A couple of years ago, discourse surrounding corporate engagement with social media was of the opinion that, if you had made the decision to interact there was not necessarily the expectation for you to respond using Twitter during a crisis. Whilst in theory this may still be true, there have been a multitude of examples that have proved that this argument is becoming increasingly invalid and actually, using Twitter can aid your response.

These days, social media is second nature to many and is often one’s first port of call if they have an opinion they wish to express. And next time, it may be about you. What’s more, a social media storm is no longer confined to the digital sphere: if it’s causing a stir in the Twittersphere, then you can be sure that somewhere a journalist will being putting it into print. Tweets may be ephemeral, but the spin-off blog posts and coverage in traditional media can dominate Google search results and news stands alike.

Why wait? You’ll only cause yourself a crisis.

A notable example of an organisation letting an incident escalate, was when Joanna Jones took on British airline Easyjet. The blind passenger was refused permission to board her flight because she was unable to produce the necessary documentation to prove that her guide dog, Orla, was in fact a guide dog.

@joannajones1 promptly turned to Twitter:

Her post was rapidly retweeted, and generated outrage in the Twittersphere. Despite the fact that Easyjet had been following Civil Aviation Authority procedures, their lack of communication and social media engagement created a crisis. The press shortly picked up the story and Easyjet was slammed with allegations of discrimination against the disabled.

Engage or be damned.

Easyjet worsened the situation by initially ignoring it.. Instead, they replied with too little, too late, unintentionally promoting the hashtag #worstapology.

How the pros do it

In complete contrast, during their two-day network outage, O2 managed to create multiple positive news pieces, blogs and tweets despite the fact that at the end of the first day, they were in the midst of a PR nightmare.

O2 dealt with the incident not by following the usual corporate holding line “we apologise for this temporary disruption to our service, we are in the process of rectifying the situation” but instead, they responded to all tweets (even the rude ones) in an open and humorous manner. During the outage, O2’s Twitter followers increased from an average of 155 per day to 13,500 per day and, sensibly, O2 seized the opportunity for some publicity. The O2 social media team managed to turn a deluge of aggressive, angry tweets into a celebratory outpouring for their response. Here are some of the best:

So, how can you manage a social media crisis effectively?

1. Early detection: set up a monitoring tool or team to notify you if you’re being talked about. Detecting a crisis in-the-making will, in some cases, provide you with an opportunity to stop the incident becoming an issue

2. Response Strategy: Have a plan! Ensure that all of your essential players are well trained – they should know what to do, who to talk to and when to do it
3. For goodness sake, communicate! Regain control of the situation. Even if there are legal implications, still make sure to say you are aware of the situation and will provide a statement where possible, direct interested parties towards the appropriate websites, FAQ pages etc.
4. Seize the opportunity: Showcase your response and potentially gain more loyal advocates than you had beforehand. Where possible respond to questions and provide useful information on an individual basis. This may also reduce incoming traffic to your helpdesks, helping you resource the incident

And, definitely DO NOT:

1. Ignore the situation and hope it disappears
2. Continue posting messages as if nothing has happened
3. Delete comments (unless they directly violate your social media policy)
4. Be dishonest

It boggles the mind and makes one try to find some sense in it. What does it mean?

Well, it certainly proved the tremendous reliance we all have on the content that comes from Twitter. Some would say investors rely too much on automated trades based on tweets.

It also proved the great value our society places on Twitter as a provider of content and information.

Tweets will now be featured in Yahoo’s news feed.

Yesterday Yahoo announced that it was taking Twitter very seriously indeed.

In her blog, Merissa Mayer, CEO of Yahoo stated, “Tweets have become an important information source for many of our users, so we are thrilled to announce our partnership with Twitter to bring Tweets directly into the Yahoo! newsfeed.”

She went on to say that over the next few days users would begin to see Tweets “personalized to their interests and preferences” appear in their content stream, delivering on earlier promises that the search and new aggregation giant would move toward more personalization of content for its users.

[An interesting side note is that the title of Mayer’s blog post “@Yahoo delivers #bestoftheweb” is really not very tweetable. Oops. To start a tweet with a Twitter name is a mistake unless you are talking ‘at’ that person/account. It will not appear as normal tweet.]

Yahoo’s big search competitor, Google wasn’t able to keep its former relationship with the microblogging giant. Twitter results disappeared from Google some time back, making this an quite a win for Yahoo.

But what does this move mean for communicators?

While few details have been revealed, it’s probably safe to assume that Yahoo will feature tweets that are popular, influential and of course meet certain criteria for authenticity and newsworthiness.

As communicators we should be prepared and simply take this as a reminder of some best practices for content creation:

1) Create share-worthy content with tweetable headlines and by highlighting crunchy, interesting facts in bold font or in bulleted lists.
2) Cultivate social networks. Build credibility for your content and your brand.
3) Build relationships with influencers.
4) Calibrate your team for rapid response to current events.

Perhaps your content will make it to the Yahoo news page along with relevant content from trusted news sources which Yahoo customizes based on user interest.

One thing a fast-moving PR team needs is information. Stay on top of issues and opportunities as news breaks by incorporating MediaVantage into your communications strategy. Learn more about our real-time media monitoring suite.

Designed by Mumbai-based branding agency Umbrella design, the logo has a symbol of a mother holding her child where the child is represented by a white flower and the mother with a blue head and arms. The icon is followed up with the text ‘Majhi Mumbai’ in a cool Marathi font.

Bhupal Ramnathkar from the agency explained that the blue colours represent the sea, and are meant to symbolise the many opportunities the city has to offer, while the colour orange denotes the rising sun and represents victory against all odds. With the brief given by BMC , the mother-child bond was the most ideal way to represent the city’s security, prosperity and happiness, added Bhupal. (News source: Exchange4Media)

But, the verdict is out on Twitter with most users not particularly ecstatic about the logo. In fact, Riteish Deshmukh, actor and son of Ex-CM the late Vilasrao Deshmukh, has voiced his disappointment and suggested for new options to be voted by the citizens.

#MumbaiLogo The logo says ‘Maajhi Mumbai’ in Marathi (My Mumbai) instead of ‘Aamchi Mumbai’ (Our Mumbai) #divisive #Fail

— James George (@jamesgeorge) May 15, 2013

#MumbaiLogo Put out the Options and let Mumbaikars vote for thier favourite one- #WeChooseOurMumbaiLogo

— RITEISH DESHMUKH (@Riteishd) May 15, 2013

They just unveiled #MumbaiLogo? :O Without telling anybody? Wasn’t there any crowdsourced contest like our INR logo? Damn, sad!

— ＪＭ！ (@holy_photon) May 15, 2013

Mother holding a child? Really? It’s nothing but a weird looking apostrophe. #MumbaiLogo

— Saumya Mehta (@SaumNo) May 15, 2013

Far from being a visual identity meant to be loved by the city dwellers, the new Mumbai logo has failed to evoke a feeling of ‘belongingness’ amongst them. As many put it rightly, a contemporary approach to crowdsource for logo ideas would have been amazing, especially in the age of social media.

It is sad that the financial capital of India with a rich cultural history has not yet adopted social media for its inclusive nature but is more keen on setting up a social media laboratory to facilitate better policing and intelligence gathering.

Image source: Indian Express

One of the most hotly anticipated apps in recent memory has been Twitter Music, which helps people discover new music based on what they tweet about and who they follow. But since its release, Twitter’s latest app has been generating a different kind of buzz.

Android users need not apply

Like a lot of apps, Twitter Music is only available on iOS. The Web-based version is functional if you’re using a desktop browser, but on Android it just points you to the Apple App Store, as if it’s mocking you.

This illustrates a tendency for a lot of developers to treat Android as the “ugly stepchild” of the mobile world. Many major apps come out first for iOS, then finally make it to Android months later.

Why iOS first?

Technical discussions tend to devolve into holy wars, and iOS and Android are no exception. iOS proponents love to claim that it’s easier to develop for their favorite platform, and there’s a bit of truth to that claim. Apple maintains a tight grip on the hardware for their mobile devices. And since only Apple makes iPhones and iPads, you know exactly what they’re capable of as a developer.

Android, thanks to carrier restrictions, has a number of active operating systems (Jelly Bean, Ice Cream Sandwich and Gingerbread). Since most manufacturers do as they please, Android devices also have widely varying capabilities. Some have NFC, some don’t. The screen sizes vary widely too, from 10-inch tablets to 5-inch “phablets” to 3-inch phone screens. This makes it difficult, though not impossible, to target a single Android platform.

Another explanation is that iOS users actually buy more apps and surf the mobile Web more than Android users do. Android users seem to use their phones as, well, phones.

An end to iPhone-first?

Now that sales of Android phones are outpacing iPhones, the tide might start to turn. More companies are starting to consider Android as a means of tapping into this rapidly-growing market (Vine, another Twitter app, recently announced it was coming to Android “soon”). So if you’re an Android developer, expect to find yourself very busy. With the majority of devices running Jelly Bean and ICS, it won’t be because you’re dealing with fragmentation either.

Obtaining a high number of followers is a landmark goal of many Twitter users. Getting those followers isn’t always easy though, which leads some innocent businesses to wander down the shady path towards the ominous castle black-hat, wherein lies the dark tactic of buying Twitter followers.

With a simple swipe of a credit card, you can obtain legions of your own mindless Twitter drones! To buy or not to buy? Let’s review the reasons for and against buying Twitter followers.

In this post, we’ll be looking at:

• Why You Should Buy Twitter Followers
• Why You Shouldn’t Buy Twitter Followers
• How to Buy Twitter Followers
• Where to Buy Twitter Followers
• How to Increase Your Twitter Followers Naturally
• Why Earning Twitter Followers Naturally is Best

Reasons Why You Should Buy Twitter Followers

Look Like a Boss: A Big Twitter Following Makes You Appear Important

Let’s face it, a lot of social media activity is already just thinly veiled narcissism. Those who give themselves a pat on the back when their newest instagram post gets 13 likes must certainly be temped by the idea of buying more Twitter followers.

Businesses have the advantage of labeling their self-promotion as branding, but ultimately it’s two sides of the same coin. There’s no judging here though – we’ve all felt the rewarding confirmation that comes with a retweet.

While boiling down the value of your online presence to a mere number on Twitter sounds ridiculous, there’s really no denying that one’s Twitter following, despite being a vanity metric, is often thought to correlate with a user’s importance. For clubs booking comedians or venues hosting bands, a high Twitter following can easily put you ahead of the competition. A large Twitter following shows promise and possibility  – not just of a good show, but of bringing in more followers and fans in to see the show, and therefore bringing in more money.

Even if the followers are fake, the clout that comes with a high Twitter following is very much real. A boost in Twitter followers can transform a stand-up amateur into a professional comedian, a garage band into a rising star, a movie extra into fresh new talent, and a small business into an authoritative source. Individuals have even been hired for job positions as a result of their high Twitter following, since the number serves as a representation of how powerful your online word can be.

With fake followers it’s all a masquerade, so it really comes down to how long you can push the act or live the lie.

