Consumer Corner : twitter

The Importance of Your Twitter Image

Mike Phillips — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 15:28:00 GMT

As Twitter continues to sweep the Internet, it only makes sense that users are adding more and more followers each day. And while services like TweetDeck can help manage all those incoming tweets, not everyone is using them. That presents a problem for those using Twitter to market their brands. How do you stand out amidst all the noise?

Twitter is an excellent tool for finding breaking news. As such, many users scan their Twitter accounts quickly to find something of interest. Pay attention to how you scan Twitter, and you might find yourself looking at users' images more than the actual list of tweets. That's because as you become accustomed to the value of a particular user's tweets, you look for them specifically. It's much easier to pick out an image of value rather than the entire tweet. Therefore, it's important, as a brand, to have an image that is instantly recognizable - one that stands out. That way when users are scanning a long list of tweets, the chances increase that they will stop and read yours. That all depends, of course, on the value you are providing with each and every tweet associated with your image.

Targeting Bloggers on Twitter for Maximum Exposure

Mike Phillips — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 21:15:00 GMT

According to Compete.com, Twitter's traffic grew over 75 percent in March, up to more than 14 million unique visitors from 8 million in February. That's a plenty strong argument to use Twitter to promote your brand, products and services to consumers. But how do you make the most effective use of your time on Twitter and who are the users you should seek out?

One answer is bloggers. These are rabid users of Twitter. They use the service to get the scoop on stories of interest. In other words, they use Twitter to come up with new blog posts to share with their audiences. You want to target bloggers who share your interests. That way, you stand a good chance of getting your content included in a future blog post.

The most logical first step is to search Twitter for known popular bloggers in your industry and follow them. But also check out WeFollow, an index of Twitter users separated by tags and ranked by number of followers. There are two categories to look for - #bloggers (9.1 million total followers) and #blogs (2.1 million total followers). Read their bios to look for common interests and then follow them. Hopefully, they follow you back - the number of users they follow will be a good indication of the likelihood they reciprocate. In reverse, you can also search a tag very specific to your industry, and then seek out the bloggers within that category.

Stuck in the Social Media Vaccuum?

Mike Phillips — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 13:18:00 GMT

Social media is all the buzz these days. Media outlets, marketers, TV and business magazines (including this one) tout the power of social media to reach the public, shape opinion and even change how we do business. And it's true, social media has changed the way we operate as businesses and how we interact with consumers. Perhaps even more important is how consumers now interact with us. But are we giving too much weight to a crowd of social media users who represent a relatively small portion of the overall population?

Ad Age has posted an article with some very interesting views. One of the more significant findings is the result of a survey from Lightspeed Research. Last fall, Johnson & Johnson came under fire from women in the Twitterverse about a Motrin ad. The result was that the ad was pulled, and they issued an apology on their website. All from Twitter. But an ensuing survey found that:

Nearly 90% of women had never even seen the ad.
Once they did, 45% liked the video
41% had no feelings about it
15% didn't like it
8% said it negatively affected their feelings toward the brand
32% said it made them like the brand more.

These numbers show just 23% of tested viewers didn't like the ad, yet Johnson & Johnson shut it down and apologized for it. This presents a unique problem for marketers. While it's important to listen to your audience, it might be even more important to remember who exactly that audience is. And if you do run afoul of a particular audience, it might be a better idea to react within that space, instead of with one sweeping motion.

The real problem is that with today's consumers more empowered than ever, even a few disgruntled Twitterers, Facebook users or Diggers can make big waves and big problems for your brand. So how do you address these problems when they come up? The only real solution is diligent reputation management, to have a presence on these networks. But let's not forget that these social media sites, while large and influential, do not represent the majority of our audience. In fact, it's a fraction of who we are usually trying to reach. These networks should not be ignored in any way, but they shouldn't dictate how we do business either.

Using Twitter as Google SEO

Mike Phillips — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 19:00:00 GMT

Twitter is gaining in popularity with users, marketers and with Google - another reason to start a Twitter account if you don't already have one. If you do use Twitter, search for your company name in Google and see what pops up. You might be surprised.

We searched "Website Magazine" and found our website in the first position and, somewhat surprisingly, our Twitter page in the third position. A search for "Chicago Tribune" turned up their Twitter page in the last position of the first page.

A search for "Chicago Public Golf" showed a Twitter account, @chipubgolf, on the second page, above the fold, out of more than 9 million results. This account is not associated with the Chicago Park District in any way, and the listing is above several prominent public golf courses and trusted websites that review public courses. It should also be noted that @chipubgolf has not updated their feed in about six weeks, and has under 500 followers. However, the link is to a status update - meaning it's likely that particular update was linked to or retweeted repeatedly. The website associated with that Twitter account shows up at the top of page two.

