Archive for the ‘Twitter’ Category
44 (of the) Best Twitter Articles and Blog Posts of 2009
Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010There’s no doubt that Twitter is a phenomenon. It’s now the third-largest social network (behind Facebook and MySpace), the fastest-growing, and used by 75% of b2b companies. How can you optimize your organization’s use of Twitter? What are the best ways to search on this platform? How can you measure results? What are the best tools for increasing your effectiveness and efficiency on Twitter?
Discover the answers to these questions and others in this collection of some of the best blog posts and articles about Twitter from the past year.
Twitter Tips & Tactics
The Twitter Guide Book by Mashable
????? 5 stars
How-To: Create a Unique Twitter Background (UPDATED) by Interactive Insights Group
Robin Broitman
Twenty-One Top Twitter Tips by Forbes
Daniel Adler
HOW TO: Get the Most Out of Twitter #Hashtags by Mashable
Ben Parr
How to score the coveted retweet by iMedia Connection
Reid Carr
Free Twitter Backgrounds: 26 Sites To Get Them by Web Resources Depot
Twitter, chat and text messaging abbreviations by SearchCRM
Find Local People on Twitter Using NearbyTweets by Flyte Blog
Rich Brooks
The Top Five Essentials for a Successful Company Twitterfeed by KaneCo conversations
Jennifer Kane
Top 10 Twitter Basics Questions Answered by Junta42
Joe Pulizzi
10 Ways To Grow Your Twitter Influence by Knowledge Enthusiast
Matthew Royse
Ten Things you Must Know before Using Twitter by Tech n’ Marketing
Hillel Fuld
9 Twitter Directories You Should Be Listed On by jasonyormark.com
Jason Yormark
????? 5 stars
Twitter Search
Twitter Search Queries You Should Know by Magicomm Blog
Twitter Search Tips For B2B Marketers by Search Engine Land
Galen DeYoung
Five More Search Tools You Should Know: Twitter Edition by Search Engine Land
Matt McGee
Twitter Metrics & Measurement
6 Ways to Measure Your Twitter Voice by iMedia Connection
Daniel Flamberg
Twitter Analytics: Five Practical, Lesser Known Free Tools for B2B Professionals by ScoopDog’s Blog
????? 5 stars
3 Ways to Track Your Rank on Twitter by ProgrammableWeb
Adam DuVander
Twitter Insights & Observations
Following on Twitter: Quality vs Quantity by Hasai
25 of the Best Designed Twitter Homepages by Design Reviver
10 Basic Rules Of Twitter (And How To Avoid Being A Twanker) by Social Media Today
Rohit Bhargava
Twitter’s hidden marketing superpowers by iMedia Connection
Madhuri Shekar
Best Practices for Corporate Twittering by Social Media Today
Tom Humbarger
10 People You Won’t See on Twitter Anymore by Mashable
Jennifer Van Grove
Visualizing Twitter Statistics x100 by Digital Buzz Blog
Aden Hepburn
The Marketing Power of the Retweet: An Interview With Dan Zarrella by Social Media Examiner
Michael Stelzner
5 Reasons to Use the New Twitter List Feature by Duct Tape Marketing
John Jantsch
The 14 Types of Twitter Personalities by Media Caffeine
Here’s Hard Data for Headlines that Spread on Twitter by Copyblogger
Dan Zarrella
6 Twitter Tips You Should Have Figured Out on Your Own by Tech n’ Marketing
Hillel Fuld
Twitter Tools
105 Twitter Applications for PR Professionals by Everything PR
Genesis Davies
101 Twitter Tools – an insane list by marcmeyer’s posterous
Marc Meyer
????? 5 stars
The Ultimate List of Twitter Tools by The Social Media Guide
Matthew Tommasi
????? 5 stars
10 essential Twitter apps for marketers by iMedia Connection
Tricia Despres
TwitBacks (tool for creating custom Twitter backgrounds)
6 Twitter Apps for Marketing Your Business by Quick Online Tips
Sourish Nath
Twitter Critiques & Skepticism
Why Twitter will soon become obsolete by iMedia Connection
Jason Clark
(Interesting that this article was written nine months ago, but this hasn’t happened yet.)
