Apr
12
2012
Twitter 101: Hashtag Discovery & Business: How-To Do Social Media Marketing Research
Hashtags on Twitter are like Keywords for SEO or SEARCH. If you’re not tagging them, your tweets are not being found!
click to view chart on Slideshare.net
- if you tweet it you should read it
- know which tags fit your content
- research #tags to find new influencers
Use tools to understand tag activity
- twittervenn (compare up to three search terms or hashtags – a very useable chart)
- trendistic (view a hashtag’s activity over time)
- favstar.fm (what tweets are being ReTweeted the most?)
- trendsmap (amazing map showing the trending twitter topics above their regions)
- twitterstreamgraphs (Show the words associated with a hashtag and how they are trending)
The chart is available and downloadable on Slideshare.net: Twitter 101: Hashtags for Discovery and Business
@jmacofearth (also seen on Google+: jmacofearth)
permalink: https://uber.la/2012/04/twitter-101-hashtags/
Other posts to help you kick ass in social media:
- How Social Media Can Change Your Business – Social Media Strategist Notebook
- Social + Media: Two Simple Words Combined (and the Skechers Social Media Showdown)
- My Dream for You; How Social Media Can Change Your Life – This Is What I Do
- Results of my 2012 Evolutionary Online Marketing Plan: Um, Excuse Me, Are You Listening?
- The Forced Evolution of Twitter
- The 7 Connective Practices of a Tribe – How To Build and Support Shared Plans
- Social Media Workflow: What’s Your Daily Cadence for Sharing on Social Networks [infographic]
- Let’s Talk About Your Evil Plan(tm) – Yeah, But What Else Are You Doing?
- The Quick Course in Online Marketing: Big Picture (Social Media, Search Engine, eMail, Content Marketing)
- New Web Design Standards: Flexible-Width and non-IE Browsers Abound
- 8 Steps Getting Social Media To 5 Goals & 2 Wins the [INFOGRAPHIC]
- ROI ROI ROI and Social Media; We Need to Have This Discussion Again
- Pinterest and the Power of Social Bookmarking: Tag Yourself (Web Design is Dead)
- Social Media MBA – The Reading List
Most people don’t really enjoy being mean; they do it because they can’t help it. (from Graham’s Hierarchy of Disagreement)
Mar
31
2012
The Forced Evolution of Twitter
Twitter is not doing well in innovation or advertising. To survive they will either have to evolve or dissolve. “Status” updates are will not be dependent on Twitter.com in the near future. And if there are three times more Twitter queries than actual Tweets, they really need to figure out how to monetize their data, not their platform. Twitter’s acquisition strategy with Tweetdeck, thus far, has been a disaster. (As of this writing Tweetdeck is still offline due to massive account security issues.) Friends and users of Posterous are not very happy about the buy out by Twitter either.
Twitter is stuck in a broadcast mentality.
And their platform is merely a protocol, that can and will be replicated and replaced.
click to view presentation on Slideshare.net
Imagine a world in which your emails were all filtered and dependent on Microsoft Outlook, or even Microsoft Exchange Server. You don’t *have* to use Outlook or Entourage (mac client) but everyone else’s implementations are less than perfect. And imagine AOL owned IM/CHAT, so that only the AIM client would allow you to add or delete contacts in your network. Not a very exciting picture, is it?
Today Twitter is still seen as the poster child for Internet Tech Startup with huge growth and a non-existent business model. You can bet they’ve been paying a lot of people to work it out, but so far their ideas are old school, and have failed in the marketplace.
So why is Twitter and Twitter.com in control of the STATUS-UPDATE protocol?
- They were first to market with the Tweet concept.
- 3rd-party developers have given Twitter features and benefits that far outweigh Twitter’s own contribution and innovation fails.
- Twitter is still free.
- Everybody is on Twitter
- Twitter has some great business success stories
- Google is still organizing their overthrow
- Apple chose Twitter instead of Facebook for embedded status updates
But why is Twitter also failing at accomplishing a solid business model (re: revenue stream)?
- Twitter.com accounts for about 15 – 20% of the tweets worldwide.
- Twitter needs you on Twitter.com to control your experience, serve you ads, give you Twitter-Brand pages
- Twitter killed Tweetdeck’s dominance by redesigning (re-destroying) the beauty of it’s simplified interface
- Twitter Promoted Tweets, Promoted Trends, and Promoted Accounts are a joke. Akin to Facebook ads. Nobody is on Twitter looking for your services and products. Disguising them as tweets and "verified" accounts is not going to improve their uptake.
