• Minimize junk. Are you falling into the trap of putting every little detail about your life online? It is important that you keep focused on why you are involved in a certain group or medium. Remember that each of your posts needs to be important. Unless you are Brad Pitt and there is a mountain of followers drooling on your every word, make sure that you and others in your company are relevant.
• Keep it consistent. As with every element of your company’s operations it is important that you keep standards of communication. Setting rules regarding tone and appropriateness for all of those in your company is of utmost importance. This may take some of the fun out of it, but one mistake could spread and be very damaging for your business. Perhaps you should consider those working for you have both their own personal and professional profiles.
• Management. Some amount of randomness may be beneficial to creating and keeping interest, but using certain software programs to manage, schedule and assess the effectiveness of your company’s posting will be greatly beneficial to understanding your SEO efforts. Perhaps there are better times and better ways that your team can be collaborating (working together), and only analysis of your efforts will allow you to see this. There are several premium and free-ware options available.
• Encourage participation. Having the technical means and the content to stir debate amongst your followers and readers is extremely important. Making sure that you have your networks set up correctly so that you have specific areas for participants to engage in, and you can moderate, are of the utmost importance. The two skills of being a good content developer, and intangible asset, and having the technical know-how, are extremely important.
• Ahead of the curve. Learning from others in your industry can be very beneficial, however, it is those who are ahead of the curve, and dare to do something different, that often reap most of the rewards. You will need to use your imagination and creativity if you are to stand out. Respect the intelligence of your readers and understand that they are already getting used to many of the same tricks to get their attention floating around out there.
• Keeping it real. This must be one of the all-time important factors of any company’s activities. Remember, people are not stupid, and as soon as they even get a hint that your company is not being real, they will drop you in a flash. Just because you are not communicating face to face, don’t think that they cannot read between the lines. Let them know where you stand from the beginning unless you and your people are extremely experienced in true guerrilla marketing.

It is important to not get overwhelmed with the potential and possibilities of any campaign. Some people believe in an online social Karma. Take on your company’s online activities like any other element of your business, step by step, and seek professional advice, after all it is your financial future.

This process took much longer than I expected, but I finally found the tool that fits exactly what I was looking for.

To me, a great social media metrics tool needs to have the following criteria:

a. A dashboard outlining the most important statistics (preferably, this should be customizable)

b. Analysis of several social media channels (i.e. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.)

c. Ability to write into Google Analytics

d. Web monitoring so I know what is being said about the brand all over the web

e. Ease of navigation. I don’t want to spend an hour trying to generate one report or finding one set of information.

To note, I wasn’t looking at the big guys like Radian6 and Awareness Inc., and I also knew that search.twitter.com and Google Alerts simply were not enough for me. I decided to set my sights on the little guys doing big things (I tend to support them as the company I work for – Backupify – is such).

Here are the pro’s and con’s of the services I tested out:

HootSuite Pro

hootsuite.com/pro

I’ve been using HootSuite for over a year now and find it great to schedule and manage Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn status updates. However, I was not able to gain any metrics from my messaging unless I upgraded to a Pro account. A few months ago I received an email from HootSuite offering a week-long free trial of Pro. I tried it out but was not too impressed with what it gave me.

Pros:

• Great for managing mentions
• Easy way to schedule tweets
• One platform to go to for message sharing which is a huge time-saver

Cons:

• I found it hard to manage re-tweets
• Analytics were definitley sub-par
• I wasn’t able to measure much more than overall activity. I could not drill down into any other types of data (i.e. keywords, mentions per day, etc.)

ViralHeat

I was introduced to this tool over a LinkedIn discussion. While it did have its benefits, overall I found it to be very buggy.

Pros:

• I liked the email alerts it gave me
• Good custom reports
• Showed me trends from week to week of activity on social media
• Easy distinction between Twitter and Facebook performance

Cons:

• Mentions were not accurate whatsoever. If I was trying to manage the term “Backupify” on the social web, it would show me a ‘relevant’ tweet related to something like “doctors in Botswana”…
• Interface was subpar – it took me awhile to figure it out
• Overall it provided me inaccurate information which made me not trust it. Most of the information it gathered for me made me scratch my head wondering how they even pulled in that data and found it relevant to my search criteria.
• My tipping point was when I deemed this tool as insufficient for what I was looking for and it became IMPOSSIBLE for me to unsubscribe. There was no unsubscribe button. I had to search around to even find a support email and when I emailed them to politely unsubscribe me, I received no response whatsoever. To this day I am still registered even though I don’t use it.

Actionly

actionly.com

While Actionly did have some good benefits, I don’t think they’re quite there yet in terms of providing what I was looking for.

Pros:

• Allowed me to compare social web buzz of Backupify in relation to competitors and other terms which was great
• Showed trends of increased/decreased followers, mentions, etc.

