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Archive for the category “Twitter”

05 Feb 2013

9 Ways Solopreneurs & Small Biz Owners Can Juice Up Their Marketing with Twitter’s Vine App

I really want it, but I can’t have it yet. – says this Android mobile user with dismay. But if you’ve got an iOS device (e.g.

As an Android user, I need to wait to harness the marketing potential of Vine.

iPad, iPhone), you can – and if I were you, I’d start experimenting with Vine.

What is Vine?
To bring you up to speed if you haven’t read about it yet, Vine is Twitter’s new app that gives you the capability to make short and sweet 6-second video clips (or shorter clips strung together to create a 6-second video) and share them via the Vine app, Twitter and – with some additional effort – Google Plus. (Note that in theory it should work with Facebook, but users have been experiencing some issues. No doubt they will resolved before too long.)

Though I don’t have access to it yet, it’s captured my attention because I believe it offers solopreneurs and small business owners a way to really spice up their marketing efforts. As you face the pressure to consistently create relevant content to engage – and keep the interest – of your audience, Vine offers a way to quickly generate short unedited blips of content and share them. From what I’ve read, Vine has some – what I’ll call – “technical bugaboos,” but surely those will be worked out and it will only get better.

How might you use Vine to add some pizazz to your marketing? Check out these ideas…

Share breaking news about your biz.
Show off new product packaging.
Announce a new client (with their OK first, of course!).
Announce a new project.
Demonstrate your [tasteful] sense of humor.
Generate buzz about an upcoming event.
Give quick tips to your audience.
Give a shout out to another professional or a business.
Make a call to action for folks to visit your blog or website.

What I’m excited most about is the down-and-dirty opportunity to mix things up. If you’ve primarily generated text content for your business and steered clear from doing video because you found it cumbersome, Vine provides a fast and easy way to do it.

Keep in mind that Vine videos are brief – the 6-second window doesn’t allow for anything very substantive – so depending on what you share, you might need to follow up with additional details via a blog post, newsletter, etc.

Want to learn more about Vine? Here are some helpful posts from various sources…

Vine for Twitter, and what it means for you on Android by Phil Nickinson via AdroidCentral – A rundown of some quirks you might encounter with Vine.

How to Share Vine Videos to Google Plus by Mark Traphagen via Virante Orange Juice – A handy step-by-step for uploading your Vine videos to Google+.

Watch as Vine becomes the next great news-gathering tool by Daniel Terdiman via CNET.

Why Vine’s Going to Grow Into Something Huge by Mat Honan via Wired Gadget Lab.

Have you tried Vine yet? I’d love to hear about your experience! What ways are you using it to enhance your marketing efforts?

Posted in Business Technology Tools, Marketing, Twitter, Vine and tagged Marketing, Mobile apps, Small Business, Solopreneur, Twitter, Vine | Leave a Comment

01 Feb 2013

Twitter Quick Tip: Set Up a “VIP List” to Manage Your Feed & Build Your Business

Twitter has become one of my all-time favorite platforms for finding and sharing content, networking, and building professional relationships. As my Twitter network grows, however, so does the challenge of keeping up with what many of my key connections are tweeting.

I know I’m not alone. As you follow more and more people on Twitter, the quantity of tweets in your home feed balloons exponentially. And that means tweets by “VIPs,” the individuals and companies who you want to proactively nurture relationships with, often get lost in the shuffle.

Even if you have a variety of Twitter lists set up according to industry, business focus or geography to organize tweets in your feed, it might not be enough. In my case, it hasn’t been enough! So, I’ve created a new list specifically for a handful of people and businesses who I want to keep better tabs on. By putting them on my “VIP List,” their tweets are far easier to find and react to.

Worried that having a VIP List will seem exclusive? Don’t! Just because you don’t put someone on your VIP List doesn’t mean that they aren’t important! Every connection is valuable, but it’s natural that some are more professionally advantageous than others.

Tips for your VIP List:

Make the list “Private” – That way no one will know who is – and who is not – on it.

