Is This How to Market Your Product?




If you’re a marketer, are you thinking about how to promote your new website or product? And if you’re a consumer, are you getting tired of lazy pitches and ideas?

Take a look at the five images below – each one belongs to a Twitter account that I was notified was now following me.

marshamess

Every single message is the same, from how old the girl is, where she’s from, what she wants to do this weekend and what video she’s just watched.

Now, either the UK is currently enjoying a great spell of Twitter awareness in provocatively dressed female teens or there’s a little bit of shenanigans going on here. I’m going with the latter.

Looking at the accounts themselves, it would seem that it’s a marketing push for web host Cool Blue Solutions. Each account has a background designed by the web host company, and Cool Blue’s Twitter account mentions designing the background for our teen friend Sandra B. Smith.

But then you look at the URL for each of the five girls. That takes you to RevTwt.com, which used to be known as TwtAd, an advertising model for paid tweets.

They’re in the process of a relaunch of the service and are looking for advertisers. They claim to put your ad in front of more than 23 million Twitter users – pretty impressive considering that’s about the estimated number of all Twitter users at present (including bots and spam accounts).

revtwt

So what’s the story here? Is it a marketing push to promote the web host services of Cool Blue Solutions? Is it an advertising push by RevTwt on behalf of Cool Blue Solutions? Is it a little of both?

Whatever it is, here’s the thing. Marketing your message properly means targeting your audience properly. It means knowing who would use your services and what would attract them to that service, and why it stands out from the rest.

Does a semi-nude teenage girl create the right message for Cool Blue Solutions if it’s their campaign? Are they looking for business users of their web services or teenage boys hoping to hit it off with a girl just like the one in the above Twitter accounts?

How about RevTwt, if it’s their push? Did they target anyone with these Twitter accounts or is it just a hit and hope approach? I only ask as I had all five accounts follow me in quick succession, and their bio’s just make your BS spider senses tingle.

Whatever the deal is here, I don’t think it succeeds. The majority of people have moved on from booth babe advertising and marketing pushes and are looking for real people behind the products. Teenage girls in bikinis don’t quite shout web host to me.

What do you think – is this kind of marketing still valid? If you’re a consumer, would you be convinced to sign up to Cool Blue Solutions from the recommendations of these Twitter accounts?

What if you’re an advertiser and RevTwt is behind these accounts – do they make you want to run a campaign with them? Or would your approach differ?

  • Update Monday July 06. Looks like Cool Blue Host may not have been as marketable as they thought. All Twitter accounts mentioned in this post are no longer live and their domain is also available.

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There are some great ways to market on Twitter and other social sites - one of the newest is TweetROI, which seems to take a more solution-led approach, so it'll be interesting to see how successful they are. (Disclaimer - my 12for12k project is using TweetROI as a testbed for tweet success in raising non-profit awareness).Which makes the methods of RevTwt seem less effective if there's no targeting, just hit and hope methodology instead. Glad the post helped you :)

Hi Danny, I got a tinyUrl from another twitter user for http://bit.ly/2lXlAc which was http://revtwt.com/. My first thought was, wouldn’t this get me booted for spamming! I searched, and yours was the best information I found on this operation. It is a shame because some companies have found legitimate ways to connect with their customers. Big Thanks and a new Follower @AutOrphan

If they were going for the bigger players, they messed up with me as a choice - I'm just as average as the next guy. Now, the likes of Chris Brogan, Guy Kawasaki, etc... there's your big players right there ;-)I think Twitter will survive - people are simply blocking approaches like this and tailoring the effectiveness of their stream to suit. Which, in a self-regulatory kind of way, will see approaches like this diminish. Hopefully. Thanks for stopping back and sharing your thoughts, KJ, appreciated. :)

I think this is def the wrong way about this Danny. This is spam or robots or small army doing this "promotion." This is def aimless. They have chosen either bigger players in the social world, like yourself, to try to get a bite, or they have just selected everyone to come to that site. I was just saying that Twitter is a great tool that will get results. ( When done the correct way) This "campaign" is going to to be death of Twitter if they cannot get a grasp on it.

And if done properly, you will get results.Looking at your website and the marketing page in particular, you mention:When it comes to marketing, you can’t afford to throw darts aimlessly and hope to hit a bull’s eye. A successful company needs a strategy.Would you say that the method in question discussed on this post was aimless or strategized? Seems the results - Twitter accounts blocked, domain for sale - speak for themselves. Which makes me question the marketing or advertising behind this particular "campaign".

The sad thing is that many spammers are getting ever more clever with interspersing what appears to be real conversation among their spam messages, making it all the more difficult in deciding who to follow back.Here are just a few of the bio lines I've seen duplicated in numerous accounts that are a red flag:"I'm an ordinary people who are using twitter. I'd like to collect useful twitter tips and categorise them properly.""This the land of trick,here you find some trick about wordpress,google adsens,twitter,joomly,seo firefox.""Discuss Yoga, Discover life, tell you YOGA STORY,YOGA DIARY,YOGA KNOWLEDGE,WEIGHT LOSS,BEAUTY""Here you can Find all about Cooking Fans, pictures, photos, videos, fans, biography, reviews and everythings."

Oftentimes discussing how things shouldn't be done allow improvements and ways for how they should be done to come to the fore though, Peter, no? ;-)

I get this kind of twitter spam, too (who doesn't?). I try to ignore it. Not that ignoring it will make it go away, head-in-the-sand style, but the more attention you give it, the more it will perpetuate itself. Conversations about how things can be done for everyone's benefit, rather than how they shouldn't, tend to be more pleasant.

I'm beginning to wonder if TwtAd was hit too often for the same messages being sent out, and the result is a name change to RevTwt? That would kind of make sense if Twitter is banning accounts that are spamming.The thing is, if that is the case, why would RevTwt want to repeat the same mistakes?

This is becoming more evident in the Twitterstream. You will see that they do not even stagger their post with Tweetlater of whatever software they are using. I have seen in the public timeline up to 5 accounts hit with the same message, very easy to figure out what is happening here. I know that Twitter is starting to block same messages being retweeted from an account I was doing a twitpoll and ran it for a post every 3 hours for 2 days I wanted to get a certain number of responses and twitter blocked some of them. All so I was helping a smallbiz consulting company with a survery on tool development software and a couple of my posts were blocked. Everyone is learning as we go on what works and doesn't your example is a fail all over. Shortcuts really don't work in the longterm and for a solid biz they need to look longterm not short.

Whatever they're doing, it's clear that they know very little about the conversational nature of Twitter. They actually thought they could just create a bunch of fake accounts and spam out the same message? In the end, they all look like asses and - demonstrated by your post - that's what people will end up talking about. Poor them.

Another thing these accounts bring to the fore is the use of automated follow software. I'd be hard pushed to find anyone looking at the account and thinking "that looks valuable" from the feed and link. Then again... ;-)

I think as both you and Craig mention, Kasey, this definitely falls closer to spam than marketing. I wonder how many more of these accounts are floating around? I'd be interested to see what return comes from this approach, particularly with "23 million people" looking at it...

Crap. Thats all I have to say about this type of marketing.I do appreciate you posting about it Danny. I hadn't seen it go this far or dig in enough to see how things like this were happening on Twitter. I guess it's bound to happen no matter where we are.

Haven't got these particular followers yet, but constantly get that type of marketing garbage. A few links, a few tweets about some inane activity, and a link to some spammy account. I make it a policy to almost never follow back anyone who isn't engaging in conversation. This takes care of most of this type of spam, as they don't ever engage in conversation. I can't imagine they're very effective, unless, as you said they're targeting teenage boys. It would be interesting to find out how effective these are for generating real sales or traffic. Roger Hjulstrom

I'd throw this in the #Fail bucket. Like you mentioned, poorly executed mass approach doesn't work. I'd even go so much as saying it's spam, not marketing. 23 million Twitter users? According to what measurement? It looks to me that each profile has a few hundred followers - a big cry from 23 million. This is where research comes in for those looking to use social media to reach their audiences.

Hey Danny- great post as usual and I like the fact that you unwind the SPAM component of what is going on with this "campaign"- I guess they are of the belief that people will continue to follow them after something like this..I suppose the second tier of "authorized" accounts and such will assist in keeping Twitter a desireable place to conduct relevent discussions.Chat soon..Craig

There are some great ways to market on Twitter and other social sites - one of the newest is TweetROI, which seems to take a more solution-led approach, so it'll be interesting to see how successful they are. (Disclaimer - my 12for12k project is using TweetROI as a testbed for tweet success in raising non-profit awareness).

Which makes the methods of RevTwt seem less effective if there's no targeting, just hit and hope methodology instead.

Glad the post helped you :)

Hi Danny,
I got a tinyUrl from another twitter user for http://bit.ly/2lXlAc which was http://revtwt.com/. My first thought was, wouldnu00e2u0080u0099t this get me booted for spamming! I searched, and yours was the best information I found on this operation. It is a shame because some companies have found legitimate ways to connect with their customers. Big Thanks and a new Follower @AutOrphan

Hi Danny,
I got a tinyUrl from another twitter user for http://bit.ly/2lXlAc which was http://revtwt.com/. My first thought was, wouldnu00e2u0080u0099t this get me booted for spamming! I searched, and yours was the best information I found on this operation. It is a shame because some companies have found legitimate ways to connect with their customers. Big Thanks and a new Follower @AutOrphan

via uberVU

Hi Danny,
I got a tinyUrl from another twitter user for http://bit.ly/2lXlAc which was http://revtwt.com/. My first thought was, wouldnu00e2u0080u0099t this get me booted for spamming! I searched, and yours was the best information I found on this operation. It is a shame because some companies have found legitimate ways to connect with their customers. Big Thanks and a new Follower @AutOrphan

via uberVU

If they were going for the bigger players, they messed up with me as a choice - I'm just as average as the next guy. Now, the likes of Chris Brogan, Guy Kawasaki, etc... there's your big players right there ;-)

I think Twitter will survive - people are simply blocking approaches like this and tailoring the effectiveness of their stream to suit. Which, in a self-regulatory kind of way, will see approaches like this diminish. Hopefully.

Thanks for stopping back and sharing your thoughts, KJ, appreciated. :)

I think this is def the wrong way about this Danny. This is spam or robots or small army doing this "promotion." This is def aimless. They have chosen either bigger players in the social world, like yourself, to try to get a bite, or they have just selected everyone to come to that site. I was just saying that Twitter is a great tool that will get results. ( When done the correct way) This "campaign" is going to to be death of Twitter if they cannot get a grasp on it.

And if done properly, you will get results.

Looking at your website and the marketing page in particular, you mention:

When it comes to marketing, you canu00e2u0080u0099t afford to throw darts aimlessly and hope to hit a bullu00e2u0080u0099s eye. A successful company needs a strategy.

Would you say that the method in question discussed on this post was aimless or strategized? Seems the results - Twitter accounts blocked, domain for sale - speak for themselves. Which makes me question the marketing or advertising behind this particular "campaign".

I have seen a few people promot their new site and have recieved great results from the vast amount of twitter-ers

I think this is def the wrong way about this Danny. This is spam or robots or small army doing this "promotion." This is def aimless. They have chosen either bigger players in the social world, like yourself, to try to get a bite, or they have just selected everyone to come to that site. I was just saying that Twitter is a great tool that will get results. ( When done the correct way) This "campaign" is going to to be death of Twitter if they cannot get a grasp on it.
via uberVU

I think this is def the wrong way about this Danny. This is spam or robots or small army doing this "promotion." This is def aimless. They have chosen either bigger players in the social world, like yourself, to try to get a bite, or they have just selected everyone to come to that site. I was just saying that Twitter is a great tool that will get results. ( When done the correct way) This "campaign" is going to to be death of Twitter if they cannot get a grasp on it.
via uberVU

And if done properly, you will get results.

Looking at your website and the marketing page in particular, you mention:

When it comes to marketing, you canu00e2u0080u0099t afford to throw darts aimlessly and hope to hit a bullu00e2u0080u0099s eye. A successful company needs a strategy.

Would you say that the method in question discussed on this post was aimless or strategized? Seems the results - Twitter accounts blocked, domain for sale - speak for themselves. Which makes me question the marketing or advertising behind this particular "campaign".
via uberVU

And if done properly, you will get results.

