Twitter has become an essential tool for entrepreneurs. A 2010 study done by Chadwick Martin Bailey and iModerate Research Technologies showed that 67 percent of some 1,000 adults surveyed were more likely to buy from a company whose brand they followed on Twitter. Plus 79 percent of the respondents were more likely to recommend a brand whose handle they followed on Twitter.
Most entrepreneurs aren’t experts on Twitter, but all entrepreneurs can improve their engagement with a few minor adjustments. The following are seven ways to set your Twitter feed on fire:
Related: How Marketers Should Approach the New Twitter
1. Grow your following.
Increasing your follower count is the most effective way to boost your influence on Twitter. Look at the followers of your competitors. If their followers are ideal clients for you, begin by following these handles. Many of these users will follow you back.
To keep track of the Twitter accounts you follow and figure out which ones don't follow you back, use free tool like Manageflitter to identify those who don’t follow you back. Manageflitter gives you the ability to unfollow the Twitter users who have not followed you back right.
Using a strategy of following a few hundred targeted followers a week will result in your adding scores of new and ideal followers within a month. Continuing this strategy consistently could result your gain of thousands of new followers in a relatively short time period.
2. Be clear about your message.
The main question potential Twitter followers want answered is "How do I benefit from following this person?” To have ideal clients follow you, answer this question immediately.
The first place customers look is your descriptive bio. They don’t care if you're a father of two and a husband. Your favorite quote won't prompt them to follow you. Telling them what’s in it for them is all they care about.
Author Brendon Burchard offers the best way to communicate this concisely. At his live Experts Academy event, he suggested saying, "I help [blank] do [blank] so they can [blank]."
Related: Twitter Courts Businesses With Option to Promote Their Most Popular Tweets
3. Ask for retweets.
The ability to have your followers share your tweets is imperative to the growth of your social-media presence. Salesforce.com found that when followers are specifically asked to “retweet” with the shortcut reference “RT,” they are 10 times as likely to retweet a message.
The research also showed that asking followers to “retweet” (using the whole word spelled out), boosted the retweet rate 23 times more than average.
4. Share during the best times.
You can have the best and most engaging content in the world, but if it's not tweeted at the correct time, then it likely won't be seen. According to Bitly, the best time to reach people on Twitter is Monday to Thursday from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. The worst times are after 3 p.m. on Fridays and any evening after 8 p.m.
5. Schedule tweets.
Set uptweets ahead of time. Free sites like Buffer and HootSuite grant you the ability to schedule tweets. This helps you be present on Twitter when your followers are more likely to be online. One hour of scheduling work might deliver a month’s worth of prescheduled Twitter content for your feed.
6. Use hashtags to boost retweets.
According to a study by Buddy Media/Salesforce at the end of 2011 and early 2012, tweets with hashtags receive twice the engagement as those without. The same study found that tweets incorporating more than two hashtags experienced a 17 percent decline in engagement. So be careful not to overuse hashtags.
Using hashtag websites like Hashtagifyme or Ritetag can assist you in identifying the most engaging hashtags for posts.
7. Use the @ properly.
Never start a tweet with @whoever. When you do, the only people who will see the tweet are your followers and @whoever.
Start the tweet with words and then insert @whoever later in the phrase like this: "Thanks @whoever for your great review about our service at ABC Company." This will ensure that all your followers will see this tweet in their feeds. And @whoever will be notified as well.
Article curated from Entrepreneur
If you are running a social campaign, you have to be analyzing your
account's data. To do that, you have to do some data mining.
Unfortunately, it is a time consuming process that brands often hire
whole teams to manage, rather than entrusting it to a single person.
The
good news is that there are tools that make it infinitely easier, and
that you can take advantage of to archive your own Twitter data.
1. Twitter's official archive download.
The easiest route to go is always going to be Twitter itself.
They allow you to access your own archive of posts, and save them in an
easily exported format. This option has been available since 2012, and
it is a consistent way to build up a good archive of your tweets in a
CSV file that includes all information.
