• Did this lady just win the lottery?  Or did she get goosed or something?
• Why was she compelled to rise out of her chair and stare straight at me and laugh?  It’s unnerving.
• There is a very small coffee cup behind her. Why is it so small?  Is it a demi-tasse?  Is it a cup for sake?  Is she caffeine-intolerant?  I just want to hug her and say, “Drink a nice BIG cup of coffee.  This is America, honey. Our cups hold a quart.  Here, have mine.”
• It looks like she’s knitting.  But what is it?  She’s wrapped it around her neck somehow.  Lady, that could be dangerous.  Put down the sharp objects and slowly unwrap that that thing from around your neck.  And what is that on your breath?  SAKE?  We’ve notified the authorities.

My friend Jayme Soulati sent me a great little story about getting new business through Twitter. I thought you might enjoy it!  Here’s Jayme:

The name of the game, as they frequently say, Mark, is developing relationship for ultimate Twitter success. I began tweeting for Cardthartic, a 16-year-old private greeting card publisher, in June.  Currently, we have merely 130 followers and 200 tweets.  Because the web site relaunch was not slated until September 2009, I knew I needed to establish a presence, build reputation and tweet about our passionate greeting cards in a sincere way.

Content is king. No doubt about that. While I could not drive traffic to the antiquated Web site, all I could do was tweet about the greeting within each card. To gain followers, I reviewed trending topics for “florists” who carry our cards that are nationally distributed and kept following people oriented to moms, grandmas, pet lovers, gift givers and florists. In a little over a month, I got my first authentic sale from Twitter! 

Here’s Jayme’s list for Twitter success: 

• Establish yourself with relevant and sincere content.
• Do not directly sell with offensive marketing gimmicks, like teeth whiteners.
• Personify yourself; a human is tweeting so who are you?
• While tweeting for a company brand is acceptable, come out from behind the curtain and be accessible.
• To convert a lead into a sale, ensure you pull in the traditional troops to close the deal.
• Monitor, monitor. Had we not been in close touch with the Tweets, we could easily have missed potential sales.

This is a true story. It has nothing to do with business or marketing but it might be entertaining or inspiring to you all the same : )

My wife and I spent this weekend in the cool mountain air of lovely Highlands, NC.

As our first hike of the weekend, we chose a trail at the end of a remote gravel road in the Nantahala Forest. The trail was steep, following a rocky river down incredible cliffs and waterfalls. We explored rugged nooks and crannies off the beaten path, following my childhood spirit as a West Virginia mountain wanderer. In two hours of hiking we did not see a single person either coming up or going down the trail.

When we returned to my car, I discovered that a hole had worn through my pocket and I had lost my car keys somewhere on the trail. Our phones were locked in the car (there was no service any way!) and we were at least five hilly miles away from the nearest town.

By the way … I am a down-to-earth guy, but I do drive a nice car, a BMW. Leaving this car unattended was also a risky proposition, especially if somebody found the keys. The nearest replacement key was back home, three hours away.

We had no choice but to re-trace our steps down the long rocky path, hoping to find a needle in a haystack. As we set out, already tired and out of water, my wife said we needed to say a prayer to God who has provided so many blessings in our life. It wasn’t a prayer to be rescued, just a prayer that we trusted that He would provide, whatever our fate may be.

Less than five minutes later, an elderly couple came huffing up the rocky path, the only people we had seen on the trail all day. The woman stopped, looked me in the eye and said, “Did you lose something?”

Yes, they had found the keys, 30 minutes farther down the trail. Improbably, our crisis was over.

Never discuss spirituality or politics on your blog, right? Well, whether you believe in God or not, I thought you might enjoy this story and draw your own conclusion based on you own life journey.

In any event, back to business on Monday. So get ready!

My friend Jamie Wallace called to my attention that in the latest B2B marketing zone’s ranking of top blog articles, {grow} had the number 1 article (or more) in every HOT TOPIC category for the month of July!

Article category and {grow} article ranking:

SOCIAL MEDIA
1) The Biggest Lie in Social Media Marketing, July 19, 2009
2) Social media measurement — It’s like being a great bartender, July 29, 2009
3) An interview with GE’s Social Media Wizards, July 2, 2009
4) Crunching the real numbers on social media ROI, July 20, 2009

TWITTER
1) Twitter for business: Four breakthrough insights, July 12, 2009

SOCIAL MEDIA MEASUREMENT
1) Social media measurement — It’s like being a great bartender, July 29, 2009
2) Creating a measurement plan without losing your marbles, July 27, 2009
3) The Biggest Lie in Social Media Marketing, July 19, 2009
4) Twitter for business: Four breakthrough insights, July 12, 2009

SALES
1) Crunching the real numbers on social media ROI, July 20, 2009

This is all very cool and very humbling! Congratulations to Jamie for penning the number 1 and number 2 articles in the social media measurement category. Thank you loyal readers, supporters and friends for being right here. Your comments, calls and emails push me to do better every day.

I am going to go have a beer now.

1. Wealth without work
2. Pleasure without conscience
3. Knowledge without character
4. Commerce without morality
5. Science without humanity
6. Worship without sacrifice
7. Politics without principle

—Mahatma Gandhi