The Search Power of a 4-Letter Word

Have you ever seen those Mentos and Diet Coke videos on YouTube? The complete nut who thought that up is Steve Spangler, a member of the National Speakers Association, and, as you can tell, an explosive thinker. He’s becoming a fan of Twitter. I kid you not.

Good grief, it seems that every day now we hear about yet another completely inscrutable web site that is guaranteed to boost our business.

We hear about things like Digg and Plaxo and Spoke and Second Life and Ning and certainly Twitter - and mostly we just are overwhelmed.

BUT, when someone like Steve Spangler says, “I’m becoming intrigued by what Twitter can do for my business,” we listen.

Where did we hear about his enthusiasm for Twitter? He was just interviewed by Rebecca Morgan on the latest SpeakerNetNews teleseminar - FIZZ 101: How to Turn Cocktail Napkin Ideas into Products That Sizzle and Sell.

So, what is Twitter? We’ll isn’t that the issue, after all?

If you read our blogs you should know by now that you can get a quick introduction to new terms on Wikpedia.org.

But, for the purposes of this article, we’ll just say that Twitter is a way of telling the online world what you are doing at any given minute. (I know).

Don’t Slog through the Blogs

But, once you have your Wikipedia definition, you’ll want to use a 4-letter word. That 4-letter word is “site:” and it will save your precious time, especially when reading blogs.

When Steve mentioned his interest in Twitter, we immediately thought of a marketing genius named Albert Maruggi. His company is called Provident Partners. He is also a big fan of Twitter.

He’s such a big fan of Twitter that he places a feed of it right smack dab on his web site home page. That means that anyone who visits his web site will see the message, “What am I Doing Right Now?” Under that will be the last few things Albert has Twittered.

It’s on the main page of his web site, by the way, not his blog (and yes, it’s done automatically). Search engine optimizers among you will realize right away that this does not exactly hurt his web site rankings. Google and the search engines love new content.

Of course, Albert also writes a blog called the Marketing Edge Blog and Podcast (Albert does everything. And you guessed it, he puts his latest blog posts on his web site home page, too).

Clearly Albert Maruggi is a big fan of Twitter. And Steve is intrigued by the possibilities of Twitter. So, I would say we have a match.

Don’t Lose site:

Which is why Steve needs the 4-letter word site: Sure, he might surf around Albert’s blog and see if he’s said anything recently about Twitter. Complete waste of time, though.

Instead he wants to do a Google or Yahoo search exactly like this:

twitter site:providentpartners.net/blog

The results are simply an amazing way to not have to slog through blogs. Instead you’ve just directed your search engine to search only Mr. M’s blog. And instantly, you’ll get results for every time Albert has said anything about Twitter in his blog.

You’ll find out what Twitter is doing for certain companies, why marketing futurists think it’s important and even why Twitter might have a crucial place in the upcoming Democratic convention.

And, being as how it’s Maruggi’s blog, you’ll also be able to listen to his podcasts with various luminaries and learn even more.

In fact, in just a few minutes you can sound like you actually read someone’s blog - maybe a prospective customer, a business associate you’re about to meet with, or maybe even your boss.

They’ll be impressed. They’ll think you know a lot more than you do and you’ll look like an expert.

I kid you not. Steve will, but that’s his business.