Well you see Jonathan, Twitter allows you to tell people what you are doing. It is in a similar vein to Facebook’s status update, but it is so much more than that. Through these frequent back-and-forth updates, Twitter allows you to really engage in conversations with other people. All of this helps to build a solid online community of friends and peers.

That explanation adequately describes Twitter and how it operates, but it occurred to me that you cannot truly understand what Twitter is until you dive in.

I Feel A Little Stupid
I was listening to a great web developer podcast a few weeks ago when I heard the following conversation. The conversation reinforces my aforementioned thought. The excerpt from the podcast is when two of the co-hosts were talking about President Obama using Twitter during his campaign.

Brad Williams:

Now, you can’t tell me that he [President Obama] didn’t think Twitter was a little stupid when he first heard what exactly it was.

I think everyone that signs up on Twitter has to question what they are doing when they first sign up.

Kevin Yank

Step one of Twitter: acceptance.

And there it is:

• You will probably feel stupid as you sign up for Twitter.
• You will definitely wonder what use you will ever get out of Twitter.
• You may think how it will probably be a waste of time.

Join the Crazy Community
However, once you accept that you are just as crazy as the millions of other Twitter users then you will find a vibrant, exciting community. And from a web marketing perspective, this community is important to help build your brand, reputation, and relationships. All of which are necessary components of an ongoing web marketing campaign.

The Twitter icons are courtesy of Smashing Magazine and Mirjami Manninen.

Updated (February 15, 2011): Removed Twitter icon image because of the continuous hotlinking to the image.

Windows Vista Product Parody

iPhone Commercial Parody

The YouTube Generation

Today, YouTube (along with the availability of video editing software) is aiding in a similar explosion of parodic items: videos. A while back, when I was doing some research for my Sonic Drive-In article I found that the number of parodic videos seemed to outnumber the originals by at least 2-to-1. That is huge! Think about how many more videos are now available on YouTube showing the Sonic brand in one form or another. Those videos provide additional marketing benefits companies just cannot buy.

A Mac Parody

In sticking with the computer theme from the images above, here is a video parodying the current set of Mac commercials.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVOnFdMf0RU&hl=en&fs=1]

From a marketing standpoint, parodies are great. People create videos that others will watch that are also based on branding you originally created. When I see these parodies I almost always think of the original commercial, and I believe I am not the only one who does this.

So, what is the lesson to take away from this? Create marketing materials that people find interesting. Some will then create parodies of your marketing material. This spreads the word about your company even further. The end result is that the parodies end up aiding your branding and marketing efforts.

Note: No computers or operating systems were harmed in the making of this blog post.

The photos are courtesy of re-ality and P/UL.