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What Does a Social Marketing Manager REALLY Do?

Eric_Rudolf — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 17:14:38 +0000

When it comes to Marketing, every decade has had its ‘hot’ careers. During the 1980s, catalog marketing and direct mail houses were the place to be. In the 1990s, web design firms and ad agencies were overloaded with job applicants. And from 2000 to 2009, any career related to Search Engine Optimization (SEO) seemingly turned to gold the minute it was touched. Predictably, as we move through 2010 yet another new marketing career has emerged: the Social Marketing Manager.

Unfortunately, as with all uber-trendy marketing careers that came before it, everyone is claiming some level of ‘expertise’ in social marketing . . . whether or not they actually get paid to do it. And because of this, the level of mis-information about the social marketing career is at an all-time high. But fortunately for me, I happen to know a REAL full-time Social Marketing Manager—one who works for a highly visible, global organization with a good reputation and a great product. Her name is Carrie Yutzy, and she works for LegalZoom.com (@LegalZoom on Twitter, if you’d like to follow them). And the good news is, she has graciously agreed to shed a little light on what being a full-time Social Marketing Manager is really all about.

If you’re interested in becoming a Social Marketing Manager, or looking to hire a full-time social marketer at your organization, I hope this article helps you in some way. And if it does, a Retweet or Facebook share (i.e. “blogger currency”) using the buttons above would be much appreciated.

So . . . Where Do Social Marketers Come From?

Like 80% of marketing people on the planet, Carrie will be the first to admit her college degree did not completely line up with her existing role. That said, her experience prior to social marketing has primarily been in areas where web initiatives and marketing initiatives inevitably collide—in the technical marketing trenches. Prior to her current role at LegalZoom, Carrie spent most of her career ‘bridging the gap’ between techies and marketers, which turned out to be the perfect mix of skills for a Social Marketing role. “My specialty was in strategizing ways to increase traffic and sales, then figuring out what technology or processes best supports those goals,” noted Carrie. “So I learned about a lot of different areas—User Interface, User Experience, SEO, Content Development, Marketing, Copywriting, and so on.” The Reality? Social marketers are not specialists. They are technology-savvy web marketers with a strong background in communication.

What Traits Makes a Great Social Marketer?

When I asked Carrie to give me three mandatory traits of a great Social Marketing Manager, she actually provided four. The first was a love of Marketing (versus the love of a marketing paycheck) and the second was the desire to be social. The third, as Carrie astutely put it, is “the ability to adapt, learn, and take notes—because there’s always a way to do it better.” And the fourth? A great relationship with both spelling and grammar. The Reality? Social marketing, like marketing in general, is about more than being creative, putting things on sale, and choosing colors that look good together.

What Does a Day in the Life of a Social Manager Look Like?

The first thing on Carrie’s list each morning is monitoring of LegalZoom’s social channels . . . or to put it another way, “what people have said to or about our company since last time I checked.” What happens after that varies, but can include developing editorial calendars , brainstorming blog and newsletter content, planning future campaigns, writing ad copy, preparing reports, tracking customer feedback, and agonizing over social campaign performance (and yes, most days it is agonizing). When her day-to-day schedule provides a small window of quiet time, Carrie chooses to spend it thinking about LegalZoom’s overall social strategy, specifically “what we want out of it, how to get there, why things are or aren’t working, what value consumers are expecting from their connections with us, and how those connections drive sales.” The Reality? Full-time social marketers are busy people who do more than just build followers, set up Facebook accounts, and Tweet all day in their pajamas.

What Types of Administrative Tasks Do Social Marketers Handle?

Like any other marketing job, there are a ton of administrative duties a Social Marketing Manager must attend to. One of the most common administrative tasks is reporting, and Carrie generates a ton of them. “We watch the obvious numbers like Fans, Followers, Clicks, Comments, Traffic, and so on,” noted Carrie. “But I’m also constantly monitoring what people are saying about LegalZoom on the web, and get a unique look at how people feel about the brand—including what they think of the set decoration in our commercials.” Each week Carrie also sends out a social media roundup, and includes some of the comments she find floating around the web—both good and bad. Although there is no statistical significance to these comments (since most are one-off remarks) it helps upper management see customers on an individual level, and offers ideas of how LegalZoom can improve the experience and better serve them. The Reality? In the world of social marketing, data and analytics are everything. And becoming a Social Marketing Manager does NOT preclude you from being your own administrative assistant.

What Are the Goals of a Social Marketer?

Although most companies are still trying to figure out what types of revenue goals to assign their social marketing departments, most professional social marketers acknowledge that driving revenue is only one part of the goal. “Corporate social marketing is also about asking the right questions to create valuable conversations and gain insight,” Carrie points out. “It’s giving the brand a voice and a personality. It’s building trust. It’s constantly learning new stuff to stay on top of what’s going on in the field. And it’s being open to suggestion and criticism. Every campaign has different objectives—some are revenue-based, and some are not.” The Reality? Finding new customers and getting them to buy things is a small piece of the social marketing puzzle. Social marketing is also an exercise in branding, customer communication, and market research.

Wrapping it Up

Do we all agree that telling people we get paid to hang out on Facebook and Twitter would be cool? Sure. But the job of a Social Marketing Manager is about much more than reading news, chatting with friends, and uploading funny videos to YouTube. “Social marketers get paid to promote and enhance the company brand,” Carrie points out. “We just use non-traditional channels to get there.” And in the spirit of saving the best for last, I present Carrie’s most valuable piece of advice for aspiring social marketers: “People tend to forget that the social web is never turned off, which can be overwhelming for any marketer. If you don’t truly enjoy it, and have fun doing it, you WILL be miserable.”

Well put, Carrie!

Comments? Questions? Feel free to reply to this post. Otherwise a Retweet, Facebook Share, LinkedIn Share or other type of social share (handy buttons provided) would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

5 Free Twitter Tools for the Busy Small Company Marketer

Eric_Rudolf — Tue, 04 May 2010 15:06:32 +0000

As I have mentioned several times in previous posts, there are few things in business more challenging, more stressful, and more frustrating than being asked to market your company’s products and services on a shoestring budget. Those of us who have carved a career out of small company (and small budget) marketing know the secret to success lies not in the methods we choose, but rather in the effective and creative use of our time. For the small company marketer, the phrase “work smarter, not faster” is not just a cheesy motivational poster—it’s also a pen, a coffee mug, a desk calendar, and a horribly ill-fitting trade show shirt.

With the above in mind, the emergence of social marketing sites like Twitter has opened up an entire realm of new and low-cost marketing channels—channels that (in most cases) cost the small company marketer nothing but their time. Although Twitter is perfectly capable of burning hours of otherwise productive marketing effort, a handful of creative developers have put together some great tools to minimize the time we as marketers spend in our chairs each day. And I am happy to say I could not survive without any of them.

Twitter Tool #1: The “Follow Everyone in a Twitter List” Button (by TweepML)

After performing this function by hand for months when Twitter first released its “Lists” feature, our good friends at TweepML finally gave marketers the opportunity to follow every person in a Twitter List with a single click. Sound easy? It is. The process is frighteningly simple: you paste the name of a Twitter list you wish to follow into a form field (TSCB/smallbiz-tweeters, for example) hit the “Follow” button (wait a few minutes for the list to appear), login with your Twitter account, tell TweepML to follow them for you, then grab some lunch. When you come back, each individual in the targeted Twitter List (up to 500 people) will be in your “Following” group—and hopefully many will have chosen to follow you back as well.

Tool #2: The Friend Flusher (by Buzzom)

For those who have been struggling with Twitter Karma’s painfully slow and often unreliable “Whack Your Followers” feature, there is a new tool in town: the Buzzom Friend Flusher. In fact, unfollowing people on Twitter who refuse to follow you back has never been easier: simply visit the Buzzom home page, click the “Login with Twitter” badge (center-right, near the top) then hit the “Flush” button in the top left-hand corner after logging in. Within seconds, Buzzom will return a list of people you follow who haven’t returned the favor, and you get to choose whether to keep or “flush” each one individually.

