Twitter Takes Page From Facebook, Adds Photo Tagging

 

Heads up, Twitter users. Your photos are about to get a lot more social-friendly.

The micro-blogging service this week updated its iPhone and Android apps to enable photo tagging. This means you can now identify the people in photos you post to the site, without eating away at the character count in your tweet.

"Tagging people in a picture makes conversations around photos fun and easy," Twitter software engineer César Puerta wrote in a blog post Wednesday. "And tagging doesn't affect character count in the tweet — you can tag up to 10 people in a photo and still have all 140 characters at your disposal, making it easier to connect with your friends."



To tag someone, all you need to do is click "Who's in this photo?" after you add your image, then type the person's full name or @username, and tap Done. When someone else tags you in a photo, you'll receive a notification.

If you're worried that the addition of photo tagging will lead to a whole mess of unflattering images of you winding up online, don't fret. You can adjust who can tag you from the Settings menu.

Meanwhile on the photo front, you can also now share up to four images in a single tweet, instead of just one at a time. When you share multiple images, Twitter will automatically create a mini-collage. You can tap on one of the thumbnails to see the full image, then slide through all the photos in the group.

The ability to upload multiple photos is starting to roll out today on iPhone, and will arrive on Android and Twitter.com soon, though you can view tweets with several photos regardless of the platform you're on.

To get these new features, grab the latest version of the Twitter app from the App Store or Google Play.

Tagging, of course, takes a page from Facebook, which has also adopted a number of Twitter features, from mentions to hashtags.

Article curated from PC Magazine

How to Get More Visitors to Click, Buy or Promote on Your Site

If you’re wondering whether your website is good enough, I’ll give you the answer: No, it’s not.

How can I be so sure? Because every website can be improved. There is no website in existence where 100 percent of the visitors take the precise action the website owner wants. Which means there’s always room for improvement.

This leads to the next logical question of how to improve your website. To answer this, start by figuring out the primary goal of your page. Is it to generate online sales, get prospects to complete a form, encourage visitors to call you or get folks to click to promote your site on social media?

Once you understand your goal, work backwards. That is, think about the path through which visitors must travel to achieve this goal. For example, if you sell one product on your website, the desired path for visitors to take might be to visit your homepage, click your product sales page to learn more about your offering, click the order button to get to your order form, then complete the order form to arrive at your thank you page.

This path is known as your conversion funnel, and the key to success is to improve or optimize every piece of the funnel. For example, let’s assume that on your website 30 percent of visitors to your homepage then go to your product sales page. Twenty percent of those visitors proceed to your order form. Finally, 40 percent of the remaining visitors complete the order and arrive on your thank you page. In this case, 2.4 percent of all visitors completed the funnel, also known as a 2.4 percent conversion rate.

The key to improving your conversion rate, and the success of your website, is to improve each page in your conversion funnel. In fact, if you increased the conversion rate of each page in your funnel by 10 percent, then your overall conversion rate grows a whopping 33 percent.

Unfortunately, most entrepreneurs and business owners fail to measure their website’s conversion rates. Even when they do, most inevitably only look at their overall conversion rate. Rather, the key is to assess the conversion rate of each page in your funnel. Then improve those pages and see exponential increases in your overall conversion rates.

How do you increase the conversion rate of each page? There are many factors to consider and ideas to try, from changing your choice of text, modifying text size and/or font choice, adding new images, modifying your layout and changing the background color of your page.

Importantly, track the conversion rate of each of your pages both daily and monthly. On a daily basis, your rates might fluctuate quite a bit due to small sample sizes. When viewing your results on a daily basis, make sure there are no dramatic conversion drops which are often caused by a page, image or video not loading. And importantly, make sure your pages are improving daily. On a monthly basis, see how your pages are performing and spot which ones are decreasing in effectiveness and thus need to be improved.

In summary, it’s the individual pages in your website’s conversion funnel that determine whether your website performs well or not. Fortunately, if you monitor and improve these pages, you will convert significantly more website visitors into leads and clients, and gain significant competitive advantage.