Why Twitter Needs Its Bottom Spanked by Social Media Today
Jason Baer
The Twitter Revolution For Business May Not Be Televised by MediaPost Online Media Daily
Drew Kerr
Twitter Brings Lower Quality Clicks by eLearning Technology
Tony Karrer
And Finally…
Why Twitter Will Endure by The New York Times
David Carr
All You Need to Know About Twitter You Learned from Grandma
Tuesday, March 16th, 2010This post was originally published on the WebMarketCentral blog in July 2009.
A traditional grandmother that is, not a tech-savvy one. If you have or know a mother, grandmother or great grandmother who grew up in the first part of the last century, chances are she’s passed along some folk wisdom about good old-fashioned manners. Sure, it can help to utilize the growing number of Twitter tools available as well, but if your Twitter grade isn’t as high as you’d like it to be, you may want to take some tips from grandma:
“The good Lord gave you two ears, but only one mouth.” In other words, to attract and keep followers, spend more time listening than talking. “Listening,” in Twitter terms, means answering questions, re-Tweeting interesting thoughts and links, and sending @ replies.
“Have something interesting to say.” No one really cares if you just got back from the gym, had a latte or are watching TV with your cat. They do care if you can help them solve a problem, learn something new, or at least have a laugh.
“If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.” Twitter isn’t a place for arguments or feuds—unless you want to embarrass yourself and look like a jerk. There are many individuals that I admire in the online marketing space, like Paul Dunay, David Szetela, Ardath Albee and Ian Lurie. I’m happy to tweet or retweet their stuff occasionally. There are also, unfortunately, more than a few obnoxious boors in this space, but they aren’t worth mentioning.
“It’s better to keep your mouth shut and appear to be an idiot than to open your mouth and prove it.” It should be obvious, but remember that Twitter is a public space, so be careful what you say. Don’t tweet when you’re angry or in a chemically-altered state. And don’t ever do something as stupid as trying to take advantage of tragedy to send spammy sales messages, as Habitat recently did with the Iran election aftermath.
“If don’t ask for exactly what you want, you won’t get it.” Obviously, you’d never walk into a crowded restaurant, announce to no one in particular that you’re hungry for a cheeseburger, and hope that the person who’ll be waiting on your table happens to hear you. Twitter is a busy place. Not all of your followers will see everything you tweet. In fact, most of your followers will miss most of your tweets. So if you want something specific—an answer, a retweet, an opinion on something you’ve written—from someone specific, use an @ reply to ask for it.
“Say ‘please’ and ‘thank you.’” Following from the item immediately above, others are more likely to do the things you ask if you ask politely, and more likely to continue doing them if you also thank them. Publicly. Which makes them look helpful. Of course, it’s also important to reciprocate.
“Clean up your place before inviting friends over.” In Twitter terms, this means making sure you’ve optimized all the elements of your Twitter presence: name (your real one), linked page (your website, blog, or for the really advanced: a customized Twitter landing page like @pistachio has), bio (make the most of the limited space), picture (preferably your real one, NEVER the Twitter default image), and background (yeah, mine needs work I know—shoemaker’s children kind of thing). Here’s an example of a nicely done Twitter background from @Tony_Mandarich.
“Birds of a feather flock together.” Other than using the block feature, you have no control over who follows you on Twitter—but you have absolute control over who you choose to follow back, and the entire Twittersphere can see your list. Granted, it’s generally good Twitter etiquette to follow back when someone follows you, but it isn’t always necessary, particularly when a person doesn’t use his or her real name and real picture, or doesn’t provide any real value. Spammers, scammers and strippers abound on Twitter, and they are all best to avoid when following.
Who knew grandma was a Twitter expert? She may be more hip than you think.
10 Reasons I Won’t Follow You on Twitter
Monday, February 22nd, 2010Before I start this rant, let me make it clear that I love gaining new followers on Twitter and I’m honored by (almost) every one—I’m grateful that you want to hear what I have to say! Also, as indicated by my high ratio of following to followers (currently 87%), my default rule is to follow back. Twitter is social media, not a broadcast platform; if you’ve taken an interest in what I tweet, I want to read yours as well, and hopefully we can learn from each other.