- Twitter will either eventually charge for their API stream (and this might be the tipping point for a company to produce the cloned network) or will drown under the technical and financial obligations of feeding the Twitter machine that never touches Twitter.com
- Twitter still does not know what it wants to become
- Twitter is confusing and complex for new users
- Twitter has a huge spam and zombie problem that turns off new users at about an 80% abandonment rate
- Even experienced Twitter players are simply giving up on Twitter and moving to Google+ or something esle
- When Twitter is not a critical-path technology that helps you get your job done, it is simply another task you have to check off your list.
- There are very few DellFactoryOutlets and Groupons out there, if you’re not one of them, Twitter is going to be a challenge to understand and justify.
What will signal the changing of the TWITTER-protocol to STATUS-protocol? I’m not sure. The Fail Whale seems to be fairly well under control these days. And I have no view into Twitter’s finances or funding futures. But why would "business" and by this I mean BIG BUSINESS, let some little internet tech jockeys control something that is so vital to their business? They will not. And at this point Twitter is not a vital part of many businesses. But the STATUS-sphere will continue to evolve with smarter smart phones, better status-enabled devices, and even more innovative uses for the status-data that so many millions of us are producing.
BOTTOMLINE: Marketers and businesses can get an instant read on public sentiment and trending with Twitter today. But Twitter will not be able to hold onto this theoretical pot of gold if they do not figure out how to build a rainbow. And their efforts since coining the Tweet in 2006, have been pretty miserable.
If you think I’m missing something, please add your thoughts to the comments, or contact me directly. I’m always open!
* Stats: you are free to google my claims. I read and read and read, and this post is a stream-of-consciousness of those facts. If you really want access to "where did you get that wacky number?" please contact me directly.
@jmacofearth (also seen on Google+: jmacofearth)
permalink: https://uber.la/2012/03/evolution-of-twitter/
This presentation is available as a single slide download from Slideshare.net: The Forced Evolution of Twitter
A very useful Twitter post: How to Get Useful Business Information Out of Twitter: Hashtags for Social Media Research
Other posts about kicking ass in social media:
- The 7 Connective Practices of a Tribe – How To Build and Support Shared Plans
- Social Media Workflow: What’s Your Daily Cadence for Sharing on Social Networks [infographic]
- Let’s Talk About Your Evil Plan(tm) – Yeah, But What Else Are You Doing?
- The Quick Course in Online Marketing: Big Picture (Social Media, Search Engine, eMail, Content Marketing)
- New Web Design Standards: Flexible-Width and non-IE Browsers Abound
- 8 Steps Getting Social Media To 5 Goals & 2 Wins the [INFOGRAPHIC]
- ROI ROI ROI and Social Media; We Need to Have This Discussion Again
- Pinterest and the Power of Social Bookmarking: Tag Yourself (Web Design is Dead)
- Social Media MBA – The Reading List
Get the most valuable business information on the Social Marketing page.
Mar
27
2012
Twitter Lists: Recovering the Magic of Discovery on Twitter
Back in the day, Twitter created LISTS and LISTS were good.
Then Formulists came along and the lists became full of auto-curated "auto-lists" and the LIST lost a lot of its magic.
Then Twitter almost demoted the list completely. Check your twitter page, can you find LISTS? And about 95% of the time I visit "Lists Subscribed To" the page is broken. And (this is a good thing) Twitter has removed the "XX-user is a member of 2,444 lists" stat, that was leading to more gaming. (Question: Would Twitter be a better place if they eliminated the Follower and Following counts from the system all together? It would probably be a lot less gamey.)
Today, I’m ready to declare that THE TWITTER LIST is BACK. Let me explain.
Now under the @Connect Tab are little mentions that look like this:
The new @Connect TAB reinstates the power of the LIST. Now, when someone adds you to a LIST, they have manually included you in a group (theoretically of like-minded people) and perhaps you would be interested in the others in your new "included" group. And sure enough, a quick view of the list above, from 100pctSolutions and violá, there is a whole new group of people I ‘might’ like to follow.
In the world of Twitter Discovery (trying to find people who are of interest to your objectives) LISTS are invaluable. Now that the auto-lists company is gone, the value of the hand-curated LIST on Twitter is a great place to start looking for others to join in conversation.
