Jon Burgess

Ok, I got 4 news followers, but 3 of them were porn links, and one was my brother.  The moral of the story, once PORN gets ahold of a website, it is all over.

With the Inland Empire economy and employment struggling, it seems like many organizations have been hit.  Our local chapter of the American Advertising Federation, Inland Empire, has been hit with a loss of membership.  We have been members for a few years, and with the decline in membership, I thought that it was time for me to lend a helping hand.  So I offered to take the Membership Chair position.

So, today I was officially announced.

The 2009-2010 AAF-IE Board:
* John McCarthy of WebMetro is President
* Victoria Seitz of Cal State San Bernardino is Vice President and Education Chair
* Theresa Mesa of Mesa Design House is Treasurer
* Eddie Gonzales of mUrgent is Programs Chair
* Jon Burgess of Red Fusion Media is Membership Chair
* Julie Wright of El Dorado Broadcasters is Secretary
* John Barry of the Art Institute, San Bernardino is Public Relations Chair
* Mark Landon of The Landon Agency is ADDYs Chair
* Andrew Wilkin of AndrewWilkin, LLC is Immediate Past President

No hit yesterday, seems like it isn’t a supprise anymore.

Has anyone noticed how slow Twitter seems to be? And how often the style sheets don’t load.

Up to 17 followers.

12 Days of Twitter, suspended actions for the weekend.  Instead I lived in the real world…

if I had twitted, this is what you missed; I took the kids to the park, I mowed the lawn, I cleaned the garage, I talked to the neighbor, I drank some Coors Light, I watched some TV, took the family to church, went to lunch with my parents, went back to my parents house, played Wii(on Grandma’s Wii) with the kids, tested my BMI on Wii(22), killed some Zombies, went home, played with the kids, hopped on the computer, got an email from Congressmen Jerry Lewis’ PR guy who wants to link to my InlandEmpire.us site….. went to bed.

Ok - so NO hits over the weekend from Twitter.  I did get one new person to join my followers.  I also just started following an old friend.

As for this blog, this guy stole my feed from post number 4 -  so Twitter Hits Zero, stolen feed One.

Twitter… 3 posts, zero hits.

Ok, I joined Digg; I think that will give me a bigger boost than twitter.  It is becoming fairly apparent that the crowd that is using Twitter is mostly venting.  There is very little in the way of good content, or content that you WANT to know about.  It is all a passive, not related to anything, pile of content.  The internet, for business is really about demand, not supply.

I can supply as many twits as I want, but who wants it?

When I demand something, I “Google” what I want, and I get it. 

I live in a new neighborhood, and it seems like there are more door-to-door salesmen.  But, when they knock on my door, I have to stop what I’m doing, get up, and tell them, I wasn’t looking for them, or wanted them, or even need to continue the conversation.  That is how I am beginning to feel about Twitter… I just don’t have time.

I put three posts up yesterday.  My posts for the day, the California Welcome Center, Inland Empire, zero hits. My post about “parting like the 1920’s”, zero hits.  And finally, I gave away my “CLIENT ONLY” newsletter to the world, what a deal, zero hits.  I did garner one hit to my InlandEmpire.US site, which I didn’t post about yesterday, so that is one real hit, maybe a day old, but I will take it! 

I did get someone to sign up, so I’m now up to 15, whoops, they already left, back down to 14.

On the Not Twittering Front… I sent out our newsletter, to 274 clients, and we had 60 opens with in one hour.  But the more notable thing, we had 2 downloads of our “client only” special whitepaper, from NON-CLIENTS.  Now, the offer was to get “The Manager’s Guide to Running a Company Website” for free (regularly $24.95), with the use of a coupon.  Now, the coupon was only in the email, so… that clearly means, that at least two of my clients forward on my client-only newsletter to other people.  And 2 of those other people downloaded my special whitepaper.

Recap DAY 2
Twelve Day’s of Twitter: Day 2 - Score 1 hit, and one new follower who then chickened out.
Client-Only Newsletter - 2 NON-clients downloaded my Client-Online Whitepaper.

So, I posted 3 twitter messages yesterday.  I checked my stats, 1 click, but that was mine, so no clicks.  But, my blog post did get a comment, so that is a bonus.

As I have looked around the web, there are reports that as many as 11% of people us Twitter, or Twitter like products.  That seems a bit high, so I’m going to find the hard data.

I will get a couple of posts up today, we will see what happens.

This story starts at the “digital overload of information and crap”, I’m not sure where it ends. But, I am willing to test out my theory and see the results.  So for the next twelve days, I will Twit on Twitter, religiously, and see what happens.

My Steps of the Scientific Method

Ask the Question

Why does anyone actually think Twitter works for business?

Do Background Research

I have, I’ll come back and make my notes.

Construct a Hypothesis:

My hypothesis is that one actually cares what you say on twitter.

Test Your Hypothesis by doing an Experiment.

The test it pretty easy.  I’m going to twit, and every twit will be tracked through Google Analytics to see, if anyone actually cares what I am saying.  I have some great content at my finger tips, so I think I can provide reasonable twits, that should cause someone to click through to the sites.

6/23/09

Following 13, 14 Followers.  16 Updates

Coming Later

·  Analyze Your Data and Draw a Conclusion
·  Communicate Your Result

First Tweet.

9:50am 6/23/09
I’m starting my study, “12 Days of Twitter”. I think Twitter is a complete waste of time for businesses, but I’m willing to te… 8 minutes ago.