Experiencing the AC Twitter Challenge

Love it or hate it, Twitter is a great promotional tool. As someone who has been writing on Associated Content for over a year, I've been able to see some of its benefits (and drawbacks) firsthand.

At the moment, I'm following 24 people on Twitter, some of whom I've never met in person, and some of whom I've known almost my entire life. Among these fellow tweeters are contortionist Lilia Stepanova (about whom I published a piece on August 5, 2009); "Chocolate Rain" composer and YouTube celeb Tay Zonday; Charlie Todd, creator of Improv Everywhere; and singer/songwriters Liz Clark and Marissa Levy.

Also, from time to time, I keep up with fellow AC Sources Donald Pennington (The Master of Interviews!) and Ann Olson (author of "What to do If You Have the Swine Flu" and the scary story "Put Your Best Face Forward").

Twitter has taken some adjustment, as previously, I was unaccustomed to the idea of "micro-blogging." I frequently blog on LiveJournal, and occasionally on Myspace, where there are no word or character limits. On the contrary, Twitter forces you to be more creative, with the short amount of space it allows. In this way, it's a lot like a movie marquee or a personal ad. "Tell us about yourself in 140 characters or less!"

I've been drawn to many of the other Social Bookmarking sites out there as well, such as Digg, Del.icio.us, Yahoo! Buzz, iGoogle, and StumbleUpon. Though those sites have their standout qualities, Twitter has been one of the most enduring. I began using it in May of 2008, not long after I joined Associated Content.

Some of my first few contacts were friends from New York, so naturally, Twitter was a great way to keep them informed whenever I published new content. Later, my network grew to include others, such as those listed above.

Lilia Stepanova, a performer who divides her time between Vegas and Los Angeles, is one of the fascinating people I keep up with on Twitter. As stated in the second paragraph, she's a professional contortionist and gymnast, and I had the good fortune of being able to interview her in August of this year. She leads an extremely busy life, performing with her acrobatic troupe, Vertigo Posse, which demands constant training and dedication.

Interestingly, most of her latest tweets have come through Twittascope, Twitter's Daily Horoscope page. For those guys with inquiring minds, Stepanova is a Gemini (but she already has a serious boyfriend, so don't even think of tweeting her with "What's your sign?").

Also among those I follow is, as I said above, Charlie Todd of Improv Everywhere, the New York City-based prank collective responsible for such "missions" as the yearly "No Pants Subway Ride," "Surprise Wedding Reception," and "Frozen Grand Central." Todd is a frequent user of Twitter, and his tweets vary from the humorous to the horrific. At present, he has 1747 followers, and for good reason: his page is always entertaining.

Far be it from me to do shameless self-promotion, but you can read my interview with Todd here: An Interview with Improv Everywhere's Charlie Todd. If you'd like to check out some of Improv Everywhere's handiwork, simply search for them on Google, or go to ImprovEverywhere.com.

There are even a few "non-human" friends on my Twitter list: one in particular is Acrobabble, an online game in which players are given a random set of letters (e.g. "CPFS") and come up with the best acronym possible in the shortest amount of time ("Can't People Freaking Sing?"). Players whose answers receive six or more votes are inducted into the "Hall of Humor," which contains some of the zaniest acros out there.

On Twitter, Acrobabble frequently tweets entries from the Hall of Humor. If you're a fan of the game, but don't have time to play, you can always stop by and see the latest tweet (for example, "Category: Chuck Norris 'Facts'; Acro: ADIW; Entry: Actor Dude is 'Walker.'").

Singer/songwriters Liz Clark and Marissa Levy are two friends from my days as a New Yorker, both of whom I've interviewed for AC. I met both while making frequent trips to Greenwich Village, specifically a spot called The Red Lion. Clark creates a delicious blend of folk, rock, and poetry, as evidenced in songs like "Who's Your Angel," one of her signature tunes. Levy, too, has a bit of a folksy edge, perfect for the Bleecker Street pubs. Though she's done her share of public performing, she is also the creative genius behind advertising for the likes of MTV, Comedy Central, VH1, CMT, and Elektra Records.

I once left a Facebook status update saying, "Eric wonders if anyone's life is fascinating enough to be constantly interesting on Twitter." While it probably isn't true 100% of the time for anyone, Clark and Levy come close.

Those of you unfamiliar with Tay "Chocolate Rain" Zonday merely need to Google him, and instantly you'll get approximately 188,000 results. Zonday is the perfect example of an Internet celebrity; he uploaded a video of himself singing a strange (but amusing) original song in April 2007, and within days, he became a sensation!

"Chocolate Rain" has since been parodied by the likes of John Mayer and Tre Cool of Green Day, to name a few. Zonday has also made numerous TV appearances, including Jimmy Kimmel Live; a commercial for Mozilla Firefox; Weezer's "Pork and Beans" music video;and Lily Allen and Friends. To boot, he has been caricatured on South Park (a great honor, in my opinion!).

On Twitter, Zonday has certainly written some of the more amusing tweets out of anyone that I follow, such as "I have turned to the devil. I put an obnoxious autotune correction rate on chorus vocals and I think they sounded better." It's these kinds of statements that keep people coming back to the site.

Just recently, I decided to follow Kamaal Ibn John Fareed, a.k.a. rapper Q-Tip, formerly of the hip-hop trio A Tribe Called Quest (who goes by QtipTheAbstract on Twitter). Being that he has over 97,000 followers, it seems his involvement in the hip-hop world is far from over, despite "The Tribe" having broken up around 2000.

As far as my AC content goes, in the beginning, I manually posted links to almost all of my work, sometimes trying to fit in a blurb about the subject. I had been using the name "CrazyPens30," which is also the end of my Associated Content URL. Recently, however, I switched over to using my real name, as I've found that more people search for that than the former. Once AC gave the option of setting up "auto-tweeting" your content, I jumped on board. Therefore, most of my recent pieces have been automatically posted to Twitter.

Has Twitter been successful as a promotional tool for me? Yes and no. Though I've tweeted practically all of my content, some of it has been hugely successful, while other pieces have gone largely unnoticed.

Although Twitter has made some difference in my traffic, it's difficult to say whether a piece that's received 400 views owes a lot of credit to the site (as opposed to one that's only received 70). If both those pieces have been tweeted, then the difference may be largely due to the content itself. The Lilia Stepanova interview, for example, has received approximately 390 views to date; it seems to be viewed more on certain days. Is it the weather or something?

Nonetheless, Twitter is still a great way to advertise and make connections, and my network continues to grow, even as I write this. Perhaps I need to take the next step, as far as educating myself more on the tweeting process and building a larger network.

I hope to become more tweet-savvy as I continue to write for AC. If I were to follow a business model, then if one marketing strategy didn't work...back to the drawing board!