Twitter the Social Powerhouse That is NOT Stupid
Posted on July 7th, 2008 by John Cow under Ramblings, Social Marketing, web 2.0Want to Learn How to Build a Business Not Just a Blog.. for FREE? CLICK HERE Now to Find Out How!
This really does amaze us and we hear so many people say how Twitter is the stupidest thing they ever have heard of… yet we keep hearing so many cool stories about it. You may remember a post we did about James Karl Buck who was arrested in Egypt and used his Twitter account to help get him out, but is still in the process of trying to locate his translator to help get him out of prison?
That was an amazing story.
There was also a man named Ryan Kuder who was going to be fired from Yahoo. What he did the day he went in and knew he was being fired was he used his twitter page to keep all of his faithful readers up to date with EVERYTHING that he was doing. He posted a lot of different things during his last time in the office and it appeared to work out well for him.
We don’t think people truly understand the huge impact that Twitter has, or social media in general. Just because something might seem stupid at first, do not discount it… look, test and try.
The latest story that caught our eye is The Obama/Clinton race and how Twitter may have played a part Obama’s victory over Clinton. There’s a website out there called www.twitterholic.com and what this website does is it tracks Twitter useage. As of June 17th 2008, Obama had 39,000 followers and Clinton’s campaign had only 4,100 followers.
Here’s some more for ya… Want to know how many Oboma was following? Over 41,000.. and the number for Clinton? a BIG FAT 0. 
Now we do not know the whole story behind this but from looking at it there appears to be a solid relationship between Oboma becoming a follower to those following him and this appeared to have paid dividends for results. Clinton on the other hand had 0… i guess they did not think there was anyone out their worthwhile to follow.
Makes us wonder how much of a direct correlation of these two things there was?
If this interests you then you will want to read more about this at…
http://crm2.typepad.com/brents_blog/2008/06/the-revolution.html
As we said a couple days ago… TEST!
We are going to try it out… so if you are not following us, do it now and we will follow back 
http://www.twitter.com/johncow
So what is your opinion on this.. do you think the two things are related (following your followers on Twitter)?
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Tags: online social media, social media, social websites, web 2.0
the buzz and “power” twitter has is still hard to believe for me…. but the fact speak for themselves right?
Hugo Santoss last blog post..How to screw your adsense revenue
Anyone who follows me on twitter, I will definitely follow them back.
Ironbloggers last blog post..Building Your SEO and Blog Optimization
I think its beneficial to follow your followers. At least now I know why John Cow was following me! lol
EmmaBs last blog post..I Found a fellow canadian!
Nice post John, I’ll be signing up for sure!
The Dude
The Dudes last blog post..The Dude Game - Week 2
Nice - There is some additional food for thought about how twitter helps people escape - see my blog post about it here. I think it speaks volumes about who is spending all day there.
Yeah… Twitter is a powerful source or should I say force young Jedi?
I have been following John Cow for a couple weeks and I got an email saying John Cow is following you just before I got this post from feedburner. Coincidence? I think not
Is that a bad thing?
Not a bad thing. I felt very good knowing that you were now following me ! My heart made “Whaou !”.
But, now that i know the truth, i must reconsider my impression.
By the way, very googd idea.
Rodney SANKINKAs last blog post..Twitteriser le flux de votre blog
Of course, it’s a good idea. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. It’s called mutual admiration, relationship building, being human, whatever you call it, communication is all about being part of the human race.
Love Twitter! I thought at first it was stupid too, and forced myself to go on it every day to post something to see if it would work. I have gotten several interviews, subscribers, consulting work, and more from it. I even bought the new Sprint Instinct so I could text (yes, my old phone was so old it was no good at texting…..caveman slow, so I had to move up finally. Don’t laugh…)
I don’t follow everyone who follows me. Some of their material doesn’t work for me so I don’t want it in my face everyday. But, usually I do return a follow. So, come follow me on Twitter! I look forward to seeing you there. It’s rather fun and can be addicting. Enjoy.
http://twitter.com/SmartWoman
Together, we are stronger.
Vicki Flaugher, the original SmartWoman
Vicki Flaughers last blog post..Using Your Intuition to Pick a Great Domain Name
I was pretty firmly convinced that twitter was stupid for quite a while. I actually signed up over a year ago, made one tweet, read a few tweets and quit.
Sam Freedom and Andy Beard both indirectly convinced me to have a second look at it, and I made my second post a little more than a year after the first. I’ve found several great articles through tweets from people I’m following and found something to tweet just about every day since, and several tweets on a few days.
I don’t think I’m following you, but I’ll remedy that right after I post this and then look for when that alert comes in.
Thanks for linking to my post on how the next revolution will be “twitterized” John. I was pretty surprised to find the difference in how the Obama folks leveraged Twitter compared to the Clinton folks.
This topic has generated such interest that we are doing a webinar to discuss on Obama 2.0: Social Media Lessons for Small Businesses . If anyone’s interested it will be this Wednesday (July 9th) @ Noon ET. For more information you can use the following link:
http://crm2.typepad.com/brents_blog/2008/07/webinar-obama-s.html
Thanks again! Oh yeah and I just started following you on Twitter!