Another search for "Daily Career Tips" revealed the Twitter account @DailyCareerTips in the first position on Google. The account belongs to Susan D. Strayer, who gives career advice, and the listing was above her own website. A search for "Dallas Pro Sports" shows a Twitterholic and Friendfeed page, both at the bottom of page one, out of over 25 million results. Quite frankly, this is astounding.

These examples show that Twitter is being given serious weight in Google's search results. As such, it's more important than ever that your business has a presence. Not only is Twitter a good way to connect with consumers but, if nothing else, it pushes everything else (including your competition) further down the page. In addition, you can see that the name of your Twitter account has big implications - both the actual name and the associated name. Should you have a Twitter account named the same as a website, you stand to own three or four spots on a search results page. Squatting on Twitter names is already prolific, so make sure you get in there now and lay claim to your business or brand.

What's more, this could have big implications for local businesses. Say, for instance, you get a twitter account with the name of the industry and your location. You might then rank for that search term - like Chicago Public Golf.

To that end, we decided to run a little experiment. In honor of one of Chicago's delicacies, we created @ChicagoHotDog. We will be tweeting about appropriate content, using keywords and linking out to relevant websites - all without a website of our own. If you would like to participate in the experiment, follow @ChicagoHotDog on Twitter and we'll see if we get a Google ranking for the key phrase, "Chicago Hot Dog."

WeFollow: New Twitter Directory from Kevin Rose

Mike Phillips — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 14:24:00 GMT

Kevin Rose, founder of Digg.com, has a new project. WeFollow is a directory of Twitter users separated by category and influence within that category. So if you're looking for some influencers you would like to follow (thus increasing the chances of your overall visibility within a category), head to WeFollow and start searching.

You will find some serious players. Unfortunately, because of how it's sorted, you won't find the little guys (without clicking through page after page of results), who can often have a great influence on your number of followers. It's similar to gaining influence with Digg - unless you know people, you can forget about any serious benefits. However, Twitter is still early enough in its progression that popular users are still inclined to follow you, no matter who you are. And because it's from Kevin Rose, expect WeFollow to get plenty of attention, meaning that you should get listed there as soon as possible.

To do that, just tweet @wefollow with up to three tags you want to associate with your account. For example, @wefollow #technology #marketing #SEO. Or, click the button on the top right of the website and WeFollow will get you started.

Twibs: Business Directory for Twitter

Mike Phillips — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 19:06:00 GMT

A common complaint among Twitter users in the past has been the lack of ways to find businesses. We have documented the problems with Twitter search before, and although it is getting better of late, there can still be difficulties in finding a business by name.

Twibs has a solution, in that it's a dedicated business finder for Twitter. Businesses are listed alphabetically, and featured businesses are found on the site's home page. Click on a business listing and you get a page with all recent updates, a button to follow the company, number of followers, email contact info, and website URL. You can also vote for the business to appear on the home page of "featured" businesses.

Visit Twibs.com to submit your business to the directory. It takes about 2 minutes. It's a new service, but early indications point to a positive for the Twitter business landscape. The site already grabbed 50,000 monthly visitors in February 2009, a 175% increase from January.

5 Reasons the New-Look Facebook Could Sink Twitter

Mike Phillips — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 19:32:00 GMT

Facebook is launching a new look, and the main focus is on real-time feeds and status updates on every user's home page - including businesses. Sound familiar? It should, because that's been the very model of success for Twitter. Only now Twitter finds itself with a not-so unique model that absolutely pales in comparison to the capabilities of Facebook. Now that Facebook has the same functionalities as Twitter - and much more - micro-blogging looks to become a part of a larger experience and loses some luster as a stand-alone activity. Here's five reasons you just heard Twitter gulp.