Add individuals and businesses who aren’t frequent tweeters – Reserve your VIP List for people who DON’T show up in your feed regularly. If you’re already catching their tweets, there’s no reason to include them. This list should be for users who either don’t tweet enough to stay on your Twitter radar, or who seem to cluster their tweets at a time that you generally aren’t perusing your stream.

Consider including…Prospects, clients, vendors, loyal supporters, sources of referrals.

Keep it short – You’ll want to keep your ability to review the feed for this list ultra-manageable. Keep it lean. I recommend 30 or fewer users, but you’ll need to gauge what works for you. And keep in mind that you’ll probably alter your list over time as your professional relationships and priorities evolve.

If you use Hootsuite, set up your VIP List as a stream in your dashboard. – That way it will be accessible where you’re most likely to view and use it most effectively.

I don’t recall who blogged about it, but months and months past, I recall someone saying something like, “I follow everyone, and therefore I’m finding that I follow no one.”

How true that is when you’ve got a Twitter feed that flows fast and furiously with tweets by hundreds or thousands or tens of thousands of users. My hope is that a VIP List will help you set a less overwhelming pace and enable you to more easily follow – really follow – the people and companies that matter most to your business.

What’s your biggest challenge in keeping tabs on key people and companies on Twitter? How do you keep your feed manageable?

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Posted in Social Media, Twitter and tagged Solopreneurs, Twitter, Twitter Lists, Twitter tips | Leave a Comment

28 Aug 2012

8 Comments

Do Hashtags Make a Difference? The Results of My Hashtag Experiment!

In an earlier post, I shared my thoughts about using hashtags on Twitter. Rather than completely dismiss their relevance and effectiveness based on my own personal preferences and preconceived notions, I embarked on a little experiment to find out if they appear to make any difference at all in attracting Twitter followers.

The experiment

For 4 weeks, I proactively used hashtags in all of my tweets (Before the experiment, I only included them when retweeting people who used them in their original tweets).

The baseline

For the two months prior to starting the experiment, my net new twitter followers rang in at 52 and 51 (5.80% and 6.28% of my total followers at the time) in those two 4-week periods.

The results

After my 4 weeks of proactively using hashtags, I gained 61 net new Twitter followers (6.38% of my total followers).

The conclusion

Although I admit that my experiment was hardly scientific and possibly could have benefitted from some additional time, I have to conclude that hashtags don’t significantly impact the growth of your Twitter network.

I should note, however, that although the overall number of new followers may not be affected, it’s possible that engagement is. Twitter users who search for conversations based on hashtags might prove to be more relevant followers who will interact more readily and frequently with your tweets. But I’ll let you run and report on that particular experiment!

For now, I’m back to using hashtags only in retweets when they appear in the tweet before me – and sometimes not even then. With Twitter’s 140-character constraints, every space is prime real estate, you know!

What’s your take on hashtags? Have you found increased following or engagement when using them?

Posted in Social Media, Twitter and tagged Entrepreneurs, Hashtags, Marketing, Microblogging, Social Media, Solopreneurs, Tweets, Twitter

13 Jul 2012

4 Comments

Do #Hashtags Make a Difference?

I’m not a big hashtag user. Yes, I have used them, but generally that’s when I’m retweeting someone else and they’ve used hashtags in their original tweet.

I guess the writer in me looks at them as a bit of an annoyance:

They’re an interruption. There you are just reading along and “Blammo!” There’s a hashtag disrupting the flow of the content.

They’re blatant attempts to get noticed. They seem so ostentatious. “Hey, look at me! I’m tweeting about something REALLY important!”

Ben Rimalower’s recent post Hastags are Over pretty much echoes my sentiments, but unlike Ben, I do still see some Twitter veterans using hashtags in their tweets.

Why?

One reason that makes me scratch my head in wonder…

I get that hashtags are a way of identifying that a tweet focuses on a specific topic or brand. People interested in that subject can search by typing the hashtag into the “Search” field on Twitter.com or filter by that hashtag in Hootsuite or some other dashboard tool. But when you’re using a specific word or phrase in the tweet anyway, there really seems to be no reason to make it a hashtag. Anyone interested in that keyword will find you regardless of whether or not you use a # in front of it.

