Getting Up to Speed with Twitter

I was coaching a student on the use of Twitter this morning and began teaching her 4 keys to using Twitter to help promote a blog and business.

1) Start by listening. Find people in areas of interest by using sites like WeFollow.com and LocaFollow.com. You can search by location if your interest in more local than national. Or you can use keywords, no matter what the niche.  It’ll search for people with those keywords in the bios. (Which begs the question, what keywords are you using in your bio so that people find you?)

2) Begin engaging people. Ask questions about their tweets or blog posts. Re-tweet their tweets. It’s all about the CONVERSATION!

3) Set up lists in Tweetdeck or Hootsuite to group who you’re following by your relationship or the outcome you’re hoping for. For today’s student, she is interested in local followers who are ‘local influencers’ such as the mayor, president of the chamber, president of the garden club, etc.  I recommended that she set up a list of her customers, so that she can maintain engagements with them. Then I recommended that she set up a list of the people she learns from.  You can make as many lists as you like and the people you follow can be on more than one list.

4) Set up tweets to go out over a period of time. Tweetdeck, Hootsuite and others allow you to schedule them in advance. Doing this will keep you visible every day. You can then jump on once or twice per day for live interaction. 15-20 minutes at a time is all you need to interact.

What are your best strategies for getting the most out of Twitter?

Website and Internet Marketing Definitions (April 8, 2011)

Added this week to my Internet Marketing Glossary at WebAsylum.com.

Alt Tags
Alt tags area form of meta tags used to provide more information about an image on a website. The tags are added by the webmaster when the images are put on a web page. Originally, alt-tags were designed for people with impaired vision to use browsers that would read the tags to the user letting them know more about the image. Search engines began using the information when indexing web pages.

Header Tags (or Headline Tags)
Header tags (H1, H2, H3, etc) are used to highlight text on a webpage, usually in headlines or sub-headlines, and are sometimes used by search engines to determine what a page is about, so it’s important to include appropriate keywords for the website and page in particular in header or H1 tags.

Javascript
One of many programming languages used to control web pages, among other things. However, Javascript is not understood very well by search engines and many will suggest avoiding it when build navigation on web pages.

Lead Magnet
Something of value that you give away, usually on a squeeze page, in exchange for getting an email address and name. (Some call this an ethical bribe) The lead magnet is often delivered electronically, such as a report, white paper, newsletter, spreadsheet or software.

Linkbait
Content put on a webpageor blog post that is designed to attract a lot of attention and specifically links from other sites. Inbound links from other websites help with search engine ranking (and links on other sites can help build awareness and traffic.) Linkbait can be something creative or funny or provacative. Lists are especially popular. It could be a glossary. It could be a video, survey, picture or even a live feed.

Meta Descriptions
Meta description code is usually what shows up on a SERP as the description of what the web page is all about. Some search engines use the meta description in their algorithms to determine how the page should be indexed, so it’s important to use preferred keywords in meta descriptions. If a meta description is not included for a page, the search engines show a random piece of text from the site, so it’s important to write specific meta descriptions for each page of your website.

Socialbait
Similar to linkbait, social bait is content created for a website specifically to attract interest in social media, such as comments on Twitter or references to the content on Facebook. The socialbait content could be a blog post, online game, quiz, video, commentary, pictures or video. It could also be social media content that is created to be picked up on other social media sites.

Squeeze Page
A web page specifically designed to squeeze at least minimal information from a prospect (or even a current customer to get them into a different email list). Most squeeze pages focus specifically on getting someone to opt-in to an email list and don’t usually have distractions from the goal, such as site navigation.

Title Tags
Meta description of a web page that shows up at the top of a browserand reinforces for the visitor what the page is about. The code for meta descriptions is put in the background of the page. Some search engines use the words in title tags to identify what the page is all about. Each page on a website should have separate and specific title tags.

Trust Marks
Trust Marks or Trust Signals are webpage elements that convey authenticity and security to site visitors. Logos, testimonials and secure badges are all trust marks.

What website development or Internet Marketing Definitions are you interested in?

Twitter Strategy – How to Manage Information Without Overwhelm

My friend Kirk Taylor posted a piece on Twitter Strategy today, outlining some benefits of networking and how he has changed his strategy to meet his needs, including being more efficient.  (I have some ideas on that below.)  He advocates only following people you have relationships with.

“Twitter is a relationship tool that should be used to build relationships, not to prove how popular you are.“

Absolutely correct!  Unless your only interest in Twitter is following celebrities or chatting with friends, Twitter is about building awareness, influence and achieving goals, such as sales or branding.

“Many people, myself included have wasted countless hours building our following but few of us have spent time building a quality following. Now I’m focused on building a quality following and the only way I can identify them is by only following people who tweet interesting tweets.”

It’s all about the ROI of your marketing tactics.  The amount of time you spend is part of the ROI equation.

Kirk goes on to talk about not following people who only contribute noise.  There is merit to that too.  But I think there are some more options for managing Twitter and cutting down on overwhelm and here are my thoughts.

Twitter is all about building relationships and conversations. Using Twitter to listen to your market, customers, prospects and competitors (and their prospects & customers) is also huge.

As everyone’s Following list gets bigger, it’s more difficult to manage and more time-consuming.  I use Tweetdeck (others use Hootsuite or others) to group who I’m following by interest.  I have an “A List” group of my most important folks – the ones I want to experience no matter how busy my day.  I also have another column for the next tier of people I follow most.

I have a “Customers” group to follow those I coach on Social Media. I have a “Prospects” list of people I’d like to engage as a customer for social media, website development or online marketing.  I have groups (actually Tweetdeck no longer allows new groups; only lists) for specific interests and I have hashtags I follow to see what’s being said about subjects that I’m interested in.

You could create categories of competitors to keep tabs on them.  You could create lists of who your competitors are following or who is following them.

You can create columns based on defined keywords, like brand mentions. (I could write a whole article on this)

You might want to segment news sources or trade industry leaders.

You might want to simply keep track of local influencers.

There are many ways to manage the flow of information.  Twitter is well worth the effort!

What do you use to manage your social media activities and save time?