Brent Learys last blog post..Tales in Social CRM: Rapping SEO???
ohh with David Bullock as well… Folks you are going to want to check this out.. we are going to try to be there.
I try to follow people that follow me, sometimes I forget to log in to twitter, so I may miss a few people, but I think it’s just like any other social network. When you follow someone and they follow you back, you feel more like a friend than a fan…
The idea is nice , but I’ve never been able to keep up with twitter
jack7s last blog post..The Incredible Hulk , how incredible is he?
I recently got myself into Plurk! http://www.plurk.com/user/TalkBinary I’ll befriend anyone who wishes to do so.
I also have Twitter and believe I’m going to start up using its potential! Same goes with http://twitter.com/TalkBinary
Hopefully I too one day can bring out the power in both of these. =)
Talk Binarys last blog post..Digital Blasphemy 3D Wallpapers
Thanks for setting me on the right path. I haven’t been following the people that are following me so it’s time to fix that. I’m from Canada and wondering if our political leaders are into Twitter.
I was wondering why you had just decided to “follow me back”. Nice to see you’re taking your own advice! Plus, it worked, I came back to read this post. lol
Now I feel obligated to write something on the damn thing.
Great post too. Very interesting that it’s possible that Twitter can have an affect on who your president is. lol
Jay
SuiteJs last blog post..Free Caffeine And Website Flipping
Hi Cow
I really love your blog and you had some great articles last month but if you want to be best in this niche you must give a people best best content.
I don’t know for others,but I dont love when you write about bill, firefox ,xp and this article about twitter is not your maximum.We all know power of twitter and buzz marketing (so this is not new formula)social media algorithms,please write topics about how to get a lot visitors from this site or how to write great buzz.
article,how to convert traffic from this sites,write about facebook promotions(we all read about Brian Cambell how earn $10,000 in only 16 days )……
You are a great internet marketer and have a lot experience in business(I think)please give your reader something new,share your ideas ,give us something revolutionary.That content will make your site best in this niche(and you will not sell your banner for 150$,you than can sell banener for much more $)
I wrote this comment becouse I visit your blog every day(I love this site),and I know that you can write much much better.
Your contest and your book are one of the best thing I found in last 2 month.
Your blog addict want something new
Well first of all thanks for caring
We actually thought it was something new the concept of following all your followers and it relates to web 2.0
Well tomorrow we are announcing our new contest and then we are starting into some cool Web 2 training… hope it satisfy your addisction
Just like any other social bookmarking site, it is better to build a list of readers. How do you do this? By becoming their friend. Following people will actually help them to notice you and even to start reading a lot of the same things that you are reading. I believe that it is a wise choice and I hope that you test goes well for you.
Well from reading this post, I am going to follow everybody that is following me on twitter. Add me and ill add you. http//twitter.com/KushMoney
KushMoneys last blog post..KushMoney Introduction Video
I wonder why you keep calling yourself ¨we¨. Here in the Netherlands only the queen does that and even that sounds a bit stupid.
Well maybe we are your queen
Hey John great article! I got your follow request on Twitter and responded. Those numbers you quoted regarding Obama/Clinton are very impressive. I’ve twittering for a couple of months now and have over 200 followers…I’m sure the networking will pay off in that arena.
However I am also on Plurk, and have 100 followers in less than 30 days…Plurkers tend to be instant responders vs. Twitterers, while some Twitters use the network for spam messages. NOT all Twitterers, just some. Nice article, informative, it shows you are writing for the knowledgeble as well as the uninformed.
Oh, my screen names on Plurk and Twitter are:
twitter.com/offbeatnews
plurk.com/users/teasastips
And all who commented in this post with Twitter or Plurk addys, I have requested friendship.
Great post. I was one who said Twitter is one of the dumbest things out there when I first saw it. I opened an account and didn’t know really what to make of it all. Then a couple of days ago John Reese put out a couple of videos for his traffic Secrets 2.0 and he made a little comment in the video #2 and said in his testing Twitter is the second highest response rate to his marketing efforts behind email marketing. Well that was enough for me to see what I could do with Twitter. Over the past 2 weeks I have been playing around with it, testing it and have been impressed with the results. And like John says those that follow me I will also follow - just makes sense to me doesn’t it?
if you want to follow me here is my twitter account
http://www.twitter.com/stirls
Chris
Chriss last blog post..Learn Forex Trading
Keep in Mind Obama probably has his own staff of people to maintain this portion of his campaign. Do you kow how long it takes to follow 40k peeps? I am following 7k Los Angelenos on http://twitter.com/lasnark and it took quite a while, but it’s a great way to build a site following, I am pretty pleased that nearly 600 are following us to keep a pulse on things going on in LA. Viva La Snark, Viva La Twitter!
I love lasnark.com, I’ll follow you today
I’m definitely one of those people who thinks this is just so stupid. Well, you gotta have an open mind if you want to see progress, so here we go…
Roos last blog post..Peter Molyneux on the Industry’s Failure