How McDonald’s Slashed Its Foot With A Hashtag
McDonald’s decided to spend its money buying a hashtag on the popular social media website Twitter.
First, I’d like to know how you can buy a hashtag, but that’s an aside. The real issue is what happened after McDonald’s changed its hashtag from #MeetTheFarmers to #McDStories.
The original hashtag was meant to introduce McDonald’s Twitter followers to the company’s promotion of fresh produce. It worked well. Then, in a flash of brilliance that turned out to be not so brilliant, the company’s social media manager decided to open the door to the universe by expanding its Twitter promotion. Enter #McDStories.
Who doesn’t have a positive McDonald’s story, right? Indeed. And who doesn’t have a negative one. Duh.
You can probably guess what happened next. Followers started using the new hashtag to relate their own McDonald’s stories – chipped molars, regurgitation, food poisoning …. The list goes on.
I think the big lesson here is not how to respond to negative reactions on Twitter or some other social media site. Rather, the real lesson is how to prevent it from happening in the first place. This all could have been prevented had McDonald’s not insisted on opening the door to the universe. All they had to do was keep running the promotion that was working.
When things are going well, don’t change them. Rule #1. Rule #2 is, always ask what might go wrong.
Had McDonald’s social media manager lived by those two rules we wouldn’t be talking about them right now. That second question is particularly important. In social media – and on the World Wide Web in general – once something starts spiraling out of control, it’s hard to get a handle on it. If it’s out there, it’s out there. So put some thought into your moves before you make them. Ask, what can go wrong with this? If the answer is something too big to control or too embarrassing to let go on, don’t make your move. Do something else, or nothing at all.
Twitter’s Trickle Down Policy
On February 1st, you’ll be able to buy yourself a Twitter brand page – if you have $25,000. I don’t know about you, but that price seems a little steep to me.
Twitter had originally accepted a minimum of $2 million from 20 large companies on the scale of Coca-Cola and Disney for the privilege of being the first companies to have brand pages on the microblogging platform. The pages look quite nice.
The big question is, when will the rest of us gain access to Twitter brand pages and how much will it cost us?
It’s obvious that Twitter is using this opportunity as a way to raise operating funds. But the problem, as I see it, is that the companies spending the most amount of money and getting in earlier will have an advantage over companies with smaller pocketbooks. They’ll effectively be the Twitter users that set the policy for the rest of us. They could use Twitter to shut the door on their competition, and may already have.
Has Twitter sold out to the highest bidder? Has it become a haven for big brands? Will it go by the way of eBay and alienate its smaller, less wealthy users?
Only time will tell or provide any answers to these questions. Meanwhile, if you’ve got $25,000 in your pocket, then you can buy yourself a Twitter brand page. Someday, you might be allowed to establish a Twitter brand page for your company for a monthly or yearly fee. Average that over a lifetime and you could very well spend $25,000, or more, for the privilege of tweeting 140 characters at a time.
Let’s hope that Twitter doesn’t become the social media website of the rich, for the rich, and by the rich.
Should You Tweet On Behalf Of Your Employer?
It was bound to happen sooner or later. A lawsuit over who owns the Twitter account of an employee (technically, a former employee) who used the account in part to tweet on behalf of the employee. Sidebar: There was contract.
In the absence of case law, a case like this is far from open-shut. In fact, it could get dirty. But I suspect that PhoneDog Media saw an opportunity to bully for money.
Ask any lawyer and he’ll tell you that a business should “aggressively” protect its trademark and other business interests. Otherwise, the company could lose them. It’s a standard line, and its one that is often interpreted to encourage business owners to pursue litigation for even the most extraordinary and awkwardly absurd situations.
I’m not saying this situation is “extraordinary and awkwardly absurd,” but if you read the company’s response to The New York Times, it smacks of legal double-talk.
“The costs and resources invested by PhoneDog Media into growing its followers, fans and general brand awareness through social media are substantial and are considered property of PhoneDog Media L.L.C. We intend to aggressively protect our customer lists and confidential information, intellectual property, trademark and brands.”
When employers and employees begin to make handshake agreements regarding the latter’s social media accounts and using them on behalf of company business, it’s an area of law is very murky. It is in both party’s interest to get a contract. It could save a lot of headache in the long run and spell out the particulars that could make a lawsuit unnecessary and avoidable.
Disclaimer: This blog post is not intended to be legal advice. Seek an attorney before making decisions about your social media accounts.
Twitter Brand Pages Come To The Fore
First, Facebook rolled out brand pages for businesses. Then Google+ hit the scene and within three months had introduced brand pages. Now, after several years of successful operations and climbing usage, Twitter is introducing brand pages.
Unfortunately, not everyone can have one just yet.