Of course, there are a
couple of downsides. There is no way to set what dates you want, and so
it will go back as far as it can to create your file. Any time you
re-download a new version, you will be overwriting the old one, or else
saving it as a separate file with the same old info.
While this is
annoying, it is preferable to how it was, when you could only get a
short period of tweets before they were lost forever. Progress!
2. BirdSong Analytics.
BirdSong Analytics
is an absolutely unique tool that lets you download all the followers
of any Twitter accounts. It's a paid tool but I don't think such feature
has any alternatives.
The export comes in an Excel format and
contains each username, number of followers/following, real name,
Twitter URL, bio, number of tweets, date when the account was created,
location, Verified status and how many lists the account is included
into.
Now, think about all Excel sorting, filtering, searching
options: You can now find most followed accounts, search bios by a
keyword, sort accounts by location, etc. For example, you can download
all people your competitor follows and investigate their habits, sites,
etc. Or you can download all accounts that @nytimes is following and get
the list of high-profile journalists, their personal sites, their
hobbies, etc This is a great database to plan your outreach campaign
out.
3. Cyfe.
For a more customizable option, it has to be Cyfe.
This is an all-in-one business management tool that allows you to
create custom made widgets that work with any number of services,
including most social networks. There are pre-made widgets already
available for Twitter (among dozens of others), but you can craft your
own to catch the data that you need. Getting started is free, but you
will want to use their premium service for real analytics gathering.
4. NodeXL.
To
go more simple, but very thorough, you could try NodeXL. It is an open
source template for Microsoft Excel that works by integrating data
pulled from a CSV file into a ridiculously informative network graph. So
you could get your archived data from Twitter, input it into NodeXL,
and create a breathtaking visual representation of your tweets from any
period you like. For a graph junkie like me, this is a very exciting
tool.
5. TWChat.
Better known as a Twitter chat room for tweet chats, TWChat
also provides you with the option of creating a permanent archive for
various hashtags of your choice. Every day, a new archive will be
created that shows you how that tag is being used. This is an amazing
tool if you are looking to monitor your reputation, or even a specific
social campaign.
Using Twitter archives.
Now, there may be numerous ways to use the data; here are just a few ideas:
- Gary Dek of StartABlog123.com uses Twitter for content inspiration.
- Anna
Fox of HireBloggers uses Twitter favorites as a bookmarking tool, so
her archive is her ultimate reading list (she can also share)
- You can use BirdSong exports to identify niche influencers for outreach campaign or customer research.
- You
can also use hashtag archives for keyword research to investigate which
words tend to go in close proximity with the chosen hashtag.
Article curated from Entrepreneur
This past Halloween, I hosted a costume party at my home for 120 of my closest friends. We all had a blast -- we laughed, we drank a lot, some got sick, etc. You know how the story goes.
But in the middle of my party, a friend of mine came over and started telling me about his new startup business. Was it a good business idea? I don’t know, I wasn’t listening. Would I buy whatever it was he was selling? Again, I wasn’t listening and don’t care.
So why do I sound like such a jerk? Because I was at a party, that’s why. Let me drink, crack a few jokes and be obnoxious without you bothering me about your new business. Is that OK, buddy?
Which brings me to the point of this column.
When social-media marketing became a “thing” a few years back, companies got all excited. I know because I was one of them. It was a new way of reaching out to the customer. No longer did I have to wait to send my monthly email to my customers. No longer would I fear that reaching my customers would be costly and time consuming.
I was now able to reach my audience daily -- daily! -- for free. That’s right, I did not have to pay a nickel to post a new Facebook status about our recent GQ placement, tweet out a new sale or post a picture of our new products on Instagram. I could now do it every single day and it was free. Marketing had never been easier or less expensive.
Fast forward to 2015.
Because it’s (mostly) free, social-media marketing is now everywhere. It’s in your Facebook feed. It’s on the side of your Facebook feed. It’s in your Twitter feed. It’s promoted in your Twitter feed. It's in your Instagram feed and now promoted Instagram photos.
