A Twestival or Twitter-Festival is a global series of events organized by volunteers around the world under short timescales via Twitter, which brings people offline for a great cause. The first Twestival Global happened on 12 February 2009 with 202 cities around the world hosting events and rallying fundraising efforts around one cause, charity: water. $250k+ was raised on one day through these events and online donations which resulted in 55 wells with 17,000 people impacted in Uganda, Ethiopia, and India.

Twestival Local

Twestival Local events are taking place in cities around the world between 10-13 September 2009.  Twestival is an international movement where people meet offline for one night, have fun and do some good for an important cause in the process. Twestival Local gives cities an opportunity to select a local cause to support.

Dallas Twestival

The Dallas Twestival will be held on September 12 @ 6:00PM @ Mockingbird Station. Proceeds will benefit The Women’s Museum at Fair Park – a home for programs and exhibits where people can honor the past and explore the contributions of women throughout history. Purchase tickets online – hurry quantities are limited.

Hope to see you there!

Follow us on Twitter @DallasMarketing

43Things asks the question: What do you want to do with your life?
You respond (presumably with 43 answers) and then check out others’ goals and how they are doing at achieving them.   The status of each goal can be updated with “I’ve done this” or “I give up.”

Searching can be accomplished using the 43Things search box in the upper right corner, or using one of the tag clouds under cities or tags, or by browsing the listings under summary, entries and comments, goals, or people.  Think someone is doing great? – send them a cheer.

Want to know more?  Take the 43Things tour, check out the 43Things Blog or jump right in and sign up for a free account.    Once you have a 43Things account, you can set up a profile page with a link to your blog or website and begin adding your list of goals.   43 Things also has a handy widget for adding your list of 43 Things to a blog or website, should you be so inclined to do so.

A search for Dallas users revealed 180 people listed for Dallas, TX and 26 people from Fort Worth/Ft Worth.

The free service is very simple:  users access Twitter from a computer or cell phone and post short messages (less than 140 characters) called tweets to a network of users.  Twitter account profiles can be marked private or public. Users can follow other users, receiving those users’ tweets whenever a tweet is posted.

Twitter Users: According to Wikipedia, as of July 2008 there were 2,200,000 registered Twitter accounts.  To locate users, enter their name or a location in the Twitter search bar to view a list of profiles.

Who’s on Twitter?  Barack Obama has 59,523 followers and will follow you back (sorry, John McCain isn’t on Twitter) or search the Top 100 followed users, Top 100 followers, or other Top Twitterers lists at TwitDir to find Twitterers across a broad spectrum of backgrounds. <

Dallas on Twitter: A search for “Dallas” on Twitter returns approximately 1200 users.  Dallasites on the Top 100 list include:

♦ Cali Lewis at 16th with 17,773 followers
♦ Bloggers Blog at 35 with 14,756 followers
♦ Woot at 41 with 13,022 followers

Dallas businesses on Twitter include Southwest Airlines, Dallas Morning News, and The Dallas Stars.

Twitter Business Use:  Many businesses, such as Dell, Whole Foods, Starbucks, AT&T and Jet Blue, have found Twitter to be a useful communication tool and a marketing and PR engine.  A user group from TI, self-named the Texas Instruments Tweeple, is a great example of a business collaboration use of Twitter.

Getting started: Setting up a Twitter account in simple and free.

To customize a profile page, go to the Design tab under Settings to upload a background and customize text colors. 

Once you are up and running, get the most out of Twitter with the Mashable list of Twitter Tools listing over 140 Twitter tools.

Follow Dallas Marketing Services on Twitter
and catch our most recent update in the left sidebar of this page.

Tim O’Reilly is credited with coining the term Web 2.0, which basically refers to the ways people are interacting on the internet.  Social media is an umbrella for the Web 2.0 services that enable collaboration by users that share a similar interest or are connected in some way.