But with 76% of small businesses saying they use Twitter, that open-to-public launch could come soon.
Currently, Twitter brand pages are only open to a few big brands such as
- American Express
- Best Buy
- Bing
- Chevrolet
- Coca-Cola
- Disney
- General Electric
- McDonald’s
- Nike
- PepsiCo
- Staples
- Verizon Wireless
- Heineken
- Subway
- and Paramount Pictures
just to name a few.
Once Twitter’s brand pages go public, it looks like small businesses will have a troika (triumvirate?) of social media brand pages to promote. So the big question is, what will be the most effective way to promote all three brand pages for maximum effectiveness?
It’s become apparent that each of the social media websites cater to specific personality types. Marketers have discovered that Twitter audiences and Facebook audiences do not line up as the same. Therefore, promotions to each service need to be unique.
That will undoubtedly be the way going forward as well. When you run your brand page specials, you’ll have to have one for Twitter, a separate one for Facebook, and then one for Google+. Are you ready?
Since Google+ Has Gone Public
It’s been just a couple of weeks since Google+ went public. Before then, you had to wait for a user to send you an invitation and then you entered a waiting list. Well, now the waiting list is gone and so are the invitations. But what kind of world has it left us?
In its first two weeks of being public, Google+ saw 2 million new users. Its servers slowed down and some users experienced a few minor glitches while using the service. That’s a good thing.
No outages. Nothing stratospheric in terms of hiccups. But it was noticeable.
Google+ still continues to grow at a steady and highly noticeable pace. Many users are anxiously waiting for business accounts to be introduced. That will add another level of competition between Facebook and Google+, a competitive landscape that is already pretty tough. But what about LinkedIn and Twitter?
At last count, Google was somewhere in the neighborhood of No. 5 or 7 in traffic for social media websites – right behind Twitter and LinkedIn. It won’t take much growth to pass them both.
I think we may be leaving the world where social marketers proclaimed Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter were the most important social services for businesses. In the future, you will likely hear that Facebook, Twitter and Google+ are the most useful services. Do you agree?
The Half-Life Of A Twitter Tweet
Did you know your tweets have a half-life of three hours? According to Bit.ly, you’ll get half the clicks on your tweets in 2.8 hours and then from there it’s all down hill. With Facebook, you have 3.2 hours.
That doesn’t mean those links are dead. It means you’ll see a gradual decline in links after that half-life has expired. The recommendation is for you to submit “second chance” links to allow other followers who didn’t see the first one an opportunity to see your links. That’s a suggestion made by Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land.
There’s another reason you want to send out these “second chance” shares as well. You want to test another teaser message.
Remember, what you say (the reason you give for your followers needing to click a link) about a link determines to a great degree whether or not a link is clicked on. With a second chance share, you can test another teaser and capture clicks from people who saw the first link but weren’t intrigued by your teaser message.
Either way you look at it, tweeting and sharing the same information more than once is becoming a common practice. I’ve seen marketers share the same message across multiple days. The reason they do so is because they get more click-throughs.
12 Ways To Build Value On Twitter
Twitter has become all the craze. Even small business owners are getting into it and trying to figure out how to make the most of their 140 characters. Here are 12 guaranteed ways to build value into every Twitter message.
- Use short URLs. Bit.ly, ShortURL, TinyURL, and Is.gd are just a few of the services you can use.
- Optimize your tweets for keywords.
- Include a hashtag and make your hashtag a part of your message (for example: Why didn’t I #think of that?)
- Make your message sing like a news headline.
- Retweet your favorite Twitter users and do it often.
- Build relationships using the @mention feature.
- Tweet different items than what you would share on Facebook, LinkedIn, and other social networks. Keep your audience in mind.
- Don’t add more than one link per tweet.
- Keep your Twitter messages on topic. Don’t send out frivolous tweets about topics you are not passionate about.
- Don’t tweet too much. Spread your tweets out throughout the day.
- Shorten your messages to leave room for your shortURL link and a hashtag.
Keep these 12 tips in mind when using Twitter for your business social networking. Remember your audience and what they are following you for. Build value into every tweet.
Paper.li, Twitter, And All The Buzz
I have no doubt you’ve likely heard of Twitter, but have you heard Paper.li?
Paper.li allows anyone to become an instant publisher by creating a daily newspaper that republishes tweets based on the publisher’s preference. When you establish a newspaper on Paper.li, you choose a set of keywords and triggers that Paper.li uses to find information to publish in your daily newspaper. Then, when each issue is published, it tweets your newspaper with @mentions of all the news spotters who have contributed to your edition. It’s an awesome social curation tool.
Social curation is something new. It essentially means that you “curate,” or compile, content from the Internet inside of a social media platform. Paper.li is the perfect example.
