May 12

Social Media Success: Are You Too Obsessed with Numbers?

Social Media 8 Comments »

For some people, social media is all about the numbers. How many followers you have on Twitter, how many friends you made on Facebook, etc. When you first get into this method of promotion, that’s what seems to be the best way to measure your success, but is it?

While having plenty of followers is definitely a good thing, it doesn’t mean you aren’t successful if you have just 900 people following you on Twitter. The real test is whether or not these are active friends, people who will either buy from you or promote you. If you have 100,000 followers and only 50 of them are really interested in your product, then you don’t really need the remaining 95,000 . . . it’s just more noise.

Does this mean you should get rid of everyone who isn’t actively retweeting or sharing your links? Not necessarily. But it does mean that you should reevaluate what you equate with success.

What is Social Media Success?

Each company will need to determine exactly what they consider to be success. Numbers of followers are rarely a good place to start. You can easily gain hundreds of “friends” simply by befriending everyone you come across on a social media site. So what should you be looking at? There are several ways to distinguish the your success:

  • Traffic. Aim to bring in a certain amount of traffic with social media and then work on that. While this is still a numbers game, it is far more specific.
  • Sales. An increase in sales as a direct result of your social networking efforts is a good way to judge how successful you are.
  • Publicity. When other people start talking about you, on blogs, Twitter, and newsletters without you asking them to, you can use this as a measurement of success, as well.

Of course, each business will have their own methods of measuring success and you can come up with your own. What you hope to accomplish with social media is a goal that you and only you can set for yourself.

Once you know what you want and how you are going to know when you reach it, a plan is in order. Write down how you will reach your goal, step by step. This might be something simple, such as tweeting 3 times a day, or adding 3 new, related friends on LinkedIn each day, or holding a contest or giveaway each month. Multiple methods are often best for really getting your name out there. You’ll find that most popular social media users are active in a variety of ways across their chosen networks, often gaining plenty of publicity in the process.

While number can be significant, don’t get too hung up on them. Instead, look for more tangible methods of measuring your success with social media.

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May 10

Gain Followers with Free Stuff

Social Media, Twitter 6 Comments »

image credit to Vocabvideos

There are a lot of things you can do to boost your followers on sites like Twitter and usually I’ve compiled lists and lists about this. Today, however, we are going to go a little further into the how of gaining followers by offering freebies.

People love free stuff. Giving something away has been a method of getting people to subscribe to your mailing list since before email was big, but it’s been a bit slow to catch on in the world of social media. If you want to get people signing up for your updates, then there’s really nothing better than giving them something for doing it.

Not sure where to start? Here are a few ideas.

1. Free reports. It’s pretty easy to whip up a free report on a topic in your niche. If you don’t have the time or ability to do it yourself, a short, 10-15 page report shouldn’t cost more than $50 . . . considerably less if you don’t mind editing out grammatical errors yourself. Choose a topic that will entice people to sign up and let them know on your blog or elsewhere that they can get a free report by following you on Twitter and leaving a comment that they’ve done so.

2. Audio recordings. There’s nothing saying you have to give only written material away and audio recordings are an excellent method of giving value to your potential clients. Do a brief recording (no more than 15 min.) offering a solution or information that is valuable to those in your target niche.

3. Videos. Video is huge these days and it can be quite viral. Even if you aren’t yet on YouTube, you can offer a free video or video series. Let people know that your followers will be the first to receive tweets on the links to your videos to encourage them to sign up. Then start producing short, informative videos that you can upload to YouTube or a similar site and tweet the links, reminding everyone to share the links with their friends. If you’ve done a good job and offered info they can use, chances are high that your videos will go viral and you’ll boost your number of followers.

While not technically a free product, you can also regularly hold contests on your Twitter account. Let people know that if they want to be informed of upcoming contests, they need to subscribe to your feed. Then either give away your products or services, or contact companies which might be interested in providing the occasional item for a giveaway.

Freebies are an excellent method of boosting your followers. People not only gravitate toward free things, they also share with others, so if you’ve got something worthwhile to give away, you can bet everyone will soon know.

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May 03

The Importance of Interaction in Social Media

Intermediate Track, Social Media Classroom 7 Comments »

picture credit to java2s

I’m sure you’ve seen those internet marketers who pop onto Twitter every few days to plug their product, then auto-tweet the same thing to every one of their social media accounts. These people are everywhere and while they might catch a few unsuspecting folks in their wide net, they will never benefit from the real purpose of social media, interaction.

You see, we humans are social creatures and we enjoy being with other people. Even if our interactions occur online, there are certain things that make us more likely to pay attention to someone. We trust people we know to give us good recommendations, whereas we are automatically suspicious of strangers pumping hyped up products.

