Breaking it Down: Twitter

After writing my blog two weeks ago on Pinterest lingo, I have had several requests to do the same for Twitter. Using 140 characters to get your message across and not knowing the language would make it difficult, but that's where I come in!

Since it's launch in 2006, Twitter has grown substantially in popularity. By 2007, there was an average of 60,000 tweets per day. In March of 2013, the Washington Post reported an incredible 400 million tweets per day enter the internet. This is not a market you want to miss out on!

So, let's breakdown the lingo so you can get started in this tweeting world...

Lingo:

-A Tweet: A tweet is a 140 character message that you as the user sends out. Each tweet is visible to anyone, whether they are following you or not. All tweets are public and stay on the internet for pretty much the rest of eternity (as far as we know).

-User Handle: The user handle is how other users can find you (along with searching your email address) and how you will be recognized on Twitter. You can see my handle above is @MOpitzMarketing. You can search people's or business's handles to follow them and/or look at their tweets.

-Private Account: Although all tweets and the profile page of a private account are visible to everyone and anyone, the account holder approves each follower. A private account cannot be followed until the account holder says it is okay. 

-Public Account: The tweets and profile page are visible to the public and anyone may follow that type of account.

-Your Profile: Your profile consists of a profile picture, background picture, handle, short description, location, and even a URL. The profile is everything in the dark colored box in the image above.

-Followers: Once a user follows you, all of the tweets you put out will appear in their Home Page news feed. Same goes for once you follow someone; every tweet they put out will appear in your Home Page news feed.

-Mention: To mention someone in a tweet, simply place the '@' sign before you type their handle. Twitter will automatically pull up your options once you start typing. When a user mentions someone, that tweet is viewable to all of their followers, but not to the followers of the company or person they mentioned (unless they happen to be following both!).

-#Hashtags: Just like with Pinterest, hashtags increase the likelihood that your tweet will be found and interacted with.

-Direct Message: There is an option to Direct Message (DM) someone you follow or for someone you follow to do the same to you. This shows up in a personal inbox. These messages are only visible to the user who was DM'd.

-@Connect page: The @Connect page is the user's 'personal' new feed. This let's them know if they've been mentioned, retweeted, favorited, or followed. These are not visible to your followers.

-Retweet, Reply, Favorite: If a user likes what another user has tweeted, they have three options: Retweet, Reply, or Favorite.

• Retweet: If a user retweets your tweet, it makes your tweet visible to all of the people that follow that user. It also does the same for things you retweet; now all of your followers will see it as well. *If the account is private there is no option to retweet
• Reply: This means you tweet directly back to someone who tweeted at you. This tweet is only visible on that user's personal "connect" page. The tweet is, however, visible to everyone that follows you.
• Favorite: If a user enjoys what they see and want to "bookmark" its place, they can favorite a tweet. Favorites are not visible to anyone except the user that favorited it. 

Now that you know the lingo, let's talk about a little How To:

-Look at the most recent tweets: Simply click on the 'Home' button on the top navigation bar to go to your news feed. As it automatically updates, the feed will let you know how many more tweets came in since you've last refreshed your page.

-Interact with another user's tweet: If you hover over a tweet, the green words Reply, Retweet, and Favorite show up. Just click the action you are looking to use!

-Edit profile: To edit your profile, simply go to your 'Me' page and click 'Edit Profile'. This is where you need to go to change your pictures, your handle, your name, your location, and more.

-Check Direct Messages: This also needs to be done from your 'Me' page. Once you are on that page, just click on the little envelope next to where it says 'Edit Profile'

-Follow another user: Simply click on the handle of the user you want to follow. This will pull up a window within your screen (so you don't loose your spot!) with a white 'Follow' button on the page. If the account is private, the button will turn to the word 'Pending' once clicked. If the account is public, the button will turn blue and the word 'Following' will be visible.

I hope you found this blog to be useful! Please let me know if I missed any lingo or how-to instructions that you'd like to know.

