I have received more than my share of “critical feedback” suggesting that my blog posts are often a little too long. The feedback has come first, from my teenage daughters (I am glad for their candidness!). Unfortunately, there is a risk that this post may also not be “short”.

But then, for this, I have to blame Mrs. Hansotia. Who Mrs. Hansotia? Oh, she was my English teacher from class VI to X. And like most English schools, ours too suffered from the now-exasperating British legacy of being extremely verbose.

Till today’s teenagers do not go and completely take over all English language teaching in schools, we may still suffer this excess for some more time. The rest of us have too much of a hangover from our school times, and end up being flowery length by default!

Then there is the radio legacy.

Back when live TV had not come, we had to depend on the adjectives of our poetic commentators (think Suresh Saraiya, for example) to visualize how the ground was, and how exquisitely Vishwanath had cut the ball to the cover fence for four (before getting out the next ball), and things of that nature.

Live television came, and we did not need to be “told” many of these things, as we could see them. And yet, our commentators, brought up in radio days, continued to tell us what we could plainly see!

So you get the point? I am talking about the long, long text that we write and speak. Instead of cutting to the chase. And instead of sometimes, cutting out the crap!

My grouse is not just about the longer blog post or the verbal diarrhea of our commentators, but in general, about the legacy to write too many words, and which even shows up on Facebook at times. Thankfully, Twitter does not give you that option at all.

At a recent event where I was a speaker, the topic of my talk was ‘How to be relevant to your audience in 140 characters’.

Before the event, once the organizers announced the topic, there was a whole lot of interest seen in Twitter, etc. I have not seen so much buzz around a speech topic. While part of this may be attributed to the organizers promoting the talk and the event, that the topic fascinated and intrigued a lot of people, was undeniable. In fact, there was a lot of questions post the talk and many of the folks also came and chatted individually, later.

So where are the real challenges in our habits, and especially in context of social media updates for brands?

You want to make a product update.

You have written brochures of web content for the product before this.

You are greedy. You want to get all of your details out, in that one update itself!

You want to use the opportunity of having to make a Facebook post about the product, to cover more or less everything about the product!

So your post could well read like:

“This exciting new <product> from <brand>, model number <abc> comes with it’s own remote control and a child proof lock as well. Made of stainless steel, you could see your own reflection on the <product>, and it is lightweight as well. So you can enjoy your day, with this <product> even as you bask in the sunshine.”

Or words of this kind.

This is clearly brochure-ware, and not good for a Facebook post.

If I had to constrain the writer to write the same post for Twitter, she’d find a way, wouldn’t she?

She’d probably write this as “Our new <product> <model> has a child proof lock, so your kid will not get accidentally hurt. Check it out at bit.ly/abc.”

Why could this not have been done on Facebook as well? Just because Facebook gave her more characters to post, she let her flowery language loose?

Here’s another example from recent times.

I had this really weird experience at a recent pitch where 6-7 people from the client’s end were sitting and my colleague was presenting. And at a point where he was explaining a point in depth, the client (almost) rudely interrupted him and said, “Yes, we get it. It’s a good idea. Now let’s move on!”

Whoa! That took us by surprise, although the client meant well.

We are all busy. Our attention spans are low. So get to the point. And get there fast. ANY word that does not add real value ought not to be present. If I can say it in one word, I don’t want to use two.

In a twitter conversation, often a single word tweet can have impact, e.g. “Epic!” or “OMG”. And if you want to give the liberty of an additional word, then there could be “Life sucks!”, or “Go Federer..”, etc. The story is told. In those 1-2 words!

So guys, as the title to the post suggests, “Cut the crap. And cut to the chase!”

Here’s an ad, that drives home the point..

Once upon a time life used to be 8×5 …eight hours a day for 5 days a week. For some it would be 8×6, 9×6 or some such combination.

Then Internet came along…and life became 24×7. Internet gurus taught us how our ecommerce store could continue ringing in revenues even while we slept…and with 24×7 revenues, came the need for 24×7 customer service. On the other hand, our bosses gave us laptops with data cards…and we became 24×7 corporate slaves. The concept of time changed completely.  It was no longer neatly bracketed into silos (time to work, time to play, time to sleep, and time to do nothing) … it became one long line…with anything happening anytime.

Let me warn you; all this is set to change, again. For good or for worse I don’t know, but it is going to change be sure.  This is how:

• If I need to get my Dell laptop repaired, I need to either look up their manual for a 1.800 number so that I can call them, or I need to logon to their website, pull out a custserv email id and write them a mail, or I need to fill in a form on their website giving details of the complaint. Right?  … Wrong! No need to do this anymore! (BTW Dell India has one of the worst IVRS….it keeps you on hold endlessly)

• Now all you need to do is logon to twitter and send out a tweet “Having problems with my #Dell laptop. Need help”. Chances are that a Dell representative who is continuously monitoring twitter for tweets with references to Dell, will send you a @ message offering a help. Chances are also that a Lenovo representative (who is tracking competition) will also send you a @ message offering help, even though you are a Dell customer (hoping that Lenovo scores some brownie points with you for helping you out !)