Tool #3: The 6-Day Free Trial (by SocialOomph)

Those of you who haven’t tried SocialOomph have surely heard about it for good reason: it’s one of the most feature-rich social marketing tools there is. But did you know SocialOomph offers small company marketers free use of their Professional Edition for almost a week? In addition to a highly configurable Friend Finder and bulk Tweet uploads, SocialOomph specifically caters to overworked marketers with features like drip feeds, URL shortening, parameter tracking, full blog integration, and clickthru analytics. Registering for the Free Trial requires no credit card—and if you set up your Friend Finder right away, your six days of free use will also include 300 new, highly qualified Friends.

Tool #4: The Automatic #FollowFriday Generator (by The Twitter Tag Project)

If I had to rank automated Twitter tools based on how much time they save me each week, Twitter Tag’s automated #FollowFriday generator would be right at the top. By definition, a big part of any social marketing program includes showing appreciation to people who support you. And there is no better way to say “Thanks” on Twitter than by offering a #FollowFriday recommendation. The system takes seconds to use: you simply enter your Twitter user name into a field, and the system returns about 20 properly formatted #FollowFriday shout-outs to your 200 most active followers—minus duplicates, of course. Once the Tweets are generated you can either click a button on the Twitter Tag website to send them immediately, or copy and paste them into a scheduled Tweet-sending system like SocialOomph. Did I mention I LOVE this tool?

Twitter Tool #5: The Time-Waster, Spammer and Bot Finder (by TwitCleaner)

For those of you who truly believe your company only follows the best, brightest, and most valuable Tweeters in the industry, I have a challenge for you: run TwitCleaner on your account. I dare you. TwitCleaner is specifically designed to find and unfollow various Twitter undesirables, and I can say first-hand it does a remarkable job finding all of the bots, spammers, quote-of-the-dayers, serial Retweeters and dead accounts hiding among your follower base. If your company Twitter account follows less than 1,000 people (as most do) TwitCleaner even throws in the cleaning itself for free. But regardless of account size, the comprehensive TwitCleaner Report—automatically sent to you via Twitter Direct Message—is always run at no charge.

Do you use a free automated Twitter tool or applet you would like to promote? Please feel free to comment on this post. Otherwise a Retweet, Facebook Share, LinkedIn Share or other type of social share (handy buttons provided) would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

An Interview with Buzzom CEO Bhupendra Khanal (Part 2)

Eric_Rudolf — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 18:15:19 +0000

Below is Part 2 of a recent interview with Bhupendra Khanal, the architect behind Buzzom—a leading social marketing and Twitter account management tool. Mr. Khanal offered to share his time with Eric Rudolf, a career Internet Marketing professional and owner of THEsmallCOMPANYBLOG.

Please follow this link to access Part 1 of this Interview.

THE INTERVIEW: QUESTIONS 6 THRU 10

Eric: For marketing analytics “nerds” like me, the graphical reporting functions offered in your Buzzom Premium Subscription are really what make your system an attractive option for me. What prompted you to put so much time and effort into the analytics side of your system?

Bhupendra: Like you, I am also a “numbers” person, as well as a Marketing Analyst. I served Fair Isaac (now FICO) as a Consultant for Marketing Analytics early in my career, and have deep roots playing with numbers, charts and figures. Also, my colleague Sweta is a statistician and an analytics reporting specialist.

The point is, we both believe strongly in Analytics and proper reporting, and have built the Buzzom system for people like us. But you have not seen the best from us yet. To date, we have implemented only about 10% of the analytics functionality that we believe needs to be offered in Buzzom. You will see some wonderful work going ahead!

Eric: It seems like every time I log in, Twitter is trying to offer users another new feature or function. Is there any overlap between these features and what Buzzom offers? And if so, do you see the developers at Twitter as direct competitors?

Bhupendra: Twitter is definitely a competitor. They are constantly pushing to make sure their ecosystem flourishes, and this works in our favor. However, they also work very hard to make sure people stay on their site . . . which is obviously not as good for us. This is a race we are both running, but there is a paradox: sometimes, we help each other out!

Most people don’t realize this, but the concept of “Lists” was first introduced in Buzzom Desktop. At the time we allowed people to create groups to follow, without actually following the people within the group. But eventually, this feature was copied by TweetDeck, and ultimately by Twitter.

If Twitter eventually emulates one of our features, we have two choices: Buzzom can either develop a new feature (i.e. innovate), or introduce a feature for competing social network (i.e. hit back). It’s actually a great deal of fun to compete with such a big player, and it is definitely not new for us. In terms of direct competitors, Buzzom competes with Twitter, TweetDeck and Hootsuite. Our URL shortener competes with Bit.ly, Google (goo.gl), and Facebook (fb.me). Innovation and hard work keeps us moving, and our aim is to make it hard for the developers at Twitter to catch us.

Eric: From a marketing perspective, how does Buzzom plan to win the battle against other social networking tools that make outrageous claims like “get 10,000 followers per week” and “make $5,000 per month on Twitter?”

Bhupendra: I see Buzzom competing with Hootsuite, Objective Marketer, SocialOomph, TweetDeck, Seismic, and so on. But we do not compete, nor do we attempt to compete, with tools that sell followers for money.

Buzzom does not promote spam of any kind, and we are completely against this kind of aggressive, “mass follow” behaviour. Our clients and Twitter’s public timeline need to be healthy, and all follows should be meaningful and targeted. Buzzom is a highly specialized tool that focuses on being three things: clean, useful and productive.

Eric: Are there any upcoming features or functions you would like to give our readers a sneak preview of?

Bhupendra: We plan to release a large number of features targeted at normal users—both marketers and non-marketers who are more along the lines of “pure” Twitter users. Our goal is to make Twitter a fun place, and we will eventually be using our expertise in building social games to bring some really exciting features. But your readers will need to wait a few more weeks to find out what those features are! And as I mentioned previously, Buzzom Premium Edition will regularly be enhanced with improved reporting and analytics, as well as multi-account support.

Eric: What is the best way for people to get a feel for what Buzzom offers?

Bhupendra: If your readers register for Buzzom Premium for just one month, I am positive they won’t go anywhere else. For professional marketers, our feature set simply cannot be beat—and Buzzom’s account and tweet tracking is among the best in the market. And there are, of course, a LOT more features to choose from. The fact is, Buzzom Premium is a complete Twitter solution for business-related users, at a fraction of the cost of other systems.

Retweets of this article using the button at the beginning of the post are very much appreciated, and any questions regarding this interview may be directed to eric@thesmallcompanyblog.com. Also, no part of this article may be reproduced, reposted or republished for any reason, with written permission from Eric Rudolf at THEsmallCOMPANYBLOG. To request written permission, please email Eric directly.

Social Marketing Automation: Interview with the CEO of Buzzom

Eric_Rudolf — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 18:13:44 +0000

Below is Part I of a two-part interview with Bhupendra Khanal, Founder and CEO of InRev—developers of Buzzom. Buzzom is one of the fastest-growing Twitter Account Management tools in the industry, and was recently featured in PC World’s list of Top 5 Twitter Ranking applications, as well as in a recent article in Forbes Magazine. Although he runs a company in one of the most dynamic industries in the world, Bhupendra was kind enough to share his time with Eric Rudolf, a career Internet Marketing professional and owner of THEsmallCOMPANYBLOG.

Retweets of this article using the button above are very much appreciated, and any questions regarding this interview may be directed to eric@thesmallcompanyblog.com.

THE INTERVIEW: QUESTIONS 1 THRU 5

Eric: Many of my readers are looking for inspiration and guidance as they manage their own small companies. How did Buzzom grow from just an idea, to one of more popular social marketing tools in use today? Was it hard work, luck, or a little bit of both?

Bhupendra: Actually, it was a mix of several factors. Of course hard work and luck were necessary, but our main strengths as a company are continuous innovation and an iterative building process. I think it is also important to note that Buzzom was first to introduce several new concepts to the Twitter world—including Twitter Lists, Cross-Following functionality, and a search-based “Grow Your Followers” feature.