Also, this will be my last blog on this site. I will now be blogging on my personal website! It's been a long, drawn-out project that I work on in my non-existent spare time and I can't wait to show you all! You will have to enter your email and subscribe from my new site, even if you are already subscribed to this site. If you enter in www.melissasmarketingideas.blogspot.com, it will automatically redirect you to my new site soon!

Thanks so much everyone, see you on my new site!

~Melissa

Twitter as a News Source

First of all, I apologize for the lack of blogs lately. I have been very busy-I just got back from getting married and going on a honeymoon!

Speaking of our honeymoon, an event that happened while we were there sparked me to write a blog which, as the title implies, is about using Twitter as a news source.

My husband and I traveled to San Francisco, California, for our five day, four night honeymoon stay. After a wonderful time filled with amazing food, beautiful scenery, and the best workout I've had in weeks, we headed to the airport that Saturday. That happened to be Saturday, July 6, at the San Francisco International Airport and our plane was to take off at 11:16 AM. We boarded the plane on time and taxied out to the runway. By that time we were running just a few minutes behind. We were second in line on the tarmac when suddenly people begin getting up out of their seats near the front of the plane. People start talking and getting louder and louder. The pilot of our plane came over the intercom and announced, "there appears to have been an accident on the runway". End of announcement. The people at the front of the plane could see some of it. The people near the back of the plane (like us) were left totally in the dark. People sit for a few moments and then begin to ask if they can use their phones. This is when the chaos started. Immediately people began powering up their devices to let their loved ones know that they were okay and tell them what little information they knew. We, of course, called our parents and put up a status online to let everyone know we were okay. The problem was that no one knew.

I, being the social media freak that I am, pulled up Facebook. Nothing. Not a single news source had released anything, no status updates, no anything.  Twitter was a different story. Immediately things like #SF #airport #planecrash #sanfrancisco were trending. There were pictures. There were posts about where the plane came from. There were posts about what the flight number was. ALL before the story was breaking news on television or any online media source.

From the time the plane crashed until it broke on a credible news source (like CNN, Fox News, MSNBC), almost 45 minutes had gone by. 45 MINUTES. Yet, on Twitter, it had broke almost immediately.

News breaking on Twitter is nothing new.

News broke of Whitney Houston's death hours before it was confirmed by AP news (source). The New York plane crash into the Hudson in 2009 broke on Twitter over 15 minutes before it broke on mainstream news (source). On the day of Micheal Jackson's death, over 30% of Twitter traffic was eaten up by tweets about him (source).

Nor is the breaking news always credible.

Remember when hackers broke into the Fox News Twitter account and fake tweeted about an Obama assassination? Or, just this year, when Burger King and McDonalds were hacked in the same week?

My point is for us to think-will social media become the first news source people go to instead of flicking on the television or turning on the radio? As more credible resources jump onto the real-time media train, this becomes more and more possible.

What about you? If you know news is breaking, where do you go first?

Until next time
~Melissa

Five Easy Places to Find Social Media Content

Do you ever find yourself staring at your computer, wracking your brain for the answer to "what the heck am I going to post on Facebook today"?

Fear not social media mangers: there are easy ways and places to find content that are right under your nose. Many of the places I look for content are easy to search and filled with oodles of content just for you!

1. Google Images: The neat thing about Google Images is that you can literally search anything and at least something will come up. Let's say you are doing social media for a lawn care company and you are trying to find a picture to encourage engagement on your page. Google "funny lawn" in images. The page literally doesn't end and there are hilarious content pictures for you to use!

Caution: If you are going to be publishing something using one of the Google images, make sure you are not breaking copy write!

2. Twitter: Twitter feeds are filled with a wealth of relevant information for your company if you know how to search for it. An easy way to find related content is to go into the search box and use a hashtag term to look for content. Let's use the example of a marketing company. A marketing company may search hashtags such as: #marketing, #SEO, #socialmedia, and #advertising. An endless Twitter feed of information will appear and I promise you will find at least one article or tip you can use for your social media.

Caution: Make sure to click the link before your re-tweet to actually read the article and make sure the link works. If bad content is present, you may upset your followers.

