Quiver & Quill

There are hundreds of tools for Twitter. There are my personal favorite.

Twellow

Find Twitter friends based on their interests. While it’s not comprehensive, it’s a great start.

Qwitter: Catching Twitter Quitters

Qwitter sends you an email when someone stops following you. Their website is brilliant because it shows exactly what they do.

Tweetstats

Simple stats for Twitter users

Deontee’s blog post: 47 top Twitter services

If you like comprehensive guides, you’ll love this list of Twitter tools.

Check out Brian Solis’ post for more Twitter tools.

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Aaron Strout recently left Mzinga in an interesting way. He wrote this blog post that explained why he was leaving and reflected on his time with the company. It caught my attention, so I contacted Aaron to learn more about his background and business philosophy. The result was our robust conversation on social media marketing—how it works and why. Start by listening to minute 8:24 – 10 where Aaron discusses the criteria for social media marketing and suggests how to tie it into your business goals.

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Check out this UK promotion aimed at bloggers. Berocca appeals to bloggers in three ways: their tone is perfect, they are offering exposure and a free blogger relief pack.

They feature bloggers’ blogs who register on its landing page, which is brilliant. Bloggers want to be recognized.
They also provide blogger relief packs, “containing a stress ball, usb ’stress’ button, bubble wrap key ring, ‘Dead Fred’ pen holder and a pack of Berocca.”

Notice that the emphasis of the page is on relieving bloggers, not on selling product.

I like how they have subtly invited bloggers to learn more about Berocca by clicking to do so. However, when you click on “Click here for more information about Berocca,” you are dumped onto the homepage—it’s like a date abruptly ending without a goodnight kiss.
They missed an opportunity to customize the message to bloggers and to speak to them in a more personal tone about their product.

Nevertheless, great idea and execution.

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(Open Goal by dogfrog on Flickr)

I often see companies deciding on what they are doing before articulating what results they want to achieve.
They would save much time and money by identifying their desired outcomes first.

Not: We want to blog. Rather: In order to get invited to speak at more conferences, we are our asking our executives to blog.
Not: We are building a custom widget. Rather: To drive organic search results, we are building a custom widget.
Not: We are opening a twitter account. Rather: In order to find a new channel for product feedback, we are opening a twitter account.

Naming why you are doing something changes your approach to it.

Take a company that is ready to open a Twitter account to accomplish one of the points below:

• Find a new sales channel
• Help customers with questions about their product
• Understand if Twitter is a viable place to advertise
• Recruit employees
• Create strategic partnerships

The strategy a company would use to achieve one of these points differs from the one you would use for the others.
Next time you are identifying a new strategy, articulate the result you would like to achieve.
Even the most cutting edge strategies tend to support clear business objectives.

I wrote this post before listening to a podcast interview of Barry Judge, the CMO of BestBuy.
Barry makes many excellent points which offer a different perspective on the above, suggesting that while clear goals are important they should not prevent companies from experimenting.

Here’s my favorite quote from that interview:

“I think when you make yourself vulnerable, which is what I think you have to do to be interesting in the social media space, you gotta be interesting you gotta be vulnerable, you gotta be human, you gotta say things that a person would say, and I think that’s a very different approach from what companies have traditionally taken for the last 100 years.”

Can you make yourself vulnerable in a results driven environment?
Does the relentless pursuit for results preclude the risks associated with vulnerability?
That’s my question to Barry.

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Social media creates both collaboration and exclusivity.

Collaboration with tools like tags, wikis, forums and comments.

And exclusivity with limited invites to new services and the attention we pay to those with great stats, and friends & followers.

Does collaboration and exclusivity apply differently to businesses online than to people?

I recently came across OGILVY’s profile on Twitter which prompted this question.

Ogilvy is one of the world’s most influential advertising and communication agencies, positioning themselves as 360 degree brand stewards.
I am surprised that more than 500 people follow them on Twitter, and they are following no one in return.

I am sure there are pros and cons to this.

On the pro side, they have a good amount of followers and the fact that they follow none of them may make them come across as exclusive (a core brand characteristic?).
They also don’t need to concern themselves with offending someone they don’t follow since they follow no one.

On the con side, their exclusive positioning may prevent them from meaningful collaborative opportunities—and may make people on Twitter perceive them negatively.

So, Ogilvy UK—what was your thought behind not following anyone?

I would ask you directly, but since you’re not following me, I can’t DM you.

If the subject of online exclusivity interests you, check out: A Small World &  RUE LA LA.

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Should a brand build a single twitter account or ask each of its employees to build their own affiliated twitter accounts? It depends on the brand and why they are on twitter.