One reason that makes sense…

Then there’s using hashtags for Tweet Chats. That one still makes sense. If you’re holding or participating in a live Twitter group discussion, a hashtag (like #smallbizchat for example) enables people to filter out everything else and only see tweets that are a part of the conversation. And by adding that hashtag to the questions or responses that you tweet during Tweet Chats, other participants will be sure to see your tweets.

Hashtag use: Necessary or not?

So it seems hashtags are both obsolete and highly relevant at the same time. Although I currently use them sparingly, I’m curious to see if they would in any way make a difference in how quickly or how slowly my base of Twitter followers grows. I’ve been tracking my weekly followers for some time so I’ve got a good baseline metric for comparison purposes.

Starting Sunday, I’m going to make an effort to add at least one hashtag to every tweet for the next 4 weeks. At the end of my little experiment, I’ll report back on how the new approach affected the growth of my network.

#Staytuned!

What about you? Do you use hashtags and are they helping you grow your Twitter following?

Posted in Hashtags, Twitter and tagged Hashtags, Small Business, Social Media, Social media tips, Twitter

03 Jul 2012

To “MT” or “RT” on Twitter? That is the Question.

When I first took notice of “MT”s (Modified Tweets) in my Twitter feed, I commented on someone’s blog post on the topic that I really didn’t see the point in it. Why complicate things? “RT” (Retweet) covers it.

I take that back.

Though I originally objected to yet another Tweetism that would make Twitter an even more mysterious and scary platform for those who so want to dip their toes in the water but can’t muster the courage, I now find myself using MT in most of my retweets.

Why MT vs. RT?

MT indicates openly that you’ve in some way changed the content of the tweet you’re retweeting.

When should you use it? MT when…

you eliminate words from a tweet to make it shorter to fit the confines of Twitter’s 140-character limit. To facilitate retweeting, you might consider cutting a tweet so it provides room for “RT @” plus your Twitter handle.

you change or eliminate a portion of a tweet that might not be appropriate for your audience. Maybe it’s too niche focused or perhaps it has strong language. Either way, MT!

MT Example:

MT (Modified Tweet)

Rules of thumb:

MT when you’ve done more than just add or remove punctuation or spaces in a retweet.
Don’t MT or RT if you’ve changed a tweet’s content and/or intent beyond recognition. In that case, create your own intro, share the link and mention (@) the Twitter user who brought it to your stream.

Although I don’t view tweets as works of art that should be protected as creative property, I do believe it is common courtesy to acknowledge that a retweet no longer reflects verbatim the words of its source. I predict lots more MTs in your Twitter Home Feed’s future!

Using MTs yet? What unspoken rules do you have for MTing and RTing?

Posted in Social Media, Twitter and tagged Entrepreneurs, Microblogging, Modified Tweet, MT, Retweet, RT, Small Business, small business advice, Small business tips, Social Media, Solopreneurs, Tips for solopreneurs, Tweet, Twitter | Leave a Comment

30 Apr 2012

Keeping Up With Connections: Looking for Best Practices!

The Ultimate Challenge

It’s what I find most challenging to stay on top of on social media (especially on Twitter and Google+)…reviewing the profiles of people who have just followed me, to see if their content, industry, or affiliations make following them back the right thing to do. I know that there are probably a hundred or so people among my Twitter followers and Google+ circles who I should be following, but I can’t keep up! And so, I’m begging. I’m pleading for you to share your thoughts, ideas and best practices on efficiently and effectively checking out profiles/posts to decide who to follow back.

What I Don’t Want

I don’t want to follow everyone. And I don’t expect everyone who I follow to follow me. If you don’t enforce some level of selectivity, picking out relevant content in your news feeds becomes a nightmare. I forget where I read it, but someone, somewhere wrote something to the effect of “When I follow everyone; I follow no one.” Truth! If you have to ferret through too many posts/tweets that are completely unrelated to anything that’s within your frame of interest, you’re distracting yourself from the content that really matters. That means the folks who should be getting your attention won’t be getting nearly as much as they deserve, and you could be missing out on some really good stuff.

Help!

How do you manage it?