By forming actual relationships with your followers and friends on social media sites, you’ll not only increase the conversion rate of your links, you also boost the probability of forming a lasting partnership. You never know when someone you talk to on Facebook might end up being the co-author of an ebook or help you out with guest posts when you’re sick or unable to write.

There is a never ending stream of ads on social media sites, so we really notice when someone is being real. A major way to prove that you aren’t just into self promotion is to chat up other people. You can pass on links from other people’s blogs and status updates, comment on their posts, and ask questions.

If you are following a lot of people, it can be quite time consuming to answer everyone, so you’ll need to budget your time. However, it’s very important that you do respond to people so they know that you are paying attention. They will also pay attention to you! The next time you need a hand spreading the word about something they will help you by passing the links on, blogging and even recommending you to their friends and followers. This can be a pretty big deal, particularly if you are hooking up with some big names, but everyone matters when it comes to social media!

What can you do to make sure you’re connecting with people, particularly when you are just getting started? Here are a few ideas:

  • Respond to people’s general questions.
  • Ask specific people questions.
  • Ask general questions.
  • Don’t forget to thank those who respond to you.
  • Share links that others have posted and let them know you appreciate the resource.
  • Share links that you find online, even if you aren’t connected to the person, people will appreciate the resources you provide, too.

What are your tips for making sure you’re being sociable?

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Dec 21

3 Reasons for Link Love on Social Media

Intermediate Track, Social Media Classroom 3 Comments »
picture credit to Freshfocus.info

picture credit to Freshfocus.info

If you’ve spent any time at all on social media sites, you’ve seen people linking to others. Unfortunately, there are a lot of folks who just don’t feel this is necessary. The main reason they think they don’t need to share with others is because they feel that all their social networking needs to be about them. I’m here to tell you that talking others up is a great way to promote yourself.

Still not certain? Here are three reasons you need to start linking out to others that you like in the field.

1. You’ll make more friends.

When people see that you are nice enough to share the best blog posts and websites with others, they are going to know that you value others. That’s pretty rare, particularly online, so you’ll rapidly gain friends this way.

Just being nice isn’t the only reason people will start knocking down your door to be friends with you. They will also see you as a valuable resource and someone who has information on what they´re interested in. That’s always a good thing and it means that you will tend to get friends of a higher quality, too.

2. Catch someone’s attention.

Let’s say there is a blogger in your field that you particularly admire and want to emulate. You might not want to actually speak to him or her, or send them an email, but linking to them on Facebook or Twitter is a great way to show your appreciation. Chances are, they’ll notice when you do this, too.

Not all bloggers will link back or even pay attention to you, but many will notice you and if they have the time, check your site out, as well. This is a great way to get people to notice you without sticking your head out too far. And you never know, they might decide you are worthy of link love, too!

3. Offer value to your followers and boost your reputation.

There are a number of people on any social media network who just babble about nothing. If you’re one of the ones who provides great information, you’ll get a far better reputation and that means people will trust you more. When there is trust, you’ll be able to do business much easier and they will refer you to their friends.

Sending out links to valuable information is a part of building trust. Just because you don’t have all the answers doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to give them to your followers . . . look for someone who knows what you don’t!

It’s always a good idea to link to useful resources. You can really benefit a lot. Having said all this, I will increase my blogroll by 50% since I’m finding so many useful resources and colleagues in the Social Media arena.  However, I’m not sure how to approach this.  What is your advice? Who would you recommend? Do you just link back indiscriminately or do you use a selection criteria?

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Dec 09

Quick Ways to Pump Up Your Online Presence

Intermediate Track, Social Media Classroom 3 Comments »
Photo credit to National Geographics

Photo credit to National Geographics

Sometimes we need to get noticed quickly. Maybe you have a product launch coming up or a charity function and you need to get a lot of people to pay attention quickly. Usually, social media is a fairly slow burner method . . . you work steadily to gain followers and interest and it can take a while. So what do you do when you need a quick burst? Well, here are a few ways to pump up your online presence rapidly, without stressing.

Note: these are not meant to be used long term, they are merely techniques to give you a quick boost.

1. Hold a contest.

It doesn’t have to be a big contest, you can easily just do a small giveaway. If you don’t have anything to give away, contact someone who does. Then choose your venue, be it Twitter, Facebook, etc. and ask people you know to spread the word about the contest. Perhaps the contestants have to follow you in order to enter, or sign up for your newsletter, etc. There are a lot of options here and contests tend to go viral on sites like Twitter, so you can expect to gain a rapid following.

