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Friday, March 29, 2024

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Live Blog: Martha Stewart On Twittering & Real Time Marketing

I’m at TWTRCON today, where Martha Stewart is being interviewed during a keynote conversation by David Pogue of the New York Times.Martha has little to do with search. I’ve got little to do with Martha except knowing that she’s the US-version of the UK’s Delia Smith. Heh. OK, yeah, I know who Martha is. And since I’m here, I figured what the heck, I’ll live blog whatever wisdom Martha has to share on the topic of:

Real-Time Marketing Revolution: Through her digital efforts and with nearly two million followers on Twitter, Martha Stewart is connecting with her customers in a personal way that’s also great for her business. Hear insights from a true media pioneer.

So stay tuned. We start any minute now.

David and Martha are sharing jovial admiration of each other. “It’s going to be totally by surprise, except for the list I sent you earlier,” David jokes about the interview.

David, you’re like the 3rd most powerful woman?

Martha, no idea. Life is interesting. The country needs help. I try to help.

David asked for questions for Martha on Twitter. Number two was how to fix the oil spill!

Martha doesn’t know. It’s a terrible thing. David says he couldn’t believe it, people assume she has advice for everything.

Martha why aren’t there more giant tankers out there sucking it up. You don’t see them in photos. It’s hard.

David, there’s no solution of balsamic vinegar that can be used….

Martha, anything in the water is toxic, perhaps not picking up the joke.

David, are you really Martha Stewart on twitter? @marthastewart

Yes, I write all my tweets. And if I’m in a place I can’t, calls her “techie guy” Elliott and dictate a tweet.

To fake it, not to do it, isn’t really the medium [she’s looking at you Barack Obama].

David wrote about app that lets you sound like Taylor Swift, getting round to the question, but Martha says buy her app that will help you with life. Anyway David says don’t disparage Taylor Swift in your columns, or you’ll be sorry from teenage girls. I guess there was no question.

Martha now talking about her iPad, at a conference where everyone was using it. “The iPad really does change the game.” Makes it easier to tweet. Says yes, to David, she really can type on it.
David talking about her tweets and how they are personal, even with typos. Asking about something she tweeted eating, poutine.

She’d asked her follower what to do in Montreal on the weekend. Hundreds of responses — she wishes twitter would give the number of responses to a tweet, because she can’t count them all — but I got so many answers to go to Schwarzes(?) for poutine, french fried potatoes and cheese and other stuff.

“I wish I could say I understand aspect of Twitter, but I do not,” she says when David asks about how do you see messages from those you don’t follow, because of way Twitter does some filtering of retweets and so on.

David, “you read all that crap” of people you follow. “No, I do not,” she says. At first followed 18 people. Elliott her tech guy said there was a way to automatically follow some people who interested in a particular word. So I can’t follow all those. “I apologize, I’m using your comments, but I’m not reading your tweets.”

Has a rule that she tweets only 5 minutes a day. Why? It’s addictive.

She takes pictures for her blog, writes the captions. That’s much more time consuming than tweeting. “Five minute a day gets me a lot of interesting facts.” She does surveys. Talking with a company, wanted to show if her product should be in their stories. Tweeted that in front of them. Within seconds, hundreds of nice, nice responses. “There were a few bad ones, but I skimmed over those.” Great, accurate research.

She takes pictures for her blog, writes the captions. That’s much more time consuming than tweeting. “Five minute a day gets me a lot of interesting facts.” She does surveys. Talking with a company, wanted to show if her product should be in their stories. Tweeted that in front of them. Within seconds, hundreds of nice, nice responses. “There were a few bad ones, but I skimmed over those.” Great, accurate research.

Wants to have conversations with people. Hallmark of when she started the magazine 20 years ago. Talks about store with sign customer is always right, rule one. rule two, see rule number one. That’s why authenticity is important on a blog or twitter.

