As a tool of the ‘Web 2.0′ revolution, Twitter represents everything cutting-edge about the new terminology and has helped to define the user-orientated internet. Social networking sites exploded into life in the mid 2000s, driven primarily by MySpace and Facebook.
Twitter joined the pack in 2006 and has grown rapidly since its inception. It’s a micro-blogging site where users can post no more than 140 characters sharing their thoughts and opinions or they can use their accounts for the purpose of sharing information by posting links with tweets visible to their ‘followers’ who pick them up in their personal feeds.
After a few years in the limelight, is there a continuing appeal that will ensure progressive growth? Some critics rail against Twitter’s celebrity entourage, its publicity obsessed quotient and then there is the trawl through the banal that can encompass the average day in Twitterland.
A major part of the attraction of Twitter is that it counts thousands of celebrities as members, all tweeting away to let fans know what they’ve eaten for breakfast or if they have an album or film due for release. In Britain, high-profile tweeters have included singer Lily Allen and television mainstay, Stephen Fry.
Both have had mixed emotions about the site, leaving for personal reasons or in Fry’s case, because of criticism from another user, and then returning again. Stephen Fry, known as a prolific tweeter, publicly had a self-imposed hiatus to concentrate on his writing although on last inspection, it appears he cannot keep away with many tweets listed in the last few days and weeks.
Alas, is it revealing to have an insight into the mindset of the celebrity, in a world where they can seem awfully detached? Or should we care about every minute detail of their day? Certain celebrities even ask their followers for their thoughts on what they should wear. Interactive it may be, the worthiness of such exercises can be called into question.
Whilst Twitter is indeed a powerful tool of communication as evidenced in its role in sharing information amongst protesters during the aftermath of the turbulent Iranian election of June 2009, it isn’t without its critics. Some say that despite the fluidity Twitter affords those sharing useful information, it does also harbour and encourage the inane. Small, ‘txt speak’ blogs about someone’s favourite colour or what underwear someone is wearing hardly stimulate cogent debate or contribute anything to the already fluff-filled blogosphere however perhaps the ability to pontificate on any subject is another part of its appeal.
However as co-founder Biz Stone delighted in telling all users in a recent email, Twitter continues to grow. “In the course of a year, registered Twitter accounts have grown more than 1,500% and our team has grown 500%”, he beamed, adding that the company had just hired its 140th employee.
On the flip side, how many of these new users are merely cynical e-marketeers, insistent on jamming our feeds with all of their spam? Plus according to reports representing the back end of 2009, Twitter showed a 2% decline in traffic last October.
All of its major rivals continued to show positive growth and MySpace, which has lost some of its lustre since the advent of Facebook, has announced plans for an overhaul to strengthen its position. Whereas Twitter on the other hand, is criticised by some for its failure to evolve sufficiently to provide the features offered by its competitors (third-party applications, photos, games etc).
If Twitter is to ensure a successful future and maintain user loyalty, there will have to be an evolution to keep people interested and to maintain long-term viability.
There’s no doubting the benefits. Functions such as the ‘retweet’ enable micro-blogs and their useful information to be shared amongst a large audience. There is of course the added attraction of access into the celebrity mindset that isn’t necessarily restricted to a fan page where content is controlled by a management company.
Twitter might not be able to get rid of the marketeers who can smell a fast buck however it does need more to distract attention from the multitude selling their wares and the rest of us peddling our fluff.
Posted in Internet And Businesses Online tagged Facebook, Limelight, Mainstay by Stephen with No comments
If you live in the UK, the chances are that Twitter has come up in conversation this week due to a sudden explosion in its profile within the media.
Indeed, its promotion has been helped in no small part by a number of celebrities championing its use wherever they go. The latest celeb Chris Moyles, Radio 1 breakfast show DJ performed live on air a kind of love-twitter-triangle feature with fellow twitterers Philip Schofield and Andy Peters. So Here is my review of Twitter.
So what is Twitter? I’ve had a go and the best way to describe it is a status messenger, that just takes Facebook’s status update feature into a much simpler and minimalist format. I can see why it’s popular with celebrities as they can very quickly promote themselves to their legions of fans with minimal effort. I think it’s a rather charming little program, especially compared to the bloated and slothenly Facebook. Another great feature is that you can send updates via your mobile with SMS texts free of charge (you just pay your network’s standard charge) making the whole concept much more meaningful, providing you are doing something interesting of course!