Article curated from Entrepeneur
Image credit: Shutterstock

How to Use Twitter to Get New Customers

Cultivate New Customers With Twitter: 4 Tips

Potential customers' Twitter profiles are full of clues that will help you figure out how to sell to them. Here's what to look for.  

 

Most companies (and individuals) tend to think of Twitter as a way to push information. 
However, it's also possible to use Twitter as a sales tool, rather than a marketing tool.
Unlike LinkedIn, Twitter isn't really set up to create lists of leads or potential customers. 

Where Twitter is useful is after you've already identified an individual to whom you want to sell.

Here's what you can learn from examining a potential customer's Twitter profile:

1. What the potential customer tends to focus upon.

A person's tweets, retweets, and favorites provide a running commentary on what the tweeter believes to be important enough or interesting enough to share.

When you look down that list, you are walking backward through the tweeter's days, weeks, and months.  You're getting snapshots of the tweeter's personality.

For example, from looking at Guy Kawasaki's most recent tweet (I wrote this at around noon Eastern on Feb. 20), I now know that he likes unusual desserts.

That type of personal information can obviously be very useful in sales situations. If I had a meeting with Guy, for instance, I might suggest that we meet at boutique dessert spot, or, if the meeting were at my office, have such a dessert catered in.

2. Who the potential customer finds interesting.

The list of people whom the tweeter is following is a map of how the tweeter perceives the world. People listen follow individuals and companies whom they want on their radar.

For example, right now, in another window, I'm looking at the "following" list of a fairly famous executive. Based on the profile portraits, the list seems have a greater than random selection of young, attractive women.

Under the circumstances, I think it's fair to say that the executive in question tends to be a visual thinker. Therefore, if I were selling to him, I would be certain to use strong visual cues in any conversation or presentation.

More prosaically, there are a number of companies on his list that fall into the "vendor" category in his industry. That's also useful to know, especially if I sense that I'm getting into a competitive situation.

3. Your potential customer's likely customers.

A tweeter's list of followers generally consists of people to whom the tweeter sells or would like to sell.  At the very least, they're the people to whom the tweeter is "selling" their tweets, a fact that presumably reflects the tweeter's business model.

For example, right now I'm looking at a small company CEO with about 500 followers. By simply scanning her list, I can see the companies and individuals to whom she is either selling or intending to sell.

And that would be really useful information if I were intending to sell to her, because, as a general rule, when you understand your potential customer's customers, you're more likely to position your offering in a meaningful way.

4. The inside track with the potential customer.

As everyone knows, it's much easier to develop a new customer when you've got a personal introduction or recommendation from somebody who knows you (i.e. a referral).
So, suppose you discover a colleague or a current customer of yours among either the potential customer's followers or people whom the customer is following.

Bingo!  You now have the inside track, according to SEO consultant Kumail Hemani, who suggests the following:

Send them an email and tell them you have a satisfied customer that their company is following on Twitter. Further explain how long they have been your customer, what you did for them, and what that customer says about you. This "bandwagon effect" establishes trust and helps your potential customer relate to your services.

I might add that this method is even more effective if you have your customer or colleague do the emailing for you.

What's more, if you do decide to send that email yourself, you can use what you've learned in the previous three steps to craft an email that's more likely to get a response.

Article curated from Inc. Magazine

Keep Your Subject Lines Brief

I understand, I truly do, the impulse one has after creating a piece of content–an article in my case–to write a lengthy headline that expresses its every twist and turn and nuance.

When I give into that impulse it usually garners a sharp little note from a copy-editor or, if the title gets past her, fewer page views than I had anticipated.

For marketers, the consequences can be equally dire, along with an irate client disappointed over a poorly-performing campaign to boot.

Increasingly, digital content is being viewed on mobile devices—some 35% of all email is now opened on one. We all know this, yet for some reason online content often fails to be packaged as though 35% of its recipients will open the email on a mobile device.

Research from Retention Science set to be released next week drives home this point. After analyzing more than 260 million emails across 540 email-marketing campaigns, it found that subject lines of 6-10 words perform best, generating a 21% open rate, which is above industry standard. Emails with subject lines containing five or fewer words ranked second with a 16% open rate, while those with 11–15 words returned a minimal 14% open rate.

