Social Media updates July 6, 2009

Three new things have happened in the last couple of weeks that make life just a little bit easier for those of us that love and use social media.

Flickr to Twitter

Twitterberry doesn’t work for photos on my Blackberry, because it takes too long to upload the photos, which are too big (I could change my camera settings to a lower DPI, but I don’t want to), so what I do is upload the photo to Flickr, then copy the address, then paste it into Twitter. A long and circuitous route to get a photo on Twitter “instantly”.

Now, Flickr has integrated the ability to Twitter directly from Flickr. You upload your photos to Flickr, then click on the photo you want to Tweet. Click on the “blog this” button, and, after the first time where you have to authorize it and set it up, it will post your photos directly to Twitter. I even have my own email address, now, where, if I take a photo on my mobile phone, I can email it directly to  Flickr. A handy little app for those that like to use Flickr.

Read about it on Mashable.

Vanity URLs for Fan Pages on Facebook:

A few weeks back, Facebook allowed us to create vanity URLs for our personal profiles (ie: www.facebook.com/rebeccacoleman instead of the gobbledy-gook 400-character one before). Now, you can also create vanity URLs for your fan pages.

For me, this is just one more reason why I am now encouraging folks to create fan pages for thier business, instead of a group. You need to have more than 25 fans to get your shortened URL, however, so get cracking! To get your vanity URL for your personal profile or your fan page, go to: http://www.facebook.com/username/

UPDATE: JULY 8

Facebook just added another reason to like Fan pages. You can now create a widget for your website or blog that promotes your Facebook Fan page. All you do is click on the “Add Fan box to your site” link in the menu directly beneath your icon/avatar on your Facebook fan page, and it will take you through the steps to create a widget for your page.

Have a great week! Hope these tips make your ability to use social media to promote your business just a wee bit easier!

Please don’t Twitter like this June 29, 2009

I’m a nice person. My friends all think so. My sweetie tells me so on practically a daily basis.

So, just to warn you, this blog post is uncharacteristically, well, mean.

Please understand that my heart’s in the right place. I’m not writing this to be mean. I’m writing it so that you can learn from other people’s mistakes (and maybe just a little bit to vent).

As part of my Twitter routine, once a week or so, I go through all the email notifications I have gotten that week letting me know about all my new followers. I go through each one individually, and check them out, to decide if I’m going to follow them back, or not. I have pretty set criteria for who I’ll follow, and who I won’t.

Last week, while going through my new Twitter followers, I found one that had done so many things wrong, I just had to share. (personal details have blurred to protect the innocent).

Let’s start with what they’ve done right, because it’s not all bad:

• Personalized background
• Website URL, bio and avatar

The not-so-good:

• Every single tweet is in all caps (in case you were not aware, all caps on the ‘net is the equivalent of shouting in real life)
• Follower-to-followee ratio: They are following significantly more people than are following them. Not usually a great sign, because anyone can follow a great deal of people in a short amount of time, but you have to prove some worth to get people to follow you.
• They recycle the same 4 Tweets. I’m not even going to say why that’s bad.
• There are no personal Tweets. Everything is business. Now, I get that they are a business, and it’s their primary aim to get business in through the door, and that’s all okay. But people are interested in seeing what goes on behind the scenes–maybe something is going on with one of the bartenders, the band–things that are a bit more personal in nature.
• Geographical location: I live in Vancouver, BC, Canada. They are located in Ohio. Why are they following me? If I was traveling to Ohio, and wanted to go to a bar, I’d be looking for them. But otherwise, why? I’m not their market.

One last please don’t do this/rant: if I follow you, I don’t mind if you send me an auto response with your website. But please don’t send me an auto response with your website trying to sell me something. I hardly know you. Let’s get to know each other a little before you try to sell me something.

K.Thx.Bye!