And as I say all the time, Twitter is a two-way communication protocol. If you tweet something the good thing to do is actually BE ONLINE so you can respond to any RTs or conversations that get kicked off by your tweets.
I understand the "broadcast" mentality. I understand the tendency towards "scheduling your tweets," but I am against it. Maybe if I were DellFactoryOutlet and my revenue was proportionate to the number of tweets and responses I get during the course of each 24-hour cycle, but I’m not.
I am a person. I am an individual. I am part of the marketing/advertising complex that can make or break Twitter adoption and usage. And of course, I am not the Twitter police.
I believe in the philosophy, "I am here now." So if you catch me tweeting at 4am, it’s because I woke up early, or I haven’t gone to bed yet. Some of the conversations I have online in odd hours, via Twitter or Facebook or TXT… Well, we are all wanting to "connect." That’s what makes social media work. Being social.
If I use Buffer or Hootsuite to "broadcast" a promo tweet several times during the day and night, I’m merely couponing the twitterverse. It’s okay, it’s just not the way I hope to use and encourage the use of Twitter. I have my radical ideas. Auto-scheduled tweets are not part of them.
permalink: https://uber.la/2012/03/magic-of-discovery/See The Twitter Way page for all the Twitter Ideas in one place.
Other posts about kicking ass in social media:
- Web Referrals: Know Your Metrics, Know Your Tools – Evaluating Google+
- 6 Step Twitter Growth Process: Results +753
- Let’s Talk About Your Evil Plan(tm) – Yeah, But What Else Are You Doing?
- The Quick Course in Online Marketing: Big Picture (Social Media, Search Engine, eMail, Content Marketing)
- New Web Design Standards: Flexible-Width and non-IE Browsers Abound
- 8 Steps Getting Social Media To 5 Goals & 2 Wins the [INFOGRAPHIC]
- ROI ROI ROI and Social Media; We Need to Have This Discussion Again
- Pinterest and the Power of Social Bookmarking: Tag Yourself (Web Design is Dead)
- Social Media MBA – The Reading List
See all of the Social Media Marketing Videos on the Social U. page.
Mar
11
2012
3 Rules of Twitter Business; Lesson Learned: Influence + Distribution = Money
What I am going to outline for you is Twitter Building 101. Most of it you probably know, the process of it you probably don’t. It’s not a scam, but it is a game. You like games right? Gaming? All I can say is don’t hate the playa, hate the game.
What I’m about to show you will change your life. It’s not illegal, it’s not BLACK HAT, it’s not fun or even very interesting. There are people in India who will do it for your very inexpensively. There are Twitter-Bot networks that will sell you 10,000 twitter followers for $100. But that’s not really what we are talking about here.
RULE #1: You have to have followers to wield influence.
• Corollary: Not all followers are the same.
RULE #2: You can gain followers by following others. (This is called the follow-back theory: I follow you, you follow me back. It can sometimes be referred to as "Team-Follow-Back" meaning the person with that in their bio or in their tweets, will follow you back if you follow them. Any one remember FFA websites?)
• Corollary: Following spammy Tweeters might drive your numbers up, but your "influence" will not rise accordingly.
Axiom: Spammy tweeters, pornsters, MLM tweeters, Tweet Dealers, and Coupon Magnets will all start a cascade of follows to your account. It’s like a spam waterfall. The scammers are sharing information about you that looks like this: "We found another sucker who followed our PAMELA_AND account. Alert all other spammers we have acquired a TARGET."
RULE #3: You can find other REAL TWEETERS and INFLUENCERS by spending a little time exploring your categories of interest, or "influence" when you become an influencer yourself.
• Corollary: Following and following back is a process. It takes time. Don’t be impatient. Don’t get discouraged. The real people don’t always work from the "team follow back" playbook. But over time, if you yourself begin providing quality information into your Tweetstream, the audience on Twitter will notice you. The influencers always follow other influencers. It’s how we work the network, it’s how we communicate, it’s how we build our network of influence.
Okay so let’s get down the SIX STEP PROCESS for building your Twitter influence.
1. Find and Follow Influencers. (I started my SXSW Intensive Follow Yesterday)
And my Follower count has tracked nicely. (Since these are mainly SXSW attendees there is a high likelihood that they are NOT spammers and that they will be interested in my #socialmedia and #marketing tweets.
2. Find and Follow pockets of like-minded Tweeters.
3. Provide consistent content in your tweets. Pick your subject matter and stay focused. Funny LOL cats are fine once in a while, but people actively follow me because I tweet about social media, social media marketing, and online business strategies.
