help them too. I often share job information because I have a client in the industry, but mainly because thousands of people are desperate for jobs! I don’t retweet every single thing I see, or share it, but if there is a hot-button issue like that you can share about that helps others, don’t hesitate because it doesn’t seem “on-topic” for your purpose.

Repeat daily and be consistent. Don’t just login to Twitter to promote something and go away. Find the time to work it into your daily routine if you want to use Twitter as a self-promotional tool. How else do you expect people to find you? Twitter by far sends more people to my sites, blogs and information than any search engine or advertising ever has. That is probably because I talk a lot!

Questions? Comments? I’d love to hear them about this topic! I feel pretty sure that if more businesses did this, they would find Twitter to be a more pleasant and effective business tool, given enough time. What do you think?

Personal: A Stay-in-Contact Tool for Friends & Family
Like Facebook, instant messaging or texting a dear one on the phone, your purpose is to stay in touch with people intimately and you are not really looking to “grow a network” or find more people to follow. Your updates may be protected and this article is probably not of interest to you.

Functional: A Productivity or Utility Tool
You can use Twitter as a tool for doing business, as opposed to building business, in a number of ways:

1. Public Use: Customer Service
2. Public Use: Broadcast Information, such as blog feeds, job openings, PR feeds, news feeds, political information, stock & financial reports, etc. Many users are benefitting from the instant updating and like to follow broadcast-only accounts if the content is relevant to them.
3. Private Use: Inner-office communications, police or medical department communications, etc. (usually this necessitates protected updates and random followers are not sought out or approved)
4. Public or Private Use: Members only updates or business-to-consumer information such as using Twitter pings to look up information in a database (checking to see if the video store has the movie you want to see, placing to-go orders at a local restaurant, etc.)
5. Pulse: Information about real-time breaking news, weather events, global issues and hot topics.

Social: A Promotional & Networking Expansion Tool
Some folks love the companionship and chance to meet folks from around the world, so while they aren’t necessarily limiting themselves only to friends or family members, they really don’t have an agenda for using Twitter other than to meet new people and have a great time. Other meeting local friends, meeting someone to romance (more casual than match.com!) or finding people who share your interests, beliefs or hobbies.

One of the most powerful and popular ways to use Twitter is as a self-promotional vehicle, whether an individual, celebrity or company representative. The price is right, for all – it’s free! The learning curve is not steep, the only real downside seems to be the time it takes to add this into an already busy workday. Though a lot of individuals and companies are hearing about Twitter and setting up accounts (including celebrities of all types, politicians, athletes, news outlets and more), HOW to promote oneself in a way that attracts people rather than repels them, seems not to be understood by many, many people on Twitter.

When it’s not understood, any number of unattractive things can occur that can hurt your efforts:

• You offend people immediately after they follow you, by sending automated direct messages with self-interest-serving links (single easiest way to make a bad impression.)
• You annoy new followers with automated off-the-shelf promo messages created by the software you’re using (Join me on ping.fm, it’s like twitter for music!)
• You’re a celebrity who appears overly self-indulgent and non-friendly because though thousands of fans follow you (some of them more interested or genuinely fond of you than you know) the number of people you follow are in the single or double digits and you rarely @reply to people by name.
• You’re a company who only seems to care about promoting your products, your services, your press, or retweets information in which you are mentioned.
• You’re a company who thinks Twitter should be used as a broadcast tool, but don’t understand the circumstances in which people care about that, and mistakenly expect people on Twitter to jump on and follow you so you can blast them with self-promotion. When they don’t, you think Twitter is not all it’s cracked up to be.
• You actually think that putting up a photo of a hot babe wearing a skimpy outfit, and putting in a few updates of a link to something you are trying to sell is going to work to make you millions of dollars. When you get blocked or banned as a spammer, you don’t get what the problem is.
• You see the thousands upon millions of Twitter users as live targets for your sales pitches, and follow people simply to send them some great link for them to try out, check out or that will bring them great benefits. But because people can see through your self-serving interests, you come off as lame and there are a fair amount of outspoken people that bash you and try to get you thrown off Twitter.

