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Useful Twitter Tools

Chelsea Junget — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 13:40:18 +0000

Lately, clients have been asking about how to grow and manage their Twitter following. Unless you are the celeb du jour, its unlikely folks will be seeking you out on Twitter, instead, your company will need to find them!

Here are some great tools to generate new followers, manage followers, and nurture relationships as part of a strategic marketing plan:

Find Twitter users by hashtag and follow them with a single click using BlastFollow. For this tool to be most useful, you’ll need to have an idea of what hashtags fall into your wheelhouse. The idea here is that folks that you follow will follow you back, especially if you are targeting users with an established interest in a topic. For instance, if you are a fitness coach and you follow users who have used the #exercise or #workout hashtag, you are likely to find fitness enthusiasts, your target audience.
Next, sign up for HootSuite. Or TweetDeck. These tools allow you to manage Twitter more efficiently. HootSuite is designed for teams, ideal if your company will have multiple contributors to your Twitter feed. It also allows you to segment those you follow, create searches, view @ replies and monitor conversations. You can also spread your message beyond Twitter to Facebook, LinkedIn and more.

twAitter allows you to schedule tweets. However, if you’re on deck with HootSuite, you can do that there, too.
TweetChat isolates conversations based on the hashtag. Again, using the fitness trainer example, TweetChat shows what folks who use the #exercise hashtag are talking about. Again, Hootsuite does this well through it’s search function.
TweetGrid is a search dashboard that updates in real time. Watch several different searches at once to monitor conversations.

What tools do you use?

Don’t Kill Direct Mail in the Name of Social Media

Chelsea Junget — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 21:32:57 +0000

A couple of mentions around the marketing world by NextDayFlyers blog and MarketingPilgrim regarding the effectiveness of direct mail have got us thinking about the integration of print and social media campaigns. Some companies have reviewed the cost savings offered by digital communications compared to cost to print, mail and design mailers, letters and postcards and have begun shifting marketing dollars for those projects. E-mail, Twitter, Facebook and other channels can be cost-effective ways to build an online presence and connect with customers and prospects. But, let’s face it, social media ROI can be difficult to measure. For some businesses, an online-only strategy might be a shortsighted approach.

Here are a few things to keep in mind:

Are your prospects and customers online? It’s easy to assume that everyone is “plugged in” these days. Despite the meteoric rise in popularity of Twitter and Facebook, some people are not using them regularly and some not at all. Understand your audience and how they want to interact. Social media isn’t the best fit for all companies.
Consumers are digitally saturated. The quantity of e-mails, tweets, blog posts and news articles the average consumer must sort through can be overwhelming. Relying only on communicating through these channels is taking a risk that your messages are glossed over or worse, sent directly to the trash file.
Coordinate messages across mediums. Direct mail and social media can work in concert––extend your online messaging to coordinate with mail. Use direct mail to drive traffic to your Facebook fan page or Twitter account.
No matter the method, the goal is to inspire action! The point made in the NextDayFlyers blog is well-taken. Using direct mail to solicit feedback is a great idea. Many companies are getting noticed for using Twitter for customer service purposes (notably among several is @comcastcares and @jetblue), but why not direct mail?

A marketing strategy should coordinate several channels. Here at SG, we blog, tweet, email and connect with prospects via snail mail. Oh, and in person, too! What is your company doing to create an integrated strategy?

Educating A New Generation

Chelsea Junget — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 14:37:25 +0000

“Things have changed since I was in school.” Sounds like something your parents said to you growing up, huh? That statement still holds true. Kids are a part of a whole new learning generation; interaction is mostly via instant message, text message, Twitter and Facebook and the internet is the first place they turn for research. The shift in marketing is taking place as we speak, but are Marketing and Public Relations instructors and professors educating their students about the phenomenon that is social media?

