A story made its way around the Twitter-verse starting about two day’s ago regarding a seemingly ground breaking event had occurred. An eBay auction for the right to sponsor the Twitter feed of Ian Schafer for one month had ended with a closing bid of $1,082.01. For more complete details on the auction you can view this auction’s auction page on eBay.

At first this would seem to be a momentous event. Certainly being able to raise over a thousand dollars for the right to sponsor a Twitter feed with less than 600 followers, for one month is noteworthy, even if the purpose of the auction was not for profit. According to Mr. Schafer’s Twitter feed all proceeds from the auction are to go to the David Wright Foundation.

The winning bid for the auction came from a bid from eBay user “teammetacafe” who prior to winning this auction had zero eBay Feedback. I am assuming that the eBay user “teammetacafe” refers to the metacafe.com website, though I am not sure. It is important to note that this winning bid may well have been totally legitimate and un-engineered in any way, shape, or form.

What is particularly interesting however, about this auction is its bid history. If you look at the bid history you will see that there were 22 bids from what appears to be 5 eBay accounts. If you examine this bid history closely you will see that with the exception of the first bidder who seems to have an eBay feedback rating of 50, none of the other accounts had a feedback rating higher than 1 prior to the end of this auction.

Hmm… a bunch of eBay accounts with little or no feedback history bidding what some would consider a surprisingly high amount for the rights to sponsor a Twitter feed for a month. What could it mean?

Regardless of how the end result of this auction came about, I think that there is an important lesson in this story. The lesson here is that marketing, to a large degree, is about creating a spectacle and it is clear that Mr. Schafer here has succeeded in doing so with the sponsorship he has obtained for his Twitter feed.

As Twitter becomes more and more popular, I think it makes sense to consider the possibility that Twitter may become the new standard for providing some of the same basic functions that RSS is known for. From a marketing point of view, I think that one of the most important functions of an RSS feed is the ability to create a crowd.

In our fast paced and frantic world we require the help of others to make many of our decisions. Instead of reading all of the blogs devoted to the areas that interest us, it makes more sense for us to briefly scan over the blogs related to our niche hoping to find a few that send us the signal that says “stop and read further, you may have struck gold”. One of those signs is the existence of a crowd, any kind of group or gathering sends the signal that at least a few people with interests similar to your own think that the site is worth their attention.

As human beings we can’t help but think, if it’s worth their attention, maybe its worth mine. Displaying a feedcount of 50,000 subscribed RSS readers instantly and clearly conveys the message “I am worth your time”. It is for this reason that some internet marketers have suggested “borrowing” the code from another blogger’s stats to display on your site. In my opinion Twitter provides this ability to create a crowd, inherent to RSS with the addition of some bonus features.

(more…)

Obviously if you are interested in building up search engine traffic to your site, it’s a great idea to find up and coming trends that are related to your niche. Once you have identified such trends, it’s in your interest to write a lot of content for your site, in relation to that particular trend. Whether you have a blog or a static page site, the more pages of content relating to trend based keywords, the better.

Positioning your self in this way can lead to great rewards as the trend matures and eventually peaks. This trend based strategy will mean that you get double your moneys worth when it comes to residual traffic. You’ll get the traffic from your content, multiplied by the increase interest across the net for information on that particular trend.

Right now, Twitter, may well be the up and coming SEO trend to watch out for. If you look at all the internet marketing related blogs across the net, right now there is an incredible amount of posts being written on the subject of Twitter.

Add to that the fact that more and more main stream corporations, political candidates, and casual users are flocking to the site, and you may also come to the conclusion that Twitter is a bubble that has not yet peaked.

There have been quite a few posts written recently on the subject of building your Twitter following. There is one strategy in particular which seems to be the source of some controversy. That is the strategy of following other users, involved in niches similar to yours, with the hope that they will follow you in return. I like to call this kind of follow, a reciprocal follow.  Some people have been advising Twitter users to use this technique while others have suggested avoiding it like the plague.