Do you set aside a certain time of day/week/month to review and organize connections?

Do you put new connections into lists/specific circles as soon as you add them, or do you go back later and classify/categorize?

Do any of you follow everyone back, and then go back later to remove them if their content isn’t relevant?

Please comment here, send me an email or share your suggestions on my Facebook page, via Twitter or on Google+. I’m looking forward to learning from you and sharing your ideas with others in a future post! Thanks in advance for your help!!

Consider joining the Dialing 8 Project! A forum for learning, sharing & getting the most out of your social media efforts for your small business.

Image: xedos4 / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Posted in Google Plus, Social Media, Twitter and tagged Entrepreneurs, Google+, Managing social media connections, Small Business, Solopreneurs, Twitter | Leave a Comment

27 Mar 2012

4 Comments

How to Use Hootsuite and Buffer Symbiotically to Improve Your Efficiency on Twitter

The time it takes to actively engage on social media reigns as one of the top challenges facing entrepreneurs. Besides my own Facebook Page, Twitter account, LinkedIn presence and Google+ profile, I also manage several others…and, YES, I feel the “time management” pain! Using online tools for scheduling and posting directly from a web page has become an absolute necessity – especially where Twitter is concerned.

Without Hootsuite and Buffer App, I’d be in a padded cell by now. But even with their independent bells & whistles, I was struggling to find efficiency when using them together. And no, I wasn’t willing to give up either one completely!

What’s great about Hootsuite –Hootsuite’s dashboard for monitoring Twitter activity rocks! You can set it up to display: the tweets made by people you follow; when people reply to, retweet or mention you; and direct messages that you receive. Plus, it makes it simple to tweet, retweet (as a mention) and direct message directly from the dashboard – and to schedule all of the above. I also love that Hootsuite is clever enough to automatically fill in the blanks when you start typing a Twitter handle so you don’t need to seek out the exact name via Twitter.com. Sweeeeet!

Hootsuite Dashboard (demonstrating how it suggests Twitter handles as you type them)

What’s great about Buffer App – After adding the Buffer extension to your browser (Chrome, Firefox, or Safari), whenever you want to share a blog post or web page on Twitter (works for Facebook and LinkedIn, too), you need only click the Buffer icon on your browser. Next, a window pops open that automatically creates a shortened URL for the link and some introductory text (which you can modify).

Buffer App for generating posts directly from blogs and web pages

From there, you can opt to share the post immediately or schedule it in your “Buffer”. Your Buffer is the daily schedule you set for your posts. Each time you use the Buffer icon to share a page/schedule a post, the post goes into the next time slot in your Buffer’s line up. Easy!

What wasn’t great about using them both at the same time – Because I was using BufferApp for scheduling posts directly from blogs and web pages, while using the Hootsuite dashboard to schedule retweets of others’ posts, I had two posting schedules to manage and coordinate instead of one. It got tricky, messy, and time-consuming to keep my Buffer and Hootsuite scheduled tweets from overlapping or being spaced too closely together. I found myself constantly resetting my Buffer’s posting schedule and editing the times on individual scheduled posts in Hootsuite to avoid that from happening. Not very efficient!

The fix – This might not be viewed as completely copacetic, but it works for me and I don’t believe it’s creating any issues for either Hootsuite or Buffer App. Symbiosis happened when I began to merge the best of both worlds. In other words, I began to schedule tweets exclusively through Hootsuite, while still using the slick ability to generate posts directly from the web via Buffer App’s browser extension. How you ask? I was scheduling retweets through Hootsuite all along, but then I also started pulling Buffer tweets into that schedule, too. Rather than selecting “Add to Buffer” in the Buffer window when I’m preparing to share a page, I now cut the text and shortened URL from Buffer, paste it into Hootsuite and schedule it there. Maintaining just one posting schedule has saved significant time and effort.

Step 1: Cut content from Buffer window

Paste post content and URL into Hootsuite for scheduling

Step 2: Paste Buffer window content into Hootsuite for scheduling

Alleviating link tracking worries – If you’re concerned about monitoring the click activity on the links in your posts, don’t be. URLs generated through Hootsuite can be tracked through Hootsuite’s analytics. As for the links generated through Buffer that are cut and pasted into Hootsuite, you can access results through your bit.ly account if you’ve chosen bit.ly as your link shortening convention.

