The Maine SEO Blog

Chris Winfield, President, 10e20, LLC

• There are no rules in Twitter and more importantly, what works for one company won’t work for another (e.g. customer service goals vs. sales goals)
• What would it take to tap into your market?

Chris is going to use questions he posed on Twitter last week (#smxpreso) to run his presentation…

How do you define ‘marketing’ on Twitter?

• About relationship marketing. Long term (months/years) steady return on your efforts. Some spikes, not many – @BrentDPayne
• Reaching out and building relationships & engaging in knowledge sharing – @martinbowling
• Anything that gets users from twitter to convert without pissing people off in the process – @kennyhyder
• Don’t do marketing on Twitter. Have a conversation and earn the trust of people  - not fast enough to snag this one!

There’s a lot of spam on Twitter. But what’s the worst form of it? Why?

• Trending topic spam, especially on the local level. Totally ruins the most interesting part of the twitter data graph – @ddn
• “Want to join my mafia” That’s the worst IMO cuz it never ends and comes from random people so it’s hard to block – @Bukowsky
• Spam that steals login credentials and mass-spams all your followers, like several friends experienced last week – @audette
• Depending on who you represent, porn accounts following you can damage credibility.  Be diligent in blocking – @DavidWallace
• False tagging and irrelevant links in hidden short URLs – @TimDineen
• DM spam. That’s the sacred column of Tweetdeck for me – @MatthewJBrown
• Auto-DM after following someone…usually entails a horrible pitch of some service – @SearchBuzz

How are you leveraging Twitter to help get you more links & traffic to your sites/blogs?

• Getting more links and traffic by spreading message via useful and interesting stuff and communicating – @fantomaster
• Use Twitter as RSS feed that I can interact with my followers and using keyword searches the find related writers to connect with – @goodroi
• Mixing conversation with links. if you just use an account to push content, people will stop listening – @katemorris

Are #hastags important? How do you use them?

• I use hashtags both when searching and most importantly during events like #smx and #thinkvisibility – @yoast
• Hashtags help in structuring tweet content and making it easier to find. They’re also great for establishing authority. – @fantomaster

Is Twitter’s ‘real-time search’ really a threat to Google? Why or why not?

• For sure! I rarely use Google for products, teach help, or any recommendation really. I just tweet and get answer – @BrentDPayne
• People don’t search Twitter unless it’s for something someone said, we still use (85%) Google. – @steveplunkett
• Greasemonkey scriptes overlays twitter results with googles. Facebook is more likely to be a threat. – @SEOSEM
• Yes. Google can’t yet provide info on live/current events. Twitter often becomes the first-try search engine – @TimDineen
• Twitter is a threat to Google bc it takes the convo offline FAST, leading to less content creation – @johnandrews

How would you convince a company (in 140 char or less) that Twitter isn’t a waste of time?

• Twitter can easily connect you to influencers in any disciple. Unlike Facebook, poeple see what you tweet @ them – @Tamar
• I already convinced by company & we have built up over 21K targeted followers. My boss is happy and my boss doesn’t yell at me as much – Bukowsky
• SEe the Georgia Aquarium results $43,000 or Dell. – @CharityHisle
• I’d *let* them read @comcastcares and then *make* them call Comcast Customer service – @MatthewJBrown
• Show them the power of twitter search engine by querying their brand or company name – @aviw

Tamar Weinberg, Author, Owner, Techipedia.com

• Participation is marketing (coined by Chris Heuer)
• If you’re involved in communities, you’re marketing yourself

Twitter for marketing gain

• It’s not impossible with the right ideas
• Out of the “box”: immediate feedback, ability to easily connect with people, fast customer service
• API applications really got Twitter off the ground, enabling developers to make powerful applications to eventually help marketers

Generating Sales

• Dell made $3 million over 2 years by using its Twitter stream (used specific URLs only used in Twitter)
• Can small companies doe the same? (YES! Uses examples: Mimobot, Namecheap)

Saturated Markets and Twitter

• Apple’s App Store: Over 80,000 apps
• Convert: one week is all it took to become one of the top 30 paid apps
• Twitter gave them access to an older tech savvy demographic
• Relevant followers first, messaging later
• Offered a freebie that complemented the product (gave away limited addition MacBook Pro)

Twitter for Customer Service

• JetBlue’s Morgan Johnston helps Tamar all the time
• He also helps other people
• ComcastCares is the major case study
• Extends to client acquisition!
• Listen to conversation w/ competitors FULLY, then chime in

Brand Awareness

• Zappos! Firsthand knowledge of the culture
• One company (Oh Nuts) is finding higher SERP rankings w/ retweets

Other Communications via Twitter

• Iran Election protests
• Mumbai terrorist attacks
• Hurrican Gustav via the Home Depot
• Israel’s “Citizen’s Press Conference”

What works best?