Cons:

• The generated reports were not actionable whatsoever, even if I tried to tweak them manually
• They did not have Google Analytics integration at the time (I believe they will be soon)
• No good dashboard view

Argyle Social

argylesocial.com

I still use Argyle Social today (and have been for about four months) but not to the capacity that I need. This along with my chosen metrics tool provide me what I need.

Pros:

• Great social sharing capabilities right from a web browser
• Shows general trend of clicks via social media on the dashboard
• The founders and developers keep me in the loop with all future developments and even made a point to contact me directly to gain my feedback on their app which I really appreciated
• Allows me to breakdown clicks based on different social campaigns I have set up
• Shows share of clicks by social medium

Cons:

• I wish the dashboard showed me stats such as: most clicked posts, top keywords, top influencers, etc. Instead, I have to dig in manually to find out what is working and what is not
• They do not yet have integration with Google Analytics

And the winner is…

Raven Tools!

Why I Chose Raven Tools:

raven-seo-tools.com

Raven Tools provides me with everything and more I was looking for:

• Comprehensive, actionable dashboard
• Keyword analysis
• Competitive monitoring
• Integration with Google Analytics
• Inbound link manager
• Analysis of Twitter, Facebook and YouTube
• Customizable reports
• Oh, and did I mention that they offer a 30 day free trial? I have yet to pay this service for all this awesome stuff! I never thought I’d say this, but I’m actually looking forward to being able to pay them for all they do for me!

Cons:

NONE! I honestly have not found one drawback of Raven.

As you can see, it’s been a long road to find the right tool, but sometimes when you know what you want and need, it takes a little longer to get there. I want to give a big thanks to all the people on LinkedIn that helped me learn about these tools and for those that ultimately recommended Raven to me.

Currently, I’m using a combination of Raven Tools, Argyle Social and Google Analytics (although Raven integrates with this, I can dig into more data on Analytics itself) to measure social activity, and therefore how I’m performing at my job. If I want to perform well, my metrics tool must as well.

Have you tried out any of these tools? Do you use Raven Tools? Are there different requirements you have for a social media metrics tool? Let me know in the comments section below.

Note: I am not affiliated with any of these tools in any way nor was I paid to promote or demote any of them. This is solely my opinion based on extensive trials and testing.

I am a huge proponent of using social networking to promote a business, but first it must be understood that each message channel has a specific audience; especially Facebook and Twitter.

Facebook is now a mainstream social network with 500 million users and counting. 50% of users access Facebook via the web every day. Twitter had 106 million users as of this April so it is growing but certainly not mainstream yet. 75% of Twitter users access it via a 3rd party client such as HootSuite or CoTweet instead of the website domain which suggests most Twitter users are more technical. The average social networker would not know how to download a third party app, nonetheless know which one to use, to access Twitter.

Due to the large disparity between the two social networks, different messages need to be created for each channel.

Since Twitter is largely a technical crowd, they are looking to receive news about new products/services, innovation, gadgets, and statistics.

Facebook users, on the other hand, are there to talk with friends about more mainstream topics including trends, gatherings, celebrities, and their daily lives.

If you are trying to reach customers and leads via social media, it is crucial to keep that in mind.

At Backupify, I manage both our Twitter and Facebook accounts. On Twitter, I am able to tweet about OAuth, Twitter trends, Google Apps, net neutrality, and the like. On Facebook, I have to alter the messaging and post items like Facebook developments, Google trends, privacy, etc. Since our service is high tech in the first place, most followers and fans get the general idea, but I still need to tweak the messages accordingly.

I just started using a tool called Argyle Social, which is still in beta, that helps me measure which posts do best on each channel. You have the option to post any article on Twitter, Facebook or both and then track that URL using their web interface. The more clicks a post gets, the better it does. This helps me measure and tweak my posts according to what Argyle Social reports. If I post something too technical or non-conversational on Facebook and I see that it did poorly, I’ll know that it was the wrong post to put up and will avoid doing that in the future. If I post a really popular topic on Twitter and it gets, say, 200 clicks, I’ll know followers want more of that since they are highly interested.

When managing your Facebook and Twitter accounts for your company, always keep in mind who your audience is. The more you post about irrelevant information to them, the less people will follow, interact and engage with you. If done right, though, you can gain very passionate and smart followers who will become brand evangelists for your company.

There have been many new improvements to this application recently, including a much simpler user interface, ability to search for people to follow, affinity programs, and integration with other languages.

Check out my second demo below and let me know what you think!