“Following your favourite celebrities” sounds vulgar, but surprisingly very entertaining when put into practice. In fact reading Stephen Fry’s mini-crisis about buying a manbag from the airport yesterday and getting derided by his followers was hilarious as was Alan Carr’s advice not to brave the snow as he ‘did a Todd Carty in front of Londis’. You could almost say top-drawer entertainment, well for the office.
Actually, celebrity-following is pretty much all I can do until I get some followers of my own as I have had trouble convincing friends to have a look. I would advise you to throw away your preconceptions and just try it for a few days – for the sake of in-office entertainment.
Posted in Internet And Businesses Online tagged Breakfast Show, Followers, Preconceptions by Stephen with No comments
Twitter is a phenomenon, that’s for sure – an internet networking site where one has just 140 characters or less to connect with other people.
Most “Tweets”, or comments, occur at the chit-chat level of encounter (individuals sharing thoughts, experiences, enthusiasms, music, jokes, hobbies, breaking news) or involve people’s giving their immediate reactions to any of these. They happen?in real time, and are recorded along a time line. But you can pick up tweets others have directed at or about you by looking back at the the time line you’re written previously or at the ones where you’ve been mentioned.
The majority of tweets don’t involve real intimacy. People on the site look for what catches their immediate attention. Every comment is flagged with the twitterer’s chosen avatar-identity, so you can see who’s making comments of interest ?to you and choose to “follow” that person on a continual basis – have their thoughts added to your time-line. And of course, people can follow you.
It’s fun to mine the various streams for interest, because the audience is so broad that tweets cover a huge variety of topics. You can take you pick. And there’s a measure of safety built into the system – ?you can opt out of seeing someone’s comments if you want to, and even block them altogether if you wish.
You can block those who spam you, cut them out of your timeline. But input (mine included) varies quite a bit. Someone whose tweets seem dull may surprise over time. And most people like to see like their number of followers/ followings rise – many are building a following of some kind , much like a band does in order to get that precious record-deal.?
Like most people, my interest has mounted as my number of followers has increased. So far I’ve vetted my followers one by one, checking out their profiles individually. ?Just now an email arrives in my ordinary email inbox telling me someone is following me. But I can see a time coming when managing the stream like this would be inconvenient and too time consuming. At that point I will probably look into finding a “bot” or add-on script that will do it for me… but not yet.
All this takes time. Just as in “real life”, building trust doesn’t happen overnight. You need learn the rules of the game, such as they are.
Show people you’re not just out there to take their money but will share a little of yourself and what you think is important. Unless you’re a ’sleb, great wit or a guru, you need to do more than give your Deathless Thoughts about Life – show interest in and curiosity about others’ Tweets/lives. American comedians and Stephen Fry still tweet according to the rules; less so rap and movie stars Pass on to those in your timeline – you, your followers and those you have followed – anything that’s caught your attention. That’s called “re-tweeting” RT for short, but it could be called “showing generosity.” Say what you mean but be considerate – just as in email, it’s surprisingly easy to hurt or be hurt
Some Twitterers have been tweeting for years, but I’ve only been doing it for three months. I found the learning curve frustrating and bewildering for about the first six weeks. But as my skill has increased, so has my sense of satisfaction. My encounters have been growing steadily in terms of reach and interest.
This week I graduated – made what I’d call “first contact.” Not just the normal light chit chat, but a real conversation, where I was put onto my heels and had to listen and respond with all my wit. It left me excited/confused/ anxious – not for nothing is “first contact” the theme of so many apocryphal science fiction films.
Stimulating though it was, I fought the impulse to flee before this encounter was really over – especially when it became clear that the person on the other end of the conversation was at least as clever as I am, and also very different from my previous “chit chat” fantasies about him. I’d misjudged his gender – which I understand is a classic Twitter mistake; ?many choose animal or other avatars which are gender-neutral or different from their own.