Back in the day, marketing majors were required to learn the 4 P’s (Product, Price, Promotion, Place) and that is still relevant, but along with the 4 P’s they need to have a basic understand of HTML, design software, e-mail marketing campaigns, search engine optimization, and knowledge of social media Twitter, Facebook, YouTube,etc). However, are recent grads receiving said education?

We’ve all read that many companies are struggling to understand social media and how it can be used in their industry. With this occurring, companies are looking to hire recent grads with degrees in Marketing and Public Relations to fill the social media gap. But, are colleges and universities integrating the new trends in marketing into their curriculum – such courses as Internet Marketing, Digital Media and New-Media Marketing? Another challenge: are college professors and faculty on top of the changing trends in the marketing world? If not, they need to be. How can you teach it, if you don’t fully understand it yourself? As the old adage states, “lead by example.”

Here’s a question for all our Marketing & PR majors out there –Are NC State, Duke and UNC teaching courses on new-media and internet marketing? Or are you educating the professors on social media?

Twitter Lists 101 – What are they and why should you care?

Chelsea Junget — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 17:18:56 +0000

Twitter launched the “Lists” feature a few weeks ago; here’s a quick and easy over view of the feature. Twitter Lists is a great way to organize your followers or find new ones on Twitter. It is very similar to creating groups in e-mail; it allows you to group Tweeps by family, location, industry, or whatever category you prefer.

Creating a list is easy. When logged into your Twitter account, the “Lists” feature appears below the search box, click on it to create a new list. You can make lists public or private. If public, you can recommend the list for other Tweeps to follow; they can either follow the list or people on it and it can be seen by anyone. If private, you and only you can see this list – perfect for keeping an eye on what competitors are doing. Next, hit “Create List” and you can begin to add users. The maximum number of users is currently 500 and the max number of lists is 20.

Following lists is another great tool to keep track of the happenings on Twitter. These lists won’t show up in your main stream, but can be easily seen by clicking on the “lists” link on the right side of your Twitter homepage. Some great sites that maintain categorized “suggested” lists to follow are:

Listorious – a 3rd party directory that categorizes the most “awesome” lists on Twitter. The site is user-friendly and allows users to browse or search for lists by category.
TweetMeme Lists – find the most tweeted about Twitter Lists.

Check out lists following us and that we follow here and more on how organizations are using Twitter lists.

Happy Listing!

A Few Quick Tips to Overcome the Social Media Hurdle

Chelsea Junget — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 16:10:46 +0000

Many companies are using social media to build their brand and gain recognition in the marketplace, and others want to start integrating social media into their marketing mix but aren’t sure where to start.

Here are a few thoughts on launching a campaign:

Embrace failure and learn from the mistakes – Look at Skittles – they launched a Twitter campaign by turning their homepage into a Twitter feed. When that failed Skittles tried another approach, but didn’t take into consideration what happened the first time! They didn’t learn from their first mistake and what happened – Strike 2! Their ego-centric approach didn’t work the 1st time, why would it work the 2nd time? Learn from the mistakes made and correct them on the 2nd approach to achieve the goal you sought out in the first place.
Engage with your audience – listen to their ideas and thoughts; don’t make the social media effort all about YOU.
There is no “I” in team – collaborate with team members to get their feedback and insight on the initiative.
When launching a social media campaign have a clear, focused goal in mind and follow the necessary steps to achieve it. Is it driving visits to the website? Is it signing up for a webinar? Consider your goal and how you will measure the results of your effort. But recall, sometimes social media ROI can be fuzzy.
Create something of value for your audience. Give them a reason to care.
Know your audience before implementing a campaign and be prepared for the worst before it occurs.
Be up front and honest with your intentions – it establishes trust and credibility.
Plan for success, prepare for failure!

How Social Networking Will Impact Your Business

admin — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 15:42:24 +0000

From the Pony Express to airmail. From Morse code to HTML code. From email to instant messaging, live chat, blogs, and, more recently, Twitter. The human race has been on a quest to communicate with each other as fast as technology allows.

