The mystery behind 15,000 new Pinterest followers

The Interesting graphics board

Let me be clear upfront: If you’re looking for a step-by-step guide to gaining 15,000 new followers on Pinterest in a very short time this is not the blog post for you.

My purpose, from a social media strategy perspective, is to solve a mystery.

If you have wondered why people connect on Pinterest or what attracts people to certain others or their particular boards on Pinterest then I hope my questions here will at the least get you thinking and/or provide some insight.

Some background

On April 11 I was a quiet Pinterest user. I had under a 1,000 people following my various Pinterest boards.

The boards are organized around the things I care about. The board New Zealand!, for example, is images of my home country and the board RIT is about the place I teach (and love) in Rochester, N.Y.

One board Interesting graphics was always my most popular and, as of April 11, in had 286 followers.

But on that day something happened. Starting a little after 9 a.m. EDT I started getting notifications from Pinterest that said, for example, "Sarah Jones and 49 others have started following your board Interesting graphics." 

These notifications began arriving regularly. Every 15 to 20 minutes. Within four days I was approaching 5,000 followers. Within a week it was just over 10,000. As of today (April 25) that board has 15,298 followers.

That’s an amazing 15,013 new followers in just 14 days.

Why is this happening?
For more than a week I have tried everything I know to discover why this might be happening.

• Is it because I posted an amazing infographic that people shared a lot? A search through that board for the past month of activity reveals no unusual volume of sharing.
• I Googled my name and the name of the board … nothing in the search results indicates anyone recommended the board. (That’s too bad because I would thank them.)
• I talked to experts in web marketing and analytics to see if there is any way to find the course of all this attention … and apparently there is not.
• I emailed the Pinterest Help Desk … and got this response: "Unfortunately, we’re a small team and we won't be able to respond to your email." 

So, what now?

I guess I’m hoping someone reading this can help solve the mystery.

Perhaps there are others who have had similar experiences.

Can you help? Please let me know in the Comments area – I would really appreciate it.

Twitter best practices for brands (#infographic)

Twitter and brands should go together like bread and butter or hands and gloves. Twitter could be the best way ever for a brand listen to and react to its customers. But sadly some brands and their social media strategy approach are missing opportunities.

See full infographic below

A report from 2012 is worth revisiting if brands (and those who operate Twitter accounts for them) have not seen it.

Between December 11, 2011 and February 23, 2012, Buddy Media analyzed user engagement from more than 320 Twitter handles of the world's biggest brands.

The company measured success by quantifying:

• Reply Rate: number of replies as a percentage of followers.
• Retweet Rate: number of retweets as a percentage of followers (includes manual retweets).
• Engagement Rate: a combination of the replies and retweets in the number of followers.

The result of the data analysis was the mid-2012 report "Strategies for Effective Tweeting: A Statistical Review" (the link also takes you to key findings and a "Tweet Cheat Sheet" for brands).

Some of the key findings:

• Tweet during the day: Tweets during "busy hours" (8 a.m.-7 p.m.) receive 30 percent higher engagement than Tweets posted at other times.
• Don’t overdo the hashtags: Tweets with hashtags receive two times more engagement, but those using more than two hashtags actually had 17 percent less engagement.
• Keep it short: Tweets containing less than 100 characters receive 17 percent more engagement than longer tweets.

To see the data boiled down into an infographic see "Maximize Your Tweets" from Fusework Studios:




Related posts:
5 Ways Brands are Tone-Deaf on Twitter
9 Steps Toward a Twitter Strategy
Twetiquette: 10 basics for Twitter politeness
Twidiots and Twools and Other Twitter Types

5 Ways Brands are Tone-Deaf on Twitter

Brands on Twitter should be social

As Twitter increasingly becomes an important tool for brands and their social media strategy it is also increasingly clear that many brands don’t "get" how to optimize their Twitter time.

Seven years after Twitter launched and more than two years since it started to become widely used by businesses and organizations it is still not uncommon to see these Twitter accounts making mistakes. These errors cost them followers, poor reputations and, ultimately, business.

So what are brands doing wrong? Let me count the ways ….

5 Ways Brands are Tone-Deaf on Twitter (and ways they could do things better)

1. Talk too much about themselves: Seems obvious, right? But some brands seem to think that talking about themselves and their products and services is somehow helpful. Even brands who limit this kind of talk to 25 percent of the time are taking a risk and likely getting fewer followers than they could. Better idea: Do a daily or weekly check to see if brand messages are 10 percent or less of the conversation. If not, make it so.

2. Inviting people to connect: The word connection implies a two-way activity and yet most brands that invite people to connect really mean "follow us" because they won’t follow back. Better idea: Say "Follow us" and give people an idea what might be in it for them.

3. Using auto-respond DMs: A direct message (DM) back from a brand implies a form of engagement. And yet more often than not responding to that DM is impossible because the brand has not yet (or may never) follow back. Better idea: Never use auto DMs and go out of your way to follow back many of your followers and get to know them.

4. Not responding to @ messages: If your brand is on Twitter and people talk to you with an @ message you need to respond. Would your brand ignore a phone call or an email from a customer? Better idea: Have whoever manages social set aside time each day to do nothing but respond on various social networks including Twitter (even a simple "thank you" is better than nothing).

5. Allowing anyone to follow the brand account: In their hunger to have more followers some brands allow just about anyone to follow them. If you want to assess a brand’s attitude to Twitter look at who follows the brand. Find too many spammy, porn, "take-this-deal" or incomplete accounts and you know they care more about numbers than people. Better idea: Have your account manager block inappropriate followers.