In short – it was a very real, very interesting encounter, but in my wish to explore the connection I probably jumped over my need to go slowly. My Twitter contact was more a veteran than I and was very gracious about this – but he did confront me about expressing myself sloppily.
Quite right, too.
So, Twitter IS, potentially, personal. It’s NOT controlled by the Mob or big business, not yet: the money men who put forth the venture capital are having a hard time figuring out how they’re going to profit from it.
Well, I’m certainly not going to tell them – for me, the value of Twitter is that there are lots of real people on this network, sharing their interests and passions. ?I’m learning about their lives, their humour, their taste, a little bit at a time. The size of the morsel makes this process safer than most ?online encounters and far more manageable; and for once it’s not dominated by pre-teens.
I can handle the come-ons from the money-makers without getting my pocket picked. So I expect I’ll be Twittering for some time to come. Are you interested? Great. Perhaps I’ll see you online.
(c) Alexandra Brunel 2009. All rights reserved.
Posted in Internet And Businesses Online tagged Continual Basis, Hobbies, Streams by Stephen with No comments
Getting hits on your blog is not easy, but if you get it right it is very satisfying and rewarding to know people regularly pass by and visit your own blog. Here are some tips to get those hits and i get things there is no reason why you cannot become one of the best bloggers around.
1. Blog Topic
The topic of your blog is really important. When you want lots of hits you need to consider where you are going to find the readers. If you are writing about the cracks in your walls, you need to know where to find the people who like to read about it! Otherwise you are doomed.
2. Search Engine Friendliness
You must flirt with Google like a fine looking female at the dance.
As much as we hope for a regular readership finding your blog on authority sites is where many of your readers will come from. Google is the Internet, you just need to accept it. It is every Political bloggers dream to be at the top of the list when someone types in “Politics Blog” into Google. If someone types in “Random political blog from some unknown wannabe in the North East of England” I want my blog to come up. If someone is searching for what you write about it is a good idea for them to visit your site. Clever trickery to boost your search engine rankings are the key, but you must play the tune or your blog hits will suffer. Rightly or wrongly Google does have that level of influence now where sites must cater to their needs.
To do this you write your keywords into the post, no more than 2% of the words. My blogs keywords are things like “Labour, Politics, Political blog” and so on. The following phrase would be a bad example. ‘This post is designed to help bloggers get more hits’. It is better to tweak the wording slightly and be more targeted. Hence… ‘This posting is designed for anyone asking the question, “How do I get hits to my blog?” ‘ The search engines match the exact phrase with the search term and that gets you higher in the rankings and when people see the post match’s what they are looking for, they read your post, magic!
Note that Google are constantly changing their algorithms over what is important to their index of search engine ranking placement. By all accounts, and their own admission, they use very complex combinations of factors to find relevancy in pages.
My probably flawed attempt to simplify the Google algorithm would be that basically the more hits you get, the more relevant your pages are and the more back links you have makes google believe your page is an authority on the keywords you are using. Google then looks to offer the page as an answer to whatever query you match. It believes your page is better to solve the need of the searcher. You then get more hits.
If you do nothing else but drop in the main keywords into the titles of your posts, which are extremely important, and in the main text body of your page then you are halfway there. Bare in mind major companies employ search engine consultants to maximise this sort of thing so just do your best here.
3. Communicate with other Bloggers
This is my first rant. I have found that on the whole most political bloggers do not link to me easily. I chose a selection of links that you can find on the right that I actually read rather than just spewing random links all over the place. Many of the blogs I have read particularly in the Political sphere have tons of links. A link in there to your blog is good but generally lost in the volume. But it is still a good idea to contact all of the blogs and ask for a link. I must mention that some of the blogs I contacted were excellent and linked to me straight away. Around 20%. So, like sales, this is a numbers game.
You should canvass for link probably after your blog has been actively updated for 10weeks or so. Hopefully the incoming blogger, who no doubt will have an inflated sense of ego because they are “established”, will want to see you are a reasonable blog before linking. To be fair to the established blogs a lot of blogs come and go. You need to show you are sticking around for the long haul. Should they decide they will return to your blog, they will most likely place a link to you on their blog. Some bloggers will even make a small mention of your blog in their posts which encourage viewers to click through. You should write a small post on your blog thanking them if this happens, this can solidify the abstract relationship and make the linking friend more positive towards you.
