Happy New Year to all of our clients, friends and BrandFlakes readers!
The new year is the perfect time to form new habits and routines. I visit a lot of clients and brands across the country, and am always surprised at how many marketing folk still aren't using RSS to read their blogs, and are still a flutter about Twitter. If you fall into this category, I'm begging you to explore. Start now, with two easy resolutions:
1. Use an RSS reader. If you don't know where to start, Google's reader is awesome and easy. You'll be up and reading in minutes. Add blogs frequently. Whenever you come across something you like. You'll be amazed at how quickly you can read a HUNDRED blogs.
2. Start a Twitter account. You don't even have to Tweet. Not at all. But follow some other people who do. You can start with the NY Times, or Techmeme. Look at other people in the industry, and who they follow. (Look me up, too!) And now, check your Twitter feed a few times a day. I guarantee you'll be more informed.
Here's to more information, more fun, and more social/marketing/branding/design goodness for 2008!!
6 comments:
Actually, I would recommend that you do Tweet. Yes, Twitter is good for information and all. But I think one of the ways Twitter is moving is into a great way to hold conversations. It's a great place to interact with people.So yes, I would recommend to join Twitter, but not just as an observer. Start Tweeting yourself, and interact with people.
Totally agree, Derrick.
My suggestion is based on a perceived obstacle that Twitter has in getting many marketing people to participate: the fear of tweeting (twittering?).
I always hear: "I wouldn't know what to say."
And to that, I say - jump in and observe. I'm confident that after some time observing, new Twitter users will Tweet as well.
I myself am still finding my "Twitter voice", and haven't yet honed to the point where I believe it's of interest to followers. Something I hope to change in 2008.
But by following some very interesting people over the last year, I know that I've become more informed, made some new friends, and have some ideas on how to use Twitter even more effectively.
Thing I notice about voice on it is that people seem to carry over the voice they have from their blog, website, etc. Start there. Write on Twitter the way you normally blog.
Just do it in under 140 characte
;-p
Just knowing that I can RSS to read your blog in 0.1 seconds and then Twitter back an idea in 0.05 seconds makes me feel ... whoops, I'm out of characters.
I'm new to Twitter and just tried to tweet you-- apparently I can't until you start following me. Live and learn. Anyway, the message I was trying to send was "Love your site design. Also found your posts really helpful. Thanks."
Baby, baby, baby : you can't DM (direct message) someone if they're not following you - but you can send a public tweet their way. Just put an @ in front of their twitter name (@darrylohrt), and it will show in their replies.
I've just caught up on my follows, so if I'm still not following you, let me know with an @darrylohrt, and I'll follow back.
See you in tweetsville.
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