Maki of DoshDosh recently wrote a post on the subject of building your Twitter following. In the post one of the strategies suggested is to use your existing presence on other social networking sites such as Facebook or MySpace, as a means of promoting your Twitter profile. This is a great strategy for all those who already have a sizable presence on another social networking site.

If however you are just starting out in online business, effectively employing such a strategy might be harder to pull off. Business trends move in cycles, and sites that where once considered hot beds for marketing through social networking such as Facebook and MySpace may have cooled down in comparison to some up and coming sites such as Twitter.

(more…)

Here is an interesting business model combining a well populated Twitter profile with eBay’s affiliate program. The amount of leverage that a Twitter profile commands is determined by the same factors which determine the leverage of a RSS Feed or an email list, namely the size of your following and the focus of your niche.

For our example let’s consider the niche of high end men’s watches. So you build up a large profile on Twitter by tracking terms like “Rolex”, “Omega” and “Movado” and then adding as many of these enthusiasts as possible to your profile. (more…)

Online entrepreneur Shea Gunther recently raised $20K in four days using Twitter and other media. Feedback Secrets caught up with Shea to ask him some questions regarding his unorthodox fundraising technique, and to get the scoop on his latest venture.

Could you tell us a little bit about your new start up venture?

I’m starting up a screen printing and t-shirt company. We’ll start with a handful of shirt designs and build out more lines focusing on green themes, social media and news, online celebrities, and pop culture.

How much money did you raise, how much equity was sold, and how long did it take you?

In four days I raised $20k and I have another person considering going in for another $5k. All told so far I’ve sliced off 30% of our equity to my investors/partners.

Can you tell us about your business background before you started using Twitter?

I’ve been starting businesses since I was 20 and founded a $16M VC funded online video dot com. I’m 30 now so I guess that means I have a decade of being an entrepreneur under my belt (that makes me feel old). My day job time spent is working on a new green web startup. I’m working with some amazing guys in Chicago on a news site targeting the college set. This is my fifth startup with $100k+ in funding and I’ve started a handful of smaller businesses in between and on the side.

How much did your business background, prior to establishing a presence on Twitter, contribute to your ability to raise capital so fast?

I think my investors and partners know that I’ve been around the entrepreneurial block. We’ve built a tight little business model and I think we’ll do good in the niches we’re going after. I’ve been friends with my lead investor for a few years now- it’s all about who you know and who knows you.

How has Twitter increased your leverage as an entrepreneur, both in terms of this fundraising effort and in general?

I’ve been able to build a network of acquaintances on Twitter that’s proven invaluable. I’ve made some very real friends out of people who started off as followers and it’s provided me a platform to promote myself, my work, and my friends work. Twitter has so far seemed to attract a high proportion of smart, high achieving people and it’s been great to be able to tap into that.

What are the different methods by which prospective investors contacted you with questions regarding potential investment?

I didn’t write a business plan for this one. I didn’t have time and frankly hate having to write them. I do a LOT of business planning, I just despise writing out the formal business plan. If I was raising $200k or $2M it’d be harder to justify not writing a plan, but because I was targeting people for $5k and $10k investments I was able to get away with it. I wrote a lot of emails outlining everything I had planned and followed it up with Q&As on the phone. It was actually a very easy process, everyone came in excited to get involved.

Someone left a reply on your Twitter profile suggesting that the SEC might not be happy about you raising funds on Twitter. What are your thoughts on this subject?

I said something to the effect of “I’m raising $20k in all, I’d welcome the links I’d get from an SEC investigation”. I’m not blasting spam out to a hundred million people asking for investments in the next hot new stock, I’m asking my big circle of friends if anyone else wants to help start a t-shirt company with me. Boing Boing would be all over any federal heat coming my way. That would almost be worth it alone. ;D

When can we expect T-Shirts to be available for purchase?

We’ll be up and running at the end of June, beginning of July. We’re in no huge rush to get up and want to make sure we have production and the whole sales and shipping cycle down before we sell shirt one.