Bandwagon Syndrome

Related to the previous section, once real users see your Twitter numbers rising, they’ll be more likely to follow you as well. If someone claims to be an expert food critic but only has 23 followers, most will think that the only food they’re judging is their mom’s mac and cheese. If that number is more like 800 or 2,000, they become a considerably more reputable source – one that users will be much more likely to follow. This means your Twitter robot followers are actually generating real followers as a result of your imagined prestige.

Easier & Cheaper

It’s a heck of a lot easier to buy followers on Twitter than earn them. Gaining a real Twitter following takes time and effort – you need to consistently be sharing great content, posting hilariously witty remarks, or broadcasting the latest news.

You could put in all that effort… or you can grab your wallet and buy a militia-sized army of Twitter followers for less than a Starbucks Frappuccino. On Fiverr, where users provide various products or services (often web related) for only $5, marketers are promised as many 8,000 Twitter followers within 24 hours in exchange for an Abraham.

All The Cool Kids are Doing It

Start-ups, celebrities, and politicians alike have been known to buy more Twitter followers – it’s a fairly common practice for those who have something to gain from amassing a large number of Twitter followers in a short period of time.

According to the Fake Follower Check tool from StatusPeople, which claims the ability to determine how many of a user’s Twitter followers are fakes, 71% of Lady Gaga’s over 35 million followers are fake or inactive, along with 70% of President Obama’s nearly 30 million followers.

It’s Not All That Bad

If the President of the United States has fake Twitter followers, it can’t be all that bad, right?

While purchasing bot Twitter followers is against Twitter’s terms and white-hatters might scoff at the idea, it’s completely legal. One also has to question how corrupt buying Twitter followers really is compared with regular Twitter marketing practices like paying for a promoted hashtag – is it just a matter of splitting hairs?

Why You Shouldn’t Buy Twitter Followers

Can You Even Call Them Followers?

You’re not really buying Twitter followers so much as mindless spam bots. You won’t have any interaction or engagement with these robo-accounts. Do you really want to be the sad kid who only has robots for friends – robots you had to buy?

It’s An Empty Number

All the fake Twitter followers in the world won’t do much to raise your Klout score. Social media influence scores tend to look at interaction and Twitter engagement rather than sheer numbers, so you won’t be getting any added SEO or influence bonus with the inflated metric. Those skewed Twitter numbers also make it much more difficult to properply measure social media ROI and the true affect of your social media efforts.

Is Buying Twitter Followers Safe?

There are a number of dangers associated with buying Twitter followers. Many of the sites that offer to sell you more Twitter followers are a scam – you may put up your hard earned cash and come away with absolutely nothing. Often these nefarious groups are simply looking to take advantage of businesses that don’t know any better, or are hoping to cash in on desperate marketers looking for a quick fix. Providing them with your credit card might not be the brightest idea.

Your fake followers could also end up doing damage against your real Twitter followers by hacking, phishing, and infecting real followers with link spam. Is it worth buying Twitter followers when you consider all the risks?

Public Humiliation & a Ruined Reputation

With tools like the Fake Follower Check tool, it’s pretty easy to discover who is desperate enough to buy friends.

While the high Twitter number may feel cool, your real followers aren’t likely to share your perspective, and you might end up a laughing stock and lose the few real followers you do have. Especially for businesses hoping to be viewed as industry experts, being caught cheating can do serious damage to your reputation.

While Twitter isn’t making huge efforts to clean up spam accounts at the moment, who knows what action they may take in the future. If Twitter does decide to clean up the spammers, it’ll be pretty embarrassing when your follower count drops by half.

All right, you understand both sides. If you’re still interested in buying…

How to Buy Twitter Followers

There are a couple different approaches you can take for buying Twitter followers.

Buy Cheap Fake Twitter Followers: You can buy cheap Twitter followers, but the most economical Twitter services provide only fake bot followers. It doesn’t take Jack Dorsey to figure out that this profile isn’t real.

Buying Twitter followers cheap gets you faceless, bland bot accounts – these are referred to as generated followers. Pricier services provide Twitter followers with more finely polished profiles, with pics and bios filled out.

Buy Real Twitter Followers: If fake doesn’t float your boat, buying real Twitter followers is a preferred option, although it isn’t likely to be as cheap as buying fake followers.

You can buy access to real followers using Twitter follower software that searches through and finds Twitter users with interests similar to yours and automatically follows them, hoping that they will follow you in return. This process is referred to as buying targeted Twitter followers.

Where to Buy Twitter Followers

If you’re set on buying Twitter followers, here are some sites that sell them.

Fiverr: Search Fiverr for “buy Twitter followers” and you’ll immediately find a long list of sellers offering to provide you with anywhere from 100 – 15,000 followers in less than 24 hours. While the legitimacy of some offers is questionable, it doesn’t get much cheaper than this.

Fast Followerz: This group claims to provide real, active followers that regularly tweet, update, and are engaged. They also offer a Followerz Protection five-year warranty, guaranteeing the top-notch quality of the targeted followers offered.

FollowerSale: FollowerSale uses a credit system to encourage real users to follow their customers, providing live, active followers as a result.

Devumi: Devumi provides cheap followers, doesn’t require a password, and doesn’t make you follow anyone in return. They also offer credit card alternative payment methods like PayPal.

The best sites to buy Twitter followers from are those that provide targeted Twitter followers that are real and active. Stay safe by avoiding sites that ask for your Twitter password or unnecessary info.

The Legit Don’t Quit: How to Increase Your Twitter Followers Naturally

If you’ve decided to take the moral high ground and not buy Twitter followers, don’t despair about missing out – there are plenty of ways to get Twitter followers naturally. These legitimate, earned followers are more valuable because you’ve built a relationship with them. These relationships will prove much more prosperous than those silly faceless egg accounts.

• Target Others in Your Industry: Getting the attention of big-name tweeters in your industry can do a lot for your reputation, so be sure to follow and interact with them. Just one retweet or mention from a well-respected industry leader can greatly increase your Twitter followers.
• Tweet During Peak Times: Tweet when your tweets are most likely to be seen – generally between 10 am and 4 pm.
• Link to and Promote Your Twitter Handle: Link to your Twitter handle on your blog, website, and other social media accounts. Put it on your business card, use it in your guest blogger bio, and announce it when you speak at conferences. The more you link to your Twitter handle and promote it, the more followers you’ll bring in.
• Share Something of Value: Make yourself a person of value by tweeting resources related to your industry, or just fun and interesting content. Also make sure to retweet the great content shared by others – this shows that you’re not just self-promoting and are actually interested in spreading quality information from a variety of sources.
• Hashtags:  While you don’t want your tweets to be a messy glob of ###s, implementing some hashtags now and then makes your tweets easier to find and can help spread your scope while gaining Twitter followers.

A Final Word: Why the Long, Hard, and Earnest Road is Best

Increasing your followers on Twitter naturally isn’t easy, but it’s worth it in the end. Just a handful of engaged, active followers is infinitely more valuable than hundreds of fake accounts that do nothing more than add to an ego-stroking number.

Buying Twitter followers harkens back to the old days of SEO, evocative of outdated black-hat logic that grows less fruitful and more damaging as an increasing emphasis is put on quality over quantity. Buying Twitter followers may provide some temporary sense of instant gratification, but the potential backlash of being found out as a liar or fraud can quickly undo any advantages and permanently destroy your reputation.

For small businesses, such growing pains are essential for character development –Twitter is a valuable space for businesses to test and hone their personality, be it humorous, technical, or offbeat. Brand persona and Twitter following grow together as a result. Discovering and becoming a power player in your niche is what really increases your Twitter following, and bypassing such steps results in a hollow brand trying to survive off a vanity metric.

So fight the good fight, earn your followers the old-fashioned way! Or don’t. It’s your call.

Step One: It is important once you’ve logged on to your Twitter account to take time and read the posts your community is sharing. You follow these accounts for a reason, and it is important to stay engaged with them. If you’re mindlessly adding followers and not actually reading their content then you’re not doing it right. The point is to use this information. Share it, spark a conversation or debate; you’ll get some great content to share and you’ll make a few new social relationships in the process.

Step Two: Make a habit of reading the news outlet Twitter accounts. CNN, The Globe and Mail, Huffington Post, Anderson Copper, even Barack Obama just so you know what’s happening and what is going on in the world. You’re Twitter content can be diverse and adding some news can add quality to your account and attract other people to read your posts.

Step Three: Bookmark your favourtie blogs. We all know in a busy day, life is much more simple when information is a click away. Why not take advantage of that? You’ll be more inclined to look if your daily blog hit-list if it’s staring you in the face and sitting up on your bookmark toolbar. It’s an easy step that can ensure you great content once, twice or three times a day!

Step Four: Think outside the box for inspiration. My personal favourite website to spark some new content is Pinterest. When in doubt, Pinterest is an awesome tool to research techy updates, health topics, recipes and even check out company’s Pinterest accounts. There is also sharing platforms like Reddit, ScoopIt….the list goes on and one. Just pick your favourite.

Step Five: Don’t forget about the real, page flipping hard copies! Magazines, newspaper, essays, and white papers. These are published monthly and the content is forever there ready to read…bringing up old articles and talking about new ones is a great way to be creative with content and find journalists online and share what you’ve read and make a potential new relationship.

Read on to measure and compare how your business is engaging with its followers…

Engagement facts:

• The number one main rule on Twitter – Don’t talk about yourself all the time; instead be useful to others. Informative tweets are 30 times more effective at snagging new followers!
• 92% of engagement with tweets is clicking on the links within the tweet. So, where relevant include a link in your tweet, but be careful not to be ‘pushing out’ promotional links all the time.
  
• Media tweets (such as video or images) receive on average 3 to 4 times more engagement.
• Stay active when followers are making complaints about your business/brand. On Twitter, 25% of people expect a response within the hour from a business/brand and 10% expect a response within the first 20minutes! Always check the @ on your Twitter profile so you can follow conversations and see what people are commenting on. It’s also good practice to have Apps loaded onto your smartphones so that you can check mentions on the go.
• Tweets between 120 and 130 characters get the highest click through rates – so try keep your tweets as short and to the point as possible!

Posting Times:

• Twitter engagement rates for businesses/brands are 17% higher on Saturday and Sunday, yet only 19% of them actually tweet on weekends! So seize your opportunity here, get tweeting on the weekend when the platform is quieter and more people will be listening. Use social media dashboards, to schedule your activity to run over the weekend, no problem!
• The highest Twitter reaction rates are between 8am and 7pm – this is prime time, so be sure to schedule tweets between these times.
• Make sure you’re tweeting later on in the day too; tweets in the afternoon tend to get seen more than those in the morning.
• For those who post a concentrated number of tweets in a short time span, follower growth is 50% more than expected – however, while this may be true, try not to bombard your followers with tweets, this may come across as spammy. Plus remember, 80% of those on Twitter use it via mobile – if you post tweets one after the other, then you can fill up their feed – which can be pretty annoying.