You can benefit from Paper.li without being a publisher. All you have to do is continue tweeting interesting links and Paper.li publishers will pick those up and run them in their newspapers. How does that benefit you? A lot.
As a news spotter, you get an instant profile on Paper.li. No need to even sign up for an account. Your profile lists all the stories that you find and tweet which get picked up by Paper.li publishers. Through that, you can gain new Twitter followers and even more readers to your blog. From that, you hope more business.
With Paper.li and Twitter you have the potential to create all the social buzz you can handle.
Oh, Google Plus, How Do I Love Thee?
Google+ has been getting a lot of attention lately. After breaking a growth record of 25 million visitors in its first month, some Internet marketers are speculating that it could siphon traffic away from Twitter and/or Facebook. But will it?
I suppose anything is possible. Maybe Google Plus’s privacy features will take some of Facebook’s traffic away, but I doubt that it will have a huge impact. Maybe its commenting and interactive features will lure people away from Twitter, but I doubt it will do much of that either. There are reasons to see Google+ as just another social media site to add to your current stream of meeting places.
But then you have to ask the question, How much time do I really have for social media? Can you manage a Facebook profile, several Facebook pages, a Twitter account, LinkedIn, and Goolge+? That’s a lot of media.
The best question for any social media site is “Where is my audience hanging out?” Answer that and you’ll be able to see where you should hang out too.
Google+ has a lot of value. I think its uses will grow and transform. And I think it will attract a lot of users. But I don’t think it will replace what we’ve already been using. But that’s just me.
Would Google+ Improve Realtime Search?
About a month ago, Google and Twitter decided to part ways, though no one is clear as to precisely why. The result has been the end of realtime search at Google.
It seems that Google has plans to resurrect realtime search with Google+ as a prominent feature. I have two things to say about that.
- First, adding Google+ to a product that was useful and helpful is a good idea. After all, the product was owned by Google. So I’m all for adding Google+ to realtime search. However, in its current form, Google+ won’t be able to carry the weight of realtime search. Include it, but don’t rely on it too much.
- Secondly, realtime search was – and is – valuable without Twitter. I understand that Twitter was a huge contributor, but Google couldn’t figure out how to make realtime search work without it? I think any service that relies upon one dominant player for success is doomed to failure from the beginning.
The bottom line is this: Realtime search is important. But it shouldn’t be reliant upon one service for it to be successful. Search engines that employ realtime search should think about diversity. And that goes even – maybe especially – for Google.
3 Reasons To Start Using Twitter
If you’re looking for good reasons to use Twitter (and I mean reasons you haven’t thought of yet), here are three good reasons to hop aboard Twitter right now.
- By following the A-list bloggers and your favorite Twitterers, you can often find great blog ideas just by reading what others are saying. You can check out the latest trends and get blog ideas as well. Twitter is an endless source of ideas for your blog. Just don’t plagiarize.
- No matter where you are located, you can always find interesting people to follow (and be followed by). Use your Twitter stream as a networking tool and discover who is in the know. Build relationships that lead to new business.
- The search engines now return real-time search results. These are results that are returned within seconds and include Facebook status updates, Twitter messages, LinkedIn updates, and other social media interactions. Your published tweets have a real good chance of appearing in real-time results if you optimize them for search engine traffic.
Social media is an ever-changing landscape. Twitter is a fast growing social media publishing tool and it’s become more and more relevant by the day. Start using Twitter today.
Twitter Acquires Backtype
You can count on one thing for sure: Social media is going to keep getting better.
Here’s a fun fact: Twitter has recently acquired Backtype.
So what does that mean?
Given that Backtype owns Backtweets, the Twitter analytics service, it can only mean one thing. Twitter is headed for a major innovation that will involve the use of analytics for its users.
If you are a current user of Backtweets, then you’ll be allowed to continue using the service for free. New signups, however, have been put on hold. So here’s the question: How long will new signups be on hold and when will the new Twitter-run Backtweets go full time? Also, will it be a paid service or free?
My bet is that Backtweets will offer a free version, but there will be a paid version for businesses, and if you are business Twitter user it would likely be in your favor to pay for the analytics so that you can measure the effectiveness of your tweeting.
Another thing that is likely to happen is the integration of short URLs with analytics. You’ll have to be able to track and measure the click-throughs on your links whether they are short URL links or long URL links, and if short URL, you’ll need to be able to track and measure your effectiveness whether you use Tinyurl, Bit.ly, or another service. Backtweets might also be able to offer analytics for Facebook and LinkedIn as well.
What do you think? Is this a good acquisition for Twitter? Will it improve your social media marketing efforts?
