A Bird's Eye View: Informal Information on the Advertising Industry Expanded from 140 Characters or Less. Out Of the Box Is No Longer Enough. Let's Think Outside the Tweet.

People say some smart things on Twitter. I'm noticing a lot of the time that people are posting quotes from seminars, business meetings, and pitching strategies and ideas through twitter.  I thought it might be a good time to take down some notes and expand on these "140 Characters or less" tweets.  Here's just a few I nabbed last week. 

#1 reason clients give me for absence from social media: lack of resources. This seems to be a pretty common observation.  It takes a lot of work to maintain a digital brand.  Heck, I even find myself having a hard time managing, maintaing, and marketing my own sites and blogs, I can't imagine a small business or a large corporation.  The problem?  It's GOT to be done.
My family has a personal friend who runs his own web design firm.  I took a gander at his "career opportunity" page just to see what was available.  Surprisingly enough, he wasn't looking for any developers or designers, he was looking for messengers, copywriters, and public relations people.  Sure, he can make a company a great website, but if they don't have anyone to give him the message, the brand, the headlines, the titles, the history of the company, and this mission - how good of a platform can he create.  

Lesson learned?  Don't ignore the neccessities.  A good design without copy is like a good brand without an identity.  Don't let lack of resources come in between your company and your consumers.  There are good writers out there, wink wink.

It's important for you to have an online presence. The first place I go to check out a potential job candidate is linked-in.
Obvious? A little.  But this is probably the single most important advice I could give to anyone right now.  Sure this works for brands.  In fact, it is imperative for brands, but it's also important for everyday individuals like you and me.  Why?  Because anyone can find anything about everyone.  Confusing I know, but it's the power of the world wide web.  If information is going to be out there, why not control it and cater it towards how you wanted to be perceived by others.

The world is Digital. A lot of people simply need to accept it.
This couldn't be more true.  I think marketers and advertisers, and interested people like myself are the first ones to kind of adopt this theory, but slowly everyone is starting to realize.  Everything we do is dominated by technology.  Sure their is an older generation that still reads the paper every morning, sits outside and reads a book, but I'd imagine they also have a television, a cell phone, and some sort of computer knowledge.  

We could have a discussion about Twitter for hours and never come to a conclusion on it's popularity in the future, but nonetheless, I guarantee in 20 years when our kids no longer have textbooks and do everything on their mobile/computer/smartphone/kindle hybrid while they're flying to school in their automated vehicle, they'll be learning about it's effectiveness in 2009 as a driving force behind the "digital revolution."

The more ideas being associated with your brand, the more conversation will surround it. 
When I think about new campaigns for new brands and new companies, I always think big.  My belief is it's better to pitch 10 ideas and have the client like 1, than to pitch 3 ideas and have the client like 0. The more companies and brands do to deliver a message, the more conversation this causes. 

Look at a recent movie "Paranormal Activity."  They made the movie with an $11,000 budget and made 20 million opening weekend.  They created buzz online, made crazy trailers, hosted parties for movie buffs who attended midnight screenings.  Sure, the reviewers wouldn't like it, but draw buzz in your target audience and get conversation started.  It's no longer about advertising, it's about interaction.

We are what we repeatedly do. Marketing, then, is not an act, but a habit.
A last little piece of advice.  When done correctly, marketing shouldn't bother you, shouldn't annoy you, and shouldn't be something that you have to hide from.  It should be something you welcome, something you enjoy, and something you embrace.  It shouldn't be an act, it should be a habit.  

Pretty interesting stuff hugh?  As I've said before, the bird truly is the word.  Feel free to leave comments, insights, opinions, advice, ect.  Have any of you ever encountered any inspiring tweets?  I'd love to hear from you.