So, what do you think? Are there other things you've seen brands do on Twitter that make you wonder why they're really there?

Related posts:
9 Steps Toward a Twitter Strategy
11 Reasons I Won’t Follow You on Twitter 
Twetiquette: 10 basics for Twitter politeness 
Twidiots and Twools and Other Twitter Types

9 Steps Toward a Twitter Strategy

So you’ve jumped into Twitter finally (or maybe you’ve been there for a while) and now you’re wondering: What should my Twitter strategy be?

Consider a Twitter strategy

First, ask yourself what are your goals: To learn? To share? To meet people? To sell?

All, but that last one, are easily done on Twitter. Perhaps the best strategy is to work towards a combination of learning, sharing and meeting. But how do you do that? I'm glad you asked.

9 Steps Toward a Twitter Strategy

1. Pick who you follow carefully: The quality of what you read and what you can learn from Twitter is directly related to the quality of the Twitter accounts you follow. Resist the temptation to follow just anyone back. Sit on your hands when a totally irrelevant, but seemingly influential, account starts following you. You control your incoming stream – make that stream useful.

2. Organize who you follow: Start lists around topics you care about. Use tools such as Tweetdeck and Hootsuite to keep track of multiple areas of interest.

3. Block irrelevant and spammy accounts: The temptation is to leave well-enough-alone and ignore the irrelevant accounts that follow you, but you will be judged by the accounts that follow you. Allowing even a few irrelevant accounts means others considering following you may change their minds.

4. Retweet (RT) people you hope to build relationships with: Pay special attention to just a few people who share good stuff and retweet them a few times. Add your “5 cents worth” too if you have the character count to do this.  

5. Find a few new people to follow: Look into the Twitter streams of people you respect and see who they are retweeting and talking to. It is more likely you’ll find relevant people this way. If you have the time use Twitter’s Advanced Search function and find people near where you live who might be tweeting about things you care about.

6. Share just a few things you’ve found on the web: If you share good content others will pass it along and you will get noticed. How do you increase your chances of this? Use relevant hashtags.

7. 'Favorite' content from others: Each time you favorite someone else’s tweet they get a notification. What better way to get your name in front of someone?

8. Learn the Twitter lingo: The network has its own useful Twitter Glossary, but more importantly pay attention to how others are using Twitter.

9. Be patient: This is the hardest part for most people. However, the advantage of growing an account packed with genuine people who share real content and exist as an online community is invaluable. This kind of community will be there for you when you need them.

If this last point upsets or annoys you perhaps Twitter is not the platform for you. And … this is just a beginning or "Steps Toward a Twitter Strategy."

So what do you think? What else can someone getting serious about Twitter do to build a following and get more from the network?

Related posts:
11 Reasons I Won’t Follow You on Twitter
6 Reasons to Finally Join Twitter
Twetiquette: 10 basics for Twitter politeness
Twidiots and Twools and Other Twitter Types

5 Quick Ways to Decide on Twitter Follows

We’re all pressed for time so when someone follows you on Twitter or you see a Twitter account you think looks interesting how do you quickly decide if you should follow that account?

While there is no sure-fire way to make sure you only follow the right accounts any combination of the following is likely to increase the chances you’ll be happy with your choices.

5 Quick Ways to Decide on a Twitter Follow

1. Is the account real? Is it a person who really exists or a business that is real? Some tell-tale signs: Recent tweets that mention other Twitter users, retweeting of some posts with links and a URL in the bio that goes to another web site (preferably a personal page about the account owner).

2. Does the account have a reasonable Follower-to-Tweets ratio? If an account, for example has 1,000 Followers and 47,000 tweets that says the account is a "broadcaster" who tweets merrily away and does not get a lot of new followers based on what they share. And "0 Tweets" is a big warning …

3. Does the account have a reasonable Follower-to-Follows ratio? I know, I know not all things can be reduced to numbers: But if an account has a few hundred Followers and is at the Twitter-allowable-maximum of 2,000 Follows then it is likely the account owner is trying to too hard to just get Followers

4. Does the account show some personality? Admittedly this is a personal taste issue, but it becomes something that’s easy to see once you look for it. Does the account sometimes engage in an actual conversation with others on Twitter? Does it add value and/or comments when retweeting interesting material?

5. Is the account relevant to you for other reasons? Is it a person who lives near you? Or is it a business that provides a service or works in an industry that you care about? These things can be checked in the Twitter bio, following the URL in the bio (see No. 1 above) or a quick look at the recent tweets.

What do you think? Are there other things you take into account before deciding to follow or not follow? I'd love to hear them.

Related posts:
11 Reasons I Won’t Follow You on Twitter
6 Reasons to Finally Join Twitter
Twetiquette: 10 basics for Twitter politeness

5 Nightmare Social Clients

With social media and dollar
symbols dancing in their heads!

As social media become more mainstream the ways they can help become more apparent to business owners.

In social media strategy consulting this means a greater variety of owners looking for help to get started or do a better job in social. Sadly, it also means more potential social clients who are, to put it mildly, "nightmares." 

These are the folks who are sure they know they need social media (and at least they recognize this), but get things off to a bad start in initial discussions by making it clear that the help they need may be way beyond the scope of a social media strategist to provide.

Here are 5 Nightmare Social Clients that anyone in social media strategy consulting will walk away from (or at least find to be a lot of heavy lifting):

The Lemming:
"I need to be on social media because everyone else is. " This usually mild-mannered customer often has a business that really could benefit from making social part of the marketing and customer-relations plans, but is equally likely to have no idea why. This is the least-scary of the nightmare clients because if (and it can be a big "if") they are open-minded and eager to learn they can be persuaded to do all the right things in social and ultimately be successful. Equally likely, however, is that they will never truly buy into social and your time will have been wasted.

