[Video Transcript]

I am not certain that doing something that earns you the title of “office twit” is a good thing. Over the past several weeks, after a hard debate with  myself, I decided to throw caution to the wind and actually start utilizing the Twitter account that I opened in August 2008.

Twitter, it’s the simple banter of 140 character text messages, called Tweets, out to a list of other Twitter users (Tweeters) who have elected to follow you… and listen to your Tweets.

I really wanted to understand, for the sake of our clients, if there is any value in this from a business prospective.

I was sitting cautiously at around 80 followers… I started Tweeting my blog links, links to sites that were of interest and I began aggressively working to get more Followers. My account ballooned over the following weeks from the 80 follower to now over 1100 Followers.

So, what have a learned so far?

I am not  trying to sell the next best bit of advice to wood-be victims of impulsive shopping via a long scrolling sales letter… so, sadly I have to report that I am not getting affiliate cheques in the mail from my Tweeting efforts.

I did effectively measure traffic increases to my blogs and marketing websites by Tweeting track-able website addresses out to my loyal followers. hmmm… loyal follows?

I did find that the VAST majority of people following me are not there because they found my mug shot attractive… nor do I believe that they find my Tweets intuitive.  I believe they follow because, as I have found, to follow results in being followed.  Many Tweeters will automatically follow you…if you follow them.  I’ll show you mine if you…. ah, never mind.

So, who follows?  The fact is that the followers are… it seems all focused on a similar goal.  I think they want to sell me something. I can honestly say… I am not confident what they all sell… some of them, well, it’s pretty obvious. I think some of them want to sell me a better lifestyle, and apparently they can help me do that by taking my money in small amounts… but I sense that they will come back and eat frequently. One of them said I will earn thousands of dollars per month if I only buy their report… actually more than one of them… lots of them.

Now, as a consultant who is advising successful, real, brick and mortar type business owners how to utilize the power of the internet to market their products and services – what would I advise them…?

My jury is out on Twitter. It is early days, and like other internet marketing opportunities, the results may not be instant. We are going to continue to Tweet  and continue to measure the results …then, like any effort put into marketing, we will evaluate the return on our efforts and then decide to Tweet or not to Tweet.

I am David West, you can follow me on Twitter @davidawest … six months from now? Maybe or Maybe not.

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