Guy Kawasaki's Twitter Strategy

22 replies
I've followed Guy Kawasaki on Twitter for quite awhile and have been pondering his Twitter strategy for a bit.

Here's what he appears to be doing

(1) he has a massive Twitter following he's built through time
(2) he finds interesting stories across various blogs and websites online
(3) **he summarizes** the articles on his site (example is at Definitive guide to sticking to your resolutions - Holy Kaw!). Note: he doesn't actually write an immense article most of the time. Instead, he just summarizes another article someone else wrote and provides a link back to the orig article.
(4) his Twitter readers click the link in his Tweet, visit his webpage (Definitive guide to sticking to your resolutions - Holy Kaw!), see the summary, and possibly click through to the full story, browse around other pages of his site, or click on his ads.

Here's the thing I'm realizing

Guy is getting massive amounts of web traffic, thus getting massive amounts of exposure to ads on his site (revenue), without having to be a content generating machine. Instead, he's basically summarizing tons of content on his site and providing a link back to the original stories.

Applying this yourself

I think this type of strategy could be effective for building your own Twitter presence. It doesn't take much to summarize articles, and you could put CPA or some sort of ads on your blog to monetize it. I'm going to look into the time vs ROI of doing this in the next few days, but wanted to see if other warriors have done this.

*a better method Guy used to use*
I briefly met Guy Kawasaki at an event in San Diego in 2009. He had talked about how he actually showed other people's full content (i.e. someone elses full blog post) but did it within the "shell" of his own webpage. Basically, he would show someone elses full content but have his own banner ads across the top of the content to monetize it. This was done using objectivemarketer.com I believe. It was interesting but a bit controversial, BUT he doesn't appear to be doing this anymore. Instead, it looks like he's just summarizing content.

What are your thoughts on his strategy of summarizing?
#guy #kawasaki #strategy #twitter
  • Profile picture of the author SuzanneH
    Interesting! I know Gary Vaynerchuk talks about being a "DJ" -- basically, getting people interested in your blog by spinning out the interesting things in your niche.

    I've been thinking of doing something similar as well. I have a tough time getting past the "don't send your visitor to somebody else's site" mentality though. But the thing is, the sites or blogs that I visit the most ARE the ones that tell me about other sites/articles of interest, etc. I always go back to them!

    Thanks for posting this, Jon. Definitely some food for thought -- and the more I'm typing, the more I realize this method would be good for a site I had in mind.

    Suzanne
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  • Profile picture of the author Jack Martin
    Kawasaki does a bunch of interesting things. One thing that stands out for me, is that he sends the same tweets out several times throughout the day to make sure his audience sees them.

    For summarizing, I find that I can create 10 quality blog posts per hour if all I do is write a 100 or 200 word summary, quota couple paragraphs from the originals article, and then link to that original article. That lets me build up a lot of pages of quality content in a hurry.

    Here's a link I bookmarked a while ago about his Twitter strategy.

    How I Tweet : The World :: American Express OPEN Forum
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  • Profile picture of the author SuzanneH
    Just looking a bit more at how Guy does Alltop. It's important to note: a link to the original article within the article, which opens in a new window and a link at the bottom of the article that points to a related article on alltop, rich with keywords. (The link at the bottom also opens in a new window, which I don't understand. If it's a link to your own site, why not keep it within the same window?)

    It's funny, Jon, I wasn't thinking about Twitter even though that was the main gist of your post. But this would be great for tweets, and for Facebook, too.

    Suzanne
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    • Profile picture of the author Jeremy Morgan
      A lot of people summarize, and use their own sites as a gateway to other content. While it might seem cheap and easy to just put a "shell" around other people's stuff, there is value to it.

      Basically he's serving as an aggregator, but the hand picked stuff he chooses to show is what people are after. He's going out and doing the searching for you. And if you find the same things interesting that he does, you have someone scouring the net for you and finding stuff you wouldn't otherwise find.

      Two of my favorite sites have little content at all, fark and slashdot. They produce virtually no content of their own (only commentary from users) but they go out and search for the stuff I'm interested in. If you can apply this strategy properly you can really succeed like Guy has.
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  • Profile picture of the author MarkAse
    It's an interesting strategy, clearly it works well for him. In some way it seems almost like a link baiting in reverse to me, but you can't argue with his level of success.

    I do wonder if, especially on Twitter, it would be effective in many niche's. Almost becoming a sort of news source, while driving people to your blog at the same time.

    It's something I'll try and work into my Twitter postings over this next year.
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  • interesting, must look into it, guessing it will work for other social media sites on a smaller scale.
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  • Profile picture of the author mikemac1
    Thanks, this was a very interesting...this is a simple and smart move on Guy's part, so many just link directly to interesting articles/posts, it's pretty genius summarizing them and directing visitors to his site.
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    • Profile picture of the author marciayudkin
      It's great to watch what someone like Guy Kawasaki is doing on Twitter, but do not assume that what works for him can necessarily work for anyone else.

      The ingredient here that makes it all work is that people come to Guy Kawasaki's blog and Tweets already wanting to know what he thinks and what is interesting to him. His Twitter strategy builds on that. He has decades of reputation building behind him.