Can you imagine the world without the internet? We would go crazy, running around like chickens without a head trying to solve the problem. We have grown accustom to the internet and social media that I don’t know if we are ready for the internet to fail us for a minute. If you happen to tweet and tweet a lot, sometimes you reload the page and it says “Twitter is over capacity”. In seconds when it returns, Twitter users are ‘tweeting’ #whentwitterwasdown followed by what happened to them. The world is all about connectivity and sharing your opinions. I am positive Secret Service will think it’s an attack on the US and not a system failure worldwide should the internet go down. The fact is the internet has changed our lives and we cannot go back. No! From where I ‘lowly’ sit it’s best to adopt these trends and see how it may work for you. Indeed, it is working for millions worldwide as they own a piece of the internet. And the only way to touch it is by touching your laptop screen and now your iPad. The internet and the advent of social media, directly blogging provides the ability where people can build personal brands. The success stories are immense and the benefits are not only lucrative but may benefit the individual in many other ways.

Recently, I was in a heated discussion with a fellow blogger on joining Twitter. He couldn’t fathom how it works and how it could help his blog generate more viewers – he uses Facebook. After our conversation he logged on to create his account. The internet has broken down so many barriers and has opened the world in many ways people are finding it unbelievable. The world is literally at our fingertips when we sit before a PC with internet capabilities. Realizing the phenomenon of what is happening; bloggers are using it to their advantage. More than ever, people have something to say and if you have an informed perspective there is an area for you.

I started my blog back in May 2009 and I would not have imagined where I am today. It is true for many bloggers, you start out with one post and the interest grows and continues to grow until you are reaping benefits. Most bloggers make their websites sociable places and they practice ‘personal branding’ (although they don’t know). According to Wikipedia, it is the process whereby people and their careers are marked as brands. Especially if you use your name on your blog, you run the risk of people associating what is on your blog to your character. Bloggers have to be keen on ensuring they edit and are managers of what is posted on their blogs on the internet. The minute something is posted on the internet, it is not the case where they have to visit your page to see it, but Google in minutes will record your data in their search engine. It benefits us all but there are certain dangers to this.

There are many benefits to blogging. More bloggers are gaining employment through what they do, they are using their websites to make money and all of this is through the personal branding they have done. Most bloggers do not get overnight success, unless you are established, but it is a work in progress. Over months and years people find out what you do, value your opinions and take you seriously. The world is grappling with the introduction of blogging/bloggers and the influence they have on the internet and shaping opinions.

Just recently, Vogue Magazine decided to do a photo shoot with about nine fashion bloggers, simply showcasing and recognizing the work they do. There is currently a huge discussion in the fashion industry on whether fashion bloggers are editors. People are taking what bloggers do seriously because of the hard work it takes to produce a good blog. You have team blogs but most times, a blog is a ‘one man show’. It is that individual writing the posts, sourcing the images, promoting the post on the internet, replying to persons who have found it interesting and ensuring it fits in the entire presentation of the blog. It is hard work and keep in mind that to have a good following, you are updating your blog 3-4 times for the week. When you really get into blogging, most bloggers are not out to build personal branding; at the end of the day, they want to know they are satisfying their audience and hopefully pleasing them will increase their overall image.

I do not know if another development will come along and surpass the experience blogging provides. For now, it is the latest trend, not only for individuals but companies are using it to communicate with their customers, in addition to many other platforms at their fingertips. Blogging is great for potential employment. Employers are now using Google to research their candidates and having a space on the internet to share what matters to you or your interests is good to any potential employer. A well produced blog may tell someone how well you can work, your ethical standards which could prove beneficial. You do not have to gain employment; however, I am a firm believer that experienced individuals should share their perspective. Where they may not be seeking employment, their opinions are valued and respected.

In concluding, humans are walking brands. Your reputation is the most valuable thing you can ever have. The internet provides the space for your brand to be published online through a blog. Blogging is wonderful, it takes a lot of time but the benefits are fantastic. Blogging allows you to share your passions, your interests in a space where like-minded individuals can find you and connect with you. You may be thinking ‘I’m not a good writer or an artist’ but you will see huge improvements in whatever you do. All of us are different, and sharing your perspective – there’s always a place for that and that is blogging.

Start a blog today and watch your personal brand grow.

Corve DaCosta is a native and resident of sunny Jamaica, He is a self-professed media junkie who particularly enjoys people – their points of view, experiences, idiosyncrasies, strengths and flaws. A graduate of the University of Technology (Kingston, Ja.), where he earned his BA in Marketing and Business Administration, Corve has been featured in several advertising campaigns in his home country. He is currently very committed to developing his blog, but welcomes any opportunities that may arise, particularly in marketing, mass media and modeling.

1. TwitBird. A very simple user interface where you can manage your tweets, mentions, DMs, and lists much easier than on the Twitter API. The only drawback is that it is a bit slower than other Twitter applications.

2. Meebo. This application is a great way to integrate all of your chat platforms (AIM, Google Talk, Facebook Chat, Yahoo IM, MySpace IM, Windows Live, etc.) in one place. This way, if I want to talk with friends on AIM and Facebook at the same time in one place, I can turn to Meebo. See my video demonstration of this app here.

