When our online world crosses with reality, can we use our online marketing indexes for gauging progress in our real life?
---------------------------------------------------------------
Food trays and plastic cups littered the floor. An easel with a blank canvas stood in the middle of the small studio apartment. Mid-day light flooded the room through the window. Frank slowly opened his eyes, and rubbed his stubbly face. In the bathroom, he splashed some water on his face. He looked at the calendar. It was Thursday, and the day was circled in pencil scratches. The phone rang.
"Hello?"
"Hey Frank! It's Pat, what's going on," the friend said.
"Pretty good, you know, same old same old."
"You sure? How come you don't return calls?"
"You called?"
"Three times today."
"Guess I missed the phone."
"Do you read emails anymore? Are you even online."
"You bet. You don't exist if you're not online."
"Why don't you answer my messages?"
"Ok," Frank relented, "look Pat, I've been under a lot of pressure lately. You know, rent, food, basic survival. Sorry I just have had other priorities."
"No problem, brothah, I'm here for ya."
"OK, maybe I'll catch up with you later."
Frank put down the phone and turned to take a long hard look at the blank canvas now bathed in sunlight.
Frank rode train into the city. The car was mostly empty. In his notepad, he sketched the windows, and the shadows on the ground. The train pulled to a stop and he put his drawing pen in his shirt pocket, barely jumping out the closing doors. Rising up from the subway system, he was in midtown Manhattan, and walked over to an astute building with a doorman. The doorman knodded at him, and Frank took the elevator to the 4th floor. Exiting the elevator, he walked down a long, cooly lit hallway to a glass door. The sign on the door read: Dr. Mortimor Pressinger, Personal Therapy and Psycholoanalytics.
The waiting room was empty. Frank slumped into a stiff chair and stared at the tropical fish floating back and forth. The secretaries desk was empty. The door to Dr. Pressinger's office opened, and the therapist walked out, checked on the waiting room. Seeing Frank, he closed the waiting room door and bid farewell to his previous client.
The waiting room door opened again. "Come Frank, let's talk."
Frank followed Dr. Pressinger into his office. Dr. Pressinger was of moderate height, thin and pale looking. The office was wood panelled and carpetted, yet minimally decorated. A laptop computer was on the desk.
Frank sunk into a big, puffy easy chair. Dr. Pressinger sat on the other side of the room.
"So Frank, how've you been?"
"Uh, not bad, gettin by."
"How's your painting coming," the therapist asked, leaning forward.
"I think I'm making progress."
"Hmm, that's an interesting answer, I thought I was supposed to make the psychological assessments."
"Ok, ok. I got the canvas set up, you know, like we talked about. But I haven't been able to go further. It's like, it's like I'm, well I'm just stuck."
Dr. Pressinger squinted his eyes. "Who do you paint for?"
"Who do I, uh, well, myself. I want to paint for myself."
Dr. Pressinger noted something in his notebook. "So let me ask you again, how's the painting coming?"
"It's hard, I'm just not connecting, like I have no energy for it. I'm tired. I sleep in, and barely can move myself to clean or take care of myself."
A smile cracked across the therapist's thin lips. "I know."
"You know? What do you mean, you know?"
Dr. Pressinger leaned over and turned the laptop around. "Look Frank, you inner self is reflected in many things around you - your style of dress, your occupation, your level of tidiness and - the performance of your website.
"Look at this, according to Google Analytics, over the last few weeks traffic to your website has dropped tremendously. Last week it flatlined for 3 days. And you've barely made a Tweet on Twitter since last month."
"What are you saying?"
"What I'm saying is that you've hit a slump."
"Well, uh, what should I do? Meditation? Positive Reinforcement?"
"Backlinks!"
"What?"
"You've got to improve your presence on the web and get greater exposure to the Google search spiders, that way you can raise your placement in the organic search results and have a better chance of improving traffic to your site!"
"Maybe I need prozac. Something to pull me out of the pits."
"No, you need to be more active in Flickr. Add more images, join more groups get your online presence to more active." He handed Frank an article about Online Marketing Growth and Flickr.
"Geez. It looks like a lot of work," Frank snickered, flipping through the 25 page guide.
"It's worth it. It's the fastest way to push your portfolio to the widest audience."
"What if no one notices?"