But, all of that said, there are only so many hours in a day, and not all tweet streams are worth following. Here are some indicators in your last 20-40 tweets that may prevent me (and others) from hitting that “follow back” button.
1. There are no RT’s in your tweet stream. Really—you follow 5,000 people, and not one of them has posted anything worth retweeting over the last several days? How sad.
2. Your tweets are a series of blatant sales pitches. Okay, we all need to eat, and there’s nothing wrong with occasionally promoting your content, product or service on Twitter. However, if that’s all you are doing, it’s boring. It’s like fast-forwarding through a TV show on TiVo and watching only the commercials.
3. Your tweets are obviously automated. If the time stamps on your tweets are 1:00, 4:00, 7:00, 10:00…, it’s clear you aren’t actually interacting on Twitter, you’re just broadcasting. It’s unlikely you’ll ever even see my tweets (or those of others you are following), so why should I bother?
4. Your posts are completely off topic from my interests. My posts are primarily focused on b2b marketing, but I’m not one-dimensional; I have a variety of interests including politics, football, faith, local (Minnesota) news, technology, American Idol (only because my kids watch it, of course), economics and more. But if all of your posts are about vitamins, the real estate market in Massachusetts, the antics of your cat, or some other topic I’ve never tweeted about, sorry, I have only so much attention to give, and grateful as I am for your attention, I’m not sure why you chose to follow me first.
5. Your profile is blank. If you want others to follow you, it’s best to reveal a little bit about yourself. Following others while not disclosing your location, providing any info in Twitter’s 160-character bio field, or linking to an online profile, landing page, website, blog, or anything else you consider important, is a little creepy.
6. You’re promoting the latest “get rich quick” scheme. There is no “secret” to success: find out what you’re really good at, develop your talent, and then work your tail off—for a long time. The only people who make any money on get-rich-quick scams are those selling them (and even many who try that route fail). If these schemes really worked, we’d all be rich and poverty would be eradicated. But such schemes have been investigated over and over, and they accomplish nothing other than the transfer of wealth from the gullible to the dishonest.
7. You quote Jim Rohn. Before you flame me, I mean no disrespect to the recently departed; I know that Jim Rohn was an inspirational and widely admired speaker and writer with a compelling life story. And I’m not suggesting that everyone who quotes him is pushing the latest scam (see #6 above) or other questionable business enterprise, only that there seems to be a high correlation. There are obvious exceptions to this rule, such as @jonrognerud, a smart, helpful and worthwhile Twitterer who, via Twitter, respectfully acknowledged Rohn’s death, without in any way diminishing his legacy. But this is often a strong indicator of spam.
8. Your tweet stream contains nothing retweetable. I hope that those who follow me find my tweets occasionally worth retweeting, and I like to find links to great content from those I’m following that I can in turn retweet. But if there’s nothing in your most recent 20 or 40 tweets that appears worthy of sharing (“just got back from the gym”…”I’m at the coffee shop at 4th and Main”…”Get 1,000s of Twitter followers instantly!”…), I probably won’t bother following.
9. You’ve protected your tweets. WTF?
10. You’re inviting me to “look at my naughty pictures online.” This often leads to malware or phishing scams, and never to anything good. No thanks.
Am I wrong? Leave a comment and tell me why.
7 Reasons Every Business Needs to be on Twitter
Wednesday, February 10th, 2010
This post was originally published on the WebMarketCentral blog in January 2010.
Despite the fact that Twitter has more than 32 million users, has received massive publicity from both celebrities and government, and produced remarkable results for companies like Dell and Zappos, many business executives still don’t “get” Twitter. Granted, there is an awful lot of noise (“Just got back from the gym…eating pizza again for lunch…watch a Seinfeld rerun”), self-promotion and spam-like content on the world’s most popular microblogging service—and to newbies it can seem like a bizarre online cocktail party where everyone is shouting and no one is listening—but for those who understand and learn to use it effectively, Twitter can be a powerful business tool.