Also, at Buzzom we never worry about competition copying our idea. We simply release new features every 2 to 3 weeks, test them in the marketplace, then built on them.

Eric: With all of the changes occurring in the Social Networking industry, managing a company “right in the middle of it all” must get chaotic at times. How do you keep up with this market and its constantly changing demands?

Bhupendra: Social Media is all about listening, and at Buzzom we listen with an open mind. This allows us to always be on top of the market when it comes to changing demands. Our employees are power users in Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Orkut, StumbleUpon and Digg. And, we are always on the lookout for new networks as well.

Buzzom originally started as a Twitter Account Manager, and is now a complete suite with both corporate and general versions. Feed Management in Buzzom also allows posting to Facebook, and we are exploring the integration with other social media and bookmarking sites.

Eric: Of the dozens of features your software offers, which ones do you believe distinguish your system from other social automation tools on the market?

Bhupendra: Buzzom is an analytics-powered system, which allows us to optimize a number of our features. For example, our “Grow Your Followers” feature provides users with people who are statistically likely to follow back, using a proprietary business rules engine. If I have to name one feature, I believe our Feed Management is absolutely market-leading. No other system offers the ability to cover more than one time zone, and we also provide better tracking than any of our competitors by using the personalized URL tracking of NXY, our URL shortener.

Eric: As a small company blogger, I interact with people every day who still manage their corporate social networking efforts by hand. Why do you believe there is still resistance among marketers to leverage automated social networking tools?

Bhupendra: As surprising as this may sound, I believe it is ALWAYS best to manage your social networking by hand, if you can. I don’t suggest anyone to use a tool for something they can do themselves. But that said, there are certain human limitations which we obviously can’t ignore, and time is one of them. I like to compare the use of Buzzom for Twitter to using a bicycle—you can always run if you have to, but sometimes it’s just smarter and more efficient to use a bike.

Eric: Which Buzzom features do you believe could make the most significant positive impact in a small company’s social marketing efforts?

Bhupendra: Definitely People Search. People Search is a function small companies can use to find others who are talking about their brand. Unlike Twitter Search that simply feeds you the tweets that mention a defined keyword, Buzzom’s People Search actually provides the entire list of people who have mentioned the word. Our system also allows you to filter the People Search by Bio, Name and Location using content matching.

And our proprietary Intelligent Match Table allows us to generate search results that other systems can’t, using data that isn’t necessarily there—for example, determining from the bio or location what state or country someone belongs to (San Diego would mean California, US). We have put a huge amount of internal effort into People Search, and into our Buzzom Premium application as a whole, and I am happy to say that our users love it.

Retweets of this article using the button at the beginning of the post are very much appreciated. Also, no part of this article may be reproduced, reposted or republished for any reason, with written permission from Eric Rudolf at THEsmallCOMPANYBLOG. To request written permission, please email Eric directly. To Read Part 2 of this Interview, Please Follow this Link.

Article Marketing on Twitter: The Art of the Retweet

Eric_Rudolf — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 15:35:47 +0000

By now, most of my regular readers have a pretty good handle on the ‘business model’ of this blog. In a nutshell, my strategy is simple: I write one article per week, post it, then spend the next six days trying to get people to actually read it. This recurring series of events can be a grind for an article marketer, but there is good news: it is definitely possible to significantly increase the distribution of your posts, articles and white papers WITHOUT spending every minute of your free time in front of a Netbook at Starbucks.

Now before I get too far into this, I need to make two very important points:

This strategy will take some time to implement.
If you stick with it, your results WILL improve every single month.

Translation: if you are lazy or impatient, you may stop reading immediately.

Regardless of what the sales rep at your local SEO company says, there is nothing quick, easy, or foolproof when it comes to capturing Internet traffic. It took me nearly 9 months to reach my 1,000th article Retweet (feel free to count them) and almost one-third were acquired in months 8 and 9. The sooner you realize actual effort will be required on your part, the more successful you will be in the long-term.

With the above in mind, here is an easy-to-follow, Twitter-based Article Marketing strategy involving our good friend, the Retweet.

Step #1: Use Your Existing Content to Fish for Retweets. If you’re a decent writer with a reasonable amount of real-world experience, chances are your blog already offers some pretty valuable content. Using your existing articles to generate a few Retweets will allow you to not only hit the ground running, but build a Retweet base for future articles (discussed in Step #3).

Because most serious article readers use hashtags to filter content, adding one to each of your Tweets is a no-brainer. If you write articles about gardening, end each Tweet with #gardening. If you write about coffee, use #coffee. Depending upon the nature of your articles, consider Tweeting an article several times during the course of a week, rotating between a handful of hashtags. Spending some quality time at Hashtags.org will generate plenty of great options to choose from.

To further boost your chances of a Retweet, many experts (OK, mostly me) believe labeling your Tweets with the word “Article” at the beginning can increase RT frequency from article readers. So can putting the words “RTs Welcome!” at the end. In addition, be sure to avoid the mistake of leaving too little room at the end of each article-related Tweet. Remember: most RT buttons add “RT @YourTwitterName” at the beginning of a Retweet, and serial Retweeters typically add comments like “Good read!” or “Nice article” to the end. Be sure to leave room for both.

Step #2: Show Your Retweeters Some Love. Once you acquire your first few Retweeters, the next step is to hang onto them. Like regular customers at a restaurant, Retweeters will return time and time again—as long as they are treated well. Every time someone Retweets a link to one of your articles, is it critical that you both acknowledge their effort and return the favor by:

@Replying them a “Thank You.”
Adding them to a special Retweeter Twitter List.
Retweeting something of theirs.
Giving them at least one #FollowFriday recommendation.

In an effort to lead by example, this past week I sent over 80 Thank You messages and recommended nearly 150 people with a #FollowFriday mention. Sure, 95% of Twitter users don’t bother doing ANY of these things, but we are article marketers. And the world expects more from us.

It is also important to note that some (but not all) of this process can be automated. Although I used to complete Step #2 manually, today I use a tool called SocialOomph (now offering a Free 6-Day Trial). SocialOomph not only handles much of this for me, but manages to find me nearly 50 targeted followers per day. To date, it’s the most valuable $29 per month I spend on article Marketing. I am also quickly becoming a fan of a new social marketing automation tool called Buzzom Premium, which offers the same features as SocialOomph—plus a ridiculous amount of social analytics—for just 10 bucks per month. To me, you can’t go wrong using either or both tools.

Step #3: Ask Your List Members to Help Distribute New Articles. Effective article marketing involves elements of both “giving” and “receiving.” Here in Step 3 the receiving finally begins, and all of your hard work will begin to pay off . . . if you have been following the rules. Remember that Retweeter List I asked you to start building is Step 2? If you send each of these people a quick Direct Message on days when you release something new, odds are they will be more than willing to Retweet it to their followers. Be sure to ask nicely, and provide a shortened version of the URL using a service like TinyURL or bit.ly (otherwise tools like SocialOomph and Buzzom will automatically do this for you).

Also note that Retweets often generate more Retweets, so be sure to use a good dashboard tool to filter and monitor @mentions and DMs. People who Retweet a Retweet (does your head hurt yet?) are just as valuable as the members of your List, and should be shown the same courtesy outlined in Step #2—a Thank You, a List, an RT, and a #FollowFriday mention.

If you want to build a community around your content, there is going to be some work involved in developing an active and loyal follower base. But a system like this can get you going in no time. I know this not because I’m guessing, but because this is exactly what I do every single week.

5 More Unbreakable Rules for Using Twitter as a Business Tool

Eric_Rudolf — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 12:00:16 +0000

More than any other social networking site in worldwide use today, Twitter owes a significant portion of its growth to pyramid schemes, egocentric celebrities, get-rich-quick gurus, and kids from Amsterdam with nothing better to do than collect thousands of new followers per week. While these people continue to tie up Twitter’s bandwidth by posting 140-character brain farts in rapid succession, there are also tens of thousands of actual companies—entities with things like employees and balance sheets and health insurance plans—trying to figure out how to use Twitter to gain an advantage over their competitors.