3. AroundMe. This application helps you find anything from ATMs to gas stations to hotels that are nearest to you. It picks up your location, finds local businesses, and imports them right to your phone. This is a great app to have if you are in an area that you are not familiar with and need to find something quick, such as a gas station. There is an additional feature I find great: if you click on “Nearby” on the app, it shows you towns and districts around your area along with a quick bio on each.

4. Shazam. If you are ever in your car, out at a party, or anywhere else music would be playing and a great song comes on, all you have to do is open this app, click “Tag Now” and it recognizes what song is playing just by picking up the beat. It then saves the song name in the queue so you can reference to it later. I use this on a weekly basis.

5. Pandora. This is an excellent app to get free music on the go. Simply type in a favorite artist or band and Pandora comes up with songs that are either by them or are related to their songs.

6. Qik. I started creating videos on my phone, but needed a way to quickly upload them to the Internet. Qik instantly uploads your recorded video right from your phone to Qik.com and you have the option to share it on social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook. You can access the videos on your phone or on your browser by visiting Qik.com.

7. Lokast by Nearverse, the “future of mobile networking.” This application allows you to add content that you would like to share with others, such as music, videos, contact information and pictures, and you can add them all right to your profile. Nearby users can then access your shared content. This is a much easier way to share information instead of texting or emailing it to people. View a demo of the app here.

These are my favorite seven applications, what are yours?

Who will be the next Internet sensation to sit in the spotlight? This spotlight seems to alternate almost every week, finding a fresh new piece of talent to focus attention on for the world to see. This blog post idea came to me when I tweeted a question to my followers asking them what they wanted to read about in regards to Millenials/Generation Y consumers.

Jennie White, writer for Boston Innovation responded,

jenniewhite @KristinEDziadul I’ve been interested in #geny and their views on fame. It seems like we’re under the impression *anyone* can be famous. Who’s to blame? YouTube? Facebook? @shitmydadsays?

I believe that with the emergence of social media and video sharing, almost anyone can become “famous” on the Internet today. A quick Google search for top YouTube stars resulted in a Wikipedia article on the Top YouTube Personalities. Some of these personalities included Amber Lee Ettinger, an American actress, Internet celebrity, and model. She created the YouTube video “I Got a Crush… on Obama”. Then there is the web-based comedy duo, Smosh (Anthony Padilla and Ian Hecox), the infamous Gary William Brolsma who created an impersonation dance to the song “Dragostea din tei” called the Numa Numa Dance, and even pop music star Justin Bieber.

This list alone demonstrates the fact that Internet stars are ever prominent and it is quite easy to gain stardom just by getting out there in non-traditional ways, generating content on a consistent basis, and creating buzz around what you do on the videos.

Social media sites can also be to attribute for this view on quick fame. I have encountered many people on Twitter who have well over 100,000 followers (Boston Internet marketing sensation Chris Brogan being one of them). Other people unlike Chris try to use ‘puffery’ words in their bios to make themselves seem more prominent than they really are and try to spam people to follow them just to get big, but it does work! With the rise of Internet technologies today, and people spending more and more time on it — Millennials spend upwards of 8.5 hours a DAY on the Internet — then it is no wonder why people can become so big so fast on the Internet.

Some may say this is a bad thing since it may give people big heads and make them something they are not, but it is also a way for people to interact with others, get their word out there, and if people like it, then hey, they deserve the attention!

I came across an article by the New York Times titled ” Internet Fame Is Cruel Mistress for a Dancer of the Numa Numa.” The authors, Alan Feuer and Jason George stated, “with the Internet, humiliation – like everything else – has now gone public. Upload a video of yourself playing flute with your nose or dancing in your underwear, and people from Toledo to Turkmenistan can watch.” True, if you set yourself up for humiliation, you sure will get it!

This is where I draw the line. I think those with true talents that want to broadcast it on the Internet in hopes of getting noticed by the right people truly deserve the fame, but others who just upload videos for the sake of it to either get laughs or receive laughs should know what is coming.

In Jennie’s tweet to me, she also mentioned the Twitter account @shitmydadsays. Just take a look at that account and some of the recent tweets he has put up and you’ll see why that guy became so popular on Twitter. Although it is a strange concept, since information is racing across the Internet at the speed of light, things like this are bound to get picked up.

The rise of video has certainly become a trending theme for Generation Y today since we are seen as the “Me” generation who wants to be the focus of attention, loves technology, and likes to be socially active. For instance, I have been seeing an increasingly large number of people on Facebook sending simple videos to friends, even just to say hi.

In general, I think the quick rise to fame that is now available using many Internet tools, such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, can be a good thing for those that deserve it and have true talent. For instance, if a talented singer wants to get noticed by record labels in Nashville, TN but may not have the means to do so personally, they could turn to YouTube and social media to spread their talent and start generating buzz. However, for those who are just trying to make fools of themselves or put other random content out there, well I guess we will still be amused by them, and they can rise to fame, as statistics show (Numa Numa dance, for example).