Making tools work for you – Although there are marvelous cost-effective and free social media tools out there, it will sometimes take a little creativity (or MacGyver tricks!) to meld their strengths together and develop processes around them to make them work for you. Experiment, experiment, experiment with the resources at your disposal until you find a combination that will save you valuable time and effort!

Your turn! What tricks and tips can you share for using multiple social media management tools more efficiently?

Consider joining the Dialing 8 Project! A forum for learning, sharing & getting the most out of your social media efforts for your small business.

Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Posted in Social Media, Twitter and tagged Buffer App, Hootsuite, Twitter

06 Jan 2012

4 Comments

Is Force-feeding Tweets Leaving a Sour Taste With Your LinkedIn Connections?

I would love to connect with you! Join me on Facebook | Twitter | LinkedIn | Google+

_________________________________________________

I’ve noticed that more and more LinkedIn users are adjusting their settings so that all their tweets automatically show up as LinkedIn status updates.

In taking inventory at random intervals to see exactly how much real estate others’ tweets are occupying on my own LinkedIn home page, I’ve averaged that in every 40 status updates, 17 are “via twitter” – complete with hashtags, twitter handles and abbreviated language to fit the confines of a 160-character tweet.

I ran polls on Facebook and on a LinkedIn group to get a feel for what other LinkedIn users think about the practice. Results are here, but right now here’s my take on the topic:

LinkedIn is LinkedIn – Please don’t use status updates as an adjunct twitter feed. I’m on Twitter to see tweets. I’m on LinkedIn for a different purpose.

I appreciate LinkedIn status updates more when they are created specifically for LinkedIn. It shows you care.

There are LinkedIn users who don’t use Twitter and don’t care to use twitter at this juncture. Don’t force-feed tweets to them. RT @DawnMentzer – Ur #status #updates look strange (& maybe even stupid) to them b-cause they don’t understand tweet-speak.

You might be making yourself top of mind to your network, but possibly not in a good way. Remember, the community on LinkedIn has a lower tolerance than Twitter does for frequency of posting. You might be creating more noise than value – even if you’re putting out high-quality tweets.

My guess is that your syndicated tweets aren’t gaining too much traction on LinkedIn. Other than via group discussions, LinkedIn users just don’t seem as receptive to responding to updates – my thought is that they use the other social media networks for that.

Agree or disagree? Alternate points of view are most welcome here, so please comment. That’s how we all learn!

On Twitter: No Sense in Following for the Sake of Getting or Keeping a Follow

Connect with me! Facebook | Twitter | LinkedIn | Google+

Frank Dickinson published a post a few months ago about engaging his audience on Twitter. Within it, mention of a clever hashtag he used in a tweet: “#WhyFollowIfYouAreNotGoingToEngage”

There’s a school of thought taught by some Twitter users that suggests you should follow everyone who follows you because it’s the kind thing to do. The sentiment is nice, but it’s senseless – especially if you’re aiming to seriously use Twitter as a business building, networking and learning tool.

Following folks simply because they followed you can quickly clog up your Twitter timeline with tweets that have no value to you. And that will detract from your ability to concentrate on the people and the tweets that have something to offer.

As an entrepreneur, you have a target audience and specific areas of interest. You focus on them in your other marketing and networking activities, and that’s what you should be most focused on when using Twitter, too. Ultimately, you want to build relationships with others in your industry (and complementary industries), prospective clients and those who influence prospective clients.

Tips for quality over quantity on Twitter:

Don’t follow everyone who follows you – Before you click the “Follow” button, look at new followers’ profiles & check their recent tweets. Interesting? Informative? Relevant to your interests and/or industry? If yes, reciprocate. If there’s no synergy, don’t follow.

Don’t feel guilty about not following. If they’re following you for the right reason – because you’re tweeting content that they can learn from – then what have you got to be guilty about? I follow people who don’t follow me, but I don’t feel short-changed because they’re providing insight and new knowledge by way of their tweets.