Despite this, the majority of emails sent (52%) had subject lines in the 11-15 word range, the company found.

What is truly astounding is that, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau, media agencies are diverting on average 15% of digital spend towards mobile. Yet many brands don’t seem to have the basics down to be competitive in this channel.

Marketers have a short window to get their mobile strategies straight because fairly soon crafting a short subject line will be the least of their worries. Trends tend to emerge in this space quickly and mercilessly. One to watch–pun intended–is the wearable tech space. This category is on the watch list (ditto) of just about every IT consulting firm. Gadgets include watches, fitness bands and smart glass, namely Google Glass.

Google, of course, has said on numerous occasions it doesn’t plan to offer paid advertising opportunities on Google Glass. But what to make of a patent it filed last year for a “pay-per-gaze” cost model? A cynic might be inclined to think that Google does intends to monetize the technology at some point.

Here is how the filing described the “head-mounted gaze tracking device” and how it would work (via Wired Magazine).

…the technology would transmit both images and the direction of a person’s gaze to a server for analysis, and that advertisers could be charged a fee based on whether a person looks directly at the ad in the real world with a premium for ads that hold a users attention longer.

Marketers, the learning curve is getting shorter and shorter as new tech emerges. Let your subject lines follow suit.

Article curated from Forbes

The Key to Making Your LinkedIn Profile Really Sing

Want to be found by more clients and customers? Add this. 

LinkedIn is the most effective social media platform for professional and business purposes. 

One reason for its popularity is that getting found by people on LinkedIn is really easy. Getting found by and connecting with the right people is a lot harder, especially if you only apply website- and resume-building strategies to creating your personal and business LinkedIn profiles.

For example, the Google AdWords Keyword Tool is a great way to find out how many people search for various keywords. Lots of people use it or similar tools to create their LinkedIn profiles. All you have to do is perform a little keyword research and pack your profile with search-friendly terms so potential connections and clients can find you.

Fine. But tons of people use the same approach to determine how to describe themselves and their businesses. That means every recruiter, for example, shoehorns six-figure searches per month keywords like "staffing," "recruiting," "hiring," "jobs," "staffing agency," etc. into their profiles.

And by doing everything "right," they get lost in all the keyword noise.

What can you do to stand out and help the right connections find you?

•     Use popular keywords to build the backbone of your profile for a general audience.

•     Include specific, highly targeted keywords to stand out for a specific audience.

Here's an example. I worked in book manufacturing and have significant (another way of saying I'm old) experience in productivity, quality, and efficiency improvement. Pretend I want to build a consulting business around those skills and I want my LinkedIn profile to help book manufacturers find me.

Using the Google keyword tool approach, I should definitely include keywords like process improvement, productivity, efficiency, and quality. I should also include keywords like Six Sigma, 5S, TQM... commonly searched for processes and programs that I can deliver.

The problem is, those keywords don't help me stand out from all the other efficiency experts. Some potential clients will find me, and that's great, but many I'm sure to miss. And, again, I won't stand out. I'll be like every other process improvement consultant.

So now I'll go deeper. Now I'll identify keywords specific to the book manufacturing industry. Here are a few categories I'll mine:

Industry processes.

Conventional wisdom says including industry-specific and esoteric jargon on websites and promotional literature is a mistake. In this case the rule doesn't apply, especially if you hope to connect with B2B customers.

For example, in book manufacturing the word "makeready" is used to refer to a job changeover. No one in the industry searches for "changeover reduction," but "makeready reduction" is perfect. I could go farther and also include "zero makeready," since some printing and binding equipment is described that way (whether accurately or not.)

Think about specific processes in your field and include a few key examples in your profile.

Industry terms.

Books eventually have pages, but before book blocks get trimmed those pages are called signatures or "sigs." Cases, jackets, super, headbands... all are terms specific to book manufacturing.

In the B2B world this is especially important; if I'm in the environmental cleanup business, "brownfields" means something even though the average consumer would never consider using it as a search term.

Equipment names.

Are you familiar with manufacturers like Kolbus, Mueller-Martini, or Timsons? You probably aren't, unless you're in the book business.

Include industry-specific equipment in your profile to not only create long-tail keyword possibilities but also to reinforce your expert status.

