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Posts Tagged ‘Twitter’
Friday, May 17th, 2013
Twitter and Google got their very public divorce in 2011 after a brief flirtation period with realtime search. Since then, Google has deployed Google+ to mostly positive results. Twitter has been dating and looking for a replacement. Now, they’re in deep with Yahoo!
This is an interesting partnership for several reasons.
- First and foremost, Yahoo! is not a search giant. They enjoy only 5% of the search market. Still, that’s a big market when you think about it. Yahoo! is still one of the most trafficked websites on the Web.
- This deal looks to be better for Yahoo! than Twitter on the surface of things. I mean, what’s to be gained from this relationship for Twitter other than having additional capital to use for other things? Yahoo! is getting a big asset to beef up its SERPs.
- The announcement indicates that Yahoo! is planning to beef up its content with tweets in the following areas: “sports, entertainment, music, and more.” It’s unclear how it will benefit regular search marketers.
Nevertheless, I expect that there will be ways for the run-of-the-mill search engine marketer to capitalize on this relationship – particularly if you are in one of the above-mentioned niches.
What do you think? Is this a good deal for Yahoo!? How about Twitter?
Tags: search engine marketing, Twitter, yahoo
Posted in Small Business Internet Marketing | No Comments »
Monday, May 6th, 2013
So you’ve set up a Twitter account and you’ve started following some people in your business niche. You’ve followed a few hashtags that you think provide good and useful information. You are actively tweeting and retweeting. You are involved, engaged, and having fun. What next?
One other way you can use Twitter is to set up Twitter lists of your favorite people in a specific niche, or who have a specific skill set.
For instance, let’s say you are interested in decoupage. You’ve followed everyone on Twitter who has anything to do with the art of decoupage. But you’re also following several thousand other people. How can you be sure the tweets of your decoupage connections don’t get lost in the shuffle? Create a Twitter list.
By creating a list of decoupage artists on Twitter, you make it easy to follow those people you find most interesting.
Another benefit to lists is that people who follow you can judge your reputation based on how valuable your lists are. If you create good lists, then your reputation soars. That will likely lead to more people following you. You’ll end up with a bigger list of people you want to connect to.
Twitter lists are a good way to organize your friends so that you don’t lose anyone. Google+ has circles. Facebook has friends lists. Twitter has Twitter lists.
Tags: Twitter, Twitter lists
Posted in Social Media | No Comments »
Tuesday, April 30th, 2013
Twitter has finally opened up its self-service advertising platform to everyone.
Remember when this program was open only to large corporations? Well, that has ended. Now anyone – even you, small businesses and individuals – can advertise through Twitter’s self-service advertising platform. You have two very different advertising channels through Twitter. Here’s a brief description of them.
- Promoted Tweets – With promoted tweets, you establish the demographic criteria that are important for you and your tweet will be seen in the streams of the people who meet those criteria. This is a golden opportunity for small business owners and freelancers.
- Promoted Accounts – The other way to reach targeted followers on Twitter is to promote your account through the “Who To Follow” list on Twitter’s sidebar. This option allows you to attract new followers based on criteria you establish for promoting your Twitter account. So, for instance, if you are looking for female small business owners in Idaho, then you can promote your account to that demographic.
Online advertising has changed a lot over the years. Promoted tweets and promoted accounts are a new way for businesses to attract the demographics that are important to you. This advertising will initially be less expensive than Google AdWords, but I think the price of promoted tweets and promoted accounts will likely go up after the initial wave of new users.
Tags: online advertising, promoted tweets, Twitter, Twitter advertising
Posted in PPC for Small Business | No Comments »
Thursday, March 21st, 2013
Today is Twitter’s birthday. The social media service turns seven. ABC News has seven suggestions on how you can celebrate this momentous occasion. I won’t recount them. You can read the article. But I do have seven suggestions of my own.
If you’re in the mood for celebrating Twitter’s birthday today, here are seven ways you can do that and still have fun:
- Look for seven tweets you can retweet. Retweeting is one of the really cool features of Twitter. If you see a tweet in your stream that you think your followers can benefit from, retweet it.
- Find seven links that are not self-promotional and tweet those throughout the day.
- Follow seven new people.
- Update your header or add a background to your Twitter account.
- Attend a Tweetup.
- Invite seven friends or business associates to join Twitter.
- Find a page on your own website to promote using Twitter. Self-promotion isn’t a bad thing if done in moderation. If all you do is promote yourself on Twitter, then you’ll likely lose followers and your engagement will be low. Pepper your Twitter stream with self-promotional content but keep it leaning heavily on the value side.