With this in mind, a few months back I wrote and posted an article titled 5 Unbreakable Rules for Using Twitter as a Business Tool. Surprisingly, this article is still the most popular 700 words I have ever typed into a computer. Not because using Twitter is overly-complicated, but because using it effectively within a business context isn’t nearly as easy as it looks. For example, Tweeting from a mobile device after draining your seventh beer might get you a laugh or two from your friends, but it has a markedly different effect among your customer base. Twitter’s lack of a rulebook (or any real standards, for that matter) makes it tempting for us as corporate marketers to do whatever the heck we want. But things like ethics, discipline, planning and strategy are what separate us from our neighbor who sells cleaning products out of her car. And a few rules never hurt anybody.

After investing close to 500 more hours in the research and use of Twitter, I have come up with five additional rules that should never be broken when attempting to use Twitter as a business tool.

Rule #6: Allow Your Twitter Account to Develop a Personality. By virtue of being a social technology, Twitter is a wonderful place to show your customers and prospects a different and more personal side of your business. Does this mean employees should be allowed to Tweet about upcoming vacations and family milestones? Of course not. But Tweeting in a more informal voice can go a long way in building loyalty among Twitter followers. This is especially important at virtual companies, where customers and prospects need to be constantly reminded that there are real people behind all of the webinars, mass emails and online newsletters.

Rule #7: Follow Your Industry’s Support System. Not surprisingly, a critical component of building a successful Twitter presence for business is the actual ‘networking’ part—extending your company’s reach by finding people to follow, and identifying potential customers who are interested in following your company. Most marketers do a great job of choosing Twitter members who have a high probability of being customers some day. But experienced Twitter marketers will also follow people and organizations who keep their customers educated and employed. Does your industry landscape include professional associations, educational portals, consulting companies and placement firms? If so, you might want to follow them. Not only will they be tempted to promote you to their followers, but they will also Retweet your news, offers and white papers once in awhile.

Rule #8: Automate the Day-to-Day Account Management. I obviously have no idea how much your company pays its marketing people. But if it’s anything over $30 per month, an automated Twitter marketing tool might save your company a significant amount of time and money. After just a few hours of setup time, subscription-based services like SocialOoomph (formerly TweetLater) can help your company find followers, send Tweets, and track chatter about your products and services—on multiple Twitter accounts and from a single user-interface. In fact, some automated tools even go out of their way to appeal to marketing geeks like me by offering features such as Clout Calculations (to determine which of your followers have the most Twitter influence), customizable Friend Filters, and various other types of advanced analytics. Most automated Twitter tools have free trials, and several allow companies to join month-to-month and cancel any time they wish.

Rule #9: Don’t Forget . . . Your Compeptitors Are ALWAYS Watching. True story: several months ago I heard through the industry grapevine that one of my company’s competitors was working on a new product. The product was going to be positioned head-to-head with my company’s cash cow, and was expected to take a significant percentage of our market share. After making a few phone calls and learning nothing, I decided to check the Internet. Within a few short minutes I was able to not only confirm the rumor, but assemble most of the company’s initial rollout plan and marketing strategy. The surprise here is not how I found this information, but where—in the Twitter account of the company’s CEO. Over the course of several months, the CEO of my closest competitor had been giving his followers blow-by-blow strategic planning updates. The point here? That social networking sites come with an implied barrier of confidentiality that really doesn’t exist. And if your people can’t keep a secret, they need to lock their profiles.

Rule #10: Build a Community

Contrary to the belief of most companies, the best way to monetize your business-related Twitter account has nothing to do with selling. The key, which might be counter-intuitive to many, is making your followers feel involved. Building a community among your followers through the sharing of knowledge and general communication will lead to more traffic, more activity, and eventually more sales than any 140-character ’special offer’ you could ever hope to distribute. Tweeting links to free white papers and Webinars, using your follower base to test market products, and leveraging Twitter’s @reply function to host open debates are three great ways to jump-start your community-building efforts. Not only will initiatives like this directly involve your followers, but it will keep them coming back . . . so you can sell them something later.

5 Visually Appealing Plugins for the Lazy Blog Designer

Eric_Rudolf — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 16:36:37 +0000

To me, one of the keys to my blogging success thus far (“success” being a term I use loosely in this case) is that I am keenly aware of both my strengths AND my weaknesses. On the Strengths side of the ledger, I have two things going for me—I can write, and I can market myself. But on the Weaknesses side, I have one major hole in my skill set: I can’t design my way out of a wet paper bag. To prove my point, I encourage you to compare my blog design with my friend Ira’s blog, GlassyEyes.com. His site is what a creative, professionally-designed blog can (and should) look like. It also stands as a constant reminder that a few Art classes in college probably wouldn’t have killed me.

So . . . once we artistically-deficient bloggers finally switch from the default blog template to something a bit more customizable, how do we add at least SOME visual appeal without having to spend $1,100 on Macromedia Creative Suite and another $2,000 learning how to use it? Plugins, of course! Sure, most plugins are designed to work behind the scenes by protecting our blogs from spam, managing our databases, and running our traffic reports. But a select few can actually add things like formatting, graphic elements, and even a bit of interactivity—without tempting us to download a pirated copy of Photoshop.

With the above in mind, below are five types of plugins that can add some sorely-needed visual appeal to any blog, with very little design effort or skill involved.

PLUGIN #1: ANY SORT OF RETWEET BUTTON

Most people view Tweet-related plugins as a great way to encourage republication of blog postings (please feel free to click on mine, by the way—scroll UP). But those of us with no design skills see this plugin and think one thing: page anchor. Everyone knows that starting a post with a graphic or a blue bird makes your content three to five times more interesting to readers. And more importantly, keeping a running count of your Retweets is a great way to give yourself a quick ego boost when you realize how crappy your blog design really is. Added Bonus: buttons can often be presented in different sizes and colors for enhanced appeal.

PLUGIN #2: GOOGLE ADSENSE

Moneymaker? Sure. But design element? Damn right. Unlike Retweet buttons, Google Adsense plugins give bloggers not one, but THREE opportunities to add customizable colored squares to any post or page. And colored squares are good. The “Mid-Post Ad” setting in Google Adsense also gives blog readers an opportunity to briefly pause and ignore something obnoxious halfway through literally any blog posting. Added Bonus: the perfect ‘triple-threat’ when it comes to plugins—revenue generator, design element, and content breaker-upper.

PLUGIN #3: CAPTCHA

In preparation of a Trivial Pursuit game ten years from now, you need to know that the acronym CAPTCHA actually stands for Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart. Translation: this plugin protects our blogs from automated comment spam and iFrame injections. But more than that, CAPTCHA almost always includes a really cool graphic with a bunch of letters and lines in it, where our blogs are most in need of a little ‘flair’—at the very bottom of the page. Added Bonus: CAPTCHA functionality on a blog makes the owner look sophisticated.

PLUGIN #4: AN ‘ABOUT THE AUTHOR’ BLOCK

If there is one thing most blogs lack regardless of platform, it is boxes. I love boxes. And quite frankly, it frustrates me that you can’t just insert a box or table into a blog posting whenever you want. That said, an About the Author plugin not only allows you to make a box in your blog, but also put your picture in it. And who doesn’t love looking at a great headshot of themselves? Added Bonus: will save you the trouble of creating a “Profile” page for yourself.

PLUGIN #5: SOCIAL BOOKMARKING

Depending upon which one you use, a Social Bookmarking plugin could allow the addition of between 4 and 400 icons to your blog—the equivalent of winning the lottery for any lazy blogger. And more importantly, each of these icons is professionally designed, and completely customizable in terms of placement. Some Social Bookmarking plugins even include a bit of animation, as evidenced by the six-pack at the bottom of this post (how cools is THAT?). Added Bonus: use of multiple Social Media plugins will ensure even the most obscure social networking sites are forever represented on your blog.

