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Twitter Vine: Can you Deliver Value in 6 Seconds?

twitter vine

Twitter Vine is a new video service from Twitter that allows users to share very short videos. Depending on your business and your message, you may be able to use this new service to reach out to customers. What Is Twitter Vine? As with Twitter, which has a 140 character limit on any messages, this video service encourages brevity, allowing users to share up to six seconds of video at one time. The stated goal behind this limit is to inspire creativity, and you will indeed have to be creative in order to deliver value to your customers in one-fifth the space of a typical television commercial. Twitter Vine can be downloaded to a home computer, laptop, or notebook. It can also be downloaded from an app store for use on an iPhone, iPod, smartphone, or tablet. How To Deliver Value With only six seconds to work with, it is not feasible to use Twitter Vine as a way of delivering traditional commercial content. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t use this service as part of your Twitter marketing plan. One useful feature of the video service is the ability to geotag your videos. That means that you can mark [...]

Real Talk: Does Anyone Care About #FollowFriday Anymore?

As a large proponent of Twitter marketing for businesses, I say this with a slight bit of shame: I hate #FollowFriday. Not because I don’t like the concept or the positive nature (I love both), I feel like it’s become a painful chore that actually does nothing for the people I want to shine a light on. There is a good chance that I’m alone on this but I wanted to bring it up because I’ve been wondering who feels the same way. Our article “The How & Why of #FollowFriday On Twitter” was one of the top 10 popular blogs on the site last year and although I stand by the best practices I outlined in it, I can’t help but wonder…how many #FollowFriday shout outs actually turn into something relevant for businesses? This is the first official “debate” for a new recurring set of candid conversations about the more controversial topics in social media marketing and how they relate to business owners. I believe in the power of social media but as a realistic businessperson I’m not inclined to sugar coat the gory details that affect my clients’ or my own bottom line. If something sucks, it is [...]

Doubling (Or Even Tripling) Your Retweets In Under 10 Minutes

twitter for business

There is no secret that I’m a big fan of Twitter for business use. Don’t get me wrong, the little blue bird and me have had our wrestles in the past but like any great relationship, it’s got its ups and downs. Here are some of the problems people have: Getting real, interested followers Maximizing exposure for tweets (it’s noisy on Twitter!) It’s easy to feel like you are getting nowhere and just wasting time There is one thing I find most people have in common that have these issues: they aren’t taking advantage of Twitter lists.

21 Twitter Marketing Hacks: Writing Better Tweets Faster

twitter marketing

Twitter marketing fundamentally depends on the content within each tweet but creating and curating that content can become quite the pain to do often while still retaining a high degree of quality. Over the years I have come across a few tricks that have solidified themselves as part of my routine. It’s not likely that you will incorporate every one of these points but inside these Twitter marketing tips you will find your very own Holy Grail for crafting the perfect tweets in no time.

OMG! My Twitter Account Was Hijacked & Taken For Ransom! [UPDATED]

UPDATED: November 1, 2012 @ 12:33PM I have finally gotten my Twitter account back after three long weeks of endless support tickets, reaching out to strangers and calling in every favor possible. I’m sorry to say that without the help of a great friend with some high connections at Twitter, I might not have ever gotten it back. I wish I had a great story to share about Twitter’s amazing support service but it seems that without a large paid advertising account, you are almost guaranteed to get nowhere. Take the tale below as a word of caution and heed the warning and tips shared at the end. You will need it! It started out like any normal Thursday morning. I had a cup of tea, read some emails and made my daily smoothie before making the rounds on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. TweetDeck is my main Twitter tool and when I opened it up, I immediately noticed my username being mentioned in several tweets but there was something a little strange going on. It wasn’t MY username…it had been changed. Those of you that follow or interact with me on Twitter know that my ID has always been @MelonieDodaro. [...]