What do you think of this hot issue?

Having been on Twitter for many months now and having a Twitter Grade of 95, I find myself truly immersed in Twitter trends and have listed my observations below. Twitter has truly become a new way of networking and interacting with people, and I love it for that exact reason. It is such a simple tool that you can use for essentially any purpose you want, from following celebrities to networking to meeting a future girlfriend/boyfriend.

Feel free to add your observations to my list!

You are a true Twitter user when you…

1. Unfollow a company the second they try to sell something to you
2. Hate when a company DM’s you a clearly automated thank you message for following them
3. Hate when a company DM’s you an advertising message soon after following you
4. Love to share the link love between your contacts
5. Meet people attending an upcoming event on Twitter first
6. Tweet constantly during an event
7. Unfollow spamming companies immediately
8. Check your Twitter Grader on a regular basis to see how powerful you are becoming
9. Use #hashtags #whenever #appropriate to #interact with more #people
10. Have a Twitter application on your smart phone to contantly keep up-to-date with the Twitterverse
11. Check-in at every place you go and tweet it out to Twitter
12. Participate in #FollowFriday, #MusicMonday, #MarketingMonday, etc.
13. You know that articles shortened to bit.ly get the most retweets
14. You tweet during webinars to interact with other viewers
15. Hate the Twitter Whale information overload when you are trying to do something

Twitter is certainly mainstream today. It’s almost impossible now to turn on a news show, sports broadcast, or other media based outlet without seeing some sort of Twitter message, follow request, or live updates coming from a Twitter stream. With so much attention and promotions going on for Twitter, many businesses and owners are trying to figure out how they can use Twitter to build their own business and generate more leads from it. The following information will share some ideas on how to use Twitter to help with lead generation.

To start, let’s take a look at why businesses get on Twitter to begin with. Typically, businesses will get on Twitter to create a brand experience, communicate with their audience or customers, build stronger brand reputation and better branding, engage in industry and market news and topics, and of course to promote their products or services. All of these things are done daily and can be the sole focal point, or a collaboration of all the elements to maximize the efforts put forth on Twitter.

Now, lets look at what the typical user is doing on Twitter so that we can understand how to effectively market to them to generate more leads. Users like to be informed about products and services that are relevant to them, share useful information with others in their circle, find things they think are either funny, helpful, or topical, as well as to stay current on trending topics.

In addition to why people are on Twitter, let’s take a look at who is on Twitter and what a business can hope to find in terms of new leads. According to PEW Research Center, nearly 55% of all Twitter users are between the ages of 18 – 49, which means that the majority of people on Twitter are adults. Over 40% of all Twitters have some sort of college education and over 60% of Twitter users make over 30k per year. The average age of a Twitter user is 31. This means that a large portion of people using Twitter are educated and have a stable job with a decent salary range, which makes Twitter a great network for generating new leads.

With these numbers in mind, Twitter is in a good position to generate leads and the following are some ways Twitter can help produce more leads for you businesses.

1. Branding and Reputation: Twitter can help establish a business with the right impression by having a branded experience on Twitter and link that to the company’s main site. This gives the impression that a business is supporting the efforts that they are making online and gives people a place to voice their opinions, share information, and to communicate directly with the company. In addition, it’s good to build a custom brand background and page look to give people the impression that they get when they visit the company’s main site. It also gives the impression that the company understands and values their brand.

2. Bio and Links: It’s important to give people a sense of what they will expect from the Tweets by adding some info to the bio as well as a link to the company’s website. This will give people a chance to learn more about the company by providing them with a snippet of what the business does as well as a way to get them to the website via a link on the profile page.

3. Contacts and Followers: The next important thing to consider is who the business is following and who should follow them. There are some tools that can help find relevant Tweeters in a certain market and it’s good to use them to help find those people and start following them. Another way to do this is to go to Twitter and start doing keyword search and see who is tweeting them. There may be some relevant followers that would be helpful to engage with and could be a good source for new leads. By finding the right followers, tweets and other info will go out faster and to more relevant people, which in turn would generate better leads.

4. Engage and Promote: Create useful tweets and post them regularly. It’s important to not only promote products and services from the business, but share other stories and ideas that are relevant to the industry. Making a tweet about an industry topic is a good way to engage people and get them talking. In addition, by creating tweets that are helpful in a certain market, it makes the business look like an authority within the space and gives them an advantage over people that are not as active. Getting familiar with certain Twitter options like retweets, followfriday, and other useful tools is another way to engage people and be able to generate leads. There are some helpful blogs and tools that can make this process a little easier, but it is certainly one of the most crucial parts to effectively generate leads from Twitter.

Twitter is certainly a new tool for businesses to use to generate leads and will be an effective part of business marketing for the next couple of years. The best part about this tool is that it’s free to use and only requires the time and effort needed to make it work efficiently.

