Conversational Media Marketing

If you need a case study as to how Twitter can serve business purposes, allow me to provide not one, but two.  (Just so you know, it takes a little while to tell this story.)

A Touch of Gray
I was setting up some segments on Blog Talk Radio for the Bizzuka Buzz radio show we do every Friday when an ad banner caught my attention. It said something like, "Listen to Jack Nicholson's last words in A Few Good Men." (I apologize for not grabbing a screenshot when I saw it.)

Being a Nicholson fan to begin with and in the mood to hear him say, "The truth. You can't handle the truth," I clicked the ad which took  me to a landing page for Just for Men's Touch of Gray product which included the clip as well as a call-to-action to get a free box of the stuff.

While I don't have a lot of hair left to color most of it is gray, so I clicked the button. That's when things went awry and where Twitter enters the story.

Something my boss said recently in regard to a weekly Internet radio show we started for Bizzuka got me thinking. "What you're doing (in terms of the show) will not just help us create greater awareness among prospects, but among those considering coming to work for us," he said.

It caused me to realize that marketing, especially social media marketing, is not just about building a prospect list. Sometimes, whether intentional or not, it's also about attracting quality talent and/or wealthy investors.

Marketing Pilgrim's Andy Beal recently talked about using a new Twitter-related app, Tweet Scan, as a tool for managing your online reputation. (Tweet Scan is a real-time search engine for Twitter posts.) I've got another spin on the use of the app, one that's not very pleasant.

Lately, I've received notifications that I'm being followed by those who've set up Twitter accounts strictly for marketing purposes. For example, I've tweeted that I was about to go on a diet. Within a day or two of mentioning that, I received notices that , and were following me.  It could be merely coincidental, but, then again, given Tweet Scan's ability to search by keyword, perhaps not.

Are we facing a trend where marketers/advertisers will use apps like Tweet Scan to search for prospects (suspects)? I'm thinking so. And I'm concerned about the consequences.

I'm fortunate to write a monthly article for Practical Ecommerce magazine. This month I chose as the topic, Online Reputation Management.

Like it or not, people are talking about you online. They're talking about your brand, your products, industry and competition. Do you know what they are saying? If not, why not? Can you afford not to listen?