Twitterface: A viral marketing concept

“Twitterface”
A viral marketing concept
Ara Pehlivanian | ara.pehlivanian@nurun.com | twitter.com/ara_p | February 2009 |

What is Twitter?

A lot of people aretalking about Twitter

“Twitter Won’t Charge For Corporate Accounts” – PC World

“Top Twitter Celebrities” – CBC.ca

“Congressman's twittering raises security concerns ” – AP

“Vancouver Participates in the World's Largest Charity Fundraiser ...” – MSNBC

“Twitter? It’s What You Make It” – New York Times

“Twitter's popularity trebles in wake of celebrity endorsements” – Telegraph.co.uk

“Congress's New Love Affair with Twitter, for Better or Worse” – TIME

“Who will be masters of the ever-expanding ‘Twitterverse’?” – CNN

A lot of people are talking on Twitter

Over 1 million users
-- TechCrunch, April 29, 2008 1

3 million messages per day

4 million connections between users

200,000 active users per week

57% of users are from California
-- Time.com, August 20, 2008 2

63% of them are male

In 2007, most were 18-24 year olds

Today 25.9%are 34 to 44 year olds

There are two particular kinds ofuser:

“The first group, (14.7% of Twitter visitors), comprises a ‘collection of young and ethnically diverse singles living in big-city metros like Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Miami.’ They tend to work in the arts and entertainment industry, drive small cars and espouse very liberal political views.” -- Time.com, August 20, 2008 2

“The second largest type of Twitterer (12.3% of the site’s visitors) are the 40-somethings. They’re likely to drive a hybrid car such as the Toyota Prius, earn household incomes over $250,000 per year and also identify with very liberal politics.” -- Time.com, August 20, 2008 2

“Both groups appear to be all-around Web 2.0 fans, favoring sites like Digg, Yelp and Google Docs.”-- Time.com, August 20, 2008 2

“OK, but it’s still no MySpace or Facebook!”

Worldwide interest on the rise
Worldwide searches for the keyword “twitter” on Google since 2007 3

Worldwide interest on the rise
Worldwide searches for the keyword “twitter” on Google for the last 12 months 4

Canadian interest on the rise
Canadian searches for the keyword “twitter” on Google for the last 12 months 5

French interest exploding!
French searches for the keyword “twitter” on Google for the last 12 months 6

Pew interviewed 2,253 adults between November and December of 2008 and found that 11 percent of adults in the US who use the Internet claim to have used Twitter or a similar microblogging service.– ArsTechnica, February 12, 2009 7

The trend seems to be picking up at a quicker pace, too; the firm notes that, just a few weeks earlier, only nine percent of Internet users said they did so, and in May, only six percent.– ArsTechnica, February 12, 2009 7

“OK, but aren’t these just geeks?”

“Geeks are by far more influential than any other online contingency, except the big media. Geeks pass the puck from Twitter to blogs back to Twitter. Eventually it hits Techmeme, Saul Hansell at the Times takes notice and then the whole world knows.” – Steve Reubel, April 29, 20088

You might recognize some of these
influential geeks Twitter users:

Fred Durst

Demi Moore

Maria Shriver

William Shatner

Tina Fey

Luke Wilson

Wil Wheaton

Penn Jillette

LeVar Burton

John Hodgman

John Cleese

Jean-François Lavigne

JJ Abrams

Jimmy Kimmel

MC Hammer

Felicia Day

Brent Spiner

Barack Obama

Eli Manning

Michael Phelps

Dave Matthews

Al Gore

Rachel Bilson

Vanessa Hudgens

Mischa Barton

Shaquille O'Neal

Jimmy Fallon

Lance Armstrong

Stephen Colbert

Snoop Dogg

Rainn Wilson

Ashton Kutcher

John Mayer

Britney Spears

Granted, that’s Hollywood, but trendsetters from other social networks are also on Twitter

Stephen Fry
165,025 followers9

Kevin Rose
105,494 followers9

Leo Laporte
85,484 followers9

Jonathan Ross
81,409 followers9

Veronica Belmont
65,343 followers9

Michael Arrington
64,283 followers9

Guy Kawasaki
61,831 followers9

“…open networks, with many weak ties and social connections, are more likely to introduce new ideas and opportunities to their members than closed networks with many redundant ties.”-- Wikipedia10

Twitter is a classic example of this kind of open network “with many weak ties and social connections”

So what is Twitter?