Your average 16 year old uses social networking web sites like MySpace, Xanga and Facebook the way many of us use the telephone, email and our local Starbucks. This totally online environment allows for instant gratification, communication and anonymity.

“That’s great for kids, but what has it got to do with my business?” you ask. Blogs, podcasts, RSS, instant messaging and other social network technologies are the next wave in communications. Understanding their impact and, more importantly, ways to take advantage of these groundbreaking technologies is essential in today’s rapidly evolving business landscape. As a business owner, you simply cannot afford to fall behind your competition, who are adapting these technologies to gain competitive advantage.

Types of Communication

To understand the social networking phenomenon, we must first understand two distinct types of communication:

1. One-to-one communication has evolved from conversation,
to a letter, to the ubiquitous email, to instant messaging and, now, Twitter.

2. One-to-many communication has evolved from company memos, to broadcast email, to social network sites, to blogs, to RSS feeds.

Common threads to both evolutions are the internet and ever-briefer communiqués.

Connections are the New Currency

LinkedIn is an online social network for business that may be quickly replacing the exchange of business cards. More than 11 million professionals from around the world representing 150 industries are members and are building online networks of business and personal contacts. The point is raising visibility to find and be found for business opportunities.

Twitter, launched in 2006, is a social network that provides the ability to post short (140 character max) text messages from your cell phone or the web. Invited friends and/or the public can read your message in real time, transforming one-to-one texting to a one-to-many communication tool. Twitter has developed a worldwide online community and spawned Twittersearch, Twittermap and even Twittervision, where messages pop up in real time on a global map, pinpointing where the texter is located.

Think this can’t possibly relate to your business? Think again. The Portland Trailblazers have their own public Twitter account as does Dell Outlet, bringing you the most up to minute discount offers on computer equipment.

Twitter represents just one in the latest evolution of communication technology. Self-expression blogs have gone commercial with many businesses attempting to capitalize on our natural voyeuristic tendencies. But like channel surfing on television, if a blog is boring, there is little that will compel readers to stay. The key to successful blogs is engaging the audience, directly addressing them and inviting them to comment on the topic. The variety of opinions connected to the original blog can be even more compelling than the original message.

Beyond Text

Podcasts essentially turn blogs into audio. But the answer to “What’s next?” is video. Now that Google has bought YouTube, the commercial applications are endless. Samsung, Heinz, Quicksilver and Johnson & Johnson are just a few that are cashing in on the video posting phenomenon with contests aimed at attracting their youthful target audience on YouTube.

Broadcasting all this communication to a worldwide audience has been facilitated by RSS feeds. RSS, or “Really Simple Syndication”, is a format for distributing and gathering content from sources across the web, including newspapers, magazines, and blogs. Web publishers use RSS to easily create and distribute information. Yahoo! News, for example, offers dozens of RSS feeds in topics that run the gamut from sports to obituaries. And feeds are not just limited to the written word. Video is also distributed via RSS feeds.

Business Implications

Some pundits say that all this instant communication technology is leaching power away from the old information providers in the press and broadcasting and handing it to a new democracy of communicators now numbered in the millions. While television and newspapers aren’t about to disappear tomorrow, you can expect a transformation in the way we do business by encouraging new types of collaborative communication.

With today’s shortage of time and attention, combined with a focus on increased productivity, anything that enables employees to improve their working practices will be welcomed. Corporate internal use in the form of instant messaging and Twitter-type communication will grow.

But the greatest impact will be from external use, utilizing blogs, podcasts, webinars, video and RSS feeds to more cost-effectively get the word out. Consider that ISPs, entertainment companies, and wireless providers are either building social networking sites or finding a way to integrate social networking and community interactivity into their new and
existing sites.

The Bottomline

Social networking is not just for teens. It is a collaborative style of communication that every business needs to understand and find creative ways to incorporate into their communication plans. For business to business models, consider adding podcasts, webinars and video presentations to your marketing plans and get your business development staff hooked into LinkedIn. For consumer-based businesses, jump on this trend now and create your MySpace page, Twitter account or YouTube promotional video. But beware! Social networking invites public comment so blatant sales pitches are highly discouraged.