Marketing Tool Review: SocialOomph Social Media Productivity

Eric_Rudolf — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 17:41:17 +0000

As a blogger who also has a day job, the lure of automated marketing tools is, at times, nearly impossible to resist. But as I discussed in a recent post titled Four Marketing Technologies That Are Ruining the Internet, most of the tools marketers have to choose from do little more than encourage us to clutter the Internet with artificially-generated traffic, irrelevant information, and duplicate content. Finding a balance between making my life easier and retaining my ethical standards as a marketer is an ongoing struggle. But eventually, I plan to win.

In my never ending quest for high-value marketing tools that also allow me to sleep at night, I began experimenting with a social media productivity booster called SocialOomph (formerly TweetLater). My experiences with this tool—positive and negative—are outlined in this article. If this post generates a decent level of interest among readers, I plan to continue the series by investing my own money in (and subsequently writing about) other paid marketing tools and services. With this in mind, if you have any suggestions for tools you would like to see evaluated on this website, please email me directly at eric@thesmallcompanyblog.com with your ideas.

SocialOomph: A Quick Overview

SocialOomph originally got its start as an automated friend-finder for Twitter users, and like other tools of its kind has since added dozens of new features. Some of these features you can probably live without, and some are absolutely critical for execution of a comprehensive Twitter marketing strategy—the latter including bulk tweet uploading, @Mention and Retweet monitoring, Twitter keyword alerts, and management of multiple Twitter accounts from a single user interface.

The Professional Edition of SocialOomph (access to all features) is $29.97 per month, and prior to paying this subscription the company allows prospective monthly users a 6-Day Free Trial to test everything out. This review will be written from the perspective of a full-blown user, who has paid his monthly fee and re-upped his subscription, which I have done multiple times.

SocialOomph: The Good

As a fundamental part of any social media productivity service, SocialOomph’s Friend Finder tool is as feature-rich and robust as I could expect to get for less than 30 bucks per month. To satisfy my inner control freak, SocialOomph allows me to search for and filter potential friends using nearly 25 different settings—settings that include uber-nerdy stuff like Following-to-Follower Ratio, Username Keywords, Length of Twitter Membership, and even the type of thumbnail graphic a Twitter member uses in his or her profile.

I also love the Clout Calculation, which allows me to generate a list of my Top 50 “Most Influential” followers, so I know whose butt to kiss when I need some traffic. And of course, the Bulk Tweet Upload feature allows me to upload a virtually unlimited number of Tweets (I have yet to hit the limit, anyway) and schedule them for distribution at some time in the near or distant future. For a person with no time to spare, these features alone are worth the price. Aside from my three personal favorite time-savers, SocialOomph’s TweetCockPit (for managing multiple accounts) allows you to schedule @replies and DMs, send broadcast (mass-distributed) DMs, and run you own TwitterBots . . . something that happens to irritate me personally, but many of you might enjoy this feature.

SocialOomph: The Not So Good

Compared to other membership-based sites I pay money to use each month, I must admit I expected a bit more from SocialOomph’s User Interface. Sure, all of the features work as advertised, but the main interface is a mashing together of tabs, links and ill-formatted tables that sometimes make it difficult to find exactly what I’m looking for. It is quite obvious that this website is too busy trying to make money to improve the design of its site, but as a paying member in good standing I expect to see some big interface changes soon.

The other negative regarding SocialOomph is, unfortunately for them, something they can do nothing about—speed. Like any other automated social networking tool, SocialOomph is constantly accessing the Twitter API . . . which means when Twitter is slow, SocialOomph is slow. But until the owners of Twitter actually figure out a way to cash flow their idea and use the money to add more bandwidth, users across the globe will be forced to deal with the big blue “Twitter is Over Capacity!” whale dozens of times per day.

SocialOomph: The Missing

After three months of relatively intensive use, there are a few features I would like to see added to SocialOomph. First, I would LOVE a report that analyzes my Following List, and automatically un-follows anyone who has not chosen to follow me within (for example) a week of me initially following them (note that SocialOomph does have a function that un-follows anyone who un-follows you, but what I’m referring to here is a bit different). Second, for as much time as I spend on their site it seems only right that they allow me to customize my view—basically create my own SocialOomph desktop—so I don’t have to deal with the dozens of tabs and links I simply don’t use.

And finally, as counter-intuitive as this feature might be to the concept of social networking, I would like to see the good people at SocialOomph build a function that helps me weed out spammers and idiots—kind of like a “Friend Finder,” but in reverse. For example, among my followers I know I have dozens of shadow accounts (where the same person owns multiple accounts and tweets the same thing for each account) and “Enroll in the Trump System of Wealth” pushers. Quite frankly I’m tired of reading their crap, and if SocialOomph could give me a way to find and permanently block them, I might be a customer for life.

SocialOomph: Overall Impressions

Is SocialOomph the perfect social media productivity booster? Not quite. But as a key piece of marketing automation for bloggers and website owners, there isn’t much missing in the way of features. Also, the owners and operators of SocialOomph deserve a HUGE amount of credit for developing and migrating their system in an ethical manner. Not only does the site keep its members constantly updated on new Twitter usage policies, but they resist the temptation to ‘game’ the Twitter API by forcing users to grow their follower bases logically and consistently over time—versus other systems that make promises like “Gain 10,000 new followers per week!” and “Get as many followers as Oprah!”

If you’re in the process of shopping for a social media productivity tool, registering for SocialOomph’s 6-Day Free Trial is a risk-free way to get your feet wet. And who knows: after those six days, you might find you can’t live without it either.

The Myth of Social Networking and Revenue Generation

Eric_Rudolf — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 16:22:08 +0000

As anyone who was once a member of an electronic bulletin board knows, social networks have been around for decades. Twenty years ago, only a handful of businesses had the forsight or the technical knowledge to consider utilizing something like a BBS for marketing purposes. But today, social media technology is much more accessible and easier to use; and the minute the first luminary claimed social networks could be monetized, the world was off and running. In short order, executives and marketing people were frantically chasing the millions (if not billions!) of dollars that would inevitably be awarded to companies who could harness the power of social media.

What happened after was both predictable and expected. Companies large and small began hiring Internet marketing consultants, and adding social networking-related line items to expense budgets. Quarterly management meetings were dominated by social networking-related strategy conversations, and revenue projections were assigned to things like company blogs, FaceBook communities and Twitter accounts—projections which were turned into marketing goals. For the first time since the invention of the corporate website, executives were excited because their destinies were finally clear: figure out a way to monetize social media!

Fast-forward to today, and the first round of reality checks are beginning to set in for some firms. As companies continue to rack up massive amounts of time and money blogging and Tweeting and managing online communities, financially-savvy Executives are noticing something: bottom line revenues are not improving. The question “Where is our social networking income?” is finally being asked, and the answer—as painful as it might be—is now clear.

The social networking revenue they were chasing never actually existed.

You see, something interesting is happening right before our eyes. Business-related social networking is slowly being exposed for what it was originally meant to be: a communication channel. A channel designed to distribute information, increase corporate visibility, and build a community around a company and its products. A channel that can be used alongside—not in place of—things like SEM, SEO, PPC, e-commerce, direct email, telemarketing, outside sales, speaking events and trade shows.

So what is my point? That social networking is not a tool designed to generate sales, but a tool companies can use to shorten the sales cycle. Are there a few exceptions to this? Of course. Part-time bloggers who make 50 bucks per month driving people from social networking sites to affiliate ads (OK, you got me . . . and feel free to click on a Google ad or buy something from Amazon while you’re here) are obviously proof that once in awhile, social networking can generate a few pennies. But executives and marketers at REAL companies—firms with things like employees and health insurance and stock certificates—need to understand the difference between e-commerce and branding. And social networking is much, much closer to the latter.

57 Things That (Sort of) Increased My Twitter Clickthroughs

Eric_Rudolf — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 13:31:24 +0000

Until I am willing to manually approve each person who joins my Twitter community, I have no choice but to live with the reality that a significant percentage of my Twitter followers are MLMers, self-proclaimed SEO experts, and consultants who would love to help me run my business . . . even though I don’t actually have one.

