About Me

Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Len focuses on helping small and new businesses succeed through developing appropriate marketing and sales strategies. Len enjoys mentoring, relishes in getting both arms and feet wet in addressing technology, marketing and sales issues. He understands the drivers impacting business results for today and tomorrow including time-to-market, time-to-revenue, marketing, sales channels and social media.

Thursday, May 7, 2009

Twittering and Change: Harnessing New Online Technologies

I was having an interesting discussion around the Passover Seder table a few weeks ago. My brother-in-law and sister-in-law are both retired teachers. They were espousing their views on the future of newspapers, Twitter, FaceBook, short messaging, and chat and trying to get their heads around today's youth. My daughter who is 24 was at the table. She is an inveterate user of the Internet, FaceBook, short messaging and chat through Windows Messenger. But to her Twitter was something she didn't get.

It is interesting how the fast pace of Internet evolution with its many communication widgets and gadgets is altering how people seek, share and express information. The future of the traditional print newspaper is being challenged. I still read two every day but I also read newspapers online and subscribe to The Huffington Post. I'm on Twitter now to see what it is all about. I have embraced social networks in the last two years after being a skeptic about their worth.

We are in a whirlwind of constant change today and keeping up with that change is not easy but understanding how young people embrace change and make it part of their lives is an important thing to realize. Youth has embraced social networking, chat, instant messaging, wikis, blogs, online information, search engines. This is how they learn and communicate. Harnessing the tools they use is a key element in any strategy to engage them. That's why I believe in the use of social networking and other Internet widgets and gadgets to reach the virtual online audience.

If you do not embrace these new applications and understand them then all you can do is express mystification when suddenly they become disruptive. I'm a great advocate of turning over rocks to see what's under them. So use your curiosity when online because the Internet world is evolving rapidly.

Today if you are not "facebooking" or "googling" or "twittering" then you are missing potential marketing opportunities.

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