"Then start Tweeting. Your last Twitter post was 'Ronnie Lee Gardner to be executed by firing squad in 20 minutes'"
"I know, I was feeling kind of in the dumps that day, maybe I was jealous. It was a Twitter trending topic at the time."
"That's terrible!"
"I know, I know I should be more positive."
"No! You need to at least have a couple keywords! And you'll be found faster if you hashtag the keywords."
Frank sat up in the puffy chair. "So what should I be aiming for, painting"
Dr. Pressinger shook his head, and pulled at his hair. "Painting? Painting?! Do you have any idea of how competitive those keywords are? You'll be a drop in the ocean. Niche, Frank. Niche! You've got to focus on a niche audience, like 'flower oil painting' or 'fruit acrylic painting'."
"You mean in the text of my website?"
"Text? Frank, how long have we been meeting. What will it take to get through to you. Google doesn't see your site like we do. The spiders go into the code.
Text is the least of your issues. You need metatags! And title tags for links, and alt tags for images. Tags! Frank. Where are your tags?"
"Ok, yeah, I remember now, we talked about it a few months ago. That was when I first told you about my father breaking a shovel while trying to get me to clear the snow from our driveway."
"And what have you done since. Look at your Google site ranking. It's barely moved. Frank you're not going anywhere!"
Frank stared at the Google Analytics dashboard in despair and just shook his head. "It's hard having a mirror so sharp put in front of you."
Dr. Pressinger leaned forward. "OK, so what about what we talked about last week. Hmm?"
"Um, you mean, signing up on Wikipedia?"
"Yes, well, anything?"
"Uh, yeah, well, I posted an article about my artwork, but uh, the Wiki editor took it down, said it violated Wiki rules and didn't have widespread public significance."
"Did you write it like we discussed?"
"Uh, I didn't really understand, so I put up the ad to my last gallery exhibition. That's a no-no right? No self-promotion?"
The therapist rolled his eyes upward. Dr. Pressinger pulled the laptop back, and clicked on some more links. "And what is this, Frank?!"
A large picture of a dead, rotting rat filled the screen. Small flies were crawling across the carcass.
"Yeah, that's the latest thing in my portfolio. I saw it in an alley and took the picture with my cell phone camera. I liked the way the light fell across the body. I know it's kind of morbid."
"No Frank. No! Do you know the significance of this?"
"I guess it was a cry for help?"
Dr. Pressinger looked down, and slapped his thigh. "Frank! It's in Flash!"
"Oh yeah, that, I thought it would be cool to have a portfolio section in Flash. It has smoother transitions."
"Frank don't you know the meaning of this?"
"My mother didn't breastfeed me?"
"Flash can't be seen on the iPhone or iPad, and is virtually invisible to Google spiders. Your portfolio is a big hole."
Frank just shrugged. "So what should I do Dr. Pressinger? Do we need to meet twice a week?"
"Frank you need to get your act together. Start updating your LinkedIn status, check the keyword density on your site, get on Orkut, use StumbleUpon, and you have to begin to use Digg for all your latest updates."
"Latest updates, you mean like what we talk about, um, like when I apologized to my mother for saying I never liked her cooking?"
"No, I mean a blog. You have to start keeping a blog, and updating it regularly. Only original content, updated on a regular basis will keep you relevant on Google. That's it. That's all that matters."
"Being relevant on Google?"
"Yes. That's all that matters now."
The alarm went off and Frank reached out from his bed and slammed it off. It was still dark outside, and clock said 5:15. Frank clicked on the lamp next to his bed, and rubbed his hand across his face. His hair was trimmed and short, and his face was smooth and shaven. He walked over to the canvas on the easel and took a moment to breathe in the painting on the canvas. It was still life of fruit across a table. The fruit were layed casually next to each other. The bright colors of the different fruits jumped off the canvas, even the subtle hues of the shadows were filled with pastel colors. Frank took a few steps into his kitchen and stated heating hot water in his kettle. As the water percolated, he sat down in front of his laptop. After checking his email, he opened
Twitter. He tweeted that he would be appearing at the Danum Gallery in Soho tonight - free wine and cheese. He opened another tab on his browser, and went into his Google Analytics account. The water in the kettle bubbled. He went into the Google Analytics dashboard and saw that his traffic and steadily grown in the past weeks, doubling from the previous month. His traffic sources were even more varied, and the searched-for keywords were broader and less specific to just his name or website address. A smile grew across his face. The boiling kettle started to whistle.