I have found a general aloofness in people when discussing links. Some are very protective over their status when linking to someone else when to it really makes no difference to their blog. I start off by linking to everyone but over time I remove links that either ignore my email, or only have the Industry set of links on their site. New bloggers should be encouraged and a link costs nothing. Oh, and never pay for a link unless you have a commercial reason for doing so.
A simple email asking for a link with your display name and url should be enough. Offering reciprocal links will not help you to begin with. Most blogs you want to share with are far more established and they will know their link to you is far more valuable to you than vice versa. Better to say “I have already linked to you and would like you to consider linking to me if my blog fits your criteria”.
You can always remove the link at a later date if you do not get a satisfactory response. If your blog goes nuclear and becomes one of “the” blogs to read in your niche then links will appear everywhere anyway, so do not worry if bloggers are cool with you to start with. You might also be a little reluctant when contacted regularly by new bloggers seeking to get established.
4. Blog Directories
There are tons of blog directories that you can add your site to and doing so is a good idea. I am unsure just how effective they are but you can certainly do worse than have your link in there as the search engines notice the link to you. I am always concerned that everyone adds their link assuming others search the directory site, but many will simply add their link and carry on with other things. If you do post your link, using the brute force approach helps. Add your site to Technorati, Bloggerama, and most importantly any niche specific directories that your blog would get great coverage appearing in.
You can get a lot of new readers from something like this and often the thing that sends your blog to the 100 – 500 views a day page is a ringing endorsement from an award site or major blog of authority. If it was really easy every blog would have a ton of visitors, and they do not but as I will say many times, over time you will get noticed.
5. Write Interesting Posts
Sorry, but you must take care to construct good and interesting posts that engage the reader. I prefer a combination of short quick posts to longer more thought out postings. In terms of regularity, I think one post everyday should be enough, or one every three days. Readers will not mind if you post even once a week if the quality is good enough, however having a daily readership expecting daily updates and then blogging once a week suddenly lets down the quality of the blog.
Decide a post frequency from day one dependent on what you can legitimately (be realistic) write and then stick to it. Readers visit your blog because they want to see what you are writing, do not give them a reason to not revisit again. Many blogs start off with a bang then fade to nothing, this infuriates readers. If you want their regular hits you must do your bit.
Avoid starting posts with “Sorry I have not posted for a while”. The date of your previous post will be enough and this highlights to a new visitor that in all likelihood you will not be returning for a while. Many blogs fall by the wayside, a classic sign of this happening is the posts starting with excuses. A blog should be something you enjoy doing, if it becomes a chore then the point of doing it is lost. If you feel you cannot write as much as you would like, why not ask for a contribution by someone you know who might make your blog great. Some of the best blogs in the world have more than one writer and three writers writing across the week will mean regular updates.
6. Perseverance
Keep posting, and keep doing all of the above. Every little helps. If it is good enough for Tesco who make millions everyday it is good enough for me!
Over time your blog becomes an authority because your readers learn to trust that you are going to stick around for the long haul. This makes you look more professional. Having a well established blog over time also lends itself nicely to the search engines appreciating you as well. As time passes more and more of your posts will be indexed and you will find that other bloggers, directories and other links happily find their place in the search engines. This helps your blog get established as a site that has been around for some time. It can take up to six months to be indexed fully by a search engine and climbing the ladder within your keywords so patience is a massive part of blog success.
You gain new readers over time and increase your readership. Humans are creatures of habit, give them what they like reliably and they will come back and keep coming back.
7. Twitter
Twitter allows you to post updates about you or your blog. The world has gone twitter crazy. You can use a blogspot application or WordPress plug-in that grabs your tweets and place them on your site via a feed. Use Twitterment to find other Twitter uses in my niche and use Tinyurl.com to shorten your posts permalinks. I run another site and get a ton of hits from twitter. People love tweeting so engage in conversations. I write short introductions to my posts then encourage a click through using phrases designed to build interest from my readers.
For example, I might tweet “Read about my views on youth employment, I might get banned for this….” I obviously add the link as well.
