Over the past year or more, you have probably heard your fair share of people telling you that you need to use Twitter if you hope to have business success. It’s true that there are a great many opportunities and potential benefits to using the service, but do you have to use it? Well, that depends.
Is Twitter Necessary? Tell us what you think.
In a recent interview with WebPronews, SiteLogic’s Matt Bailey said what a lot of people are probably thinking. You don’t have to use Twitter.
Frankly, it’s pretty astonishing how loyal Twitter users are considering the service’s frequent downtime and over-capacity errors. There are plenty of other ways that you could go. In this day and age there are so many marketing opportunities online, it’s ridiculous. However, they require time, and if you’re going to focus a significant amount of your time on one, you better make sure it’s a legitimate way of getting results.
This of course depends on the goals you have and the strategies you implement. As Matt says in the interview, "you need to have a consistent marketing strategy," and you should slow down and look at your marketing plan.
I’ve written before about 8 reasons you need to stop ignoring Twitter, but perhaps that title could’ve been toned down a bit. Think of these things as reasons that Twitter could be a good tool to consider using, because Matt’s right. You don’t HAVE to use Twitter. People are still running successful businesses without it. That said, it does have some advantages. The 8 reasons I discussed in that article were:
1. Twitter Lists
2. The Openness of Twitter
3. Building Valuable Relationships
4. Traffic That Cares
5. Staying Current
6. Connecting with Local Customers
7. Going International and Multi-lingual
8. It’s Still Young
Matt makes a valid point. Twitter may not be the "it" thing this time next year. It may still be as relevant as ever, but times change. I’m sure you remember when MySpace was the king of the social networks. MySpace is still around and heavily used, but it is often overshadowed in discussion by Facebook and Twitter.
Consider your goals (here are some possible ones). If Twitter fits into them, use it. If not, maybe it’s not worth the time. If you want to use MySpace to meet your goals, you might be able to do that.
Twitter is showing a lot of potential though. The company kicked off the new year with a bunch of new hires (including some former Googlers), and is really looking toward monetization and becoming more useful for businesses. With the opening of the firehose, a lot of new and existing apps are going to make it possible to do a lot of new and cool things with Twitter. Twitter Co-founder Biz Stone expects Twitter to reach a level of billions of tweets per second.
Do you think Twitter is mandatory for businesses? Share your thoughts.
Related Articles:
> Twitter Starts the Year with Some New Faces
> Stone Makes "Several Billion Tweets Per Hour" Prediction
> 20 Goals for Business Social Media Use
Over the past year or more, you have probably heard your fair share of people telling you that you need to use Twitter if you hope to have business success. It’s true that there are a great many opportunities and potential benefits to using the service, but do you have to use it? Well, that depends.
In a recent interview with WebPronews, SiteLogic’s Matt Bailey said what a lot of people are probably thinking. You don’t have to use Twitter.
Frankly, it’s pretty astonishing how loyal Twitter users are considering the service’s frequent downtime and over-capacity errors. There are plenty of other ways that you could go. In this day and age there are so many marketing opportunities online, it’s ridiculous. However, they require time, and if you’re going to focus a significant amount of your time on one, you better make sure it’s a legitimate way of getting results.
This of course depends on the goals you have and the strategies you implement. As Matt says in the interview, "you need to have a consistent marketing strategy," and you should slow down and look at your marketing plan.
I’ve written before about 8 reasons you need to stop ignoring Twitter, but perhaps that title could’ve been toned down a bit. Think of these things as reasons that Twitter could be a good tool to consider using, because Matt’s right. You don’t HAVE to use Twitter. People are still running successful businesses without it. That said, it does have some advantages. The 8 reasons I discussed in that article were:
1. Twitter Lists
2. The Openness of Twitter
3. Building Valuable Relationships
4. Traffic That Cares
5. Staying Current
6. Connecting with Local Customers
7. Going International and Multi-lingual
8. It’s Still Young
Matt makes a valid point. Twitter may not be the "it" thing this time next year. It may still be as relevant as ever, but times change. I’m sure you remember when MySpace was the king of the social networks. MySpace is still around and heavily used, but it is often overshadowed in discussion by Facebook and Twitter.