3. Wikipedia: Yes I know you are saying, "what is she thinking?" but seriously, it works for finding topics to search for. Let's say you run social media for a handyman company. Put "handyman" into the search bar and quickly skim through the article. Scroll down and you'll see a section of the article that gives you a whole list of "handyman jobs". Now, you can use those as search terms on other sites to find content.

Caution: Wikipedia is meant to be an "idea box" (in my opinion). It gives you a good overview of information, but many of the facts, figures, and articles listed on that site are not reliable and you want to caution yourself against giving false information to your customers.

4. Pinterest: The best thing about Pinterest is the variety of content. Not only can you find good pictures, you can also find articles on virtually any topic, websites you've never heard of, and that "perfect post" you've been waiting to find. It's easy to search for key terms and browse general categories until you find what you are looking for.

Caution: If you are re-pinning any of the material you find, make sure to click on the image and see where it goes. You don't want to direct your customers to a dead-end website or a competitor!

5. Social media sites for companies like yours: Who knows the industry better than your competitors? Similar social media sites can be a great resource. What I mainly use this for is seeing what topics they are posting about, how often they are posting, and maybe to use some of their content.

Caution: Is this content poaching? Well it can be if you steal all their content all the time,so use this one in moderation.

I hope that this gives you some ideas of where to find a variety of quality content for your various social media sites!

What resources do you use for finding content? How do you keep your ideas fresh and interactive?

~Melissa

Social Media for Businesses Part 1: Twitter For Business

I will be doing a three-part series on social media platforms for businesses with one blog for Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest. Welcome to Part 1!

I will be highlighting the advantages and disadvantages of using Twitter based on my own experience; I do social media marketing for almost ten different companies, so I'll be sure to take the best of the best advice to pass on to you!

I'll start with the advantages that Twitter has for businesses:

1) It's easy to gain followers: In my own experience, I see an average month to month growth of  Twitter followers between +5-20% for the business Twitter accounts. It's easy to gain followers because (usually) when you follow people, they'll follow you back! 

2) Twitter doesn't block your content: Twitter will post everything that you ask it to-whether it's 2 tweets per day or 200. Other social media platforms limit who sees your content based on what they want their users to see.

3) Twitter doesn't block third party post-scheduling apps: Twitter will allow you to post from any third party application (Such as HootSuite and Gremln); it will not block content, nor will it identify where the post is coming from. 

4) It makes you think about what you are going to say: Because tweets are limited to 140 characters, you really are forced to think about what you'll say and how you'll say it best. Messages must be concise and straight to the point-you don't risk boring your followers!

5) Following a brand on Twitter increases likelihood to purchase as well as recommend a brand: According to eMarketer, 37% of respondents are more likely to purchase from a brand after following them on Twitter (this is compared to only 17% that say the same about a brand they like on Facebook). Numbers are about the same when asked if they would recommend a brand.

6) Hashtags make it easy to use Twitter like Google: When using hashtags in tweets, you are making it easier for users to find your content. They can use the search bar to look for words like "marketing" or "twitter" and Twitter will pull up every tweet that has mentioned this word via hashtag for the past forever. This is an added way that new followers can find you and discover your content quickly and easily.

Of course, no social media platform is perfect. Here are what I would call disadvantages about using Twitter for businesses:

1) The half-life of a tweet is only two to three hours: Not only do you have to provide excellent and engaging content all the time; you must be careful about when you post your tweets! After just a few hours, the odds of a user seeing a tweet are minimal. It also means you need to post quite a few times each day to get your content in front of your followers.

2) It's really hard to respond to complaints in a small amount of characters: If a customer provides a long and confusing tweet complaint, you may have to tweet back and forth several times to ask all of the questions you need to. The character limit may also make your tweets sound cold or "canned", which may upset the user further.

3) Customers expect an instant response: Because Twitter is such an instant platform (many users use it as an instant news source), customers have very high expectations of response rates. I've had a user tweet back within just a few hours that they were disappointed that I "never" got back to them. This can, however, be turned into a positive if you have a great social media manager that is on top of responding to tweets coming in.