June 25, 2010
March 16, 2010
Generating a Brand for Business Success
From the most recognizable global corporations to your business, having a strong brand can make the difference for standing out from the competition, remaining a memorable experience to your customers and ultimately growing your business.
Read more from my article on establishing a winning brand for growing a photography business.
In a market that faces the pressures of a fiercely competitive economy, and a marketplace where every opportunity is more hotly pursued, as more photographers cross-over to shooting different genres, styles and subject matter , while blurring the lines of geographic-based jobs, you need to use all your marketing tools to succeed. To establish a world-class brand, you need to spend time and thought into what goes into your brand, to create the brand infrastructure that will carry your business presence beyond your immediate touchpoints. This process is likened to as if you were creating with your own hands the most popular person in the neighborhood. Your brand will precede you and create that awareness that will not only attract clients to you, but leave you a memorable option for future projects. So before you call the graphic designer, or start printing your business cards, you should direct your attention to your brand and what stands behind it.
Read more from my article on establishing a winning brand for growing a photography business.
In a market that faces the pressures of a fiercely competitive economy, and a marketplace where every opportunity is more hotly pursued, as more photographers cross-over to shooting different genres, styles and subject matter , while blurring the lines of geographic-based jobs, you need to use all your marketing tools to succeed. To establish a world-class brand, you need to spend time and thought into what goes into your brand, to create the brand infrastructure that will carry your business presence beyond your immediate touchpoints. This process is likened to as if you were creating with your own hands the most popular person in the neighborhood. Your brand will precede you and create that awareness that will not only attract clients to you, but leave you a memorable option for future projects. So before you call the graphic designer, or start printing your business cards, you should direct your attention to your brand and what stands behind it.
March 2, 2010
Social Media Consolidation for Maximum Exposure and Efficient Workflow
The proliferation of social media opportunities does not need to overwhelm you. There are now many solutions for consolidating your social media efforts in order to maximize your exposure, while streamlining the time you put into updating your network.
I will focus on several of the most widespread social media networks around today: Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn.
Twitter is by far the most pervasive system for connecting and interacting, giving you exposure and expanding your connections in directions that you didn't plan. A Twitter stream is easy to get going and the opportunities for growth are unstoppable. For some, getting there hands around Twitter takes some time and mental juggling. The success path in Twitter is somewhat counter-intuitive, where growth depends on promoting others. Some give the formula of for every 1 self promoted post on Twitter, you should be posting referenced (or retweeting) 7 times as much information from others. This principle helps to 'spread the wealth', and works on the basis of one good turn produces another.
Facebook has strong traction and is an easier model to grasp especially for marketing. Instead of being a location for featuring the latest shots of the kiddies, you should maintain a Facebook Fan page to highlight the latest with your business or organization.
YouTube has become the ubiquitous source of video the world over. This should also serve as a main new media communication tool. Creating video can be professional and expensive or simple and 'on the fly' with online screen recorder tools like Screen Toaster.
LinkedIn is by far the leading mechanism for maintaining your professional network, and keeping them updated on your latest projects, initiatives, and status.
Bringing the Social Media networks together
Just looking at these 4 options and trying to keep them all relevant with information about your activities seems daunting and exhausting. In addition, you will want to maintain a blog for more in-depth accounts of what you are doing. How can you do this without running yourself ragged? How can you still have time for your real work?
You need to consolidate your social media networks. Here are some useful tools for pulling them together.
1. Blog to Twitter: Push all your blog updates directly to Twitter, without even touching Twitter. Use easy online services like TwitterFeed. You can quickly have your blog directly publishing to Twitter, expanding your blog article exposure to the Twitterverse.
2. YouTube to Twitter: In YouTube account, go to 'Active Sharing'. You can setup that your YouTube activity will automatically publish to Twitter, including new uploads, favorites and comments
3. Facebook to Twitter: Out of your main Facebook account, create a Fan page for people outside your circle to follow your business or organization. You can keep your Twitter stream automatically updated about new posts to your fan page by using the Facebook to Twitter synch app.
4. Twitter to LinkedIn: You are making a strong effort to share relevant and important information over Twitter, but many of your connections may still not have joined the Twitter bandwagon. However they are still in touch with you over LinkedIn. You can set up a connection between LinkedIn and Twitter through your LinkedIn account, see more on the LinkedIn blog.
