Like any curious or ambitious blogger, we like to see where we rank in the search engines. Since the content here is best categorized as Twitter marketing information, that’s what we usually check.

At first, everything seemed normal. Lot’s of articles on the topic as you’d expect. A guest post on Andy Beal’s (http://twitter.com/andybeal) Marketing Pilgrim titled “200+ Internet Marketing Gurus on Twitter” tops the list. ‘Marketing’ is in the domain, Twitter and marketing are in the title, it’s certainly on topic and has lot’s of links going to it. Wasn’t too surprised.

Then come some others that… hmm.. okay, I can see.

LameTwitterMarketing.com, Dosh Dosh’s article ‘Twitter Marketing: Why You Don’t Need to Mass Follow Twitter Users‘ (totally agree btw!) – these I can also understand.

Then there are some that really don’t belong, like a Craigslist post currently at #7.

Then it dawned on me. Where the heck is Twitter.com?! Search Google for ‘Google marketing’ and Google is #1. ‘Microsoft marketing’ #1 goes to a Microsoft.com page. Facebook gets #2. Yahoo #1.

So where is Twitter when you search for ‘Twitter marketing’? Would you believe #24?! That’s right, page 3. If you’re reading this, I’m sure that you’re familiar with the traffic that goes to the sites on page 3 versus page 1. Astounding.

How could Twitter let this happen?!

Here’s the kicker. That #24 result… goes to a Twitter user profile page that’s promoting a way to “Become a Marketing Expert with Twitter Traffic Machine”. Nothing to do with corporate, and even worse, it’s promoting something that could degrade the service.

Other sites on top of an actual page from Twitter include:
twitip.com
twitterholic.com
tweamr.com (woo hoo!)

And you’ve got to love this, an article on ezinearticles.com with the opening sentence…

If anyone should know about the power of Twitter marketing online and using social media sites for greater exposure, it should be chiropractors.

You can’t make that stuff up.

So where is Twitter’s corporate page ranked in Google? Not in the top 100, so it doesn’t really matter. The results on Yahoo! are a little different. A Twitter user comes in at a respectable #2, but the corporate site is still absent.

What I can’t figure out is that we know Twitter understands SEO. Search Google for your name. If you’re on Twitter, odds are your Twitter profile page will be right up there at the top along with LinkedIn.

Got a theory? I’d love to hear it. Is Google intimidated enough to pull some search magic when it comes to Twitter? Is Twitter intentionally holding off on any kind of marketing messaging until they have their business model fleshed out?

Whatever it is, I know one thing… I’m heading over to make sure I optimize the copy in my profile page!

AdAge and others covered the story of how Land Rover is planning to use Twitter.

Two things make this one unique.

First, Land Rover is including #hashtags ( #LRNY ) in their online and offline twitter marketing promotions. I guess you could say that #skittles was first to really do this as a brand marketing effort, but it sounds like Land Rover will take it further in terms of promoting the tags. While Land Rover is ‘pushing’ users to their tag, Skittles ‘pulled’ users with their Twiter search results page for their tag. My guess is that the Skittles strategy will be more effective but their brand is also better suited for that approach.

The second unique aspect (for a major brand) of Land Rover’s marketing on Twitter is that they are using Twittad as part of the campaign. Twittad is putting a twist on things by ‘partnering’ with existing Twitter users to leverage their followers. It sounds like they take over the users’ Twitter profile pages for a period of time and may send tweets to their followers and then the users are paid. It’s not immediately clear how the users are selected – for example, based on relevance to the topic or to maximize reach / minimize duplication, etc.

Land Rover is not likely to remain the only national marketer doing this for long, said James Eliason, CEO of Twittad, the Des Moines-based “social-media affinity network” Wunderman tapped to boost Land Rover’s launch.

Twittad may sound good at first, but it’ll be interesting to see how users respond. The model will almost certainly need to evolve in order to provide true, quantifiable value to their clients. Just because it’s inexpensive doesn’t mean it’s a good deal.

Kraft’s DiGiorno brand pizza has teamed up with PR firm Weber Shandwick to leverage Twitter to as part of its launch of a new pizza. The Twitter marketing plan is to identify influential Twitterers and deliver pizzas to their tweetups.

“We’ve always been out there with a lot of different media touch points, with a combination of online and offline,” Tom Moe, director-marketing for Kraft’s DiGiorno brand, told AdAge. “We’re always looking for the newest and most relevant places to be in both areas, and we thought this would be a great offer to combine with Twitter.”

Can’t knock them for trying, but we’ll definitely be watching this one carefully. There are way too many opportunities for it to go wrong. We can only hope that they’ve worked through a lot of potential scenarios – positive and negative.