Hashtags#:

• Hashtags can increase engagement by almost 100%. Keep in mind that people usually follow hashtags for keywords, events and trending topics, so make sure your hashtags are kept simple so that others can understand.
• Tweets with hashtags receive 2x more engagement than those without.
• Having one or two hashtags in a tweet has 21% higher engagement than those with 3 or more hashtags. (If all you are doing is sharing a string of hashtags – how is that a conversation?).
• Tweets that use more than two hashtags actually show a 17% drop in engagement. So, make sure you’re savvy with your use of hashtags!

@Mentions and Retweets:

• Using more @mentions (targeting a post to a specific @handle) increases your follower growth – organisations that tweet more @mention grow followers by 17% more than a tweet without @mention.
• Be sure to choose the right words and phrases to get attention; action words have higher engagement rates than nouns. Tweets containing ‘@’, ‘RT’ and ‘please,’ also contain higher engagement rates.
• 78% of a brands/businesses brands engagement tweets are retweets.
• Asking followers to retweet, receive 12x higher retweet rates than those that do not, yet less than 1% of brands actually implement this strategy! (Perhaps we all don’t want to come across as desperate!)
• When followers are specifically asked to retweet by spelling the word out, the retweet rate is 23xs higher than average – so try and fit it in your Tweet if you can!

Again, make sure you’re up to date with these important facts and don’t be afraid to experiment… Happy Tweeting folks!

Over the course of more than two years I dedicated a lot of my free time to not only expanding my Twitter network but to also to actually engage with people who cared about what I shared and who enjoyed my content.

As much as you’d like to say that quantity doesn’t matter, well, it does.

The more people I “persuade” to follow me, the more visitors my blog ends up receiving. The traffic Twitter brings me is now significant with 5,500 visitors a month coming from the 140 character social network.

If you’d like to increase your Twitter traffic the way I did, here are six of the most effective ways to get more quality Twitter followers that I have discovered.

Anyway, let’s get started:

1. Start with the Profile Picture

When someone lands on your profile, the first thing to catch their eye is your profile picture.

Especially now with the new profiles, where the photo is at the center of the header, it can really give people a hint of whether or not they should click ‘follow’.

So, when it comes to choosing a suitable avatar, there are three golden rules:

1. Make Sure It’s a Photo of “You”

When you follow someone you expect them to be a real person. And unfortunately when it comes to Twitter, there are literally millions of fake accounts. That is why you have to make sure to add a real photo and not one you found on the internet for instance. Additionally if you are a business then you are far better off creating an additional Twitter account instead of putting a business logo on your personal profile just to promote your business.

2. Make Sure It’s Big Enough

A lot of people tend to click on the avatar to see a person’s profile picture in a bigger size. There are a lot of folks out there however, whose photo is just as big as the size of the frame. What I’d advice you is to re-size your photo to say 300 by 300 pixels, so that it actually becomes bigger once someone clicks on it. A small, blurry and pixellated picture says that you don’t pay attention to the small details and that isn’t a good start.

3. Make Sure Your Face is Easily Recognizable

What many Twitter users do is to simply upload a picture of them in full-size. Consider how small the avatar is, if you put a whole-body picture, then end result will be hard to distinguish. So absolutely make sure that the photo is only of your upper-body.

2. Don’t Forget About Hashtags

Hashtags are kinda like when you use a specific keyword within an article to make it rank higher in the search engines. When you use them, you are targeting your tweet to the people using the words you’ve included in your hashtags.

I used to have a problem with hashtags. In my eyes they just didn’t look good and were making some of the tweets look quite unreadable.

But you know what?

Hashtags aren’t the problem. Using them is a great way to guarantee your message gains more exposure with the right people.

The problem is how you use them.

The 3 “Don’ts” of Hashtags

1. Don’t Put Too Many of Them

Let’s assume you are sharing an article of yours on Twitter and decide to add some hashtags to improve its visibility. Since the title is short and doesn’t take much of your 160 characters limit, you decide to include five hashtags. Is that a good move? No. It just looks spammy… And no one likes that kind of obvious self-promotion. I’d say two or three hastags at most.

2. Don’t Be Too Specific

Twitter unlike Google doesn’t have a huge search volume. This basically means that you can get your message seen even if you use a broader term. On the other hand if you are too specific, probably no one is going to see your tweet via Twitter search. I’ve found that including more general terms like #Marketing, #SocialMedia, #Blogging or #Design results in the most retweets and favorites.

3. Keep Your Tweet Readable

A bad practice I often see is replacing parts of an article’s title with hashtags. For instance if we have the article “10 Great Social Media Tips for Marketers”, some folks would tweet it like “10 Great #SocialMedia #Tips for #Marketers”. The end result is a tweet that you don’t really feel like clicking or retweeting just because it looks ugly.

3. Get into Guest Blogging

Guest blogging… What does this have to do with getting more Twitter followers?

Guest blogging is a popular link-building technique. Many bloggers out there write guest articles only because they want to improve their search traffic. That behavior is probably one of the reasons why Google will keep a close eye on guest blogging this year.

And indeed guest blogging is much more than just being a way to improve SEO. In fact getting your content published on well-known, high-trafficked blogs is a sure way to create awareness about your brand.

This can be done by being a guest author. I have written articles for blogs like Traffic Generation Cafe and Kikolani.

Although all those guest posts helped me boost my organic traffic, the more important benefit was that I got in front of a new and highly relevant audience. This resulted in a torrent of new subscribers, followers and fans.

The thing is if people enjoy what you have to say, they will most certainly look for your social accounts. You don’t even have to share them. To date my five-week guest blogging endeavour has resulted in hundreds of new Twitter followers, Facebook fans and Google Plus users circling me.

4. Follow Others Strategically

Following new Twitter users is a great way to discover people with similar interests and to find interesting sources of information.

Another great benefit from doing so is that you can also get more eyeballs on your content.

How is that possible?

Well, the fact is a lot of people take a look at your Twitter profile when you follow them. So, if you follow people in your own niche who share your topics, there’s a good chance to get them to also follow you.

If we have to speak in numbers, I am able to get around 20% of the ones who I follow to also follow me back.

But how do you find relevant folks to follow in the first place?

Obviously you shouldn’t just go for the first dozen of Twitter users who you come across. You need to think strategically.

Tweepi is a great tool that allows you to follow either the followers or the friends (i.e. mutual followers) of a Twitter user of your choice.

For instance you can discover some of the influencers in your niche and start following their followers. Additionally Tweepi allows you to filter the list of followers by how active they are, how much tweets they are sharing, how much followers they have and how much people they are following.

How to use Tweepi

1. You sign-up for an account and connect your Twitter profile. You hover over “Follow Tweeps”, click “@user’s friends”, choose whose friends you’ll follow and click “Start Following“.
2. From that point on you can simply click on the different fields (e.g. “#followers”, “#friends”, “#statuses”), choose filters and set them up.
3. Once you are finished with that you start following people from the list. Make sure to follow only those who have a real photo as an avatar!

NOTE: You should be very careful with the number of people you follow per day. I’d say you are safe with around 100-150 follows every day. That way you are far from the 1,000 follows limit and your account is safe.

5. Think About Your Email Signature

As a blogger you will be sending and receiving a ton of emails.

And when it comes to email that is probably the most “personal” way to communicate in the online world. That in terms means most of the people you email to will probably be interested to stay in touch.

The simplest set-it-and-forget-it kind of thing you could do is to create some sort of signature. The signature will be automatically inserted at the end of each email you write and send.

If you are an Yahoo user, you can easily set your signature by going to the wrench-like icon on the right hand side, beside your profile image. Clicking on it will display a menu. There you choose “Mail options” and go to “Signature”. Now it’s all up to your creativity. You can include fancy images and HTML if you like.

As for me I am sticking to simplicity:

Follow me on Twitter | Join my Facebook page | Connect with me on LinkedIn | Circle me on Google+

That is basically how my signature looks like. Simple yet effective.

You definitely won’t get a ton of new followers that way, but you can be almost certain that the ones who follow you will actually engage and click on your tweets.

6. Feel Free to Ask for Retweets

Some weeks ago at my blog I shared a very interesting infographic that shared a study’s results on how to get more retweets. Something important that the study reveals is that you can get a lot more people (around 51%) to retweet your tweets if you simply ask them to.

And since that seemed like a very promising strategy I decided to give it a try. Now over the course of almost a month I have probably sent out over 30-40 tweets, asking people to retweet the tweet.

The interesting thing was that although those tweets ended up receiving double or even triple the usual retweets, people were not clicking at all.

So it turns out that for instance tweeting something along the lines of

“I would really appreciate a retweet! –> Post Title http://post.url.com” is a better way to promote your profile and get people to see it than to actually get a ton of traffic from clicks.

Basically since your post will get more retweets, more of the followers of your followers will see the tweet. Hence you can expect new follows from Twitter users, who you haven’t been able to reach before.

And there’s the question, how often should you follow that practice?

I am doing it every time I publish a new article, which equates to not more than three times per week. That is how I’d recommend you to proceed as well.

What about you?

These are six tips I have found to be effective based on what I’ve tried and tested. What techniques have worked for you?

Feel free to add and share your ideas to the list by leaving a comment! Also if you have any questions, hesitations or ideas, take a minute to share your thoughts!

Twitter bird image by Shutterstock

Image by Shutterstock

One of my favorite college football players is Geno Smith of West Virginia University. I have rarely seen a young athlete approach the game with more intelligence, intensity, and leadership.

Many people expected him to win college football’s highest honor, the Heisman trophy and perhaps be the first athlete picked up in the professional football draft.

It turns out, he wasn’t a contender for the Heisman honor and was not even the first player at his position to be chosen in the draft. Over the last six months, his stock has continued to slip among the professional football executives despite his breath-taking skills. Why?

Perhaps it is because he tweets too much.

The thrill of victory. The agony of de tweet.

Jason Cole of Yahoo! Sports reported that when Smith went on visits to prospective teams, rather than interact with coaches and front-office people who would be making the decision to hire (draft) him, he would spend much of his time by himself on his cell phone, texting friends and interacting with his Twitter stream.

One official said: “All these other players who were in there were talking to the coaches, trying to get to know people and he was over there by himself,” one of the sources said. “That’s not what you want out of your quarterback.”

Eventually Geno was drafted in the second round by the New York Jets, but his disconnected attitude may have cost him millions of dollars in salary, endorsements, and publicity as a first-round draft pick.

I have a friend who might actually lose his job over Twitter. He’s addicted to his Twitter stream and tweets constantly. His employer is upset about this habit and told him that he needs to concentrate at work. ”They just don’t understand me,” my friend lamented. “This is how I stay connected to my friends.”

A few weeks ago, I noticed that a well-known social media celebrity was tweeting and texting from a conference panel in front of a room filled with several hundred people. Instead of paying attention to the moderator and interacting with the other panelists, he disconnected from the conversation the entire time with his head down in his Twitter stream.

Be here now.

I imagine that some readers from Generation Text might be thinking “Who cares?”