Here are seven reasons every business needs to be on Twitter.
To Interact with Customers
For most business, it’s far easier and more profitable to generate continued or new business from existing customers than it is to acquire new ones. Growing existing customer business requires ongoing communication. Staying in touch with customers on Twitter is not only more real-time than many other techniques, it’s also far more cost-effective than direct mail, attending trade shows, picking up the phone, or even maintaining a customer newsletter. It’s not that Twitter can replace other touchpoints completely of course, but it can reduce the required cost and frequency of high-touch interactions.
To Interact with Prospects
Just as many of your customers are probably on Twitter, so are your prospects. They care far less about your advertising than about what your customers are saying about you, and how you respond. An active Twitter presence enables you to demonstrate strong customer service, rather than just claiming you offer it (after all, who advertises poor customer service?).
To Influence the Influencers
Industry analysts, journalists, bloggers and other influencers from most sectors of the economy are well-represented on Twitter. Tweeting content of your own that will interest them (i.e. not just your marketing materials), retweeting content they post, and engaging in dialog is a great way to get these people talking, and writing, about your company. It’s less formal, more “social” and usually more effective than “cold” outreach.
To Gain Market Intelligence
The fact that customers, prospects and industry thought leaders are all using Twitter make it a valuable tool for monitoring the topics and concerns being discussed. This is a great potential source of new product/service enhancement ideas as well as topics for blog posts, white papers or other content.
To Become a Resource
Prospects don’t care about your products or services—they care about solving their problems. Demonstrating your knowledge of their industry and their challenges, for example by tweeting your thought-leadership blog posts and white papers, makes you a resource they can go to for helpful information. That gives you the opportunity to explain how your products or services can help them, in a consultative fashion.
To Give the Business a Personality
Business websites are, necessarily, one-to-many communication. No matter how compellingly your site presents your value proposition, it’s still formal and impersonal. Twitter is a much more casual and conversational. Again using the example of Zappos, CEO Tony Hsieh has been successful on Twitter by sharing his personality. Unlike a company website, Twitter is immediate, informal and personal.
To Be Part of the Conversation
As noted above, your customers, prospects and key influencers are already having conversations about your industry, your competition—and quite possibly your company—on Twitter. If you aren’t participating in that conversion, you’re missing valuable intelligence, business opportunities, and possibly even the opportunity to prevent damage to your firm’s reputation.
Twitter is far more than a 140-character soapbox for celebrities, spammy “Internet marketers” and the incorrigibly obnoxious. Savvy business tweeters can filter out the cacophony and create valuable dialogs with key participants in their marketplace.
Best Twitter Tips, Tools and Tactics of 2009, Part 1
Sunday, January 10th, 2010What are the four stages of Twitter enlightenment? How important is Twitter for business? How can you get more retweets and efficiently manage unfollowers? How exactly did Dell generate so much revenue by Twittering? What are the “secrets” of top corporate Twitterers?
Learn the answers to these questions and others here in more of the best blog posts and articles from last year on Twitter techniques, tools and tactics.
Sanity check: The four stages of a typical Twitter user by TechRepublic
Jason Hiner brilliantly summarizes the path to enlightenment of the typical Twitter newbie, from “confusion and indignation” through the use of tools and mobile messaging. Great advice for newbies, and experienced Tweeters will likely get a smile of recognition out of this post as well.
A Twitter Marketing Sanity Check by iMedia Connection
Yes, another Twitter “sanity check.” In this article, Daniel Flamberg explains why he is “stumped and frustrated” by Twitter (maybe he needs to read Jason’s post above?) but in the end concedes that “Twitter is ripe for experimentation,” and advises marketers to “be true to your brand personality and ethos and play with this (not so) new tool.” In another iMedia Connection piece on Twitter, Twitter brand smackdown: The winners and losers, Rodney Rumford highlights lessons from the Twitter successes of Ford, Zappos and Dell. And in a third piece from the same publication, Twitter now a business ‘must-have,‘ Madhuri Shekar quotes a MarketingProfs survey showing that “84 percent of respondents (most of whom represent small businesses) claim that their company’s Twitter usage will increase and 46 percent say it will increase by a ‘significant’ margin” in the coming year, and quotes the conclusion of Ann Handley, chief content officer for MarketingProfs, “Much like Facebook, Twitter is now moving into the business mainstream.”
