Comments on: Why business Twittering deservesa second look, a strategy

By: Sam Harrelson

Sam Harrelson — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 00:30:52 +0000

And unlike myself, Warren Buffet is sometimes wrong http://bit.ly/iQHY0

By: Jeff Molander

Jeff Molander — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 00:26:49 +0000

Sam…
We were talking about valuing the company in real world terms — real dollars. The comment I made had nothing to do w/ user value… which is obvious and I plan on blogging about when I can get to it. I’ve already stated Twitter pays me.

Warren Buffet’s valuation on Twitter isn’t yours. I like to align w/ Warren’s value system — realizing fully that I’m an old fuddy duddy that “doesn’t get” the Web and likely never will. Money today. In this economy I’d think you’d be coming around to considering such an approach.

Thanks for chiming in!

By: Sam Harrelson

Sam Harrelson — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 23:10:52 +0000

Twitter is a tool. A hammer doesn’t have much value until you know how to use it. It could be worth a million dollars in a master carpetner’s hand or worth a few bucks in my hands.

The same with Twitter.

Arguing about the perceived or real ROI or value of Twitter must take the user into account or its faulty.

By: Jeff Molander

Jeff Molander — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 22:52:47 +0000

Oh, I won’t… but only if you stop changing the subject of the value discussion from Twitter itself to Twitter users

By: Sam Harrelson

Sam Harrelson — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 22:17:50 +0000

ha! Just an “affiliate marketing journalist” these days since I’ve retired from the actual marketing part. In my mind, that helps with the objectivity. We’ll see.

Don’t tell Dell, Etsy, Fatwallet or Zappos that Twitter is worthless!

By: Jeff Molander

Jeff Molander — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 22:15:01 +0000

Hey, Sam…
So how many times can a man leave and come back to affiliate marketing — or marketing in general?

I’d love to but have a lot on my plate lately. If the venue was large enough I might be able to consider it.

I think it’s lovely that Twitter is talking about such lofty goals — about what they want to be some day. Because if they weren’t talking like that they’d be worthless in “real world”, real value, “real dollar” terms.

By: Sam Harrelson

Sam Harrelson — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 22:09:49 +0000

Can we please please do another episode of Paying For Performance about this? I’ll do all the legwork. You can use a pseudonym so none of your luddite friends will know it’s you. But come on… how fun would that be? Seriously.

And Twitter is paying its bills by VC cash, the majority raised before it went mainstream. Not sure what you mean by the ‘mass media’ thing there. Go read the Twitter docs on TechCrunch about how they want to be the pulse of the web (ie another standard like IMAP or POP) as their business model… that’s pretty much anti-mass media.

By: Jeff Molander

Jeff Molander — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 21:24:20 +0000

Ok but please put quotes around ’social media’ and I look forward to carving out the time to jump in. I’ve been meaning to and your prod will be great.

By: David Lewis

David Lewis — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 21:15:57 +0000

I was trying to be kind and refrained from mentioning your readership.

I hope you don’t mind that I am going to quote your last sentence at Revenews. I hope that you will join the conversation that you inspired.

By: Jeff Molander

Jeff Molander — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 21:08:14 +0000

I have no readers to steal, bud!

I don’t deny Followers are important. I lay out reasons why marketers believe them to be important to the extent that they’re tangibly valuable — using illogical reasoning. Yes, traditional media does provide — in many cases — more meaningful, valuable interaction. Example: A direct TV ad. There’s no vote of “fandom” there’s a vote with a wallet.

David, I get your point re: mass communications. Thing is your point isn’t relating to my discussion or my point… which is that Twitter gets credit for being valuable based on illogical rationalizations which can be dismantled by simply noticing how people actually use Twitter — many times the same people that claim value in them can prove it themselves w/o my help! They’re looking past it because they’re MASS MEDIA driven (that’s how they pay the bills today).

I disagree — it’s not difficult to measure the effect of any one program on a brand’s success. You do it every day with your own brand. Yes, social media does have a direct way to measure (we agree) but it’s not being used enough.