Consider your goals (here are some possible ones). If Twitter fits into them, use it. If not, maybe it’s not worth the time. If you want to use MySpace to meet your goals, you might be able to do that.
Twitter is showing a lot of potential though. The company kicked off the new year with a bunch of new hires (including some former Googlers), and is really looking toward monetization and becoming more useful for businesses. With the opening of the firehose, a lot of new and existing apps are going to make it possible to do a lot of new and cool things with Twitter. Twitter Co-founder Biz Stone expects Twitter to reach a level of billions of tweets per second.
Do you think Twitter is mandatory for businesses? Share your thoughts.
Related Articles:
> Twitter Starts the Year with Some New Faces
There have been many articles written about why to use Twitter, and we’ve certainly published our fair share of them. However, the landscape is constantly changing. New trends, ideas, applications, and features come out, and they further emphasize Twitter’s place in said landscape. Following are some reasons why it is becoming increasingly important to marketers.
Still not convinced Twitter is useful? Tell us why not.
1. Twitter Lists
Twitter Lists are changing the game. We recently looked at several reasons why, but also consider that with the Lists gadget, your tweets may appear all over the web if you can get onto lists. They will appear on sites and blogs, which are more than likely going to be related to the niche you are in anyway if you have the right audience on Twitter.
2. The Openness of Twitter
The openness of Twitter, social media and the web in general, pretty much means that your messages on Twitter won’t be limited to your Twitter audience. Facebook and other social networks will bring tweets in. People will share them, screenshot them, link to them on blogs, etc. Twitter is a means of getting your message out to more people, but it’s not necessarily only the people on Twitter that will see those messages.
3. Building Valuable Relationships
Laura Fitton, the author of Twitter for Dummies, chalks up success on Twitter to four basic concepts: listen, learn, care, and serve. Basically, if you listen to the community, you will learn, and if you show that you care, you are more likely to get more out of your efforts. Serving means providing something of use to the community. If you what you’re not doing that, you may be setting yourself up to fail, as Fitton talked about in this interview with WebProNews.
4. Traffic That Cares
Twitter can bring you not only random traffic, but traffic from people who are actually passionate about the niche that you are a part of. Retweets are huge in this regard. Guy Kawasaki calls retweeting the sincerest form of flattery. He has a point. He notes that people are willing to risk their reputations by retweeting your content.
5. Staying Current
Being found in Twitter searches (not to mention real time search in general, which is starting to become a main area of focus for all of the big search engines, not to mention all of the standalone real-time search sites) provides a lot of opportunity for exposure. We discussed this here and gave tips for getting found in real-time searches.
6. Connecting with Local Customers
There are a variety of ways you can connect with local consumers and customers using Twitter and Twitter-related tools. There are tools like our own TwellowHood, which let you find Twitterers in your area, for example. Another thing to keep an eye on is Google’s new Social Search. It’s currently just a lab experiment, but could become more. It certainly has potential.
A recent Search Engine Land article made some good points about the potential of local marketing with this tool, which delivers Google search results based on the communities you are a part of. It draws from Google profiles, which include the networks that people are connected to (based on what any person includes in that profile). If you’re not familiar with this feature, watch the following clip, and you’ll understand.
7. Going International and Multi-lingual
Twitter is expanding into more languages. If you thought Twitter was important to marketing already, consider that for most of its existence, it has only been available in a couple of languages. Now it’s in Spanish, and many more languages will follow. That’s not only going to be huge for international and multi-lingual marketing efforts, it’s going to be huge for Twitter’s growth, and the more Twitter grows, the more potential customers are out there.