: : : : : : : : : : :

8 Types of Tweets June 19, 2009

Today, a third sample from my  e-book:

The eight types of Tweets

• Personal: this is where you answer the question “what am I doing right now?” These types of tweets are important, because they help your followers to get to know the ‘real’ you.

• Link tweets (direct business): Because space is limited to 140 characters, many people use Twitter to drive traffic to websites or blogs. Every time I publish a blog post, I drop the URL with a teaser into Twitter. 47% of the traffic to my blog comes from Twitter in that way. Note that, because you only have 140 characters, you need to use a link-shortening program for your links. These are readily available at sites like www.tinyurl.com or www.snipurl.com.

• Link tweets (tangential business): I also post links to interesting websites or blog posts (usually from blogs I subscribe to through Google Reader) that I think people who follow me might be interested in (because I was!). Some of these blogs may also link back to my own blog.

• Link tweets (fun): This is the latest silly YouTube video, etc.

• Re-Tweets: ReTweeting is great because each time something is re-tweeted, it reaches a different audience. In the world of Twitter, the retweet is the highest form of compliment.

• @Replies and Conversations: There is some controversy on Twitter about how conversations seem to be taking over, but I still do it all the time. This allows you to respond to something someone has said in their tweet, and begin a relationship with them.

• Help! or Ask Tweets: Asking people for help from a good restaurant for lunch to technical questions to questions about your product or service is a great way to create relationships.

• Photo Tweets: use http://www.twitpic.com to upload and share photos directly to Twitter.

The book contains one more (a bonus 9th!) and suggestions about what percentages to tweet each category.

Click to buy my e-book: Getting Started with Social Networking for Artists and Arts Organizations.

: : : : : : : : : : :

Twittering from the Dragon’s Den June 3, 2009

I make no bones about it: I love The Dragon’s Den. Ever since my small business instructor/mentor, Scott Armstrong, introduced me to it a couple years back, I have faithfully watched this CBC show, “where aspiring entrepreneurs pitch their business concepts and products to a panel of Canadian business moguls who have the cash and the know-how make it happen.”

I was thrilled when my friend, Laurel Bailey, got flown to Toronto last year to pitch her Naked Soapworks business expansion plan to the Dragons (her pitch, sadly, didn’t make the final cut, but her business is doing well).

Last year, I wrote a blog post about the show, and at that time, none of the Dragons were on Twitter. Now, most of them are, and today, they tape the last day of the fourth season of the show. It has been lots of fun (and a sneak preview!) to read the tweets coming out of the Den.

@cbcdragon (the show)
@DianeBuckner (the host)
@WBrettWilson (the newest Dragon, Calgarian Wilson made his fortune as an investment banker, and since, has invested in energy, sports, entertainment, and real estate.)
@KevinOLearyTV (Kevin is the sarcastic one, possibly the toughest of all the Dragons. He made his millions in high-tech)
@ArleneDickinson (the lone female of the panel, Arlene is my favorite, because she is a woman, and because she made her fortune in marketing. She also really gets Twitter.)

As of yet, Robert Herjavec and Jim Treliving don’t seem to have jumped on the Twitter bandwagon. Season 4 is set to air early fall, and Season 3 repeats on CBC starting June 17.

: : : : : : : : : : :

Why you should NOT join Twitter May 27, 2009

I was out the other night with my sweetie’s co-workers, helping to celebrate one of their birthdays. It came up that one of the co-workers had just attended a workshop that day on Twitter. I,  of course, Twitter enthusiast that I am, was all over it.

“So, are you going to join??” I asked, thinking, “I have to get her handle so I can follow her.”

“No,” she said. “What’s the point? It’s a lot of noise. I don’t want to know the minutae of people’s lives.”

Hmm… good point. Hard to argue with that.

There is a lot of noise on Twitter. Clearly, having tools like Tweet Deck or HootSuite to deal with thousands of Tweets daily makes a big difference. But there’s a bigger problem, here.