We hope that the DiGiorno marketing folks are sincere. That they engage with the Twitter community. That they understand that they are making a commitment that shouldn’t be dropped after their initial launch. Last but not least, we sure hope that our they prove our first thought wrong – that this entire exercise was driven by the opportunity to generate some buzz by throwing ‘Twitter’ into the launch plan.

Is your Realtor using Twitter to promote your house? This seller took matters into his own hands, but isn’t ‘find a buyer’ the main reason to hire a real estate agent? Agents, you’re forgiven if you don’t offer Twitter promotion as a standard part of your offering today, but that probably won’t be the case for long.

Once you better understand Twitter and its potential applications, you’ll find that it’s not only promote your listings but also a great way to attract new clients – buyers and sellers. We’re developing a report specifically for Realtors. In the meantime, be sure to download our “12 Essential Marketing Rules for Twitter” (available at the top right of this page).

Twitter isn’t just about pushing products, promoting brands, or driving web site traffic. Progressive companies in every industry are using Twitter to enhance their ability to conduct research, engage with prospective customers, support existing clients, engage with users to help define next generation products and more. Ad Age published this short article about using Twitter as a focus group.

This pizzeria has more than 1,000 followers on Twitter and sends them instant messages about different meal deals and other incentives to come in.

Anyone that doesn’t at least understand that Twitter has become a disruptive marketing tool should immediately stop reading this, start with some earlier posts and the articles they recommend.

Disruptive technologies, by definition, change the way people do things. In most cases, our the way we use these technologies evolves as we learn more about them and what we want to get out of them.

When we got our first Tivo, at first we only recorded a few shows. We’d watch them and delete them then wait for something else to be recorded. Then we realized that it would be great if there was always something to watch so we added more shows to record and let Tivo record its own ‘suggestions’. At first, we were overwhelmed. We were so used to watching and deleting shows that we felt like we couldn’t keep up anymore. It took a little while before we were ‘okay’ with not watching EVERYTHING that was on Tivo. Now, 8 years later, it’s totally natural.

The pattern evolves over time and varies depending on the individual and the benefit that they are hoping to get out of the technology.

So what does this have to do with Twitter? We’re only starting to see what’s possible. Even the early adopters are still evolving their usage of Twitter. The big question that came up recently in this New York Times article is whether or not it’s acceptable to use a ghostwriter for celebrity or corporate tweets.

Keeping a constant stream of tweets flowing to the followers of a brand (whether you’re a celebrity or a corporation) is crucial. Go dark for too long and you’ll never realize the full potential of Twitter. If you can’t do it yourself, a ghostwriter is definitely better than sporadic tweets. However, you’ve got two choices – either you have to be up-front and fess-up that the tweets are coming from multiple writers, or, you have to be darn sure that the ghostwriter is accurately representing your brand. Maybe you can’t write every tweet, but you or someone on your marketing or PR team should review them before they go out.

Keeping a constant flow of tweets is key and requires a separate post. We’ll get that up asap. Enjoy the Times article.

A lot of virtual ink is used in this Wall Street Journal article to describe Twitter to the few remaining people who don’t get it and to rehash info on Twitter’s recent funding, valuation and usage growth.

However, this bit hasn’t had much play in the media.

German start-up Magpie & Friends has started paying users for the right to sell ads in their tweets. The company uses an auction system in which potential advertisers bid on keywords they want to associate with their ads — like iPhone or NCAA.

Magpie looks for tweets about these topics among Twitter users who have signed up with it and, with permission, sends the winning bidders’ ads into those users’ message streams, to be seen by their followers. Advertisers typically pay from a few cents to around $13 per ad, and Magpie splits the proceeds with the user.

Are users endorsing products by sending promotional tweets through their personal Twitter account? How fast will they lose their followers if they do this? What kinds of companies will promote this way rather than building and using their own brand and account? This will be interesting to watch.

The WSJ posted an article about Guy Kawasaki’s keynote presentation at Search Engine Strategies in NY. During his presentation, he called Twitter “the most powerful marketing tool that I’ve seen since probably television.” He also talks about the value of retweets and using Retweetist to monitor them (claims that he uses it as his ‘scorecard’ and checks 5-10 times a day).

This article on MediaPost written by Mark Ghuneim of Wiredset talks about the new ‘Suggested Users’, ‘Trends’ and ‘Search Now’ options and the potential impact on branding.

Zappos, Mashable (@Mashable), and Jet Blue (@JetBlue), among others, have proven that users and brands can pick up 200,000 followers, solely by being designated a “Featured User.” These brands and users are then involved in a live conversation and engagement around their brand. This demonstrates Twitter’s ability to be a driver and conduit to the consumer. It is even more impressive when you consider how far off the main page these opt-ins live.