The original purpose of Twitter was “group SMS”

A kind of “this is what I’m up to” broadcast to a group of friends

Its success is largely due to the fact that Twitter updates can be made by many different means:

Web Browsers

Mobile Web Browsers

Chat Clients

Desktop Clients

Mobile Clients

Your Toaster

As a direct result of this ubiquity, Twitter has since evolved and become a micro-blogging platform

Twitter hasn’t actually changed, but the way people use it has

A recent poll of Online Marketing Blog’s readers sheds some light on how Twitter is being used today:

39%Sharing links to items of interest to your network
87 votes11

28%Networking for new contacts
63 votes11

21%Reinforcing current network contacts
47 votes11

10% Promoting specific content
22 votes11

9%Re-distribution of content from blog, web site
21 votes11

8% Twitter cat posts:flight delays, eating habits, who knows what and why
17 votes11

5% Replacement for Facebook updates
11 votes11

5% Influencing your network to do and think what you want
11 votes11

2% Group and project communications
4 votes11

1%Microblogging conferences
3 votes11

So how does it work?

You broadcast messages (tweets)to your followers…
I’ll be in Sunnyvale next week, anyone want to grab dinner?

…and they reply by broadcasting back.
@ara_p Let me know when you’re in town and we’ll grab a burger!

This lets their followers in on the conversation.
@ara_p Let me know when you’re in town and we’ll grab a burger!

Here is a real-world example:

snookca makes an announcement

cdharrison replies to snookca

I can see this because I follow both snookca and cdharrison

…and I’ve just found out about a new Twitter app

Broadcasting messages and responses creates a huge opportunity for viral marketing

So, how do we leverage allthis viralgoodness?

Well, if broadcasting on Twitter is the viral opportunity…

…and our goal is to promote an offering virally…

…then why not marry the two in a way that’s mutually beneficial for both the Twitterer and the offerer?

Instant buy-in!

We could turn their favourite social networking application…

Twitter

…into an interface to their favourite online service providers!

Online Service Provider
Twitter

This way, every time they interact with a service provider, they’re promoting for us on a potentially viral scale!

Here are a few possible applications:

Program Your DVR via Twitter
@dvr record “Friends” 8pm tonight
Online DVR Service
Twitter

Program Your DVR via Twitter
Online DVR Service
Twitter
Confirmed!
(User’s choice: Email, Direct Message or Public Reply)

Queue Videos For Rental via Twitter
@vidrentals add “Casino Royal”
Online Video Rentals
Twitter

Queue Videos For Rental via Twitter
Twitter
Online Video Rentals
Confirmed!

Track Gas Mileage via Twitter
@gastracker bought $30 at 90.1
Online Gas
Calculator
Twitter

Track Gas Mileage via Twitter
Twitter
Online Gas
Calculator
Confirmed!

Everyone wins with this system

It’s useful for the user(one interface to bind them!)

It’s useful for their followers(free info/insight about friends, news, etc…)

It’s useful for the provider(free publicity, lower barrier to entry)

How to make it work?

Accessing your 20 most recent replies with the Twitter API is as easy as making a REST call to:
http://twitter.com/statuses/replies.[xml|json|rss|atom]

Therefore, all an online service provider needs to do is poll Twitter for replies to its own account and simply parse the results!

Last 20 replies please for @dvr please
Online DVR Service
Twitter

jdoe @dvr record “Friends” 8pm tonight
jsmith @dvr record “Star Trek” 9:30, Feb 22, 2009
louie @dvr make cash fast! http://makecashfast.com
jim @dvr record “Star Academie” 9pm Tuesday
…
Online DVR Service
Twitter

jdoe @dvr record “Friends” 8pm tonight
Account: jdoe = 489364
Instruction: record
Show: “Friends” = 9948713
Time: 2009-02-11T20:00:00
jsmith @dvr record “Star Trek” 9:30, Feb 22, 2009
Account: jsmith = 385321
Instruction: record
Show: “Star Trek” = 1247924
Time: 2009-02-22T21:30:00
louie @dvr make cash fast! http://makecashfast.com
IGNORED
jim @dvr record “Star Academie” 9pm Tuesday
Account: jim = 1894983
Instruction: record
Show: “Star Academie” = 7897824
Time: 2009-02-17T21:00:00
…
Parsing…
Online DVR Service

Account: jdoe = 489364
Instruction: record
Show: “Friends” = 9948713
Time: 2009-02-11T20:00:00
Account: jsmith = 385321
Instruction: record
Show: “Star Trek” = 1247924
Time: 2009-02-22T21:30:00
Account: jim = 1894983
Instruction: record
Show: “Star Academie” = 7897824
Time: 2009-02-17T21:00:00
…
Parsing…
Online DVR Service
Database

Notifying…
dvr @jdoe recording “Friends” 8pm tonight, CONFIRMED!
Online DVR Service