Useful Twitter Tool: Hashtags

Chelsea Junget — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 15:37:42 +0000

If you’ve been using Twitter for some time or are new to it, you’ve likely seen a word preceded by a hash symbol (#) in tweets, like #bigbadball. What are these used for? Simply put, Hashtags are a way to track tweets on a specific topic and make those topics easily searchable.

Hashtags can be a great way to track a social media campaign on Twitter if utilized properly. When using a hashtag for a campaign, be sure that it’s only included in tweets related to the campaign and not all of your tweets. Websites like What’s the Trend, Monitter and TweetGrid show trending topics and also let you search for a specific hashtag.

As mentioned earlier, we use HootSuite to manage Twitter and feel it’s a great tool to track the searches and tweets that include your #hashtag.

Twitter Made Easy!

Chelsea Junget — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 16:30:06 +0000

We’ve blogged several times about Twitter and how it can be leveraged to build a brand’s social media presence. Here are some more practical tools that can make your Twitter experience as painless as possible.

Twitter in Plain English

Twitter for Beginners

Here at Strategic Guru, we use HootSuite to manage Twitter. HootSuite allows users to manage several Twitter accounts, pre-schedule tweets, run and save hash tag searches and see stats, such as link click rates. We love it!

Another great tool for getting followers on Twitter is TweetGrid – create a dashboard that allows you to search up to 9 different topics, hash tags, events, people, etc. No need to refresh the page either!

Let us know of any other tools you are using to enhance your Twitter experience.

Twitter 411

Chelsea Junget — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 17:00:50 +0000

Have you asked yourself the following questions: “What is Twitter?” “What can it do for me or my business?” or “What the heck is the point of this free service?” Well, the Twitter execs have come to your rescue with a useful guide explaining the ins and outs of the platform. It helps teach the lingo, presents case studies, and outlines a quick-start guide. Check it out here: Twitter 101. Although it can’t alleviate all the problems and questions related to Twitter, it certainly is a good stepping stone for the service.

Mashable, the Social Media Guide, has also taken part in helping the community understand Twitter by publishing their own Guidebook. Their publication covers topics such as the basics of Twitter, how to build your community, and Twitter for businesses among others.

If you are new to the Twitosphere or contemplating joining it, don’t feel overwhelmed or give up, check out the above mentioned free guides before completing writing it off.

Twitter Success for Small Biz Owners

Chelsea Junget — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 13:27:53 +0000

As mentioned in a previous blog post, small business owners are taking advantage of Twitter by posting daily specials, promos, locations, etc. in their 140 character limit. Although larger companies like Starbucks and Dell are using Twitter; small businesses can use the platform and reap similar benefits.

Here are a couple examples:

Curtis Kimball opened a mobile crème brulee cart(@CremeBruleeCart) in San Francisco and uses Twitter to announce his location and flavors of the day. Since signing up for Twitter, Kimball now has over 5,400 followers and quit his day job as a carpenter to keep up with the demand.
Scott Seaman of Blowing Rock, NC has used Twitter to expand his customer base. He is a partner at Christopher’s Wine and Cheese Shop and owns a bed and breakfast in Blowing Rock.

Not only does Twitter help promote small businesses; it is also a good arena to learn tips and tools of your trade. An owner of a liquor store in Oklahoma has learned tax tips from an accountant, marketing tips from a consultant in Tennessee, and several other technical tips from people throughout various industries. Twitter is not only an excellent place to create more online real estate for your business, but it’s the ultimate networking zone.

P.S. We use and recommend HootSuite (@hootsuite)tool to manage Twitter. It allows you to manage multiple accounts, track clicks and easily retweet and add followers. Another useful tool that seems to be working for Dell is Twitter Counter. It allows you to see the statistics on followers, friends, and updates. Check them out!