Twitter can be a lot of fun, and there are some effective ways to make use of Twitter for your business. Find them, and celebrate Twitter’s seventh birthday.
Tags: Social Media, Twitter
Posted in Social Media | No Comments »
Thursday, February 28th, 2013
Are you looking to take your online relationships a little deeper? That’s quite possible. In fact, these 3 very powerful online-offline networking combinations make it easy to begin relationships through social networking online and make them stronger by taking them deeper offline.
- Tweetups – Tweetups are Meetups for Twitter users. If you are active on Twitter and have a loyal local following, why not invite them to a Tweetup? You can be the host and the star of your own self-organized event while forging strong local relationships with people you met on Twitter, one of the world’s largest social networks.
- Facebook-Foursquare – Everyone’s on Facebook, right? Hopefully, you’ve organized your Facebook friends into lists and one of those lists is your local friends. Why not use Foursquare to connect with your local friends too? Then, when you are sitting down for a cup of coffee or entering your favorite bookstore, you can let your friends know where you are. Invite them to join you.
- Google+ Hangouts – Google+ Hangouts are video meetups online. They’re like Skype on Google. You have to have a Google+ account. Make this a powerful networking tool by inviting people to a seminar you hold at a local venue and broadcast it live on Google+ through the Hangouts feature. You can even incorporate this into your Tweetup event.
Take your social networking to the next level with these 3 very powerful online-offline combinations.
Tags: facebook, Foursquare, google, networking, online networking, social networking, Twitter
Posted in Social Media | No Comments »
Friday, January 18th, 2013
I’ve recommended using social media for customer service before, but that doesn’t mean it’s a cure-all. Cynthia Boris brings up some good points.
Let’s tackle some of these:
- It’s time consuming – No doubt. Having someone monitor your Facebook page or Twitter account continuously can be time consuming. But what if you posted customer service hours for your social media accounts? For instance, you publish on your website and your social media bios that you will take customer service queries only between the hours of 9 a.m. and noon Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. It’s just a thought.
- The time lag – If it takes several hours or a day or two for a company to get back to you when you post a customer service complaint on social media, then it’s likely because they aren’t monitoring the account that closely. Or it could be that the problem is bigger than can be handled through social media. In the case of a widespread problem, it would be good customer service to simply tweet, “Yes, we know there’s a problem; we’re working on it.” Then, invite your customers to handle their individual complaints through private channels.
- “We’ll look into it” – So do it. If that’s the only way to respond to a problem, then say that – and then look into it. But don’t keep the customer waiting too long. Customers generally just want you to communicate with them.
- Communication between marketing and customer support - If you only use social media for marketing and not customer support, then you should state that on your website somewhere. Maybe even in your social media bios. Set up customer expectations early. Let them know every step of the way how they can reach you if they need support. If it isn’t social media, make sure they know that.
Using social media for customer service won’t work for every company, but you owe it to your customers to see if it will work for you. If it won’t, communicate that to them in as many ways as possible.
Tags: customer service, facebook, Social Media, Twitter
Posted in Social Media | No Comments »
Friday, December 21st, 2012
Twitter recently rolled out a new service that allows users the ability to download their Twitter archive.
Your first reaction, as Cynthia Boris’s was, may be to ask, Why? There are a few reasons why you may want access to your Twitter archive. For starters, if you hire ghosttweeters or people who post to your Twitter account, then you can go back and look at what has been posted in the past. You can use that for training purposes as well as accountability purposes.
You might consider it prudent, after your initial download, to download your Twitter archive monthly so that you can have ongoing training and accountability sessions with your staff and freelancers.
But what if you are sued? Your Twitter archive could prove to be useful in the discovery phase of your lawsuit and could provide your legal team with valuable information they can use in your defense. Of course, they can also use the information to pick out any strengths on the plaintiff’s case and come up with a viable defense against those.
One of the more valuable uses of your Twitter archive might be the diagnosis of larger business problems such as customer service issues. If you notice a large amount of your time being consumed with customer service issues on Twitter, then you could address those problems.
If your sales or traffic numbers are higher or lower on Twitter than on other social networks, then you could also use that to learn how to better effectively use other networks, or improve your Twittering.
I wouldn’t spend a lot of time looking at past tweets, but a Twitter archive could prove useful in a few small ways.
Tags: archive, social networking, Twitter, Twitter archive
Posted in Small Business Internet Marketing | 2 Comments »
Friday, December 14th, 2012
Twitter has recently added another cool feature to its sponsored tweets advertising service – the use of negative keywords.
