What I Learned at 140 | The Twitter Conference (part 4)

View this blog post “What I Learned at 140 | The Twitter Conference (part 4)” on my new blog site at SmokeJumperStrategy.com/blog.

“Twitter business start-ups are combination socialist and radical markets.”
Jason Calacanis
Computer History Museum
Mountain View, CA
May 26, 2009

I caught the last part of Jason Calacanis (@JasonCalacanis), day one lunchtime keynote “How Twitter Will Make a Billion, and How You Can Make a Million.”  (Given my lateness, I guess I only have about $100,000 coming my way).  Jason had lots of great anecdotes, assertions and observations given his background, experience and implementation with Mahalo and @answers.  He believes (as much of the audience did by show of hands) that Twitter will be more valuable than Facebook in 5 years.

The first afternoon panel focused on Twitter Strategies:  Real-World Success Stories, and featured Jeff Pester (@UniqueVisitor), Bryan Rhoads (@bryanrhoads), @WarrenWhitlock and a substitute for Justin Kan from justin.tv. Some highlights:

• People don’t want 20 tweets a day. Moderate your subject matter expertise.
• Focus on giving. Help and promote others.
• Find others close to you. Use TweepSearch for geographic-based search of users.
• Twitter is a process.  Consider it as a long-term investment <damn, I was hoping to get 10,000 followers overnight – wonder if I can get my $’s back?>
• Don’t try to get 100k followers. Instead find 100 people with 1,000 followers who are interested in you and your tweets – they will distribute you.
• Examples of small local business.   Tweeting daily specials: “cookies just out of the oven, come and get ‘em’.”
• Avoid an ROI discussion around Twitter.  Rather need to reframe as R&D or “Return on Engagement”.  (Sarah Evans suggests 15 Ways to Measure Return on Engagement (ROE) of Social Media in her blog.)

I’m buzzin’ . . . more later.

 

1. The Power of Presence. Insights from Alex Payne, Twitter API Lead.
2. I am a Twitter God(ess) and So Can You! The View From Twitter Stardom with @ijustine, @missrogue and @davepeck.
3. Don’t Take the Drive to Manic Feature Explosion. What Makes a Good Twitter App.
4. Twitter business start-ups are combination socialist and radical markets.   Twitter Strategies:  Real-World Success Stories.
5. WTF, No Twitter TV!? Direction from Anamitra Banerji, Twitter Product Management.
6. Even with a simple hash tag, there is a learning curve. Soren MacBeth, Co-Founder / CEO of StockTwits.
7. You can’t own social media. You can only interact with it. Corporate Use of Twitter by @JetBlue.
8. Twitter will transform conferences & events. Surprising takeaways from an in-person Twitter conference experience.