The Network: Facebook has a tried and true network, and it's enormous. The chances of finding a friend or business on Facebook is exponentially higher than finding the same on Twitter (and Facebook's search function is vastly superior.) Those with Facebook profiles but no knowledge of Twitter now have little reason to join Twitter.
Photos and Video: With the new streaming home page, Facebook users can enhance their updates with photos and video, something you can't do on Twitter. How about announcing your status with a video rather than text with abbreviated words? If you want to share something like that on Twitter, you have to upload to a separate service, possibly shrink a URL, then link through a tweet. It's a hassle. And users on the receiving end never know where the click is going to lead.
140 Characters: The reason Twitter became so popular might be the very reason Facebook wins the war. Using just 140 characters to convey information has advantages, but it's severely limiting ... sometimes you need more. With Facebook, you can now get the same lifestream functions but with the ability to say exactly what you want. Facebook also has a big advantage of instant chat, so you don't have to wade through dozens of "@" responses that are completely out of context to your interests.
Centralization: Facebook's new pages will include filters, allowing you to group your friends and their streams to help avoid clutter. You can do this through Twitter, but only by using third-party apps such as Splitweet. It's just one of dozens of apps that lie outside Twitter's service. And those outside apps carry all kinds of potential for spam and attacks. In fact, a few of these apps are designed to spam people. Facebook is safer and more reliable, and everyone knows it.
Real Friends, Real Value: Twitter is filled with users holding multiple accounts, even squatting on user names. That's not the case on Facebook. You know when you find a friend on Facebook that it's a real person with real interests and intentions. And, those real friends have more real friends, and so on. There's value in "friending" someone on Facebook. They are there to socialize and make real connections. Many Twitter accounts are only there to promote thier own interests and drive website traffic. If you use both websites, take a look at your current updates on both and you'll see a big difference in the level of real communication.

Ultimately, what Facebook is working towards with the social graph and new releases like this is eliminating social fatigue. Instead of belonging to several different networks with specific uses, why not be on one network with all of those functions built in? With Facebook, you can already listen to and share music, subscribe to blogs, play games, email and chat, watch and upload videos - and now you can Twitter.

Twopular: Find Hot Topics and Keywords on Twitter

Mike Phillips — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 16:02:00 GMT

There's no doubting that Twitter can net plenty of traffic if you hit a popular topic at the right time. Twopular helps you identify popular topics.

On the home page, you can see the most popular topics on Twitter categorized by the last two hours, 8 hours, day, week or month. There are small arrows that will also tell you how the term is trending and a number indicates exactly how popular the term is across Twitter. Click on any of the blue-shaded terms and see the ongoing discussion on Twitter about that term, as well as a list of popular topics on the right of the resulting page from Twitter.

An interesting feature is the search function at the top of the page. Enter a term and click on the result in the list, and you will see the trends over the last several weeks, as well as the top trendsetters and retweeted people for that term. Not a bad way to target a user to help you spread your tweet around.

This tool could be a great way to target topics to tweet, and increase the likelihood of getting attention, retweets, followers and traffic.

Create an Instant Chat Room Through Twitter

Mike Phillips — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 15:16:00 GMT

Sometimes you might find yourself engaged in a conversation spawned by Twitter, with a fellow Twitter user. Usually that either turns into a slew of "@" messages, cluttering your home page, or a volley of direct messages - and that's a bit of a hassle too.

Tinychat.com has a solution. Visit the website and simply press "start chat" and you're given a tinychat URL. Send that URL to whomever you wish to chat. They click and enter the chat room. You can send the link to a number of people and expand the chat room to any number of users. You can also click the user's name to send a private message, and export the entire contents of the chat to a text file or email. It's kind of like a virtual tweetup.

This could be good for quick conversations or, as a brand, to answer some customer service inquiries, solve a problem or just communicate faster with any of your followers.

I had some initial problems getting it going in IE, but they soon resolved. It seemed to work just fine in Firefox.

Poll Your Twitter Followers with Two Clicks

Mike Phillips — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 16:21:00 GMT

One of the advantages of Twitter is that it's fast - users type fast messages, telling everyone what they think in a matter of seconds. So, it would seem that polling Twitter users would be a natural fit. With PollDaddy for Twitter, you can create Twitter polls by simply entering your username and password, creating your poll and entering possible answers. The poll question is then posted on your accouont with a link to the answer page. So, the user clicks once to get to the answers, then clicks again to choose their answer.

All in all, it's not a bad way to get a quick, down-and-dirty response to a question. Ask for product feedback, ideas for what your consumers want from your company, ask for new content ideas ... just about anything. With these polls, no login is necessary and you can embed the poll elsewhere, so you can also extend the reach of the poll beyond Twitter. There's a similar service in in twtpoll.com.

Magpie: A Twitter Ad Network With Big Possibilities and Problems

Mike Phillips — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 16:40:00 GMT

Twitter may not have a real business model, but that's not stopping others from figuring out a way to make money on the micro blogging site.