I will follow an employee’s affiliated twitter account if they have personality, or if they offer unique insight or access. Their actions do reflect on their company and impact my perceptions of it. In some situations, I have no interest in following an individual’s account. Take the online deal site Woot for example. I don’t care what their product manager had for lunch, I just want a good deal now.

I like Perkett PR’s approach to twitter. Their brand’s account features the picture of everyone who contributes to it. Each one also has individual accounts.

There are other more complicated considerations involved in creating employee-affiliated twitter accounts. Who owns the account? What happens to the goodwill and equity the employee created for your brand when she leaves the company?

In an ideal world, a brand would carefully select, train and celebrate its twitter brand evangelists. While their training would cover a code of conduct and key speaking points, it would also empower twitter brand evangelists to express their unique personality and willingness to help.

Until a brand can be sure that every person tweeting on its behalf exemplifies these qualities, I would stick with a single brand account.

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Dharmesh Shah of Hubspot responded to my last blog entry by expressing this concern:

“I was very interested in the notion of linking one’s profile page on twitter to a specific/custom landing page on your primary website…My one concern would be: When visitors to a twitter profile click on the website link, are they expecting to learn more about the company/offering or more about the individual? Does the intermediate page just get in the way?”

My notion of a brand’s landing page for Twitter would feature the brand and the individuals that work there-not a single individual.

It would feature the more human qualities of a brand. For example, Flickr photos from a staff get together, funny quotes from the company’s leadership, cool or unusually things you could do with a product.

Take Hubspot for example, I would like to see pictures of Hubspot at social media events, links to blog entries that discuss Hubspot, some cool or little known facts about how to use Hubspot and podcasts and video interviews with the companies leadership. It would be great to capture testimonials from people using Twitter Grader and post their Twitter handle too. And as an added benefit, interview and feature some of your favorite people on twitter using Hubspot and what they love about it.

If I am in a personal relationship with a brand, which following a brand on twitter might just qualify as one, then I would like the brand’s profile to serve as a special doorway granting me access to a place that other regular customers do not have access to.

After all, I have expressed this interest, demonstrated by following you, that I want to engage–so don’t invite me to the same homepage that all of your customers go to–create a VIP section just for me. Show me you’re paying attention to me as closely as I’m paying attention to you.

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I reviewed 10 brands using Twitter and found most of them are using the service to publish alerts and special deals. Occasionally, they will infuse their personality into their tweet stream but with much less frequency than imagined. I continue to read how brands and their agencies invest in influencer models to determine who is important. I think there is an even greater opportunity to focus on the content that these brands are sharing on Twitter. Now that a brand has a forum in which to talk, what will it say?

An influential blog post recently suggested that brands should skip blogging in order to microblog. I think that’s a bad suggestion for many reasons. Having a blog provides a brand with context inside of social media. Whereas a microblog provides the opportunity to share short thoughts, what happens if a potential customer is interested in exploring those ideas in more depth? Should they click on a corporate website? No. They should be able to visit the brand’s blog, a place where ideas are shared between brand and customer and the conversation that began on social media can continue.

I was surprised by the lack of brands whose Twitter bio linked to a blog or a personalized landing page. For the most part, the Twitter bios linked directly to the brand’s homepage such as with JetBlue. This is a huge, missed opportunity. At the very least, a brand can create a custom headline: “Welcome twitter friend,” as my friend Steve has done with his blog. In the best-case scenario, the brand can celebrate its Twitter fans on a custom-landing page, flex some blog bling, like its Twitter Grader rank report or a Tweet Cloud.

When a brand’s bio sends someone from a Twitter account to their homepage it’s the equivalent of having a quiet, personal conversation with someone at a restaurant and walking into their house to have them yell at you. Dear Brand, don’t yell at me.

Carolina Fowler contributed to this research.

If you would like to download the study, please click here.

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Check out this ad I found on Time.com’s website. It’s a 300×250 ad unit which uses a similar look and feel as Time Magazine’s brand. To what extent did the similar look and feel of this ad to the Time brand result in an increased click through rate? Some of the highest click through rates I have seen are from brands using similar tactics. Of course, it makes it even better for the advertiser that the editorial features the same celebrity as the ad.

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A RSS reader is a sales person’s secret weapon. This blog post explains what an RSS reader is and how it will enhance your sales process. The RSS reader makes it easier to gain market and competitive insights and become a resource to your clients.

Step 1 - How RSS works.
This 3:44 minute video explains the basics.

Step 2 - Select your Reader.
I recommend Bloglines for salespeople. I created a “How to use Bloglines” guide here:

How to Use Bloglines

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: guide bloglines)

Step 3 - Get Great Content.
Visit Alltop to find niche blogs. Subscribe directly to newspapers and websites you frequently visit.