Sheesh, I’m exhausted just listing them all. Now, imagine how the customers feel.
Here we are, at least five years into social-media marketing, and the results are still inconclusive as to whether companies make any money off this stuff. With advertisers so heavily invested in social-media marketing now -- through hiring, promoted posts, endless time -- they continue to try to break the code on maximizing their return on investment for their social-media efforts. To date, these efforts still aren’t working.
Why? Let’s go back to my Halloween party.
I’m hanging out with my friends. A little buzzed. Having fun. And then someone came over to me and wanted to talk business with me. He didn’t give me a hard sell. It wasn’t even a lengthy conversation. But still, I wasn’t in the mood to be sold to. I was talking to friends.
And that’s how I feel when I am on Facebook or Instagram, and to a lesser extent, Twitter.
I am hanging out online. Talking. Socializing. Not looking to be interrupted. Not looking to be sold to. And yet, that’s all these brands want to do. Interrupt my time with my friends. I’m tired of it.
Most brands, because of its low (or no) cost, market on social media daily. Which means we are not only bothered when we want to be left alone, but we are bothered multiple times a day.
That’s why I conclude that we are about to face a social-media burnout unless some industry-wide change is made.
Social media, at its best, is a brand enhancer. It is a new “two-way” communication tool between brand and customer. “Two-way” meaning the customer can initiate dialogue with the company (traditional customer service/engagement) or the company can initiate dialogue with the customer.
But that’s all it is. Social media is not a new sales channel, and it is time for companies to stop treating it like one.
I may not be a millennial, but I sense a change in the air. The constant noise of advertising (yes, social-media marketing is advertising despite its "marketing" name) is causing people to tune out the marketing messages. Some do it is consciously (unfollowing a company) and some do it subconsciously (scrolling quickly past the message). Social-media marketing, in my uncalculated/speculative opinion, is becoming like print advertising in newspapers -- we all just look right past it.
No, I am not calling for the death of social-media marketing. It will be around for the near future, for sure. But I do think we are nearing an era of customer apathy and it’s time for some kind of a reinvention by the industry.
Article curated from Entrepreneur
As social media continues to evolve in marketing, brands are constantly feeling the pressure to be more social on all platforms. But which platform is right for you?
Someone once told me this, and now I pass it along to my clients: Think about online audience in three ways. Facebook is for the people you know, LinkedIn is for the people you need to know, and Twitter is for the people you want to know. With about 232 million "monthly active users," Twitter is an insanely popular micro-blogging platform with an incredible reach of people you may want to know.
Here are a few tips on how to increase your Twitter followers and keep your platform alive!
1. Work on your social media voice.
Your brand should have a personality and voice on social media. There is a good chance that your brand is being discussed, hopefully in a good way, online. Every platform has a different audience, so identify that audience and cater your voice and message to them. Try and be a part of real-time conversation.
If you want to hire someone to converse on your behalf, make sure they are familiar with your brand's message. Hiring an intern to save money is probably not a good idea. It could backfire. While the tone may change depending on the platform, your brand's message and authenticity should be intact.
2. Make it easy for your audience to find you.
There is no question that people are moving quickly -- reading articles and watching videos on their mobile devices while on the run. With this in mind, make it easy for them to share your information. Place share buttons on your company website pages, your blog posts, on your other social platforms and in your email signature. Put the buttons in a place where they are easily accessible.
3. Be proactive.
A good way to increase your followers is to follow people you know by importing your email contacts to Twitter. Make sure that this list is updated with all your recent email contacts and your LinkedIn connections, as well. Once you are following them, you will be surprised at the number of followers you will get!
4. Tweet often and increase numbers.
According to a study by Mashable.com, it takes about 10,000 tweets, on average, to break into the 1,000 followers mark. Without compromising the quality of content, make sure you remain a consistent and prolific presence. Even better, join real-time conversations by setting your Twitter time to the peak time your audience is online.
