The Maine SEO Blog

Twitter gives you 140 characters to say something. 140. [To give you an idea of how short that is, I'm at 143 as of the end of this paragraph.]

With a blog or your website, you have space. Space to write however much you want. But Twitter forces us into a rectangular box of limited characters. Adding another person’s handle? Go ahead. Including a link? Have at it. But it’ll cost you a few characters.

The good news?

With so few characters, you’re bound to tighten up your writing. Can you really include all of those “…”s? Should you drop the “LOL” on the end of your tweet? Maybe it’s time to learn what “FWIW”, “NSFW”, and “FTW” really mean so that you can stop wasting precious characters spelling them out.

I joke, but Twitter will help you write sharper, clearer, and more concisely. Tweeting will help you think more about what you’re writing and cut out all of the fluff that doesn’t matter.

The better news?

People will actually take the few seconds to read what you’ve written. With a website or blog,  you’ve got skimmers. But on Twitter, people know that reading your tweet won’t take a whole 5 minutes of their precious time. It’ll take 5 seconds.

The catch: make sure you tweet things worth reading so you don’t get tuned out…or worse, unfollowed.

Nicki Hicks
Follow me to see if I can keep it short and sweet

Do you know who they are?

Sadly, many business owners don’t know who their audience is. A local Mom-and-Pop variety store may be entirely unaware of who they should be targeting.

So step one: figure out who your customers are.

Just ask

Seems silly, but why do all sorts of research and do little more than guess when you can find out for sure? Simply say, “Oh by the way, I was just wondering where you spend your time online. Do you have a favorite social network?”

Maybe your audience isn’t online, and therefore you don’t need to spend time there. You’ll find out pretty quickly where most of them lie: whether it’s on MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or maybe a niche social media site that you’ve never even heard of. Asking is the easiest way to find out – and it’s far easier than guessing.

Be where your people are

After you find out where people are…go there. They may be on multiple channels, and that doesn’t mean you have to devote your time to all of them. Pick one if that’s all the time your resources allow; but sign up for all of them.

MySpace

For the right kind of business (and audience), MySpace could be lethal (in a good way). For musicians and new bands, MySpace has been a huge key to success.

With the ability, unlike most social networks, to customize backgrounds and profiles, MySpace is truly a brandable network.

Facebook

Create your personal profile first, then a business fan page. Starting suggesting that friends fan your business, and then start reaching out beyond your friends. You can search for specific keywords within your network; or simply keywords within profiles – depending on privacy settings.

Facebook ads are another way to gain fans. Right now, they’re ultra-targeted and relatively cheap per click.

Twitter

If your customer base is on Twitter, sign up and build out your profile (including a custom background). Search for people you already know and start following them. Then go to Twitter Search and find some gurus in your industry by searching for keywords in your line of business. Check out Nearby Tweets for tweeps in your area and start following them.

Download an app like TweetDeck and track keywords in either your industry or your physical location. By doing this, you’ll no longer need to search constantly on Nearby Tweets or a similar geo-locating tool. Also, make sure you track your business name. That way, if someone talks about you (positive or negative), you’ll be right there, ready to respond accordingly.

LinkedIn

If your audience is on LinkedIn, you should be too! Create a personal profile page, along with a business profile page. Then make sure everyone in your organization is on LinkedIn and become connected with them. Then, look for your audience. Start with people you know.

Begin joining groups – even creating some around your line of work. Be sure to check the Answers section in order to become the expert in your industry. Both Groups and Answers are great places to find people to become connected with.

You’re not done yet

Now that you’ve found your audience, make sure you continue to search for new fans, friends, connections, and followers constantly. Consistently engage with these people – no matter what network you’re on.

Nicki Hicks
Go where the people are

In May, Google announced they’d be adding more to the “Suggest” function. Up until now, I hadn’t noticed; but perhaps that’s because I rarely search from google.com.

Yesterday, I found it helpful:

However, if, as Search Engine Land suggests, there will be AdWords included Suggest, I can only imagine this space will be overcrowded in no time.

That begs the question…

Isn’t less more?

Time and time again, seemingly simplistic interfaces seem to become complicated. Look at Facebook and Twitter…

Facebook added a news feed, which has more recently become a real time news feed. Certainly, there are reasons for such changes; but at a certain point is evolving for just evolution’s sake?

Twitter recently added a retweet function from its website. Seemingly helpful, it’s done nothing other than muddle up the simplistic interface they had going. This function, in particular, received nothing but bad reviews.

Certainly Google couldn’t be the next monopoly to be pressured to overcrowd in an effort to be cutting edge. Dearest Google, simple is good. Simple is why you are king.

Fortunately, more often than not, Google will test ideas relentlessly before they leave Labs. But it’s something to think about.

Nicki Hicks
Website minimalist

This week, I gave two presentations (or rather, the same presentation, twice) for a senior Business Seminar class at Saint Joseph’s College. Though it’s always nice going back to my alma mater, more so than usual, I feel for the senior class.

A year and a half ago, it was easier to find a job. Obviously, it took some work, but it’s nowhere near the type of competitive environment these soon-to-be grads face in the next 6 months of their job search. So how are you supposed to differentiate yourself in such an atmosphere? Why, with social media, of course!

The full presentation is in Slideshare below, but here are some of the key points:

• On Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter already? Great…now go in and clean up and fill out your profiles. Not on them? Join! (Note: only join Twitter if you can devote the time to it.)
• The next step: go above and beyond. Engage people by friending/fanning, following, and connecting with the right people and groups.
• Jobs in ME/VT/NH and many of your other favorite job listing sites have a presence on all of the major social media networks. Why go to their website everyday when you can engage them via Twitter? or Facebook? or even an RSS feed?
• A really neat find: when I was doing research for the presentation, I stumbled upon some video resumes on YouTube – what better way to add depth to your resume? But be careful – you have to do your video resume the right way; check out the presentation for tips and tricks for YouTube!

…or as spammer would have you believe: How to get 200 followers a day!!!

#FollowFriday or #ff

When done properly, FollowFridays are a great way to increase your Twitter network. The way it works is simple: on Fridays, you suggest your followers follow a certain tweep in particular. You can see that there’s the added benefit when the reverse is true: recommendations from the people you follow.

Look for the icon

Some time ago, Twitter launched its Verified Accounts for businesses and celebrities. With all of the copycat Tweeps out there, this is how Twitter is attempting to set your mind at ease.

Tweetups

I’ve talked about the utterly incredible #MEtweetups we have here in Portland, and they really are a great place to meet new folks on Twitter – both to meet some you follow already IRL (In Real Life) and others you hadn’t been following before!

Search for ‘em

• Happn.in – find out what people are tweeting about in the world’s largest cities
• Nearby Tweets – search this very cool interface by keywords in tweets or location
• TweepSearch – search through bios for keywords or locations.
• Twellow – the “Twitter Yellow Pages” is another good source for searching by geographic location.
• Twitterholic – my favorite source to find tweeps by location.
• Twitter search - You can use Twitter search for a particular keyword, for your company, or even your location.

Nicki Hicks
Follow me on Twitter