Saturday, February 28, 2009

Meeting with Guy Kawasaki

Posted by Craig on 2/28/2009


















The way things progressed was surreal.

At 1:24 a.m. Monday night, I sent this message to Guy Kawasaki through Twitter: "@guykawasaki you should do an Alltop page for @breakingtweets with the different regions and topics www.breakingtweets.com."

A few friends of mine sent a similar message to him moments after in an effort to catch his attention.

Forty-eight hours later, not only had we heard from him, not only had he agreed to put Breaking Tweets on Alltop, he gave it an entire page on the popular "online magazine rack" site: http://breaking-tweets.alltop.com.

Late Wednesday night, Guy wrote this: "'Breaking Tweets' is 2nd to only Mac.Alltop today in traffic, and it's only been live for 9 hours." And shortly thereafter, he announced Breaking Tweets was the top traffic getter of the day.

No. 1 on Alltop on its first day there, not bad.

That's when things really got crazy. I received a private message from him through Twitter that he was coming to Chicago Thursday. He asked if I'd be up to meeting him for breakfast Friday and asked to meet some of the other editors.

And this morning, we met.

The experience at the Hyatt Regency McCormick was just awesome. Guy was so personable, and he took an hour out of his schedule - a whole hour - to meet with us. He gave us tons of great feedback on the site - what he liked, what he thought could be improved, how we could market it, how to promote it, how to effectively use Twitter, and how the content could be improved. I feverishly took notes and have a bunch that I'll type up later so we can start implementing some of his suggestions. And they were fantastic suggestions.

Oh yeah, and he treated us for breakfast.

You know, Forbes.com named him the No. 1 Most Influential Twitterer recently. Now I know why. He tweeted about Breaking Tweets not once, not twice, not three times - six times - to his 72,000+ followers between Wednesday and Thursday. Those tweets were retweeted more than 150 times, and we saw our traffic go up like crazy. He's going to plug us a bit more and we're going to help promote the Alltop page. It's a great connection to have for a site like ours, just getting started.

And if you read this, and I wouldn't doubt you might, thanks again Guy. Really appreciate it.

7 comments on "Meeting with Guy Kawasaki"

Unknown on February 28, 2009 at 2:23 AM said...

Craig, I am so happy for your success, and I RT it as well. I'm glad I've been a fan prior to Alltop, and will continue to be so. Keep up the great work! :) @AKFirecracker

Craig on February 28, 2009 at 2:32 AM said...

Thanks Kelly! That's right, you've been there since the beginning. In a few days, the site will have a month under its belt; should be exciting to see where it goes from there.

Anonymous said...

It was my pleasure to meet with you guys. Here's to changing the world together!

Guy

Anonymous said...

All the best Craig. You couldn't be off to a better start!

Craig on February 28, 2009 at 3:52 PM said...

Thanks again Guy! Let's change the world.

Appreciate the comment Susie. As I said before, it certainly isn't a bad start. :)

Anonymous said...

We also included your rapid ascent to the top of Alltop in our latest newsletter yesterday. :)

Craig on February 28, 2009 at 4:05 PM said...

Did not know that, NEENZ. Thanks for the heads up!

 

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