The Square Peg:
"Social media will save me money and get me extra sales." This type is usually doing OK with traditional media for advertising and marketing. But they’ve seen social media and it has dollar signs dancing around their head (i.e. more sales at less cost). This "Square Peg" approach to pushing sales and marketing messages won’t work in the round hole that is social media. The only way to save this nightmare is to show them some examples of successful "round peg" approaches … and even then their first question will likely be: "How cheaply can I do this?"

The Naïve:
"I already have a blog and a Twitter, I just don’t understand why they aren’t working." If it were this simple, wouldn’t everybody be enjoying phenomenal success? This fact escapes the Naïve. This customer is a nightmare because they usually "just want a few minutes of your time" and hope that a single consult will set everything right. The only hope of turning this person into a good client is showing them that a long-term plan with frequent checkups and tweaks will lead to success. Again, the reality check ("this will take time and effort") has a good chance of scaring them off.

The Unrealistic: 
"The way I see it you can help me find new customers etc. all for a few minutes a day on Facebook." One of the more frustrating potential clients: They will often go to great lengths to impress upon you how much they already know about social media and all they really want "is a quick guide to using this stuff for business." They often have no marketing plan (or a poorly-thought-out one) and usually don’t understand that to be effective social media will require time and patience. This is the first of the "nightmares" who may not be able to be rescued.

The Impossible: 
"What do you mean you charge $XX an hour and think it will take a minimum of XX hours to develop a plan for me? I thought this stuff (social media) was free and easy to use?" This is the nightmare you should walk (no, make that RUN) away from as soon as you hear these words. No amount of explanation and good examples will turn them around. They usually have no interest in social except as a way to make money/save expense and, more often than not, will not be willing to put in anything but a minimal effort. Like I said, RUN, away from this person.

So what do you think? Are certain potential social media strategy clients "nightmares"? Should you walk away from them or try to "save" them? Are there other types of "nightmares" out there?

Further reading: The customer is (not) always right

5 Ways to Undermine Your Linkedin Profile

As Linkedin continues to grow (now close to 150 million members) it seems more and more people may be rushing to get their profiles published there.

In their rush to be live on Linkedin (or maybe through a lack of thought earlier) they may be doing things that will make them look bad on this social network, specifically, and in social media generally.

So if you’d like to deliberately waste your effort on the world’s leading social network for professionals, here are the 5 Ways to Undermine Your Linkedin Profile:

1. Use a bad profile picture: By "bad" I mean any image that makes you look like someone I would not want to work with, collaborate with or in any other way connect with. For example, you may look like you’re in a police lineup or you’ve decided to use an image from your webcam that makes you look serious. But, your picture is there to help people remember you or identify you quickly from all the others with the same or a similar name.
Best practice: Have a picture that’s a tightly cropped image of your face and shows you at your best. And, this should be obvious, smile!

2. Write a poor Professional Headline: In the area of your profile right under your name is the opportunity to have a “headline” on your profile. Simply saying "student" or "engineer" is a great way to keep people guessing. But when someone is searching on Linkedin they will usually just see this shortened version of your profile.
Best practice: Use this headline as a "King of Elevator Pitches." In other words, in as few words as possible say what you do professionally and why people might want to connect with you. For example: "Children’s book author and teacher" or "Marketing and sales professional" or "Deep thinker and inventor of the widget."

3. Have an ineffective Summary: Just saying something about who you are and what you want is all that matters right? Wrong! This is the space where you need to sum up your professional experience, how you like to contribute to others’ success and how people can connect with you beyond the URLs Linkedin allows you to post.
Best practice: Write your summary in short paragraphs as though a reader might drift away at any moment – they will. Start with a short paragraph that sums you up – your Professional Headline explained, if you will. The next paragraph talks about a current position and how it fits into who you are professionally. Take what journalists call the “Inverted Pyramid” approach (newsiest item first, second-newsiest second and so on) to these paragraphs. Round it out with you contact points such as where you can be found on other social networks and a phone number.

4. Ignore how your Public Profile looks: If you think that just "being on" Linkedin is far more important that "doing anything" with your Linkedin profile then just walk away now. But if you want Linkedin to act as an online resume or CV then spend the time (just an hour or so) to make it the best it can be.
Best practice: In the "Edit Profile" view of your Linkedin Page you’ll see a nicely boxed area that contains all the information that appears at the top of you profile when it’s displayed. The last item in this box is call "Public Profile" and to the right of that is the URL for your page and a link to "edit" this. Click on the "edit" button. The page you arrive at will show your profile as it appears publicly and over on the right side allow you to control what others see. Make sure that as much as possible you are displaying everything about your work history and expertise. Also take a minute to personalize your URL so that it has your name in it rather than the alphabet soup URL that Linkedin provides.

5. Make your Connections open: By leaving your Connections open to the public anyone can "creep" on your profile and find other people to connect with. If you know them well that’s fine, but, lets be real, do we want all our connections to be open to everyone we connect with?
Best practice: Under Privacy Controls click on "Select who can see your connections" and select "Only you. " Then take a short paragraph at the end of your Summary to explain that your Connections are kept closed to assure privacy, but that you’re willing to open them at an agreed upon time to people you know and trust.

These are only the most basic mistakes – there are plenty of others. Perhaps that’s fodder for a future post.

What do you think? Are people being sloppy with their Linkedin profiles? Are they looking bad in social media because of it?

Possibly related posts:
5 signs you need help with social media strategy
Is a "Dr. Death" Undermining Your Social Media Efforts?