5. Twitter, YouTube to Facebook: As the Facebook format lends intself more to being a blog format, than the massive Twitter stream, many find it easier and preferable to keep up with via Facebook. Bring your other social media updates on Twitter and YouTube over to your Facebook page. Visit Involver.com’s Application Gallery, look for the Twitter app and follow through for adding both Twitter and YouTube as tabs to your Facebook Page.
Now you have all your networks covered, so no matter where you are making updates, and no matter where your touchpoints are with your connections, you will be maintaining maximum exposure, in an efficient workflow.
I will focus on several of the most widespread social media networks around today: Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn.
Twitter is by far the most pervasive system for connecting and interacting, giving you exposure and expanding your connections in directions that you didn't plan. A Twitter stream is easy to get going and the opportunities for growth are unstoppable. For some, getting there hands around Twitter takes some time and mental juggling. The success path in Twitter is somewhat counter-intuitive, where growth depends on promoting others. Some give the formula of for every 1 self promoted post on Twitter, you should be posting referenced (or retweeting) 7 times as much information from others. This principle helps to 'spread the wealth', and works on the basis of one good turn produces another.
Facebook has strong traction and is an easier model to grasp especially for marketing. Instead of being a location for featuring the latest shots of the kiddies, you should maintain a Facebook Fan page to highlight the latest with your business or organization.
YouTube has become the ubiquitous source of video the world over. This should also serve as a main new media communication tool. Creating video can be professional and expensive or simple and 'on the fly' with online screen recorder tools like Screen Toaster.
LinkedIn is by far the leading mechanism for maintaining your professional network, and keeping them updated on your latest projects, initiatives, and status.
Bringing the Social Media networks together
Just looking at these 4 options and trying to keep them all relevant with information about your activities seems daunting and exhausting. In addition, you will want to maintain a blog for more in-depth accounts of what you are doing. How can you do this without running yourself ragged? How can you still have time for your real work?
You need to consolidate your social media networks. Here are some useful tools for pulling them together.
1. Blog to Twitter: Push all your blog updates directly to Twitter, without even touching Twitter. Use easy online services like TwitterFeed. You can quickly have your blog directly publishing to Twitter, expanding your blog article exposure to the Twitterverse.
2. YouTube to Twitter: In YouTube account, go to 'Active Sharing'. You can setup that your YouTube activity will automatically publish to Twitter, including new uploads, favorites and comments
3. Facebook to Twitter: Out of your main Facebook account, create a Fan page for people outside your circle to follow your business or organization. You can keep your Twitter stream automatically updated about new posts to your fan page by using the Facebook to Twitter synch app.
4. Twitter to LinkedIn: You are making a strong effort to share relevant and important information over Twitter, but many of your connections may still not have joined the Twitter bandwagon. However they are still in touch with you over LinkedIn. You can set up a connection between LinkedIn and Twitter through your LinkedIn account, see more on the LinkedIn blog.
5. Twitter, YouTube to Facebook: As the Facebook format lends intself more to being a blog format, than the massive Twitter stream, many find it easier and preferable to keep up with via Facebook. Bring your other social media updates on Twitter and YouTube over to your Facebook page. Visit Involver.com’s Application Gallery, look for the Twitter app and follow through for adding both Twitter and YouTube as tabs to your Facebook Page.
Now you have all your networks covered, so no matter where you are making updates, and no matter where your touchpoints are with your connections, you will be maintaining maximum exposure, in an efficient workflow.
December 2, 2009
From Black Star: 6 Ways to Focus Your Twitter Strategy and Grow Your Photography Business
Frustrated at the slow progress on Twitter?
Wondering why everyone was getting so excited?
Are you feeling like Twitter is a waster of time.
Read 6 Ways to Focus Your Twitter Strategy and Grow Your Photography Business.
This is an article that I recently had published on the Black Star Agency photographer resources site.
Click here.
Wondering why everyone was getting so excited?
Are you feeling like Twitter is a waster of time.
Read 6 Ways to Focus Your Twitter Strategy and Grow Your Photography Business.
This is an article that I recently had published on the Black Star Agency photographer resources site.
Click here.
November 29, 2009
Letting a 16 year old do your online marketing
As companies feel more pressure to enhance their online presence, marketing teams feel stretched thinner and thinner. The 'new media' paradigms of Web 2.0 and social media, demand more attention and of course - more time. Where can this come from? What needs to give in the marketing priorities? Who needs new focus?