But the fact is, my target audience is in there somewhere. And because of that, I need to find a way to overcome Twitter’s notoriously low clickthrough rates and get people to follow my links once in awhile. Through extensive experimentation with multiple Twitter accounts over the better part of a year, along with a certain level of tracking and documentation, I know there are times when my Tweets perform significantly better than others. And for the most part, I think I might know why.

Below is a list of 57 ways that may (or may not) increase your Twitter clickthrough rates. For purposes of making this post as useful as possible, I threw in everything I could think of—strategies related to message tone, design, message construction, strategy, timing and so on; as well as some mistakes I made along the way. Also, the items in bold are strategies I have had particularly good results with over the last few months. If your time is limited, I would recommend trying these first.

And finally, if you believe I missed something or would like to recommend your own tip, please reply to this post and do so. I will gladly add your tip to this list, along with a link to your blog or website should you choose to include one. Here we go . . .

57 Ways to (Maybe) Increase Your Twitter Clickthrough Rates

Say something original.
Don’t write like a teenager.
Offer something of value other than your thoughts.
Resist the temptation to exaggerate or show false excitement.
Don’t use shorthand . . . spell out words.
Be consistently credible.
Use an interesting avatar.
Create controversy.
Don’t make promises or outrageous claims.
Figure out why YOU click on other people’s links, and do what they do.
Have your own take.
Use a call to action.
Respect the intelligence of your audience.
Develop your own style—and stick with it.
Avoid slang.
Check your spelling.
Experiment with Tweeting on different days and during different times.
Stop using cliches.
Cater to multiple nationalities.
Tweet in groups of three.
Don’t use industry-specific acronyms and terminology.
Make on point, and only one point.
Don’t use ALL CAPS.
Be sensitive to cultural issues.
Don’t over-use punctuation.
Build a following outside of Twitter.
Use spacing strategically.
Don’t sound TOO EXCITED!!!
Ask, but don’t beg.
Don’t get lazy.
Say the same thing multiple ways.
Create a Username that aligns with your focus.
Don’t expect a tool to do the thinking for you.
Remind yourself that getting ANY kind of web traffic isn’t easy.
Build a community.
Cater to people in time zones other than yours.
Call a specific audience to action.
Choose topics that people haven’t already run into the ground.
Stop trying to make everyone happy—become a specialist in something.
Break down the results of a research study.
Collect your own data for a survey, and publish the results.
Don’t Tweet because you’re bored.
Construct a well-written profile (people actually read these).
Avoid using Twitter ‘isms.’
Ask for honest feedback and opinions on something.
Don’t bombard people.
Keep it fresh.
Tweet a “Thank You” once in awhile.
Don’t Tweet inside jokes.
Check the trending topics.
Don’t talk down to people.
Use a “Tweet This” or Retweet button to increase distribution.
Don’t write like a Ph.D.
Ask people (nicely) to Retweet your stuff.
Go against the grain.
Watch how the pros Tweet.
Search Internet Marketing portals like Sphinn for other articles on this subject.

Other Ways to Increase Your Twitter Clickthrough Rates—Submitted by TSCB Readers:

# 58. Allow your personality to come through. (Submitted by Catherine Woods, Editor of RealBusiness UK)

17 Great Reasons Why Professional Marketers Hate Twitter

Eric_Rudolf — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 14:16:27 +0000

If given the opportunity, one would be hard-pressed to find a marketing channel that evokes a more polarizing reaction among professional marketers than Twitter. People who get paid to market for a living (the ones with things like degrees or experience or both) are rarely in the middle on Twitter: they either love it, or they go to bed each night hoping social networking’s newest golden goose dies a violent and painful death. After writing a number of Twitter-related posts—and reading dozens of angry letters from professional Internet marketers—I have assembled a list of 17 reasons professional marketers hate Twitter. I hope you enjoy them.

1. Any Idiot Can Do It. And Any Idiot Does. If you selected ten “Twitter marketers” at random and followed the links back to their websites, you would no doubt be treated to a disturbing mix of ill-conceived designs, bad formatting, poor grammar, and instructional videos shot in dark basements—four things that would get real marketing people banned from the profession for life. Allowing anyone with an Internet connection to use Twitter for marketing purposes is like issuing driver’s licenses to 8-year olds.

2. Twitter Users Have Their Own Vocabulary—and It’s Annoying. Grown adults are typically resistant to things that require acting and communicating like a teenager, which makes Twitter and professional marketing people natural adversaries. Having to use terms like Tweeotches (Twitter bitches), Twarma (bad Twitter karma), Twitterrhea (excessive and unwanted Tweeting), Twitterectomy (cutting Twitter out of your life for a period of time) and Twitterbation (inadvertently Tweeting yourself) are immature enough, much less the 420 other teeth-grinding terms in the Twitter vocabulary.

3. Oprah and Ashton Like It. The interesting thing about marketing people, especially Internet ones, is they love to claim they knew about something before it was considered trendy by the mainstream. Internet marketers are the ones who like songs until they get radio play, drink micro-beers no one has ever heard of, and refuse to eat at chain restaurants. The bottom line? When Larry King starts Tweeting, it’s just not cool any more.

4. Pyramid Schemers and MLMers are Ruining it for Everyone Else. As of today I have just under 1,000 Twitter followers, and I follow about 1,050 people as well—the 1,000 people who follow me, and 50 bloggers and news organizations of my own choosing. With this in mind, as I look at my Twitter inbox I count 17 Tweets out of a possible 20 offering me either a) easy money, or b) thousands of Twitter followers in a short period of time. While Internet marketers try to run legitimate web sites designed to help companies grow, con artists and grifters make it nearly impossible for people to distinguish between our information and their spam.

5. Twitter’s Response Rates Make Direct Mail Look Interesting Again. Like many of you reading this post, I track and measure everything I do from a marketing perspective. Through my first 100 Tweets, my response rate is exactly .21%. As a warning, do NOT read this as 20%, or even 2% . . . this is TWO-TENTHS of one percent. Or to put it another way: for every 1,000 followers I have, exactly TWO click through whenever I post a new article. Two. To match an average direct email campaign my Twitter hit rate needs to increase by 10 times, and over 100 times to meet the performance of my newsletter.

6. From a Business Perspective, Twitter is Basically a Mall with No Customers. How much time would you need to come up with the name of just ONE company who set up a Twitter account for the purpose of buying things? A minute? More like a month. Among the millions of businesses on Twitter, one rule applies: everyone has an angle, and no one has any money.

7. No One Tweets Original Content. I realize stating “no one” writes original content for Twitter is a bit of an exaggeration, but anyone with a business-related Twitter account knows that 90% of the Tweets they receive are quotes from tip-a-day calendars, personal observations (”I like the color red. Do you?”) and re-reports of breaking (and not-so-breaking) news. On Twitter, writing from scratch is not just a lost art—it is frowned upon.

8. Twitter Users Have No Self-Discipline. Have you had your Twitter account for more than a week? Congratulations! You already have at least a dozen followers who send six Tweets in rapid succession multiple times per day, or send one Tweet every 20 minutes like clockwork. The attention-getting philosophy among businesses who use Twitter is straightforwardly annoying: create enough noise to be noticed above everyone else who is doing the same thing.

9. Everyone Follows Everyone. From an Internet marketing perspective, the biggest flaw in Twitter’s design is that in almost all cases, the only way to build a follower base is to follow others. And when the temptation to indiscriminately follow other people is too much to resist, the most important component of target marketing—demographics—gets flushed right down the toilet.

The Honorable Mentions: 10 thru 17

Before I wrote this post I asked some fellow Internet marketers to send me a few reasons they hate Twitter, and ended up with nearly 50. Below are a few of my favorites—some serious, some clever, and some painfully true.