Using Twitter as a promotional tool effectively can be challenging, but very rewarding. In my next post, I’ll show you how the Law of Reciprocity can change the way people perceive you, and help you create more openings to talk about your business with an ever-growing number of followers.

He had a different take and now I have to wonder if this could be something the creators were thinking about. To the electronic, phone-happy, can’t live a minute without some internet access population (the bulk of my friends on Twitter), this gadget seems like a terrible idea. It’s much more limited than a smartphone, doesn’t offer full functions like a Kindle does for a book (meaning, since you can’t see links and pics you are dead in the water except for seeing and responding to tweets) and it looks like an over-sized calculator. Here’s what we came up with as possible uses for this limited device though… I see this gadget from a new perspective after our talk:

Connectivity to your children: For $99 + $8 a month or $199 LIFETIME access, you could get one of these things for your kids far cheaper than a mobile phone, set up a private network of family and known friends only and have some feeling of security if you are on Twitter a lot (which I am) that your kids could reach you with a tweet when needed, and that you could see when they tweet and who they’re talking to. Twitter has a minimum age requirement I think, so you’d need to look into that, but this could come in very handy if you have kids that you don’t quite want to phone-enable yet.

Replacement for phones in dispatch situations: If you’re paying for phones with any kind of access beyond voice calls, you’re going to be paying a lot more per month than you would with this device. Twitter cabbies, delivery services, police departments, medical institutions… there could be a large list of possible buyers if you look at the systems and processes you could put in place with this device rather than using mobile phones. Tremendous cost savings depending on what you’re doing.

Team communicators: Nextel used to be the big thing to have for construction crews and folks that work with each other, but some distance apart from each other (such as when doing road construction or a large building or even in the oil field.) It is VERY costly though… these devices would be cheaper by a significant amount if you are outfitting crews with ways to reach each other. (Yes, the learning curve would be they have to learn to tweet instead of talk, but that is a process change you might want to make to save money.)

I still don’t know that the TwitterPeek will take off. It all depends on the marketing and branding they do – right now most people who see it are techies or at least Twitter-oriented already and the limitations seem so obviously unappealing that they view it negatively. I see it a little differently if used as I described it here now… it remains to be seen if that is how the company will actually promote it or not.

I have to add, right now I am phoneless. My dumbphone (an Alltel LG Scoop) is broken and I am waiting to buy a smartphone this Friday (Motorola Droid or HTC Droid Eris mostly likely.) Now… if I were NOT in this situation, and this Twitter gadget came out that let me get online and talk to my friends any dang time I wanted to, from any city, any place, anywhere, for $200 one-time fee… well, I might be tempted. LOL!! It’s hard to be on the road and be able to read things from my dumbphone and not be able to respond. But probably, that’s just me.

Some of the benefits of Lists are:

• You don’t have to follow people you have on a list, so brands like Starbucks or Verizon or whoever you need to interact with occasionally, don’t have to take up your main tweet stream… a HUGE benefit.
• Though many clients offer Groups, Twitter itself did not, so all the effort to put people into groups in an individual client did not translate to using another client – it was stored at the system level. Having Lists available via Twitter & the api means your sorted groups will always stay intact, regardless of the software you’re using.
• Lists can be shared and followed by others, so if you see a List you like that someone else created, you can follow it rather than recreate it… the disadvantage right now is that Twitter hasn’t made it so that you can add to, copy, consolidate or alter a List, meaning if you follow a great one and find an applicable user to add to it, you can’t (we will attempt to code around this in Twitterface so that you can.)
• There’s already an awesome directory set up where you can find and follow Lists… check it out at Listorious.com (I love Listorious so much, I’m hoping we can work with their team to integrate adding to the directory from Twitterface.)

Suffice it to say, this is one of the most exciting new features Twitter has implemented yet. In fact, The Next Web is reporting that Google searches indicate over 6.5 MILLION Twitter Lists have been created so far… and that’s with a gradual rollout to limited users the last two weeks in beta mode!