Klout changes ... scores drop and complaints rise

Klout, the online social media influence rating service, made some big changes today that are sure to have people talking.

The changes, earlier described by Klout CEO Joe Fernandez as a "the biggest improvement to the Klout Score in our history" are likely to tweak many who use the service.

"This project represents the biggest step forward in accuracy, transparency and our technology in Klout’s history," says Ash Rust, Director of Ranking at Klout on the official Klout blog.

The changes include a more-detailed look on the Profile and Dashboard pages.

What’s the biggest change for most people? Officially, the Klout line is that scores will now be easier to understand. Unofficially many have seen their scores fall – in some cases significantly. Although Rust says this won’t be the case:

"A majority of users will see their Scores stay the same or go up but some users will see a drop," he says on the Klout blog.

But a quick check of the comments at the bottom of that blog post and comments on the Mashable story about the same subject indicate many scores dropped and some dropped significantly.

My favorite comment? From someone called Dolpher:

"I think Klout just pulled a Netflix... Most people have experienced big drops. Any bit of insight into human psychology would state that in general people do not like to see their 'worth' drop sign..."

Another … this from Peter Alderliesten:

"Some scores seem not to have been influenced at all, others seem to be totally 'devastated'. To keep faith/trust in this scoring algorithm, I think Klout should explain the scoring system more fully. Transparancy maybe? "

As with all change it won’t be easy for users to accept. The big question is this: Will the changes stick? In other words will people stay with a service that just knocked them down a few – or in some cases many – pegs?

What do you think?

The 7 Deadly Sins on Twitter

If you’re new to Twitter or been on it for a while and wonder what will kill any social media strategy you may have involving the 140-character service think about this: It may be that you’re committing one of the seven deadly sins of Twitter!

Anger: How often do you see people saying something out of anger on Twitter and you just know they will regret it? If you are feeling angry go for a walk or find a punching bag and leave Twitter out of it.

Greed: This shows up when tweeps are greedy with others’ time (tweeting too much in too short a time) or following too many people in hopes that some will follow back and build their follower numbers. The old saying that "the more you want something, the more it eludes you" is true on Twitter too!

Laziness: People who auto-tweet and don’t engage (respond to questions and/or thank others’ kindness on Twitter) are usually easy to spot … and as a result they do not build communities of value.

Pride: Words on a screen can so easily be misinterpreted without the visual or audio cues we get from other forms of communication. Tweeps who fly off the handle at a perceived slight are victims of pride and likely revealing a lot more about themselves than they realize. If you always assume good intent until undeniable evidence to the contrary you will do fine on Twitter.

Desire: This manifests itself in Twitter users who are too anxious to achieve their goals on the network and spend a lot of time pursuing them oblivious to what is happening around them on Twitter. This narcissism is rarely rewarded.

Envy: This is one of the ugliest sins and shows up when a Tweep decides to use Twitter to tear down another Tweep (usually someone with more standing on the network). If you’re turning green with envy over how well others are doing on Twitter learn from them – don’t attack them.

Voracity: The "voracious" Tweep is that person who retweets (RTs) and comments indiscriminately – usually dozens of times in a short time period. For 10-30 minutes at a time Twitter is, in their minds, all about them.

So, does this list capture the main sins of Twitter? I’m sure there are others you’ve seen if you’ve been in social media for any length of time. Please share them here I’d love to write a follow up post on this.

Possibly related posts:
Twetiquette: 10 basics for Twitter politeness
10 Reasons I won’t follow you on Twitter

How to evaluate a social media conference

This is the second of two posts on how to find a social media conference and then having found one how to assess its merits. Full disclosure: I am an organizer of a conference at the Rochester (N.Y.) Institute of Technology on Sept. 29 called the Social Media and Communication Symposium. To avoid seeming self-serving I will not specifically reference that event here.

You’ve found a couple of social media conferences that look interesting and you’re ready to take your social media strategy to the next level. But how do you decide which conference is right for you AND a good deal?

It comes down to three things:

Cost

When considering cost it’s a good idea to add up all of the costs:

• The ticket price: This is somewhat obvious and if you have an unlimited conference or training budget may not be a concern, but for most of us …

• Other bills: Travel, hotels and meals can add up fast. Is the conference local or nearby? Will it require several nights at a hotel?

• Opportunity cost: This is trickier, but you need to know: What business am I not conducting while at a conference? Will what I learn there outweigh any income I lost while away from my business?

Quality

As you assess the quality of an event there are several things you should do:

• Ask your network: Check with others who have attended the event before. Did they like it or did they love it? Would they drop everything to go again?

• Check the footprint: Just how often do the presenters speak at conferences? Get quoted by industry media? Or, how often have they presented in the past 12 months? All of these things will give you a sense of whether the speakers are a big deal or not.

• Score the presenters: Using a tool such as Klout will help you find the range of their scores (which measures how influential they are in social media and to some extent how active they are). A recent comparison of two conferences I looked at found one charging $375 per ticket with an average Klout score of 41 and another charging one-tenth of that with an average Klout score of 59. Joe Fernandez, CEO of Klout obviously believes a Klout score is a great starting point for evaluating speakers for a conference, "but I'd encourage you to also check their influential topics on Klout and who they're influenced by. That will give you a more holistic sense of their influence and expertise."

Value

What are you looking to get from the conference? Here are some things that may tip the scales one way or the other:

• Networking: Conferences aren’t just about hearing from experts they’re also opportunities to connect with people you may only know via social media or not at all. What will the quality of the audience be at your desired events? How relevant is their background and experience? Ask others who’ve been to conferences organized by the same company for insight on this.