Affnet is a leading, performance based marketing group that exclusively works with advertisers and publishers for effective lead generation.

Cool Stat: 100,000,000 retweets have been recorded thus far!

1. Keep your tweets to 100-120 characters long to allow for people to RT and add in their comments.

2. About 65% of retweets contain links because people naturally like to share information, and Twitter is a main broadcast medium for sharing and creating conversations around the links.

3. If you want more retweets, find great content on the web that people will want to share.

4. bit.ly is the most popular and most common URL shortener, so try to shorten your links to bit.ly. Avoid tinyurl; it is the largest URL shortener character-wise, thus less popular.

5. If you want to increase your chances of being retweeted, use the most popular words: you (people like when you talk to or about them, naturally), Twitter, please, retweet, post, blog, social, free (people like free stuff!), media, help (“help me spread the word”), please retweet, great, social media, 10, follow, How To, top, blog post, check out (calls to action are always great), and new blog post.

6. Retweets in general are composed of longer words and more syllables.

7. Retweets are smarter, using higher levels of words and content, so you don’t need to dumb down your tweets for them to get retweeted.

8. Retweets are more novel, meaning the words and information in them tend to occur less frequently. In general, talk about stuff that is less common and more unique so that people will find it interesting, eye-catching, and thus will retweet it.

9. Retweets are noun-heavy and also use adverbs and proper nouns.

10. Retweets are more emotional, conceptual and social.

11. Do NOT reference to yourself a lot; people don’t want to know what YOU are doing- that is boring to us!

12. Retweet content types by popularity: 1. News, 2. Instructional (How-To guides), 3. Entertainment, 4. Opinion, 5. Products, 6. Small Talk

13. Know who your main Twitter audience is. In general women tend to retweet entertainment-based information, whereas men tend to retweet opinion-based content.

14. Timing: It is BEST to tweet between 1 pm and 10 pm (4-5 pm is the prime time). It is WORST to tweet between 3 am and 12 pm (people are either sleeping or catching up on morning tasks).

Friday is the BEST day for retweets, then Wednesday, Monday and Thursday.
Saturdays, Sundays and Tuesdays are the WORST days for retweets, so avoid putting great content out there on these days; save it for Fridays.

15. It is important to thank your retweeters, but don’t overdo it. For example, if thirty people RT your message, either only thank the loyal retweeters, DM everyone, or mention a few people in a thank you tweet so you don’t overload their Twitter feed with individual thank you’s, and it is annoying for you to have to do that as well.

REMEMBER: Retweeting other people’s links is just as important, and can be good karma, if you believe in that. Recognize those that retweet your information a lot, and do the same for them; they will always appreciate it.

So, lets conduct an experiment. To see if the power of retweets that Zarrella talks about is really true, lets see how many retweets we can get this article to have. Lets use #KristinD as the hashtag so you all can track the effectiveness of this. I’ll tweet this article out throughout this week and you all can check in on the hashtag #KristinD and see how our little experiment goes!

I am a big Twitter fan and blog reader, thus the reason for my Twitter list “Influential Bloggers.” I have been blogging for a few months and feel that I am becoming very proficient at it, but am always looking for ways to get better. I learn something every day from the 19 people I follow on this list, but seven of them in particular are the most inspirational and informative to me.

1. Chris Brogan was one of the first Twitter bloggers I started following. His immense knowledge on all facets of the Internet world, as well as his proficiency in video blogging is very inspiring. You can visit his site here or follow him on Twitter.

2. Problogger is a wonderful resource for blogging tips of all kinds. As his Twitter bio says, “I blog about twitter and tweet about blogging. Sometimes I blog about tweeting about blogging and tweet about blogging about twitter.” This site is my go-to site on my RSS feed every day when I am looking for inspiration, new WordPress plug-ins to use, ways to further engage my readers, etc. If you are a current blogger or looking to start blogging, definitely subscribe to this site or follow him on Twitter.

3. Steve Garfield is a nationally recognized video blogger on stevegarfield.com and has a strong presence on Twitter. I find myself very inspired by Steve’s natural way of speaking to the camera and presenting his ideas very fluidly and consistently. I have recently started reading his book Get Seen which gives excellent tips and tricks to gaining business through video blogs.

4. Brian Solis is a great blogger on social media engagement, branding, CRM, social capital and many other topics backed by great industry research. I find a lot of my blogging inspiration comes from Solis since he writes about a plethora of social media and Internet trends and utilizes great charts and statistics to back up his posts. You can subscribe to his site here or follow him on Twitter.

5. Chris Dixon is another great Twitter blogger who writes on topics including start-ups, technology, Google trends, and VC’s. As I am entrepreneurial in spirit and talk with several start-ups on a daily basis myself, I find this information very useful for me to share with others. I also find his research on Google to be very interesting since I frequently read about Google, determining what their next move (good or bad) will be. You can subscribe to his site here or follow Dixon on Twitter.