4) There aren't any analytics built in to Twitter: Yes, there are third party programs that will create analytics for you, but you have to find which one will work for you. Other social media platforms offer analytics for managers within the platform itself for extra convenience.

5) The larger your follower number becomes, the more difficult it is to manage: This is a good problem to have-people like to hear what you have to say-but it makes responding to questions and tweets that come in extremely difficult. This can make engaging with your customers via Twitter tricky.

I believe that no matter how large or how small your business is, you should have a Twitter account! Yes it does take work to do it right, but it can be a great platform to expand the reach of your business and communicate your message with your customers.

Does your business have a Twitter account? What are the advantages and disadvantages you've run into?

See you for Part 2 and Part 3!

~Melissa

Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MOpitzMarketing

“Twitter represents a collective collaboration that manifests our ability to unconsciously connect kindred voices through the experiences that move us. As such, Twitter is a human seismograph.” – Brian Solis, Principal of FutureWorks

The Difficulties of Real-Time Marketing

Of all things that could happen during a Superbowl that you could possibly be prepared for-injuries, crazy plays, time rivalry-few were ready to react to something as simple as a power outage. Oreo cookie won the fastest-and-most-innovative-response-during-the-Super-Bowl-Blackout prize according to many marketers and judging by its rate of re-tweet (over 10,000 times in the first hour).

This crazy response to such an event spurred a new marketing term: "Real-Time Marketing".  The inevitable need for constant monitoring and virtually instant response is wanted by today's population. With the ease of social media and the usually quick response to a text message, people today strive for immediate gratification for their complaint and even their compliment. 

This is an incredible challenge for marketing and public relations companies. They are now having to adapt to a 24/7 marketing model and act more like a news room than a marketing firm. Usually the lack of staffing or the inability to staff around the clock gets in the way of running this kind of marketing model. 

There have been advancements and tools made to make real-time marketing a little more manageable. Here are just a few that you can use:

• Facebook allows you to become a manager of as many pages you control. They make it easy to see notifications when you flip between profiles.
• Applications such as HootSuite, Tweet Deck, and Gremln allow you to manage multiple sites at once and even have "news feeds" right on the pages themselves.
• Mobile applications for social media platforms such as Facebook, make it easy to access and updates all of the Facebook pages that you manage right from your phone.
• Social media platforms on their own are information hotbeds, giving virtually real time information updates at the tip of your fingers! Consistent monitoring of news feeds alone will give you updates that you can work off.

There are issues that come with real-time marketing, however. If not done properly, it can lead to negativity about the company or brand that attempted real time data monitoring  If your quick response is not well thought out, has a spelling error or has a failed attempt at humor, among other things, your efforts behind real time marketing will be wasted. Another large issue that comes with social media monitoring is the lack of resources to collect data; these can be items such as a social media management data base, man power needed to gather the data, and the time it takes to sift through the overload of information that exists. 

So, my advice for real-time marketing is to do as much as you can, but in the end remember: if you don't have anything groundbreaking, crafty, and timely to say, then say nothing at all--you will most likely be better off!

Until next time

~Melissa

“It’s less about being real time and more about being predictive. You can plan ahead, to a certain extent and have content and ideas ready to go if and when you can use them.” ~Unknown Advertising Executive

Twylah-a new way to tweet

What the heck is Twylah you say?  I was asking myself the same question when I came across this new social media.

Since not too many people know, let's start from the beginning!

What is Twylah?

The company's page states it like this: 

Twylah helps you significantly leverage your Twitter efforts.  Currently, individuals and brands are spending a lot of time on Twitter, and not necessarily seeing direct returns on their investment.  Twylah is a tool that captures the value of your Twitter efforts and allows you to realize true returns.  We do this by creating engaging, navigable websites of your tweets, which we call “Twitter Brand Pages.”

