Archive for twitter – Page 2

Seesmic Look – Immerse Yourself in the Real Time Web

There are some very cool applications coming out of Seesmic these days. One of them is Seesmic Look, a desktop application that helps users "immerse themselves in the real time web", although right now that is just Twitter. I won't be surprised if that changes soon, though.

A key feature of Look is "playback mode", which shows what people are tweeting in real time. Conversations "bubble up" on the screen as they are happening.  Look allows you to arranges conversation by timeline or alphabetically  as well. My description isn't doing it justice, so make sure to visit the link to their videos below.

Some of the other ways look lets you view conversations include:

  • Interests –  are lists of categories such as news, sports, entertainment, etc.
  • Trends – show what's popular now, in the past day or in the past week. You can see why a word or phrase is trending (a brief explanation is provided) and view all the trends or specific topics in timeline or playback mode
  • Inbox and Social – This is where you manage your mentions, DMs, and your Sent Messages. Use the Social section to view your friends and your Twitter Lists
  • Search – create and save searches based on  a person, brand, or any other interest.

I started to create a video to show you Seesmic Look, but they have already provided a nice set of Seesmic Look videos here. Take a look and let me know what you think. While you are there, check out there preview version of the new desktop application – it is a very cool piece of technology.

How Would You Sound If You Talk Like You Tweet?

Here's something I've been thinking about the last few days – how different do (and should) you sound when being social in person vs. using the internet?

When you are in social settings this holiday weekend, will you try to sell something to everyone you meet? Will you automatically add your neighbors visiting family to your e-mail marketing list? If someone asks "What's new?" will you pull out your product catalog?

If you hear someone trying to solve a problem, will you make a recommendation? If you do meet someone who needs what you do professionally, what will that conversation sound like? Will you share the great resources you've recently discovered? Point people to a great deal you found?

I'll be taking some time to think about how I can leverage social media tools to provide more value to the folks I know. I'd appreciate any tips and suggestions you have to help me be a better social media citizen.

Social Media Marketing Step By Step

During the past year, I have been working, along with Bethany Spilde of Social Buzz Media, have been conducting workshops on social media marketing for small business owners. We have focused on providing practical, hands-on experience, in a learning-by-doing environment. For this reason, I am excited about the new Social Media Pro program from Duct Tape Marketing, which follows this same philosophy.

As a Duct Tape Marketing Coach, I will be offering this unique blend of online learning combined with the advice and accountability provided by a coach. Naturally, I'll be adding our usual emphasis on how to use social media in a professional services environment.

As part of the Global Entrepreneurship Week, tomorrow I will be announcing a special introductory offer for this program so make sure to stop back by tomorrow.

Here is a session outline for the Social Media Pro program:

Session One – Creating a Social Media Strategy – Before choosing your social media tactics you need to align your activities with your objectives. One of the best ways to do this is to listen first. In this session we will design your social media listening station.

Session Two – Optimizing Brand Assets – Social media sites afford a great opportunity to create outposts for your content. In this session we will look a the best ways to create and optimize profiles and other social media real estate.

Session Three – Blogging for Business – Maybe you have a blog, surely you’ve heard all about them. In this session we will dive deeply into why every small business should consider a blog the central hub of their social media strategy. Session will include discussion of best practices.

Session Four – Social Networking and Networks – Creating profiles on the major social networking sites isn’t enough. In this session we will cover the best practices for creating engagement on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn

Session Five – Managing the Beast – The burden of attempting to keep up with the set of actions required to participate fully in social media can overwhelm. In this session we will create your social media system in an attempt to bring it all together so you can balance input with ROI.

Got a new tool, not sure I’m going to use it

LinkedIn and Twitter recently teamed up to provide an integration between Twitter and your LinkedIn status. John Jantsch already did a great job of explaining the details here, so I won’t repeat them.

This integration seems like a nice time saver, but I don’t think I will be using it. Here’s the thing – I use several social media tools and I have worked to tie most of them together. But I’m starting to feel like a spammer. I’m taking the same message and repeating it over and over. It’s that efficiency vs. effectiveness thing.