      Marcia Yudkin
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      • Profile picture of the author Burtgummer
        Reputation is everything in twitter.

        I just started taking action with twitter last night, and spamming your butt off will not get you anywhere.

        You need to build a relationship with people. Post interesting things that other people would actually be interested in. Maybe a hot trend, or a new popular viral video. If people like what you post, they'll watch your tweets more. When you have that trust going, then you can link to a site of yours with information they want to see, and then run a CPA offer or similar offer on that page.

        But you first need to build that relationship. You need to be real. Not some internet marketer posting fake tweets to try and get your attention.

        So if you see something you find funny yourself, tweet it. Simple as that. Just be real!
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        • Profile picture of the author JonTuckerUSA
          Just to be clear, I'm not talking about tweeting just for the sake of tweeting. i.e. spamming....

          I'm talking about being the known hub of all information in your niche. Guy doesn't really focus on a specific niche per say, but you could use the same type of strategy in your niche. I've been using it for general marketing related info that small business owners would benefit from...it's working great.

          I agree reputation is key and you shouldn't put crap out there with your name on (or twitter name) on it ; )

          Originally Posted by Burtgummer View Post

          Reputation is everything in twitter.

          I just started taking action with twitter last night, and spamming your butt off will not get you anywhere.

          You need to build a relationship with people. Post interesting things that other people would actually be interested in. Maybe a hot trend, or a new popular viral video. If people like what you post, they'll watch your tweets more. When you have that trust going, then you can link to a site of yours with information they want to see, and then run a CPA offer or similar offer on that page.

          But you first need to build that relationship. You need to be real. Not some internet marketer posting fake tweets to try and get your attention.

          So if you see something you find funny yourself, tweet it. Simple as that. Just be real!
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  • Profile picture of the author AllanWard
    I also follow Guy on Twitter and am impressed with how effectively he's using it.

    In November he wrote an article about how he uses Twitter - it's interesting reading. You can find it on his blog dated November 2nd. I'd include the link here, but I haven't posted enough to be allowed to include it.
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  • Profile picture of the author jamespereira
    Is Guy doing these summaries on autopilot? Can't believe that he's actually sitting behind his monitor doing it himself - or maybe he outsources to Asia/Eastern Europe.

    Would be great if there's some sort of software for this.
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    • Profile picture of the author JonTuckerUSA
      I spoke with him at an event in San Diego briefly and asked the same question.

      He has interns / employees do SOME of the tweeting (not all though). He mentioned that employee / intern tweets or blogs have some sort of initial on them. This was a convo many months ago, so I'm a bit flustered on what the exact system was. But i think it was just two letter initials at the end of the tweet or maybe at the end of the blog post.

      Originally Posted by jamespereira View Post

      Is Guy doing these summaries on autopilot? Can't believe that he's actually sitting behind his monitor doing it himself - or maybe he outsources to Asia/Eastern Europe.

      Would be great if there's some sort of software for this.
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  • Profile picture of the author LetsGoViral
    Another good way of promotion on Twitter is tweeting short jokes. People really like them and retweet them as well. Giving you extra popularity.
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    • Profile picture of the author tanya7zhou
      Think about those guys from Mashable, what do they do? Look for already published news and summarizes it to their audience. They don't create new things.

      They are very successful with a huge following!
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  • Profile picture of the author Chuck Evans
    Here's the link to Guys article for those who are interested.

    chuck
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  • Profile picture of the author JayXtreme
    Guy doesn't do ANY of that....

    His ghostwriters do

    As a sidenote, I often re-tweet GK's stuff... He finds interesting things that I like...

    Peace

    Jay
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    Bare Murkage.........

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    • Profile picture of the author JonTuckerUSA
      On the contrary Jay. He DOES send out Tweets / Blogs, or at least that's what he specifically told me at an event. See my response to someone else above re: same issue.

      He has interns / employees do it sometimes, but they put their mark on it so it's clear that it's them ghostwriting. He said that anything without a ghostwriting mark on it is all Guy lol

      Originally Posted by JayXtreme View Post

      Guy doesn't do ANY of that....

      His ghostwriters do

      As a sidenote, I often re-tweet GK's stuff... He finds interesting things that I like...

      Peace

      Jay
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  • Profile picture of the author fitz10
    Interesting! I've never seen his tweets but this is a strategy I've considered implementing myself since I just started a new Twitter account where I post a lot of news from blogs around the web related to social network marketing. Good to see other people are using it with great success.
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  • Profile picture of the author paulie888
    This strategy may not necessarily be effective for newbies who don't have a presence or branding in the market yet. You definitely have to increase your credibility/presence to get to that stage, and in the early stages of building up your Twitter account doing this would be needless (and ineffective) work, because people probably will not take the time to read your summaries on your website, at least not initially.
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  • Profile picture of the author markshields
    that was very interesting! Twitter Strategies For Building A Huge Following.. simply great!
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  • Profile picture of the author bizfox
    I think this is great. I'll try it. Thanks. Repped.
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