Obviously the NFL team owners care. Even though Geno Smith is a remarkable talent, they wanted him to pay attention. I think that even in our text-frenzied world, it should be a priority to be present in the moment, to provide individual attention that communicates “I care about what is going on here, right now, instead of the action on my phone.”

I might not be an NFL team owner drafting a quarterback, but I have made a mental note to never hire or recommend that distracted social media celebrity panelist for a speaking engagement. There are a lot of choices out there. Being attentive and professional is important, even if you have loads of talent — as Geno found out.

Everything communicates. Everything becomes part of your personal brand … including how and when you use Twitter. Do you agree? Or, do you see expectations in the business world changing to conform to Generation Text?

Mark Schaefer is a educator and marketing consultant specializing in social media workshops. He blogs at {grow} and is the author of several best-selling markting books including Return On Influence.

Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s brand is fairest of them all?

You see, for decades, we have all been living the life of the Evil Queen, viewing the world through the wonderful frame of our very own magic mirror. We frame the question. Ask it. And wait for the adulation to return. And in a world where every question, all “market research”, surveys, ratings, reports and so on can be framed by our own perspective, we’ve lived a relatively sheltered life.

But the moment we step into the world of social media, the Magic Kingdom disappears. In the real world of 21st Century marketing, there is no Fairy Godmother. You are known – and become known – for your good works and bad, your efforts and your laziness. You are what you tweet. It’s what I call the “4 BEs”.

You want to be found, known, trusted and successful. Many of us, however, fail on one of these counts. Especially in the early days of our social media journey.

Now, no doubt, you will have heard the cliche that social media is a marathon not a sprint. And like most cliches, it is based on a deep truth – you cannot build a relationship with anyone – a customer, a friend, a partner or supplier – without investing in that relationship over time.

And it is with this in mind that I would encourage you to step out from behind your own magic mirror. Read some of the tweets that are sent your way. Read them out loud. To your teams. Think about the impacts that they make. Is there a truth? Or are there always going to be haters?

Take a look at the way celebrities respond to some of the nasty tweets sent their way. Notice how, when spoken aloud, some of the nasty tweets lose their impact?

Reading the mean tweets will prepare you for what will follow. For no matter how many white horses you ride, one day you’re going to eat an apple meant for someone else. It’s time to end the fairytale, but with some work, a decent strategy and a bit of luck, you may just reach your happily ever after.

The #1 place recruiters are going to find applicants is the professional social network LinkedIn. 90% of recruiters and hiring managers have visited a potential candidate’s profile on a social network as part of the screening process and a whopping 69% of recruiters have rejected a candidate based on lack of activity or inappropriate content found on his or her social networking profiles. Late spring is primetime for college students, recent graduates, and internship hoppers everywhere to start connecting with employers and consequently considering the quality of their personal brand.

In his upcoming book “Brand Damage: It’s Personal!”, Patrick Sitkins, Partner and Managing Director for SiliconCloud’s US location, describes a personal brand in this way: “In its simplest form, branding is what people think of you. It is the culmination of several complex strategies, interactions, media, communications, experiences, and relationships all boiled down into a very clear and very real opinion of you.” Recently, Patrick put out a job post looking for a graphic designer to come onboard with SiliconCloud in Richmond. Being that this topic is fresh in his mind, I asked him what causes the most damage or benefit to potential applicants during the initial resume submission process and you may be surprised by his response:

• #1—Did they follow the application instructions?
• #2 —What is their online personality like? Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google search results

If you pass the first test with an impressive resume, the second test is just as important and your presence or absence can come with consequence. You have a brand. If you’re still skeptical, let me ask you: Have you ever looked at your pending Facebook comment or Tweet for more than 5 seconds trying to decide if you should post it? “What will people think of this?” In those seconds you were in personal brand management mode. This topic is so important, that colleges and professional sports teams hire pricy experts to come in and monitor the players’ activity. VCU brings in a consultant to talk to teams that meet with media often to talk about branding. Virginia Commonwealth athletic director Ed McLaughlin said, “Everyone’s watching you all the time, and things you put and say on social media is all part of your personal brand.”

If you’ve been following my previous posts I’ll save you the trouble of researching why digital presence is important: It is. All it takes is a Google search for someone to start constructing your personal brand and ignoring OR considering your resume and cover letter. I just minimized the Word document I’m writing this in, typed my name into Google, and it took less than 5 seconds find my three social networking profiles in the top five results. The information in three search results is more than enough for someone to construct my “personal brand”. Right now from Twitter alone, there are 1,366 thoughts streamed directly from my dome made completely public and available for viewing at anytime by anyone on the planet. My influence is not nearly as powerful, and my following is not as sizeable as some of America’s athletes, companies, and celebrities. But in either case, losing control can be devastating to a personal brand. Let’s take a look at Twitter’s finest from the past year:

#5–Cardale Jones

#4–Celeb Boutique

#3–American Red Cross

#2–Brandon McDonald  

#1–Chrysler

Interested in learning more about personal branding? Follow our blog or check the book out on Twitter. 

Let’s row down the ol’ Twitter stream with @ChuckGrassley, U.S. Senator from Iowa and one of the finest Tweeters west of the Mississippi River. (TIME Magazine agrees.) Be careful not to let Senator Grassley’s Twitter prowess intimidate you. After all, this man has 2,580 tweets and counting; he’s no newcomer to the game.

Twitter Is No Place for Grammar or Vocabulary

Look, Twitter’s not the place to show off the fact that you understand subject-verb agreement or even that you know the difference between there/their/they’re. If you want to have a successful Twitter account, your grammar should be atrocious. In this tweet, for example, Grassley completely eschews the very notion of the sentence:

Senator Grassley’s linguistic finesse demonstrates an understanding that’s beyond the average layman’s grasp. For average Joe’s like us, it’s best to start with plain-old-bad grammar before moving into the murkier post-structuralist waters of freeform anti-sentence structure.

Chuck Grassleys aren’t built in a day, after all.

Meaning Should Never Be Clear & Direct

In studying Senator Grassley’s tweets, I couldn’t help but notice that his meaning is never clear. Senator Grassley understands that obfuscation is the most essential part of any tweet. He has so finely mastered the art of obfuscation that sometimes even he doesn’t seem to know what his tweets mean:

If you’re new to Twitter, never – I cannot emphasize this enough – never write anything that’s meaningful or direct. Your followers will take great pleasure in picking apart your enigmatic messages. Take this oracular Grassley tweet (and the response it elicits) as a prime example:

Use All 140 Characters – Every Time

Now, I know that conventional Twitter wisdom says the ideal Tweet is 103 characters or less. Well, that’s just fine if you want to be mediocre. But if you want to enjoy the social media marketing success that rocks Senator Grassley to sleep every night, then you need to use every single one of those 140 characters in your tweets. Why would Twitter allow 140 characters if they didn’t intend for you to use them?! This is common sense, people.

Great work, Senator Grassley! In the above tweet, Grassley effectively utilizes all 140 characters that Twitter allows. Note how he’s willing to join proper nouns (‘MargaretThatcher’ and ‘GreatBritain’) and forgo spaces entirely as he approaches the end of the Tweet (‘&gaveMORALleadership’).

(As a side note, this is as good a time as ever to point out the fact that you should never edit a tweet. Edits are only acceptable if your initial stream of consciousness flows past 140 characters.)

Perhaps the only thing that could have made this tweet better would have been eliminating one of the L’s in “MORALleadership.” After all, when a word both ends and begins with an ‘L’, using it twice strikes me as a bit redundant. Then again, I don’t have 67k Twitter followers, so who am I to say?

What impresses you about Senator Grassley’s Twitter account? Any social media marketing lessons that jump out at you?

The key to being successful lies in the organisation. That’s why you need a platform that allows you to integrate your social media profiles, and send multiple messages all at once, with one click. Enter Hootsuite.

Hootsuite, for those of you that don’t know, is a web based social media management tool. The basic plan is currently free, and gives you straightforward access including: integration with five social media profiles, basic reporting and unlimited apps, including StumbleUpon and Reddit.

The paid version of Hootsuite allows you to include an unlimited amount of social media profiles, add another user, and see advanced reporting, including geo-targeting. At the moment, I’m using the free version of Hootsuite.

Here are my favourite features of Hootsuite:

1. Scheduled messages

One of the most important parts of a marketing strategy is planning. Without planning you have nothing – you’re just stabbing around in the dark and hoping for the best. Hootsuite allows you to plan your social media campaigns in advance.

Using the ‘Publisher’ tool you can schedule tweets, or Facebook posts, or just about anything for a date and time set in the future. This is perfect for saving time, whilst ensuring continuous engagement. An example, if like me, you’re based in the UK, you’re often left waiting for the US to wake up and get going. At the start of your day, schedule tweets for popular times of day when you know they’ll be seen by many people, to encourage engagement. Remember to check back once your tweets have been sent – keep an eye on your replies and engage accordingly.

2. Secure team setup

Social media is often the first place a customer or prospect will look, even before accessing your website. Due to the vast reach that social media can have, it’s important to have the right team. Social media managers should know who is controlling what account and at what time, just in case something goes horribly wrong.

Hootsuite Pro allows you to add users as your teams grow without sharing passwords. This keeps your social media accounts secure. When you are posting content on Hootsuite, you are asked which social media profile you would like to send the message from and this is where trouble occurs. There have been instances of personal tweets being posted from company accounts, like the one below from the Red Cross:

In a brilliant PR move they responded with this tweet:

Hootsuite now allows users to use Secure Profiles, which prompts users to confirm messages before they are sent, potentially preventing a PR nightmare.

3. Track campaigns

Hootsuite’s dashboard will allow you to manage day to day user engagement, but you can also use it to learn more about your industry or your competitors.

You can set up streams for the type of content you want to monitor, for example, set your Twitter home feed and additional streams for mentions, direct messages or your lists. As an email marketing company, we have streams set up for the keywords ‘email marketing’ and ‘social media marketing’ to keep an eye on our industry, or any potential clients.

You could also set up a stream with your company name, to see who is mentioning you and where, even if they don’t directly mention you in the message.

4. Easily measure success

Hootsuite Pro allows you to create fantastic analytical reports. This is perfect for those who are looking to show how well social media builds engagement and brand reputations. It’s also useful for those wanting to track the effectiveness of a social media campaign – you will be able to see your reach and impact easily.

Measurable items include follower growth and mentions on Twitter. Facebook and Google analytics data can also be integrated, allowing you to see how many users visited your website based on the links you posted on your social media profiles.

Even if you are using the free version, you will still be able to view important analytics such as most popular links, clicks by region and top referrals. The free analytics may not be as good as the paid version (obviously) but it still helps brands understand the success of their posts and where traffic is coming from.

5. Get help

Hootsuite was created by an agency to easily manage their social media needs, and is directly aimed at marketing teams and organisations, according to Hootsuite’s managing director Dave Olson. This means the team behind Hootsuite are looking to continually improve and are willing to help.

Hootsuite has a blog and a help desk for users to access if they’re having trouble. The blog and helpdesk also features how-tos, best practices and allows you to submit your own feedback. The custom analytics tool was created because users asked for it.

