Twitpitch: The Elevator Pitch Hits Twitter
We've all heard of the elevator pitch: the brief overview of a product, service, or project that can be delivered in the time it takes to ride an elevator, usually around 30 seconds or so. Now here comes a new idea: the Twitpitch, and yes, it's just what you think - the same pitch narrowed down to 140 characters or less.
As Marshall said earlier this morning, the best way to pitch via Twitter is not by sending a DM, but by sending out a public Tweet instead:
Enter the Twitpitch.
The Origin
The Twitpitch is the invention of Stowe Boyd, a business strategy and information technology consultant. Boyd had plans to attend the upcoming Web 2.0 Expo, but was having trouble scheduling meetings with startups. To address this problem, on Tuesday he posted on his blog that in order to make things simple for himself, he was posting a schedule of times when he was available for meetings. He added that he would not accept email-based proposals for these meetings, only Twitpitches.
The Rules
To further explain the concept, Boyd put forth a set of rules for the pitches as follows:
- All companies who would like to have a meeting with me, need to send me a Twittered description of the product. Yes, please Twitter it to me at www.twitter.com/stoweboyd. Yes, one tweet, 140 characters less the eleven used for "@stoweboyd ".
- Optionally, send a supporting twitpitch with one link, and no other text. Could be to anything: website, video, press release, Rick Astley, etc.
- Then, twitter me one or more suggested times/place to meet at the event, using the times on the calendar, and a location in the conference building I won't have time to visit your nearby hotel or offices.
An Idea Was Born
And just like that, the tweets began, the earliest of which were posted here. He then began to schedule the "tweetups" and posted the updated calendar on his blog.
This new way of pitching, now being dubbed the "twitpitch" or "escalator pitch," is quick, painless, and to-the-point. It cuts through the PR babble and forces companies to summarize what they do in 140 characters or less.
Why is this idea so timely? Well, it's like what twitterer Amanda Mooney posted in response to a blog post by Steve Baker on how social media has changed business: "The new resume is 140 characters or less."
We couldn't agree more.
Make #Twitpitch the New Way to Pitch
We did a Tweet Scan for "twitpitch," which shows there's a lot of activity around this phrase right now. However, we would like to take the idea a step further and have each twitpitch tagged with the hashtag #twitpitch. (It appears that not all of the twitpitchers were doing so, and granted, it's not in the original instructions.)
This does cut into the word count, but if used properly, everyone interested in twitpitches could track them here: http://www.hashtags.org/tag/twitpitch.
Instead of twittering at ("@") someone, as in Boyd's case, any startup wanting to get the word out fast to the community could just tweet their pitch and add #twitpitch to the end of their post.
Twitpitch. We love it. It's brilliant. It's social media put to work. We hope it catches on.
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That's different.
Good idea!
I'd like to broaden this concept to apply to national politics as well. From here forward, all US presidential debates must be Twitdebates (yes, aren't they already?), with questions, and responses, delivered over Twitter and none of the questions, responses, rebuttals etc, must not be longer than 140 characters. Oh, and all issues must be hash-tagged and anyone can ask a question.
Anyone game?
ABCmod: @obama aren't you #elitist?
Obama: @ABCmod nope. not @ all. I just think people who are #economically ripped get cranky, love #guns. @hillary back off.
Hillary: @AmPeople I can #win this #election. #McCain iz so wrong.
ABCMod: That about wraps it. kthxbai.
Of course, we're only talking about pitches that are solicited right?
Since it was not provided in the post ( WTFBBQ??? ) here is the "twitpitch" RSS feed:
http://www.hashtags.org/feeds/tag/twitpitch
@Scott Smith
LOVE the idea!
Oh, thanks Todd! My bad!
Fantastic idea. Thanks for sharing the how-to.
Twitpitches on Twitter are great. The medium is a known quantity frequented by those who like the format.
Broadcasting Twitpitches, or any other Twit stream for that matter, on a blog is just annoying. The medium is not intended for that format and it is self-selected by those who wanted the blog format.
I hated getting a long stream of TwitPitches in my blog reader where I normally expect Stowe's pithy writings. The banner ads on the darned things were bigger than the content for Heaven's sake!
This is cognitive dissonance. It's a UI disconnect. There are many other examples on the net.
More on my blog:
http://smoothspan.wordpress.com/2008/04/18/so-this-is-twitter-its-annoying/
i heard findatop.com is like a website sort of like twitter but buisness riented and you can find a professional to use who is trustworthy by a rating system its pretty nice actually its called findatop.com
I totally dig the idea. Quick'n'dirty proposal: hashtag #pitch wastes less characters but is still recognizable.
I still don't know how could I as a blogger without earning capitalize from this. Maybe it's just for businesses...
Good article though
Great post...
In fact, I talked about this over a year ago in my blog post TwitterPitching — And a Sample Pitch.
Yes, I agree! Best to explain what you do in a sentence or two, otherwise people drift off into space.
Bueller... Bueller is Ferris Bueller here (80s movie humor)
:)
Another way to find and track these pitches is to use this link and add it to your RSS reader:
http://twitter.summize.com/search?q=%23twitpitch
That way people interested in the topic can follow it globally and others are not bothered by them.
Hey Sarah,
I personally use and like Tumblr a lot more than Twitter.it's way much more customizable and flexible. I'd love to read a comparative review from you.
Cheers
@Scott Smith - LOL. Great piece of satire.
For anything besides policies that will determine the future of our nation and planet, I love the idea of being forced to articulate an idea in 140 characters. There's just too much blah blah "solutions" this "strategic" that ... most of the time you can't even be sure what a PR pitch is actually about.
kthxbai