Not convinced of the benefit for you yet? Several users asked me to write about how Lists could help them from a business perspective. Here are some things you might do with this cool feature…

1. Create a list of your clients. I haven’t done this yet but am going to. We like to keep up with our clients tweets because we like them and want to stay in the loop about what they have going on. This is a super-fast way to do that.
2. Create a list of recommended vendors. A lot of folks have Twitter apps or tools Lists, but I decided to create a List of applications that I trust (including competitors to Twitterface) or that I use and would recommend. I don’t put a tool on this list without firsthand knowledge of the people behind it or interaction with them, so my followers or people who find it at Listorious will know it’s not a random smattering of tools, but one that I personally put thought into (if that matters to them.) Another purpose for do this is to help your own clients… if you’re a designer, you might assemble a list of recommended printers your clients can use to help them compare pricing or find special services.
3. List people from an article or book. Shel Israel has a neat list of people that were mentioned in his Twitterville book. This is a nice way to let people instantly follow all the people you’ve mentioned in a blog article (I’ll be creating a Twitter List of the 40 Amazing Female Role Models for Web Designers article I was recently mentioned in, for example.) This is a super way to extend the value of this type of article. (One caveat: you can only have 20 Lists per Twitter account, so you may need to think through this before planning to do a list for every article.)
4. Share your passions. Robert Scoble makes no apologies for his singular interest in tech geeks of all types – programmers, innovators, financiers, etc. His lists are awesome to follow but also worth studying from a strategic standpoint.
5. Stream topics. One of the ways Lists + Twitterface (when implemented) gets very interesting is that you can stream topics for your audience. Say you love a particular car or you share financial information and you have a Twitterface page on that topic. Instead of being limited to searches in your panes as a way to find tweets, you can now create a list of Twitter users (or bot reporters) that talk about those topics 24/7. The topical content you share with others now just increased in value. One thing I will do as soon as Lists is implemented in our product, is add all the pro Tennis players who tweet (there are many) to the 40 Love page. We will eventually have more than 3 panes, for even more real-time content streaming. This takes Lists out of your own personal Twitter experience (using Tweetdeck or whatever client you prefer) and lets you use it to add to your own site or blog content as a value for your visitors.
6. Stream sales and coupons. I don’t do any direct selling via Twitter, but there is the potential to set up Lists (and Twitterface pages) to stream deals constantly. Let me attempt to give an example, though this may not be the best one since I am not an affiliate marketer. We have a page for tweets on cheese with a domain pointed to it at www.cheesetweets.com. If I had affiliate accounts set up with different cheese sellers (there are many online stores that offer affiliate programs) I could make a list of multiple accounts or use a single account on a Twitterface page to stream these deals in addition to seeing random tweets about cheese eating and recipes. This is a non-intrusive way to advertise (no one has to be followed, because you promote and link to your topical page, so you aren’t bothering them with sales tweets they don’t want.)
7. Combine your own Twitter accounts into one List. Users may not want to follow all of your Twitter accounts personally, but might follow a List they can check when they want to. Depending on the content you deliver, it might make sense to combine many of your Twitter accounts into a single List. I’d love it if Whole Foods did this with all their accounts, for example (just because I’m a brand fan who would check it sometimes.) This could be a powerful internal way for employees to stay in the loop and connected also.
8. Create a List for coworkers, team members or contractors. Life flies by fast on Twitter. I continually check the Twitterface page for We Heart Studios and see things I had no idea my team has said. A List will make it much easier to keep up with the people who are a critical part of my business everyday.
9. Find job opportunities faster. If you’re hunting for a job, there are many sources on Twitter that do nothing but list jobs. Combine all of these into a List and focus your attention on just those postings to save time and prevent missing a great opportunity.
10. Assemble a list of referrals. I am definitely going to do this. When a new client or opportunity presents itself, have a handy list of people that are willing to be contacted for a referral source (ask them first.) This will be super-convenient for folks who do business on Twitter like I do.
11. Create a list of people you’ve met. LightThread CEO Simon Kuo created a neat list for himself of people he’s now met in person. If you’ve attended an awesome conference recently and want to remember all the folks you’ve met, you might create a list like Like Minds did for their Like Minds Alumni. Many lists exist for local friends or people in your area. (I’m on several for the Kansas City area.)
12. Define people by what they love. I will be creating a list of Nutella addicts. Why? Just because I can. And because there are LOTS of them! The trick will be seeing what we can do in Twitterface with the api’s so that I can someday take that list of Nutella freaks and isolate only their Nutella tweets. (Yum, in every way!!)