Here are two good reasons NOT to join Twitter:

1. If you don’t have a purpose for Twittering, and you don’t have a plan. I wrote a while back about Oprah joining Twitter, and how anything she touches turns to gold (by which I mean, becomes immensely popular). If you are thinking, “hey, this Twitter thing sounds cool, everyone I know is doing it, I should check it out,” that’s fine, but stop first, and do some research and planning.

What do you want to use Twitter for? It’s most useful application is to drive traffic. So, if you have ablog, vlog, podcast, or Flickr steam, Twitter can be really useful for increasing your stats. It can help to drive traffic to your website. If you have a business, it can help you to promote special deals and sales. But it’s good to have a plan going in–how are you going to use it? When will you tweet? Map this stuff out before you begin.

2. You have the time and energy to put into it. You can’t join Twitter, follow 1,000 in 10 minutes, and expect that you’ve done your job. Social Media is all about making connections. You can Twitter on five minutes a week, but for me, the minimum would be 5-10 minutes, three times a day. Because Twitter is real time, things happen fast, so it’s good to check in more than once every 24-hours. You need to respond to interesting tweets, Re-Tweet stuff you like, and respond to people. If you are doing nothing but putting your own stuff out there, people will quickly loose interest. They want connectivity as well.

There was a big hoo-haa about this Neilson Blog post about Twitter’s recidivism rate. Turns out, only about 40% of the people that will sign up for Twitter this month will continue to post. The other 60% will abandon their accounts (it’s coined a new term: Twitter Quitter). I get it. Twitter’s hard. Not to learn the interface, or to get started, but to learn the nuances of the culture,  takes time. (shameless plug: or you could hire Simon and I to do a workshop for you).

I’m okay with people not jumping on the Twitter bandwagon. I am excited about people who are excited to join for the right reasons, and who are committed enough to keep at it and follow through and to create Tweets with value. Maybe there will be less people twittering about their ham sandwich they had for lunch, and that is never going to be a bad thing.

: : : : : : : : : : :

Demistifying Social Media: new date added! April 24, 2009

You can argue with me on this one, but I think, maybe, the two sweetest words in the English language are: sold out.

Simon Ogden and I got asked to do a workshop on using social media as a tool for marketing your art practice by our local Alliance For Arts and Culture, and it was embarrassing how fast we said, “hell, yeah!” The workshop was set for May 5, and I’m happy to report, that workshop is sold out. Us being the accommodating people we are, we promptly added a second date: May 12. So, if May 5 didn’t work for you, or you missed out on the first one, here’s your chance to check it out.

Read Simon’s post about his “Simonarer” here.

Read about the workshop and sign up for it here.

The day Twitter went Mainstream April 20, 2009

It was bound to happen sooner or later. With Twitter’s exponential growth (131% in March alone, according to E-Week.com) over the last year or so, all the experts werre pretty much predicting this one: Twitter would eventually go from something people were hearing about, but not nessicarily knowing about, to being a mainstream application.

It just happened, a couple days ago.

There were a couple of things that I believe are responsible for pushing it over the edge. The first is that Oprah joined Twitter, and then dedicated a show to the social networking tool. She interviewed Ashton Kutcher, who, along with his wife, Demi Moore, have been on Twitter for quite some time. Anything that Oprah touches turns to gold. A book that is selected by her for her book club is sold out overnight. Products featured on Oprah’s “Favorite Things” episodes see dramatic increases in sales immediately. If Twitter has Oprah’s stamp of approval, the masses will be joining.

Ashton Kutcher is the second reason I believe Twitter can now be considered to be mainstream. During the past week, he engaged in a race with CNN to see who could be the first person on Twitter to make it to 1,000,000 followers. On April 17, Kutcher won that race.

Now, I love Twitter, and I think it’s a fantasic tool. But, honestly, there is a part of me that wants to keep it just among us geeks and nerds. I use Twitter for business, to get the word out, and to connect with people. I don’t use it to celbrity-watch: there are other places where I could do that, if so inclinded. I guess I’m worried about Twitter getting watered down by tons of users who are just on it because it’s popular, or because Oprah’s on it, or because they want to see the photos that Kutcher published of Bruce Willis’ wedding.

