5 Simple Twitter Branding Strategies

Here goes not 100, not 10, but 5 simple ways to BEEF-UP your Twitter Branding Strategy.

1- A good way to push your message to friends of friends is to RT (retweet)! Just ask your network of friends to forward your original message in the following form: RT@originalsender: blablabla (original message).

2- Save characters when posting a URL/link. You want to focus your tweet into engaging your network to click on the suggested link rather then wasting the 140 characters with a long URL. Check out http://tinyurl.com to shrink your URLs/links.

3- Check out the insights available at www.tweettercounter.com, benchmark the top tweeters tweeting strategies. Aside from finding many useful APIs, you will notice that Britney Spears disturbingly has more followers than CNN or Obama.

4- Use #HASHTAGS to push your message to audiences interested in a specific subject (keyword). Example: If you believe your new software is better than that of Bill Gates, tweet the following: “This software kills #microsoftoffice.” Now people looking for Microsoft Office related tweets can easily find you and potentially follow you.

5- Search on www.search.twitter.com for tweets with keywords related to your brand (including your brand name) and get involved in the conversation. Also track and say bye-bye to the people who stop following you, with http://useqwitter.com.

Please let me know if you have any other insightful ideas, but keep them between 1-140 characters.

The Parallel World of ComicCon 09

I finally have had the time to write about my eye-opening experience last week at the world famous COMIC-CON in San Diego.

Knowing people that know people, I managed to get a ticket to this "sold-out" 4 days event. Being the Internet geek that I am, I followed updates before the event from the top 3 independent Comic-Con fans on Twitter; ComicCon (3,949 followers), ComicConLive (2,811 followers) and ComicCon09 (1,330 followers).

For those of you who missed the opportunity of mingling with 300lbs Supermen, 62-year-old Wolverines, Trekkies wearing pointy ears and Star Wars aficionados of all ages and sizes, I suggest viewing one of the 10,600 plus related videos tagged "ComicCon 2009" on Youtube.



After taking more than 2 hours to circle the 1st floor of this massive event, I came to the conclusion that the Web is increasingly empowering people to escape their daily lives and meet other suburban super heroes, monsters, and fairies in parallel worlds that mimic the 20th Century popularity of comic books.

Examples of this phenomenon are World of War Craft, with 11.5M+ subscribers and Facebook's Vampire Wars, which has 2.7M+ active users.

So, are we going to end up paying mortgage on a house inside Second Life? Will my wizard avatar end up with more friends than myself? Regardless, brands, content developers and publishers have the potential to make real money from these "make-believe" parallel worlds where a computer meets a comic book!

Red Bull's Bull Market

I have to admit that I am a little biased in favor of the twin fighting bulls. Nevertheless, Red Bull is an impressive brand that deserves to be followed by all "wanna-be" marketing gurus.

In 2008, Red Bull GmbH earned more than US$4.6 billion worldwide, experiencing 7.9% growth and eating, or shall I say drinking, 40.8% of the US energy drink market.

With its US$900 million worldwide marketing budget, Red Bull continues to push its core brand identity by sponsoring outdoor, extreme, adventure and motor sports. But the fighting bulls never rest and are now expanding not only into the mainstream NFL, NBA, MLS and NASCAR leagues, but also into new beverage categories such as colas and energy shots.

On the web, Red Bull has never been so popular. Its Facebook page has 1,122,830 fans and features several extreme sport videos, all in line with the brands image and identity. Check this one...

In comparison, Monster Energy drink, which is the runner up in the US market, has a 276,526 Facebook fan base and a page that needs improvement. Rockstar, the bronze medalist, has a comparatively slim 33,185 fan base.

So, should we include social network fan base in Wall Street's next company valuation manual? Should we ask Facebook and Myspace where to invest our next paycheck? One thing is for sure; if you plan to build an 360 degree online presence for your brand ...benchmark RED BULL!

Did M.J.’s death melt the Internet?

In the brave new world of the Internet the breaking news of the death of the “King of POP” can travel faster on Twitter and on Facebook than on news power houses such as CNN, FOX, BBC or MTV.

According to family members Michael Jackson passed away at 1:07 pm PST. According to my research fans of the moon walker pop star started Tweeting about his death as early as 1:25 PST and Facebooking at 2:01 PST. Counter intuitively, The New York Times only confirmed his way to Never Never Land at 3:41 followed by MTV at 4:01 and CNN at 4:31.

In a time frame of less than 3 hours the search on Google “Michael Jackson Dead” resumed more than 33,000 results...WOW.

Is the Internet finally empowering each one of us with “real time” information? Is Ted Turner’s empire slower than Joe the “Twitter geek” from Boise, Idaho?

How does this translates into e-branding?

Well, that makes me think that in the Internet era any corporate mischievous marketing move or insider C-level information can leak faster than you could say “Beep-Beep!”

So for marketers out there I suggest the Youtube test:
If you wouldn’t broadcast your marketing strategy on Youtube then maybe you shouldn't do so at all!
 

WHAT IS E-Branding?

According to wikipedidia.org E-BRANDING =

"No article title matches" or "No page with that title exists"

So I decided that, after an overpriced marketing education and some work experience in the Internet Marketing realm, I should be capable of contributing somehow to the WWW. (world wide wait) knowledge base.

I have also to confess that this serves an answer to all my friends that repetitively ask me: "What does an e-branding consultant does?"

So here it goes:
E-Branding: The marketing practice of creating a name, symbol, design and or consumer experience ONLINE that not only differentiates but also illustrates the product/service's image and identity.
Easier said than done!

A few years ago, e-branding marketing programs revolved around building a brand's website that served as another touch-point for consumers to know more about a specific product/service.

However, with the never ending wave of innovative electronic off-springs such as Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, Technorati, Reddit, Youtube, Yahoo answers, iPhone Applications, etc., etc., the new thing to do is to build a 360 degree approach to your online presence.

So in a nutshell:

If your business can't affort an e-branding strategist make sure that your brand is at least present on Youtube, Facebook, Twitter and Myspace and collect as many e-mails addresses as possible!