Step 4 - Customize your Content.
Go to Google News, enter a search term and click “Search News”. Use your reader to subscribe to that search term to receive constant updates sent directly to your reader.

Step 5 - Get Newsletters.
Bloglines will give you your own email address to use when signing up for newsletters. You can sign up for your competitors’ newsletters too.

Step 6 - Folder like a Pro.
Group your feeds together in folders named for how you will use the information. For example, call one folder, “Read to understand
my market,” and another folder, “Read to prepare for a sales meeting”.

Step 7 - Build a sales resource library.
Clip and save your articles to folders. Name each folder according to step 6. When you are preparing for a sales meeting, use your clippings to provide value to your clients.

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Visa’s incentive to join their network is $100 in Facebook advertising. This ad clearly benefits both Visa and Facebook. Visa benefits by enrolling business owners and Facebook benefits by introducing their ad platform to new customers. I would love to know how It was sold: whether Visa paid for the ad on a cost per action basis, and Facebook paid Visa for the free ad trials.

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This conversation on Twitter is a good illustration of how social media marketing involves earning and directing attention rather than just buying your way in with an advertising buy.

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My friend ilicco tweeted the above and I think it’s profound. “Away,” used to refer to geography and now it refers to connectedness. When was the last time you went away?

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Last year at SXSW there were Meebo online chat rooms in which people who attended panels discussed them in real time. Some panelist had their laptops open on stage and were following along with audience comments in the Meebo online chat rooms. It created an intriguing dynamic between the panelist, the audience questions and the dialogue happening within the Meebo online chat rooms.  Watching Current TV’s Hack the Debate III reminded me of this SXSW experience. If you didn’t catch Hack the Debate, it’s a mashup between Current TV live streaming the presidential debate and Twitter running comments at the same time the debate is being shown. Very good example of collaborative media.

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Clive Thompson, ­ NYTimes, suggests that Twitter is a return to the small town:

This is the ultimate effect of the new awareness: It brings back the dynamics of small-town life, where everybody knows your business.

I don’t agree.

Many of my friends who grew up in these gossipy small towns didn’t have a choice of where they could live. And as soon as they had an opportunity to, they moved away. Twitter is different in the sense that the “small town” in which you live is a small town you create.

In small towns the “juicy” information that tends to surface is usually one that their residents had no intention of sharing. There’s a choice in Twitter about what information is shared, and as a result, more control over how you shape people’s perceptions of you.

I recently met a few people who were hyper-vigilant about their personal brand, trying to control what people were tweeting about them and filtering pictures that showed them in social situations drinking, smoking, etc. Perhaps the small town analogy is a better fit here in the sense that you know your social activities always have the potential to be broadcast to people you would rather not know about them.

I prefer cities.

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Pecha-kucha is a movement that refers to a type of  presentation structure. At a Pecha-Kucha event a presenter gets 6:40 to share a total of 20 slides, each 20 seconds long. And some very cool things happen when a presentation is structured in this way. Presenters arrive at their point much faster. And audiences pay attention too. There’s a chance they will miss something interesting. 12 seconds, a new video website, will hopefully do for videoblog what Pecha-Kucha has done for presentations. The site asks members to express themselves in 12 seconds of video. Here’s an example of Julia Roy doing just that.

Me <3 Ben Folds (Encore) on 12seconds.tv

I asked Julie why she uses 12 seconds. She replied: “I use it because I think it has potential. The 12 second interactions are unique, and it is surely easy to use as a Twitter video extension.”

So, if you have 12 seconds, go check it out.

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I held Rubber Chicken IV at  Maggiano’s in Boston. 30 guests joined us for an evening of delicious Italian food and many fast yet intense conversations with colleagues and peers. We created an official Rubber Chicken IV soundtrack, as well as “beak breakers.” The beak breakers took some serious time to make; however, I think they helped to provide fuller networking experiences. Since we knew most everyone who joined us, and were aware of their likes and dislikes, we created cards design to help make sure that the right people met and quickly discovered why they were introduced.

For example, a beak breaker might say:

For Bob

• Ask Steve G. for a tip about video blogging
• Ask Jake for advice on time management
• Ask Zach B to share an embarrassing Facebook story
  

Essentially, we helped identify the people Bob should speak with and suggested a few questions to spark meaningful conversation.

The only disappoint for me was the event service Evite. Without my direct knowledge, they sent two reminders to more than 50 people about the event. They also sent a follow up email requesting that my friends and colleagues share their photos. They should know better than emailing my contacts without explicit permission, especially when they are representing that email comes from me. While there are many other services I could use, I think that people are more inclined to open an “evite,” rather than an invitation from a startup with which they are not familiar. If you have another service you like, I would appreciate the recommendation.

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