Twitter advertising competition

Twitter. Twitter. Twitter. There is so much talk about Twitter in newspapers, radio and TV in this part of the world lately. Each and every mention of it results in a trending topic (a what’s hot list on Twitter at any moment in time) as people talk about it.

A recent example in the UK was the appearance of Stephen Fry on the BBC TV show ‘Friday Night with Jonathan Ross’ some weeks ago.

Here is a video of the interview I found on Youtube.

Both Fry and Ross are “on Twitter”. Between them they have 200,000 people listening to what they have to say on a daily basis on Twitter.

I watched the show and kept an eye on the Twitter chat taking place while the two men talked about Twitter. There was general delight that the web application was being talked about and predictions that Twitter would be overloaded with new signups. Whilst Stephen Fry’s follower numbers did increase, the real increase in numbers in Twitter will come about when the friends of those who “get it” start joining.

And there’s the rub. The whole “getting it” bit. As a self confessed internet geek, I must admit I didn’t “get” Twitter before I joined. I would visit the blog of someone I knew and clicked on their Twitter link. I saw bits of conversations and thought it was all a waste of time.

I did eventually join Twitter in June 2008. It took another couple of months before I started to see the value of Twitter. That’s not to say I had a lightbulb moment when I thought  “Oh, I see the value of this now”. No, it was just the realisation that for me, the feeling of being connected was very valuable.

I don’t Tweet consistently throughout the day. In fact, most days I’m generally too busy to Tweet a lot, but I still keep an eye to the people I follow. If I have something to contribute, I’ll jump in to the conversation stream. Although Twitter’s strapline is “What are you doing?” – I don’t tend to Tweet my every movement. Some people do, and that’s absolutely fine because Twitter is different for everyone that uses it.

The success and longevity of Twitter will depend on being able to attract more users and grow the infrastructure to support that growing community – oh, and make some money too.

Although a social network should grow by word of mouth, I thought it would be interesting to put my mind to how Twitter might advertise their service. I came up with some ideas and have set up a 99designs competition to see how others might advertise Twitter. It’s just for fun and comes with a $150 prize I am sponsoring myself.

The judge for the competition is Rodney Rumford ( @rumford on Twitter), author of Twitter as a Business Tool ( @tweetbizbook on Twitter).

Here are my ideas. The Whassup? trio just focuses on the “What are you doing” idea behind Twitter, but making it very specific to appeal to different people. “Absolutely positively connected” – is how I feel about Twitter.

This first one gets home the point that Twitter really is first for breaking news.

The second one comes about based on Tweets I have seen where people are stuck needing a lift somewhere, and their Twitter network connects them with someone who can get them from point A to B.

This one is where Twitter comes in to its own. The majority of future Twitter users will use it for social purposes, like organising a night out.

This last one should appeal to people working at home or those who have lost their jobs.

Looking forward to seeing the ideas that others come up with in the 99designs competition.

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