Tag Archives: west coast favours

5 Things I’m Learning From Twitter

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twitterFor a few months now I’ve been hanging out on Twitter. I use my name as a personal account (@jeffrose) and I set one up for West Coast Favors (@westcoastfavors) to help promote that company. So far it’s been “interesting” in the sense that there’s a LOT of noise in the signal.

Using tools like Twhirl, then TweetDeck and Twitterific to manage the flow of information seems to be the key. Depending on how many people you follow (get updates from) it can be overwhelming trying to keep track of the conversations.

What have I learned? Nothing overly earth-shattering YET. There are a few lessons in development still. Here’s what I’ve got so far.

  1. There’s a lot of people out there using Twitter to communicate, micro-blog and more importantly (to me) make money.
  2. You can communicate a lot of information and detail in 140 characters. You can also make a lot of mistakes in that small space.
  3. Twitter is a tool to be used. Whether for good (@livestrong), evil (Someone I’m sure), education (Mars Rover used Twitter) or just fun you can reach a broad responsive audience.
  4. Time exists more on Twitter than anywhere else. Twitter is all about the NOW. Although it has a memory (ie: search & history) people mostly care about what’s you’re doing NOW. Which is it’s founding principle.
  5. On Twitter, nobody knows if you’re a bot, or delaying, or auto-tweeting. (I am not and don’t, although I am testing delayed Tweets for West Coast Favors).

Twitter themselves don’t seem to have a money-model yet. It’s all free. There are rumors floating about changing that shortly, but in the mean time, everyone can use it, tie to to blogs, cellphones and Facebook for full coverage.

How are companies using it? Tune in another time for that answer.

Half way through summer

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So it occurs to me, at the end of this long weekend, that we’re basically half way through summer. That’s it. Not terribly profound.

This was a long weekend. 3-days. Whee. Vancouver celebrated it’s gay pride yesterday (Sunday) and today most of those people were in recovery. Either from drinking and celebrating, or from sun-stroke. Possibly a few twisted ankles from ridiculously high-heels (men shouldn’t wear heels without practice).

I did go to the Pride events briefly. Yes, I’m a bad gay man. I didn’t sit and watch the parade for 3 hours. I also didn’t spend more hours shopping at the festival, nor did I go to the bear beer garden. I did go to the festival at Sunset Beach and had a good wander while 90% of the people were still at the parade.

Second booth I walked past was Entre Nous – a dating company. Guy in the booth yells “Hey mister, where to you look for love?” His standard come-on and I was alone, Chris having to work and all. I turned quickly and replied – “My husband” and smiled. He looked stunned and finally came back with “good answer.” Poor guy, hope his day got better.

Next year, I seriously want West Coast Favours to have a booth there. For that, we need 3 things to happen. 1) Money to pay for it, 2) a concept of what to show and sell since chocolate won’t hold up in the sun, 3) product to take. Parts 1 and 2 need to be done before like March so I can book it. It’s going to be a busy year.