• Stepping stones: Do the events you’re looking at fit into where you are right now and where you want to get in social media? It makes no sense to go to a beginners’ conference if you’re well beyond that and vice versa.

• Continuing ed.: Will there be follow-up opportunities to learn from the people you hear from at the conference? How likely is it that what you take away from the conference can lead to even more learning? Again, check with others who have attended before. Did the learning and growing continue after the conference or was it “one-and-done?”

So, there you have it: A few ideas to help you assess any social media conference you may be interested in. What do you think? Are there other considerations?

Previous post: Social media conferences: How to find them

TFF: The Twitter Follow Formula

After being in social media strategy for some time I’ve developed a formula to decide who I follow on Twitter. And although it is not as precise as say the formula for getting a rocket into outer space it works for me to determine the most relevant and useful Twitter accounts to follow.

So here is the Twitter Follow Formula (or TFF):

If the answer to all (or at least half) of the following questions is “Yes” then the account is a good fit and likely worth your time to follow:

The bio mentions key words relevant to your interests: Yes, some people put words in their bios just to fill them out, but if there is a bio (and if there isn’t I, for one, will not follow that account) it is the first stop on your checklist.

More than half of the most-recent 20 tweets look interesting: The number might vary for you, but if I see that a majority of tweets are about relevant and interesting stuff it helps me decide.

The Follower-Following ratio is not lopsided: The ratio you find “lopsided” will vary but for me if the account is following 20 percent or more accounts than it has followers it tells me one of three things: The account is a “Twitter newbie,” a “Twitter broadcaster” or a “Twitter incompetent.” Any may be a reason not to follow.

The Follower-Tweet ratio is not high: There is no real science here, but if someone has more than three or four tweets for each follower they likely are talking a lot (OK), on auto-tweet (not OK) or just on Twitter to broadcast sales or other messages (definitely not OK).

The account is run by a person: Yes, brands and companies can have Twitter accounts, but I’m just not that interested, usually, in talking to a faceless account. How can I tell? The avatar is a logo or product picture (or worse the “Twitter egg”). The types of tweets are also an indicator: Any account talking about its own products and services too much is there for one reason only.

The account is geographically relevant: In other words its based near you (great for meet-ups in real life) or is based somewhere else on the planet that you have a high interest in. Oh, and note to some: If you say your location is “the world” or “everywhere” I won’t believe you and I won’t follow you. Be genuine.

The hunch or everything just feels right: The least scientific part of the formula is just the sense I get that the account is “for real.” This is based on my belief that our intuition is our sub-conscious trying to tell us something based on all our previous experiences. If anything at all doesn’t seem quite right I stay away.

Because there are seven elements I consider it’s relatively easy to know that I have satisfied a majority of the points. Should the answer to all of them be “yes”? Of course, but on occasion I will follow an account that meets only five of these criteria because I have a sense that the person, for example, is a newbie but shows great promise as a useful member of the Twitter family.

So, when it comes to social media strategy on Twitter how does this list stack up to select people to follow? I’d love to have your input.

Possibly related posts:
Twitter 101 Day 1: Why are you on Twitter?
Twitter 101 Day 2: How will you use Twitter?
Twitter 101 Day 3: Who will you be on Twitter?
Twitter 101 Day 4: When will you be on Twitter?

Twitter 101 Day 3: Who will you be on Twitter?

This is the third in a short series of posts designed to help newbies understand some social media strategy behind the professional use of Twitter.

Now that you’re set up on Twitter and have figured out how you’ll use it you need to think about your Twitter "persona."

Below are several personas I’ve seen on Twitter. One or more may describe you. The important thing – if your goal is professional networking and growth via Twitter – is that you are aware of your persona. Which of these fit you?

THE GOOD

1. The Helper: This persona type is extremely unselfish and is on Twitter to help others by sharing interesting and relevant content. They often retweet (RT) the posts of others. They go out of their way to connect those among their followers who may have a mutual interest. They steadily build an authentic and relevant following. They very rarely ask for help, but when they do they always get it.

2. The Conversationlist: This type spends serious blocks of time on Twitter publicly chatting (with "@" messages) with followers. They sometimes share very good content and they often act as a connector between people on Twitter. They tend to build an authentic and very committed following. They rarely ask for help, but when they do they almost always get it.

3. The Listener: This type spends a lot of time watching from the sidelines and only occasionally engages in public conversations with other Twitter users. They do not often retweet others’ posts, but when they do you can bet it’s something special. This person tends to be following more people than are following them. They’re often in the early stages of Twitter use and should be cautious about asking for help too often.

4. The Humanist: This Twitter type is all about being genuinely themselves – to the point of happily mingling their personal lives ("Just picked up the girls from soccer") with their professional lives ("This post on Social Media Today is great …"). They’re OK with this intermingling and believe it may help them seem more real. They are quite picky about who they follow and often do not build a vast following very quickly – but they’re OK with that. While this leads to deeper Twitter relationships (and real-world networking) it can be hard to leverage for business purposes except with business contacts you are already closely connected to.

THE BAD

1. The Aggressive Self-Promoter: The person who talks about themselves far too much. How much is too much? There’s no science behind this, but if more than one in 10 or one in 20 tweets is self-serving it’s likely that this person’s followers will mostly be auto-followers and other bots.

2. The Non-Stop Talker: This character, although few in numbers, gives Twitter a bad name. They’re essentially clueless about Twitter and keep tweeting the most mundane details of their lives or feel compelled to tweet dozens of times per day. Their ratio of tweets to followers is your first clue: Anyone with a ratio of 10 tweets or more per follower is talking a lot and not being found useful by very many people.