6. Ow.ly links

As you can see Hootsuite’s logo is an owl, and because of this their shortened links are reduced to ow.ly. I love this uniformity between the owl logo and the link name – it’s a perfect example of brand consistency.

Downsides of Hootsuite

There aren’t many, but here are my main pet peeves with Hootsuite:

1. Price plan

I understand that companies have to make money somewhere, but I wish more analytics were available on the free version of the platform. The Pro version price plan starts at around £7 per month, and does come with a 30 day free trial. It includes additional analytics, unlimited apps and unlimited RSS feeds. It does seem to be a bargain, but I’ll stick with the free version for now.

1. Lack of new social media sites

Part of me wishes that sites like Pinterest and Instagram were part of Hootsuite’s integration. Although Hootsuite helps control all social media channels easily, without this integration, you need a few additional tabs open on your desktop to monitor the behaviour on these sites. Hopefully new social media sites will be added to Hootsuite in the future.

1. Poor mobile app

The Hootsuite mobile app is currently being worked on. Last week Hootsuite removed their version 1.0 API which has caused issues with the app. They are working on a newly revamped HTML 5 version of their app, which will work on most iOS, Android, Blackberry and Window devices.

Other types of social media management tools

If you’re interested in using a social media management tool, but think Hootsuite isn’t for you, take a look at these other platforms:

-          Buffer

Buffer allows you to schedule content across social media and provides analytics about the reach of your posts. You can integrate Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

-          SocialOomph

SocialOomph again allows you to schedule tweets, track keywords and view mentions. SocialOomph also allows you to automatically auto-follow new followers, if you want to save time by reciprocating follows.

-          SocialFlow

SocialFlow will show you real time conversations on your social media. It enables you to find the right time for posting content based on audience behaviour.

The nine hashtags that we followed on Twitter for Mother’s Day are listed below:

1. #OnlymomCan by Jabong: The hashtag which was started this Friday by the ecommerce brand Jabong, is still trending even though the contest is over. The brand that has more than 16K followers, asked them to tell what #OnlyMomCan do and interesting tweets won hampers.

Mother’s Day is around the corner & we want you to tell us everything #OnlyMomCan do!Your could win something special for your mom today :)

— Jabong.com (@JabongIndia) May 10, 2013

2. #ChefMum by GoodFood Mag India: The hashtag was launched by GoodFood Mag India. The international food magazine which has more than 2K followers asked twitteraties what is the favorite dish by #ChefMum with exciting prizes to be won.

Are you following @allthingsnice & @goodfoodmagin yet? Tell us what’s your favourite dish by your #ChefMum .Win exciting prizes and RT now!

— GoodFood Mag India (@GoodFoodMagIn) May 10, 2013

3. #Mommism by Kama Jewellery: The hashtag which trended throughout Saturday was started by Kama Jewellery. The brand with more than 1K followers asked to share their mother’s wisecracks that they remember. The best tweets had a chance to win exclusive pendants from the brand.

Follow, RT & tell us your favorite #Mommism .Win exclusive Pendants & Gold coin from @kamajewellery Check TnC’s here twitter.com/KamaJewellery/…

— Kama Jewellery (@KamaJewellery) May 10, 2013

4. #500kMomStories by Indiatimes Shopping: Ecommerce brand, Indiatimes Shopping started the hashtag where twitteraties had to ask their friends the fun times they have shared with their mom. #500kMomStories that trended on Saturday was offering cool mobile phones to some of the interesting tweets.

The prize for #500kMomStories is a Cool #MobilePhone.So guyz Follow us and ask your friends to share thiers Fun Tyms with thier Mom.

— Indiatimes Shopping (@ShopIndiatimes) May 10, 2013

5. #MomKiDaant by Cbaazar Fashion Friend: The hashtag that was trending on Saturday, was started by the fashion brand Cbaazar Fashion Friend. The brand which has more than 1K followers trended #MomKiDaant but was running a quiz contest related to its website. So to answer the questions twitteraties had to visit the website. The right answers got gift hampers to surprise their mom. Smart contest!

10 lucky tweeps will win vouchers to shop from our website Cbazaar dot in. Get ready to win a surprise for your Mother. #MomKiDaant

— CbazaarFashionFriend (@CbazaarFashion) May 11, 2013

6. #ThingsMyMomSays by Phoneix Marketcity: Launched by Phoneix Marketcity, the hashtag took no time to trend. The brand asked people on Twitter to share some of the witty lines or dialogues said by their mom. The best ones stood a chance to win a meal for two at selected avenues.

#ThingsMyMomSays Share some witty lines/dialogues your mom uses and stand a chance to #Win a Meal for two @caferoyalindia @marketcitykurla

— Phoenix Marketcity(@MarketcityKurla) May 11, 2013

7. #1ThingIlearnFromMyMom by Max Bupa: Max Bupa joined the party to trend itself and it is trending as I write this article. The brand asked twitteraties to share the most important thing they learnt from their mothers as moms are the best teachers. The best tweets stood a chance to win gift hampers.

Our #mother is our #first teacher! Tell us about the most important thing you learnt from your mom using #1ThingILearntFromMyMom! #contest

— Max Bupa (@MaxBupa) May 12, 2013

8. #MomMadeFoodIs by Oleev Oil: Oleev Oil which has 453 followers started its hashtag yesterday and began trending too. The brand asked people to tweet about #MomMadeFoodIs and 3 tweeps stood a chance to win gift hampers.

Want to win a special kitchen hamper for you mother? Follow us and tweet with #MomMadeFoodIs. Total 3 HAMPERS to be won! :D

— Oleev (@OleevOil) May 12, 2013

9. #MicromaxSuperMom by Micromax Mobile: The Indian mobile brand asked twitteraties to share amazing snaps of their super mom and creative snaps stood a chance to win a brand new Canvas mobile. The brand that has more than 11K followers had its hashtag trended in no time.

@micromax_mobile #MicromaxSuperMom Thank you Comfort India for this amazing Collage of Mom andMe twitter.com/anahitairani1/…

— sweetannu (@anahitairani1) May 12, 2013

As you can see, Twitter has been a clear choice in terms of a platform for running contests and engaging with fans. My favorite is definitely #MicromaxSuperMom for making fans scratch their creative cells. This isn’t a comprehensive list so do share any hashtag that we might have missed out. However, we have accounted only the hashtags that have trended the entire day.

Image Courtesy: http://palliumindia.org

Twitter is already playing a large part in the news industry: it’s where many people find breaking news and it’s where journalists go to locate sources close to a breaking story. And they want to do more. They recently posted this job opening:

Twitter is playing an integral role in the evolution of the news industry — both as a tool for reporters and newsrooms and as a way for consumers to find news in real-time. Twitter has already changed the way news breaks and provided journalists new ways to connect with their readers. We are looking for a seasoned leader to shape and drive the next growth phase of Twitter’s partnership with the news industry. We believe Twitter is a valuable complement to the great work already being done and want to find ways for Twitter to help ensure the industry’s success.

How does Twitter envision their role in the news business? This is what they expect the new hire to do for Twitter:

You will be responsible for devising and executing the strategies that make Twitter indispensable to newsrooms and journalists, as well as an essential part of the operations and strategy of news organizations and TV news networks. You should have a strong vision for the broad potential of Twitter and news, while also being able to rigorously manage and scale the news team’s daily impact.

And these are the key results they hope this person will achieve for Twitter:

• Develop a multi-year year strategy for news that drives substantial increases in:
  • Volume and quality of professional news content on Twitter, especially in breaking news
    • Number of journalists using Twitter, both as a tool to aid their reporting and also as a tool to distribute their content
  • Volume and quality in usage of Twitter as a source in news stories (online and in print)
  • How widely and effectively Twitter products are used by news organizations—from embedded timelines and Tweets on news sites to adoption of on-Twitter products like Twitter Cards
  • Volume and quality of on-air integrations across TV news networks
  • Frequency and engagement level of user behavior around news content on Twitter

No small undertaking. And a clear indication of Twitter’s commitment to becoming a major influence in the news industry. If Twitter is not yet an integral part of your Digital PR and media relations strategy this might just be the nudge you need to get rethink what you’re doing with Twitter.

In an era of text lingo that’s full of “LOL” and maybe sometimes “wtf,” many writers bemoan the decline of structured communication. However, though the days of handwritten notes and cursive script may be on the decline, writers can take comfort in the fact that the art of communicating isn’t dead. In fact, firing off a series of tweets can actually help a writer improve at his or her craft. Here’s why:

1. It forces you to get to the point

Most writers dread the editing process. It can feel painful to scrap a sentence that you’re attached to, even though you know the piece is too long. However, wordy documents are a chore for the reader to consume, so editing is a necessary evil. Luckily, Twitter helps a writer get into the habit of editing. When you’re on Twitter, you have 140 characters to get your point across. That means that you have to find a way to shrink that witty observation or story down. As you’re carefully shaving off adverbs and adjectives, you’re editing. It may feel different than sitting down with a red pen, but the concept is the same. For those who have an aversion to the “delete” button, Twitter can help to make the process easier.

2. It makes you choose your words carefully

In real life, you don’t get punished if you use three words to describe something when you could use one. In the Twitterverse, this kind of behavior will eat up characters and prohibit you from sending a tweet. When you’re using Twitter, you have to get creative with your word choice. Instead of stringing together a slew of adjectives to describe your lunch, find one, succinct way to paint the picture.

3. It forces you to put your content out there

Many writers hem and haw when it comes to putting their work out for public consumption. It can feel daunting to let others read your thoughts. Twitter gets a writer in the habit of pushing the “send” button and never looking back. So your tweet about last night’s episode of Mad Men could have been funnier. It doesn’t matter. You’re putting your content out there and getting comfortable with other people reading it. This is good practice for your manuscript, article, or blog post.

4. It puts you in touch with your audience

If you’re unsure what your audience wants to read about, just take a look at what their tweets are saying. It can help give you insight into what’s popular and important in that moment.

While tweets certainly don’t stand a chance against the Great American Novel, the act of writing a tweet can actually provide some benefit to a writer. Stop hitting “delete” or saving your witty remarks for your account’s draft folder, and get comfortable with sharing your thoughts with others. In 140 characters or less, of course.

The team at Grammar Chic specializes in a variety of professional writing and editing services. For more information about how we can help you, visit www.grammarchic.net or call 803-831-7444. We also invite you to follow us on Twitter @GrammarChicInc for the latest in writing and editing tips and to give a “like” to our Facebook page. Text GRAMMARCHIC to 22828 for a special offer.

In this second part of a series on spearheading social media for photographers, I’ll be showing you how to set up and maintain a Twitter presence for your photography business.

Setting your page up

There is significantly less setup involved when creating a Twitter page in comparison to Facebook. This is mainly because of how the service operates in contrast to networks such as Facebook and Google+. Instead of compiling and archiving huge amounts of visual content for constant recall, Twitter’s interactions are largely text-based and occur rapidly in real time.

All in all, there’s much less visual and textual content present on a user’s profile page. This is because the attention is focused on the tweets themselves with much less emphasis on personal user details.

