What is a Twitter List?

A Twitter list is basically a grouped stream of tweets of the people that are on them.  Segmenting the people you follow into different “groups” – although a seemingly tedious task at first – allows you to much more effectively “keep up” with the people and topics that really matter to you, without having to read tweets you may deem irrelevant.

Examples of Lists

You may wish to create a list of your family, friends, coworkers, competitors, industry experts, local resources, etc.  Then by viewing that particular list you will only see those tweets by those respective members of the list.

I have personally created several private lists to keep tabs on my favorites MSU Spartans personalities, my favorite political personalities and those people that tweet about the goings on in my local community.

As it relates to business, I have created a list that I use specifically for internal training purposes, comprised strictly of Twitter users whom I would classify as experts and thought leaders within my industry.  Because technologies and strategies within my industry are constantly changing and evolving, by following this list, my team members are updated and educated in real-time, without a significant use of internal training resources.  Nothing like having others (experts) do the training for you!

Another example of using Twitter lists specifically for business is the list that I call “clients.”  As you can likely guess, this list contains the tweets of my clients so that I can better understand their wants, needs and what’s important to them.

Information & Instructions on Creating Lists

Private or public, there is no limit to the kinds of Twitter lists that can be created.  I highly recommend creating several so that you do not miss those tweets that are most important to you and your business. 

Information and instructions on how to create & edits lists, as well as adding or removing people from lists can be found here: Twitter Help

Twitter by the Numbers

A little over one month ago in March, 2012, Twitter announced that there are more than 140 million active users and more than 340 million tweets per day.  With such staggering real-time data there is, obviously, a lot of clutter and noise that needs to be cut through to effectively identify potential prospects.   Few would argue that Twitter is ripe with people who tweet out questions, opinions, frustrations and real-time sentiments, some of which may – or may not – be relevant to your business.  However, browsing thru 340 million tweets per day isn’t probably the best use of your time to identify leads and potential customers. 

Advanced Search

Twitter Advanced Search, however, lets you quickly and effectively cut through the clutter and noise.   With the advanced search function you can run a search for keywords by geographical location.   For example, if a Heating & Cooling Company services the metro Detroit, Michigan, area they could run (and save) an advanced search query that searches for the keyword phrase “broken air conditioner” and returns those Tweets that are within a 50 mile radius of their place of business, in Troy, MI. 

By identifying a problem (broken air conditioner) that their service solves and appropriately responding in a timely fashion, it’s very likely that the individual who tweeted the fact that their air conditioner was broken would be ecstatic that someone responded to their immediate need.  Such responsiveness may even result in the acquisition of a new customer – all from creating a single Twitter advanced search query!

How can Your Business Leverage Twitter’s Advanced Search?

Now think of how your business or organization could leverage Twitter’s advanced search.  How would your prospect communicate (what keywords would they use in their tweet) the problem that your product or service solves?  Once you identify relevant keywords, create an advanced Twitter search (include geographic modifiers for optimal results) and save the results so that you don’t have to create the search again.  You may even want to utilize Twitter’s larger set of search operators to further drill down and get results that are most relevant to your business.

Twitter has a multitude of uses for businesses – but creating an advanced search query is one of the most effective for lead generation.  Happy Tweeting!

Twitter – An Invaluable Piece of an Effective Digital Strategy

Let me set the record straight.  Twitter can be an invaluable piece of your overarching digital strategy – if used strategically and to its full potential.  Before passing Twitter off as a self-indulgent activity that has no value in the business realm, ask yourself the following questions:

• Are you monitoring real-time conversations about your brand on Twitter and responding accordingly?
• Are you using Twitter to monitor the competition?
• Are you using Twitter for industry research, trends and breaking news?
• Are you leveraging the power of Twitter’s advanced search features to help identify prospects and leads in real time?
• Are you using Twitter to drive traffic to your website, landing pages, your blog, your TouTube Channel, Facebook, etc.?
• Are you using Twitter as a form of customer service?
• Are you running special deals and promotions for your Twitter followers?
• Are you building relationships with your followers and engaging with them?
• Are you establishing yourself as a voice-of-authority on Twitter and, hence, boosting your credibility?