LinkedIn Is No. 1 For ROI
A new report based on a survey of social network users says that LinkedIn is the most important social network for 59% of the people who use them. That’s LinkedIn, not Facebook or Twitter. That might seem unusual considering that Facebook and Twitter get most of the hype.
But, frankly, I think it makes a lot of sense.
Facebook is still a place for personal networking for a lot of people. It’s where they go to connect with friends and family. Yes, they also can set up a page for their business and network with people to attract new business. But being that Facebook is a personal space for a lot of people, and it is the most trafficked social network in cyberspace, the threshold for a high ROI is rather low. In other words, there are challenges in turning a Facebook networking plan into a profit. But it’s not impossible.
Twitter has become much more of a micropublishing platform. And it hasn’t quite caught on with the mainstream just yet.
LinkedIn, on the other hand, is a business social networking tool. People who use it use it for business. Period. So it makes sense that it would deliver the highest ROI. What do you think?
The New Linkbuilding Isn’t So New
Debra Mastaler lists several “new” linkbuilding methods, but it seems that these methods aren’t so new after all. In fact, if we run through the list, we’ll see some pretty common strains:
- Document sharing (used to be directory submissions)
- Retweet buttons
- FutureTweets (or scheduled tweets)
- Use tools to determine when your Twitter audience is most active and schedule your tweets and retweets for that time.
- Use Twitter Search to find hot topics (or Google Trends) and write about those topics on your blog, then retweet them during peak Twitter times for your audience.
- Grow your Twitter base.
- Use linkbait.
- Run your pages through Copyscape and request content thieves to link to you (and I’d add, if they don’t do so, ask them to remove your content).
Essentially, what Debra is suggesting that link builders do today is the same as what they’ve always done except that the tactics are updated for a social media world – particularly Twitter (isn’t that the same as saying that social media IS SEO?).
Here’s the bottom line: Keep building links, but you don’t have to abandon the old ways of doing it. Just update your methods to take into consideration current popular and trending social patterns. Let the search algorithms take care of the rest.
Improve Your Signal-To-Noise Ratio
In social media terms, your signal-to-noise ratio is the amount of valuable content that you provide versus how much idle chatter you engage in. Is your noise level too high? If so, then you can increase your social reputation by lowering the noise and improving your signal-to-noise ratio.
The question for anyone interested in improving their signal-to-noise ratio is, How? How do you go about this?
It might seem like a no-brainer, but there are two ways to improve your signal-to-noise ratio. You can increase the amount of social media content you produce focusing on value; or you can focus your efforts instead on reducing the noise. But to do either, you must first be able to measure your signal to noise. How do you do that?
Panorama has a list of 100 social media monitoring tools, but most of them have to do with measuring what other people are saying about you. What you need is some measure of what you are saying through social media and how much of it is valuable. This will tell you whether your signal-to-noise ratio is high or low.
Klout is one social media monitoring service that measures your influence across Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, the three largest social networks. But it does have its limitations. The first limitation is that your influence is measured on the basis of your interaction with your friends on those networks, but if your friends aren’t using Klout, then it won’t be accurate. You can invite your friends to join the service, which is free, and I recommend that you do.
But to truly measure your signal-to-noise ratio, look at how much influence you have on the social networks and compare it to the number of your followers who interact with you. Do you have 1,000 Twitter followers with only 15 of them who retweet your messages or respond to them? If so, it could be because the bulk of your followers don’t see value in your messages. What can you do to change that?
However you measure your signal-to-noise ratio, the important thing is that you increase your signal and decrease the noise. Are you doing that? How?
The Twitter Shoutbox Vs. The Ear Piece
How do you use Twitter? Or, do you use it?
If you’re like most people, you’ve flocked to Twitter to see what the big fuss is about and you’re not quite sure how to use it. What is this thing called Twitter? There’s so much going on yet you haven’t quite figured out what to make of it, or how to use it.
Rest assured, there are as many ways to use Twitter as there are people using it. It’s a very flexible and versatile social media tool. That’s one of its strengths.
I know people, for instance, who simply use Twitter to listen in on what is being said in cyberspace. They use it for competitive intelligence. They also use it to hear what their customers are saying. They follow who they want to follow, then listen.
There are other people who just can’t seem to say enough. Any time something happens around the world, they have to tweet about it. They tweet their blog posts, they tweet the natural disasters, they tweet their grandma’s pea soup, they tweet other people’s blog posts, they tweet industry insider news, and the list goes on. Which way is the best way to use Twitter?
In truth, there is no best way to use Twitter. Most business owners and managers can benefit from using Twitter in a variety of ways, and that includes both listening and shouting. The key to effective Twittering is to figure out your strategy before you start, and to be consistent over time. But don’t be afraid to change your strategy midstream either.
Do You Get Twitter?