4. Hit your following limit every day.
If you are aggressively working to build your following, you must push Twitter to the wall. Initially there is a 2000 follow limit. After that you will be able to follow others in some Twitter-Knows ratio of Followers to Following. When you hit your limit you will get a nasty message from Twitter.com saying, You May Not Follow Any More People at This Time. We call that Twitter Jail.
5. Unfollow methodically using a tool. Keep the Tweeps you like, discard the uninteresting.
The tool ManageFlitter can help you unfollow large groups of people at a time. What you want to do, however is sort the influencers OUT of your UNFOLLOW LIST. While I have not paid for ManageFlitter yet, I am considering it. A PRO version allows you to White List certain followers to keep from unfollowing them accidentally.
6. Rinse and Repeat.
I would welcome other ideas for making this process easier or more effective. The endless amount of Click: Follow, Click: Follow, Click: Follow is tiresome. And it is gamey. But if you’re going to play the game you have to learn the rules and use them to your advantage. I hope you agree. And if you don’t, let me know about that too. I’m always listening.
UPDATE: DAY 2: Here are my results from the build so far. Your results may vary.
Final Update:
You can check my LIVE RESULTS: Twittercounter-jmacofearth
Final results and update are here: 6 Step Twitter Growth Process: Results +753
@jmacofearth (also seen on Google+: jmacofearth)
permalink: https://uber.la/2012/03/twitter-business/
The Twitter Way page is a valuable resource and here are some of the top Twitter posts:
- Essential Twitter Lessons; Play it Safe, Be Real, and Have a Two-Way Conversation
- The 1-2-3 Guide to Getting Real with Twitter
- Zen of the Tweet (My best-of tweets collection)
- TwitterTools (matrix of Twitter apps and Twitter management tools)
- Twitter Broke the ReTweet Awhile Ago, Making Lazy RT-ers of Us; Do It Yourself
- The Art and Science of the ReTweet; or ReTweeting with a Twist
- The Twitter Bubble; Don’t Let Your Followers Fool You Into Feeling Influential
- How to Get Useful Business Information Out of Twitter: Hashtags for Social Media Research
Other posts about kicking ass in social media:
- Let’s Talk About Your Evil Plan(tm) – Yeah, But What Else Are You Doing?
- The Quick Course in Online Marketing: Big Picture (Social Media, Search Engine Marketing, eMail Marketing, Content Marketing)
- New Web Design Standards: Flexible-Width and non-IE Browsers Abound
- 8 Steps Getting Social Media To 5 Goals & 2 Wins the [INFOGRAPHIC]
- ROI ROI ROI and Social Media; We Need to Have This Discussion Again
- Facebook Privacy: the Myth, the Changes, the Confusing Privacy Settings
- Damn, We Should Do An Infographic on That; Charts Trying to Be More and Do More?
- Pinterest and the Power of Social Bookmarking: Tag Yourself (Web Design is Dead)
- Social Media MBA – The Reading List
See all of the Social Media Marketing Videos on the Social U. page.
Jun
14
2011
Twitter Exploded and Examined, Part 1
Twitter can be overwhelming when you first check in. One of the problems is the interface, which has evolved into a complex system. I suggest you use a tool like Tweetdeck to manage your Twitter following. But there are few tasks which require the Twitter.com interface. Let’s look at the primary screen on Twitter.com.
click on image to open fullscreen on Slideshare.net
There are a lot of things to learn about Twitter, but the main thing is learning how you will begin to use it. The value you bring to Twitter is what you will get out of it. If you merely blast self-promo messages or coupon/deals, that’s all you will find on Twitter. If, on the other hand, you find something you really want to tweet about, you just might find a following of people who are interested in the same subject. Seek them out. Converse with them, ReTweet them, engage with them.
@jmacofearth
permalink: https://uber.la/2011/06/twitter-exploded/
Twitter Exploded is available as a single slide on Slideshare.net for downloading and printing as a reference.
A few additional posts about using Twitter.
- You Are What You Tweet: Twitter As a Reflecting Pool
- When Did You Stop Listening to Twitter? And Who or What Killed the Tweet?
- Admitting There’s a Problem: My Twitter Stream Has Become Unmanageable
- Uber.la’s 1-2-3 Guide To Twitter: GETTING REAL with TWITTER
All the Twitter related posts can be found on The Twitter Way tab.