Becky is a marketing strategist for a large company here in Nashville. One evening she was planning some snacks for an evening with friends when her search for a snack led her to purchase a book she didn’t know she wanted. Here’s the email Becky sent to her director the next day:

“I Googled Chili’s because I wanted to find out how much it would cost to get chips and salsa to go. When I Googled Chili’s, this link came up that said “Brand Autopsy: Would you miss Chili’s?” That intrigued me, so I clicked on it and found the blog of a marketing guy who used to work for Starbucks and Whole Foods. He, in turn, raved about this new book that is all about marketing and social networks. I thought it might be something that our whole team would benefit from. Isn’t it ironic that I was looking for chips and salsa and found a marketing book? But it hit the right audience at the right time!”

I really like this story at a number of different levels because:

• It shows the power and influence of blogs even in the most unlikely of connections.
• It reminds me that people trust blogs that seem trustworthy.
• It reminds me that your target audience cannot be segmented so neatly all the time because Becky the marketer wasn’t looking for a book but she found one and bought it (and will likely buy one for the entire marketing team at the company) when she was Becky the snack shopper.
• It reminds me of the power of a Google search and how blogs could make (or break) the positioning of your brand.

The book Becky found was called “Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed By Social Technologies” by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff. I’m reading this book now too but I found out about it through Twitter via Jeremiah Owyang.

I’m keenly aware of the irony here (and also the affirmation of the power and influence of social media) that a book called Groundswell benefited from the groundswell in at least two cases I can point to directly (mine and Becky’s) and I’m sure countless others. So the question is, what are you waiting for if you’re not getting in yet? Don’t fight the groundswell.

I have observed several different kinds of Twitter users as it seems to be gaining in popularity. They are the givers, takers, zombies, and spammers. Here’s a definition for each:

Twitter Givers: A Twitter Giver is the best kind of Twitter user. These are people who see the medium for what it is: an opportunity to converse with people you know, connect with people you should know, contribute knowledge with links/observations/experiences, and convey the in-between moments of life. Jeremiah Owyang from Forrester Research is good at this as is Steve Rubel. So is Michael Hyatt, the CEO of Thomas Nelson. If you know any Twitter Givers please mention them in the comments to this post.

Twitter Takers: A Twitter Taker is active within Twitter but doesn’t share much information either personal or in helpful knowledge and learning. The Twitter Taker’s tweets are regular (meaning he/she is active daily or nearly daily) yet the bulk of their time in Twitter is spent reading other tweets rather than sharing much him/herself. I think I’m guilty of falling into this category but am trying to break out of it and become a Twitter Giver. I get a lot of great information within Twitter but recently realized I didn’t give a lot of good information beyond sparse updates and a notification when I had a new blog post. I want to do better because I see the collective value in more Twitter Givers helping everyone learn and grow. It just doesn’t seem right to me to take and not join the conversation and learning…so, like I said. I’m going to try to be a Twitter Giver from now on. There, I’m accountable. Feel free to hold me to it!

Twitter Zombies: A Twitter Zombie is someone who signed up for Twitter and gave it a shot for a while but then dropped off at some point and only rarely gets back into it. I was a Zombie for a while until several months ago when I decided to give Twitter another try (and have been very glad I did, by the way.) I heard that Leo Laporte had dropped Twitter at one point but he’s very much back to life in recent months from what I’ve seen also. The nice thing about being a zombie is that you can come back to life and hopefully be a Twitter Giver.

Twitter Spammers: A Twitter Spammer is a person or organization that clearly just signed up for Twitter to promote whatever they’re doing and not engage anyone in conversation. You can generally spot these folks by looking at two things. First, if they don’t reference a website or blog on their bio there’s a good chance they’re a spammer. There’s no way to take a step further to see who they are if they don’t have a referring link. Second, if the number of people following them verses the number of people they follow is drastically different they may be a spammer. More specifically, if there’s something like a 4/1 ratio of the number of people they follow to the number of people who are following them, they may be a spammer. Spammers seem to request to follow a lot of people and don’t get followed back by a large percentage of the people.

If you don’t know what Twitter is, start with this helpful video. If you’re on Twitter and we’re not following each other, you’ll find me here. I’ll be a Twitter Giver for you. Will you be one too?