Keynote: Guy Kawasaki "How to kick ass on Twitter"

Marketing guru and author Guy Kawasaki gave the keynote address at the CMO Club Thought Leadership Summit in San Francisco today.

Kawasaki, the author of nine books including "How to Drive Your Competition Crazy" gave tips on how CMOs can best use Twitter in their marketing efforts.

Came late to Twitter

Kawasaki says that he came late to Twitter. "I found Twitter, or should I say Twitter found me in 2007," he said. "My first reaction was that Twitter was the dumbest thing I ever saw."

But, he quickly realized the huge potential for marketing.

Kawasaki's advice for CMOs on how to use Twitter

Search for yourself or your company
This will let you see what people are saying about you, for good and bad, all day long. Not all of it is positive, but you learn as much from the negative as you do from the positive. And watch your competition too!

Note: As a marketer you must realize that when someone slams your product 99% of the time they have not tried your product. Just send them a free sample to turn them into a fan.

New theory of marketing

Old marketing used the theory of influencers. There are 20 people you need to suck up to. If you're in tech, a good example would be Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal.

Today Kawasaki believes in a new theory: "The nobodies are the new somebodies." Once you turn an average Twitter critic into a fan they will Tweet to many, many more followers.

Don't just focus on the top influencers with the most followers. "Rather than suck up, you should suck across or suck down," said Kawasaki, "Twitter allows you to do that."

Twitter lets you dump inventory

If you've got excess inventory, give it away on Twitter as "deals." People will follow you just to see the deals you place on Twitter. It's a great way to move inventory quickly.

Support

Every company should set up Twitter support groups. You need to follow them closely and follow up. As an example, Frank from @Comcastcares is tracking the phrase "I am switching to DirecTV" on Twitter. He'll respond to anyone who says that.

Prospecting: How to get followers

Kawasaki said he only uses Twitter is a marketing platform. "I am not trying to be social or make friends," he said. "As a marketer I want to get followers."

1. Inform. Don't me-form. Me-form is "my cat just rolled over." Inform is to provide content that your followers will find interesting and valuable. The goal is to have interesting links so people will retweet you.


2. Create a constant stream of great content by putting an RSS feed into your Twitter feed. But only do this for content sites you truly trust and value.

Other best practices

1. Always be linking to great content.
2. Anytime someone mentions you, respond.
3. Your ultimate goal is to be retweeted.

Twitter marketing myths you can ignore

1. Twitter for social networking. Don't just tweet personal stuff. You should be inform, not me form.
2. You shouldn't repeat tweets. Not true. You can repeat by simply changing the wording of your tweets.
3. You should not automatic feed. If it's valuable, it's worth it.
   
4. You should not use ghost tweeters. Highly debatable. Kawasaki uses them and thinks they're OK. But if you're representing yourself, then you need to tweet it out.
5. You cannot make everyone happy. If 10 are mad, there are probably 10,000 who love you. They are the silent majority. Do not let a tiny percent of people, angry, to affect your marketing. You need to ignore them.

Kawasaki said Twitter today is what the Internet was 20 years ago. I think Twitter will be around for a long time. It's a mistake to say Twitter will not be useful for B2B. It's such a trivial thing to sign up, why not? In three years, you will say why didn't I get started earlier.