Now… there are some people who will be petty and complain that they want to be on more lists. Okay, probably that is just me. LOL! But seriously, we should not necessarily view lists as some indicator of influence or popularity or lack thereof… they are meant to be used for your needs as a Twitter user and not the new “Twitter follower scheme” opportunity. Sadly, I have already seen one tweet advertising a pyramid scheme to get you on more lists. This is not the best use of your time. Be interesting – show your unique personality and personal quirks – make lists that truly mean something to you and followers you care about and let the list mania chips fall where they may.

Here are some more articles to help you understand the fine details about Twitter Lists. My #1 request of Twitter would be that they add “consolidation” and allow you to rename a list as your own so you can continue to add people to it that appeal to you. There may be reasons they wouldn’t like that idea, but that’s the main interactivity complaint I have so far.

>> Twitter Lists are Live! (Mashable)

>> Scobleizer on Lists: Limitations, Bugs, Impact & Brilliance

>> Alex’s Footnote to Scobleizer’s Post

>> Twitter Expands Lists Beta. A Great New Feature

Questions, comments or more suggestions about how to use Lists, please leave them in the comments and let’s discuss. I’m loving this new feature – I was on the beta from the beginning, and can’t wait for everyone to catch up and begin creating their own unique lists.

For $20 you can order a full report, which will contain all mentions of your search term over the past 7 days or maximum 1500 results (limits imposed by Twitter.) I find the cost of the report a bit high – using TweetReach for something like a marketing campaign is a very appealing way to see the effectiveness and what people are saying about it, but $20 on just that every week (or however long the campaign runs) might be more than people want to pay. 

Still… this is a GREAT concept and I love the way the information is presented. I did a search on a recent article I know many of us passed around, which had a somewhat unique title “Becoming P2P”. Here are the results of that search.  Another dear friend named Scott Gould wrote about this too, so his article results are combined in this search, which is great (for my purposes) because the topic is the same.

You can see the “Total Exposure” which shows that over 31,000 people saw something about this article 4-7 times! That’s awesome… I am not sure of the social media conversion rates on something like this, but in advertising (say, for a print ad or television spot) the numbers are something like 7x exposure needed before one takes action. Psychologically, seeing repeated exposures builds familiarity and confidence, which is why many companies don’t realize to place on print ad in a trade magazine is not the most effective way to spend marketing dollars – it’s not enough exposure. I just read yesterday, that consumers who are exposed to a brand’s social media efforts and paid search programs are 2.8x more likely to search for that brand’s products. For example, if you do paid Google searches, using social media in addition is almost 3x more effective. So you can begin to see where this sort of Total Exposure information can come in handy.

A lot of traditional marketing pro’s want to see who the “influencers” are. TweetReach shows the impressions broken down by Twitterer. I don’t know how accurate that is – I guess it seems unreal to me that my mentions of this particular article would be so high – nearly 124,000 impressions! That just seems crazy. But this list shows who is talking about you, who believes in what you’re doing, and who is helping to spread your particular message.

So, if you like this tool, there are some things you can do in advance to help you later search for it effectively. All of these can be changed by users when they retweet or share it somewhere, so you probably want to search using all these methods to discover the real results.

1. Use a unique URL. Bit.ly and many other URL shorteners let you add a “custom” addition to the url and you should do that – make it short as possible and as UNIQUE as possible (in case others have used those same words. In this search example, the URL could have been something like http://bit.ly/bep2p  Of course, the boring old numbers and letters url’s will work just fine also.
2. Use a unique hashtag. The author of this article is @thebrandbuilder on Twitter (he happens to be a Twitterface advisor also) and we often refer to him as #TBB. Unfortunately others use that hashtag also for 2 or 3 other things. He could promote his articles distinctly and then search on them later by altering the hashtag to something like #TBB-P2P. That way, if people consistently retweeted that hashtag it would easily distinguish all of these searches in TweetReach.
3. Use a unique title or phrase in your tweet. I happened to think of the words “Becoming P2P” because it was short and we’ve all been talking about it the past two days. Those words are fairly unique, but if you want to use TweetReach a lot you probably need to think about how you are going to find these results in advance.