Welcome your boss's nephew - a precocious, grinning 16 year old. To the maturing business world, the challenges of Web 2.0 seem insurmountable on the one hand and are perceived as a waste of valuable manpower on the hand. So why not leave your online marketing strategy to a 16 year old.
There is no doubt that today's generation of adolescents can slip behind a computer like a glove. They can surf faster than their parents, look up information in clever ways, and get onto sites you wouldn't expect. Yet should this precociousness dictate your online marketing strategy.
Just past the year 2000, the corporate attitude to websites began to change. Whereas the new website phenomena seemed like a cute fad whose businss value was unrecognized, company directors demanded of their manager to 'have a website'. This directive in turn was dumped on the secretary, to 'put something together'. Little strategy was put into motion.
- No consideration of measuring site traffic was considered
- No mechanism for gaining subscribers or sign-ins was enabled.
- Contact information was buried
- Product information was non-descript
Yet the directive was fulfilled and a website existed.
Today's WikiPedia, Facebook, YouTube and most of all Twitter are gaining the same fascination by a corporate directors. The old ring of that simple directive can be heard.
They demand of their managers
- to 'have a place on Wikipedia'
- to 'get on Facebook'
- to 'put something on YouTube'
- to 'use that Twitter thing'
Who can the experienced marketing managers turn to?
- Excel spreadsheet specialists?
- Experienced trade show organizers?
- Brilliant marketing writers?
How about a 16 year old.
Teenagers today know how to take video clips of their friends and have it on YouTube the same day. They know how to build friend following on Facebook of hundreds, updating other kids hundreds of miles away about what they did over the weekend. Kids know how to follow Miley Cyrus on Twitter and retweet links to new videos.
It can be said that the new marketer has 'Learned Everything you need to Know in High School.'
Despite this proven skill set, and access to online Internet tools, this adroitness does not equal marketing.
The same rules and approaches of Marketing 101 apply in the world of Web 2.0. Concepts like the lead funnel, measuring indexes, planning next steps, and analyzing data for making clear marketing decisions are still the rule and not the exception.
Sure today's 16 year olds are good at getting something on YouTube faster, but what value is this piece of media. What kind of traffic will it drive? Does it include an action item? Will it be attracting the 'right' traffic?
Yes the boss's nephew can Tweet and Retweet on Twitter, showing the latest Brittny Spears video, but can he put together a Twitter strategy? How will he build a solid set of followers? Has he vetted the followers for your business area? How does he interact with customers on Twitter or has he just been pushed into the Twitter arena to tweet up like a robot, saying a bunch of canned statements that have been created.
A 16 year old's competence in the Web 2.0 world can be very useful, but should not be solely relied upon. If you have 15 videos to add to YouTube, give them to a 16 year old, write the copy to go along with them, set the keywords that you need to 'tag' the videos with, and then let the 16 year old upload these and fill in the information in record time.
For Twitter, once you have built up a strong following of at least a 1000 followers, you can have the 16 year old set up pre-written scheduled Tweets in HootSuite. These Tweets should be carefully crafted to have keywords, hashtags, and most importantly links to your site. Your 16 year old go through the grind of scheduling this list of Tweets like a radio station schedules music for the day, carefully giving exposure to the same Tweets in the morning and the evening so that your followers in both Europe and North America can see them.
Don't under estimate the abilities of our 16 year olds. But don't throw all your online marketing strategy onto their shoulders.
Welcome your boss's nephew - a precocious, grinning 16 year old. To the maturing business world, the challenges of Web 2.0 seem insurmountable on the one hand and are perceived as a waste of valuable manpower on the hand. So why not leave your online marketing strategy to a 16 year old.
There is no doubt that today's generation of adolescents can slip behind a computer like a glove. They can surf faster than their parents, look up information in clever ways, and get onto sites you wouldn't expect. Yet should this precociousness dictate your online marketing strategy.
Just past the year 2000, the corporate attitude to websites began to change. Whereas the new website phenomena seemed like a cute fad whose businss value was unrecognized, company directors demanded of their manager to 'have a website'. This directive in turn was dumped on the secretary, to 'put something together'. Little strategy was put into motion.
- No consideration of measuring site traffic was considered
- No mechanism for gaining subscribers or sign-ins was enabled.
- Contact information was buried
- Product information was non-descript
Yet the directive was fulfilled and a website existed.
