Twitter Strategies: Twitter List Etiquette

It is important to have a set of Twitter strategies in order to get the most out of your time and effort on this vital social network. One of the best and fastest twitter strategies involves viral effectiveness. Simply put, the following strategy will support your effort to move more people to your blog, website, social network or a particular page.

Twitter List Etiquette

Twitter lists allow users to compile lists of their favorite, people, companies, or things to follow on Twitter. The following is a best practices tip on how to make your content more viral:

• Recognize: thank everyone who includes you on a list with a public @tweet
• ReTweet: Retweet the link to the list you are included within
• Follow: if you feel compelled or if the person or company looks like a fit for your strategy follow your lister
• DM: send a direct message as a second thank you for their kindness in including you on their list(s)
• Blogroll: if you are a blogger, and your supported on multiple lists by the same person or company, consider giving them a link on your blogroll

Job Seeker’s Procrastinating: Start Job Search By Building Your Network

Since moving away from the employment niche as our focus, I have written sparingly about how to leverage social media in a job search. Although the evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of job seekers blogging and leveraging social media, many job seekers remain unmoved.

For all of the nay saying job seekers who believe a resume is enough to land a job in today’s world, we point to Chapter 71 “Career Guidance for This Century” from Guy Kawasaki’s “Reality Check.” Penelope Trunk the author of “Brazen Careerist: The New Rules For Success” provides the nine biggest myths of the workplace.

The Nine Biggest Myths of the Workplace: #6 You Need a Good Resume

According to Penelope:

• Resumes: only 10% of jobs come from sending a blind resume
• Networks: most people get jobs by leveraging their network
• Resume vs. Network: you need a competent resume that will showcase the fact that there are no red flags in your history BUT it is your network of people, connections, and audience that will be the reason you find a job-not the resume

5 Reasons Company’s Must Adopt A Mobile Web Strategy Now

If you are considering whether having a mobile web strategy is a necessary piece to your business plan, the following should help you understand–it’s not just necessary but a must. Jon Cooper of the Philadelphia Business Journal wrote a great article outlining facts and a beginning strategy. Let’s take a look at Jon’s suggestions.

5 Reasons Your Company Must Support a Mobile Strategy

1. Four (4x) or five (5x)  times as many people have cell phones as have PCs.

In our opinion, PCs will be going the way of the cord tethered land line phone–bye bye

2.Mobile digital content “hitches a ride in the consumer’s pocket and may literally guide him/her to your store or office.”

In our opinion mobile users who share content, in real time, can share positive and negative experiences about your business. If you are not there to answer them they will leave this information unchecked on one of the hundreds of review sites (Yelp) available to them

3. Text messages far outperform e-mails in key metrics such as open rate. Ninety-five (95%) percent of text messages are typically opened inside the first 15 minutes. Your e-mail outreach program is struggling to maintain double digit open rates inside of several days.

In our opinion, the open rate and time frame of open, 95%, far out performs the traditional open rates (15-25%) of e-newsletters or email marketing (spam) campaigns.

4. Text messaging is short but they have the ability to carry, deliver shortened urls to a strategically targeted audiences.

In our opinion, this is a huge advantage in delivering messages in real time that provide call to action lead generation for a business

5. The combination of text messaging and mobile Web pages are “a powerful means of communicating important information to your audience.”

In our opinion, this is the key to the next generation of online communication and a wave that should not be missed.

Twitter Strategies: Targeted Follow List For DM Power

DM Spam from @ScottPotential

One of the biggest Twitter mistakes many brands make is to either blindly follow everyone that follows them or follow nobody . In the first case, the stream gets clogged with useless spam junk. In the latter, your brand is perceived as arrogant. If companies considered the DM channel a valuable tool to communicate authentically they could leverage it for a number of activities.