If you type “I don’t get” into the Google search field, the second topmost recommendation the search engine will give you is “I don’t get Twitter.” There must be a lot of people who don’t get Twitter in order for that search query to be the second most recommended by the search engine. Go ahead and click on the result and you’ll see 1.7 million search results for that query. Wow!
That could mean that something is broken with the social media website. If there are that many people not getting it, then perhaps something needs to change.
Seriously, though, I don’t really get why people don’t get it. It’s a social networking website where people follow people. Other people follow other people. And everyone following anyone can see all the “tweets”, or messages, that all the people they follow post. The problem is, your Twitter feed is updated in real time so if you follow 100 people and 50 of them post a message within 30 seconds of each other, then you’ll see all 50 messages run by like a ticker tape. What’s to get?
You can pretty much consider Twitter an opt-in/opt-out message forum, or newsreel. I think what makes it difficult for most people to get about Twitter is that none of the messages you read in your feed are related. They just seem random. I kind of see it as Facebook without the threaded comments or the game applications.
So here’s the question: What does Twitter need to do to make people “get it?” Or is Twitter just fine the way it is?
Why You Should Use Tweetmeme
I’ve done some looking into some of the websites that keep track of Twitter trends, including the Twitter search feature itself. The one I think has the best possible use for businesses looking for trends in their niche is Tweetmeme.
Most of the Twitter trends websites are tracking all trends on Twitter, and coincidentally you’ll find mostly personal tweets. Those aren’t going to help you as a business owner. Even geographically-based trend search websites show mostly personal tweets. What you need is a trend search website that ranks tweets according to channels or categories. That’s Tweetmeme.
Tweetmeme’s categories include Comedy, Entertainment, Gaming, Lifestyle, Science, Sports, Technology, and World & Business. While these categories will also turn up personal tweets that won’t do you any good, they are also each broken down into subcategories, or subchannels. This makes it even easier to follow the trends in your particular niche.
For instance, the Sports category is broken down by sport: Basketball, Baseball, Golf, Hockey, etc. The Technology channel includes Apple, Design, Gadgets, Hardware, etc. If you are a software manufacturer and you want to see the trending topics on Twitter related to software, just click on the Technology tab on the navigation menu and scroll to Software. You’ll see the trending topics in that category.
This is a useful organizing system because many personal tweets can be filtered out right off the bat.
Tweetmeme also allows you to put a retweet button on your website so you can join the metrical parade. Tweetmeme is also popular enough that many website owners and Twitterers are already using it as a bookmarking and tweeting service. You could benefit from its use as well.
How To Improve Your SEO With Twitter
Many online marketers have asked whether Twitter passes SEO benefits to its users. There is no real indication that it does, but there is no indication that it doesn’t either. The best evidence for the case that it does is the search engines’ own practice of including tweets in search results. Both Google and Bing do this and Google even has a realtime search channel.
But, can you use Twitter to improve your website’s SEO?
I don’t think you should specifically focus on Twitter as an SEO tool, but I do think you should be aware of the possible SEO benefits from having a Twitter account and use that information to keep your tweets somewhat SEO-focused.
Here are the tips I’d offer:
- SEO your tweet text – Just as search engines use anchor text to determine link value, they may use the text within your tweet to determine what a link is about. If so, slip your keyword into the text of your 140-character tweet without making it sound spammy.
- Don’t use short URLs – Short URLs are URLs that redirect to your website. If Twitter passes link juice, those short URL addresses will get the juice, not your website.
- Improve your Twitter authority – Just like the search engines use page authority in organic search, they could use the authority of the linker on Twitter to determine the value of a link. Keep your content of the highest quality possible and maintain your Twitter authority.
- Diversity your links - Don’t just link to the same website over and over again. The search engines will definitely see that as a spam account. If you link to other sources often, then links to your own site will have more SEO weight.
These are not guarantees of improved SEO, but if you follow these practices, you are more likely to see SEO benefits from your tweets. Of course, there may be other reasons to not follow this advice. For instance, short URLs allow you to write longer tweets. So be sure you weigh the pros and cons of each suggestion.
Sites Come And Go, But ….
The Internet is in a constant state of change. Sites come and go either through mergers or acquisitions, or sometimes just folding. Recently, Ubermedia purchased social bookmarking website Mixx, which is now not live.
Now the news is that Ubermedia could be purchasing Tweetdeck with intentions to compete directly against Twitter in the microblogging space. Would that really change things a great deal?
It would certainly change things for Ubermedia and Twitter, and of course Tweetdeck users. The question is, would Tweetdeck users remain loyal to Twitter or would they switch to Ubermedia’s competitive site? Would they have a choice to continue using Twitter and Tweetdeck, or would Ubermedia’s competing site simply be another option? Those are tough questions.