Today's WikiPedia, Facebook, YouTube and most of all Twitter are gaining the same fascination by a corporate directors. The old ring of that simple directive can be heard.
They demand of their managers
- to 'have a place on Wikipedia'
- to 'get on Facebook'
- to 'put something on YouTube'
- to 'use that Twitter thing'
Who can the experienced marketing managers turn to?
- Excel spreadsheet specialists?
- Experienced trade show organizers?
- Brilliant marketing writers?
How about a 16 year old.
Teenagers today know how to take video clips of their friends and have it on YouTube the same day. They know how to build friend following on Facebook of hundreds, updating other kids hundreds of miles away about what they did over the weekend. Kids know how to follow Miley Cyrus on Twitter and retweet links to new videos.
It can be said that the new marketer has 'Learned Everything you need to Know in High School.'
Despite this proven skill set, and access to online Internet tools, this adroitness does not equal marketing.
The same rules and approaches of Marketing 101 apply in the world of Web 2.0. Concepts like the lead funnel, measuring indexes, planning next steps, and analyzing data for making clear marketing decisions are still the rule and not the exception.
Sure today's 16 year olds are good at getting something on YouTube faster, but what value is this piece of media. What kind of traffic will it drive? Does it include an action item? Will it be attracting the 'right' traffic?
Yes the boss's nephew can Tweet and Retweet on Twitter, showing the latest Brittny Spears video, but can he put together a Twitter strategy? How will he build a solid set of followers? Has he vetted the followers for your business area? How does he interact with customers on Twitter or has he just been pushed into the Twitter arena to tweet up like a robot, saying a bunch of canned statements that have been created.
A 16 year old's competence in the Web 2.0 world can be very useful, but should not be solely relied upon. If you have 15 videos to add to YouTube, give them to a 16 year old, write the copy to go along with them, set the keywords that you need to 'tag' the videos with, and then let the 16 year old upload these and fill in the information in record time.
For Twitter, once you have built up a strong following of at least a 1000 followers, you can have the 16 year old set up pre-written scheduled Tweets in HootSuite. These Tweets should be carefully crafted to have keywords, hashtags, and most importantly links to your site. Your 16 year old go through the grind of scheduling this list of Tweets like a radio station schedules music for the day, carefully giving exposure to the same Tweets in the morning and the evening so that your followers in both Europe and North America can see them.
Don't under estimate the abilities of our 16 year olds. But don't throw all your online marketing strategy onto their shoulders.
Getting Serious about Twitter
So your CEO told you that he wants to 'see the company on Twitter.' What's the next step? What to do? How can this fit into the overwhelming marketing schedule?
To the uninitiated, Twitter sounds like a black hole of marketing bandwidth, sucking up every last drop of time, and forcing you into doing tons of overtime on a global salary. The next steps might look like
- signing up for Twitter and getting the closest username to your company name
- Tweeting a bit for a couple of days, until it feels useless
Then the effort is abandoned, until the CEO comes back with folded arms, asking 'Well, are we on Twitter?'
At this point, this can mean trying to connive a fellow marketer to step into the saddle and start moving your Twitter. An effort equally lost after just a few days.
Twitter does not have to be as much of a time drain as feared if executed properly.
The main elements that are required for moving forward with Twitter are 1) focus and 2) commitment.
Focus
Taking strides to 'get onto Twitter' and make progress means being focused. This means being focused about the goals (acquiring a targetted follower base), staying on course for tweeting about your niche, and maintaining regular exposure in the Twitter stream.
One of the hardest concepts in 'staying focused' is idea of getting started in Twitter mainly by retweeting other people's information - primarily not even about your company or product. How does that work?
When you start in Twitter everything is set to zero, so the main focus initially is building the follower base. By simply tweeting continuously, you are 'Tweeting to an empty house.' No followers. No one hears your tweets.
They say you need to be marketing other people nine times more then you're marketing yourself. Still by being focused on the subjects that are Retweeted, that these topics remain 'in the same ecosystem' as your company, then you are attracting the right kind of people that will also be interested in Tweets about company and product. This is the path of building trust and credibility, and ultimately - a following.
Commitment
If I had a dollar for everyone that started Twitter and quit within a week, well....
