I had a cool social media twitter marketing experience yesterday. The company I work for was looking for some project management software. I had a couple ideas, but I thought I’d see if the twitter community could offer any suggestions. I posted a tweet asking opinions about a certain software (Company A). I didn’t get any reply’s (sadly) to the tweet, but I did get a new follow soon after. I checked out the new follow’s twitter profile, clicked through to their web page, and found myself on a competitor’s (Company B) website to the software I mentioned in my tweet. Brilliant!

Here’s how I think this works. Company B is using a twitter search (twitterfall, search.twitter.com, or the like) to filter any tweets that mention certain words in reference to Company A. When they saw that I mentioned Company A, they simply followed me. That’s it. They rely on the fact that I’m curious enough to find out who is following me. Plus, they have a huge advantage–I’m already thinking about project management software in the back of my mind. So when I land on their site, I’m much more likely to stay awhile and see how Company B compares to Company A.

This is smart marketing because I, personally, did all the discovery. I was not bombarded with a message or an ad, I was simply given an opportunity to discover something on my own. When I found their site I was excited because now I have another potential solution to offer my employer. And it wasn’t forced discovery, so I’m more likely to recommend Company A and Company B to anyone who is looking for project management software.

This technique has huge potential for social media marketing.

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First, go check out Twitterfall. Then, take a look at this video, and see the immediate impact it has on Gmail going down today.

Gmail Fail on Twitterfall from Iain Tait on Vimeo.

This goes to show just how transparent the effects of social media can cause your company to become. Thanks to Iain Tait for the video and Sampad Swain for some more information on today’s events.

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I’ve had a thought that I’ve been bouncing around in my head for a while now and I just need to get it out there.

I think that the next big step in internet evolution–for lack of a better term, “web 3.0″–will revolve around social media and the use of open-source content management systems, such as Wordpress, Typepad and Blogger.

Social media is still very much in the infant stages of its life, but its potential is enormous. And, for me at least, it seems that the best way for social media to grow is through the widespread use of CMS.

New ways to share content and ideas, are being developed all the time for these open-source content management systems by the very people who use them on a regular basis. This fits so perfectly together; and could be the most important factor in the growth of social media. For example, someone develops a new technology to share his or her ideas and use it on his or her website where he or she already shares his or her ideas with other people who also have websites where they share their ideas. Nothing could be more instant, more viral, more…social.

So what does this mean for business?

If you’re a business owner, get on board with social media, it’s not going to go away any time soon. Check out things like Facebook fan pages and using twitter for your business. Also, consider rebuilding your web presence with a CMS and begin to implement social media strategies to get involved in the conversations that are already going on about your business. Believe me, people are talking about you.

To the employee, find a new way for the company you work for to utilize social media. What aspects of social media could you present to your management to improve visibility, cut costs, reach new audiences in better ways? Taking this proactive step will bode very well for you in the future. Here’s a post that will help you get started thinking about it.

For the job seeker, find a way to make yourself marketable in this emerging technological trend. Emerse yourself in and learn about the social aspects of the internet. Maybe even learn how to use, design or program CMS as a new skill to add to your resume. At the very least, getting involved will help increase your visibility as a job seeker. And as a bonus, being able to speak intelligently about the what social media can do for a business will probably be a great way to distinguish yourself in an interview.

What does this mean for the average everyday internet user?

Content management systems, such as Wordpress and Blogger, are so easy to use and they are an amazing way to stay in touch with friends and family.

You can easily create your own web page, for free, and everytime you have something new that you want to share–thoughts, photos, videos, information–put it on your page. Then just let people know you have new content and let them go see it whenever they want. It’s so easy, and as technology advances, it will get even easier.

So, my advice is to get involved now if you are not already. Web 3.0 will be a very social, easy to use and dynamic internet revolving around relationships and conversation. Who would not want to get on board with that?

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This is a couple weeks old, so I must be a little off my game. If you haven’t had a chance to see this yet, watch it now. Way to go T-Mobile, now that’s how you create a viral ad campaign! All those people making videos with their cell phones, and more footage on YouTube, the execution was fantastic.

Thanks to adliterate for the heads up.