10. It doesn’t have a three-letter acronym. Ha! (e.g. SEO, PPC, etc.).

11. Every time I see that blue bird, I want to hit it with my car.

12. Most of the people on Twitter are really ugly.

13. Too many add-on applets to maximize your experience, and I get confused very easily.

14. The hash tag search is full of spam.

15. I feel inadequate because I don’t have 5,000 followers.

16. Can’t tell if the girls are actually hot or not.

17. The dude that Tweets by farting into his office chair. Enough said.

If you are an Internet marketer and would like to offer your own reason for hating Twitter, please reply to this post and I will add it to the list above—along with your name (or Twitter username) and a link to your site or blog if you provide them.

Social Bookmarking: Dos and Don’ts

Eric_Rudolf — Mon, 18 May 2009 19:47:49 +0000

One of the steepest learning curves I have encountered as the owner, writer and chief Search Engine Optimization guy of a blog site is with the art—and science—of social bookmarking. As I discuss in one of my recent posts Inexpensive SEO Strategies for Small Company Websites: Part III, getting websites to link back to yours (a.k.a. reverse-linking) is the Holy Grail of SEO. Until search engines like Google and MSN see a significant number of inbound channels to your website, your search engine rankings aren’t going anywhere; no matter how good your content is, how clever your theme is, or how slick your website design might be. And social bookmarking is far and away the most effective technique for building up your web site’s reverse links.

Before I get too far into this post, it is important we agree upon a simple definition of social bookmarking, so we’re all on the same page. Understanding it might not line up exactly with definitions others have written, for the purposes of this article I will use this:

Social Bookmarking: any method, website or technology used by web surfers to track Internet content, or tag Internet content for others to find.

Social bookmarking can take any number of shapes and forms, including links from networking sites like Twitter and FaceBook, referrals from content-rating portals like Digg and Sphinn, and readers from blog syndication feeds like Technorati and BlogSpot. Even the RSS feed on your own site can be considered a social bookmark if someone subscribes to it. For a massive list of social bookmarking sites and methods, check out The Big List of Social Bookmarking and Networking Sites for over 160 choices.

With the above in mind, below are three critical Dos and Don’ts for maximizing your link building campaign thru Social Bookmarking.

Don’t . . . Give People Too Many Choices

Does your website or blog offer a primary button bar with icons for Twitter, StumbleUpon, Reddit, Del.icio.us and Digg, and a secondary bar with icons for FaceBook, LinkedIn, YouTube, MySpace, YaHoo and Flickr? Here’s an interesting law of human behavior: if you give people too many choices, they won’t make one.

Do . . . Narrow Your Social Bookmarking List

As an alternative to a shotgun approach, resist the temptation to sprinkle your website with colorful thumbnail graphics and scale back your social bookmarking options to a set of five, plus your RSS feed. Limiting social bookmarking choices for visitors will not only result in more social bookmarking activity, but give readers a clearer picture of which types of traffic are most important to you.

Don’t . . . Get Lazy

One bad habit many bloggers and web designers have is getting too comfortable too quickly, and putting the social bookmarking pieces of their sites into ‘maintenance mode.’ On a growing website, social bookmarking options should be kept nearly as fresh as the content, but rarely are.

Do . . . Change it Up Once in Awhile

With nearly 200 social bookmarking options to choose from and more on the way, bloggers and website owners have no excuse to stand pat. In terms of social bookmarking, it is very likely that the next big traffic generator for your site hasn’t even been invented yet. How are you going to find it if you never look around?

Don’t . . . Assume All of Your Channels Are Working

Once social bookmarks are in place and traffic numbers begin to increase, it is easy to believe your social bookmarking strategy is a winner. But chances are, most of your newly found traffic is coming from just one (or maybe two) of your social bookmarking options.

Do . . . Track What You’re Using

Like any other Internet-based marketing campaign, each social bookmarking option used on your website should be evaluated as its own stand-alone program. No matter where your site is hosted, there is always web log data available to figure out exactly where inbound traffic is coming from. To some degree, the free Webmaster Tools at Google and MSN can provide important pieces of the puzzle as well.

Wrapping it Up

Regardless of their size, social bookmarking icons take up premium real estate on your blog or website. Not evaluating each social bookmark as an individual marketing investment—even though the links are free—will cost you traffic, search engine rankings, and (if applicable) affiliate marketing dollars. If you invest the time and avoid the mistakes outlined above, your social bookmarking efforts will generate traffic you never knew existed. And this, my friends, is the reason we read and write things like this in our spare time.

5 Unbreakable Rules for Using Twitter as a Business Tool

Eric_Rudolf — Mon, 11 May 2009 19:48:51 +0000

Like most social technology sites in worldwide use today, companies big and small are scrambling to convert Twitter from a simple networking tool to a legitimate way of increasing revenues and decreasing costs. Unfortunately, most of these businesses are learning just enough about Twitter to be dangerous. And annoying. And in some cases, unethical.

Although many of us would love to see each new Twitter account issued with a comprehensive User Guide and Rulebook, the fact is Twitter users can pretty much do whatever the want. Because of this complete lack of standardization (other than the 140-character limit on Tweets) businesses across the globe are using Twitter to annoy potential customers at record rates—faster than they ever could have hoped to annoy them through other, more traditional marketing channels like direct mail and direct email.

With the above in mind, below are five rules that should NEVER be broken by people trying to use Twitter for business purposes. As with all previous posts, this particular article is not written for pyramid schemers, get rich quick experts, professional traffic whores, or the kid from Amsterdam trying to find a million Twitter followers before the end of the year. This post is designed to help people who run REAL small companies figure out how to use Twitter—a simple, yet complicated micro blogging technology—to gain a market advantage.

Rule #1: Don’t Bombard Your Followers. Anyone who has been on Twitter for more than a week has at least one follower who sends six Tweets in rapid succession multiple times per day, or sends one Tweet every 20 minutes like clockwork. Here’s a tip: unless you work for a national news organization, your company is NOT important enough to justify this volume of communication. As a small company, sending one relevant piece of news to your followers per day is plenty.

Rule #2: Only Tweet When You have Something Interesting to Say. If the extent of your Tweet is going to be a rehash of an inspirational thought from your new desk calendar, don’t bother. Tweeting famous quotes, personal observations and headlines from ESPN’s breaking news section are are also off-limits. Listen to mom on this one: if you don’t have something relevant to say, don’t open your mouth—or in this case, don’t type.

Rule #3: Don’t Follow People Indiscriminately. When it comes to using Twitter for business purposes, the belief there are no ”bad” followers is absolutely spot on. Regardless of what your company does, someone voluntarily electing to hear from you might not always be good, but it is NEVER bad. The reverse, however, is not true. Making a poor decision about who your company follows on Twitter could cost you a significant amount of fans over time. Do the math: if you run a Twitter feed for your business and choose to follow Al Gore or Rush Limbaugh, you have a 50/50 chance of offending every U.S. visitor to your Twitter site. In the case of selecting Twitter followers, the rules of cocktail party conversation always apply: avoid politics, religion, and polarizing celebrities.

Rule #4: Avoid the Temptation to Re-Report the News. As a blogger who cranks out two or three original articles every week, I understand how difficult it can sometimes be to come up with fresh content. That said, sending your loyal followers a link to CNN’s latest article on the swine flu is a poor excuse for customer contact. If something really big happens in the world, there is one thing you can absolutely count on when it comes to Twitter: within two minutes, everyone will already know.

Rule #5: Stop Trying to Make a Sale Every Time. Understanding all of us have bills to pay, even the best cooks in the world take the chef’s hat off every now and then. If you condition Twitter followers to expect a sales pitch every time they hear from you, your followers will quickly build up an ‘immunity’ to your Tweets . . . and simply stop reading them. Between sales and marketing messages, be sure to mix in a good amount of ‘no strings attached’ communications—industry facts, trivia nuggets and short “Thank You” notes for supporting your company.