8. It’s Still Young
Consider that Twitter is just getting started in the grand scheme of things. It’s still young. There are no doubt going to be a lot more features added in the future. And don’t forget about the thousands of Twitter apps that are already out there that can make Twitter useful in different ways to different people and businesses. Take some time and explore them. Fitton’s site OneForty.com, which is like Yelp for Twitter apps, is pretty good for that. It has reviews, and people tell why certain helps have helped their businesses.
Did we leave some reasons out? Please share with the rest of us.
Related Articles:
> 6 Ways Twitter Lists Are Changing the Game
> By Tweeting, You Could Appear All Over the Web
> Twitter Expands the "Lists" Feature
> Microsoft and Google Score Deals with Twitter
All of the search engines are rushing to incorporate more social media elements into their interfaces. Examples of this are evident in things like Google and Bing’s deals with Twitter and Facebook. You can see it in Yahoo’s new Twitter tab for news results. You can see it in Google’s Social Search lab. Really you can see it in everyday search results.
Do you consider a social presence an important element to your search campaign? Discuss here.
A lot of Internet users spend a great deal of their time socializing or using social media sites in one way or another, whether that is to connect with others or simply to obtain information. Information is a key component of social media that often takes a backseat to communication in discussion of social media tools.
The fact of the matter is that more and more people are getting more and more of their information from social sites. That could be in the form of following a news publication on Twitter, following company updates on a blog or a Facebook page, or something as simple as a friend sharing a link.
Given that people are getting more info from social media sites, of course search engines want a piece of that, because their whole reason for existence is naturally to help users find what they are looking for on the web.
So, it stands to reason that if you want people to find information that you are producing, it can help a great deal to publish information and participate in conversations on social media sites. Never mind that users of those particular sites will have access to it. The general public will as well by way of search, regardless of whether or not they are a part of any particular community.
In an interview with WebProNews, Vanessa Fox, who used to work for Google, talked about reasons that businesses should be thinking about social media with regards to search. It’s about visibility. If you are having discussions out there about relevant topics, they could appear in search results not only in real-time search, but further down the road as well.
In other words, if you have a conversation with a peer on Twitter about some topic related to your niche, there is a good chance the resulting tweets of that conversation could appear in search results for that topic on Google, even a year from now, if that tweet happens to be relevant enough. That’s just an example (note: it’s hard to say at this point, just how tweets will impact search once the Google-Twitter deal starts showing results).
There are a variety of ways in which a social campaign can contribute to your performance in search engines, regardless of what these recent deals might produce. Like Lee Odden of Top Rank Online Marketing recently discussed with WebProNews, you can optimize your social content.
The web went blog crazy a few years back. Marketers found out that blogs were great for achieving search engine visibility because of the content and links that can come from them. It’s not that different with social media now. The web has largely moved into a social media-heavy phase, as I’m sure you’ve noticed. Search engines obviously know this and care about it.
As Fox says in her interview, it’s getting to the point where more businesses are starting to realize that they need to be involved with social media. However, surveys still frequently suggest that many are reluctant, and even if they do engage to some extent, they are still holding back, and not reaching the potential they could be.
You know search is important to marketing on the web. Really, it’s important to marketing, period. If you operate on the web or off, your customers are on still online, as Fox noted. Social media is growing increasingly important to search. And search is only one aspect of online marketing. There are many more benefits to social media than that.
How important is social media to search? Share your thoughts.
Related Articles:
> Facebook/Twitter Use May Now Mean More for Google/Bing Rankings
> Social is Only Going to Become More Important to Search
> Where Social Media Fits Into the SEO Equation
Do you do your social media efforts in-house? Should they be outsourced to someone who knows the space inside and out, or is keeping it all the family the key to much-needed authenticity? Why not let an agency pick up some of the slack?
It takes 10,000 hours to become an expert at something, but social media hasn’t even been around that long for people to devote that kind of time to it. So if you’re looking to hire an expert in the space, what should you look for? You might be surprised that one key skill is still story telling.