Twitterment is a search engine of Twitter so finding people tweeting about what you are blogging about are great people to follow and pitch your blog to. In theory many of them will be very interested in what you have to say.
Do not be all business in your tweets. Use twitter to say what you are up to in life too. Stephen Fry has almost one million followers because he is cultured and says intelligent witty things in his tweets. If you are engaging with words and use the right ones Twitter can get you plenty of hits for your blog. Announce anything from posts, a special offer (if you sell something) a blog re-design or a funny video you have posted.
8. YouTube
People like to watch video. If you have the equipment and the inclination to use video then share it on YouTube and embed the code into your website. This will encourage viewers, providing the video is reasonable. Edit it slightly but do not go too far as part of YouTubes allure is the basic but useful video you can watch. If you are a bird watcher, a weekly collection of your clips would go down well. If you are a football blogger, a weekly discussion with a friend on the latest news like the TV show The Sunday Supplement would get viewers.
You will need a thick skin as viewers do not hold back with comments, but a critical viewer is still a viewer and even though some comments are cutting people generally watch video because they like it, despite what they say. Criticism is an attempt to engage so comment back and discuss.
The key concept for your blog is to embed your video into your blog AND integrate the link to your blog into the video. This encourages blog viewers to view the video and people finding the video first at YouTube to then visit your blog. If they like the video they will probably like the blog so encourage back and forth visitors.
9. Luck
Some blogs just get hits. Others struggle, but over time it gets easier I’m told. I believe you can do it if you are dedicated over a long time things do tend to work out. Patience, application, a thick skin and perseverance are the key to getting 1 million hits.
Posted in Internet And Businesses Online tagged Google, Labour Politics, Search Engine Friendliness by Stephen with No comments
I would imagine that whether you are a user of the Internet or not the chances are you have heard about a social networking site called Twitter. In fact, if you do use the Internet there is every chance you are already a part of the Twitter network. The social network scene is proving very popular with a wide range of the population. From top politicians who use Twitter to let people know about political developments, election news and so on, to celebrities, right on to affiliates who use Twitter to promote their products.
Take, for example, Barack Obama, the 44th President of the United States. Even before he was voted in as President he kept his `followers` up to date with his electioneering campaign. He now has an amazing 2,581,282 followers, and this figure increases almost by the second. Stephen Fry describes himself on his bio as a `British Actor, Writer, Lord of Dance, Prince of Swimwear & Blogger` who has recently given up on Twitter due to his being criticized by one of his followers as being `boring.` Fry took exception to this, but has since gone back on what he wrote in one of his tweets, and is staying with Twitter. Fry`s more than 950,000 followers are no doubt pleased by his change of heart.
But of course it is not just private individuals who have a presence on Twitter. Companies both great and small keep their customers involved by regular updates. One of these larger companies is Amazon. They have several pages, one of these being the official twitter of Amazon’s affiliate program, which was launched in 1996. Great news for Amazon`s Associates who get to find out updates very quickly, rather than having to wait for slower email announcements.
Now in fact they have gone even further, they have announced the launch of a new feature called Share on Twitter. Associates can access Share on Twitter from the Site Stripe and post to their Twitter account from Amazon detail pages in just two clicks. By clicking on the Share on Twitter button in the Site Stripe, a new window will open and an Amazon-generated message is pre populated in the ‘What are you doing?’ text area of an Associates Twitter account which already includes that Associate`s ID. If a Twitter user clicks on the link in that post and makes a qualifying sale, referral fees are then earned by the Associate.
Amazon, as with other affiliate programs, has seen a huge opportunity to cash in on the size and popularity of Twitter. The danger though is that eventually social networking sites like Twitter could get too spammy.
