Want To Go To Mardi Gras?

Earlier in the week I saw Tom Martin’s column in Ad Age. He invited everyone to join his Tweet stream from New Orleans over the last great Mardi Gras weekend leading up to Fat Tuesday. Too good to ignore, right?
I read through the comments where people were asking him if he was up to something besides a boozy weekend. The answer is obviously that he is, but he won’t say what until it’s over. According to the profile on his blog Tom is currently the president of Zender Communications in New Orleans, so I think we can safely assume it’s something advertising related.
He started Twittering early this morning and he’s busy already. You can follow along if you like.

And therein is the point, for now at least. I’ve resisted setting up a Twitter account, thinking “do I really need this?” Well, if I wanted to follow Tom and see what he’s up to I had to 1) establish a Twitter account and 2) find Tom and follow him. Right now he has about 1,400 followers, over 700 of whom are following at the moment. I didn’t start soon enough to see how many followers he’s added since his Ad Age article on Tuesday, but I’ll bet it’s substantial and that he’ll add more over the weekend. I did find out that my daughter was online while I was doing this; nice to know what she’s up to!

If you’re a teenager or young adult who just wants to keep up with friends, you’re probably not reading this anyway. If you are a marketing professional who, like me, is trying to figure out this stuff, why don’t you get a Twitter account and follow along? Once you set up a Twitter page and follow Tom, you’ll get his Tweets. If you want his pics of the big event, follow him here.

You won’t really learn any other way—and if you aren’t already on Twitter, like me, you can’t learn any sooner than if you start now!