In short: Magpie works by sending tweets under the cover of your profile, but from advertisers. The tweets can be scheduled once every other tweet, every 10th, 50th, whenever. And every time an advertiser tweets under your account, you get paid. You also get the opportunity to approve a tweet before it is sent, so you don't have to worry about sending the wrong message to your followers.

For advertisers, it essentially works on a keyword bidding system. When your chosen keywords match those tweets of a user, and you have the highest bid, you tweet from that user's account.

Details right now are a little spotty, but through some of my own research, I've found that those accounts with at least 1,000 followers are the ones that stand to make some money. Some other factors that come into play are frequency of tweets and topic: the more topical and timely your tweets, the more potential for revenue. And the numbers are pretty lofty. I found some accounts with just over 1,000 followers that could earn several hundred (euro) per month, based on Magpie's calculator.

If you read Magpie's forum, you'll find some mixed results as to its usability. There seem to be several bugs in the system, and communication from Magpie seems slow.

But should this (or a similar service) take off, the reaction you're going to hear is that this will destroy Twitter.

Users will hate the idea of getting incoming tweets from advertisers they never "followed." If you're following someone who tweets constantly, you could be seeing many, many ads.
Advertisers will find that their message is being lost through multiple dead Twitter accounts. When too many ads start appearing, users will lose followers and advertisers will lose an audience.
You will find people setting up Twitter accounts to add followers quickly, solely for the purpose of advertising. Twitter will become diluted.

My guess is that eventually Twitter will have their own system of advertising. And it will likely include opt-in/out controls to keep users happy so they don't abandon the site.

Send Multiple URLs With One Small URL

Mike Phillips — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 15:10:00 GMT

If you have ever wanted to direct someone to multiple websites at once, 1link might be the tool for you. Here, you can enter multiple URLs into a box, one line per URL (no registration required), and then get one small URL in return. When a user clicks the URL, they are taken to a page that displays all of the included addresses. Another click will open all of the URLs as seperate tabs in their browser.

It's a nice tool should you want to direct someone to a bunch of resources you found on a particular topic without forcing them to click multiple URLs. You could also use it to prompt a series of downloads, or showcase multiple products to an interested party. Of course, the small URL makes it an ideal candidate for micro-blogging sites like Twitter.

Splitweet: Multi-account Twitter Manager

Mike Phillips — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 19:14:00 GMT

Do you have multiple Twitter accounts? If so, have a look at Splitweet. This service lets you enter your multiple accounts and manage them all in the same window. There are several attractive features that make it worthwhile.

You can send a tweet to whichever account you want by typing in your message, checking the box next to the account you want to tweet, then clicking "Tweet it!"
Your dashboard shows all incoming tweets from those you follow, color-coded according to the account.
Replies shows all @ replies to your accounts, color-coded, Direct Messages does the same.
Brand Mentions searches by keywords - that you set up in the 'brands' link - and displays all tweets containing those terms.
Hovering over any tweet will give you the ability to retweet, favorite or direct message the sender.

Splitweet can be a very useful application for multi-account Twitter users. It also begs the question: Just how many Twitter users are out there? If you're marketing to Twitter, keep in mind that if there is a marketplace for this kind of service, it means that there are many out there using multiple Twitter accounts for the same purpose. Your audience might not be as large as you think.

MyCleenr: Stop Following Dead Twitter Accounts

Mike Phillips — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 15:11:00 GMT

There may have been a time when the best way for you to get Twitter followers was to follow a bunch of accounts related to your interests or your industry. And yes, following is often the best way to get your own followers. But after a while, your following/follower ratio gets out of balance. That's where MyCleenr can help. Simply go to the website and enter your Twitter ID and password. They claim it's secure, although with all of these Twitter tools asking for your password, you have to wonder when something evil is going to happen.

What you'll get in return is a list of those you are following, sorted by the least frequently updated account. You can then choose to stop following them immediately. You want to keep up-to-date on this because when someone sees you're following way more accounts than are follwoing you, your perceived value is diminished. On the flipside, when users see that you have many followers but only follow a select few, it gives the impression that you are somewhat exclusive, and they will want to follow you in hopes of being followed back. In short, people want what they can't have.

Facebook Overtakes MySpace

Mike Phillips — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 19:28:00 GMT

For the first time, according to the latest data from Compete, Facebook outdrew MySpace in terms of unique visitors. But Facebook isn't the fastest growing network. Twitter's numbers grew 27.6% in December, and 752% for the year. LinkedIn is up 152% for the year. In fact, the only one here that's losing traffic is MySpace. They better figure out a way to grab a new audience, and fast. Their demographic is growing up. See below for the Compete data.