Go play with TweetReach! We will be looking into integrating or pointing over to it from Twitterface in the future – it’s that good a tool.

And read Becoming P2P: Principle Characteristics of the New Social Business if you want to see how business is already shifting and shaping – this is such an exciting time to be part of this movement.

ADDENDUM
Last night on Twitter Olivier Blanchard and Don Bart, my social media ROI experts, reminded me that Impressions only mean “opportunities to see”. A tweet sent, is not a guaranteed tweet read. The same could be said about direct mail – some of it gets thrown in the trash, but the difference is the reader has to mentally process it before deciding to do that. An advertisement may or may not be noticed in a magazine (with lots of other content around it.) But a tweet may never have been seen at all… that’s why TweetReach’s graph of the number of times a tweet was sent to a number of people (what they call impressions) is so helpful. Having exposure to the information more than once, if it’s important to you, can make a difference in the reality of how many people clickthru to read more information, visit your site, interact with you on Twitter, or do a search for your products or services.

ADDENDUM 2
It’s important to search for your entry several ways to see all the results. For example, if I search for this article at TweetReach using the shortened bit.ly link I originally posted, I get much smaller results than I did using the title of the post. People’s links get changed or re-shortened, or they deliberately do it to track via some other program, so url’s are highly inconsistent (which is why bit.ly aggregates results based on the long url.) Contrast those results with the search on the full post title and you’ll see many more people retweeted this than I knew about, because my name was not in the retweets. Sweet!

Visit the new Twitter Tracker site - it only looks like a spam site. Very fun marketing idea and clever use of Twitter mania without taking it seriously. Kudo’s to the marketing team or whoever parented this brainchild!

I. You all have implicit permission to retweet anything I say that is:

A) Brilliant
B) Twitter-related
C) Fascinating
D) Flattering (to moi)

II. I am not granting permission for the silly, doofus, snarky or potentially pms-related things I say.

III. If it is merely interesting or mildly intriguing, you may retweet it, but definitely DO edit it to sound Brilliant.

While my joking around brought some laughter from my Twitter friends, apparently the licensing of tweets has been a concern, especially in the context of journalism and republishing quotes. (Though I notice Yahoo has no problem writing about everything Lance Armstrong says on Twitter, and I doubt he has granted permission to publish his tweets.)

To remedy this ever-growing dilemma, Tweet CC has launched today. Born of a need to communicate permissions to use Twitter avatar and comments, this is a handy little service at first glance. It’s also a beautiful site – refresh the page and you can see it in the color scheme of your choice. (Love that!!!)

Some of my Twitter friends have already raised some questions, like “what if I only want to license *some* of my tweets and not all of them?” I am going to tweet the creators, Andy Clark and Brian Suda, and ask if they can answer whether that for us. Just like with photos on Flickr, some have all rights reserved and some are available under a Creative Commons license, so that might be a nice option for Twitter users to have.

I’d also love to know, if this practice is adopted, what recourse one would have if they did NOT license their tweets for republishing and then find them in a news article or book? Lance Armstrong might benefit from that tidbit of information also!

Then a friend told me about the (relatively secret?) way to opt out of direct messages sent by TweetLater users. Here is the process:

1) Follow @optmeout on Twitter
2) Wait for them to follow back
3) Send @optmeout a Direct Message (can say anything)
4) Unfollow @optmeout. (You’ll receive one more confirmation DM)

Since I did this, I don’t think I have received even ONE automated message, and I was getting dozens every day! I am thrilled, and thought my Twitterface friends might like to use this method for escaping the dreaded automated dm’s also. You don’t have to thank me for following you, folks. The pleasure is mine.

We became alarmed and instantly began to tweet about it. Behind the scenes, we were discussing the action steps to take, like how to get him off of Twitter and get his site down, which he had registered as fuelyourcreativity.co.uk. To get him off Twitter, we asked our friends to block his account (he was only followed by 8 people, so unfollowing was not as helpful.) Then several of us reported him to @spam, Twitter’s official account for reporting spammers and copycats like this guy. The retweets of Adelle’s dilemma were so high, for a couple of hours she was one of the most retweeted folks on Twitter.