Company names.

Shameless name-dropping is one thing, highlighting experience with industry-leading companies is another. I worked for R.R. Donnelley, so including the company in my profile not only makes it more searchable, it also serves as a credibility-enhancer and a potential, "Hey, I worked for RRD too," bridge builder.

Consider including names of companies you've worked for, done business with, provided products or services to... both to highlight your experience and accomplishments and to provide additional search fodder.

Remember: the key is to build your profile in two stages. First focus on a general audience. By all means use Google keyword tool-friendly search terms so you cast a wide net.

Then go deeper. Consider your specific skills and experience. Think niche. Think targeted. Include some keywords industry insiders might use when searching LinkedIn profiles.

While some of your niche keywords may only attract a few potential customers every month, those who do find you that way are much more likely to become great connections.

Article curated from Inc. Magazine

 

6 Tips For Using Social Media to Boost Sales

It's vital to take advantage of LinkedIn and Twitter to connect with prospective customers and stay on the radar of previous ones. 

Whether you're a sales manager or sales rep, chances are you've heard of social selling. At first glance the trendy phrase is intuitive--selling via social media channels. But while the definition might be straightforward, understanding how to effectively use social media to generate leads and make sales is a much more crafted, considered process.

As a business's operations and overall presence become more digital in nature, so do sales activities. More of the sales process happens online versus in person than ever before. This transition isn't exactly replacing the art of making things happen, though. Selling is still about relationships and knowing how to influence and persuade people to action. Social media is just a new frontier where salespeople can foster and activate those relationships.

By now sales reps should know the first step to social selling is to create quality profile pages, especially on LinkedIn and Twitter. Make connections to establish a strong network. Partake in the digital conversation. But these are only introductory steps at best. Below are a few tips to help you go well beyond that level.

1. Make initial connections on LinkedIn

What's the key to sales and networking, regardless of whether or not you're online? Making strong connections. Beef up your LinkedIn connections as much as you can on your own, but don't be afraid to ask a colleague (or old coworker, boss, friend, even uncle!) to make an introduction on your behalf to a prospect you're trying to connect with online. As long as the introduction is genuine and personable--not overtly promotional--it actually works.

It's also important to note that LinkedIn is not only great for making those connections, but setting up first touch points. For example, if you're having a difficult time reaching a prospect over the phone, simply view their LinkedIn profile. Our sales reps have great success with this tactic, as the LinkedIn page visit alert gets the sales rep's name on the prospect's radar and increases the likelihood of a returned call. Of course, a short message and/or connection request can also work well in cases where you're looking for something stronger than a page view.

2. Find shared interests and backgrounds

Before you begin pitching people over LinkedIn, or even communicating via Twitter, take the time to do your homework. Did you go to the same college, grow up in the same area, or know some people in common? Look for similarities that could open a relevant conversation that's unrelated to your business. Find meaningful information on your prospect that might establish a personal connection. Then begin your outreach online by citing that shared interest or background.

If you don't have a shared connection, you can also just leverage any information that the prospect is likely to be passionate about. For example, it's almost time for March Madness, and most people who went to large universities have great pride in their alma mater. Find out if any of your prospects attended one of the schools in this year's NCAA Tournament, and open your introductory pitch with a line about the upcoming games.

3. Audit your LinkedIn appearance

Most people on LinkedIn display profile pages indicating they're looking for employment. Create a profile instead that cements your expertise. Let contacts identify your online presence as belonging to a thought leader, not a job seeker.

4. Become part of ongoing Twitter conversations

On Twitter, make sure you're able to keep up with discussions and respond to industry-related posts in real time. Don't publish tweets solely featuring your own thoughts, either. Have conversations, and retweet regularly. For every tweet you publish, there should be at least three tweets that come from other sources, such as those mentioning or linking to trending articles, good quotes, or interesting statistics. Communicate with prospects and clients, comment on hot topics, or even share some of your sales team's fun personality with more casual posts.

5. Don't limit social selling to prospecting

At its core, social selling certainly helps sales reps identify and pitch new leads, but social media channels can impact sales throughout the entire process. For example, say a contact has started to fade or become increasingly less responsive. Retweet them, or comment on one of their LinkedIn posts to get back on their radar. Social media channels offer another touch point between sales reps and those key decision-makers.