2. Go on a friending spree.

If you want lots of people to follow you or befriend you, the best way to go about this is to simply befriend a lot of other people. You can search Twellow and other similar sites to get good contacts that are interested in what you have to offer.

Often, when you follow someone on Twitter or befriend them on another site, you will get followers back within 24 hours. Depending on how many you befriend, you could end up with a large number of followers. Do be careful, however, and read the rules, since some sites, such as Facebook, will put a limit on your account if you try to befriend too many people all at once.

3. Tell people you’re close to a milestone.

You’ve probably seen those tweets where someone says that their friend is just 14 followers away from reaching 5,000 . . . well, you can use that same method to gain yourself. Look at your next milestone, be it 10,000 followers or 500 and let people know that you need a certain number to hit it. Then watch your numbers start rising as others help you reach your goal. Obviously, this one only works if you really are close to a milestone.

From time to time, we just need to increase our followers. It doesn’t really matter if you’re just trying to get a boost before you add a counter to your blog, or if you’re trying to gain some publicity before you launch a new ebook or product.

Remember that people still won’t follow you if you aren’t posting good comments and interacting with the community, so stay on top of that. It will be somewhat time intensive in the beginning, but you will reap the benefits.

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Nov 27

How to Alienate People on Twitter

Beginner's Track 25 Comments »
How to allianate in twitter

How to allianate on twitter

If you’re a numbers watcher, you’ve probably noticed that your number of followers fluctuates constantly on Twitter. While this is normal, you do want to keep the vast majority watching your updates. It’s pretty easy to do something wrong, though. If you aren’t sure why people are unfollowing you in droves, it might be time to check out my list on how to alienate people on Twitter.

  • Never follow back. While you don’t necessarily have to follow everyone back, never following anyone isn’t going to win you too many friends. It’s an excellent method for getting rid of . . . well, just about everyone!
  • Ignore direct and @ messages. When someone tries to initiate contact with you, ignoring them is a great way to ensure that they never attempt to talk to you again. Sensitive people might not try after one ignore, others will try a few times and then give up. If you hang in there, pretty soon only robots will be talking to you.
  • Disappear for long periods of time. This is one of the best ways to lose followers. If you’re inactive, they will assume you’re gone and remove you from their lists. Many use automatic unfollows for this, so you don’t even have to personally offend anyone.
  • Post only complaints. If all your updates are complaining about your back pain, the fact that your spouse doesn’t help out enough around the house, etc. you can bet most people will never even start following you! It’s a great way to get rid of most of your existing followers, too.
  • Badmouth other businesses. While Twitter can be an excellent forum for exchanging experiences with companies, it shouldn’t become a place to air your dislike of every business you come across. As soon as people see this, they will tend to avoid you . . . no one wants their own business to be put down!
  • Talk about mundane things. Mentioning what you’re having for lunch isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but a blow by blow of your trip to work, every person you see along the way, your bathroom stops, etc. is definitely too much for most people. You can expect to see a drastic drop in followers if you decide to go this route.

Obviously you don’t want to alienate people on Twitter, so make sure you do the opposite of everything I’ve listed here. You’ll end up with happier followers and over time, you’ll be able to really network with them.

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Nov 09

10 Ways to Expand Your Social Media Networks

Beginner's Track, Social Media 5 Comments »

Networking is only as good as the people in your network. If you have just a small handful of people with little influence, chances are there won’t be much in the way of results. While quality is good, quantity is also very important when it comes to social media. If you are struggling to build up your network, check out the following 10 methods of growing your contact list.

  1. Make yourself accessible. Make sure you have made your profile SEO friendly so people can find you easily.
  2. Find friends of friends. While you shouldn’t do this indiscriminately, you will often find many like-minded people in the contacts of each person that is following you. Make sure you do the research though, since some of those contacts might not be quality ones. Avoid spammers whenever possible!
  3. Be active. You will attract a lot more people if you are actually participating in the online conversation. Being active will also help people that you befriend decide to follow you back.
  4. Give to get. When you retweet or link to other people and help them promote their business, they are often more than willing to help you out in return. This is the essence of online networking, but it can help you gain followers, as well.
  5. Turn offline contacts into online ones. Look up people you know in real life and add them to your online networks. When you meet someone at a conference or elsewhere, ask them what their username is on Twitter or LinkedIn and be sure to add them.
  6. Interact with others. People might not notice your random tweets, but if you are messaging them, they will definitely notice. This works on any social media network, interacting and creating a conversation with others will get you noticed and you will gain followers.
  7. Promote yourself. Make sure you have links to your social media profiles everywhere you can, such as on forums, your blog and even email signatures.
  8. Actively seek out contacts. There’s no need to be spammy, but you can find your favorite entrepreneurs on your favorite social media networks, then just send them a message, letting them know you admire them. Chances are, they’ll follow back.
  9. Don’t be afraid to ask. Send those friend requests. You might be turned down, particularly if you aren’t well known, but the vast majority of people will accept you anyway.
  10. Do great things. You don’t have to save the world, or anything that big, but if you make a splash in your niche, people will start looking for you on social media. This could be giving away a great ebook, offering a sale or simply presenting some useful information on your website.