5 Reasons Why Targeted Follow List Cleans Up the Direct Messaging Channel

• DM Spam: Following targeted consumers ensures that your direct message (DM) channel will contain (primarily) useful messages from your prospective consumers, partners, or networking partners
• DM Messaging: a direct message is more useful as a “clean” private channel to deliver information
• Perception: if consumers know your DM messages are filled with useful content, they will pay attention to your messages and consider them valuable
• DM Marketing: once a brand’s DMs are known to be valuable, a company can then deliver call to action marketing messages
• DM Sales: the DM channel is NOT a sales channel. If a brand utilizes marketing and informational messaging they will be very effective with their consumer base

Guy Kawasaki’s Email Writing Strategy

If you are like me, email is still an important channel of communication. Unfortunately you may also suffer from the tendency to write lengthy emails that nobody wants to read. Yes you need to include detail, but the length of an email can turn off a reader as much as a spam hard sell sales pitch. Guy Kawasaki gives great advice for writing emails in his book “Reality Check.”

Guy Kawasaki’s Email Guidelines

• Length: “The ideal length of an email is five (5) sentences
• Content: “The ideal content level is one (1) idea
• Identify: “Simply explain who you are in one (1) or two (2) sentences
• Ask: once you identify yourself, “get to the ask”
• Don’t Ask: “If it’s not reasonable (your request), don’t ask at all”

Twitter Strategies: 3 Steps to Avoid Being Mistaken As A Spammer

ComputerShopper published this deansguide article 11-23-09
The Courier News (Chicago Sun-Times News Group) published this deansguide article 11-23-09

Twitter strategies are numerous and often confusing. The moment you think you understand the network, something new poses a challenge to your efforts. One of the first challenges new Twitter users will experience is understanding who to follow. The first and worst mistake new users make is to beginning following hundreds of people or companies immediately. The resulting lack of strategy places the new Twitter user in what is called a “upside” down position. Simply put if you follow hundreds and very few are following you, you give the appearance of a spammer, MLM hard sell marketer, or worse yet an affiliate marketer.

This is a very basic first phase description of how to screen the people and companies that follow you. Due diligence is important, unless you are a spamming hard sell MLM or affiliate marketer, to building an effective network. Let’s examine my due diligence steps with social media analyst Jerimiah Owyang:

3 Due Diligence Steps to Build Your Twitter Network

1. Read Bio: read the bio of the person-company following you. Understand what they do and if they fit into your network of followers, if they provide information valuable to you, if they have a large network you wish to leverage, and if they are in your industry or niche.
   
2. Links: click through the link provided in the bio. This link should lead to a website-blog with mission statements, purpose, goals, industry, and niche. This IS my most important step in the due diligence process.
3. Tweet “Stream”: read the tweet stream to understand what is being written. Does the person or company provide valuable information to you and your network? Is this person providing new thought leadership like Jeremiah? Do they share techniques or new processes? Do they tweet breaking news about your industry or niche?

Conclusion

It is up to you how you screen your twitter followers and who you will follow in return. I utilized this process 80% of the time. The downside to this process is that it is time consuming. The upside is the fact that you will have a more targeted network that will serve your research, broadcasting, prospecting, sales, networking, announcement, crowdsourcing needs in the future

4 Ways Twitter Could Eliminate DM Spam

In our last article “Twitter Strategies: 7 Day Waiting Period on Direct Messages” we described 3 methods to curb or eliminate DM spam.  The following list are four more ways to eliminate DM spam on Twitter like the example below:

4 Ways Twitter Could Eliminate DM Spam

• Crowdsourcing Court: Twitter users vote on the guideline of penalties awaiting a company or individual who is found guilty of spamming the Twitter network. Base it on Dell’s Ideastorm crowdsourcing site
• Eliminate Links: disallow the use of links in any DM messages with the hope that spammers will no longer see the benefit of using a DM
• Less than 140: cut the number of characters in half for a DM making it a 70 character messaging channel thus challenging a spammer’s ability to create spam
• DM Limit: create a limit for the number of DMs allowed each Twitterer per month. Once you reach your limit, you have to wait until the next month to send a direct message

Twitter Strategies: 7 Day Waiting Period On Direct Messages

Holy smokes Scott this is the lamest attempt to persuade me to do anything-  let alone what I already do in my business. Did you even look at my bio my friend? Do I really “Rock”?  Wow what an offer how can I refuse?– deansguide

The worst aspect of Twitter, the microblogging sensation with multiple benefits, is their implementation of a Direct Message feature. Known as a “DM”, this feature has morphed into the biggest spam tool and channel on the social network. Affiliate marketers, Multi Level Marketers, hard sell rip off artists, and anyone with a scam can (and WILL) deliver their messages.

