The Secret Diary of a Bonafide Marketing Genius

illustration by Matt Hamm

Dear Diary,
It’s no secret that I love Twitter. So imagine my glee when this week’s Time had an iPhone on the cover with this headline: How Twitter Will Change The Way We Live (in 140 characters or less). I’m goddamn giddy like a schoolgirl!

If you were a human and not a diary, I would insist that you go read the article yourself, then follow up with this “list” of 10 Ways Twitter Will Change American Business. Since you’re not, I’ll share the tastiest tidbits with you here and now.

1. “…the futurists had it wrong. We still have national events, but now when we have them, we’re actually having a genuine, public conversation with a group that extends far beyond our nuclear family and our next-door neighbors. Some of that conversation is juvenile of course… but some of it is moving, witty, observant, subversive.”

2. “This is what the naysayers fail to understand: it’s just as easy to use Twitter to spread the word about a brilliant 10,000-word New Yorker article as it is to spread the word about your Lucky Charms habit.”

3. “Put those three elements together—social networks, live searching and link-sharing—and you have a cocktail that poses what may amount to the most interesting alternative to Google’s near monopoly in searching.“

4. “If you’re looking for interesting articles or sites devoted to Kobe Bryant, you search Google. If you’re looking for interesting comments from your extended social network about the three-pointer Kobe just made 30 seconds ago, you go to Twitter.”

I know even a Genius like myself wont succeed in convincing die-hard skeptics that they need Twitter. But I am a little worried that some genuinely smart, curious folks turn away from it simply because it makes a bad first impression.

My advice to them? Spend some more time ‘listening’. Do a search for keywords that pertain to stuff you care about—your hobbies, interests, business, etc.—then “listen in” to a few of the conversations. If you find one that’s interesting, follow that person/people. Add your own 2 cents or just “retweet”. You might even want to see who those interesting people are following… and follow them. And so on…

For me, there’s simply no denying that Twitter is awesome. There was the time I was at the Apple store debating between the MacBook Air and the MacBook Pro. I sent out a ‘what do you think’ tweet and 30 seconds later the responses started coming in. 20 votes for the Pro, 2 for the Air. Real-time product reviews and ratings… gotta love it.

Then there was the time that a few choice tweets turned this presentation on Social Media into the Top 10 Most Viewed Presentations of All Time (according to Slideshare, anyway). And let’s not forgot that Twitter continues to be the 2nd biggest source of web traffic for this here Diary.

So I guess I’ll continue tweet tweet tweeting for awhile. In the meantime, I’ll thank @stevenbjohnson for writing an article about my beloved. Nicely done.