More than 140-Character Sound Bites:

If you answered "no" to any of the questions noted above, you may not be using Twitter to its fullest potential.  Twitter is much more than 140-character “sound bites.”  If used strategically, it can help you build your brand, generate leads, communicate with your clients & prospects, and get a leg up on your competition.

This former, angry customer had posted a handful of negative, online reviews and had even uploaded & published two separate YouTube videos blasting the organization for what he perceived as poor customer service – not unlike the example of Dave Carroll & United Airlines.  Furthermore, when typing the company name into Google, the negative Google reviews and YouTube videos were given prime real estate in the Google Search Results – in essence, dominating the “court of public opinion.” 

This example, once again begs the question for ALL organizations:  Do you have a strategy in place to manage your online reputation?  Are you monitoring what is being said about your company or brand on Google? On Twitter? On YouTube? On Review Sites?  Are you monitoring what is being said about the key executives of your organization?

Mitigating the Online Reputation Crisis

As for the strategy to mitigate this “crisis,” I suggested a couple of things:

• Get Google Reviews from your “best” clients
  The organization only had a couple of Google Reviews and they were “bad” – attributable solely to this single, disgruntled former customer.  Google Reviews play an important role not only in the court of public opinion, but they also play a key role in the arena of local, search engine optimization.
   
• Push the videos off the first page of Google Results with your own videos
  Although the “negative” videos cannot be deleted, they can be pushed off the top real estate of the Google Search Results.  This can be done by having the organization develop, upload, better optimize, publish and syndicate their own videos.  What were once occupying top search results may now be pushed to page 2,3 or even further down the Google search results pages.
  
• Write & Syndicate Press Releases
  Writing and syndicating press releases is another opportunity for the organization to rank well in the Google Search results when somebody types their company name into the Google Search box.  A press release occupying a top search result means the other bad results get pushed further down the page or to the next page.

These are just three steps that can be immediately implemented to enhance the organization’s online reputation.  The goal is to dominate the Google Search results with positive sentiment and push the negative sentiment off the first page – where far fewer people will notice.

For better or worse, this is an example of the dominating influence that any individual can wield in the digital age of social media.  Because of this influence, it’s important that organizations respond – and better yet, prepare ahead-of-time by having a dominating presence online.  When crisis does occur, such negative reviews/videos won’t be given such top Google real estate in the first place.
 

In this post I wanted to “steal” his schtick and deliver a swift kick in the pants to those who do not personalize their LinkedIn invitations.  My personal belief is that utlizing the text of the default invitation (and all default messaging on Linked In, for that matter) is simply a sign of laziness – or as one blogger wrote, “… a statement of want without a sign of reciprocation… and this defies the true definition of networking.” 

As you likely know, the default invite on LinkedIn reads as follows:  "I’d like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn."  Not very enticing, is it?  Nor is it very informative or helpful to build a valued connection.  A better approach (and, undoubtedly, a more effective approach to get the recipient to accept the invitation) is to attach a thoughtful note to it – including how you know me, what we have in common and why you would like to connect.  Please take the extra 20-30 seconds and personalize your message!

5 Options for the Invitation Recipient

Upon receipt of an Invitation, the recipient has 5 options:

• Accept — Clicking this button will add the person as one of your first-degree connections.
• Reply — Allows the recipient to Reply to the invitation without accepting it
• Ignore — Moves the invitation to your "Archived" folder without accepting it (invitation sender is not notified)
• Report as Spam — As the name suggests, reports you as spam to LinkedIn
• I Don’t Know [Name] — If you click this link, it will prevent that member from sending you any more invitations.  It may also require the sender to enter an email address with each future invitation.

It’s important to note that if you get too many “Report as Spam” or “I Don’t Know [Name]” designations, LinkedIn may restrict your account.  Therefore, avoid this from happening by personalizing your message.  The recipients will be appreciative – and I won’t have to deliver any punches or swift kicks in the pants.

Pinterest has been around for a couple of years, but has most recently become popular over the past few months.

What is Pinterest? 

• According to Pinterest, they are one of the fastest growing social services in the world.
• Their goal is to “connect everyone in the world through the 'things' they find interesting”.
• Pinterest is a virtual online pinboard which allows you to organize and share the things you find and like on the web. 
• Users can pin photos and information from all over the web into one category and then share it with a click of the mouse. 
• Users can browse pinboards created by other people. This can give you new ideas and inspiration from others who share your interests.
• According to statistics, the main users of the site are women between the ages of 18-34 years old who live in America's midwest. 
• Pinterest is currently an invite-only platform.

