Mid-2009 Thoughts and Trends -- on Twitter
Q. Because you are a professor and consultant, I would imagine it’s one of your top priorities to stay up-to-date on advancements in direct and interactive marketing. How do you accomplish that, and how do you share it with your students?
A. One of my greatest challenges as a professor is to make sure my students learn the timeless marketing concepts they’ll need to succeed for the long haul – yet make sure they are exposed to the latest thinking and techniques. This summer I decided to see if using Twitter would help me share some new trends, thoughts, and sources with my online e-commerce marketing students.
I set up a Twitter site (@sjones9200) and asked my students to sign up. Then as I saw interesting articles and sites I “tweeted” this information, beginning each “tweet” with ECOM 383 so the students would know it was meant especially for them.
Here are some of the “tweets” I shared during the summer class:
-- eMarketer says Twitter users will jump to 18.1 million in 2010; 10.8% of Internet users. Will it make $$$, or is it a novelty?
Twitter has intrigued everyone from actor Ashton Kutcher to President Obama…but can it be monetized? Another recent article I read noted that many social media gurus are all excited about the number of sign-ups and participants when they should be focusing more on revenue.
-- Check this out: www.alistapart.com/articles/designcancripple and see if you can decide the winning version.
This article called “Design Choices Can Cripple a Website” by Nick Usborne lets visitors evaluate three choices before finding out which website gained the best conversion rates. I remember when the great John Caples used to offer such quizzes on print media options as part of his seminars “back in the day.”
-- Check this out: www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1007109 -- your social media skills will come in handy in the workplace!
This article focuses on how few companies actually have a company policy about social media use, and the problems that may result from that situation. As noted in a recent column, young “digital natives” can bring valuable, personal experience to the table in their jobs.
-- Do you enjoy Twitter? This article says you don't! www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=107081
The article discusses the fact that 18-26 year-olds really don’t “get” the excitement around Twitter. My students relate to Facebook much more than any other social medium. They like the fact that it originated with college students and they consider Facebook higher class than MySpace. One of my colleagues made Twitter participation mandatory with 10% of students’ grades hanging in the balance. They didn’t like that much, because they think Twitter is for older people and because they think social media should be fun, not mandatory.
-- Check out this story about Zappos -- a great dot.com: www.economist.com/people/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13490041
The article discusses the fact that shoe marketer Zappos (now expanded into clothing and accessories) has all the trappings of a dot.com from the late 1990s, yet under the leadership of Tony Hsieh, it has reached $1 billion in annual sales.
-- Here's an article with some good basic how-to’s for designing a web home page: www.alistapart.com/articles/homepagegoals
I don’t teach the intricacies of web design in my marketing classes, but students find this subject very interesting, and many want to build their own sites.
-- How about this for a time-saver on the go? Trade stocks on Twitter via http://pollytrade.com/
Here’s a practical use for Twitter…PollyTrade is looking for beta users right now. So far they only support E*Trade as a broker. Perhaps we’ll see the E*Trade bay “tweeting” his stock trades in an upcoming commercial.
-- Check out www.eyebuydirect.com -- upload your picture, try on frames, get feedback from other site users. Saw it on TV.
I try to show my students some unique applications that the web makes possible. This site combines interactivity and personalization with community, and some pretty impressive prices on eyeglass frames.
ECOM 383: Can Bing Challenge Google for Search? Check out: www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=108565
This article shows how Bing was off to a pretty good start on paid search, just weeks after its formal introduction.
-- Several people have recommended www.techcrunch.com/ to me lately--easy to subscribe & they do a good job on double opt-in!
I encourage my students to subscribe to a controlled number of online industry newsletters. Another one that I like and recommend is www.emarketer.com/.
-- What do you guys think of Amazon's Kindle? Had breakfast w/a friend who loves hers -- it holds 1500 books at less than $10 each.
The students find Kindle rather expensive for them currently, but since products like Kindle are likely to change the face of college textbook marketing in the near future, I want them to be aware of it.
"Ask the DM Experts” is a monthly adMarks feature. Professor Susan K. Jones draws on the knowledge of CADM members and other authorities to answer your questions – so tell her what you want to ask the experts! Send your questions in care of George Buckley at CADM: E-mail: gbuckley@cadm.org; Fax: 312.849.CAFX (2239).
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