But that’s not to say that your profile is insignificant. It’s the stuff that people see first when they click on your Twitter handle, and it’s the same stuff that’s going to establish your credibility and draw their appeal.

(Remember that each part of your profile can be added or altered by accessing the Settings menu from the gear dropdown, as seen above.)

The first parts of your profile to consider are your Real Name and Username (in the Profile and Account section, respectively). Your Real Name is the one that displays right underneath your profile photo. This name should be consistent with how you brand yourself elsewhere, so matching this up with the name of your photography business is in your best interest.

Your Username is the one that follows an @ and serves a much different purpose. Also known as your Twitter handle, it appears next to your Name and Photo when you tweet, send direct messages, become retweeted and show up in lists. It’s what other users enter to mention you in tweets, so it’s also what they’ll associate your presence with. Your Username can be as long as 15 characters (in comparison with the 20-character Real Name limit), but keeping it short and sweet is better in the interests of tweet length and ease of identification.

Your Bio is the 160-character space to tell people about yourself (located in the Profile section). This is your chance to tell visitors what type of photography you shoot (e.g., portraiture, weddings, sports, commercial), what kinds of industries you service, and a little about yourself.

Just below your Bio are the Location and Website sections (also located in the Profile section). These are pretty self-explanatory, but be sure to include your city and state and a useful link to your official website here. I’d suggest linking to a page with lots of images on it (such as a portfolio, slideshow or video) to give the visitor a clear idea of your capabilities in the click of a button. It’s also smart to ensure that this page has additional contact information on it so you’re making it easy for serious inquiries to get ahold of you directly.

Next up are the visual elements of your profile. Your Photo (at the top of the Profile section) should either show users the face of the business (that’s you, of course) or display your official logo. Keep in mind that the Photo shows up as a small square thumbnail, so plan for this if the dimensions of your image are long on one side. In any case, this is going to be the smallest graphic on your page.

But it’s also going to be the most identifiable element of your Twitter presence, since it shows up next to your name and handle every time you appear in a feed. Your Photo is how people will remember you, so stay away from frequent changes to avoid confusing your followers.

Think of the Header Image as a background for your Profile Photo (seen in the Profile section). This is the customizable graphic that rests behind your Photo, Bio, Location and Website, and is what I consider to be the most useful part of the profile page. Unlike Facebook’s Cover Photo, Twitter’s Header Image can be used to promote your website, tout awards you’ve earned and advertise special deals and discounts on your products or services.

You can also use the Header Image creatively alongside your Profile Photo. Whether you’re setting your face atop of a superhero’s body or within the context of an impressive landscape, there are a number of great ways to combine your Header Image and profile photo to impress or amuse visitors. If you need help with ideas, Mashable has a great little compilation of Twitter headers done right. Above are a few of my favorites from my own followers and fellow photographers.

Your Photos and Videos section is where you should start out showcasing your best portfolio pieces. You can add photos to your page by simply attaching them to tweets and sharing them with followers (as you would a normal tweet). There are six spaces for image thumbnails that appear just next to your Header Image, and whenever you tweet or retweet a photo or video it will show up here. So before you’ve had a chance to do much tweeting, make some initial shares of your own work to fill the gaps there and give followers a peek at your abilities.

Another piece you may want to consider altering in your profile is the Background (found in the Design section of the settings). You could use a pre-made theme that Twitter provides, but I’d recommend using your own if the page is for your business.

You can use the Background much in the same ways that you can use the Header Image, but of course with more space available. Create your own design to incorporate your logo, contact information and other social media pages. Using hyperlinks in the Background is not a possibility, but if nothing else visitors will be able to type out a short URL to find your business elsewhere.

Once you’re all set up and satisfied with the look of your page, it’s time to start thinking about outreach and upkeep.

Maintaining a social strategy

As I mentioned earlier, Twitter is a network of constant, fast-paced written engagement. Your goal, first and foremost, should be to have meaningful interactions with other users. The best way to understand how to best conduct yourself on Twitter is to learn what undesirable tweeting behavior looks like.

The big tweeting don’ts for brands:

Spamming sales-y content. General over-tweeting. Sharing boring or irrelevant content. Soliciting follows on third party social media.

Now that you’ve seen some examples of exactly not what to do, let’s focus on strategy.

Brands should be tweeting around four times a day on average. This doesn’t include conversational tweets back and forth if you’ve successfully engaged with a follower; I’m only talking about outreach tweets that are made out of the blue.

I think of outreach tweets as ones that contain general appeal and serve the purpose of attracting attention to your Twitter page. Outreach tweets should be interesting, relevant and contain language or content that enthralls the average person. They shouldn’t necessarily focus on your own products or services, but instead show something entertaining or interesting about what your business is doing.

Another big part of tweeting to a broad audience is smart hashtag use. Using hashtags is an important strategy for categorizing and tagging your tweets. But the way I like to think of it is that while hashtags do “file” your tweets to make them appear in a keyword search, they should be used the same way that you’d bold text to make it stand out. And since we’re incapable of bolding features in the Twitter interface, hashtags serve as a substitute and help highlight your tweets in a sea of bland Lucida Grande.

And while hashtags make you stand out, so does a poor choice of tone. Make sure you stay away from sales-y rhetoric when you’re focusing on outreach. Focus on the aspects of your photography business that set it apart from others instead of peddling your products or services. Analyze what’s so special about it – the people, the technique, the gear, the outcome, etc. Then take full advantage of what’s so great about your business and show it off to your Twitter followers. Here’s where I’m going to reiterate a bit from my post on spearheading your Facebook presence…

It’s a good idea to include visual bits in your tweets. Twitter is dominated by a multitude of textual content, so when users see an image sticking out of the crowd they’re bound to check it out.

Said visual bits can be just about anything. Think about showcasing some lesser-known aspects of your business through your Facebook updates. How about an Instagram capture of construction on your new studio space? A shot out the window of your plane as it lands in a foreign city? Your cozy desk setup and caffeinated supplements as you burn the midnight oil editing the last of a wedding shoot? Going behind-the-scenes will build credibility with your fans and give them a closer look at how your business operates.

Another fantastic way to network and spark conversation with users is to join (or host) Twitter chats. Chats transpire at designated times, either as a special feature or a recurring weekly event, and work through the use of a particular hashtag by each participant. Generally Twitter chats are staged in a question-and-answer format and run by a moderator who invites participants, asks the questions and stimulates the conversation.

There are a ton of different types of chats for varying industries, but for photographers there are a few already established. The most active of them is #photochat, held Thursdays at 1:00pm ET (each week’s questions and more information is available here). #photochat gets hundreds of Tweets every week, ranging from amateur and enthusiast participants to seasoned professional photographers. Additionally, #photographychat takes place every Wednesday at 3:00pm ET, and #travelpics is each Monday at 3:00pm ET.

Besides direct conversation with other users, Twitter’s purpose is to draw traffic elsewhere (your blog, website, other social media). So whenever you’re conversing as a brand, keep this goal in mind.

Whenever an opportunity arises in a discussion, share relevant resources and links with your followers to prove your worth and get eyes on your content. Again, avoid sharing direct links in a blatant effort to get people buying – that’s not why they’re on Twitter. Whatever you share should be helpful or entertaining in some way, so this works exceptionally well alongside your blog (if you have one).

I’m also going to recommend a few utilities and functions worth using for your photography page on Twitter. TweetDeck is a free application that no serious Twitter user should go without, especially if you’re trying to manage several accounts at once.

In TweetDeck, multiple columns contain different types of feeds that organize your communication for better ease of use. You can make columns for timelines, mentions, to track sharing activity and retweets on particular links and hashtags, and much more. This makes it ideal to view chats in real time and follow the popularity of a recently shared piece of content.

Don’t forget that you’re also able to connect Twitter to an existing Facebook page. This means that whenever you post a tweet, it shows up on your Facebook page for your fans there to see.

This basically doubles the effectiveness of your content shared on Twitter, so as long as you’re not already posting the same things on both social media sites, this is a no-brainer. In order to access this function, go to the Profile section of the Settings menu and click the “Connect to Facebook” button to follow through.

So there you have it, photographers. What I’ve provided here will give you the upper hand when getting started on Twitter, even if you’ve never used it before.

If there are any other useful utilities or techniques that can help a photography business set up and manage their Twitter account, please let us know in the comments!

 1. Leverage the Right Tools

Anyone can visit Twitter.com and set up a profile, then start tweeting madly. This is clearly demonstrated every time a parody account is created mere seconds after a news event. In fact, ease of use and access is basically the whole point of the site.

Literally anyone can use Twitter.

But if you’re a marketer and you’re only using Twitter.com to develop and implement your lead generation strategy, you are missing out. Instead, you should be taking advantage of management tools like HootSuite and search engines like Followerwonk. These applications can add a ton of value to the time you spend on Twitter by making it easy to find the most influential people on Twitter and track entire conversations that are relevant to your brand. These tools exist to make your job easier. Try them. You won’t regret it.

2. Actually Link to Your Content

For the majority of people, social media is fun. They don’t sign on and constantly check updates because it makes them money, they just want to. Even if social media marketing is your job (like it is here at ManoByte), social media can still be fun. When you are mining Twitter for leads, though, make sure you don’t get swept up in the fun chats, tweets, and hashtag games. You actually have to link out to your content sometimes, too. Participation is great, but you have to take it to the next level and have those followers click through to your site and give you some info. Then you’ve got a lead.

3. Utilize Your Profile

You may not spend that much time on your own Twitter profile, either creating it or looking at it. But for a company, your profile is often the first thing people see. Make sure you include a way to contact you right there in the profile. You can send them to Facebook, if that’s where you put most of your content, or to a landing page that asks for their email. Seize the opportunity to send new followers exactly where you want them, which may very well not be your main homepage.

4. Don’t Ignore Potential Followers

Keeping your followers engaged is a key part of a successful Twitter lead generation strategy. But your followers are definitely not the only leads you can find on the massive network that is Twitter. You should always be looking for new potential followers and reaching out to them as well. Maybe they’ve had a problem with your competitor, maybe they’re comparison shopping: you should be there, offering to help and showing them all the advantages you have to offer them. Don’t be content with your followers. Find more. Do more. Earn more.

5. Always Be Landing

It may be cliché by now, but when you send Twitter users to your site, use landing pages. Do it. Give them a way to enter their email address, subscribe, add, friend, follow, like, whatever. Get their information and turn them into a lead.

While there is no magic potion that can generate leads for you (we’re still working on that one) there are proven ways to use Twitter for lead generation. Just follow these principles, stick with the strategies that work for you, and you’ll be surprised with the results. We would love to hear your thoughts on what has or has not worked for you with Twitter. Please leave us a comment

For the second season, MTV India launched a first-of-its-kind crowdsourcing initiative for the social road trip yesterday. Twitter users were invited to tweet their favourite travel destination using the hashtag #DriveWithMTV. These suggestions were then shortlisted to form the routes for this season of Drive with MTV. The chosen destinations won goodies and was simultaneously shared on the Facebook page of Drive with MTV. The final 20 locations have been decided after a day long tweeting drive.