The bigger your social network, the better the publicity. You don’t have to focus on just one social site, work at getting more followers/friends on all of them and you’ll see a boost in traffic and publicity for your business.

I’d love to hear how you build your social media network, as well.

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Oct 12

Networking With Your Social Media Followers

Social Media 6 Comments »

FollowersWhile it’s nice to have a lot of followers or friends on social media . . . what are you doing to leverage the power that comes with that many followers? Are you making the best use of those who are interested enough in what you have to say that they are willing to listen to everything?

For many, social media is a place to make friends and hang out. That’s fine, but if you’re running a business, it’s also the perfect place for a little marketing. That doesn’t mean you have to be pushy, but if you aren’t letting people know what you do for a living and how you can help them, then you’re missing a big opportunity.

What are some ways you can start optimizing all that potential power? Here are a few ideas to get you started.

  • Offer solutions. One of the advantages of social media is that people complain. If they have a problem and you have the solution, not only will you help them out and gain a fan . . . chances are the word of mouth function will work for you, too. Soon, people you don’t know at all will know what you do.
  • Mention your business at least once a day. You don’t have to go all out and say stuff like, “Buy from me NOW!” However, a well placed tweet about what you are up to works just as well and is not so pushy. Something like, “Writing copy for my new motocross website” lets people know what you are up to in a manner that is completely acceptable.
  • Ask others to retweet important info relating to your industry. Not surprisingly, a number of your followers, fans or friends on social media will be members of the same industry, so getting them to retweet information will reach a large number of potential clients. Offering news is also an excellent method of non-pushy marketing.

What are you doing to maximize the potential of your followers?

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Aug 11

10 Methods to Gain Twitter Followers

Social Media 8 Comments »

Even if you weren’t affected by the recent changes in Twitter, it never hurts to have even more Twitter followers. The more people following you, the easier it is to promote your product or services. Here are 10 clean methods to boost your number of followers:

1. Post regularly

If you are only active from time to time on Twitter, no one will bother following you. People check your latest updates when deciding whether or not to follow, so make sure there is something recent for them to look at.

2. Follow back.

When someone follows you, make sure you follow them back (provided they are worth following, of course). This will help you keep them, otherwise many people will drop those who don’t follow them back.

3. Use keywords in your tweets.

This is very important now that there are so many Twitter search engines available. People are looking for specific things in those they follow, so make sure you tweet using your keywords so they can find you. It’s fine to use multiple keywords. These should also be included in your profile.

4. Follow new people.

A lot of Twitterers are using the second guideline here . . . so between 25-50% of people you follow will end up following you back. You can simply unfollow anyone who doesn’t. Again, finding those who are relevant is best, or you will end up with a lot of spam.

5. Interact with people.

If you send an @ message to someone who isn’t following you, they are likely going to check out your profile and that could well lead to them following you. Also, people are more likely to follow you if you are obviously interacting with others, they like to see someone friendly online and that can work in your favor.

6. Start chatting.

If you are on Twitter regularly, you’ve likely seen the hashtags following some tweets, like #fun. These mark chats with people who have similar interests. Some are ongoing, others are specific to a time and date. Either way, they can help you meet new people on Twitter who share your interests. Chances are, many of the people in the chat will start to follow you if you are actively participating.

7. Hold contests.

Who doesn’t love a contest? You can easily set up a drawing to giveaway one of your products or a service, drawing from the names of your followers. Be sure to promote it ahead of time and you will find that others retweet the contest for you, resulting in even more followers.

8. Thank new followers.

By linking to your newest followers in your tweets, with a quick thank you note, you’ll find that more people join the ranks of followers. They appreciate the extra publicity and will be happy to follow.

9. Publicize your Twitter ID.

How are people going to follow you on Twitter if they don’t know your ID? Make sure you have it everywhere, in forum signatures, email, on your blog and anywhere else you might run into followers.

10. Follow important people.

It’s not uncommon for others to take a look at who is interested in someone very popular and start following them. Take the time to comment on the VIP’s updates and you might be lucky enough to have them reply to you, boosting your value in the eyes of everyone following them.

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