We’re jumping right into this one. It’s about TWITTER! Everyone loves Twitter! Speaking we have four fine gentlemen. They have have names. Meet Jon Henshaw, David Snyder, Brian Carter, and Brent Payne.
Fun Fact: The scratchy throat I woke up with today (damn smoke in Vegas clubs) as evolved into a really pretty cough. Which means I’ll be coughing over presentations all week. I know. The speakers. They love me.
Ready?
Jon Henshaw is up first.
He says that being a real person works really well on Twitter. That’s what people respond to. Make sure you set up a good profile. For the love of God, add an avatar. You’ll have a much better chance getting someone to follow you. It also helps people see that you’re not, in fact, a bird.
Things you need to capitalize on Twitter:
- 3rd Party Tools
- Developers
- Proxy Settings
- Creativity
Initial Engagement
- Follow target groups – that could be a person, competitors, etc.
- Unfollow gently and randomly
- Maintain your ratio – gives you credibility
- Contribute and stay on topic
- Retweet for max ego boost
- Find topics in Twitter Search
There are also ways to engage while on “autopilot”. Pull in RSS feeds to automatically post blog updates or articles. Use the Search and Auto-Retweet or Copy Tweet. Schedule repeat tweets to recognize different time zones.
If you’re a company, you can use Twitter for event promotion. Twitter lets you do geolocation so that you can see tweets from a particular area. It’s a good way to capture an audience. Monitter is a really good tool for this.
Corporate Use
- Use your brand in your user name if you can.
- Control access
- Sales and Support – retain customers and gain new ones
- Distribute coupons/promos
- Job recruiting
- Crowdsourcing
CoTweet is a great tool for this.
Jon shared some awesome ways to use Twitter for affiliate marketing. Unfortunately, my brain froze along with the Internet. Sigh. Sorry.
Email Aggregation
Create free resources that require email to download. Do tweets related to newsletters and push them over to sign up. Make up private betas and link to signup forms. Uh…please ignore everything Jon just said there. I only typed it for accuracy. Stealing email addresses through lies is bad.
Additional Tools
- EasyTweets
- Topify – Jon couldn’t live without Topify
- Incoming [for Macs]
- Google It!
Next up is Dave Snyder. He fumbles with his presentation for a bit and says he doesn’t know how to use a computer.
Promotions via Twitter
What you won’t become on Twitter:
- Dell
- Comcast
- Ashton Kutcher
The reality is that not EVERYONE can do this. Dell used their brand and ComCast used their reputation for HORRIBLE customer service to be successful.
What stats are important on Twitter? It’s not followers. It’s influence. How much people do what you say and what you tell them to. Look to become a networker within your space and niche. Doing that will lead to foot traffic.
For their recent launch of SEJ Tools, their Twitter approach was really goal oriented. They wanted:
- Signups
- Branding – people talking about toolset.
Construct appeal for your network.
Choose your tools:
- Wildfire App: They created a coupon offering for the free 30 day trial for their tools.
- Kl.am: URL shortening service
- SocialOomph.com: Use it schedule tweets to keep the momentum going. He doesn’t recommend it for interaction but its good for marketing campaigns.
- Facebook Ads: Targeted with Facebook ads for saturation. Most of their target audience is on both Twitter and Facebook, so it made sense for them.
- Blvd Status: Used it to monitor the promotion as they engaged with their network in real-time.
From there, talk to your network, interact with people and analyze your data. The reality is that you won’t hit a homerun every time. You need to learn from your data and adjust your approach.
Next up is Brian Carter. The whole screen just went blue and now the boys are looking at wires. This is fun. Brian says he also created an interpretive dance version of his presentation in case the computer doesn’t come back. And the computer didn’t come back. For like 10 minutes. We had some awkward silence. Sadly, no dancing.
Capital Transformation: The key to Twitter bucks is social capital. There are 5 types of capital
- Financial – money
- Human – workers
- Cultural – knowledge
- Social – relationships
- Political
He shows a photo of Chris Brogan and calls him social capital.
Four phases of social media marketing
- Who: Strategy and brand planning
- Where: Presence equals brand awareness
- Relate: Engagement = brand affinity
- Money
[He’s going way to fast. I can’t get any of this down. He’s also flipping through slides without actually stopping on them, which is super helpful. Also, my hands are shaking for some reason.]
Pay Per Tweet
- TweetROI
- SponsoredTweets
- Magpie
Problems with tweeting for money: money can’t make a bad product good. If you prostitute yourself too much, you’re going to annoy people. You may also catch something.
How to be a retweet spammer
- Search.twitter for RT, retweet best stuff
- Automate retweets of Mashable and other authorities
- Scrape sites that track most retweeted tweets.
- Occasionally log in and @reply people.
What’s the difference between a spammer and a recommender? A recommender is focused on relationships and they occasionally tweet out offers. A spammer has frequent tweets, few RTs and a few @replies.
Making money with Twitter the Gray/Black Hat Way
- Build a huge list of followers with automated follow/unfollow software
- Tweet affiliate links
- Tweet for $ via PPT services
- Use Twitter to create SEO backlinks and freshness to money sites.
Next up is Brent Payne. Maybe he’ll actually stop on his slides as he goes through them. We’ll see!
Twitter Account Type: News Feeds
Create a news feed from RSS. Don’t publish ALL your content, just publish the best of it. Do NOT ‘at reply’ users from this account. Do NOT follower people back from this account. Do follow your own accounts.
Twitter Account Type: Celebrities
For every company, you have your celebrity. They’re dying to be on Twitter and for the recognition. Make it part of their job requirement. Give them the freedom to be human (ie complain about their commute). Get them to interact with other people. They’re different than employee Twitter accounts. They’ve had training with how to interact with the public.
Twitter Account Type: Employee
Set some ground rules about proprietary information. Underscore that company grievances should be addressed with Human Resources. Provide information to employee about libel/slander and the consequences. Allow them to promote the company and the competitor. Allow them to be genuine and personable. Give them freedom to be themselves in all aspects of their lives. Understand and accept that mistakes and issues will occur. Do NOT officially endorse them.
Twitter Account Type: Brand Persona
Create a character that your audience can connect with personally. Spend time to create a decent avatar. Mimic your brand perception or mimic the target audience demographic. Create a detailed personality, writing style, interests, etc. for the persona. Be sure to have the persona engage with the audience via “at replies”, “direct messages” and even send event invites. Keep who’s behind the ‘veil of Oz’ private. Do NOT allow those behind the veil to inject personal opinions inconsistent with the brand persona. Make it your brand’s social media face
Make your audience aware of the Twitter accounts. Use your readership of print media to promote your Twitter profile. Use Twitter directories like WeFollow, Twellow, MuckRack, etc.
Engage the Locals: Have a Tweetup
Invite top referrers or bloggers specifically. Pick a decent venue that can handle 2x expected turn out. Utilize event sites like EventBrite or Meetup.com. Have one or two celebrities attend to create a draw. Clarity dress code, theme, location, food, etc.
Get a little Dirty: Autfollow!
…and on that slightly gray hat note, we’re out of here. Time for normal people to go grab lunch and for me to get ready for the second half of the day. See ya!