3. The Flamethrower: This is someone (or some business) trying very hard to get notoriety on Twitter. They’ll try to engage big names on Twitter with inane or just purposefully inflammatory statements or use ALL CAPS and provocative language just to get attention.

So, there you have it, your third Twitter 101 lesson. What do you think? Are there other personas I’ve missed? Will this help a social media strategy newbie figure how they’ll use Twitter?

Earlier posts in the series:
Twitter 101 Day 1: Why are you on Twitter?
Twitter 101 Day 2: How will you use Twitter?

Twitter 101 Day 1: Why are you on Twitter?

Today I begin a short series of posts designed to help newbies understand some social media strategy behind the professional use of Twitter.

The first question is: Why are you on Twitter?

A. To talk to friends: If that’s the only reason you’re on Twitter you can do whatever you like – just think seriously about protecting your tweets so that only people you know and trust can see them!

B. Professional networking: Whether you are still in school, just starting a career or are well into a career Twitter allows you to build connections with interesting and relevant people around the world who are working and talking about topics related to your interests.

So, if “B” is your choice you will want to get the most out of Twitter – consider doing the following …

1. Make your profile public: You want to connect with people so keep your account open because you are going to be professional on this account, right?

2. Choose a Twitter name that is your entire name or at least your first name and last initial or a variation of your name. Be sure your real name is somewhere on your public profile.

3. Fill in your location with your real location: This will connect you with others in your area with whom you can network in real life.

4. Work on your bio so that it says something about your professional activities and aspirations but also displays a little of your personality. You’ve got 160 characters – choose them wisely.

5. Choose an avatar photo that is more face than anything else: Avoid the temptation to try to be too cute. Your genuine face shot is part of who you are.

6. Choose your URL wisely: If you have a complete Linkedin page link to that. If you have your own name as a URL and you use that website to highlight your skills and talents – even better – link to that.

7. Start following others slowly: Find relevant people in your business or with related interests and follow just a very few at a time. There is no science to this but if your “Following” number is more than five times higher than your number of “Followers” you may seem desperate for followers.

8. Don’t just follow anyone: Following people just because they follow you is not a requirement in Twitter. Following back should be reserved for people you are genuinely interested in learning from and about.

9. Pay attention to others’ tweets: You will learn a lot by just “listening.” When the time is right (you see something you want to comment on or you want to thank someone for sharing something send them an “@” message. These tweets are the beginnings of real conversations with people who may one day become part of your professional network.

10. Retweet judiciously: When you read something that really means something to you or you think some of your followers might appreciate retweet (RT) it. If there is room add a comment explain why you like it.

So, there you have it, the first Twitter 101 lesson. What do you think? Will this help a social media strategy newbie?

Next post:
Twitter 101 Day 2: How will you use Twitter?

Possibly related post:
Twetiquette: 10 basics for Twitter politeness

What makes a GREAT tweet?

Twitter has become such an integral part of social media strategy that its use – good, bad and otherwise – is worth thinking about. So what makes a truly GREAT tweet?

I decided to ask people on Twitter. I asked people I follow, people I’m friends with and people whose Twitter use I appreciate for all kinds of reasons.

I was overwhelmed with the responses – some came in minutes; others in just a few hours.

I got responses from 15 countries from people who have a few thousand followers to those with followers numbering in the six figures. Some came from BNOTs (Big Names on Twitter) and some came from MPFTs (My Personal Favorites on Twitter).

The responses made me say “Aaw,” made me think or just made me laugh. Some answers were brief, some long and all were very thoughtful.

I hope you enjoy them as much as I did.

I feel very blessed to be connected to all of you. Thank you.

Responses to the question: “What one thing makes a GREAT tweet?” sorted by the length of the response (I had to organize them somehow!):

Eric Schwartzman (@ericschwartzman): Brevity

David Meerman Scott (@dmscott): Passion

Chris Brogan (@chrisbrogan): Relevance

Shelly Kramer (@ShellyKramer): Personality

A. R. Karthick (@arkarthick): Conciseness...

Amy D. Howell (@HowellMarketing): Link to great content

Dharmesh Shah (@dharmesh): One that is worth retweeting

rogersmithhotel – a k a John Birdsong (@RSHotel): Keep it real and keep it brief

Robin Fray Carey (@robincarey): A great tweet makes you hungry for more

Dave Larson (@TweetSmarter): Caring about the people who will read it

Chris Voss (@CHRISVOSS): A tweet that challenges readers mindset

David Armano (@armano): Attitude, personality, authenticity, brevity

Tim Moore (@TimMoore): Direct, exciting, inviting, link is not spam

Michael Brito (@Britopian): Relevant content that adds value to the conversation

Iggy Pintado (@iggypintado): One that makes you think, feel, respond to and share

Ann Handley (@MarketingProfs): When it's clear it comes from a human and not a machine

Mark Aaron Murnahan (@murnahan): I would have to say bacon. Anything is better with bacon!

Suzanne Vara (@SuzanneVara): One that is helpful and/or provides value to the community

Spike Jones (@spikejones): There is no such thing as a great tweet. Only great statement

Eric Miltsch (@AuctionDirect): Makes me smile, think and/or remember the person who sent it...