I’m of the opinion that competition is always a positive, but when it threatens to divide loyalties, someone is going to lose. The question in this case is, who? As long as it isn’t social media users, I think the aggregate value is a positive for the marketplace.
What is your take? Are you a Tweetdeck user? How would you respond if Tweetdeck suddenly became an app that posted to a Twitter competitor and wasn’t allowed to interact with Twitter? Or what if the competitor was an option tacked on – would you continue to use Tweetdeck?
Ghost Tweeting: Is It For You?
One subject that has been a matter of great controversy from the very beginning is whether or not ghost tweeting is ethical. Some people say it is. Others say there’s nothing wrong with using a ghost tweeter as it can save the business owner time while still taking advantage of one of the most powerful communication tools available today.
A huge controversy arose last year when Guy Kawasaki made it publicly known that he uses a ghost tweeter. Many social media marketers claimed that he was wrong for doing so.
Ghost tweeting can be an effective Twitter strategy if handled properly. Guy Kawasaki had his tweeters put their initials on their tweets following the fallback from his announcement that he uses them. You could employ a similar strategy or just risk your audience not appreciating that you don’t write your own tweets.
Before you decide to use a ghost tweeter, consider the following:
- Will your audience get upset if they find out you are not writing your own tweets?
- What is your Twitter strategy? Does it require that you write your own tweets?
- Do you feel comfortable writing your own tweets?
- Do you have the time to write your own tweets?
- How is your competition using Twitter?
- Could your business handle the controversy if your audience learned that you were using a ghost tweeter and you hadn’t informed them?
You might avert any controversy over using a ghost tweeter if you make it publicly known from the start that you are using one. Otherwise, think about your Twitter strategy overall and don’t implement it until you are sure that your strategy is sound.
Meet Twitter The Viral Marketing Tool
Twitter is one of the most interesting and powerful tools on the Internet. It’s real simple really. You type in 140 character messages and your followers respond. Or not. But, like anything, it can be used for good or bad.
One user decided to play a hoax and tweeted “RIP Jackie Chan.” The viral response was spectacular.
Tzvi Balbin, using Malcolm Gladwell’s tipping point philosophy, explains how this happened. I think he’s stretching it by saying that all the Twitterers who retweeted the message are salesmen, but I agree with his analysis overall. He even manages to pull in Rudy Giuliani to make his point.
When it comes to viral marketing, Twitter is an impressive tool. One simple message sent to the right person at the right time can lead to a domino effect. Get your message in front of the connectors within your niche and if they like it you can bet a large percentage of their audience will like it too. Viral marketing almost always involves reaching the most influential people to help you spread your message.
@forumn00b piggybacked on the authority of @tweetmeme, a Twitter account with more than 60,000 followers. Of course, popularity itself is not an indicator of viral success. Your message has to be the right message for the audience. If you do it right, viral marketing can set off a social media frenzy. That’s what you’re looking for.
Do Personal Tweets Matter?
You’ve got you a business Twitter account and now you’re ready to go. You’ve started posting, but you’re not getting a crazy amount of interaction. The question to ask is, are you getting personal enough?
Social media marketing is an interesting game. Online, users prefer a little more personal touch. They don’t want to be bombarded with endless dry and impersonal marketing messages. They want to talk to a real human being, even if they’re talking about business. That doesn’t mean you have to avoid talking about business at all.
A new study indicates that this could be true (though I do see some problems with the study as presented).
The study seems to indicate that young people prefer the personal tweets, but older people prefer no tweets at all. It also indicates that younger people consider personal to be more credible. However, it’s interesting to note that they preferred all personal to part personal and part business. That just doesn’t seem right.
I think the takeaway from this study is that you should incorporate personal messages into your business tweets. Don’t make it all dry. But don’t get so carried away with personal information about yourself that you tell too much. If you ate the worm, don’t tell us you danced on the table and took off your clothes.
Can You Grow Your Twitter Following?
If you’re a small business owner and have decided to use Twitter to expand your business and market your brand, how do you go about growing your Twitter following? Is there a trick?
There’s really no trick. There’s no magic pill or special recipe. The most important thing to remember is quality, not quantity.
That said, you do want followers who are interested in your product or service, but you don’t necessarily want a bunch of followers for the sake of having a bunch of followers. So where’s the balance?
First, keep in mind that you have a target market profile. You do, don’t you? Another way of saying that is the ideal customer. If you provide a local service to Boston, Masschusetts, it won’t do you any good to have a couple of thousand followers from Los Angeles. But a couple of hundred followers in Boston would be pure gold.
Start by looking up by keyword the type of people you want following you on Twellow. When you follow people, don’t follow then unfollow them when they follow you back. That’s considered uncouth and it could get your Twitter account suspended.