6. David Meerman Scott is a very influential writer who is the author of the New Rules of Marketing and PR (which I first read in a senior marketing class in college). He also blogs at Web Ink Now on topics including social businesses, mobile apps, new marketing trends, PR tips, and many other Internet marketing topics. He is also an avid Twitterati who is very willing to interact with followers (including me). Follow him here.

7. Hubspot is a company dedicated to providing customers and readers with the latest research topics including the State of the Twittersphere, the State of Inbound Marketing, the latest and greatest inbound marketing trends that they are using for their clients, and humorous videos and cartoons. I have been reading their blog since before I started blogging, and learned many great tips from them about blogging and how to best use Twitter. You can view their blog here or follow them on Twitter.

Because of these seven amazing bloggers, I have enhanced my blogging techniques, increased my visibility online, engaged readers, and increased traffic to my site. The best way to learn from them is by subscribing to their blog on your RSS and following them on Twitter.

What bloggers do you find inspiration from?

“If I tweet a ton, people will follow”
“If I write controversial tweets and posts, people will follow”
“If I follow a TON of people, they will follow back”

But in reality:

Most of the above myths will not work, at least not long term.

Read on…

“So, how do I get followers if none of the above work?”, you might ask.

First: BE GENUINE! Make your bio legitimate and truthful. Do not use flattery terms on yourself like “I am the best at XYZ…” or “Top notch guy…” or “Follow me and I’ll follow you back.” People can sniff out a spammy Twitter account easily if you write bios like these.

To be genuine, make your bio legit, follow real people, engage in meaningful conversations and share great content with them, and don’t falsify yourself.

Second: Don’t just promote yourself, or people will think you spam or only care to talk about yourself. If you use Twitter for the main purpose of getting sales, period, then you will not gain many followers. People want to know that you want to get involved with them and share other meaningful content, rather than just yours. For example, if your company sells music products, aside from occasionally posting about your products, post industry articles, new music producing technologies, how to become a better musician, etc. People will find this valuable and can learn from you.

Third: Network outside of Twitter to meet some of these people. For example, last week, I attended the #SoxUp by Fenway in Boston. Prior to the event, I networked through Twitter to locate others who were attending as well, and made a point to meet them in person there. In addition, I met several other people that I did not know beforehand, and I still keep in contact with them via Twitter.

By meeting people in person and then continuing the conversation on Twitter, relationships can be enhanced by at least two-fold!

Fourth: Keep track of your content. For example, make sure your Twitter posts on the first page are varied and interesting. By this, I mean if someone visits your Twitter page, show them that you 1. Talk with others, 2. Post valuable content, 3. Know what you’re talking about and 4. Have credibility in your field of ‘expertise.’ This will make them much more likely to follow you.

Last, make sure you thank each of your new followers for following you. A simple direct message saying “Thank you for following me [name]” is fine. It shows that there is a person behind your Twitter name and that you appreciate them following you and wanting to learn more about you through your tweets. I have seen this simple effort go a long way, and further conversations can even be generated just by doing this.

By simply following the above tips, you should be seen as a credible, interesting and conversation-worthy person on Twitter, and you should soon be followed by the right people that you want to get in contact with.

The BIGGEST takeaway from this is to not use Twitter for the sole purpose of promoting yourself or your business. People don’t care about YOU, they care about what they can get out of doing business with you or speaking with you, so give them that information. From there, they may be interested in your needs.

If you want to check out how you rank on Twitter after implementing these simple steps, visit Twitter Grader.

Good luck!

@Cait_Downey What’s your main reason for Twitter? to socialize? entertain? inform? build awareness?

@KristinEDziadul @Cait_Downey I think it’s for whatever you want to make of it

@Cait_Downey @KristinEDziadul I agree w/ you! I think its best when it’s a mix of everything too.

This conversation got me thinking: does Twitter have a true purpose? One central theme to its usage is that you can meet people that you may not have otherwise by sharing articles, pictures, blogs, and comments. However, Twitter has different purposes based on the user.

Businesses:
PR tactic
Networking
B2C connections
Sharing industry articles
Reaching out to advertisers
Conveying the brand image
Networking with partnering companies
Advertising blogs, events, job openings, etc.

Employees:
Connect with other co-workers
Find out about industry trends to learn more
Support their employer’s statements (i.e. blogs, research, events)
Develop their own online brand as a part of their larger employer’s brand

Individuals:
Find a job
Meet friends
Meet potential employers
Find networking events to go to
Share videos, articles, research, etc.
Follow celebrities or favorite brands

Celebrities:
Tweet photos of themselves
PR device if they have a mishap
Make followers feel connected to them
Promote their albums, movies, clothing lines, etc.
Tell fans where they are, what they are doing, what they like, etc.