• Contest (brings visibility, especially using hashtags; retweets increase SEO)
• Solid customer service (Twitter more effective than calling someone now)

Twitter Tools

• Desktop: Seesmic Desktop, TweetDeck
• URL shortener: HootSuite, bit.ly, su.pr
• Trends: Twitt(url)y, Twist, Twitscoop
• Stats: TweetStats, TwitterCounter, TwInfluence, Twitter Grader
• SocialToo

Michael Gray, President, Atlas Web Service

What are your goals?

• Commercial accounts have different goals than personal acocunts
• Connect with your customers, advocates, industry leaders, new customers, and detractors (don’t be afraid to connect with people who are saying bad things about you)
• Make sales and generate leads
• Promote content
• Solve customer problems

How big can you make your account? You can grow even if you’re not a well known brand

Tips to grow your account

• Tweet links to non self serving interesting content
• Retweet the most self serving links of power users in your vertical
• Help solve people’s problems
• Engage with users, especially people who @ you (Remember, if you start with @, only people who follow both you and the person will see it. Use a period or words in front of the @ if you want more people to see it)
• Don’t be a robot, tweet the occasional boring off the cuff slice of life information

Dig through other People’s Follower List

• Use directories like Twellow, WeFollow, Mr. Tweet to find leaders in your vertical
• Build a list of A, B, and C level people
• Mine your followers
• Use auto follow scripts with caution!

Automate without being a Robot

• Look for ways to automate your Twitter activity
• Have blog post auto tweet when they publish
• Schedule tweets in the future with tools
• Use virtual assistants and “grunt labor”
• Repeat tweets for multiple timezones (Think about tweeting something in the morning one day, then the afternoon the following day)

Twitter for Traffic

• Traffic from social media can be powerful

Twitter in the SERPs

• While keywords may not rank, names and company names will! (Rep management)

Twitter Tools

• TweetDeck
• URL shortening: 301 and tracking, like bit.ly
• Twitter Hawk: paid with automatic tweets

ReTweet Tips

• Make tweets direct and click enticing
• Keep tweets as short as possible: try to leave 15-25 characters
• Jump start the retweet process with your friends
• Ask for the retweet – thank the people who do retweet
• Be aware of multiple timezones – retweet yourself several times throughout the day
• If more than 30 minutes has gone by without a retweet, chances are you’re not going to be retweeted
• Retweet your best content from months/years past

Questions

• Best practices for joining a conversation? If it’s a closed conversation (between two people), you should probably avoid it. If it’s an open topic, jump in, be funny, be natural. Make sure you add to a conversation (more than just yes/no). Be patient, sometimes when someone has a lot of followers it might take a while to get back to you.
• Superlinks accuracy? HootSuite is being used by a lot of businesses. Superlinks is pre-beta, there are problems. What about the viral aspect? Hidden gem, you can see how many people have seen the content and give it a “thumbs up”. Many analytics are going to underreport traffic, URL shorteners might overreport because of bots.
• 80/20 rule: 80% of focus is about the account (personal vs. company brands), 20% unrelated content.
• Personal tweets depend entirely on comfort level
• Follow a bunch of people to try to acquire followers? No, quality not quanity (Tamar). If you’re looking for exposure, follow everyone who follows you who isn’t a spammer (Michael). It depends on what your goals are, Chris wants to connect with people. He won’t follow 10,000 people – they are no longer “friends” then (Chris).
• How big does a contest need to be to be worthwhile? Give away something someone wants (lowest $ amount: $25), make sure it’s something that relates to your industry.
• How much time do you need to spend on Twitter? As much time to get you what you want, as little time as you can.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 7th, 2009 at 11:45 am and is filed under Expert Advice, Social Media, Training. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.