You want to be consistent in your tweeting. Try to tweet at the same time every day. If possible, set aside 10-15 minutes at a time two or three times a day for tweeting.
Another thing you want to do is reply to tweets and retweet the tweets of the people you follow. This builds good will. And if you enter into conversations about your niche with your followers, then you will attract other people interested in your niche.
Growing a Twitter list takes time. It doesn’t happen in one day so be patient and keep tweeting.
The Bad SEO Advice NAR Gives
If you are a real estate agent or broker, you might feel more comfortable getting your SEO advice from another real estate agent or broker, or from the National Association of Realtors. That might not be such a good idea, however.
Think about this: Would you caution your real estate clients against getting real estate advice from anyone other than a real estate agent? The reason is obvious, isn’t it?
The NAR recently posted SEO advice for real estate agents in an article on its website. The problem isn’t so much in the general advice NAR gives, but in the specific advice.
For example, its six recommended SEO practices include:
- Write better page titles
- Broadcast your links
- Use keywords generously
- Reword outgoing links
- Develop a site map
- Tweet about it
That’s a mediocre list, at best. What’s not on that list and should be are: 1) list your site on local directories; 2) claim it on Google Local, Bing Local, and Yahoo! Local; 3) and start a blog. But the nitty-gritty details of these bullet points isn’t much to be desired either.
For example, hear what NAR has to say about keywords:
Your main keywords should appear at least 10 to 13 times per 700 words on a page, says Mark Menzella, who runs RE/Advantage, a real estate Web design company in Fairfield, N.J.
In industry speak, this concept is called “keyword density.” The problem is, keyword density is a huge myth. It doesn’t work. There is no optimal number of times a keyword should appear on any web page. That’s because the search engines use almost 200 criteria for determining where pages rank for a specific keyword.
Let’s look at what NAR says about tweeting:
“Now that tweets are indexed in Google, Twitter has become an important part of SEO strategy,” says Misty Lackie of Go Smart Solutions, a technology consulting firm in Grover Beach, Calif. So get a Twitter account if you don’t already have one, and create useful tweets that happen to include your business keywords and links to your site.
Honestly, I’ve never seen much SEO benefit from tweeting. Keywords in your tweets don’t help you much in terms of your website’s SEO. Even anchor text in your links from Twitter are low grade since those links are no-follow links. That’s not to say that Twitter is a bad marketing tool. Rather, it’s a highly effective marketing tool for getting you some local exposure, but for SEO, it’s not a must-have tool.
Your best bet for good SEO advice is not to rely on industry professionals within real estate. You should get your real estate advice from real estate agents and brokers, but get your SEO advice from professional SEO consultants.
Would A Twitter Sale Affect Online Marketing?
Rumors come and rumors go. Occasionally, they stick around and actually become fact. The latest story doing the rounds involves the possible purchase of Twitter by either Facebook or Google. We know that Facebook had a dab at buying Twitter earlier on, but would they try again? And what of Google? We’ll leave others to surmise about these possibilities. What interests me is what effect a sale would have for online marketing activities.
If Facebook were to take on Twitter, I am not sure we would see too many changes in the way Twitter operates. We may see a little more in the way of sponsored tweets, or perhaps even on-page advertising, similar to what we currently see on Facebook. Of more interest perhaps is the possibility of Google making a purchase.
There are any number of possible outcomes should Google win the day. SEO experts would immediately start to look for signs that tweets were having a bigger role in search rankings; they would also look to see if there were changes in the ‘follow – nofollow’ attributes on links. It would certainly be interesting days in that area of the online world. Can you imagine either Facebook ads, or Adwords ad units appearing on Twitter? It would certainly change the face of Twitter.
Who ever gains control of Twitter, monetization is going to be one of the key areas that will be investigated. Neither Google nor Facebook want to take on a loss-making machine, so getting Twitter into profit will be one of the first areas they will look at. Whether or not this will open the door for more sponsored tweets will be interesting. Of more interest will be whether or not more traditional onsite advertising appears.
What are your thoughts? Would a buy out of Twitter by either Facebook or Google affect Twitter’s appeal for online marketing?
Should Social Media Votes Influence Your Marketing Strategy
Social media marketing covers a wide range of activities. One of those activities is the marketing of your content from your blog or website. Many blogs now use plugins that automatically Tweet your latest post to Twitter. You can also list your posts on Facebook for all of your friends to see. Consider the following scenario.
Over a period of time you notice that content related to a particular subject, let’s call it subject A, gains a lot of attention, discussion and Retweets. In comparison, everything else gains little or no attention at all. On Facebook, you notice the opposite – subject B gets a lot of attention and tends to draw the majority of ‘likes’. Subject A goes without notice.
