Darby Sieben -

Through Facebook.com (my profile) we decided to share who we were, where we went school, our personal photos and more. Using LinkedIn.com (my profile) we decided to share everything about our business life and business connections. Twitter (my profile) allows us to share our 140 character thoughts. With FourSquare (my profile) we now check-in everywhere and share our location with our friends.

Now there is Blippy.com – the service that allows you to share your purchases. On the Blippy.com website the tagline is simple : Blippy is a fun and easy way to see and discuss what everyone is buying.

Here is a screenshot from my Blippy.com Feed:

At this point I am only sharing my purchased from iTunes. But if you want to share more of your purchases you have the following options:

Most of these services are not available in Canada but you have the option of sharing your credit card or banking transactions. As a Canadian you have the following financial institution support on Blippy.com – American Express, ING Bank, and Capital One (although it does not explicitly say Canada). Here is a screenshot of the financial institutions supported by Blippy.com:

This past week I was forwarded this site to my colleagues and friends asking for their feedback. Some of them thought it was quite innovative in terms of asking your friends for feedback on whether they liked or disliked a movie or song. Others thought it was inappropriate to share this information on the web and flat-out told me they never would post their purchases online. Other thought it was completely stupid that somebody who post this info and that others would actually want to read it. One thing for sure is that Blippy.com evoked a reaction.

I actually think this concept is interesting. Think about it – everybody shares with their friends and family what they like and dislike. Did you see that movie? What did you think of it? When people come over to my house, they ask us how do you like your massage chair or your 4-door fridge (these are 2 common questions we get from most people). You can read about my Inada Massage Chair purchase.

Does Blippy.com allow people from long distances participate in those discussions?

Could Blippy.com help you make better decisions by asking people in your network about a product or service?

What about asking a total stranger on Blippy.com what he thought of a restaurant you have not been to before?

Is this so different than facebook, twitter, foursquare or linkedin?

Could Blippy.com be the next social phenomena?

Will You Share What You Buy?

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Twitter has been all the rage lately getting lots of coverage by bloggers and traditional media outlets. I too have been active on Twitter @darbysieben as well as contributing to @yellowpages_ca.

What I wanted to know is whether tweeting can actually drive Google search volume in the same way that traditional media campaigns can increase search volumes. My experiment is very limited in time and scope, so not scientific at all, however, I wanted to share my early results.

What I did was set-up a Google Adwords campaign specifically for the exact match keyword “darby sieben”. On a side note, I encourage everybody I meet to do the following; a) register your own name as a domain name, and b) set-up a google alert on your name. I believe that personal reputation management will be a big trend in the next few years.

Second, I added no new blog posts for the first 20-days of May, my online communication was limited to Twitter only. I have actually run my Google Adwords campaign on my name for some time and see a correlation between blog posts and the increase in ad impressions. So for my experiment, I did not want to introduce the variable of a blog post into the equation.

Third, I tracked my posts on Twitter and the ad impression count through Google Adwords. Here is the chart for the first 20-days of May.

It would appear that there is a correlation between Tweeting and increasing search volumes. That said, this experiment is too limited to make any concrete conclusions, but directionally would seem to make sense if I view Twitter in the same way as traditional media. What I believe this does demonstrate is that viewing search volumes alone is not sufficient in and of itself for measuring ROI, rather a more holistic view of what causes search volumes may be more of an indicator of what actually drives usage.

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Would you follow your favorite healthy pizza place on Twitter? Through the power of Twitter, originally posted by @perryevans, which I found through a ReTweet by @sebprovencher – I am now following NakedPizza, a New Orleans super-health conscious pizza joint. The article that my twitter friends were talking about is “A Sign Of Things To Come: Naked Pizza Erects Twitter Billboard” from TechCrunch.

So, what did NakedPizza do that deserves such mention? Simple. They are using traditional media combined with social media to stay connected with their customers. Check out the picture below from TechCrunch.

From the article – “But if a business can get a customer to add their Twitter handle, it gets a free channel to constantly remind them that they exist. By tweeting out promotions a few times a week, Naked Pizza will maintain a presence in the customer’s consciousness, and the customer gets a chance to score some cheap pizza.”

What a brilliant strategy from a small business. Back in 2005, when I operated KS2 Solutions Inc., a Calgary based Internet Marketing firm, I did a lot of public speaking about small business marketing and how SMB’s could leverage the Internet. In February of that year I posted a blog titled, “Are You Letting Sales Slip Away” in which I discussed the importance of staying connected with your customers. At that time, the message in terms of doing this was through a eNewsletter, however, move ahead 4-years and now there is Twitter.

Twitter is likely one of the best tools, since eNewsletters, for constant communication with your customers. From a user perspective, I can follow my favorite local, regional or national brand players who will inform me through tiny 140 character updates about products, specials or whatever. When I compare Twitter to Email, I see 3 key advantages –

1) more viral, easier to share Tweets as opposed to forwarding emails
2) promotes two-way communication
3) small, short and focused messages, no more rambling newsletters about how great you are

I am still a fan of the eNewsletter but Twitter could be the next best thing to staying connected with your customers.

By the numbers, as of this posting:

1942 – the number of people following @NakedPizza
62 – the number of comments on the article posted on TechCrunch (note: was 60 when I started writing this blog post)
4 – the number of times my wife has asked me if I am done yet

Naked Pizza
0 0 6307 S Miro, New Orleans
(504) 865-0244

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