Why Twitter Is Better Than Google

Guest post by Rick Butts

Since the late 1960′s very bright people have pushed their intellect and creativity to the limits in an attempt to create a machine that could actually think.

IBM’s Big Blue may have beaten Russia’s Kasparov in chess along the way – but as we find ourselves in the sunset months of the first decade of the 21st century computers are still computational devices based on math. They are incapable of reason despite incredible leaps in software and processor speed.

The closest source we’ve had to an “answer giver” has been Google.

Even with Google you have to finesse your “question” in the form of search syntax and it helps to know those advanced commands (which look like complicated physics formulas) to BEGIN the search to find what you are really looking for.

Of course, what you are really looking for needs to exist, and in a search friendly format – and have enough on-page factors to identify itself and plenty of inbound links. When was the last time you actually spent time on a web page that was 11 pages deep in Google search results?

But, wait!

There really IS a smart computer and it’s ALIVE I tell you! It’s ALIVE!

Just join Twitter and attract a group of followers and you’ll soon you’ll have created your own collection of living brain cells, capable of solving problems, reasoning, understanding fuzzy logic, and developing solutions, and pointing you directly to the answers you seek!

Yes, it’s true. Twitter is a sentient being…

How do I know? Today I was wondering how to find a resource for translating my marketing materials into Chinese and lo and behold, I got answers!

The living breathing thinking computer on my desktop used the Twitter Brain to even ask me clarifying questions that made sense. I told it that I wanted the Chinese translation to be done in a way that the average computer user in China would not suspect was written by a Western guy (me.)

Of the 21 answers and solutions I got back were killer ideas, strategies, individuals, websites, businesses, and connections.

Do you get the power of what has happened here? Can you imagine the potential for this kind of living, dynamic brain trust – that you can access in real time – one that you build by selecting the members?

Some marketers have dismissed Twitter as a toy or a timesuck. They frame it that way because they are comparing micro-blogging to SEO, or PPC, Email or Article marketing.

These other formats have fairly clear paramaters and can be manipulated to get “traffic” – with extremely low conversion rates. A good sales conversion off natural search is in the 1% – 2% range.

Twitter is much less difficult to manipulate – as some spammers have discovered – because it is the most human of new media models. Go ahead, send 3-4 offers to your followers and see how fast you are Tweeting to yourself!

In contrast, use it right and build trust and connection in a human way and you’ll find you’ve unleashed the power to get results – sales results – so far beyond standard rates – you’ll be stunned.

Last week I got to experience this by sending my followers a message to go to a standard name squeeze page at TwitterSqueeze.com (where all they could do was optin with email) that had practically no information on it at all. There wasn’t even a “bribe” or freebie. They were merely getting on an advance notification list.

Guess what happened?

While the very best squeeze page metrics yield a 25% – 30% conversion rate – I had a full blown 87% of the people who landed on that page – enter an email address and press submit. Of these, an astonishing 80% clicked the link in the double-optin confirmation link sent out by Aweber!

Twitter is not a toy.

It has grown from 1 million users to more than 2 million in a matter of weeks, and spawned scores of new open source applications, that go instantly viral through the busy network Twitter itself.

My advice is to get involved with this new medium now, and start slowly, learning as you go. While there is plenty of help for the thousands of newbies who join each day, if you leap in an puke on this extremely savvy crowd, you’ll be labeled hard and fast, and miss a tremendous opportunity.

Rick Butts blogs about marketing strategy, is the author of 8 books, multiple software programs, audio, and video training courses. He is the creator of TwitterSqueeze.com – a satirical name for the first “how to make money on Twitter guide.

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