Can that information help your marketing strategies? I believe it can in two completely different ways. In the first instance, it’s a waste of time and effort making offers for subject B through Twitter. Likewise, it is a waste of time making offers for subject A through Facebook. If you concentrate your promotional efforts where you are gaining the most reactions, you are more likely to attract traffic and sales.
The second area that this data can help you in is future marketing. If you know that subject A is not gaining any notice on Facebook, you have to ask yourself why. Are the demographics wrong? Is your marketing approach wrong? Or is the subject poorly presented? By analyzing these results, you may be able to present your material in a manner that is more acceptable, and that may draw a larger response.
You can gain a real insight into want people are interested in simply by looking at how many times your content gains a reaction in any social media site. The next time you look at the number of Retweets or Likes, ask yourself why – the results may surprise you.
Why A Customized Internet Marketing Strategy Is A Must
Gone are the days where you could just copy what had been working for other online businesses. The Internet has become quite complex when it comes to maintaining a successful business so each business generally requires a unique approach. This has become particularly important when it comes to Internet marketing.
Five years ago, Internet marketing consisted of search, advertising, and small social media sites such as forums. Today, social media has exploded with Facebook becoming more complex everyday. Some businesses do well with sites such as Twitter while others are finding that forming partnerships with the old-fashioned forums and niche blogs have delivered better results.
The question facing new businesses is where to start, which social media site is going to deliver the best results, and how search will fit into their marketing plans, both now and into the future. If you’re serious about your business, and you are looking for success, then the only approach that is going to work is to have a customized Internet marketing strategy developed for you. Better yet, if you want to stay on top of your niche, is to have that customized Internet marketing strategy developed and managed for you.
Professional Internet marketing strategist are in a position to measure every aspect of your online presence, and then tweak various components in order to gain the most leverage from the traffic coming into your site. A professional marketing strategists can take the traffic you are now generating and increase sales or conversions by several degrees.
If you think this approach is going to be too expensive for your business, then perhaps it’s time to think again. Current trends are showing that customized and managed Internet marketing strategies are delivering a positive return on investment that far exceeds what doing it yourself would achieve. The return on investment is such that businesses can grow at a steady rate with increased turnover and profits generated. Can you really afford to continue without a customized Internet marketing strategy?
Cross Promoting Your Social Media Presence
I am often intrigued at the lack of foresight shown by some online entrepreneurs. If you visit their website or blog, you will find links to their social media presence standing out proudly (as they should). Visit each of those pages or profiles, and there’s hardly a mention of any of the other social presences. Social media optimization is just that – optimizing your social media presence – and that includes cross promoting.
So, why should you cross promote? Do you want your followers on Twitter also following you on Facebook, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, or any other social site where you have a presence? It may seem like you’re marketing to the same person twice, however, it is the social nature of these sites that is important to your social media marketing efforts.
People who follow you on Twitter are not necessarily going to have the same follows on Facebook, or any other social site. It is their friends and followers that you are also marketing too in the hope they will start to follow you, and perhaps become customers as well. By cross promoting, your friends and followers will most likely follow you on those other sites as well – and all with no effort from you.
Cross promoting your social media presence is a quick way to build your presence on a wide range of sites. The flow-on effect can be huge as friends of friends join you on one site then follow through to join you on a second or third site. The growth in your follower list can be quite viral – and all because you took those extra moments to cross promote your social media presence.
In Today’s Market, You Have Five Seconds To Fame
The current theory is that you have five seconds to convince a web surfer to click through to your content. That’s the average time it takes a web surfer to read your title and decide whether or not it’s worth going deeper. We often spend a lot of time talking about page titles on our websites or blogs, but that is only the tip of the iceberg.
Consider where you interact. Email, Facebook, and Twitter are social examples while pay-per-click marketing and search engine descriptions (either page or your local search listing) are important search marketing channels. Almost all of these channels have a size limitation when it comes to titles, descriptions, or content (Twitter, for example, limits your tweet to 140 characters), yet your marketing campaign (search or social) will depend largely on how well you can write them.
That will be the essential factor to successful marketing in 2011 – catching someone’s attention in as few words as possible. People receive a lot of emails in their inbox each day – your subject line has to convince them to open that email. The same is true of Twitter. Users are receiving hundreds of tweets each day, some hundreds each hour – can you catch their attention with 140 characters?
Being able to write short titles or descriptions that are catchy is not easy. At least, not if you have to do it every day. One approach that is now worth considering is to push less often, but when you do to make it really count with a great title backed up by better quality content. Offline marketing has often demanded the creation of something catchy in as few words as possible. Offline, the limitation was size for print media and time for audio/visual. Online, when it comes to social media optimization – it’s the first five seconds that can make or break you – be sure to use it to advantage.