Tap into the moments that matter and that people can relate to and can create a conversation. Your brand may benefit from shared discussions about cultural events, sports, pop culture, news events, etc. Stay grounded in popular demand and trending topics. This can only contribute positively to your social presence.
Be careful and conscious of participating in controversial topics that may put your brand in a spotlight you might not be interested in.
5. Use compatible hashtags.
Your industry has hashtags that are already being used. Join the conversation with relevant content and use them, as well. #ThrowbackThursday, #ShopSmall, #Entrepreneurs are a few good ones. Also, expand your reach by following prominent names in your field, sharing posts or articles, and including them on the tweet along with the hashtag.
Remember, tweets are not just bits of conversation. In mass, they have the power to affect your business. The sooner you join that online conversation, the better!
Article curated from Entrepreneur
Current research shows that 40 percent of consumers buy more from retailers who personalize their shopping experience across channels. Additionally, nearly three in four, or 74 percent, of online consumers get frustrated with websites when the content that’s displayed has nothing to do with their interests. It is clear that a personalized website is an advantage to every marketer or entrepreneur leading a successful business today.
Website personalization takes into account that users have different motivations, devices, locations and time constraints. With current technology, marketers can now gather specific information about what a website visitor is searching for and translate their visit into a higher conversion.
“Organizations spend tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars, and sometimes even millions of dollars, to create robust dynamic web experiences,” explained Itai Sadan, CEO and co-founder of mobile website creation platform DudaMobile. The company recently rolled out inSite that adds dynamic web content based on customer behavior to create personalized viewing experiences.
“Expensive tools and this type of personalization traditionally requires substantial web development and design, which is why we’re excited about bringing affordability to this exploding industry,” Sadan said.
Website personalization on a mass scale is indeed possible with the increasing number of low-cost options available to business owners today. Here are five ways business owners can begin to increase conversion through basic website personalization:
1. Visitor frequency should determine different user experiences. A visitor to a website for the first time will almost always be looking for different information than someone visiting the site repeatedly.
David Reischer, marketing officer at LegalAdvice.com, suggests tracking each user differently to give different user experiences. “We utilize a cookie to track a returning visitor so that we can direct them to the most appropriate and relevant page. This makes site navigation easier for repeat users.”
To increase conversion of first-time visitors include a phone number or business address, a contact form to capture leads, or a video tutorial to explain a product or service to a first time visitor.
“For frequent visitors, add a spot to sign up for a mailing list or add information about new products or services,” suggests Sadan.
2. Geo-location helps bring together online and offline marketing. The ability to know where someone is at the time they visit a website is game-changing for marketers.
“Online we can follow our customer’s individual buying journey, optimizing it every step of the way,” explains Bart Heilbron, CEO and co-founder of BlueConic, the real-time system of online customer engagement. “However, we were never able to use these insights in our offline interaction. With geo-location, we are now able to.”
If someone is only blocks away from a business and searching on a mobile phone, chances are they can be easily converted as a customer if they see an address and even a coupon that says, “Come in today and get 20% off.” For restaurants, an OpenTable button to reserve a table, or a Google Map app that provides step-by-step directions to the store location are critical for conversion.
3. Adjust content based on certain times. Changing the content on a website based on the time of day, week or even season can increase conversions as well. Consider replacing a phone number available to website visitors during business hours with a contact form when the business is closed. This will avoid missing out on potential customers who want to get in contact outside of business hours.
“The ability to offer different products over the course of a day based on targeted trends, habits or culture will increase conversions,” said CEO of internet marketing company WebiMax, Ken Wisnefski. “For example, a restaurant offers a different menu throughout the day as they switch from lunch to dinner.”
4. Recognize holidays and other special events. This is a great way to personalize a website and better connect with a customer’s sentiment. Change the theme to hearts during Valentine’s Day or add an image of fireworks during the 4th of July.
“This could have a positive effect on customer engagement, and in turn conversion,” said Sadan.
5. Capture the visitor source to adapt content. Knowing the original destination source that a visitor has entered a website from should greatly impact the content on the landing page that they see first. This can provide a seamless and consistent experience to the visitor.