I have a new Twitter motto. In Glengarry Glen Ross, the boss, Blake, tells the rookie: “A-B-C. A-always, B-be, C-closing. Always be closing! Always be closing!!” My new Twitter motto is: A-B-G-V: Always Be Giving Value. Because for me, that’s what Twitter is all about.

UPDATE: I just have to share with you a quote from a blog article I just read by Shel Holtz:

I do not care who was here before Oprah. I do not care whom I beat to Twitter, or who beat me. It does not matter. The only thing that matters is whether your tweets are interesting or valuable. If they’re not—at least to me—I will not follow you. If they are, I will. Whether you were here on the day of Twitter’s launch or joined yesterday is irrelevant. Only the quality of your content matters. Period.

Nice. Well put, Shel.

Read the rest of the blog article, I don’t care if you were on Twitter before Oprah.

: : : : : : : : : : :

Growing Pains April 6, 2009

Growth, growth, growth. I feel like it’s all I’m talking about these days. It starts with my five-and-a-half year old’s growth chart and inability to stay in the same size of shoes for more than 6 months. It is a conversation I am having on a macro-level with my beloved local theatre tweeps about the state of the Vancouver indie scene, and how we can create a new audience. And it’s happening on a level much closer to home, as I ponder and plan where my own business is going in the not-too-distant future.

I spend a reasonably large amount of time on Twitter. Every day, when I check my email, I’ve got a half-a-dozen or so new followers. Sometimes, when I check out my new followers, I see that they are following 1, 249 people, have about 70 following them, and have tweeted 6 times in the past 48 hours since they joined. It’s like high school: just follow as many people as possible. What’s important is being popular, not well-liked.

I want to make a case for the slow-but-steady-wins-the-race school of business. I get that your business is very important to you, and probably its success is your greatest single-most desire. But rushing ahead is not always the right way to go. I was watching a very trashy TV show the other night (Tori and Dean Inn Love–I know, I’m sorry), and I was shocked at how the couple just up and bought a B & B without doing any kind of research, planning, or budgeting as to how expensive it was going to be to renovate their inn. They just jumped into it.

Okay, there is something to be said for jumping in–because sometimes we get so bogged down in the research that it keeps us from action, but for the most part, I like to do it this way:

1. Research your idea: if someone else is already doing what you’re doing, you might not want to do it. Or perhaps you want to look for a different way of doing it. Is there a niche that is not being filled that you can fill?

2. Make a plan: your plan has to include goals and dates for reaching those goals.

3. Beta test: this is a popular thing that’s done with software, primarily. Companies getting ready to release software will release it in a ‘beta’ version, and let people play with it and use it, and inform them when there are problems. By getting this kind of market testing and feedback, they are able to refine the product or service. When you are getting ready to launch, run it past some people you trust, first. Their fresh eye will be a big help.

4. Go for it! And remember: if you don’t whoosh to the top overnight, that’s okay. Slow but steady growth is also really good. Failure is also okay, as long as you use it as a learning experience.

Besides, I bet most of those “overnight success” Twitterers will not even be on Twitter in another month. They’ll be bored, abandon it, and be on to the next thing. Me, I’ll still be there, (hopefully) steadily racking up followers…

: : : : : : : : : : :

State of the Union: Social Networking March 23, 2009

Okay, so I’m no Guy Kawasaki. I’m not even close to Seth Godin.  But some interesting things have happened over the last few weeks, and I wanted to share them with you.

First off, Twitter just celebrated its third birthday. Originally used as a device for co-workers in the same office to talk to each other, Twitter began in March, 2006, at a company in San Francisco called Odeo. At last count, Twitter users worldwide are thought to be somewhere in the range of 6 Million.