Misty Belardo (@mistygirlp): When a tweet is relevant to the people who listen to your stream

Julia Roy (@juliaroy): Positivity and energy around a topic, thought or conversation

Chris Lazuder (@TechZader): One thing that makes a GREAT tweet is brevity; less truly is more

Calvin Lee (@mayhemstudios): Gr8 tweet = 1. useful or helpful 2. Inspirational 3. If it rings true

Adam Vincenzini (@AdamVincenzini): The formula for a GREAT tweet: U.F.O Useful, fresh and original content

Liz Strauss (@ lizstrauss): If you want to be heard, make your tweet about the people you want to listen

Lolly Daskal (@LollyDaskal): A great tweet is one that inspires, encourages, empowers and engages you. It leaves you thinking

Todd Defren (@TDefren): A great tweet inspires either a click, a laugh or a renewed sense of perspective

Paul Steele (@paul_steele): Positive, clarity, humanness and no negativity… Importantly touches many people’s thoughts!

Jay Baer (@jaybaer): A clear point-of-view and a succinct description of benefit (if it includes a link)

Jawar(@jawar): Adding tremendous value to your target audience is one thing that makes a great tweet

Sree Sreenivasan (@sree): The most useful tweets are useful/helpful/timely and closer to 120 characters than 140

Gary Schirr (@ProfessorGary): Simply a controversial idea and a good headline. Engage people on all sides of the issue

Paul Smith (@twitchhiker): A great tweet might inform you, entertain you or educate you - it will always engage you

J.D. Andrews (@earthXplorer): IMHO: The difference between a "good" tweet and a "great" tweet, just like in comedy....timing!

Anne Deeter Gallaher (@AnneDGallaher): We should be conscious of making tweetworthy soundbites, so it’s something meaningful and memorable

Susie Blackmon (@SusieBlackmon): A great tweet .. is not about 'me' .. elicits responses/conversations .. adds value .. adds interest

Reg Saddler (@zaibatsu): Content is king. A catchy title grabs ’em, but to hold a Twitter audience the old adage still wins out

Ekaterina Walter (@Ekaterina): Relevancy and value-add – share interesting, useful, fresh content and add value with your own comment

Jason Falls (@JasonFalls): The same thing that makes for great content: It informs, entertains or makes my drink come out my nose

Sam Mallikarjunan (@Mallikarjunan): Relatability - what makes a great tweet is when we see it and can see ourselves tweeting the same thing!

Albert Maruggi (@AlbertMaruggi): Maruggi's rule of INK – makes you think or link – and linking is either to a new person or deeper content

Jazz Baker (@ jaycbee ): Current topic is always important, reputable link shortener and connecting with audience you are targeting

Iconic88 (@Iconic88): Extreme kindness. Great tweets should be extremely helpful, emotionally and spiritually, for the next person

Alessandra Colaci (@AlessandraCo): Great tweets are comprised of compelling content that gives useful information and spurs further conversation

Mark Ragan (@MarkRaganCEO): A good tweet provides helpful news and information that establishes you or your brand as an expert in the market

Tommy Clifford (@tommytrc): A great tweet is one that catches me off guard and just makes me genuinely laugh out loud. Off the wall is great!

Debbie Weil (@debbieweil): The tweet provides quick context for 1. an important issue 2. breaking news 3. a timely topic - usually w/ a link

Kevin Purdy (@kevinpurdy): If you can't write a joke or line that makes people smile after seeing 400 other tweets, it better have a good link

Robert Clay (@marketingwizdom): A tweet that stops me in my tracks and links to information of great value. Or a meaningful interaction with someone

Kent Huffman (@KentHuffman): Inside Info + News + Original Thoughts + Useful Links + Conversations + Personality + Humor + RTs = Effective Tweets

Ted Rubin (@TedRubin): Be authentic, be genuine, be interesting. Become known 2b responsive & interested. Keep Tweets to 122 characters or less

Ruhani Rabin (@ruhanirabin): A great tweet consist(s) of elements like ... "Great Content" and "Great Statements" (e.g. quotes, thoughts, creative notes)

Mark Schaefer (@markwschaefer): Great tweets connect people and facilitate relationships by consistently sharing meaningful content and authentic helpfulness

Susan Elaine Cooper (@BuzzEdition): A great tweet should engage the reader with content that inspires a reaction or response, or intrigues the reader to know more

Deirdre Breakenridge (@dbreakenridge): Relevant information makes a great tweet ... you become a valuable resource when you share meaningful content that helps people

Blair Semenoff (@Flipbooks): Typography. It's something Ppl overlook. I make adjustments to almost all my Tweets. If a Tweet looks like shit Ppl dont click

Carrie Wilkerson (@barefoot_exec): 'Great' tweets are in the eye of the beholder. Sometimes an answer to a Q, a quip, a resource or something inspiring. It varies

Aaron Lee (@AskAaronLee): A headline that stands out and different for a blog post. For normal tweets "Hello" because every relationship starts that way :)

Kriselle Laran (@ bullfrogmedia): An appeal for response based on personal connection. A really good tweet is one that will make you want to respond to it in some way

Restaurant Marketing (@JeffreySummers): There's nothing different between a great conversation and a great tweet. Both have to hold meaningful value for the targeted audience

Sean Malarkey (@SeanMalarkey): The author. LOL humor works, short to the point, phrasing the tweet as a question. Depending on the desired outcome – the answer could vary

Jovana Grbic (@ScriptPhD): A great tweet is smart, relevant to a multifaceted person, promulgates information or interest, and ALWAYS offers a platform for engagement

Diana Adams (@adamsconsulting): The things that separate a good tweet from a great tweet: Great tweets provide valuable, objective information combined with compassion. :))

Jennifer Cisney(@kodakCB): VALUE - tips, useful info, humor, answering a question, news, making a personal connection & showing that you are listening not just talking

Joe Bob Hester (@joebobhester): Completeness. A great tweet delivers a complete message. Even if it includes a link, the tweet tells readers exactly what is being linked to

So, what do you think? Does the collective wisdom of the crowd here cover all the answers to the question? From my perspective of looking at social media strategy I’d love to hear your answer to the question (“What one thing makes a GREAT tweet?) in the Comments area below.