According to Sadan, “Visitors that come to your site from an email marketing campaign or as a referral from another site should receive dedicated messaging that is aligned with the messaging they saw in the email or the referring site. Offering a coupon at this point could also be a good idea.”
Article curated from Entrepreneur Magazine
It seems these days like everyone has an opinion. And thanks to digital tools, they have countless ways of sharing them. For business owners, this means that word of mouth, both positive and negative, can spread across social media and the Internet, coloring a particular brand or business in an instant. It’s something every business owner should watch carefully and these tricks, tips and tactics will make managing the positive, negative and useless reviews that much easier.
1. Make it a priority. While larger businesses can afford to hire a team to watch online reviews and reactions 24/7, new business owners need take matters into the their own hands. Create a schedule that’s consistent, but manageable, say our experts. This might be daily or weekly depending on the volume of reviews and mentions you receive.
Just make sure you have some plan in place. Says Jayson DeMers, founder and CEO of AudienceBloom, "The biggest mistake is simply failing to monitor reviews in the first place," he says.
2. Know your tools. Marketing consultant Brian Honigman highly recommends digital tool Mention which alerts you to all of your recent mentions across platforms like Twitter and Facebook as well as the web. "It allows you to react quickly and take feedback into consideration and point your team on the right course of action and continue to analyze this data and react from there," Honigman says.
Tools such as Google Alerts and Talkwalker can also help you track web mentions, notifying you whenever select keywords related to your organization are used online. Honigman likes to use Talkwalker to keep on eye on the competition. "If you want to do research on one of your competitors, you can enter keywords relevant to them and see where they're popping up on the web," he says.
For more specific needs, Siu recommends Hootsuite to monitor Twitter and Newsle to keep an eye on major news publications. Since you're most likely a team of one, automate your processes as much as possible. For this, Siu suggests Zapier, a service which ties various disparate tools together, helping to eliminate extra steps and platforms to check.
3. Engage carefully. Should a negative comment emerge, find a way to turn it into a positive. "It's really important to respond to the negative stuff as a sympathetic, real human," Honigman says. "Say, 'I'm sorry you're upset, how can we fix this’?"
DeMers concurs, saying that a particularly negative review can do massive damage to your brand if left unchecked. "Negative reviews can spread like wild fire on the internet," he says. He suggests you reach out with the aim to win that customer back. "[A big mistake] is to ignore negative reviews or respond defensively or insultingly to them," he adds.
Although negative feedback should require the bulk of your attention, don't be afraid to respond to positive word of mouth. "It's fine to ignore positive reviews, but it's even better to replay them with a sincere thank you," DeMers says. Honigman suggests personally reaching out to blogs or sites who write personal reviews and form a relationship. Networking like this opens you up to not only potential business opportunities, but better SEO practices as you share each other's work.
"Let it be known that you're grateful for the time that person or organization took for bringing your business a little visibility," Honigman says.
But most importantly, make sure you know how to separate actual negative criticism from online noise. Use common sense to discern if you're just being "trolled" or are simply dealing with an irrational person. "If it is unconstructive, rude, abusive or just someone talking for the sake of talking, use your better judgment," Honigman says. In this case, attempting to please someone who won't be pleased can make you look desperate and damage a young brand. It's better to move forward.
4. Keep your focus. Although it's vital to monitor reviews and respond as professionally as possible, Siu says that business owners in their early stages shouldn't let online reviews distract them from the real work of running their business. Says Siu, "You have much bigger fish to fry, like bringing in new revenue. You need to be focused on growth." And by concentrating on quality customer service, you’ll prevent many negative reviews before they occur.
Article curated from Entrepreneur Magazine
We all do it – routinely sort through search results by customer star ratings and scroll through buyer feedback before making a final shopping decision.
It’s no secret the way consumers make decisions has dramatically changed from over the last decade. We stand in stores, use our smartphones to compare prices and product reviews. Family and friends instantly weigh in via social media. When we are ready to buy, an ever-growing list of online retailers deliver products directly to our homes, sometimes even on the same day.