Last Friday I was in Atlanta, where I gave a talk on social media marketing at Dan Kennedy’s InfoSUMMIT conference.
I’m something of a fish out of water at a Glazer-Kennedy event. For example, unlike at Blogworld, I’m the only person in a room of 800 who has pink hair.
I wasn’t sure they’d be too receptive to what I had to say, but they surprised me.
They were warm, welcoming, and extremely interested in my no-shortcuts, no-magic-beans answers to their questions about how to use social media for marketing and business.
So in honor of Dan Kennedy, who sometimes styles himself as the “Professor of Harsh Reality,” I thought I’d talk today about some of the not-so-kumbaya aspects of social media marketing.
Harsh Reality #1: No one is reading your blog
As far as anyone can figure, there are about 200 million blogs around the world. Technorati tells us there are about 900,000 blog posts made every 24 hours.
The world is not waiting breathlessly to hear what you have to say about losing weight with acai berries, making big money as an affiliate marketer, or how to join your Secrets of the Breakthrough Millionaire Insider Guru Mastermind Platinum Club.
Me-too content gets ignored. Scraped and remixed junk won’t cut it. There’s too much good content that you need to compete with. And there’s no magic system that can replace sitting in front of your keyboard and producing something that somebody wants to read. (Or partnering with someone who can.)
If you don’t have a great answer to the question “Why should anyone read your blog?” you’re going to be pretty unhappy with your results. That’s why we spend so much time teaching you how to produce better, smarter, more effective content.
Harsh Reality #2: You’ve got to give (some of) your best stuff away
It’s very natural to expect to get paid for what you do. And you should have a business model that leads to exactly that.
But first, you’ve got some dues to pay.
Commenter Corree Silvera mentioned her favorite Brian Clark quote from this year’s Blogworld Expo:
Don’t sacrifice a lot of money later for a little money now.
The answer to the question in Harsh Reality #1, “why should anyone read your blog?” is that you’re going to give away some of your best, most valuable, most life-improving material away for free, within a well-defined content marketing plan.
Just remember Sean d’Souza’s bikini concept. You can give 90% of it away, but there will always be people who will happily pay to see that last 10%.
Harsh Reality #3: It will eat your life (if you let it)
Social media marketing would be pretty easy if we never had to eat, sleep, shower, or hang out with our kids.
But if doing those things is important to you, you’re going to have to set some boundaries.
Know what you want to do with social media, keep yourself focused, and set a timer if you have to. The tools are amazing, but so is their power to distract you from what you’re trying to accomplish.
Harsh Reality #4: Social media hates selling
Is there anything more pitiful than that guy who gets on Twitter and won’t shut up about how he can put you in a condo today with no money down despite your lousy credit rating? Even the spammers are blocking this dude.
It’s really hard to sell products and services in social media, mostly because this audience hates salespeople worse than they hate Microsoft. You may be able to get some limited success out of it, but more likely you’ll be banned, blocked, shunned, and abused.
Instead of promoting a product or service, promote fantastic content. Promote a great special report or an amazingly valuable email course. Promote wonderful stuff that you’re giving away.
Use excellent free stuff to build authority and trust. Then you have the right to make an offer and possibly do some business. Not before.
Harsh Reality #5: What they say is a million times more important than what you say
Your marketing might be beautifully executed. You might have a special report that goes more viral than H1N1, a great-looking blog that hits Digg twice a day, and an email marketing sequence that copywriting genius Gene Schwartz would have been proud to write.
If your reputation sucks, none of it matters.
People with lousy products, crummy business practices, and shady backgrounds get found out. And word spreads with frightening speed.
Treat people right, because if you don’t, you will be exposed. And it will not be pretty.
Harsh Reality #6: A blog is not a marketing plan
Blogs are cool, but a single useful tool isn’t the same thing as a solid business and marketing plan.