I’m finding that rather than tying everything together I am preferring to use tools like ping.fm. Ping.fm gives me the opportunity to either update all of my social media status’ with the same message or update them all individually. This means I can tell each audience (if appropriate) why they may be interested in a particular piece of content. I like this approach because it allows me to quickly update all of my different accounts (efficient), but gives me the flexibility to customize my message to the audience (effective).

I’ll be disconnecting many of my automagic updating widgets over the next week. We’ll see how that goes.

What's your take on this, do you like these cascading update tools?

Twitter – Finding People To Follow Part 2

If you find "following" people on Twitter a little too stalkerish, think of it as finding people you would like to have a conversation with. In the offline world, we often seek ou people in our area that share one or more of our interests. This is also a good way to find people on Twitter to follow.

Start by clicking on the "Advanced Search" link on the Twitter search page (http://search.twitter.com)

Twitter_search

This will take you to the Advanced Search form. You will notice that one of the search criteria you can specify is location and distance relative to this location. In this example, I am searching for anyone located within 15 miles of my zipcode who are discussing "marketing".

Twitter_advanced

How can this lead to new business?

I recently heard a story about someone who felt they were being mistreated by their auto repair center. They tweeted about their issues while sitting in the waiting room. Another repair center owner down the street saw the tweets, and started a conversation with the car owner. The car owner ended up getting his keys back and driving down the road to the shop owner he had "met" on Twitter.

Your customers are having conversations on Twitter – are you part of the conversation?

Twitter – Finding People To Follow

So you've been hearing about Twitter everywhere you go and you decided to jump in and create an account. Now what? A common question I hear is "who should I follow?" or "how do I find people to follow?".

There are lots of ways to find people on Twitter. If you are new to Twitter, one service you will want to check out is Twellow.  "The Twitter Yellow Pages", Twellow organizes people into categories just like you would expect in the old fashioned Yellow Pages (remember those <g>).  So you can search under cateories like "Law" or "Business Services" or "Real Estate".

Once you find someone you want to follow, just click on the "follow" button underneath their photo..

While you are on their site, make sure you register and add yourself to the appropriate categories so people can find you.

Small Business and Social Media – Helpful tool or interesting fad?

A recent survey conducted by the KC Small Business magazine shows that while half of the companies surveyed don't use social media, 34% do have a presence on Twitter, Facebook, and\or LinkedIn. It's difficult (if not impossible) to determine from the survey results what having a "presence" means. From personal experience, I would say that 70% or more of buisness owners that I meet have a LinkedIn account but readily admit they are not active on LinkedIn.

So, how active are you when it comes to social media? Do you have accounts set up? Do you keep up with conversations using these tools? Have you used social media to introduce people (or have been introduced)? Is social media is a useful tool in your business or is it still just interesting fad? Leave a comment and share your experience.

Twitter for Business

Here is a great educational opportunity from John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing:

Join John Tuesday, April 21 at Noon CDT for

~ ~ Twitter for Business Essentials ~ ~

Twitter is the most talked about social media platform going these
days and in this session John will help you understand how to start using
it as a tool for your business.

John  will cover tips, tactics and tools that will get beginners up to
speed and move intermediate users to the next level

Enroll here:
http://cts.vresp.com/c/?DuctTapeMarketing/e37ea2feeb/04d18c9e98/c72f31bdc5

Understanding Twitter

If you have been hearing about Twitter, but don't understand exactly what it is or wonder how Twitter can fit into your small business marketing plan, take a look at the video from Common Craft.

Can't see the video above? View the video on the Common Craft web site.

Twitter for Business

Twitter is all the rage these days, but what does this social media tool, part blog, part social network, part RSS reader, have to offer marketers? Join John Jantsch and the rest of the Duct Tape Marketing Coach network for a discussion on using Twitter for Business with social media expert Chris Brogan and learn the tips, tools, tactics and strategies to get the most from using Twitter.

This session will be held this coming Thursday, December 11th, at noon CST. This event is free to attend, but space is limited, so sign up today.