For all you road trip junkies out there, the shortlisting process is on till the 20^th of May. 24 of these shortlisted people will be selected to form the final 12 with four teams of 3 people each. You need to register on this page with a fun video entry talking about a memorable trip that you had taken and why you love to travel.

Interestingly, Drive with MTV has also associated with BlogAdda, a bloggers community to offer 3 wildcard entries who will form the shortlisted 24. Bloggers need to share a memorable journey and give their reasons for the love of travel. Once in the shortlist, they have to send video entries as well and fight it out for the final team of 12.

The second season of Drive with MTV promises to be more exciting even before it has started. The teams travel across the length and breadth of the country and share their experiences on social media, along the routes that have been decided through social media!

Tweet chats are scheduled meetings where like-minded individuals discuss topics on Twitter using a specific hashtag. They’re like conferences without the hotel fare, or networking events without the sweaty handshakes. In other words, they’re a fantastic addition to your social media strategy, and loads of fun. According to Maurice Rahmey of HubSpot, they’re even something of a silver bullet for B2B brands: “TweetChats are an amazing way to get a better understanding of your fans, customers, and leads while allowing you to grow your Twitter reach.” Here are some pro tips for hosting a chat that becomes a cult classic:

1. Pick a Topic Wisely

Your Tweet chat won’t gain steam unless it fills a void in your niche—don’t pick a topic or theme that’s already successfully claimed. The theme should be broad enough to be discussed week after week, but narrow enough to attract experts. You can even discuss your products—FedEx and Cisco have successfully held brand-focused chat sessions. Even if your small brand lacks the following to host a dedicated Tweet chat, consider promoting dedicated social media “office hours.”

2. Choose a Unique Hashtag

A Tweet chat is only as strong as its designated hashtag. Pick something recognizable, and most of all, unique.

3. Designate a Time

If your brand already has an engaged audience, poll your social media followers about ideal times for a Tweet chat. Ensure that it doesn’t conflict with any similar, more popular chats in your industry.

4. Find Smaller Themes

Most often, Tweet chats have a weekly theme that discusses concepts and trends within the meeting’s larger theme. Use breaking news or other hot topics to designate a concept you’ll center the discussion around.

5. Pick a Format

Did you know the types of Tweet chats you can pick are only as limited as your imagination? Twitter expert Pam Moore lists out the following ideas as ways you can structure your scheduled time:

• Single Topic Questions
• Multi-Topic Questions
• Topic-Free Flow
• Guest Q&A
• Simple Q&A

Unless your Tweetup has a passion for one format above another, there’s no need to stick to a single format!

6. Promote Your Event

There’s nothing worse than pouring your time, energy, and love into a virtual event, and then hearing crickets when the scheduled time rolls around. Promote your event heavily on social media channels, your blog, and to your email list. Word to the wise: While attending other scheduled Tweet chats is an amazing way to make connections, it’s not the time or place to promote yourself.

7. Prepare to Moderate

Even if you’re featuring an industry expert as a specialized host for your event, event planners should be thoroughly prepared to keep the discussion headed in a positive and helpful direction. Create engaging questions for discussion, and be sure to create more questions than you think you could possibly use in an hour. As a backup, it may not hurt to have a trending article prepared for emergency discussion material.

8. Leverage Experts

Really smart people typically love being asked to guest host Tweet chats. It’s a way to further thought leadership, share their expertise, and gain an even bigger audience. As the full-time host of a fledgling Tweet chat, leveraging an hour of an expert’s time could be your best shot at getting people to participate. Pitch requests thoughtfully and politely; after all, you are asking someone to donate an hour to your cause! If you’re lucky, having their expert seal of approval will send you a herd of new Tweeters from their audience.

9. Don’t Feed the Trolls

IMA’s social media manager Michelle Kraker has more than a few years’ experience participating in and hosting Tweetups. She reports that true trolls are relatively rare, but it’s wise for moderators to support positive discussion by not feeding agitators. Don’t engage individuals who aren’t there to learn or contribute.

10. Be Super-Welcoming

Think back to the best party host you’ve ever encountered—the kind of person who shrieks with excitement, takes people’s coats, and makes the most delicious hors d’oeuvres on the block. Be that host or hostess at your Tweet chat—greet newbies warmly, ask them to share a little about themselves, and do everything possible to remember repeat attendees (even if you have to track their Twitter handles in a spreadsheet).

11. Invite People Personally

Even the most avid Twitter fanatics can miss out on seeing your promotions in the world’s fastest-moving content stream. If you’re certain that a friend, role model, or follower would be the perfect fit for your Tweet chat community, take the time to invite them personally. They’ll be flattered.

12. Keep Monitoring Your Tag

Even though your scheduled Tweetups probably only last 60 minutes per week, your duty as moderator isn’t done when it ends for the day. Continually monitor your custom hashtag throughout the week to keep engagement juices flowing, and thank other bloggers and social media users if they promote your event.

Have you ever hosted a Tweet chat? How did it benefit your social media strategy?

image credit: thawats/freedigitalphotos.net

So the company sought to better understand the behavior of the mobile Twitter user over other their web-based counterparts. Working with clickstream data specialist, Compete, Twitter found that these primary mobile Twitter users in the U.S. are more engaged in several key ways:

Whether you’re an old veteran or a newcomer, check out these six Twitter problems (and solutions) that should be a part of your spring-cleaning routine…

Problem: Unbalanced Following/Followers Ratio

There’s definitely a negative stigma on Twitter that says if you follow more users than you have followers, then you’re not “valuable.” Some Twitter users claim they couldn’t care less about this ratio, while others obviously have an obsessive-compulsive relationship with the figure (e.g., when you see someone has 779 followers and follows 778 Twitter accounts).

Solution: Flush the Non-Followers

If this is an issue that bothers you, there are a number of programs that can help you get rid of Twitter users that don’t follow you back. I recently used ManageFlitter, a free service that neatly displays users who aren’t following you back, as well as a ton of other cool data like ‘Talkative’, ‘Quiet’, ‘Non-English’, etc.

Problem: Following Inactive Users

… which brings us to Twitter Spring Cleaning Issue #2: those inactive users. Inactive users are drains on your Twitter profile. If you’re following someone who doesn’t engage, it’s time to drop the user.

Solution: Seek & Destroy

Again, I recommend ManageFlitter, but there are other popular programs out there like iUnfollow that can help you with this.

Problem: Haphazard, Irregular Tweeting

So, enough about everyone else. What about you? Are you one of those haphazard, irregular tweeters that releases a deluge of 140 character messages one week and is dead silent the next? As you might imagine, that kind of irregularity doesn’t work in your marketing strategy’s favor.

Solution: Editorial Calendar

An editorial calendar will become a near and dear friend for your social media marketing plan. Though I personally don’t leverage a full-blown editorial calendar, I do use HootSuite to schedule my posts. With the free version of HootSuite, I can set up my tweets for the day first thing in the morning, and then get to work.

Problem: No One Reads Your Tweets

Just because you are tweeting regularly now, it doesn’t follow that people are going to read them. In fact, if you’re not careful, your little genius editorial calendar will make you sound like a Twitter Bot (which might be the case if you truly never do spend any time on the site itself).

Solution: Know the Right Time to Post

The solution is knowing the right time to tweet. Programs like Timely can help you schedule tweets for “maximum impact.” Or, you can follow these best practices from Fusework Studios. A few surprising facts:

• Tweets on Saturday and Sunday see 17% more engagement compared to weekday tweets.
• Wednesday and Thursday are the days with the lowest rates of engagement.

Problem: Lack of Voice & Goals

Now the problems get a little more abstract. Many companies aren’t really sure why they’re on Twitter, as Darren Rowse (@problogger) points out. If you don’t have specific goals, your Twitter account isn’t going to grow or help you much at all outside of Twitter.

Solution: Designing Brand Voice & Goals

You wouldn’t schedule a meeting with a potential client without having goals. You wouldn’t send company representatives out into the field without giving them some talking points. So, why should Twitter be any different? Grab a cup of coffee, think, and actually write down some voice guidelines and goals. How do you want to be seen and what do you want to accomplish on Twitter? Seriously, go write this stuff down!

Problem: Your Fans Aren’t United

By this point, you should have a pretty clean and lean account with an editorial calendar, regular posting habits, and a distinct brand voice. But how do you get all of your followers and fans on board with you?

Solution: Create & Promote Hashtags

The answer is hashtags. By creating and actively promoting hashtags you can create buzz about your brand. However, be aware that you need to give fans an actual incentive to use your hashtag. For inspiration, allow me to point you over to Vitamin Water’s current #MakeBoringBrilliant campaign.

What are some of the core principles of your social media marketing strategy? Have any Twitter spring cleaning tips of your own?

Success on Twitter is not the result of diluting your feed with praise about yourself and your company.

Success on Twitter is the result of using your content to influence and connect with your target market. Over 500 million people worldwide use Twitter. Anyone can connect with you, if they are motivated to do so.

Some basic Twitter know-how goes a long way for successfully tweeting about your company. Here are 7 tips to make your tweeting a success:

1. Keep the content about you and your products to a minimum, and focus on engaging your customer.

2. Create interesting, witty content.

3. Ask for a RT (a retweet).

4. Use #’s (hashtags).

5. Use @mentions and RT’s to interact with your market and thought leaders.

6. Respond to your @connects.

7. Use contests and coupons.

Let’s look at each of these:

1. Keep the content about you and your products to a minimum, and focus on engaging your customer.

While this may seem counterintuitive to traditional marketers, social media is about interacting, sharing, and creating a bond with your customer. Generally speaking, your customer doesn’t really care about you or your products, unless you can connect with them emotionally. Let’s face it, as consumers, we like to talk about ourselves, not be talked to about your product.

If you can create content that engages, piques the interest of, and emotionally connects with your consumer, you will become a more important part of their world. You/ your product/ your brand will more likely to be shared with others who share the same worldview.

Understand your product, understand your customer, and speak to them on Twitter. Associate your products with feelings, thought provoking information, and lifestyles.

It’s okay to add your products in some of your tweets, but don’t shout about them.

2. Create interesting, witty content.

Great content gets shared. Shared content means more brand exposure, which means more leads, which means more sales. Write tweets that are of interest to your market. And try to be witty, in a way that connects with your market.

Think of the text of tweets as headlines or ad copy. The more attention grabbing they are, the more likely they will be read. The more they are read, the more likely they will be retweeted and shared.

3. Ask for a RT (retweet).

This may seem so obvious that it often gets overlooked, but – ask your followers for a RT, or even better, a retweet. You will likely get good results.

A study by Buddy Media has shown that tweets asking for a RT get 12 times as many retweets, and spelling it out by asking for a ‘retweet’ actually increased that rate to 32 times more. The study also found, however, that currently only 1% of brands use this tactic. (Mashable)

You don’t want to use this too often, though, or your customers will soon become disinterested. But, do give it try occasionally — especially when you have something great to share!

