At this past week’s DFWSEM monthly meeting, we assembled a pane of attendees and speakers who went to PubCon in Austin, TX this month to give their recap and thoughts on the conference. There was one theme that was overwhelming–Twitter, Twitter, Twitter.
There is no question in that Twitter is the rage. The question is whether it provides return on investment (ROI) to businesses who are investing time into it. The even larger question is Twitter’s business model itself. We’ll save that for a later post.
So, who cares what you or your business is up to on a minute by minute basis in 140 characters or less? As with anything, it depends on what you have to say. More importantly in the world of social media, it depends on how many people are listening as well.
Twitter Models that Won’t Work
I’ve heard countless stories of a business having their marketing person get on Twitter, reach out to a bunch of people, and try to sell them something. In the email world we call it SPAM. With the telephone world we see it as flat out annoying. So, does changing the transport to Twitter make that any different? Nope!
Twitter Models that Have Potential
It was reported at the DFWSEM meeting that Dell has a twitter handle in which they announce specials on overstocked items and open boxes via Twitter. If you are looking for computer equipment, following those tweets has value. I’ve also been introduced to an individual on Twitter that has 5K publicists and journalist following them and shares stories and information. That has value. People who attended PubCon and gave play by plays via Twitter making it available to those who couldn’t attend has significant value and can be considered a cost cutting technique.
Final Thoughts
Having founded a digital agency that more into Social Media than heads down SEO, I’m really glad that one of the premier SEO conferences was inundated by social media (Twitter). I’m facinated by the number of topics and discussions that came out of our panel discussion from both a business and marketing perspective as well as SEO as it relates to Twitter. So what was actually said during our panel discussion? Well, if you are in Dallas, you should join us. If you aren’t, find us on Twitter! 
