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Following Social Media Wherever It Leads

Twitterville Notebook: Evernote's Andrew SinkovYesterday

Evernote is one of the startups that I think will not only endure but prevail in these troubling times, either as a standalone company or as a popular feature in a larger company. It is a Web 2.0 service that lets you send a clip of anything you find while surfing from iPhone or computer to an Evernote-hosted space where you can organize and tag text, audio or video clips. I should be using it to write Twitterville.

I've chosen Evernote to be the fifth and final company to be profiled in Chapter 5: "Who wants to chat with a Coke bottle," in part because they are succeeding in Twitter while ignoring my viewpoint that Twitter is most wisely used as a tool of conversation rather than a new channel to broadcast marketing and PR messages.

The Evernote Twitter account has almost 8500 followers and several people enthusiastically recommended I include it because users find it useful. So I went to Andrew Sinkov, Evernote's lead marketer and principal Tweeter to get his perspective. Here's his side of the story:

1.  How has the recession impacted your business?

The recession has not had any significant impact on our user growth or premium service uptake. In response to the economic downturn, we have reigned in a lot of our spending both operationally and on marketing campaigns. We want to ensure that we are spending our resources as wisely as possible. 

2. What

My Twitterville EvolutionJanuary 5

Over the past couple of months the number of people following me on Twitter has more than doubled. This may be because I am writing a book about Twitter. It may be because of reference bots such as Mr. Tweet or it may be because my focus seems to have drifted away from its historic center of Silicon Valley.

While it cannot help but boost my ego just a tad, it is also humbling in many ways to realize so many people may be listening to what I have to say. For better or worse, I have lost a certain edginess in my tone. I've also lost a certain intimacy because I am speaking to so many people I have never met, who are coming from so many diverse cultures.

Perhaps, I am posting this so that I can better understand what is going on during this period of growth and change I am writing it here and sharing it with you. My observations:

• My focus has left Silicon Valley. I began in social media with a strong tech-business perspective. My leading passion remains social media, and my immersion is overwhelmingly in Twitter. But social media is no longer very much of a tech issue as I see it. It seems to me that as Twitter brings ground level conversations to me from Pakistan, India, China, Israel and Arab countries, my interest in the bugs of a product named Zune or the WiFi on a bus headed to a Las Vegas Trade show just aren't that interesting anymore.
• Twitterville is traveling faster than I can write it. When I outline the book back in August, I

Twitterville Notebook: Brad Nelson, the Starbucks TweeterJanuary 4

       [Brad Nelson, the Starbucks principal Tweeter. photo from his file]

Over the past 11 days, I have exchanged 31 emails with Brad Nelson, the principal tweeter for the @starbucks logo Twitter account. I got to know a little about him. For example, he has a good. slightly edgy sense of humor. He's plays trumpet/keyboard for a Seattle-based indie rock group called The Preons . He's designing the site I just linked you to, and it's not finished. he tweets for the band as well. His personal Twitter account is @halfnelson. I found him transparent and open. He convinced me that he has a passion for Starbucks and a love for Twitter, but all things considered, he's probably prefer to be a rock star.

I tell you all this, because Brad does a great job of arguing the case for being a nameless, faceless voice behind the Starbucks logo. Yet, it seems to me that by seeing his face above, and hearing a few details about the person, you might prefer to know Brad, the Starbucks guy more than you migh

Twitterville Notebook: Beth Mansfield, Carl's Jr.January 2

     [Beth Mansfield, the human behind the CarlsJr Tweets. Photo from her file.]

Below is a shortened version of my interview with Beth Mansfield, public relations manager for CKE Restaurants, parent company for Carl's Jr. She is the person tweeting behind the nameless icon who will be covered in Twitterville Ch.5, "Who wants to chat with a Coke bottle?" I mistakenly thought that Beth worked for an external PR firm, which she corrected in her answers. Beth seems to be using Twitter as an extension of the Carl's Jr. marketing plan, rather than a new tool of conversation. She explains how that can still let the @carlsjr account follow more people than actually follow her, or should I say it?

1. You Tweet at two accounts: @CarlsJr and @BethMansfield. You are pretty transparent that you are the Carl's Jr tweeter, but you also often talk about Carl's Jr on your personal account. How do you decide what to post where?

I try to keep the @CarlsJr Twitter feed about the brand--tweeting product news and store openings, having fun and interacting with fans of the brand. On my personal account @bethmansfield, I’m not w

Twitterville Notebook: Toby BloombergDecember 31 2008

         

                  [Toby Bloomberg. Photo from her file.]

This brands vs. people debate that has evolved into a new chapter called, "Who want to chat with a Coke bottle," brought me back to Naked Conversations. Then the issue was character blogs--creating fictitious characters who wrote blogs. We spotlighted one called Moosetopia, which seems to have been abandoned in 2007, perhaps to avoid the advent of Sarah Palin.

We also spotlighted Toby Bloomberg, an online marketing maven in Atlanta, Ga., who has since become my friend. But that did not stop us from seeing this issue from different sides. Bloomberg saw blogs as a new marketing tool. Then, as now--I saw blogs and social media as conversational tools of use to a great many more parts of an organization than the marketers. Toby was also behind GourmetStation, a character blog featuring a fictitious woman, named "T. Alexander" who seemed to spend her life enjoying wine and food and good times, while so many of us real people had to work and commute and maybe change some diapers.