Week 11A Marketing with Twitter, TikTok, Google for Business, LinkedIn, AI and more

 I am focusing this blog entry on the power of Twitter.  This platform is one that I never quite understood and I'm not sure many around me understand it or know how to utilize it well.  However I will share my experience that started 9 years ago.  I never grew a following on Twitter.  My profile @tiffanyeyoung is stuck at around 230 followers.  Twitter was actually one of the first types of social media I downloaded back when I was in college studying Journalism.  My instructor told me to get on there and get familiar with it. She also warned me at that time to be careful what I put out there on the internet and to act as if the whole world would read it and watch it.  At that time many people including myself believed we had privacy online.  This was before we understood we were being tracked and analyzed.  Anyways, after I downloaded Twitter I was completely confused on why I was there and what was the purpose.  I would share a thought but it made zero sense.  Who was reading my tweet?  Who cared?  I also was confused about why I cared about other people's tweets.  Unless it was some famous person and it was interesting to read a thought from them, why did I need to read tweets from others? I left it alone for a few years. 

When I played around with Twitter again, I found that through key words and hashtags I could connect with like minded individuals and we could follow each other and like each others tweets and tweet back to each other.  It was fun but still I was confused on why I was there.  Around this time, Google was making big efforts to boost their presence in the world of social media.  At this time Facebook was dominating the game.  In an attempt to compete with Facebook, I remember Google started this platform called "Google+" It was intended to be the next Facebook.  The annoying thing about it was the way Google tried to shove it down everyone's throats by forcing Youtube users to sign up for Google+ as well as having a Google+ account connected to your gmail.  It was so irritating because it was so forced.  Also at the time I was experimenting with Youtube and was running a couple different channels (@hapakoreana @thetiffanyyoungshow) to test out my blogging skills through video.  Google owned Youtube by this time. I believe many you tubers and people on twitter were annoyed with Google+ and wanted to boycott the whole thing.

Next thing Google did was come up with this groundbreaking technology called Google Glass.  It was essentially a pair of glasses with a camera that could record whatever you were seeing.  It had audio that was heard through bone conducting vibrations behind the ear.  When you spoke to the glasses it would show holographic images and you could nod your head and activate the camera through voice commands.  It was this whole marketing stunt to get their name out there as the cool brand that was ahead of its time and was going to give these Google Glasses out to some very lucky people through a contest on Twitter.  To enter to win a pair, you had to tweet what you would do with a pair of Google Glasses if you got them.  I had all my social media and youtube links, Google Plus account, linked to my Twitter.  I tweeted and hashtagged #GoogleGlass and I wrote that I would record everywhere I went and I would spend time with my grandma and ask her questions that I always wanted to ask her and record it.  I would travel and record everything and share it with the world.  Something like that.  I'd have to dig back in time to find the actual tweet.  Well, I won.  Google chose me to claim a pair of these Glasses.  It was like winning the lottery at the time.  The only people who were getting a hold of these things were famous people and some very lucky individuals on Twitter.  I got an invite to come to the Google Headquarters in Venice.  I got a tour of the facility, they gave me a beer and let me try on the glasses and pick the ones I wanted to take home.  

Now that I was officially a #GlassExplorer, I used my Google glasses constantly.  I went to weddings, events, walked the pier at the beach.  Everywhere I went people stopped and said "Hey are those the Google Glasses? Wow am I being recorded right now? It was a lot of fun.  Little did I know this was a genius marketing stunt put on by Google.  I was wearing a device that recorded and tracked where I went.  I would tweet and use hashtags to post content using Google Glass.  There were Google Glass groups and we would follow each other on twitter and tweet about what we were doing.  If I uploaded a Youtube video of my unboxing and testing the device out, I posted to Twitter and hash tagged Google.  On top of that, everything was being posted to Google+.  In the end the whole Google Glass thing didn't stick, but it was an introduction to the type of technology we use today.  The Google Glasses went back to Google after my trial period was up.  I had the option to purchase them for $1600 which was a definite NO for me.  This was Google's way of testing out the market to see if people were willing to pay that price point after trying this new technology out.  Well, it didn't end up working out and the product died off along with Google+. 

Although Google Glass died off, my learning experience on the power of Twitter did not.  I learned that all it takes is one Tweet.  I barely had any followers.  I believe my tweet was just a gateway to my other social media platforms and I think they chose me because they thought I would use their product and post content about it, which I did.  After that experience I realized a single tweet could gain somebody's attention in that point in time.  Anyone can send a tweet to anyone.  If I dive back into Twitter in the future, I would absolutely attempt to connect with people that would help my cause be more powerful.  Power in numbers and power in names and visibility.  Twitter is a place where a trending topic or breaking news hits like wildfire and sometimes I find out about the latest news through Twitter faster than the News. The strategy and goal has to be clear. But with those things, Twitter is truly a place where one can manifest what they desire to achieve. It's about timing as well.  It could be a trending topic and your target person that you would like to team up with is on the conversation on Twitter.  If you have your links and profile together, that is the moment to tweet that message that is going to get this person's attention.  It could be the start of a connection, a friendship and or an alliance with someone that can help your business or cause get to the next level.  I think of it as a snowball effect.