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Many of us are familiar with Twitter. The idea started out as a 140-character blurb about, “What are you doing right now?” A few short months later, it has evolved into one of the biggest ways for people across the world to communicate about life in real time. Twitter is no longer a monologue, it’s a conversation. You could say the idea has evolved into, “What are you doing right now, and how will I respond?” People share ideas, blogs, information and simply talk about what’s going on around them. This is a perfect example of how the tools of social media are not always used for their originally intended purpose. People realized that Twitter could become the vehicle they were looking for to hold a conversation with anyone, anywhere, anytime.

Lewis Green got me thinking about how this might affect business conversation in the future. He writes, in Age of Conversation 2, “The biggest downside of effective business collaboration is geography, as employees often are in different towns and cities, states and provinces, and countries and continents. An expanded, closed-circuit Twitter-like application could change all that.”

The benefits, as he describes them:

• No matter where you live or work, you can share ideas 24/7
• You can drop in and out of conversation as necessary to go about your daily work, without missing the flow of conversation
• You will always have a complete and accurate record of each conversation
• This could even be expanded into customer feedback where operators are standing by to receive and respond to customer comments, stories and ideas

Imagine the possibilities for real-time conversation and sharing in business. Anytime, anywhere, you could join in your company’s ongoing conversation of how to improve your business, how to solve a problem or, when creativity strikes, share the idea before it’s gone.

I see the lines of the “40-hour, 9-5 work week” blurring just a little more.

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“The internet is a journey, not a destination.”
- Mike Arauz

Arauz writes, in the Age of Conversation 2: Why Don’t They Get It?, that a few years ago the internet was a collection of websites, and you would go to a particular website to get certain content. In today’s world, “the domain is dead.” Domain owners have become content owners, and your content can be anywhere.

Arauz explains this idea by saying, “As all digital interactions become social, and tools for self-organization become available, it is no longer our responsibility as stewards of digital content to put things in their correct place. Rather, we should be doing everything we can to empower the audience to put things in whatever place they like.”

This idea is evidenced by sharing articles, photos and videos online. For example, all of YouTube’s video’s are not just on YouTube.com, they are all over the internet as part of a conversation between people on sites like Facebook and Twitter.

“Publishers and content owners…must now begin not by creating their own online environments, but rather by identifying the native environments where their content is most likely to be welcomed into the ongoing conversation within that community. The content owners must learn the unique culture, customs, and dialects that distinguish each environment in order to introduce the content without alienating the community. And content owners must employ every possible tool for enabling individuals within these environments to share the content with other members of the community.”

Enabling people to share your content is one of the best ways to spread that content. Word-of-mouth and viral marketing are vastly more effective ways of reaching your audience than traditional marketing techniques.

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I recently bought the second iteration of the Age of Conversation project, begun by bloggers Drew McLellan and Gavin Heaton, entitled the Age of Conversation 2: Why Don’t They Get It? The book is a collection of over 230 authors from around the world that talk about conversation and what it means to today’s world of marketing. I find this information fascinating because of it’s enormous impact on and insight into the digital world. As I read through I will be updating the blog with some of the books content and my thoughts.

Reg Adkins, in Veritus Exostra: The Truth Revealed, lists “six trail markers that can help us on our way toward shared meaning.”

1. Edutaining is requisite: it’s about the reader/audience not the author/storyteller.

2. Remember the truth of conversing in faceless space: Six billion individual calling voices are just noise until they share a common concern.

3. The currency of conversation: consistent creativity is not an oxymoron.

4. Inclusion, control and affection are universal needs; the tolerance levels for the same are not standard.

5. Suspension of disbelief: I must momentarily reject my own reality in order to embrace yours.

6. In five years electronic publications have transformed concepts of plagiarism, research, borrowing, and disowning into the Disneyesque concept Imagineering.

Adkins uses an illustration of your finger displacing water in a glass. The water represents a person and your finger is your message. Your message displaces what was in existence at that moment. The catch is, if you remove your finger from the glass, the water returns to it’s original state, now unaffected by your message. What was the long term impact of your conversation? “That is why people don’t get it. It’s not about inserting a message; it’s about communally finding meaning.”

People (viewers/customers/readers) are looking for a relationship, not a message. Use conversation as a way to build a lasting relationship, not as a technique to sell something. The lasting impact will be much greater.

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