Beware of the followers with far more “Followers” than the number of accounts they’re “Following” – There’s never a dead-even match in those numbers, but if someone’s got 5,596 followers, is only following 80, and has tweeted just 12 times, it’s suspicious. Chances are they’re following to get a follow – and will unfollow as soon as you follow them. Generally, you’ll find the really great Twitter reciprocators to have a relatively even number of “Followers” and “Following”.

Don’t play the Twitter numbers game – Sure, it’s tough to be patient when it seems like everyone else on Twitter has thousands of followers and you don’t. But wouldn’t you rather build a community of mutually interested users than connect with people who have no intention of engaging with you, nor you them?

Building your network based on genuine interest will certainly take longer than not being at all selective in your approach to following others, but your network WILL grow. And it will be one you can be proud of, and reap benefits from.

How do you decide who to follow on Twitter?

4 Reasons to Get Over Twitter Intimidation

Twitter can be intimidating. It’s fast. It’s got its own secret language. There are people on there who have tens of thousands of followers… just a few of the reasons why solopreneurs and small business owners may not have taken it for a test drive.

Inspired by Miles Austin’s 12 Most Lame Excuses For Not Using Social Media, here are my observations to compel solopreneurs to take their feet off the brakes and get moving on Twitter.

1. You’ll grow your smarts – Twitter is a treasure trove of content. No matter what industry or business segment you’re in, you’ll find articles and advice relevant to it on Twitter. Plus, there is a TON of information tweeted for solopreneurs, entrepreneurs and small business owners about social media, marketing, business management…the kind of stuff that will help you develop professionally.

Tip: Seek out and follow the Twitter folks who consistently offer quality information you can use and learn from. Don’t follow EVERYONE – unless you want your timeline cluttered with a bunch of junk that you don’t care about.

2. You’ll become known as a resource in your field – This won’t happen overnight, but I believe you can accomplish it more quickly on Twitter than you can on Facebook, Google+, or even LinkedIn. Twitter makes it easier to share business news and knowledge – quickly and without as much effort – than the other social media.

Tip: Don’t go crazy trying to read everything in your timeline. It’s impossible. Scan for topics that grab your attention and are hot with your followers. Don’t fret about creating all original content all the time. Use what the folks you’re following are posting. Retweet their tweets. @Mention them with links to the articles they posted. If the content was something you found compelling, most likely the people who are following you will, too. DO actually read the articles that you retweet. Whatever’s in there is a reflection of your credibility – even if you didn’t author the content.

3. You’ll get better at doing more with less – Prepare to fine-tune your fast-twitch thinking fibers. On Twitter, you’ve got just 140 characters to get your point across. Much of that will be taken up by the link (even if it is a shortened URL) to the article you’re sharing and any @mentions you make. After getting acclimated to the space constraints of tweeting, you’ll become more adept at saying more with less. And that will make you a stronger, more direct communicator across the board.

Tip: Be original, show your personality and be an authority. A little (appropriate) humor goes a long way, as do tweets that indicate your followers will benefit from – and be better people for – reading what you’ve shared.

4. Twitter is FREE! – For goodness sake, it’s freakin’ FREE. Yes, it requires some time and effort. But how much time, effort and money would you need to spend to get the same access to knowledge and opportunity for interaction at conferences, seminars and networking events?

You can interact on Twitter whenever and almost wherever (thanks to mobile apps) you want to. And you don’t have to be logged in 24/7 to get noticed. Just be vigilant in providing quality tweets and being there enough to show that you’re interested and engaged with your followers and those who you’re following.

Tip: Make a commitment to carve out 15 minutes twice a day for Twitter. During that time, follow the 70/20/10 rule (per Mike Sansone of ConverStations – 70% resource sharing, 20% chit chat to show your personality, 10% promoting your own products & services).

As a not-so-long-ago-newbie, I perfectly understand why solopreneurs resist – or procrastinate – embracing Twitter. But sitting idle will only increase the intimidation factor. Be bold, get started and discover how Twitter can make you better in business.

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The Insatiable Solopreneur™

Succeeding and Surviving as a Solopreneur

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