Posted in Internet And Businesses Online tagged Followers, Lord Of Dance, Political Developments by Stephen with No comments
As you probably know Twitter was created for individuals to interact with each other and for Stephen Fry to tell everyone he is trapped in a lift – but did you know that it also has the capacity to help you market and expand your business. In this short article I will be running through a few tips on how to unleash the power of Twitter for the benefit of your company. The two main methods that companies have been using to utilise the power of Twitter are Direct and Indirect.
o Direct – This is the most obvious route to take and is the one that most businesses opt for when they start tweeting. Essentially what you will be doing is using Twitter as a marketing tool. You can use Twitter to talk about any promotions your company may be having, or you can celebrate company achievements. It can be a quick channel to release information on any new products that you may be putting into the marketplace in the near future. All these sorts of marketing on Twitter can be accompanied by a link to the relevant page on your website. However it is important to point out that when using this strategy you are best not go into overkill or your potential customers will just tune out and your voice can be lost.
o Indirect – A more subtle approach to take when trying to use Twitter to promote your company or service is that of the indirect method. Either by chance or design you get your employees to use Twitter and as they (hopefully) Tweet great things about your company then you become more popular by proxy. If your company offers a great service or interesting products that your employees talk about in can only have a positive effect on your company.
What benefits can I get from using Twitter for my business?
o As with many forms of online marketing you have to be aware that you are not going to be in control of what people say in response to your company. However you can give this a positive spin because it will give you instant access to your customers’ opinions (good or bad) and thus your ability to fix any problems can be much quicker. It will give you a better understanding of your customers needs and help build stronger customer relations
o Twitter is fast breaking; therefore you can get news to your customers at a much faster rate than ever before.
o As well as Tweeting to promote your own company Twitter can provide with an opportunity to keep an eye on the competition. You can see what they are Tweeting about and the response they get from the public and adjust your marketing strategies accordingly.
In conclusion Twitter should be part of your online marketing strategy, helping you promote your company – whilst always keeping an eye on your competitors. Hopefully this has given a brief outline of why your business should be thinking of using Twitter as a promotional tool, now you need to investigate further and start building a strategy.
Posted in Internet And Businesses Online tagged Benefit, Interesting Products, Proxy by Stephen with No comments
In the dawn of the 21st century & still currently amongst us at this very moment in time, Mankind has witnessed the surgence in digital technology which has transformed & shaped the lives of people as we know it. One such feature that has radically become a world wide phenomena is the dramatic rise of Social networking sites.
August 2003. The year where it all began & notably changed the way people communicate with each other forever. The very year where social networking was born. This my people I am talking about MySpace, the founding fathers of social networking. The very site that previously became no 1 in USA for social interaction amongst the younger generations.
February 2004. A year where a successor will rise. A social network thats power has surpassed MySpace & continues to thrive to this very day. A network that has approximately 350 million users & still growing! Well, I’m sure it comes to no surprise that the social network I am talking about is Facebook! yes its popular chat forums have radically influenced the younger community & has taken the world by storm.
The year 2009. The rise of yet another social network. A strong contender that has entered the ring to compete against the reigning champions of social networking Facebook. Many celebrity guest appearances such as Stephen fry has dramatically increased traffic to there web page. I am talking but no other than twitter. The ingenious concept that allows users to send emails known as “tweets” to other users has become a instant hit amongst users thus creating a huge online phenomena.
and now… as we step into a new decade, there is a time for change. Its time for a new social network to rise for the new up & coming decade. The new social network for 2010 is IChatrr. IChatrr is a growing community based website which allows users to communicate through messages, audio or video chat widgets. More so, a new exciting group chat widget has been installed to provide a more enjoyable experience for all members. Like most social networks, members can upload pictures, music & video & can also customise their account as freely as they like.
Does IChatrr have what is takes to play with the top dogs? Only time can tell.
Posted in Internet And Businesses Online tagged 21st Century, Phenomenon, Social Networking by Stephen with No comments
Do you Tweet? Thousands of businesses do, and for those who get it right it’s proving a very effective way of communicating with their clients and increasing their visibility on the net.
But with so many businesses now using Twitter, getting yourself heard amongst the dawn chorus of Tweets has become and art in itself.
This brief guide will give you some pointers to helping you make the most of this effective marketing tool.
What is Twitter?
Put simply, Twitter is a “micro-blog” – you post your thoughts in no more than 140 characters. People who have signed up to your Twitter feed (“followers”) will see your posts.
The brevity of the posts can be Twitter’s biggest strength. It allows you to quickly get a message across without taking up too much of your subscribers time – they’ll either be interested and follow it up, or not and dismiss it.
How do I make them interested?
