Following quality people on Twitter is just as important as having quality people follow back. And always remember, just like anything else in life, you get out of it what you put into it. Don’t set up the profile, follow 100 people and wait to get followed back. Probably not gonna happen.

Who NOT To Follow

Don’t follow someone who hasn’t tweeted in several months. The chances are they’re not very active and won’t be of interest to you. If you’re so inclined, go ahead and follow. But, check back after awhile and if they haven’t followed back or tweeted…un-follow them.

Also, before you follow someone, check their tweets. Are they actually engaging people on Twitter, or are they just pushing out information? If there’s no conversation, they probably won’t be interested in you…even if they do follow back. They don’t get it. They’re not communicating with their audience. Many times these people have linked their Facebook posts to Twitter, so they’re not technically “on Twitter.” Traditional media is notorious for this.

Every newspaper, radio and TV station tweets about EVERY robbery, car accident, arrest, stabbing, etc. and it drives me nuts. This is not what most people want to see when they come to Twitter.

Quality or Quantity?

My suggestion is go after a quality audience, but also work hard to grow the number of followers. The goal is to get the audience as large as possible with quality tweeters. You may have to work harder if you’re only looking for people within a specific geographic region. But, don’t give up. Keep using the search tool and look for your target. They’re out there, but you have to go find them!

1 – Retweet your followers: If one of your followers posts something you think is funny or interesting…retweet it for them. They’ll most likely see that and thank you…exposing your content to more people. Remember, Twitter’s not just about you.

2 – Post articles from other writers: Whatever your passion is…write about it on your blog. But also, post articles from other sources with similar content. This lets your followers know that you’re genuine about your passion and not just looking to push your own message out to them.

3 – Answer questions: Monitor your community and try to answer your followers’ questions. If you don’t know the answer to one…maybe someone else does. Find out and respond. This helps build your reputation and credibility, which can lead to more followers and the likelihood that your posts will get retweeted…hence, extending the reach of your message.

For more information, or to get help with your social media strategy, CONTACT US!

Connect on:

It would be very easy to come up with more than 5 reasons why your business should be utilizing social media.

Here are 5 significant reasons to consider…

1 – Establish yourself as an expert – Blog about your business and share tips and advice to help you stand apart as the expert in your field. Share those blog posts on your Facebook page and Twitter profile and your audience will come to you with questions.

2 – Word of Mouth – Your potential customers are talking to their friends and family about their purchases. If your fans and follwers trust you they’ll tell others…increasing the chances they’ll buy from you.

3 – Build Relationships – The audience you develop through social media will be more loyal and feel more connected to your business. Communicate with them on a personal level and some may become ambassadors or even evangelists for your business.

4 – Increase Website Traffic – Once you develop a sizable audience and begin posting links to products, pages, blog posts, etc. you should see an increase in traffic to your site. Measure the analytics closely and record the metrics on a monthly basis.

5 – Search Engine Optimization – Google indexes content on Facebook pages, Twitter profiles and other social sites. This creates links back to your site, which should increase your search engine rankings and bring you more business!

For more information or to get help with your social media strategy, CONTACT US!

Visit: DicksonInteractive.com

Connect on:

OK…admit it. One of your Facebook friends posts entirely too many times each day and you’ve made the difficult decision to either hide that person’s updates…or de-friend them completely.

Hopefully you just chose to hide them. I will confess…I have done this.

As marketers, that tells us that our “fans” and “members” don’t want to be bombarded every day with 4 or 5 posts and updates from us on Facebook. They want relevant, important and useful information that they can use and pass on to their friends…maybe once a day…depending on the size of your community. 

However, on Twitter…things are different. Twitter is a micro-blog with short, quick bursts of information. Users are accustomed to getting “tweets” from the people they’re following several times a day…if not more.

So, here’s my perspective. As a business or organization, if you link Twitter to Facebook…meaning everything you post on Twitter automatically shows up on Facebook…you could be causing people to “un-fan” your page or leave your group. Remember, your goal is for people within your communities to take your posts and share them with others.

Twitter and Facebook are two separate and very different experiences. While Facebook is a more of a personal engagement, Twitter is more business-like and wide open. You should treat them as such and limit your posts on Facebook, but increase your frequency on Twitter. I hope that makes sense.