Looking at your website and the marketing page in particular, you mention:

When it comes to marketing, you canu00e2u0080u0099t afford to throw darts aimlessly and hope to hit a bullu00e2u0080u0099s eye. A successful company needs a strategy.

Would you say that the method in question discussed on this post was aimless or strategized? Seems the results - Twitter accounts blocked, domain for sale - speak for themselves. Which makes me question the marketing or advertising behind this particular "campaign".
via uberVU

I have seen a few people promot their new site and have recieved great results from the vast amount of twitter-ers
via uberVU

I have seen a few people promot their new site and have recieved great results from the vast amount of twitter-ers
via uberVU

Brilliantly idiotic marketing! "Is This How to Market Your Product?" by @dannybrown http://bit.ly/25sc8P
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Brilliantly idiotic marketing! "Is This How to Market Your Product?" by @dannybrown http://bit.ly/25sc8P (via @johnhaydon)
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Brilliantly idiotic marketing! "Is This How to Market Your Product?" by @dannybrown http://bit.ly/25sc8P (via @johnhaydon)
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Brilliantly idiotic marketing! "Is This How to Market Your Product?" by @dannybrown http://bit.ly/25sc8P
via uberVU

The sad thing is that many spammers are getting ever more clever with interspersing what appears to be real conversation among their spam messages, making it all the more difficult in deciding who to follow back.

Here are just a few of the bio lines I've seen duplicated in numerous accounts that are a red flag:

"I'm an ordinary people who are using twitter. I'd like to collect useful twitter tips and categorise them properly."

"This the land of trick,here you find some trick about wordpress,google adsens,twitter,joomly,seo firefox."

"Discuss Yoga, Discover life, tell you YOGA STORY,YOGA DIARY,YOGA KNOWLEDGE,WEIGHT LOSS,BEAUTY"

"Here you can Find all about Cooking Fans, pictures, photos, videos, fans, biography, reviews and everythings."

True, and I do it too. In order to learn how to do things we need to see how not to do them. It does usually feel like starting off on the wrong foot, though. Why not highlight good examples, models to follow?

Oftentimes discussing how things shouldn't be done allow improvements and ways for how they should be done to come to the fore though, Peter, no? ;-)

True, and I do it too. In order to learn how to do things we need to see how not to do them. It does usually feel like starting off on the wrong foot, though. Why not highlight good examples, models to follow?
via uberVU

True, and I do it too. In order to learn how to do things we need to see how not to do them. It does usually feel like starting off on the wrong foot, though. Why not highlight good examples, models to follow?
via uberVU

I get this kind of twitter spam, too (who doesn't?). I try to ignore it. Not that ignoring it will make it go away, head-in-the-sand style, but the more attention you give it, the more it will perpetuate itself. Conversations about how things can be done for everyone's benefit, rather than how they shouldn't, tend to be more pleasant.

I'm beginning to wonder if TwtAd was hit too often for the same messages being sent out, and the result is a name change to RevTwt? That would kind of make sense if Twitter is banning accounts that are spamming.

The thing is, if that is the case, why would RevTwt want to repeat the same mistakes?

This is becoming more evident in the Twitterstream. You will see that they do not even stagger their post with Tweetlater of whatever software they are using. I have seen in the public timeline up to 5 accounts hit with the same message, very easy to figure out what is happening here. I know that Twitter is starting to block same messages being retweeted from an account I was doing a twitpoll and ran it for a post every 3 hours for 2 days I wanted to get a certain number of responses and twitter blocked some of them. All so I was helping a smallbiz consulting company with a survery on tool development software and a couple of my posts were blocked.
Everyone is learning as we go on what works and doesn't your example is a fail all over. Shortcuts really don't work in the longterm and for a solid biz they need to look longterm not short.

Is This How to Market Your Product? | danny brown http://bit.ly/kjjpZ
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Is This How to Market Your Product? | danny brown http://bit.ly/kjjpZ
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Is This How to Market Your Product? | danny brown http://bit.ly/3lbNj
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Is This How to Market Your Product? | danny brown http://bit.ly/3lbNj
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Is This How to Market Your Product? http://ff.im/-4P1aT
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Is This How to Market Your Product? http://ff.im/-4P1aT
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RT @DannyBrown Is This How to Market Your Product? | danny brown http://tinyurl.com/npyk2n
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