Blogs are just one way to get your best content out there, and they work best when you pair them up with email autoresponders, special reports, Twitter, and any of a dozen other powerful tools.
Just hanging out and being cool isn’t enough. If you’re in social media to do business, you have to develop a strategy for taking mildly interested strangers and turning them into raving fans . . . and customers.
Harsh Reality #7: You don’t get to opt out
Businesses that think they can ignore all this “Twitter stupidity” tend to get painfully rude awakenings.
The conversation will happen with or without you. You definitely don’t need to respond to every chucklehead with a Facebook account (and you shouldn’t), but you need to keep your ear to the ground, and you need a clue.
OK, enough about harsh reality already! If you want our best advice about what to do to create a great online business, subscribe to Internet Marketing for Smart People, the Copyblogger email newsletter. It’s some of our best stuff, no junk, no fluff. And of course we will never, ever spam you or share your information with anyone.
Jumping into social media with both feet may not be the best plan. You need to asses how your company will handle what may come from a social media strategy, and what your reactions will be once you open up the floodgates. Without a follow-up strategy, a social media strategy won’t do much good.
Like most marketers in the 21st century, you likely appreciate the potential of social media ~ but what do you DO with it? How do you use it in a way that caters to your customers without beating them over the head? How do you add value? Prepare to have your questions answered!
Update: Ford announced profits o nearly $1 billion between July and September. This is attributed to increased market share and a successful cost-cutting program. I wonder if the company’s social media strategy played a significant role.
Original Article: When you think about social media marketing or building your social media presence, you probably think about Facebook or Twitter, or perhaps YouTube or MySpace. That’s good. These are some of the top places on the Internet where people are spending their time online.
What online communities do you focus on? Comment here.
That said, there are probably plenty of places that you are either overlooking or just plain ignoring. They might not have the broad user-bases of the aforementioned services, but there are people there, and the more people you can reach and engage with, the better off you may be in some cases (depending on your goals for social network use).
According to Hitwise data, the top ten social networking websites and forums by US market share of visits looked like this:
To be clear, the Hitwise data from which MarketingCharts compiled the above graph is based on US market share of visits as defined by the IAB, which is the percentage of online traffic to the domain or category, from Hitwise’s sample of 10 million US internet users. It’s unclear exactly what all kinds of sites fall into the social networks category.
But the point is that there are a lot of places out there where people are forming communities that you may not be thinking of, but may provide plenty of opportunities for driving more engagement, brand awareness, and/or even traffic.
Are you considering things like Tagged or Yahoo Profiles/Groups? Are you considering the forums out there that pertain to your niche? Forums are relevant in social media marketing. I’ve discussed this in the past. Forums are basically social networks. They’re communities too. You have to think about where the people are, and not just where they are, but where they are talking. Where they’re communicating with others.
Forums or other more narrow communities may even prove to be more valuable tools than Facebook or Twitter in some cases. They are more likely to be focused on specific niches, than on the general public. There are certainly plenty of times where the general public – the Facebook/Twitter crowds are who you are trying to reach, but there will be other times when you may want to reach a specific group of people, which may or may not be a part of Facebook or Twitter.
Look at Ford for example. Scott Monty, who runs the social media efforts for the Ford Motor Company recently told WebProNews that they use all sorts of forms of social media, because "Let’s face it, people are using all sorts of forms."
"We try to be where the mainstream are and we do it in a way that humanizes the company at every turn, so we’re on Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, Scribd, Delicious, and upcoming as our major platforms," he said. "And we’re constantly monitoring to see what the trends are and where people are going, so that we’re relevant."
The key word there is relevant. Go where you’re relevant.
What are some less thought about communities that you use to engage with people? Discuss here.
Related Articles:
> Forums Are Relevant in Social Media Marketing
> How Big Brands Use Social Media
> Some Brands Have Good Ideas For Social Media. Do You?
> Using Facebook Traffic to Drive Brand Loyalty