I find this description confusing and incomplete, so I wrote up my own description:

Twylah is a new social media platform that helps keep company tweets organized, relevant, and more searchable on search engines. The personalized pages make it easy for followers to retweet tweets from current to months old, follow the company's other social media sites, and easily search for tweets by topic.  It also allows the company to easily see what tweets are trending, what topics they tweet about most, and gives good statistics about what is being clicked on and when.

To get an idea of what these pages look like, check out one of my company's pages here.  

I believe the greatest benefit to having a Twylah page is that the page helps keep all of your tweets relevant all the time.  Users can easily click on a topic and quickly look through all of your tweets, back through forever.  The site also makes it easy to share all your tweets via other social media sites.  This means that old tweets still have the power to generate more traffic and likes on your facebook, pinterest, and google +.  Another huge benefit is when users get redirected to your Twylah page, they will not be distracted by other people's tweets and may 
(hopefully!) get lost in the endless tweets from the past!  And a final benefit is that a user does not need to sign up for Twylah to view your page and posts; huge for generating traffic and letting people browse your page with no sign up hassle.  

There are still concerns with this platform, however.  My first concern is this social media site has been around since 2011 and I'm just hearing about it now.  I think this fault falls on the laps of the creators as they do not have a Twitter page for their business, nor do they make it easy to find them on other social media.  Their facebook page only has 400 likes.  So, how long will this be around? Hard to say, only time will tell.   And the other main concern is that people have to click on it; meaning that they have to click on the link from your twitter in order to view your Twylah page unless they have one of their own.  I do not personally have a page, but will look into this and report back from my findings from a user standpoint and not a business standpoint.  

I had to read several blogs to get more information and would like to share them here in case you would like additional blogs to look at: 

http://windmillnetworking.com/2011/09/09/twitter-seo-think-twylah/ 
http://scobleizer.com/2011/05/25/twylah-lets-media-brands-and-celebrities-monetize-their-twitter-stream/

Thanks to all the other bloggers for your help!

Until next week!!

~Melissa

Easy ways to increase the number of followers on your social media sites

Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, Foursquare, and more.  With so many social media sites, how can you get more followers with the least amount of time put into each individual social media site? (we are all busy people I know!)

Social media is a free way to advertise your business; easy to use, but unfortunately easy to spend a lot of time on.  So this week I looked into easy ways to increase your number of followers for all avenues of social media.  If you do not have to focus on getting more followers all the time you can focus on putting out quality content, which is usually more important!

The easiest way to advertise your social media sites is through your social media sites-easy enough right?  Send out a Tweet about your Facebook event.  Create a post on Google+ that is about the article you just put up on LinkedIn.  Post about your website on your blog.  Seems simple, but you need to do it right.  An important thing to remember about social media is that many of your followers will be following you on multiple sites.  So to make their “follows” and “likes” worthwhile, make sure to mix up your content and don’t update all of your sites at once.  Remember that when you work with multiple sites, you can increase your search-ability if you change the wording and content of your post on each site.  

Another very simple way to increase the number of followers you have is to make it easy to follow you!  If you have a confusing Twitter handle, make sure to advertise what it is, same with your Facebook name.

Recognize these logos?  Of course you do and so does the rest of the world! Make them accessible and clickable for your followers.  They are free to download on the internet and instantly lets your customers know where they can find out more about you and how they can follow you.  Click here for a great screencast on inserting these cool little logos into your email signature too!  What an easy way to tell your customers (quietly) how to find you, again and again.

Finally, the last recommendation I have is to follow your followers.  If you like them on Facebook, it will show up as a notification and they will be tempted to follow you right back!  Be careful with how far you go with this though and that you agree with how their company promotes itself. People can search who a company follows on many of the social media sites (it could possibly backfire!). 

This will not be the last blog I do about social media by any means, so of course this one will not give you all the answers you are looking for!  I just wanted to outline some simple and easy ways to gain new followers without really doing all that much work.  Getting the followers is step one-using social media effectively is step two and will be on my blog soon!

-Melissa

“All one needs is a computer, a network connection, and a bright spark of initiative and creativity to join the economy.”
                ~Don Tapscott