Are you READY to join SpongeBob at the Twitter party?

Are you READY to join SpongeBob at the Twitter party?

Who would have thought a goofy cartoon character named SpongeBob would take the lead in a new — but all too obvious — use of the machine that is Twitter? According to a Fast Company update:

This week kids' favorite SpongeBob SquarePants will be the center of a new story on a wholly new medium: Twitter. The Ice Race Cometh — A Twitter Tale is an original story, from the official SpongeBob writing team, and will consist of multiple tweets and images broadcast throughout each day from July 12th to July 15th. Fun? Sure. Novel? You bet. Silly? Quite a bit.

I absolutely LOVE this idea, and wonder about the fact that other authors have not picked up on it sooner.

Now, knowing what I do of human nature, I can hear the groans and protests already. "No way — I'm not going to GIVE AWAY my book for free..."Well, I'm going to fall back on my favorite Cher quote, from Moonstruck: "SNAP OUT OF IT!"

This Twitter series idea is phenomenal for a number of reasons:

• Twitter is approaching 300 million registered users, and has just surpassed 100 million apps designed specifically for it. So, as a social medium, it's no fad — it's here to stay.
• Get over your fear of "giving your work away." This is the way marketing is done today — if you don't want to play the game by the new rules, maybe it's time to find a J-O-B.
• Releasing this stories in a series of tweets is creating sustained interest in the @SpongeBob Twitter handle. People (who are captivated by this story) are going to follow, follow, follow!
• Following a Twitter feed is like watching TV — you can't watch all of it, ever. Yes, people can go back and read the whole story through the @SpongeBob feed, but they're going to have to wade through all the other intermittent tweets. If I really liked the story, I think I'd be inclined to purchase it, not sift through all the tweets to read it for FREE.

The goal is to attract attention to the story — and I have no doubt it's going to work!

As always, I encourage you — especially the authors in the crowd — to do some brainstorming and visualizing to determine how you can extrapolate from this SpongeBob experiment and use the idea to promote your own book, brand, or service.
____________

We invite you to do 2 things next:

1. Visit our Web site to download your free Website Design Worksheet.
2. Visit our Facebook page — and "Like" it if you like it.