AdamWohl.com

Dr. Strangewohl, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love twitter

(Orignially posted on September 23, 2009)

I love twitter.  There, I said it.

I don’t expect you to understand or concur.  Twitter is a different experience for everyone.  I can’t speak for anyone else, only me.  And it feels as if twitter was tailor made for me.

Throwing out comedic comebacks in short bursts and at a frenetic pace?  Coming up with funny conversation starters?  Are you kidding me? That’s how I became the class clown all through school.  That’s how I got writing jobs and sold pitches to studio and network execs in Hollywood.

And at least in my experience in the advertising world, it has been a game-changer.  Why?

There’s such a large presence from the ad community on twitter.  And if you’re trying to make things happen, that translates to Access and Opportunity.

I liken our twitter feeds to a huge restaurant, or cafeteria.  Sometimes I eat by myself; sometimes I’m with a big party (in a conversation).  But what’s great about twitter is that I can be sitting alone and see…let’s say…Ty Montague and Harvey Marco from JWT together at a “table” nearby, having a talk…and I can interrupt their conversation without being rude or intrusive.  Unbelievable.  And there it is: Access and Opportunity.  I don’t care if you’re asking someone at Harvard Business School or a streetwise con what those two things mean.  The hybrid answer?  The tenets of a successful bid-ness transaction, yo.

Access:

Imagine trying to gain access to an ECD or a CCO via the more traditional digital method, a cold email.  Just think about the things that need to happen to achieve the desired result:

• Need to find the target’s email address (not easy to find, by design)
• Email must not be spam filtered out (many agencies have filters)
• Email must get past the target’s assistant (who could easily toss it)
• Target (who certainly gets 100s of emails a day) has to notice it.
• Target has to actually to open it, not toss it.
• Target has to read it.
• Target has to respond to it.

Feeling me?

With twitter I can just say “Hey, Rob (Schwartz)!” and he essentially turns and looks my way.

Now, don’t get me wrong.  It’s not as easy as that; because it’s not just about access and opportunity.   It’s really about being able to take advantage of those two things.  Because getting someone’s attention is worth nothing if you can’t make an impact.  And this brings me back to the restaurant/cafeteria analogy and the interrupting of the conversations of those you wish to befriend.

Taking advantage of Access and Opportunity:

This is really where twitter leaves off and you begin.  There’s an old saying, “I’d rather be lucky than good.”  When I was a very confident 22, I was always quick to say, “I’d rather be good than lucky.”  I was 22 – what did I know?  When I was closer to thirty, I said, “You know what?  A little luck wouldn’t be so bad.”  The great thing about twitter is it allows you to be both.  The access to the people you want to reach and theopportunity to interact with them is the luck.  Taking advantage of that opportunity by saying (tweeting) something witty, helpful, insightful —memorable, that makes your target take note of your existence?  That’s being good.  Knock it out of the park and you’re in business.

I’m sure this comes as rudimentary for many of the people I follow and who follow me, but there are people I meet with or talk to everyday who don’t yet have a presence on twitter, who “don’t like it” or “don’t get it.”  I think people in the ad game probably get it better than anyone else – we’re in the business of delivering brief communications that make an impact.  But to those in any field who are considering the benefits of twitter, I feel a great need to convey the opportunity that twitter provides.  Unparalleled access to the people you want to reach and an opportunity to have them (even for a brief few seconds) as a captive audience.  Don’t miss out by not taking advantage of the situation.

And if you are part of the ad world — whether agency side or brand side — remember the opportunity you have via twitter.  The cafeteria analogy?  Brands have that brief moment (and everyone’s attention) where they’re essentially standing up and saying, “look at me, and what I have to offer!”  Be careful.  Hit the audience over the head with something too strong, too contrived, too forced and you’ll turn them off – AND once you do that it’s hard — very hard — to ever get invited to the cool kids’ table.  But provide something fun, helpful, interesting and you become memorable, accepted, maybe even followed.  Now, I know my designer and AD counterparts will say I’m putting too much stock in the written word (why shouldn’t I — I’m a writer!), but think about it; though twitter can link to images, rich media, apps — any kind of experience, the communication that starts it all — those 140 written characters are all we have to make that first impression.  So choose your words well.