The point is that as a consumer, I no longer need a “definitive” address (phone number, email id, website URL etc.) to reach out to a brand. I can just tweet into cyberspace (even without knowing Dells twitter handle). It is like standing on top of my building’s roof and shouting that I am a Dell customer and I need help… and my expectation is that Dell will hear me and respond!

Social Media will create a huge jump in consumers’ expectations of service levels from a brand. He no longer needs to reach out to the brand. It is his expectation that he can just shout out anytime and from anyplace … and that the onus of listening to him and seeking him out lies on the brand. Brands now need to be truly omnipresent.

Welcome to the new reality: 24x7xEverywhere.

Dear Still-Not-Convinced-About-Social-Media Marketer,

You are happier to keep putting your ad budgets on street billboards like this one, right?

And you even think that it’s fine if few passers by would see your ads on the street such as the following ones, right?

Well, just because you love such large splashes of your brand name, where a lot of people can see it, how about if we offer you the same on Social Media??

“Excuse me?” is what I hear from you now!

Read on, then..

This is how a recent Social Media campaign was constructed for Channel V, as they were relaunching the channel on August 22nd.

Twitter members were given an offer, to allow their Display Pictures (DPs) to be swapped with the Channel V logo.

They were told that if they register and allow this to happen:

- Channel V will ‘possess’ their avatar, for 50% of the time, on a random basis; that way, for the other 50%, they could still retain their own avatar

- if they stay registered for at least 5 days, they would get a neat Channel V T-shirt AND

- they would also be eligible to win an iPod

This was great incentive for many. And it turned out to be fun too. And that is when the “billboards” started to get created on Social Media, like this:

And if you were using Twitter directly from the web, then too, the screen was like a large advertising space for Channel V, as you can see here:

No wonder then, that there were user comments that said that “Channel V seems to have taken over the Internet”!

So dear Marketer, if “billboards” are what appeal to you, fret not. You can get them on Social Media too

And if you want “in” on this new advertising option for your brand, you know whom you have to call?!

Yours truly,

- The Social Wavelength team!!

Enough now, about where the money is in Twitter! I would like to answer that question here and now!!

Now, you could be selling bananas in Denver, CO or you could be an agent for printing machinery in New York, or you could be a hot shot investment banker in Singapore or you could be running a play school in Mumbai. I may not be able to answer the question for all of you in just this one post.

But I will take a generic example, and hope you can figure out your hypothesis from this example. And find your own pot of gold from Twitter, if you can

So the most generic example will have to be one, where someone is seeking to sell, and make money as a result. So say, you are a small store selling laptop computers or books or clothes or cameras or whatever! If Twitter had to work for you and make some money for you, you would want it to point you to buyers of your products, isn’t it? Can Twitter do this? It sure can.

As a salesman, making cold-calls, what would be the perfect timing? To be at the right place at the right time! Like you were a salesman of guitars, and you walk into a home, just as the parents have decided that they will get their son a new guitar. Could it get any better for you, as a salesman?

Can Twitter play out this fantasy for you? Sure, if you would only stop and look.

If a person was in the mood of purchasing something, what would she say to herself? Or to her friends? What kind of statements are typical of this stage of buying?

“Planning to buy”, “Thinking of getting”, “Thinking of buying”, “Which one should I get”, “Should I buy”, etc. etc. Isn’t this obvious?

Now, Twitter being nothing but simple conversations of this kind, these are the kind of phrases that people use ALL the time. And you as a seller can simply look up the public timeline of Twitter, and find the people who are using these phrases!

No, you do not need thousands of followers for doing this. No, you do not need to be a Dell or an HP to do this. No, you do not need any programming skills to do this.

In short, this simple trick is available for anyone who chooses to use it. And then dig that one step deeper to find those buyers who are looking to buy what you sell, and perhaps, in the areas, where you sell. And you are on! At the right place, at the right time.

Check out these searches on http://search.twitter.com and once you have got it, and if you are a seller, you will not ask the question again, “Where’s the money in Twitter?”!

Now if you are not selling something, but you are into other activities, you just need to extrapolate the example shown above, for your own area of interest.

So if yours is a medical practice looking to attract patients, you may want to track the phrases, “looking for a cure”, “cure for”, “know a doctor” and such.

So did you find your magic phrases? Is there enough Twitter traffic for those? Good, so keep counting the cash, then! Cheers!