6. Automate social media monitoring in sales, too

It's a misconception to think that monitoring social media chatter is a function only for marketing departments. Sales reps should always monitor social media streams around their contacts to track conversations and engage accordingly. This can be helpful for staying in touch with prospects and staying in the loop on what's happening in client organizations.
Social selling isn't a replacement to the traditional sales process; it's a complement. By leveraging social media channels optimally, sales reps can foster more relationships and close a lot more deals.

Article curated from Inc. Magazine

What Is A Blog And Why Should Small Business Care?

At this point in The Age of the Customer, many people would think that defining a blog is an elementary task tantamount to explaining the wheel. But here in the real world, where Main Street small businesses live, some folks actually still have un-Tweeted thoughts. Consequently, since a blog for most small businesses is at once a powerful yet under-used customer connection tool, perhaps a little background and illumination would be beneficial.

Describing his online journaling, early Internet adopter Jorn Barger first coined the term “weblog” in 1997. As the practice became more widespread, the inevitable contraction, “blog,” made speaking about it handier and spawned at least two more new terms, “to blog” and “blogging.”

As blogging grew, innovators hastened to create new tools to make it easier to record and distribute ideas in the emerging—wait for it—blogosphere. Today blog readers can receive new posts over multiple platforms, plus begin commenting threads with the blogger and other recipients who have a point of view or question about the topic of the blog post.

Back to that “powerful but under-used” thing: Small business owners must appreciate the power of these three facts:

1.    Small business owners are experts on what they sell, how it’s used, the industry, etc.
2.     Customers want access to what experts know.
3.     Increasingly, customers expect a closer connection to experts.

Alas, even though blogs deliver all of this, we still hear two whiney blogging excuses:

Excuse 1: “I’m not a good writer.”

Truth: Research shows customers prefer the thoughts and benefit from the experience and wisdom of the non-professional writer they know—that’s you—than those of a smart alec wordsmith like me.

Excuse 2: “Don’t have time.”

Truth: Once your blog platform is set up (you won’t believe how easy it is), new posts and responding to customer comments takes minutes a week. Remember, a blog post doesn’t have to be an article.

Practically speaking, a blog can be better than a website because your posts can be added more easily, making your expertise more compelling. And here’s the blogging goose’s golden egg: Blogging about what you know delivers your authentic expertise, which helps you build online communities where you connect with current and future customers in a way that’s increasingly more relevant to them than your website.

Don’t worry; you still need your beautiful website.

Write this on a rock … Start your blog this week and let the relevance begin.



Article curated from Forbes

Have a Blog? LinkedIn Wants Your Copy.

 

Technology is transforming how modern entrepreneurs stay connected to their business, their team and their industry. In this series, learn more about the cutting edge tools and thinking allowing innovators to stay ahead of the trends.

If you're a regular on LinkedIn then you've almost certainly noticed how the site curates news from around the web and publishes blog posts by its select group of "Influencers." All that content is just the tip of the iceberg, LinkedIn says. Today, the site is opening up its publishing platform to its 277 million members.

That's, um, a lot of potential writers.

But what's the incentive for a business owner or an individual to share his or her blog posts and articles with LinkedIn instead of publishing only to his or her own website? One word: exposure.

"When a member publishes a post on LinkedIn, their original content becomes part of their professional profile, is shared with their trusted network and has the ability to reach the largest group of professionals ever assembled," LinkedIn product management director Ryan Roslansky  says in a post announcing the news.

In addition to written articles, members can share photos, images, videos and their original presentations via SlideShare, which LinkedIn acquired in May 2012.

LinkedIn launched the Influencer network the following October, allowing a select group of thought leaders in business to write posts and LinkedIn members to follow them. Among the influencers are serial entrepreneur Richard Branson, U.S. President Barack Obama, Bill Gates and Martha Stewart.

As of now, 25,000 members will have the ability to publish content on LinkedIn, the company says. LinkedIn will be expanding that capability to all members "over the next few weeks and months to come."

Curated from Entrepreneur Magazine