Our Twitter friends were invaluable. At least 10 people emailed the thief, when we published his email address. Multiple people twittered @spam for Adelle, we got stellar advice, especially from one of my followers, @brandon_wirtz, who gave us guidance on how to submit the proper information to the ISP to have his site removed, as it went against Intellectual Property standards. We even got offers to pay him a little visit in his area, which delighted me to no end as I was quite angry about this at the time, being such a brand advocate.

I honestly thought this issue would not be resolved for weeks. But only FOUR hours after it began, Adelle sent the good news that he had removed his Twitter account and taken the site down voluntarily. Of course, he feels he reserves the right to continue using the domain name, and I do not. I hope Adelle will continue fighting for her brand’s rights, now that the immediate concern has passed.

It struck me that this never would have happened so easily, without the brute force and strength of our Twitter friends. Between the two of us, we have over 9000 followers. I know at least 10 people – maybe more – directly emailed the Copycat. Heaven knows what they said, but I’d love to have seen those emails! The retweets were off the charts – we had so many folks spreading the word, this guy didn’t stand a chance of not being discovered there. And we had the advice and support of many Twitter friends who jumped in to offer it.

This is not something to be done lightly. Obviously, to publicly humiliate someone online to the point where they will alter their actions should not be done for mere sport. This was a legitimate call for help on Adelle’s part, and a good cause. Many of the people we hang out with at Twitter are designers and small business owners – they can imagine the ramifications of having their brands ripped off by a thief.

Do you have the kind of relationship where you and your followers have each others backs? Or do you mostly try to amass followers to sell them something? Do your friends on Twitter know you at all, because you share bits of your life and personality with them? People are fond of saying “my online friends” vs. “my real life” – I hear it all the time and it makes me cringe a little. My online friends are part of my real life. And last night Adelle & I witnessed how much they care, and would be there for her, in spades.

This is just one true story. Day after day, people are proving on Twitter that they care for one another and will help each other when needed:

• David Armano’s friends and followers raised over $16,000 to help a young woman and her children leave an abusive situation and start a new life
• People at Thanksgiving raised over $10,000 to build a classroom in Tanzania, in less than 48 hours
• Twitter friends of a graduate student who was arrested in Egypt got word to the young man’s college, who hired a lawyer to help free him
• When Warren Sukernek was laid off from VML, an interactive ad agency the week before Christmas, his followers spread the word far & wide in an attempt to help him find work

If you have any stories of your Twitter posse coming to your rescue, I’d love to hear about them!

• You’re the best. Thanks for following me, Jordi. Visit my blog at (promo url) and join in.
  
• Hi, Jordi. Thanks for the follow! I look forward to your Tweets.
  
• Hey Jordi. Come and see what I’m doing at (promo url).
  
• Thanks for following me Jordi. I’m looking forward to your tweets.
  
• Jordi, thanks for the follow! I look forward to seeing what you have to tweet about!

Hmm… my name is Kristi, so what’s with all this Jordi business??? A quick shout out to my peeps, and I am told that the “companion to the social web” company Social Too is the culprit of the extremely non-personal “personalized” thank you messages.

Why do people use these? You should never rely on technology to do what you should be doing yourself. If you want to say thank you to someone, spend the time to thank them! I mean, ACTUALLY wait for them to follow you, observe their tweets, bio, profile and possibly external links, and then craft a warm or witty message denoting your undying gratitude for deeming you worthy of a follow, if that’s what you must do.

I much prefer to simply follow and be followed, and get to know people over time as natural conversation that is mutually interesting allows. One day I followed a guy that seemed cool, who lives near my old stomping grounds in Texas, and I piped up immediately and said something to him, and now when we tweet each other, we have this common bond. That is MUCH more effective than if I had said “Hey Jordi, glad to know ya!! Please visit my blog at twitterface.me to learn more about me!”

Think about it people. Nobody wants to be approached with a sales pitch or sometimes worse, an interrogation, “Jordi, why did you follow me??? Visit my blog and leave a comment or DM me to let me know!”

If you DO like these sort of messages, I’ve got some followers for you! That’s all for now, Jordi!