Real-World Benefits of Twitter for Small Companies: Part II

Eric_Rudolf — Mon, 04 May 2009 13:35:26 +0000

Like many of you who regularly visit this blog (over 6,000 now—thank you!) I have spent countless hours reading about, researching, and experimenting with Twitter over the last few months. My goal is to answer one simple question: “Can this technology be used to make a positive impact, financial or otherwise, on a small company?” This post will act as Part II in a series of posts focusing on real, results-driven business uses for Twitter. In the first part of this series I outlined Twitter’s benefits related to growing your company’s internal database. Here in Part II, I will continue with a road map for using Twitter to smooth out your web site’s inconsistent traffic patterns.

Also, as with all posts at THEsmallCOMPANYBLOG.com, please feel free to linkback or pingback to this article—giving proper credit, of course.

Real-World Twitter Benefit #2: It Can Smooth Out Your Website Traffic

Anyone who runs a traffic dependent website designed around lead generation or a shopping cart lives and dies daily with the ups and downs of their website traffic. I still remember the inconsistency of my first three months like it was yesterday: 2 visitors on Monday, 31 on Tuesday, zero on Wednesday and Thursday, 15 on Friday, and so on. For me, this irregularity was mostly an inconvenience. But if I were running a lead generation or e-commerce site, the emotional and financial stress would have been much more painful.

By offering an easy, immediate and inexpensive (read: FREE) way to drive people to a website, Twitter can help level out your traffic during off-peak periods. If you are running a legitimate small business whose goal is to generate sales inquiries or drive people to a shopping cart, averaging three to four attention-grabbing Tweets per week is plenty. Why not send them during otherwise off-peak times? For example, if your website generates 80% of its overall traffic Friday thru Monday, why not lean on your loyal Twitter followers to pick up the slack during the otherwise slow middle of the week?

Although attractive perks in their own right, Twitter’s ability to level out web traffic lies not with ease of use or cost, but with the unique ability it gives companies to control the timing of marketing messages. Using free services like Tweet Later, companies of any size can literally decide down to the second when they want marketing messages delivered to customers—which, in turn, gives companies control over WHEN their customers visit the site. Is this Internet thing cool or what?

The fact is, healthy websites don’t have dry spells or bad weeks—and they don’t take 50% of their monthly traffic in a single afternoon. Healthy websites have consistent traffic patterns which allow their owners to do things like trend analysis, revenue prediction and market research. Although Twitter won’t smooth out all of your website’s traffic bumps, many companies large and small are learning it can definitely help.

Real-World Benefits of Twitter for Small Companies: Part I

Eric_Rudolf — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 15:17:06 +0000

More than any other social networking site in worldwide use today, Twitter owes a significant portion of its recent growth to pyramid schemes, egocentric celebrities, get-rich-quick gurus, and kids from Amsterdam with nothing better to do than collect thousands of new followers per week. While these people continue to tie up Twitter’s bandwidth by posting 140-character brain farts in rapid succession, my focus continues to be on the business side—specifically, whether or not a small company can use this revolutionary (and easy-to-use) microblogging technology to drive interest, increase marketing effectiveness, manage projects, and decrease operating expenses.

Over the last few months I have spent countless hours researching and experimenting with Twitter in an effort to answer one simple question: “Can this technology be used to make a positive impact—financial or otherwise—on a small company?“ This post will act as Part I in a series of posts (I estimate at least five total) focusing on real-world, results-driven uses for Twitter by small companies. As with all posts at THEsmallCOMPANYBLOG.com, please feel free to linkback or pingback to it—giving proper credit, of course. If you would like to use the content of this post in its entirety on your website, please email me directly at eric@thesmallcompanyblog.com . . . and ask nicely.

Real-World Twitter Benefit #1: It Can Jump-Start Your Internal Database

Those of us who run or manage small companies understand the importance of building an internal opt-in database. There are few things more valuable than the contact information of a potential customer who WANTS to hear from you. But as of late, some of the more traditional list-building tactics like free downloads, online coupons and contests seem to be losing their luster. If the recent economic downturn has caused your internal database to level off or even shrink, adding a Twitter feed to your marketing mix could be exactly what you need to start growing your contact list again.

First and foremost, starting a Twitter feed can allow your small company to reach previously unsolicited markets. In the case of my website, until I joined Twitter (http://www.twitter.com/TSCB/) my marketing efforts were specific to small company owners and managers, and targeted only to people located in the United States. Since setting up my Twitter account I have expanded my web site’s reach to include the UK, Western Europe, Canada, Mexico, India, and North Africa. In addition, I am now being followed by business magazines, Internet radio stations, published business columnists, and multiple media groups—several of which will hopefully syndicate my content some day. Left to my own devices, I could have never generated this level of interest in such a short period of time.

Second, setting up a company-based Twitter feed will give your organization a new channel to reach its EXISTING contacts as well. If you’ve been in business for more than a couple of years, it is likely your core group of customers and prospects has received dozens of emails, newsletters, phone calls and direct mail pieces from your company. Giving these loyal followers one more clever (and somewhat trendy) way to hear from you can do nothing but increase the read-rates of your marketing messages.

In terms of growing a business database through Twitter, there is one BIG red flag small companies need to be aware of: half of the people who follow your company feed will have no intention of ever buying anything from you. The fact is, no matter how you approach your company’s Twitter strategy, having professional ‘followers’ (who want nothing from you but a follow-back) in your list is nearly unavoidable. But as long as you understand and accept this going in—and focus your efforts on the followers who are serious—a corporate Twitter account could be a huge benefit to your growing organization.

Simple Definitions of Social Media and Social Networking

Eric_Rudolf — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 21:42:01 +0000

As we move through the first half of 2009, I plan to develop and post a series of articles relating to monetizing (i.e. making money from) Social Media and social networking. These articles will outline my thoughts about these vehicles as they relate to small companies—specifically, whether or not I believe it is possible for small firms to directly or indirectly leverage Social Media and Social Networking for revenue generation.

But before I do this, I need to spend a little time making sure all of us are on the same page regarding a few things; specifically a) the definitions of Social Media and Social Networking, b) the types of technologies which actually qualify as ’social media,’ and c) the various branded social networks available for small companies to market in.

The Definition of Social Media (and Social Networking)

If you feel the need, I suppose you could just as easily look up the definition of Social Media on Wikipedia (feel free to do so by clicking HERE). But I’m going to try and boil the definition down to something less academic and easier to digest. When people use the term ’social media,’ they usually mean the following:

Social Media: Internet-based tools, used in a synchronous (at the same time) or asynchronous (not at the same time) manner by two or more people to share personal information.

Note the phrase “personal information,” as it will become important in future posts (a bit of foreshadowing, possibly?). With the above in mind, the definition of ’social networking’ as it relates to social media is as follows:

Social Networking: the act of using one or more social media to remain in contact with existing acquaintances and/or meet new ones.

The bottom line: Social Media are tools, and Social Networking is the process of using those tools.

Examples of Social Media Technologies

Some of the most commonly used Social Media technologies include Internet forums, message boards, wikis, blogs, file sharing tools (video, pictures, documents), instant messaging and chat functionality, virtual reality environments, email, automated alerts, calender sharing, and synchronous gaming. Note, however, that the most popular Social Networks (discussed in the next section) utilize a combination of technologies to attract and retain members.

Branded Social Networks

There is no doubt I will leave out someone’s favorite social networking site, and I apologize in advance if this is the case. But the most popular branded social networks at the time of this posting include Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter, Classmates.com, Reunion.com and Windows Live Spaces. MMOGs (Massive Multiplyer Online Games) like World of Warcraft and Second Life could also considered social networks, although their founders tend to believe in a much more complicated classification.

Again, this very brief post was not designed to dazzle anyone with secrets and insider knowledge relating to Social Media and Social Networking—but rather to lay the groundwork for future posts about small companies and their potential to monetize (make money from) these often-discussed marketing channels.

THEsmallCOMPANYBLOG » Social Networking

What Does a Social Marketing Manager REALLY Do?

So . . . Where Do Social Marketers Come From?

What Traits Makes a Great Social Marketer?

What Does a Day in the Life of a Social Manager Look Like?

What Types of Administrative Tasks Do Social Marketers Handle?

What Are the Goals of a Social Marketer?

Wrapping it Up

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