Notifying…
Dear John Smith,
This email is to confirm that DVR Service will record “Star Trek” for you on the 22nd of Frebruary, 2009 at 9:30 PM.
Sincerely,
Your Online DVR Service
Online DVR Service

Notifying…
dvr recording “Star Academie” 9pm Tuesday, CONFIRMED!
Online DVR Service

More possibilities

Retweeting

ara_p @dvr record “Oscars” 8pm tonight

Oh cool! The Oscars!

codepo8 RT ara_p @dvr record “Oscars” 8pm tonight

Oh cool! The Oscars!

jflavigneRT codepo8 RT ara_p @dvr record “Oscars” 8pm tonight

Retweeting is the big thing
on Twitter right now

Retweet Radar
tracks and ranks retweets12

“Tweet this”

Make your content easy to post to Twitter

Tweet this!
ara_p My IQ is 150, what’s yours? (via http://www.iqtest.com)
IQ Test Website
Test Result

Tweet this!
ara_p My pong score is 18,096, think you can beat it? (via http://www.pong-game.com)
Gaming Website
High Score

Tweet this!
ara_p Just got a coupon for free shampoo at http://www.sham.com
Promotion Website

A sample of what people are doing with Twitter today:

Piping Feeds (RSS) into Twitter

Remember The Milk, an online to-do list allows you to add items via Twitter direct message13

Twestival.fm, raises money for charity by letting you download free music and encouraging donations14

“Hardware hackers have set up household appliances to send status alerts over Twitter”15

TwitPic lets you post pictures directly to Twitter16

TwitBot
“An easy way to create twitter bots and channels. Coming soon, and it's goingto be Open Source.”
-- twitbot.com

Thank You!
Work: ara.pehlivanian@nurun.com
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/ara_p
Personal: ara.pehlivanian@gmail.com

References
“End Of Speculation: The Real Twitter Usage Numbers”, TechCrunch, Michael Arrington, April 29, 2008http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/04/29/end-of-speculation-the-real-twitter-usage-numbers/
“Even Gen X is a Twitter”, Time.com, Bill Tancer, August 20, 2008http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1834131,00.html?cnn=yes
“twitter” on Google Trends (All regions, all years)http://www.google.com/trends?q=twitter
“twitter” on Google Trends (All regions, last 12 months)http://www.google.com/trends?q=twitter&ctab=0&geo=all&date=ytd&sort=0
“twitter” on Google Trends (Canada, last 12 months) http://www.google.com/trends?q=twitter&ctab=0&geo=CA&date=ytd&sort=0
“twitter” on Google Trends (France, last 12 months)http://www.google.com/trends?q=twitter&ctab=0&geo=FR&geor=all&date=ytd&sort=0
“Study: Twitter users are mobile, urban, and engaged online”, ArsTechnica, Jacqui Cheng, February 12, 2009http://arstechnica.com/web/news/2009/02/study-twitter-users-are-mobile-urban-and-engaged-online.ars
“Even if Twitter is Just a Geek Haven, It's Still Very Influential”, Micro Persuasion, Steve Rubel, April 29, 2008http://www.micropersuasion.com/2008/04/even-if-twitter.html
Twitterholic.comhttp://twitterholic.com/
Wikipedia, “Social Network”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_network
“Top 10 Uses of Twitter”http://www.toprankblog.com/2008/05/top-10-twitter-uses/
Retweet Radarhttp://www.retweetradar.com/
“Remember the Milk with Twitter”, Lifehacker, Gina Trapani, July 10, 2007 http://lifehacker.com/software/to-do-managers/remember-the-milk-with-twitter-276583.php
“Twestival.fm: Live Aid for Twitter”, ReadWriteWeb, Richard MacManus, February 10, 2009http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/twestivalfm_live_aid_for_twitter.php
“Twitter Fast Growing Beyond Its Messaging Roots”, Wired, Michael Calore, February 10, 2009http://blog.wired.com/business/2009/02/twitters-hackab.html
Twitpic.comhttp://twitpic.com/
Image Credit
Twitter Icons, Smashing Magazine, MirjamiManninen, January 23, 2009http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/01/23/friday-freebies-flavours-icon-set-and-cute-tweeters-icon-set/
Feed Icons, Smashing Magazine, MirjamiManninen, October 28, 2008http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/10/28/feed-me-animals-a-free-rss-feed-icon-set/
Marvin the Paranoid Android
http://blog.uncovering.org/en/archives/2007/06/marvin_the_paranoid_android.html

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Twitterface: A viral marketing concept

by Ara Pehlivanian on Jul 09, 2009

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