4. Use #’s (hashtags).

Including hashtags in your tweets makes them reach a larger audience. Your tweet not only goes out to all of your followers, but also to everyone who follows, or searches for a particular hashtag.

Remember, hashtags are a way to organize topics. You can create your own hashtags. You can make funny or obscure hashtags that specifically relate to your market and/ or product and brand.

Some brilliant uses of hashtags include @MapleLeafFoods use of #bacon:

5. Respond to your @connects.

Check your @connects frequently. Twitter is about conversing with your customer. Many of your customers these days use Twitter more than email as a way to connect with companies.

A response on Twitter is expected fast.

If a customer is mentioning you in a tweet, you need to pay attention and take action – even if that action is a simple thank you.

Use Twitter as a customer service tool, to respond quickly, and well, to your customers’ needs. This can go along way to build trust, develop loyalty, and generate more leads and sales.

6. Use @mentions and RT’s to interact with your market and thought leaders.

Twitter lets you communicate with your market very easily. It’s also a great way to get in touch with thought leaders, celebrities and newsmakers in your industry.

If you have a great customer who follows you on Twitter, for example, mention them. Send them an @handle tweet to thank them, retweet a tweet, or mention them in a #ff (#ff stands for FollowFriday). This weekly shoutout has been a tradition on Twitter, and still has some merit. It gives you the chance to acknowledge your valuable and worthy followers, and suggest that others follow them as well.

Because Twitter is such an open forum, you can easily get in touch with thought leaders, other businesses, celebrities and more. You can use this to develop new business leads, get RT’s from industry leaders to gain further reach, and open dialogue to associate your company with others.

For example, if you have written a blog post about a related company, you can send them the link through a mention on Twitter.

7. Use contests and coupons.

Ok, this is where I disclose my bias. Wishpond makes contests, coupons and sweepstakes apps. Social promotions do go a long way in developing emotional bonds with your consumer, as well as getting lots of retweets.

Contests are a fun way to engage your audience and generate buzz about your product. Who doesn’t like to win? And who doesn’t like to share when they’ve won? Contests can create user-generated content for you too. And user-generated content is some of the most shared content. People like to share what they’ve created.

Coupons generate a lot of excitement for your products too. And they are retweeted often to followers and friends. Check out, for example, how @LookoutBlizzard has used our Sweepstakes to generate buzz on Twitter for their new game:

Try out these Twitter tips. You don’t have much to lose, and you may just gain more engaged Twitter followers by doing so.

The incident took place during the coaching event of the NSUI in the Kandivali suburb of Mumbai on the night of April 14. It is being said that Suraj was drunk during the function. However, Nigam Bhandari, the Mumbai in-charge and Secretary of the NSUI, has confirmed that there is no proof that Suraj was in an inebriated state or had indulged in any vulgar dance. Along with Suraj, NSUI’s general secretary Vicky Vhatkar and a national delegate Hitendra Gandhi – have also been suspended for alleged indiscipline at the meet.

The interesting fact is not why Suraj was suspended but what caught my eyes was the use of social media for communication. NSUI, which has a reasonably good presence on popular social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, used both the networks wisely to clear its position on the matter. The Facebook page, that has more than 12K fans, made the first post yesterday stating that the party has suspended Suraj on grounds of indiscipline. However, the content didn’t elaborate much on what led to this suspension.

Speaking at the Big Tent India event in Delhi, Chief Minster of Jammu and Kashmir, Omar Abdullah had made a valid point that, “Bad News spreads fast on social media.” And the same happened for NSUI, in no time Suraj Thakur was trending on Twitter.

Today’s issues – 1. Food Security Bill. 2. Suraj Thakur. 3. House adjourned.Pertaining to – 1. Roti. 2. Kapda 3. Makaan.

— Ramesh Srivats (@rameshsrivats) May 7, 2013

Those who missed Suraj Thakur’s dance yesterday, plz dont worry. His dance will be contiNUDE after one month suspention.

—Not Real Arnab G (@justicearnab) May 7, 2013

The NSUI Twitter account that had posted similar Facebook updates as tweets for its 1400 plus followers couldn’t do much. The trolls had a good time and the matter was big enough to damage the reputation of the party at least online. However, after 21 hours NSUI released a press release explaining the entire issue of suspension and also dismissing the reports of the alleged ‘nude party’ which had been trending since morning.

NSUI expresses deep shock & concern over the way Media/SM has sensationalized the suspension of its Office Bearers. twitter.com/nsui/status/33…

— NSUI (@nsui) May 7, 2013

But wasn’t that too late? The first step of updating fans and followers on social media was a thought of move but missing out the ‘Why’ led to the whole mess. Even though the party circulated the real facts, the delay of 21 hours is late in today’s age especially when the opponents are also on the same medium eyeing for such incidents to blow out of proportion. Time for NSUI to become more active and proactive on social media.

This time I thought I’d look at how comedians themselves use social media. Is it merely another medium for chucking jokes out at people, fluffing up the egos of TV stars or can it be used to further a career in comedy?

In part 1 of this series

I invited some of the country’s top comic talent to visit me on Red Rocket Media’s Social Island using their favourite mode of transport and to chat about their use of social media, what platforms they use, whether they feel it’s helped their career and who their favourite people to follow are.

Here come the first three arrivals…

Matt Forde

Damian Clark

Steve N Allen

First to arrive here on sunny Social Island is Matt Forde who flew in on a specially chartered helicopter designed to look and sound exactly like Airwolf. Matt is a Nottingham born comedian, comedy writer, TalkSport radio presenter and former political advisor for the Labour Party.

Closely following Matt is Australian comedian, Damian Clark, who before moving to the UK made a name for himself on Irish television as part of RTE’s “Republic of Telly” and co-starred in Ireland’s highest rating comedy debut “I Dare Ya”. Damian has turned up on a portable scooter.

Last to arrive is comedian, comedy writer and presenter, Steve N Allen who has flown in on a rather stylish Seaplane.

Surrounded by the tropical white sands, lapping waves and palm tree’s I ask:

Q1. What are your preferred social media platforms and what do you use them for?

Matt Forde:

“Twitter’s the best for me, it’s great for promoting things quickly, like my podcast (latest show available here). It’s also good for quick jokes, moaning and winding up football fans.

Twitter forces you to be brief so cuts out waffle and it also means that you can talk to people other than your friends. It’s like giving everyone your phone number but they can only text you.”

Steve N Allen:

“I mainly use Twitter for two reasons. Firstly, it’s a great place to collect all your other stuff. If you post to Tumblr, YouTube, Keek, even answer something on Ask.fm, you can post it to Twitter and get more responses. I use social media to get my content to an audience. I write topical comedy articles on my website, do a podcast and recently I’ve started making videos of a weekly topical comedy gig I do. Without social media it would be like shouting out of a window.”

Damian Clark:

“YouTube is my favourite because there’s so much on there! I’ve discovered so many comics, musicians and videos of cats sh*ting that I never would have known existed if it wasn’t for YouTube.

Q2. Do you consider social media a good way to source content for new material?

Damian Clark:

“Totally dude! Film something, whack it online and when you see all the comments of people saying that “you suck” then you know you’re doing something right.”

Matt Forde:

“It might work for some people but it’s not what I use it for.”

Steve N Allen:

“I don’t source a lot of material on social media at all. I’m more likely to find it from news sites, but if a big story breaks I probably find out about it first when it trends on Twitter, and then I head to the news sites.

There is one way that social media helps with writing. As a comedian your job is to make sure you come up with the jokes that no one else has thought of and social media shows you the jokes that people have. You can use it as a filter.”

Q3. Do you think that social media has helped your career?

Damian Clark:

“For sure. I think more people watched the clips of my humble TV appearances on YouTube than when they were actually on TV. When I’m in Ireland I get recognised more for the YouTube video of my news report in ‘CopperFace Jacks nightclub Dublin’ than anything else. Crimewatch didn’t boost my profile at all.”

Matt Forde:

“I don’t think there’s any piece of work I’ve received because of what I’ve said on Twitter. I think some comedians can mistake what social media is – it’s a means, not an end. It’s a glorified mailing list really, something you can use to promote the real things you’re doing, gigs, TV appearances, radio shows etc. No-one gets a prize for having the most followers.

Where it has helped, you could argue, has been in being able to promote things to a wider audience so, in that regard, yes it’s helped my career.”

Steve N Allen:

“It’s definitely helped me. I don’t have a big profile as a comedian, certainly not big enough to have people attend a show specifically to see me, but thanks to Twitter, that’s happened. It’s also been useful in making connections with people in the industry, getting booked for gigs, being asked to be a guest on some BBC shows and even getting my name in some magazines.”

Q4. What was your greatest success when it comes to your use of social media?

Steve N Allen:

“Selling out my show at the Leicester Comedy Festival was a high point. As a comedian no-one has really heard of me, but by using social media I was lucky enough to play to a full room of people who wanted to see my show (and weren’t just there for the meal and the nightclub after, which is often the way with normal weekend club gigs).”

Matt Forde:

“I got drunk at a Nottingham Forest game and was sat behind Paul Walsh on Soccer Saturday so pratted about. I got loads of tweets that afternoon but it wasn’t because of anything I’d tweeted. This was just one of the clips, of me pretending to eat a fly.”

Damian Clark:

“Probably when Andrew Stanley and myself uploaded our dare (we asked out girls who were next to their boyfriends) for Ireland’s RTE show “I Dare Ya”. It went up to a million hits in a few months and continues to get thousands of views a day. Good to know you can sleep in ‘til 3pm and people are still watching your stuff, or at least one crazy guy is – over and over again.

Q4. Who are your favourite Twitter accounts at the moment?

Damian Clark:

“Rory O’Hanlon. Very funny, very Irish and terrible grammar.”

Matt Forde:

“@PoorPickupLines is my favourite at the moment, some of them are just bloody ridiculous. Good comedians on there include Paul McCaffreys, Jon Richardson and Danny Buckler

Steve N Allen:

” I think Sarah Millican is the perfect example of how to tweet as a comedian; some jokes, some plugging of her shows and some tweets that are just from her as a person. A lot of comedians think that tweeting nothing but jokes is the way to do it. But imagine what that would be like in real life?! Someone who doesn’t interact with you as a person, they just try to be funny all the time. They’d just be that annoying person in the office.

Peter Serafinowicz is amazing on social media. He tweets material that is better than some people put on TV.”

Thanks guys!

With that, we put the beach fire out and say our goodbyes. As I watch today’s comedians depart on their vehicles of choice into the sunset, I think the main thing we’ve learned is that it’s not all about jokes. Providing your followers with relevant promotional content on a platform that works for you as well is the key to building that following and generating the trust of your fans. Thanks to Matt Forde, Damian Clarke and Steve N Allen for their contributions.

Part 2 coming soon…

Keep an eye out for part 2 in a few weeks when I’ll be talking to Tiernan Douieb, Zoe Lyons, Maff Brown and Stephen Grant

Social Island interviews: 3 top comedians talk Twitter originally appeared on Red Rocket Media on May 1, 2013.