Social media sites, when used correctly, can provide an environment for creating relationships and building awareness with a group of users that can, and probably already are, influencing your market.  One of the oldest and most effective methods of marketing is through word of mouth recommendations and the social media sites simply provide an online, global venue for this to occur.

That said, before jumping in, take a little time to understand the environment and ensure the community is a good fit.  If you decide to join, be genuine in your interactions.

To assist with evaluating the numerous social media sites, Dallas Marketing Services will profile social media sites, from large to niche, and summarize:

♦ Site description

♦ Site benefits

♦ User base

♦ Opportunities for business use

♦ Popularity with Dallas users

♦ Getting started or improving your existing presence

The Novice: A newcomer, they apprehensively sit down.  They probably have a cheat sheet with them and perhaps a drink that they nervously sip a bit too often.   Interactions are brief, requiring much concentration and great care not to commit an error.

The Lucky One:  Always in the right place at the right time, the sun just seems to shine on them.  They have a little skill but only adhere to strategy hit and miss at best.   No matter – lady luck is on their side and things just seem to turn out right.

The Old Timer: They have been around the block a few times and will gladly tell you so.  They learned what they needed to know decades ago.
New-fangled techniques and strategy, smategy – they have all the skill they need, learned at the school of hard knocks.

The Aggressor:  With an unstoppable determination to burn through the budget in record time, they want to attack each opportunity with every available resource, regardless of the current situation.  Rash, un-informed decision-making based on gut-feel lands them in trouble more often than not.

The Expert:  Usually the quiet one at the table.  They have a strategy and know it, are constantly aware of the ever-changing environment around them, and make their spending decisions with precision, based on skill, and then hope to also have some luck.  They regularly evaluate their return and continually educate themselves to improve their skill level.

So, as you look around the marketing team’s staff meeting and get past the desire for a cocktail waitress to bring you a free drink, how is your marketing chip count?

Are you ready to move from basic to advanced strategy?
Does your strategy card have a copyright from the 1980′s?
Would a marketing audit reveal opportunities for improving the odds a bit?

Then, get into the game.   Buy a book, read a blog, hire a consultant.
Dallas was built by entrepreneurs beating the odds with hard work, good strategy and a bit of luck.

And remember…

• Develop a strategy before you begin
• Gain the skills, knowledge and experience to improve your chance for success
• Know the rules, the cost and your budget
• Don’t expect to win every time
• Comps are nice, but a great ROI is the goal
• Recognize that if you get caught cheating, you may get kicked out
• And… you can’t win if you don’t play.

We are standing in line at the Dallas Knox Apple store - been here since about 9:45AM and it is hot.   We seem to have about 75 more people to wait behind before we get our new iPhones.

Quite a process – last year, we lined up about 4:00PM, doors opened at 6:00PM and we left with our iPhones about 6:20PM.  This year – not so great.  First, the new 2.0 software disabled my current iPhone about 9:00AM on Friday.  The Apple servers were overloaded and it took until late morning to begin the rebuild process – first downloading iTunes, then QuickTime, then the new software and the final result- a dead phone with no service.    Seemed like a good time to pay a visit to the local AT&T store.

The Addison AT&T store was sold out and a trip to the Apple store at Willowbend revealed a line of several hundred people – no iPhones for us on Friday.  The only good news was that by the time we got back home Apple cleared up the issue & after a 2 hour sync, my old iPhone was revived.

So, Saturday morning, the quest continued.  Arriving before opening at the AT&T Addison store again, we were informed they had plenty of phones.  About 45 minutes later they informed us those plenty of phones only included one 16gig black one.   Jumped in the car, drove to Knox and that gets us up to date.

So, standing here in the heat, typing on my old iPhone, I can’t help but applaud (again) the sheer marketing genius of Apple.   A survey of my line mates revealed that 4 out of 4 are replacing last year’s iPhones with new 3Gs.  Gas is nearly $5 a gallon, the stock market is tumbling and hundreds of people are standing in line for hours in 100 degree heat to pay hundreds of dollars for another iPhone. 

Good marketing?  Oh yeah.