The problem of DM spam is so previlant that the majority of savvy Twitter users do not monitor this channel more than once a week. What can Twitter do about this problem?

3 Twitter Ideas To Curb DM Spam

• 7 days: require a 7 day waiting period before a DM can be sent when a follow-follower relationship has been established
• Opt In-Out: create a opt in-out option where Twitterers can either choose to receive DMs or turn the DM channel off
• Penalties: automatically penalize Twitter spammers who violate “content regulations” created to stem the tide of unwanted hard sell sales pitches and phishing activities

5 Blog Writing Tips To Engage Online Readers

ComputerShopper published this deansguide article 11-13-09

Blog writing is vastly different from “long” writing seen in newspapers and magazines. The idea behind blog writing is to capture a reader’s attention immediately, create succinct articles, and keep the word count under 500 words when possible.

5 Tips to Engage Online Readers

1. F Shape Theory: Jakob Nielsen, Time magazine’s King of Usability, formulated a theory describing online reading habits. Online readers, according to Nielsen, read the title first, then scan down the left side bar looking for keywords important to them. If the reader finds a keyword they scan left to right into the body of the text. If the reader does not find a keyword they scan down the left side bar and leave. The F Shape Theory

2. Bold: Utilize the Bold feature to help text stand out, pull the human readers eye to keywords and subheadings, and more readable for Google ‘bots

3. Bullets and Numbers: Online readers love bullet and numbered lists. Use these list articles as often as possible

4. Images: Pictures attract the eye and help hold the reader’s interest. Utilizing screenshots is a very effective method of teaching your readers when producing any how-to articles. Example below:

5. Video: This adds a higher level of engagement for the reader. Youtube.com is also a very prominent social network that can drive traffic to your site. Warning: videos should be succinct like written content. Any video over 3 minutes is usually too long unless it is a training vehicle for your audience. Example of lawyer Gary Gwilliam’s compelling video about his fight to conquer alcoholism and addiction:

Facebook Fan Widgets & Blogs: Ignored Viral Marketing Opportunities

Viral marketing strategies on social networks are often overlooked. One such instance is the opportunity to become a fan of a prominent well read Facebook page for a company or prominent blogger. The key is to find out if the company or blogger has a Facebook fan widget box on their blog. Here is an example of this opportunity.

Become a Fan of a Prominent Facebook Page:

Many blogs with massive traffic (Mashable), have Facebook fan page widgets.  These Facebook widgets, sitting in a prime area of the blog,  display pictures of each new registered fan (or logo) as well as the link to that fan’s own blog or website.

New blog readers, who come to these blogs, can simply roll their cursor over a picture, within the Facebook widget, to find the name and link back to that person or company’s blog. This becomes a pathway to  content providing instant viral marketing possibilities.

Mashable.com: Viral Marketing Dreams Are Made

See the shot below of the Mashable Facebook widget:

With over 60,000 Facebook fans and  an Alexa ranking of 483, Mashable.com is one of the most well read sites in the world according to the statistical sampling done by Alexa. Likewise, Dan Schawbel is one of the most prominent social media writers in the blogosphere today.

The Results

Our CEO Inner Architect’s Susan Hanshaw was displayed in the Facebook fan page widget on the Mashable page for Dan Schwabel’s article. This placement helped bring an additional 40 readers to our blog the day the article was posted.

We also found on the Mashable widget friend and associate Pat Kitano principle of Domus Consulting Group and former workshop attendee Ellen Richman.