IT Marketing icon finally discovers Twitter

Yesterday I received an e-mail from Robin Robins with some exciting news. She just discovered a new form of marketing in the world of web 2.0 that is surely to become big. Really big. So big, in fact, it could be THE next big thing in internet marketing.

Robin Robins discovered Twitter.

Now, if you don’t know who Robin Robins is, she is what some VARs and others in the IT Managed Services and consulting business would call “an IT marketing guru”. Robin is president of Technology Marketing Toolkit, Inc., which sells, of all things, The Technology Marketing Toolkit , a nicely structured and pricey system to help IT service providers market their IT businesses.

In the world of marketing for IT, Robin Robins has become a familiar name. Google her name up and you’ll find links for Robin and her company all over the page. Mention her name in a professional IT forum or newsgroup and most respondents will at least have heard the name, which is a good thing, since it proves she does know something about marketing. After all, if you can’t market yourself successfully with your own system, how can you sell it to anyone else?

Okay, now, that just made me go “hmm”.

I met Robin at an ASCII conference a few years ago. The day long event was an introduction to Managed Services and Robin conducted a seminar on, of course, marketing Managed Services. After the seminar I spoke to her about marketing for IT service providers and invited her on The Force Field to discuss the topic with listeners. (It was just after I launched the show and I wanted to expand on the topic covered in Episode 5 – Marketing Your Business ). She was very gracious but I never heard back from her after that so it is likely she probably forgot all about me and The Force Field as soon as we finished talking at the ASCII event.

She and her staff do bombard me with e-mails about her latest seminars and other events. I have responded to these e-mails on occasion at what is supposed to be the official e-mail address for responses, but they are never acknowledged. She may be a guru at marketing but she needs to work on those responses if she wants to market with Twitter.

I am not dissing Robin at all. There is value to what she has to offer, although what she charges for it is way out of my budget. She also recognizes the marketing potential of something when she sees it, as she said in her e-mail to me below:

 

“Hey Rick,

Have you heard of Twitter?

This is going to be BIG in the online web 2.0 marketing world. If you want to see what this is all about, check out my “tweet”:

http://twitter.com/home

To find me, type in my name…

“robinrobins”

While you’re there, set up a free account and join me!

Robin”

 

Now that Robin  has discovered this new form of communication and its potential as a marketing tool, Twitter has officially arrived.

Okay, I’m kidding.The truth is, it’s been here for awhile. A lot of companies use it already.   Small businesses like mine know it. Even a few large corporations that are normally slow on the uptake know it. The odd thing is that some of the marketing experts whose services people pay a lot of money for and who are supposed to stay on top of all this stuff are just now starting to figure it out. For a marketing guru that’s not good karma. 

Robin, where have you been? “This is going to be BIG”? It’s already big. I’ve considered you a bit of an IT marketing guru but as far as recognizing Twitter as a tool to market your business and network with clients, you’re late to the party.

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