The Underachiever Life

One of the key things that everyone has missed about Twitter is that it’s the first mass delivery medium to not exhibit a Parent child relationship.

That's a fancy pants way of saying it’s the first mass broadcast medium that is not telling you/yelling at you.

Twitter is the first mass medium (when used “properly” IMHO) to be a “side by side” interface - each party in the communication is an EQUAL. The person receiving your message has every right and the ability to communicate directly back to you on a completely EQUAL basis.

On twitter, if someone sends a message @Ed_Dale style they leave a VERY public record of that interaction - which is only editable by the creator of the tweet. It is super easy to reconstruct exactly what happens in any communication. You keep ignoring @messages and you will have yourself a little image problem…

This is GREAT - because your follower has this power - Twitter gave a level of equality that no other mass distribution medium has to date.

Lets look at how we market to people now and do a little compare and contrast.

Lets look at the grand daddy of effectiveness - email

What type of communication is email - Is it an equal relationship or parent/child

It’s so PARENT/CHILD it’s frighting. Want proof - look at any recent large Internet Marketing Launch….

Last time I checked the only legitimate way you could get on a mail list is to double opt-in - In other words, you have to give up your email address (and I’m hoping no one had a gun at your head while you were typing your details!) Then you recieved an email to the address where you had to acknowledge that, Yes! Indeed I am darn sure I wanted to excercise my right for self choice and agree again to be on this list (hence the double opt-in)

Now at the bottom of every legitimate service,like the ones you subscribe to of your own freewill, it has an unsubscribe link on EVERY single email - every one - no exceptions.

To not have this is against the law in the United States,

So if your on an email list - your in control right —it’s just so simple to give that marketer the hand and unsubscribe - I mean it’s right at the bottom of every fricking email people!!!!!!!

But no…

Apparently, once people subscribe they loose all of that self will. The evidence of this happens at every major launch.

If a marketer has done a good job with a launch they will line up a lot of launch partners that will also email. Hence, if your in a marketplace like Internet Marketing, your going to get some emails.

No Biggie right, I mean you want to learn about marketing - nothing like watching a big launch in play.

Apparently not - people squeal like STUCK pigs. The Twitter traffic on the recent MASS CONTROL launch was rife with people with names like @imapimpmarketer or @imaqueendivacoachofsomething who where complaining about the volume of email.

If it required a charge to view email or like a donation of blood - I could understand the gnashing of teeth - but with the delete key and or the unsubscribe button - surely it’s not hard to exercise your deity-given right to unsubscribe.

But no, it’s not. In fact, they would rather go to the extra trouble of reporting as spam.

They percieve the relationship as so powerless, that like my two year old the only way to express displeasure is to take the internet equivalent of the nuclear option, screaming, ranting and smearing their feces on the nearest wall.

So , email, awesome marketing medium that it is - has the perception of being a parent child relationship.

What else is broadcasting, how about blog posts, well no. Their entire set-up is parent child - I’m telling you what I think (like right now), sure you have the right to comment below. - I have the right to edit or delete your ass if I don’t agree with what your saying. Now heavy handed editing of comments is dumb - BUT it’s there and that means it’s my blog, my say.

Forums? They have a little thing called moderators (and thank goodness - I believe a forum in a niche should be run like a beneficial dictatorship - but thats a debate for another time)

What about the “old” media - TV, RADIO, NEWSPAPERS, MAGAZINES - they don’t even rate - I mean they are like abusive parents that just tell you things and never let you talk back (I know they are trying to change, but they are struggling, a bit like a short, fat, balding 39 year old trying to recreate the best of “Electric Boogaloo 1 AND 2 in the privacy of his home…)

Keep going through those broadcast media..

I’ll wait…

Twitter is utterly unique in it’s ability to have every one as equals regardless of follower size.

The first thing that makes this possible is the @ system - it’s funny that this was an orgainic user generated feature that was incorporated by twitter. It makes every one equal, sure I can amass a small regional towns worth of followers - but everyone of them can @ me and I better be paying attention.

However - it’s not @’s alone that tell the story.

search.twitter.com brings home the bacon.

The fact that it’s searchable and completely democratic - I can see every @ to any person on twitter. It’s humbling and a potential PR nightmare for the twitter deaf.

Any celebrity, landing on to twitter better have their ears on (oh, does this mean following every one who follows you - I say absolutely not, I know I get an argument from many people on this but hey -that’s another article)

These two things make Twitter utterly unique - it’s a mass broadcast system, that is completely “opt-in” that gives every follower the VERY public right of reply.

This is big,

What are the marketing implications of this.

One Word

HUGE.

To explain why I have to introduce to a theory that is radical in the extreme but one after 15 years of doing this stuff - I am utterly convinced is spot-on.
This theory (or from my viewpoint - fundamental law!) is how I plan and base every campaign I've ever conducted.

Let me introduce you to check move theory…

TO BE CONTINUED

Tags: Twitter, Internet Marketing