What’s a Retweet? by Social Media Today
The title may not sound promising to experienced Twitterers, but in this excellent post, Jill Kurtz notes that less than 1/5 of 1% of all tweets get 100 retweets—the level considered a “home run” for a Twitter post—then provides helpful tips for getting into that retweet stratosphere, such as including “pls RT” with tweets, keeping tweets short enough for others to retweet without editing, and asking for RT’s only for relevant content.
5 Twitter Tools to Help You Manage Unfollowers by WebProNews
Jeremy Muncy reviews five helpful Twitter tools, from the ubiquitous (Twellow) to the less well-known, such as Twitterless, an online application that not only notifies you when someone stops following, but also supplies “a graphed out ‘follower history’ over a period of time to help you understand where your (sic) gaining or losing followers.”
Dell Says It Has Earned $3 Million From Twitter by The New York Times
Okay, the figure quoted in the headline is now outdated (the most recent Twitter revenue claimed by Dell on Twitter is $6.5 million), but Claire Cain Miller does an excellent job of outlining how Dell has generated, and continues to generate, significant sales through Twitter. She also notes that “Twitter made exactly $0 from those Dell sales, something that will very likely change.”
Pro Twitterers Share Their Secrets by MediaPost Online Media Daily
Mark Walsh reports on the secrets of highly successful corporate Twitterers from Comcast, Dunkin’ Donuts and Six Flags. Among the tips: be human, authentic, even a bit immature. Favorite snip: “Frank Eliason, director of digital care at Comcast…drew hearty laughter when he described the cable giant as being known for its customer service. ‘I can’t wait until people stop laughing at that joke,’ added Eliason.”
Twitter in B2B – a Velocity Slideshare by The B2B Marketing Blog
Doug Kessler outlines his firm’s presentation on seven ways to use Twitter for b2b marketing. Advising b2b bloggers on the use of Twitter, Doug writes “Twitter is already playing a role in content marketing campaigns — for finding topics, inviting input and promoting the finished pieces. It’s all about the engagement.”
10 ways to get your business in on the microblogging craze by iMedia Connection
Clay McDaniel offers some basic but solid advice in this guide to making Twitter work for marketing, such as pick a leader (so there is “one personality driving the charge”), establish a regular rhythm, and “talk like a real person” (not as obvious as you might think). Three other articles from iMedia Connection worth reading are 7 marketing mistakes to avoid on Twitter by Rodney Rumford, Meet the brands that ‘get’ Twitter by Michael Estrin, and 7 tips for the perfect Twitter profile by Jason Baer.
Twitter 101, Part 2 by Search Engine Watch
Ron Jones reviews popular Twitter tools, offers tips on finding the right people to follow while growing your own following, and provides a basic guide to understanding Twitter lingo. This post is an excellent starting point for those new to Twitter.
Case Study: How I Used Twitter to Generate 35,967 Extra Hits to my Site in Just 14 Days by Winning The Web
Gyutae Park details a real-world case of how to use Twitter to drive traffic to worthwhile content, using a hot topic, your network of followers, social bookmarking sites, the Tweet This WordPress plugin, a helpful follow-up article—and a bit of luck.
Twitter background guidelines by Croncast
For anyone still using a “canned” Twitter background found somewhere on the web, or worse, one of Twitter’s own default backgrounds, this post provides the technical specifications—file dimensions, size, coordinates and instructions—for creating a custom Twitter background image.
Twitter FAIL! The 8 worst brands on the world’s hottest microblog by Revolution
Gareth Jones heaps scorn on eight global brands that got Twitter wrong, and explains why their strategies (or lack thereof) went awry. Astoundingly, as of May of this year, major brands like McDonalds, Pepsi, Vodafone and Gucci each had less than 1,000 followers. This article lets you learn from their mistakes.