Are you planning a wedding, or looking for that perfect appetizer for your meal?  Pinterest gives you ideas and inspiration. 

Why is Pinterest so Hot?

Social networks began with blogging.  With blogs, you had to write an entire blog post to express yourself. Then came Twitter and Facebook.  They allowed you to share a simple status update to express a thought on the web.  They also provided a means of sharing thoughts through "retweeting" updates on Twitter and "Liking" pages on Facebook.

According to Pete Cashmore at Mashable, Pinterest fits well into this network category by being a visual social network that organizes images by topic and lets you reshare with just one click. 

How successful is Pinterest?

According to Mashable, “Unique visitors to the site grew 400% from September to December 2011, and [during the first week in February] one study showed that Pinterest drove more visitors to third-party websites than Google+, YouTube and LinkedIn combined.”

According to comScore, the average Pinterest user spends 98 minutes per month on the site.  Pinterest reportedly reached 10 million users faster than any other in history.

Think individuals are the only ones benefiting from Pinterest?  Wrong.  Brands are also benefiting…  so be sure to check Pinterest out! 
 

Search advertisers can use remarketing to create an integrated campaign strategy.  For example, after driving traffic to your site with search ads, you can then remarket to those users who reach your site by showing them tailored display ads on sites throughout your network of advertising partners.

Remarketing – A Detroit Tigers Jersey Example

With the recent signing of Prince Fielder and Tigers Exhibition Baseball ready to get underway in Lakeland, Florida I decided that I wanted to purchase a Detroit Tigers jersey.  So, I hopped on my computer and entered the search term, “Detroit Tigers Jerseys” into the Google Search box.  I then clicked on the following text ad from shop.mlb.com. 

After clicking the text ad, I was taken to their website and browsed their selection of jerseys.  However, for whatever reason, I ended up leaving the site without buying anything.

Enter the "Magic" of Remarketing

The next day I visited several nationally-recognized sports sites, including sportsillustrated.com, to review sports scores, read the headlines and see what the Big10 standings were after a key Michigan State basketball victory the previous night.  While browsing the site, I noticed a display ad seemingly directed right at me – an ad by shop.mlb.com (the site I had previously visited and abandoned) for, yep you guessed it, a Detroit Tigers jersey!

And Here’s How it Worked

Shop.mlb.com ran a “pay-per-click” campaign and searchers (including me) clicked on the text ad as shown above.  A tracking cookie was then placed on our computers to make sure we were identified as visitors to their Web site. Then, as we were surfing other sites supported by their network of advertising partners, a creative banner ad was placed in front of us at that moment, for a cent or so, to remarket their site to us and attempt to bring us back through the Buying Funnel, hopefully to the Purchasing Stage.”

Remarketing is extraordinarily powerful.  Is it part of your digital marketing strategy?

What are Display Ads?

Display ads are simply online graphical banners placed on websites by advertisers that, when clicked on, takes the surfer to the advertiser’s website.  Localized banner (display) advertising is arguably the most cost-effective way to market your brand and create brand awareness to people browsing and surfing the Internet.

Advanced Targeting Capabilities

What makes display advertising so effective is the robust targeting capabilities available to the advertiser.    The following advanced targeting technologies are available for organizations that incorporate display marketing as part of their overarching digital marketing strategy:

• Geo-Targeting – Displays the banner ad to people in your geographic location – so even if you are displaying an ad on a nationally recognized site such as cnn.com, for example, your ad will only be displayed and accrue impressions to those within the geographic area you specify.
   
• Contextual Targeting – Displays your ad to people on sites featuring content related to your business (the local, home improvement company mentioned above that displays an ad on a Do-It-Yourself website is an example of contextual targeting).
   
• Behavioral Targeting – Undoubtedly the most effective, behavioral targeting occurs when your ad is displayed to people who have shown recent online behaviors / interests that are relevant to your business (the local, auto dealer ad that was displayed on cbssportsline.com because of the surfer’s recent history of viewing car reviews and prices is an example of behavioral targeting).
   