If you’re wondering what a negative keyword is, it’s time to become intimately acquainted. These are words you don’t want to target but are usually associated with the word you do want to target. For instance, “Kevin” would be a negative keyword to “bacon,” unless you actually are talking about the actor. Doing research on tigers but not interested in the football team in Detroit? Make “Detroit” a negative keyword.
Negative keywords are powerful targeting tools because you can limit the exposure of your paid advertising, saving yourself money and better targeting your ads to the people most likely to respond to them.
Google has been using negative words for a long time in its PPC model, Google AdWords. Now, Twitter can compete more aggressively with its sponsored tweets equivalent. And, guess what? Twitter’s sponsored tweets are a lot less expensive than Google AdWords ads are simply because there is less demand. So if you don’t want to pay the higher click prices at Google but you still want effective ad targeting, join Twitter’s sponsored tweets program and be sure to make liberal use of negative keywords.
Tags: negative keywords, PPC, sponsored tweets, Twitter
Posted in PPC for Small Business | 5 Comments »
Monday, October 15th, 2012
You’ve likely heard of Facebook brand pages, but did you know there are 4 top social media websites that currently allow brands to build their very own brand page for marketing and lead generation purposes? It’s true. Here are 4 popular social media websites where you can currently build brand pages.
- Facebook - Facebook led the way with brand pages. They were the first social network to open up this possibility to businesses and I believe it should be the first brand page you build. There is a ton of potential for traffic generation and lead generation with Facebook brand pages.
- Google+ – Google+ made a big splash online last year when it launched and subsequently introduced Google brand pages. There is a good chance that your brand pages on Google+ will enhance your search engine optimization efforts as long as you don’t engage in spam. Use your Google+ brand page wisely and it will return positive results.
- Twitter – Not long after Google+, Twitter introduced brand pages. First, Twitter brand pages were open only to specific brands for testing purposes. Twitter calls its brand page product “Enhanced Profile Pages.” Regardless of what you call it, though, it’s a great opportunity for businesses to make better use of Twitter for enhanced traffic and lead generation.
- Foursquare – Foursquare is not as popular as the other three social media sites, but it’s growing in popularity every day. This site has recently become even more important by enhancing its local search opportunities for marketers. I can see a day when Foursquare could become the most important local search engine online. But for now, take advantage of its opportunities for building brand pages.
Social media has a lot of opportunities for businesses. These are just four. Use your brand pages at these social sites wisely and they’ll pay dividends for years to come.
Tags: brand pages, facebook, Foursquare, google, Social Media, Twitter
Posted in Branding | 5 Comments »
Tuesday, September 4th, 2012
According to one survey, Facebook is the riskiest social media site for businesses online. It’s not really surprising. One negative message about your brand going viral can really put a damper in your business’s trust among consumers. But the rest of the results of the survey are quite interesting.
Here are a few gems I found while perusing the results.
- 43% of businesses found video sharing sites to be slightly risky.
- Company and third-party blogs are considered less risky than Twitter or Facebook, which indicates that businesses are warming up to blogging.
- LinkedIn is considered slightly risky by 43% of businesses and not risky by 35%, making it more trusted than Facebook, Twitter, video sharing sites, or blogs.
- 33% of survey respondents consider Pinterest to be slightly risky and 48% consider it not risky, which makes it more trustworthy than all of the above; I found this statistic to be VERY surprising considering how new Pinterest is and the controversy surrounding intellectual rights.
- Foursquare could be considered the least risky social media site online as 58% of businesses surveyed said it was not risky; on the other hand, 20% said it was slightly risky, showing that 78% of those surveyed consider Foursquare slightly risky or not risky at all.
- Google+ came in at 49% slightly risky and 33% not risky, a total of 82%, beating out Foursquare in the “slightly risky or less” category.
- Q&A sites, but no specific one, have a rating of 88% slightly risky or less; the number for slightly risky is 43% and for not risky is 45%.
These are interesting numbers. If you want a “no risk” social media strategy, perhaps Foursquare is the place to be, but if you want “slightly risky” or better, then Quora, Yahoo! Answers, Google+, and Foursquare (in that order) are likely to be your cup of tea.
Still, I don’t think it’s any secret that more businesses are using Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, showing that companies are willing to take the risk in order to receive the rewards. I’d like to see which social sites businesses consider most rewarding. Wouldn’t you?
Tags: facebook, Foursquare, google, Social Media, Twitter, YouTube
Posted in Social Media | 6 Comments »
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