This is the $64,000 question. Understanding what your clients/followers want to read is the key to using Twitter as an effective marketing tool.
A simple rule to follow for Tweeting is one that already applies to blogging – tell people something you know, that they don’t know and that they want to know.
Position yourself as an expert, a guru, an insider – best of all position yourself as a friend who always seems to know the juicy gossip.
Effectively that is what Twitter is at its best – it’s that person who always seems to know what’s going on. Let’s call her Susan.
“Have you heard about Amy and that bloke from accounts?” “Yeah, I heard bits but what’s the gossip?” “Dunno, wait till Susan gets here, she always knows about this stuff”.
So how do I turn my Twitter feed into Susan?
Know your audience. Here are four examples of recent Twitter feeds I received – see if you can work out which were Susan and which were just that annoying bloke from the car pool with the personal hygiene issues.
A: Is an e-reader revolution about to take off?
B: Lunch on day 2 of the W Indies Test. Enjoying myself hugely.
C: Just finishing a glass of wine then off for a bath – it’s a hard life
D: New contract to supply [Major Hotel Group] agreed!
Did you spot Susan?
Well, A was the BBC Technology Tweet – it did exactly what I wanted, told me something it knew that I didn’t and I wanted to know. I signed up because I want tip-offs on the world of gadgets and e-communication and it hits the spot every time.
B was Stephen Fry – a man who Tweets like a nightingale and consequently has more followers than any other UK twitterer. It’s mundane information but I want mundane information – Fry’s Tweeties want to be part of his circle of friends, to get an insight into his weird and wonderful life, and he delivers. Stephen Fry is definitely Susan.
Both these Tweets worked because they understood exactly what their followers wanted from them and why they are being followed.
But C was a film writer for a UK media outlet. I want to know how good the new James Bond film, I don’t give a Tweet about what he’s up to in his personal life.
D was a company who provide network solutions to business – I want to know about developments that will affect my business, I don’t care how well they are doing, who their clients are – I don’t care if they have just won the Nobel Prize for Literature – all I want to know is how I can benefit from their knowledge. You can use case studies or testimonials or the news section of your website to get the marketing message across about how well your business is doing etc.
You’ll never guess what..
Let’s say you are a business selling cars. Your customers are likely to be interested in… cars!
Now let’s say you’ve just read a fascinating article on how Honda’s new coupe will include a version of F1’s kinetic energy recovery system.
So a man walks into your showroom and starts talking about how he’s thinking of buying a sporty two-seater. What do you say..? “You’ll never guess what..”
Although Twitter only allows 140 characters, you need to imagine that there are actually 160. It’s just that the first 20 are hidden and they always read: “You’ll never guess what”.
You are the person your followers turn to for the “never guess what” stuff, the insights, the gossip, the heads-up. You are Susan.
“You’ll never guess what – we met May’s sales targets two weeks ahead of schedule”. Um… no.
“You’ll never guess what – the new Honda coupe gets 5 stars in this month’s What Car http://tinyurl.com/yvdle”. Really? Thanks!
Little and not often
I’ve been away from my PC for a couple of hours and I come back to find the words “You have 75 Tweets” waiting for me.
In those 75 tweets there may well be some Wildean gems from Mr Fry, or news of a change to Google’s algorithm that will alter the way I do SEO forever.
I’ll never find out because I can’t be bothered, and don’t have the time, to trawl through 75 “I’m drinking a glass of chardonnay”s and “We’ve just won a big contract”s.
So 73 of the people I’m following are heading for the Remove button.
Only tweet when you really have something to say, when you’ve found something you just have to share – something you’d be interested in if you were one of your own followers.
Too many wasted Tweets and people will stop following you. Keep it relevant, keep it simple but most of all keep it interesting.
Will Tweeting help my SEO?
It depends how you view SEO. If you see it as simply Google (or other search engine) ranking, then the answer is yes and no.
Without getting too technical, Google doesn’t index twitter posts or pages the same way it indexes websites or web pages. But it does spot them, and sometimes it likes them.
Search for Stephen Fry (it’s that man again) and you’ll find his Twitter page right up there just under his own personal page in the first page of Google results.
