Rally Promotion Via Twitter

One of the things I’ve noticed as a Twitter user (or “Twit” as we sometimes call ourselves) is that Twitter can be highly effective as a medium for self-promotion. It’s not that Twitter is predominately used, or even should be used for self-promotion, but the whole idea of the Twitter product/community is that anyone can share what they’re doing at anytime with everyone who’s remotely interested in following them to keep up with what they’re doing at any given moment. Here’s a little bit about Twitter; what it is and how you can use it.

Odds are that you’ve already heard about Twitter. They’re calling it “micro-blogging,” but all that means is, you’re sharing your thoughts, activities, and such 140 characters at a time. This might seem stupid at first, especially if you tend to be a wordy as I do, but the brilliance of this forced brevity is that it levels the playing field between the professionals and amateurs alike. Seriously. It’s pretty hard to one-up someone in 140 characters, short of spelling or grammar, but even with the smallish amount of space, people still manage to use proper spelling.

There’s no need to bookmark another website that you have to go out and update or participate at, either. Sure, it’s a good idea to bookmark your profile page so you can get back to it and update it from time to time, but there are brilliantly unobtrusive plugins for Firefox, 3rd party apps for your desktop, and you can even install a Twitter client on your Blackberry. If you have time for text messaging, then you have time to promote your rally program or event via Twitter.

So now that you know what Twitter is and how simple it is to use, how can you use Twitter to promote rally? One word: Activity. If you create a Twitter account, make a point of posting updates. If you’re going to use Twitter to promote your rally team or event, or just want to keep in touch with other people who are excited about rally, talk about rally stuff. Find other people on Twitter who are interested in rally and follow them. Most of us check out the profiles of people who decide to follow us. If I see someone who’s into rally follow me, I’m going to follow them.

Here’s just a few ideas for things that you can “tweet” that will drive rally conversation on the web:

• Link to the recent video(s) you’ve posted on YouTube
• Link to the post on your website about how you did at the event
• The picture you just took with your phone of something rally-related
• The picture you just took from inside the car at the start of the stage
• Your frustration at just how much effort it’s taking to get that mangled control arm free from the car. I mean, how on Earth did it get that munched? It should just pop right out, but noooooo, it has to fight you all the way and…

Notice the potential for sharing what is going on right now. Here is the beauty of how it can all come together for you (and our beloved sport). As you continue to post your updates over time, other people will find you. You grow a following. When they reply to you, the people who are following them will see what they’ve said to you. Depending on what’s being said between you two, other people that follow them might be inclined to check out your profile. Likewise, if you see someone who you follow say something interesting to someone else, you can see who they said it to and check out that person. It goes on and on.

At first glance, Twitter might sound like the next big craze, the next MySpace or Facebook and, in effect, it is, but despite what you might think about those communities or social media in general, Twitter is simple, effective PR for your rally team or event. The potential for viral marketing through Twitter is unmatched. Good content from people who wish to communicate with others about things will always rise to the top. Treat your Twitter account like a one-way broadcast and nothing will come of it, but if you want to meet other people who are interested in rally cars, building rally cars, working on rally cars, organizing rally events, or just being around fast cars, Twitter is a great way to meet new people and talk about ideas.