Other social media experts (hint: there is no such thing) might disagree with me on this and that’s fine. I’m merely sharing my perspective based on experiences I’ve had developing communities for my clients.

Feel free to contact me with any questions.

Connect on:
   

A business has set up their Twitter account and maybe they’ve followed a few people and posted some tweets…and apparently just quit. Gave up, I guess.

Listen, social marketing is just like anything else. You get out of it what you put into it. You can’t set it up, sit back and wait for some glorious appearing of new potential customers and business. You have to work at it.

I’m so sick of seeing large, well-known, reputable businesses and organizations on Twitter who haven’t posted a tweet since July of 2009. Generally, they have somewhere between 100-200 followers, but they only follow 10 people. I’m sorry, but in my humble opinion, that’s not OK. You have to follow some people back. How else are you truly going to engage and harness the power of Twitter?

Personally, I would rather you just delete the account completely. If you leave Twitter account up and let it go dormant people like me are going to talk about you. If you’re not going to put in the effort, delete it. Another thing…don’t automate all the time. People can tell if you’re just pushing out information. They know you’re not really there.

Also, don’t tell me, “Well, only a small percentage of people are actually listening. Nobody really uses it.” If that’s the case, then why is Twitter consistently in the top 10 referring URL’s in my clients’ site analytics? Take some time and learn how to do it right and you’ll see the difference. The information on “how to” is out there. Do a little digging.

Don’t just give up. Don’t be a quitter on Twitter.

Yup, still sounds corny. But, I feel better.

Need help? contact us for more info.

Connect on:

However, it’s disappointing when I hit the RT and the original tweet is too long. It pains me to have to edit, abbreviate and basically re-write the original tweet in order to re-tweet it.  Remember, you only have 140 characters.

Here’s the thing…if I have to edit or abbreviate your tweet, I’m probably not going to re-tweet it and neither will others.

So, if you condense your message, you’re much more likely to have it re-tweeted by your followers, which should increase your audience even more. In fact, you should really try to get the tweet to around 126 characters. Why not make it as easy as possible to re-tweet? 

Another thing…when you share someone else’s content, always re-tweet or us a “via @username.” Never grag the blog title and URL and post the tweet as your own. Cite the source and give credit where credit is due. It’s not your content.

Feel free to contact me with any questions.

Good luck out there!

Visit: DicksonInteractive.com

Connect on:
   

By: Scott Dickson

When asked if they’re utilizing the power of social media and relationship marketing, many business-owners and CMO’s will reply, “Of course! We have an awesome Facebook page and we’re getting started on Twitter.”

Well, that’s great. But, setting up a Facebook page and linking your posts to a Twitter profile doesn’t mean you’re “on Twitter.” It means you’re doing it wrong.

In my opinion, you’re putting all your eggs in one basket by relying too heavily on Facebook. Don’t get me wrong, Facebook is a huge piece of the puzzle. But, if you’re not executing effectively AND not implementing other social media platforms, you’re missing opportunities to engage your potential audience.

YouTube is the 2nd largest search engine on the planet. If you do a search for your company, will it appear in the search results? Better yet, if you own a restaurant in Charlotte, do you have a video tagged appropriately that shows up in a YouTube search for “restaurants in Charlotte”?

If you’re business to business, you must be on LinkedIn, right? Are you a wedding photographer with pictures saturated and tagged on Flickr? If you’re a movie theater you must be using Foursquare to reward your mayor and other customers checking in. And how about Twitter? Are you engaged? Do you really know what it means to be engaged on Twitter, or are you just pushing out content?

Are you utilizing the power of social bookmarking sites like Digg, Delicious, Reddit, Propeller, Stumbleupon, etc.?  Have you claimed your blog at Technorati? Do you even have a blog? Is your website set up to convert visitors into potential customers?

Is your head spinning?

Chances are pretty good you’ve watched this video ad nauseum. But, it does drive home the point that there are other platforms to pay attention to.

So, yes…Facebook is gigantic and amazing.  You’d be crazy not to work very hard to have a commanding presence there. However, you shouldn’t stop at Facebook.

Take the time and do the research on the other opportunities…or, you can always just contact me!

A shameless plug, no doubt. But, hey…it is my blog.

Connect on: