Internet Marketing Parody: “Johnny Come Lately”

I decided to have some fun and produce this video parody of “Johnny Come Lately” style Internet marketing in conjunction with my new book launch on Monday. It shows various wrong ways to do things, and then makes a statement about building relationships and the importance of growing a social network based on friendships and trust. If you will take the time to watch this video and get to the core of the message, I hope that you will appreciate it enough to help me spread the word.

If you know somebody who can benefit from a greater understanding of Twitter and social networking, please help me to spread the word on Monday!

Please give me your comments here on the blog!

Are You a Trust Agent? Chris Brogan is!

I know you appreciate a no-nonsense, tell-it-like-it-is article. Most of us appreciate a straight message. If you have read my blog before, you probably came back because you know that I will tell it just how I see it.

I know another guy who does this. I do not know him very well, personally, but I know his work. I respect his work. His name is Chris Brogan (Twitter Chris Brogan), and he is a man with a powerful message of building your networks and building trust.

Chris Brogan’s message of building trusting networks of supporters is valuable, and I believe it can benefit you. I believe it enough that when he asked others to help him to spread the word, I did just that. I was not singled out and approached for it, I was not cohersed, I was not bribed, I was not paid, and we are not in cahoots. I believe in the message he delivers, and I know that it works because it is precisely why I am writing this to you right now. This is my testimony that his hard work deserves merit.

I want you to check out his new book. Even if you think you do not want to buy it, I would like you to look at the reviews. The outstanding reviews of this book, alone, should give you confidence to recommend it to others … even if you do not think it is for you.

Maybe you are saying, “Oh, so you are peddling another book, huh Mark?” Yes, I am, and just as I have said about my own book, “Twitter for Business: Twitter for Friends”, I would never do so unless I strongly believed that it was done with value to the readers. In fact, I believe the two of these books are great companions, and should be a part of your reading plan. Click here to order “Trust Agents” and Click here to order “Twitter for Business: Twitter for Friends”. If you order them together on Amazon, you can save on shipping and have some excellent professional help at a cost far less than having either of us come directly to you, and much less than the cost of lost opportunities.

Did Twitter Go Deaf With Broadcast Static?

“Twitter can you hear me?” This is a question that many Twitter users are asking. At first, I was concerned that it was just me. Maybe people just didn’t hear me … maybe I didn’t bathe enough and stunk up the place. That would have been a great scenario for Twitter, but I have found without doubt that this is not limited to me, and that it is a widespread issue. There are some specific reasons for this, and I want to share my thoughts and I want to hear yours. I hope that we can get this all sorted out before the famous Twitter question of “What are you doing?” becomes “Are you there?”

Do You Hear Me?

I may not be the best example to pull from, but I have used Twitter, a lot. In fact, I used it so much that I tweeted my answer to “What are you doing?” over 20,000 times and found so many interesting facets of Twitter that I wrote a book about it. Yeah, a book! I have met some amazing friends, and learned a lot along the way. I have encountered some of the very best things Twitter has to offer, and I am a huge fan. My list of reasons for loving Twitter is long.

Most people would perhaps never even imagine a book’s worth of useful insight about Twitter, and much less publishing it to share with the world. I did, and it was done to preemptively meet the challenges of Twitter growth to the point of deafness. Deafness from people who tried it and did not understand Twitter and left. Deafness from those who saw little value because they are just out to look popular with a lot of followers. Deafness from many other ailments due to an explosive growth curve.

It has been my attempt to help new and existing users to find the greatest value of Twitter and help them to make it more useful. Am I too late? I do not think so, but we will all determine the outcome.

Measuring Twitter Engagement

You may wonder how I measure whether Twitter is listening. There are many ways, but I will show you a couple which cannot be denied. I ask questions of people, and I watch statistics … I am a marketing guy, after all. Some people even tease that I may be leaning toward autism in my watchful eye on trends and numbers. It is easy to see when somebody reads a message, and I will show you how. First, I want to start with a very social question that I asked, and it was really just because I wanted to know. I was trying to connect and start a conversation with people. I recently asked a question as follows:

I am curious to hear you answer the official Twitter question: “What are you doing?”

I received a lot of replies. After all, it was a good question. I loved reading the replies and it started some fun conversations. So does this message really answer a question of deafness? Yes! It was an engaging question that encouraged a response. I was delighted with the response. All the same, as a studier of numbers, I would bet dollars for tweets that I would have had ten times the response rate in May.

Another measurable way to see the deafness cloud hovering over Twitter is to look at any Bit.ly link. Bit.ly is a massively used URL shortening service that will allow any user to see how many people have actually clicked on a given link. I will give you a fantastic example. Here is a tweet sent by the number one most followed user of Twitter, Ashton Kutcher (@aplusk). His tweet was about The White House wanting people’s input on health care reform. It encompassed topics of government, health care, and small business, all at once. These are wildly hot topics, so one could assume it would have a lot of clicks. Go see for yourself … you can click here to see how many people actually clicked on the link. It died on the vine, and gives a view of how people are busier sending tweets than actually paying attention. This is coming from a guy with nearly 3,000,000 followers! What do your followers do?

When Did Twitter Go Deaf?

This all begs the questions of “When did Twitter go deaf?” and “What can we do about it?” I hope to have an answer, but I do not have the only answer. We can decide the right answers collectively. My answer is to help people understand the best assets of Twitter (relationships) and how to be sure they are seeing what they want to see. This may be a long way around, but the idea is that if you, and you, and you and the rest of you are able to manage your use of Twitter more efficiently, the whole service is improved.

In the past couple months, as I was staring into my monitor for days on end seeking inspiration and working on my LCD tan, I seem to have lost Twitter. Somehow, as I was writing until my fingers hurt, the deafness of “The Twitter broadcast” has grown like that little bump under your arm that gets bigger and bigger, until it is time for a biopsy to check for cancer.

Maybe you can say that I am manstruating and I just need to change my manpon, but I know that many others have noticed the same issues. I think it would be really nice if we could all listen again, and perhaps that way maybe we can be heard, too.

If you believe that helping others to use Twitter more efficiently will help, please tell them about my new book, “Twitter for Business: Twitter for Friends”

Sorry Twitter, But You May Thank Me Later!

Have you ever apologized for something that you have not yet done? That is what I am doing here, but at the same time, Twitter may thank me for it later.

I have tried to make it pretty clear to my readers that I recently wrote a book titled “Twitter for Business: Twitter for Friends”. The book is now ready for orders, and I do not plan to let anybody forget it.

So why am I apologizing?

I wrote a really useful book to help new and experienced Twitter users alike, so that should be a good thing, right? I guess you could say that I am apologizing for the self-promotion that some people may complain about. After all, it may seem pretty self-serving to repeatedly tweet about my book. Well, I am sorry, but I plan to do just that.

I plan to tweet it, blog it, and scream it from the top of my lungs for a few days. I can only hope that people will understand that while I am feverishly trying to get the word out that it is intended for the betterment of Twitter. I believe that when enough people read the book, it can have a great value to the Twitter community. Hopefully my many friends and followers on Twitter will forgive me, and thank me later!

I am asking for your help!

I know you may have better things to do than to help me promote a book, but I am asking for your help. If you will review the Introduction and the Table of Contents, I hope you will see this as a worthwhile effort.

Please Tweet to help me to tell others!

Twitter Success Stories

Do you have a Twitter success story, or do you know somebody who does? If the answer is yes, I want to hear about it.

If you have heard something that gave you a smile, made you cry, or just made you think about why you use Twitter, you are not alone. Every day we see “tweets” that reinforce our belief in people and prove that we are not alone. It may be a story of a restauranteur who was able to bring more smiles with their culinary delights, or the person who found a job and saved their home and kept their family secure.

Some success stories are more profound than others, but they all count. Some of the success stories of Twitter have changed the world for a few, and others have changed the world for many. I want to hear about all of them.

Please take just a moment of your time to tell the story of how Twitter has changed your life, or forward this article to somebody who will. Your story may be submitted as a comment to this blog post. You may also reach me to discuss the story by phone at my direct line, toll free, *REDACTED DUE TO AGING WEBSITE* (*REDACTED DUE TO AGING WEBSITE*) or by Skype (username murnahan).

I will select stories to be included in my soon to be released book, “Twitter for Business: Twitter for Friends”. If I select your story, I will credit you in the book, and your copy is “on the house”.

Please be sure to include your Twitter username in your comment in the form of http://twitter.com/yourusername.

I do not often push my readers to retweet things, but in this case, I am asking you to spread the word and help me to find positive stories to show the readers of my new book positive and uplifting examples of what can happen when we work together.

Please help me to uncover the Twitter success stories that prove that Twitter really is the great social media resource that so many of us have come to enjoy.