Good post.

What if companies were to do more of this? Like Pampers offering folks with large followings like the Scobles to Tweet about them for either free products or money?

I have no doubt that commercialization is coming to Twitter, it’s just a matter of how it’s done and if it is done right. Companies should be careful not to raise the ire of Tweople though, Motrin anyone!

Online marketers don’t know enough about a tweeter of a single tweet to be able accurately and consistently target responses. They also have brands to protect so they can’t just scattergun everyone with spam.

There also just isn’t enough scope for automating interaction via twitter so it is not cost effective for online marketers to engage this way on a global scale. I’m not including the vanity “Look we’re a multinational and we’re on twitter” accounts that some companies like VMware, Dell etc run.

Even a client driven engagement (as advocated by the VRM crowd), where the individual decides to follow the company to get updates won’t work via twitter. The interface between the two parties simply isn’t fine grained or sophisticated enough to do any sort of intelligent @reply/tweet filtering.

Facebook on the other hand is a totally different proposition…

The way that you at Spinvox and myself at PhoneTag have been able to use very public social marketing tools without creating awkwardness with the customers or overstepping the “lines” is one for the text books.

The “self imposed rules” that both you and I have created are so important in how you keep a companies message from becoming spam and int turn hurt the overall market.

@rune, Damien, Frank P & others… I can see where your concerns are (and you’re right to assume that many will go the spammy route) but I think this is a definite opportunity missed.

I would see no harm in (for example) John Smith from pampers saying “Congratulations on the news, if you ever need any advice or help over the coming months feel free to send me a message any time”. It’s not overly pushy or spammy, opens the door to a potential new relationship and most importantly gives Robert the ability to simply say “no thanks”.

And because he’s famous too there’d be no harm sending a few free boxes of pampers his way!

I do this with a website of mine which has free leaving cert notes, if I spot someone tweeting that they’re struggling with study I offer them some help. Very simple, nothing automated and all that’s required is a simple “no thanks” if it’s not needed.

“it’s marketing, Jim, but not as we know it”

Hence: “Damn”

Keep up the good work

First off, a great post. You’re right – it’s surprising that no one has jumped on this. You’d think, in this day, age and connected world we live in, that this would be a no-brainer.

Well to folk like yourself and it would also see your friends and readers this is obvious.

But the rest of the population it seems are still catching up.

Frank makes a good point re intrusiveness; it;s a tough one to crack. I myself already have reasonably strict, self-imposed ‘rules of engagement’ whenever I embark upon any SpinVox-themed conversation online..

And that’s just voice-to-text!

When it comes to someone’s personal life and moreover their children – personalized advertising in this way treads a very fine line.

It’s still very early days for *most*. Some of my friends who are in senior positions at large organistations still don’t get twitter and Facebook.