With the advent of social media and constant updates, image sharing and online peer recommendations, it’s unsurprising that 61 percent of customers read online reviews before making a purchase decision, according to recent surveys. After all, reviews provide a first stop for any potential customer to understand a product from a consumer point of view, delivering honest and impartial insight from peers.
With reviews already such an important part of the buying process, it’s easy to see how reliance on them will only increase in the future. According to Nielsen’s latest Global Trust in Advertising report, online consumer reviews are already the second most trusted source of brand information and messaging, with 70 percent of global consumers indicating they trust online reviews, an increase of 15 percent in four years.
Some industry observers predict that retail will change more in the next five years than it has over the past century, and that the extinction of brick-and-mortar stores isn’t far off. While the shift may be a bit less dramatic than predictions claim, big changes are definitely inevitable. Retailers must act now to win in the long term.
For example, over the next few years, we can expect to see the anonymity of reviews fade away and instead become linked to shoppers’ real identities on Facebook, Twitter or other social integration. This will be beneficial for both retailers and consumers. It add a layer of credibility, rather than allowing chronic complainers to hide behind anonymous usernames,and provide an interactive connection through which merchants can engage with valuable customers.
So, how can merchants evolve moving forward to support the ever-growing demand for reviews and efficiently manage the process? The following are several predictions we think retailers will need to fully understand in order to be prepared for evolving consumer buying.
1) All reviews will eventually be linked to social networks. The era of anonymous reviews is quickly coming to a close. In the future, anonymous reviews will be obsolete. While it's pretty uncommon now, in the future consumers will only value reviews they can tell are from real, trustworthy shoppers. They'll be able to check on their validity by clicking through to the reviewer's social profiles.
2) Shoppers will turn to their friends’ reviews first. Because reviews will be easily visible on social networks, shoppers will first turn to their friends to read their reviews before checking reviews from complete strangers. Think about it: You know your friend, Sarah, is an avid photographer who knows a lot about cameras. You will check out her reviews before you visit the product page.
3) Reviews will be aggregated by reviewer. In other words, you'll be able to click on your friend Sarah’s profile and see that she's a 32-year-old mom, lives in Chicago and considers herself an amateur photographer. Then, you'll be able to see all of the reviews Sarah has written online, no matter the store, site or service.
4) Reviews will be personalized. Because both the reviewer and the review-reader's information will be available online, reviews of the future will be personally tailored to each reader. The same way Google Ads and Facebook ads are already delivered to us based on what Google and Facebook know about our preferences, reviews in the future will pop up based on a similar approach. Reviews from people with similar interests will show up.
5) All formats will become compatible. Currently, depending on where you are writing reviews, there are numerous formats and kinds of information required. For example, some websites allow for video reviews, while some only look for a star rating. In the future, websites will continue to ‘get smarter’ about extracting the most important information from any type of customer review, so shoppers can get a true "snapshot." This will become especially important as websites accumulate more and more reviews. Shoppers don’t want to sit and read through 2,000 reviews.
As the value of reviews becomes more prevalent, merchants must take a more active role in the review process. Right now, only about 13 percent of small-business owners actively invest in online reviews. That must change quickly to keep pace with consumer demand. Not only will merchants need to make a more concerted effort to solicit reviews, but also respond to both negative and positive reviews, perhaps even offering rewards to reviewers who offer valuable insight into their buying or product use experience.
As marketers and business owners, it is sometimes difficult to step out of the role as budget manager and chief efficiency officer. As a result, anything that looks like added time investment may automatically be deemed impossible, especially when so many managers are already overworked and overextended. However, moving forward, it’s critical for retailers to look at customer reviews from the perspective of the consumer. Keeping pace with expectations in providing customer reviews is going to be absolutely essential to survival in the modern e-commerce era.
Chances are that you rely heavily on reviews in making your own purchase decisions. Why wouldn’t you expect your customers to do the same?
Article curated from Entrepreneur