The partner to focus is commitment. This doesn't mean abandoning all other marketing projects and sitting at Twitter all day. You can limit your main Twitter time to one morning a week. At this time, when using a Twitter client like HootSuite, you can schedule a set of repeating Tweets for mornings and evenings. YOu can collect relevant Tweets about your subject using tools like SocialOOmph that will pipe you emails about Tweets using designated keywords.
Results
Success and results on Twitter don't come overnight and not even in a week. However, if you persevere and stay on target your Twitter reputation will grow, and within a few months you will start to see the results that the CEO asked about.
To the uninitiated, Twitter sounds like a black hole of marketing bandwidth, sucking up every last drop of time, and forcing you into doing tons of overtime on a global salary. The next steps might look like
- signing up for Twitter and getting the closest username to your company name
- Tweeting a bit for a couple of days, until it feels useless
Then the effort is abandoned, until the CEO comes back with folded arms, asking 'Well, are we on Twitter?'
At this point, this can mean trying to connive a fellow marketer to step into the saddle and start moving your Twitter. An effort equally lost after just a few days.
Twitter does not have to be as much of a time drain as feared if executed properly.
The main elements that are required for moving forward with Twitter are 1) focus and 2) commitment.
Focus
Taking strides to 'get onto Twitter' and make progress means being focused. This means being focused about the goals (acquiring a targetted follower base), staying on course for tweeting about your niche, and maintaining regular exposure in the Twitter stream.
One of the hardest concepts in 'staying focused' is idea of getting started in Twitter mainly by retweeting other people's information - primarily not even about your company or product. How does that work?
When you start in Twitter everything is set to zero, so the main focus initially is building the follower base. By simply tweeting continuously, you are 'Tweeting to an empty house.' No followers. No one hears your tweets.
They say you need to be marketing other people nine times more then you're marketing yourself. Still by being focused on the subjects that are Retweeted, that these topics remain 'in the same ecosystem' as your company, then you are attracting the right kind of people that will also be interested in Tweets about company and product. This is the path of building trust and credibility, and ultimately - a following.
Commitment
If I had a dollar for everyone that started Twitter and quit within a week, well....
The partner to focus is commitment. This doesn't mean abandoning all other marketing projects and sitting at Twitter all day. You can limit your main Twitter time to one morning a week. At this time, when using a Twitter client like HootSuite, you can schedule a set of repeating Tweets for mornings and evenings. YOu can collect relevant Tweets about your subject using tools like SocialOOmph that will pipe you emails about Tweets using designated keywords.
Results
Success and results on Twitter don't come overnight and not even in a week. However, if you persevere and stay on target your Twitter reputation will grow, and within a few months you will start to see the results that the CEO asked about.
November 22, 2009
Twitter is no diary
Micro blogging. Life spanning. Twitter has been called a lot of things, but as a marketing tool it is no diary. Twitter is a new communications platform, bringing the immediacy of web pages and the ease of email into a new paradigm.
Tweeting for your company, product or service?
You don't need to tell your followers what you had for breakfast, or that you didn't have a towel when you got out of the shower. You need to keep yourself relevant via Twitter. The most important and lucrative path to relevance is via information. Turn your Twitter stream into a 'channel', like another channel in your cable retinue. You have 'The Cooking Channel', the 'Sports Channel', and even the History Channel.
You Twitter channel should be focused on your niche, that's what makes you relevant. Don't let it be
- an online chat to your friends
- a place to share email jokes
- a tweeting spot for various marketing promotions you are running
Focus. Focus. Focus.
These three words are the essential building blocks for a successful brand, and they will also guide you to creating a relevant Twitter stream (channel). We look at CNN for news, we look at ESPN for sports, so your Twitter Channel should be the stream for your market or target audience.
Tweeting for your company, product or service?
You don't need to tell your followers what you had for breakfast, or that you didn't have a towel when you got out of the shower. You need to keep yourself relevant via Twitter. The most important and lucrative path to relevance is via information. Turn your Twitter stream into a 'channel', like another channel in your cable retinue. You have 'The Cooking Channel', the 'Sports Channel', and even the History Channel.
You Twitter channel should be focused on your niche, that's what makes you relevant. Don't let it be
- an online chat to your friends
- a place to share email jokes
- a tweeting spot for various marketing promotions you are running
Focus. Focus. Focus.
These three words are the essential building blocks for a successful brand, and they will also guide you to creating a relevant Twitter stream (channel). We look at CNN for news, we look at ESPN for sports, so your Twitter Channel should be the stream for your market or target audience.
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