Second, if you are a Facebook user (Facebook is the number 1 social media application in the world, right now), you’ll notice that they have rolled out a new interface. This is partly because Facebook tried to buy Twitter in November last year, and was unsuccessful. So, they have changed their interface to be more Twitter-like.

Third, I have given a couple of talks on social networking over the last couple of weeks, and I have been asked the question “what about My Space?” My response is always the same: if you are a musician, you should have a My Space page if you are a musician, otherwise….

What does all this tell us? Well, first of all, Facebook would not have tried to buy out Twitter, unless they saw them as some kind of threat. Their current redesign is further proof that they are worried about Twitter’s rapid growth. My Space is a good example of this. In June 0f 2006, My Space was the most popular social networking site on the internet, but it was eclipsed by Facebook in April 2008. My Space is now primarily used by musicians, which I think it is perfect for. Facebook, meanwhile, is sweating over Twitter’s growing popularity.

I have talked to a lot of people about Twitter over the last few weeks. Most people say the same thing–they feel like they should be on Twitter, because it’s so popular, and they hear about it all the time, but I also hear that people are unsure what to do when they join. Often they feel overwhelmed by the amount of noise going on, and are unsure about Twitter’s value to them.

Whenever I get a new follower, I like to check out their Twitter page, and if they seem like someone I have something in common with, I’ll follow them back. I’ve been super busy these last two weeks, so yesterday, I batched the nearly-100 new followers I’d gotten over the last couple of weeks. When I look at someone’s profile to see if I want to follow, I’m looking for a few specific things: a picture, a fully-filled out profile, a website. I will also glance at their last few tweets, and see if any of them present value: links, blog posts, information.

It was a bit of a wake-up call: not that many passed the test. It started me wondering: if someone stumbled over my Twitter page, and judged it on my values, would they follow me? Maybe. Maybe not.

Twitter is young, and there has been a lot of talk about how to take it to the future. Monetization, for example. For me, it’s my goal to use my social networking ability and my skills as a marketer to help people to begin to create a social media marketing plan for themselves or thier business, because this is an area that I see is sadly lacking.

So stay tuned… plans are in the works. And you’ll be the first to know.

: : : : : : : : : : :

How Businesses are Using New Media for Publicity March 11, 2009

The mainstream media is shrinking. We’ve established that, and whether it’s temporary or permanent, only time will tell. In the mean time, we still need to get people through the door. Here are three examples of what some companies are doing to take advantage of new media.

The British Columbia Institute of Technology (where I took my small business course in 2007), in a bit to bring in new students, hosted a 67-hour live-blogathon. They Twittered, blogged and uploaded video from  Wednesday night through Saturday afternoon. BCIT was also gave away $5000 in tuition to five people. You can see information on Three Blog Nights here, and the blog here.

Meanwhile, in Portland, a company called Portland Centre Stage invited a bunch of people to come to the opening of thier latest show, Apollo, and Twitter it. The experiment was at least partially successful–thier show was top five in Twitter traffic that night. Read more about this experiment here.

And in January, The Vancouver Opera invited three bloggers to come and live blog and Twitter a performance of their

Image courtesy of Miss 604's Flickr stream

latest Opera, Carmen. The show was a sell-out. They repeated the process this last Saturday night with Rigoleto. You can read the Vancouver Opera blog here.

What I think is most interesting about these three examples is that they were a success (at least to some degree) on two different levels. The actual event of blogging and Twittering created a buzz around the event in the moment. But, later on, all three of these stories were picked up by bloggers and the mainstream media. Read Gillian Shaw’s story about Three Blog Nights  in the Vancouver Sun. And read about Rebecca Bolwitt’s experience of live blogging the Opera in the Vancouver Courier.

What’s happening is that businesses, arts-related or otherwise, are turning to new media for publicity, because they see that the traditional media is failing.  And, while that is working, they are also reaping bonus rewards: stories in the tradional media about their innovations in social media marketing.

Ironic, huh?

: : : : : : : : : : :