Coca Cola and Twitter – Am I Worthy of YahooBuzz?

Aug 12th, 2008 by Scott Pooler

Last March I wrote an article about twitter in one of my other blogs (All Business Auctions - Blog). This morning it occurred to me that I have not mentioned Twitter much to the readers here at the Trading Assistant Journal. I apologize for being remiss.

Today I am thinking about Twitter because I awoke to find an email announcing a new Twitter user following my Twitter Tweets.

Coca Cola Ink is now following you on Twitter, the email said....

To be honest, I have no idea if this is the real company, just an employee or if it is just some marketing managers way to spread the word on the next "New Coke" campaign. But the fact remains that without being active on Twitter I would not have an opportunity to make an impression upon whomever Coca Cola Ink may be, marketing person or CEO of the company.

It is nice to think that a company such as Coca Cola may have chosen to follow me on Twitter because they think I may have an influence, or my blog articles have inspired them, or for some other fantastic reason... But it could be my name was on some other Twitter users list.

Just last week I received similar email from Twitter...

YahooBuzz is now following you on Twitter

Yahoo Buzz is a very influential Internet news portal from the fine folks at Yahoo. If per chance one of my blog articles were to be simply mentioned on Yahoo Buzz, I would need to buy additional server bandwidth just for the load of new hits (One can dream of these problems). To get a notice from Twitter that YahooBuzz is now following my tweets is a nice step in the right direction for a blog publisher such as myself. After all, publishing content is much more fun when you think people read it. Yahoo can bring a lot of readers to the table. Thanks Yahoo Buzz! I hope to bring good content to your readers some day.

The list goes on, and while I do not actively search out people to follow on Twitter (i.e. only influential people who I could suck up to), I do follow people in my industry, in the tech sector and within the realm influence which I think forms the knowledge base of Internet technology and marketing on the Internet. These people give me ideas and tweet links to new interesting services and websites every day.

I do not have the time to follow each and every link, or read each article, but I do feel Twitter helps me write this and other blogs and it adds to my ability to advise my clients on matters pertaining to the direction of Internet marketing etc etc.

Twitter is a most amazing tool - Try it for a few days, follow a few influential people, your friends, colleagues and possibly a political candidate or two. CNN tweets news on Twitter before it goes live on the air.

Funny story - (at least in my mind). I tweeted to a friend that MSNBC was pretty much a joke when it comes to news broadcasting... Immediately ABC news started following me.

You just simply never know what kind of connections you can make, but its worth a few text messages to find out.

Some people I follow on Twitter:

(If I missed anyone, please accept my apologies, I can't fit everone into one blog post)

JasonCalacanis - formerly of Weblogs, Inc. and AOL Now CEO of Mahalo
Scobleizer - Robert Scoble
cnnbrk - CNN Breaking News
Biddy - of TameBay fame
steverubel - Steve Rubel
mitchjoel / Mitch Joel
problogger / Darren Rowse - Problogger Great Advise for Bloggers
JayBerkowitz / Jay Berkowitz
leolaporte / Leo Laporte
rksmythe / Randy Smythe - My Blog Utopia and Amazon Strategies
ebayinkblog / Richard Brewer-Hay @ eBay
scotwingo / CEO Channel Advisor
cidawson / TameBay
craignewmark / Craig's List Founder
colderICE / John Lawson
osirockstars / Janelle Elms
ebaymotors / Danny Chang

Many of you are aware of the world's fascination with twitter, but for those who have never heard of the amazing new communication medium...

Twitter
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows its users (also known as twits) to send updates (otherwise known as tweets) which are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length.

------------------------------
PCMag

Definition of: Twitter

A Web site and service that lets users send short text messages from their cellphones to a group of friends. Launched in 2006, Twitter (www.twitter.com) was designed for people to broadcast their current activities and thoughts. Twitter expanded "mobile blogging" (updating a blog from a cellphone) into "microblogging," the updating of an activities blog (microblog) that distributes the text to a list of names. Messages can also be sent and received via instant messaging, the Twitter Web site or a third-party Twitter application. A MySpace account can also be updated.

Just Facts

These are but a few of the many definitions of Twitter but until you actually use the service (which is free) your definition will not yet be formed. I have found different people use Twitter for different tasks and it is really up to each person, and each group of people who follow along with that person, in turn following all the other people following that person... as to how the medium is used.

Twitter is a social networking at its core, the bare minimums, the essential facts please, nothing more.