But if you see SEO as something beyond just your position in Google- which you should – then it can have a major impact.
Importantly, Twitter’s own search tool is increasingly being used to find interesting and relevant information.
Your Tweets can also be re-tweeted to other people’s followers and spread virally through the Twitter network, or they can be shared and bookmarked through StumbleUpon, Sphin, or the many other online information and link sharing tools out there.
SEO is about being found on the web – the avenues for being discovered are growing by the day, and Twitter is a good way of helping you navigate many of them.
We all Tweet a different tune
How you use Twitter is very much down to your own business and your own client base. There are no hard and fast rules over and above keep it relevant and keep it interesting. What is relevant and interesting to your clients is something you are in the best position to know.
If you are a personality-based brand, or one that markets itself through the lifestyle it projects, then posting personal insights is the way to go – @innocentdrinks, for example, do this very well. A word of warning though – if you are taking this approach, you had better be good at it and have an engaging personality to sell, nothing has users reaching for the Remove button quicker than pointless personal insights.
If you are a specialist knowledge-based brand, giving unique and useful information to your followers might be the best approach – go with what works for your clients.
It’s called social media for a reason
Twitter – like all social media – is a two-way conversation. Well, actually a two, three four…ten thousand-way conversation if you want it to be.
Don’t just post your musings and sit back waiting for people to lap them up. Talk to people, engage – answer their questions, pose questions of your own, make friends.
Followers want to be able to interact with people they find interesting – and interacting is at the heart of Twitter.
Be creative, be pro-active
Creative use of Twitter can be really effective. Recently, on a sunny bank holiday weekend, I got a tweet from the National Trust linking to some amazing pictures of bluebells and spring flowers taken that day. There was also a link to find out where my nearest National Trust bluebell wood was. They knew a lot of their subscribers would be like me – at a loose end on an unexpectedly sunny Sunday, and looking for something to do. Result? I went to a National Trust property – exactly what they wanted, and they achieved it by being relevant, useful, timely and damn clever.
For other companies, the penny hasn’t quite dropped about how to use Twitter. I know of one major UK publishing company that banned writers on its magazines from Tweeting about reviews they were writing before the articles were published. They were afraid that people wouldn’t buy the magazines if they already knew what writers were going to say. Another, perhaps more sensible, view would be that if you know that writer X, for magazine company Y, is always first to let you know about new stuff, aren’t you going to be more likely to buy the magazine they write for?
Twitter can create an audience of its own for you, and that audience is one that is much more likely to come to the main show than one that doesn’t already know who you are.
Tweet wisely – and think of Susan.
Posted in Internet And Businesses Online tagged Brevity, Pointers, Twitter by Stephen with No comments
Twitter is a very popular social network application used by millions of people worldwide. Even celebrities are known to use this platform to connect with their fans and friends around the world. Twitter offers several features like the follow me tag which makes it easy for celebrities to use so that their fans know what they are up to.
Some of the most popular people who get followed on Twitter by anyone and everyone are the celebrities. Some of the popular celebrities who use Twitter are Lindsay Lohan and Samantha Ronson. Even before journalists get their juicy bites about this couple, people get to know about them on Twitter.
Ashton Kutcher also uses Twitter and was also quoted saying that all filters between celebrities and their fans are removed. He has around a million followers.
Stephen Fry happens to be the biggest United Kingdom-based celebrity to use Twitter. He even informed his fans through his Tweets when he got stuck in a lift on the twenty-sixth floor of a building.
Britney Spears uses it and has tens of thousands of follower on it.
Lance Armstrong who is fighting testicular cancer also uses it and all his fans get the latest news updates about him through his Tweets.
Shaquille O’Neal is another such celebrity who uses the program and so does John Cleese, the British actor from the famous Monty Python movies.
There are several advantages of celebrities using Twitter. One is that the need for journalists who keep giving out manipulated information to their fans forever is removed. If a celebrity wants to disclose certain personal or professional information to their fans, they can do so directly. They can also personally clarify their fans’ doubts. Now fans and the celebrities have a platform where they can meet directly instead of gossip magazines.
Posted in Internet And Businesses Online tagged Britney Spears, Sixth Floor, Twitter by Stephen with No comments