What is Scoville? Will it Heat up Social Media?

It’s not often I get 11 invites in one day to a new social network. Such was the case this week when among all the other mail for my social media strategy business were 11 invitations to join Scoville.

On clicking through from the invitation visitors to the site are greeted by a gigantic image of a cow’s nose and the message “Remember the best places are just under your nose ….” The About page goes on to say:

Welcome to Scoville #beta,

Our mission is to help our users discover at least one great new place every week. We'll make it extremely simple for you to share the places you really love, the places you believe the community should know about.

We're now opening our private beta to Foursquare users, so if you're passionate about your city and want to share awesomeness around you, join the beta now!

So Scoville is tied to Foursquare, but I wanted to know more. Here’s what I learned:

The site is named after the Scoville Scale – the international scale for measuring the heat of hot peppers. Once signed up your profile is also rated in Scoville units. After an easy sign up through Foursquare I was rated a “Jalepeno (their spelling, not mine): 129 Scoville units.”

#TopTuesday is the main way Scoville hopes to engage its members and attract new ones. How it works: Each week members pick a favorite place to be their #toptuesday pick and the each Tuesday Scoville (presuming you’ve granted Twitter access) sends out a tweet about your #toptuesday pick for and invites others to join Scoville. Any tips you’ve left at the venue are included so your friends can see what you recommend. This means that while you are helping your followers find places you like you’re also driving a Trending Topic (#toptuesday) on Twitter (which won’t hurt Scoville).

Promoting Scoville has been well thought out. For example: Promotional tweets Scoville creates for you when you sign up include:
• The Plain: “Help me unlock New York, Join me on Scoville.”
• The intriguing: “I like it Hot, real Hot! I'm ready to blow the Scoville scale!”
• The fun: “Had some dodgy Indian food, now stuck in the bathroom. Next time I go Scoville”

Unlocking your city is not automatic. In Scoville-language users cannot complete their profile or “Unlock your location” until there are 1,000 users at that location. Reaching that many users will be tough on smaller locations or even bigger ones if users are tagged with the town they live in rather than the larger city they feel affinity to. Smart users will go to the Settings page and change their location to the nearest big city.

At SXSW in March Foursquare founder Dennis Crowley said Foursquare was opening its API to anyone who wanted to build layers on top of Foursquare. Is Scoville going to become one of the first big apps to add an extra layer of value on top of Foursquare?

Perhaps more interestingly, will Scoville mean new opportunities in social media strategy for businesses? What do you think?

Possibly related post:
5 Foursquare Apps You May Not Know

Is a “Dr. Death” Undermining Your Social Media Efforts?

No matter how well thought out and executed your social media strategy is it may all be for nothing if your business is not paying attention in other areas.

For example, at the gym I try to get to five or six times a week there is an older gentleman who shows up with a gigantic cup of coffee and a pack of cigarettes. During the hour I’m there he seems to take frequent breaks from the treadmill or lifting weights to step outside to drink his coffee and smoke a cigarette.

So, for about 15 minutes at a stretch he’s working to make himself healthier and then he takes a break from that to …. Well, you get the point. Some of us at the gym have dubbed him “Dr. Death.”

It’s the same thing with social media strategies that get undercut by what you and your business do elsewhere. Do you have a Dr. Death or two on your team or among your non-social efforts?

Here are five things that will almost certainly undercut any good you achieve through social media:

1. An incomplete or poorly maintained website: Are all your alt tags complete? Do you have an up-to-date site map? Do you regularly ask a complete stranger to try to get lost on your site to see if you have solved all of your navigation issues? If the answer to any of these is “no” you may have serious issues with search engine optimization and/or people just getting lost on your site.

2. Not using unique landing pages: Each new marketing effort or promotion leads to a unique landing page right? It doesn’t make any sense to be sending people to your site without any way of knowing what’s working to get them there. And then you would, of course, conduct A/B testing by having a pair of dissimilar pages and sending half the traffic to each so that you can see which of those landing pages leads to more people engaging/buying or whatever from your business.

3. Hosting web-irrelevant content: Just because you have a website doesn’t mean it can become a dumping ground for any content you want to “store” on the web. This is a particular problem with companies still posting old-school press releases – the kind with no links. These releases are often seen by search engines as content, but low-value content since they are not connected to anything but the host site. My advice: Host social media releases on your site or don’t host releases at all.

4. Not using your keywords wherever you can: If the clickable text anywhere on your website has any of these phrases “here,” “click here,” “email us,” “contact us” or “for more” you should just walk away from the web now. These clickable phrases have to contain some of your keywords. The fact that you chose certain words to be clickable tells the search engines that they are important to you and your business. This is one of the simplest SEO tactics.

5. Not promoting your social presences sensibly: We’ve all seen those print and TV ads that show a social media icon and invite readers or viewers to “Find us on Facebook” or “Follow us on Twitter.” This is the analog equivalent of using a telephone icon and suggesting people “Find us in the phonebook.” Do your business a favor and put your Facebook, Twitter and other social account names next to those icons.

So, this is just a starter list – it could easily be much longer. The key is this: Your social media strategy is only as good as everything else you are doing around it. If you have a tip or two I’d love to hear them so I can use them (giving you full credit of course) in a future post.

Possibly related posts:

Top 10 Business Social Media Mistakes

5 Signs You may Need Help With Social Media Strategy

10 Ideas to Help Businesses Navigate Social Media