Thinking outside the box is as easy as changing the way you see the box.
As marketers we tend to view each medium as an isolated channel serving to only communicate with potential consumers within that channel. We talk often of “breaking through the clutter” because consumers are “tuning out” all of our messages and then some of us throw our hands in the air, understandably so, and say, “where do we start?”
The first place is to start is in your own mind.
Instead of visualizing Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and YouTube as separate entities think of them as one. All are intrinsically tied together and becoming more so every day as the users are demanding ways to integrate their content.
If I haven’t lost you… I really hope I haven’t - here’s an example.
I first learned of Twitter at SXSW Interactive in 2008 when the crowd literally controlled the speaker’s questions by using Twitter to collectively change the dialogue during an interview with Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook.
I immediately discounted the silly name and realized that Twitter was definitely something I should join. But I still hesitated.
As much as I wanted to try Twitter, I couldn’t rationalize or justify taking time away from my blog’s active comment section and post writing. I needed to be sold on Twitter.
And then, while surfing other blogs, I saw my first Twitter widget.
They look like this, as seen on Twitip.com, an excellent blog on Twitter by ProBlogger or @problogger if you’re on Twitter.
or can be custom designed to look like this.
See the little Tweet there? This musician has it feeding into the top of his page. He’s using that prime piece of real estate to update his fans.
Twitter widgets automatically update just seconds after you update your Twitter account.
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