David says when he crowdsources, he sometimes feel guilty. He’s gotten some of the best jokes from his column. But now Martha is looking at the live tweets and telling someone to correct that she doesn’t do five tweets per day but five minutes per day. And reading more of them and having a laugh. “I want to be an investor in Twitter,” she says, about comment she’s started rumor that Ashton Kutcher is a Twitter investor. She’d said she thought that earlier in the interview briefly.

Back to Twitter. She uses it for research, info from readers, what to do when on a trip, also uses it to do surveys. Asked people why they used Twitter. Large proportion used it for curiousity, for celebrity [i think she means to follow a celebrity].

David, curious it removes all layers from a celebrity and a person.

Yes, Martha says, but also removes all time delay between a news event, things you learn first on Twitter.

David, any way to measure the marketing impact?

Martha, “I think it’s really worth trying for any business” also doing Foursquare. “If there’s a very vibrant ?product? like twitter, why not use it?”

Was filming commerical for Hallmark, tweeted it, “Hallmark got a little pissed at me” because she shared a bit too soon, jumped the gun. Example of a mistake you can make.

Talking about idea of rules. “Who makes the rules” she says, doesn’t care for them. So what if she uses caps or not. Tweets the way she types.

David, 140 character limit?

Martha, I always go over and have to go back. Doesn’t use acronyms. Doesn’t LOL, etc. But does do recipes in 140 characters. Loves that. It’s a challenge.

“I try to use up all 140 characters. Sensibly.” if she leaves off some things, she hopes people can figure it out.

Her sister she says is really good at doing recipes in 140 characters. Drinks especially easy to do.

“I do think twitpicing is a good thing”

How’d she get going?

Goes to D conference each year that she loves. Reads. Heard there’s a thing called twitter. Took two years to get 1 million magazine readers. Took five months to do the same with Twitter. “you have to be there.

David says he got started because going down the street and someoen said “David Pogue,” love you on Twitter. He wasn’t. Was imposter.

Martha said had some imposters, Twitter helped with that.
When does she tweet?

“When something comes to my mind that I want to relay,” such as some cute shoes that Heather was wearing recently. Here’s the tweet and the shoes.

David, when will everyone have their own social network [think he means own Tweetbookingpicing etc].

“Once people finally calm down about it, I hope they get back to work. I worry productivity may be suffering.” she can hear in the hallways things are clicking.

On to her dogs, having their own account called TheDailyWag. purina saw it, the earlier blog loved it, so her dogs are the stars and line of pet products came from it.

How much of the advice is useful for normal people, David asks. Everything you touch turns to gold.

Not true, Martha says. But you should try these things.

David talks about privacy. Facebook will have 1/6 of world population in hands of 25 year old — Martha corrects, he’s 26.

“I love him,” Martha says of Mark Zuckerberg. “But he is so mission oriented and so intense … but what we need to do to counteract any privacy issues …. is teach our children.”

“You have to teach, even in school … correct use” teach photos will be on forever. Children far less concerned about bad pictures. All they care about is that their friends can see.

Need to teach honesty, too. Gets resumes from people who say they work for her.

David, much nastiness on the internet from anonyminity. So let’s launch at this conference that you have to be you. Wouldn’t that solve it?

Martha, sure?

Audience, dead quiet. And the thunderous applause tells me I’m on to something, David jokes.

Audience questions

Martha, can you help in Cancun? Mexico wants to send image that it’s still beautful.

Martha, we did a great program in the Yucatan. And will consider coming back.

Question, advice for other CEOs who might not be as engaged.

Very very few of our countries execs are not using media in one way or another. If they say they don’t email, well, their assistant emails for them. Steve Jobs is doing a phenomenal job convincing people of this stuff, the medium is real.

As next generation rises, they’ll pick up on all this?

Young people are shopping via catalog. If you’re a company, you need to get with it.

“Look what happened to MySpace. Facebook ran right over it,” Martha says, about how not every social network will be successful.

At D Conference, most people who were interesting were the leaders who had a single vision or mission. “I think that’s very good for American business.”


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