• Remarketing – Many consumers visiting your website leave without ever converting. These are your most valuable prospects — they have shown an interest in your business by visiting your site.  Remarketing remembers consumers who visit your website and then displays your ad on other media sites they visit.  This technique creates top-of-mind awareness for your brand and helps bring consumers back to your site.   

As you see, display advertising is a very effective strategy for creating brand awareness and generating leads.  And now, for the first time, the technology is readily available so that local businesses can make localized display network buys the same way that larger companies (like the Fortune 500) do.   

By taking advantage of display advertising, your organization can now build a big brand on a relatively small budget by advertising on nationally recognized sites and a mix of relevant niche sites with good traffic.  

Have you added display marketing to your branding and lead generation strategies?

With my 5-minute Troy Chamber BRG presentation slated for Tuesday (2 days away) I plan to take those five minutes to demonstrate first-hand the benefits that blogging can have on your organization's lead generation efforts.  There are several benefits of blogging:

1. Blogging not only helps position your organization as industry experts, but it also helps instill your organization with trust and credibility.
2. By allowing comments and a dialogue on your blog, your organization is able to listen, engage and adapt the message to your clients and prospects.
3. Blogs can help your organization rank well with search engines (think Google) because, with each post, you are creating relevant and unique content.  With a coordinated strategy in place, blogging can be one of the most effective ways to ultimately help your organization rank well for the keywords that are relevant to your business.

Example of Optimizing Keywords in a Blog Post

In this particular post, I am — at least in part — optimizing for the keyword phrase, "Best Troy Chamber BRG."  My guess is that shortly after publishing this post (perhaps even a couple of hours later) if you were to go to Google and type in the keyword phrase "Best Troy Chamber BRG" into the Google search box, this blog post will achieve a page 1 Google ranking.

While it is true that very few people will actually type that search phrase into Google, similar strategies will work for more popular phrases — and for phrases that are more relevant to your business.  That's why keyword research and developing an overarching strategy is so crucial for success.  Please let me know if I can be of assistance in helping you or your organization create a blog and develop a strategy for your organization that will yield lead-generation success.

For those of you in Troy's best BRG Group, I will see you on Tuesday morning.  For all others, happy blogging!

If we can be of any help in this effort, please let us know.  

Without further ado, and, in no particular order:

• Create a Google Plus brand (business) page
• Develop a content strategy (blue-print)
• Incorporate QR codes into your offline marketing collateral
• Optimize your website for smartphones & tablets so that the user experience on such devices remains positive
• Create a corporate blog – the cornerstone of any digital marketing strategy – and post regularly
• Implement a social media strategy – and policy
• Brand your YouTube Channel
• Schedule social media training for you and your team so that your organization can effectively enhance branding & lead generation efforts with social media
• Design campaign-specific landing pages on your website where you can convert your visitors into customers
• Create a Facebook landing (welcome) tab
• Initiate a process to measure phone calls, emails and form submissions
• Run a Google Adwords campaign
• Hyper-target your target audience with Facebook ads
• Optimize your website for keywords that would be searched on Google by your prospects
• Create a video and syndicate it to video-sharing sites
• Optimize your Google Places listing by submitting videos, photos and encouraging reviews
• Consistently tweet
• Utilize 3rd party apps such as Hootsuite, CoTweet and Tweet Deck to increase social media efficiency
• Link your Twitter Account to LinkedIn
• Create a Mobile App for your Business
• Integrate social media into your website (displaying latest tweets, Facebook stream, etc.)
• Display call-to-actions on all pages of your website
• Execute email campaigns targeted to clients, prospects and those with whom you network
• Run focused, marketing campaigns (monthly, quarterly) and make sure all social media efforts revolve around that campaign
• Write press releases and syndicate them
• Remarket
• Participate in LinkedIn Groups and answer questions to increase your trust & credibility
• Offer Foursquare specials (for you business-to-consumer, brick-and-mortar businesses)
• Reduce or significantly decrease your dependence on Yellow Page advertising
• Monitor your brand, products and competition online with Google Alerts or other monitoring sites
• Respond to comments made by your fans & followers – and engage with them

These are just a sampling of ideas.  If you have additional thoughts, please comment below.