As I said in the conversation above with Cait, Twitter can be used for whatever you want. I think Twitter is so basic for a reason: users can have free range in what they do with it. Twitter applications are developed to enhance particular aspects of it if users need them. Personally, I use it for individual purposes as a part of building my online branding and networking with others.

Please leave your comments on how/why you or your company use Twitter or how you would like to use it!

(Picture courtesy of Derek Wilmont on Flickr)

First of all, it was great to meet each and every one of you on Thursday night (February 25th) at the Boston, MA Soxup event at Fenway Park Absolute Clubhouse hosted by Awareness. It was really neat to watch the ‘Twitterverse’ come to life during an event like this. Going into the event, I only had met three people that I knew were going to be there, and left having met about eight more.

The environment on Twitter before the event almost mocked the types of conversations going on during the event. Before the SoxUp, all attendees, including me, were using the hashtag #soxup to locate others who were going as well, so as to ‘meet’ them beforehand. After I did this, I then engaged in conversations on Twitter with several people whom I connected with via the hashtag.

This then allowed me to locate these people immediately at the event, either by facial recognition or by their Twitter username printed on their name tag. I was then able to immediately engage in a conversation with these people, as we had already ‘met’ on Twitter. This saved the time of introducing myself, working the room, and making small talk. Instead, the time was used more efficiently by engaging in meaningful conversations regarding the Internet marketing industry, social media, or the event itself.

Sites like Twitter have truly revolutionized the networking environment to make it more open via the Internet, and more efficient in person.

Overall, I think the event was fabulous. Awareness’s Christine Major did an excellent job facilitating the welcoming speech, introducing featured guest Steve Garfield, and interacting with everyone there. The environment was a great place to meet with everyone (and it kept us out of the rain!). I look forward to keeping in touch with everyone I met there on Twitter and at future events!

How do you find that Twitter is a valuable networking facilitator?

Do you consider yourself technologically savvy or very socially connected? Make sure you are using the below social media sites, and using them correctly!

1. Facebook: If you are a business, create an informative but not overwhelming Fan Page. Connect with others in your demographic market and geographic location, interact with them, and post valuable and meaningful information for fans to read. If you are an individual marketing yourself online, ensure to clean up your profile, i.e. no bad pictures, create appropriate status updates, and watch what pages you become fans of and what groups you join. Then, start networking with professionals and professional groups through Facebook.

2. Twitter: If you are a business, develop an original background that conveys the image and look and feel of your company. Interact with others in your industry, thought leaders, key consumers, and proponents of your brand. This will help you disseminate your information in the most direct way, and those people will be more receptive to it. Make sure you do not over-promote yourself, or followers will be turned off. Post valuable information about your industry in general, and make sure to interact with people! If you are an individual, create an original background that conveys your personal brand online, connect with friends, co-workers, favorite brands, and even those in your industry that you want to network with. Search for topics or industries in the search box to get involved with people doing involved with that on Twitter.

3. LinkedIn: If you are a business, create a strong description of your company and join all relevant groups to your industry/product/brand, etc. Post your blogs to those groups and ask others for their feedback. In the same way, respond to others and interact to be seen as a thought-leader and a ‘socialite’ on LinkedIn. If you are an individual, create a strong description of what you do or what you hope to achieve by networking with others. Get involved with groups that are relevant to your area of interest or speciality, post your blogs, and respond to others as well. The more active you are on here, the more recognized you will be, and you may even land a job offer!

4: Blog: Today, blogging is more important than ever for everyone to be doing. Blogging allows you to be seen as a thought leader or expert in your field. For blogging success, read Chris Brogan’s blog titled 40 Ways to Deliver Killer Blog Content.” Tell Facebook friends about your posts, Tweet it out to the Twitterverse, post it to your groups on LinkedIn, and even make them into video blogs to post them on YouTube for additional exposure!

5. Commenting on Blogs: You know it feels good to see that someone has commented on your blog, so as common courtesy, comment on other blogs as well. They appreciate it as much as you do. By reading other blogs, you can learn more, learn about different perspectives on issues, interact with new people, share that information with others, and get your name out there.

6. Pictures/Videos: Giving a visual representation of your daily activities or thoughts is a great way for a reader/viewer to interact with you and learn more about you. For example, if you are traveling into Boston for the day and want to take a video of you recapping the conference, people will want to see your video blog review if they were not able to attend. Also, if you are at a really cool restaurant, saw a neat car, etc. you can take a picture and upload it to TwitPic or Flickr to share with all! Visual representation of what you are doing is more powerful than you may think!

For those of you starting off in social media engagement, take these steps slow and carefully so you develop your content in a planned out and effective manner. It does take time, so don’t rush it. To monitor your online presence, occasionally search Google for your own name to see how much content is on the web about you. If you are getting involved with Internet technologies for a career, future employers may be Googling you more than looking into your resume.

For those social media gurus reading this, any other suggestions to add?