Here’s Why Twitter Is Still An Incredible Marketing Tool

Twitter marketing has been in the shadows since Pinterest and Facebook began to steal the spotlight this year in 2012. Although Facebook has been the leader for a while, they received a lot of additional media attention due to the whole IPO fiasco. Many business owners and professionals still don’t get why Twitter could possibly be significant to their business. I can’t blame them since I felt the same way at one point. What could possibly be significant in 140 characters?   Twitter Marketing Secret Weapon: Advanced Search Your greatest Twitter marketing tool for discovering conversations surrounding your brand, industry or company is arguably Twitter’s Advanced Search. Why? Let me give you an example. If you’re a restaurant, you can search for anyone tweeting the word “hungry” in your local area and it will provide you with instant results, in chronological order starting from the most recent tweets. This is a HUGE opportunity. If you’re a restaurant, these people ARE your customers, so reaching out to them at this moment in time could be a critical turning point for your business. Offer them a special discount code that they can use that day to come in for a meal at [...]

The Hidden Power of Twitter #Hashtags

Have you wondered why people put # in front of words within their tweets? These are called Twitter hashtags. What are Twitter hashtags? They started as a means to organize tweets and events. Now Twitter #Hashtags are used to easily find things that may be of interest to you, similar to keyword searches. Making sense with Twitter #Hashtags The hash, pound, or number, “#”, sign was originally used in Twitter to categorize posts—this preceded any word or series of words not separated by a space. For example, if I tweet “I’m writing an article about social media and I want to make that a hashtag, I simply place a # in front and remove the space between social and media i.e. #SocialMedia and it becomes a clickable and searchable Twitter hashtag. I can then do a Twitter search and see who else is using this hashtag. This is great for tracking a trending topic in real time. Twitter #hashtags are more like personal labels (making no sense to the average person) than keywords because many are unique and some don’t last long. The hashtag was actually invented by Twitter users to make sense of trends since tweets are not like [...]

The How and Why of Twitter Engagement

The 3 Types of Interaction to Remember in Your Twitter Marketing Campaign Twitter is the one social networking site that remains very simple on the outside but still has a lot of depth to it. Marketing with Twitter gives you a bit more leverage in ways other social networks can restrain you. For example, you can start chatting with anyone without being “friends” and you are able to see nearly anybody’s tweets (unless they are protected). Many businesses have great success marketing with Twitter because, unlike Facebook, it highly encourages linking to other people’s accounts in each post, drastically increasing your potential for post impressions. Twitter has a magical way of connecting you with people from all over when other social media is mostly dependent on connecting with whom you already know. Related: 3 Ways to Supercharge Your Tweets What’s the Deal with Retweets? Whenever you make a post on Twitter, you want to make it as “retweetable” as possible so that it has a better chance of reaching potential new followers that are interested in your topic. This is easily one of the pillars to a successful Twitter marketing strategy, so pay close attention. How to Increase Your Chances [...]

3 Ways to Supercharge Your Tweets

Your social network strategy has to extend to every single tiny detail of what you do online. When you are promoting your articles, blogs or website on Twitter, you need to be able to present an attractive reason to click your links within 120 characters or less…wait, did I say 120 characters? You’re going to find out why 120 characters wasn’t a typo, plus a couple other great tips to boost traffic to your website or blog, increase engagement on your social media profiles and drastically increase the visibility of your business online. 1. Tweet In 120 Characters Or Less Why you ask? Is it digital blasphemy to leave any of the 140 precious characters unoccupied? The reason why you want to do this is simple. Retweets! There are tons of people that don’t use the retweet button and prefer to re-post your tweet and mention you instead. If you’ve taken up too much space in your tweet, they won’t be able to fit their mention to you inside of it. You run the risk of not receiving recognition or, even worse, not spreading your information at all. 2. Ask More Questions This is what its all about. You’ve got [...]

How & Why to Use #FollowFriday (#FF) on Twitter

How to Massively Increase Engagement & Influence On Twitter In One Day Have you wondered with this #FF (FollowFriday) is all about on Twitter?  Maybe you see it every Friday but aren’t exactly sure of the benefits of this popular Twitter practice. For those of you that are out of the loop, when you see “#FF” on Twitter, that’s a nice shout out from a Twitterer telling their followers that the mentioned users are worth following. “FollowFriday” on Twitter is a great day for engaging with people in your network in a positive and friendly way.  It can also be an extremely effective way to grow and strengthen the connection you have with your friends and followers if done properly. Doing this for others greatly enhance your chances of having it reciprocated for you in future Follow Fridays. THE PROBLEM OF #FF There are a couple issues with the status quo and the popular methods of doling out the “Twitter salute” each Friday. Here are a few problems I have personally noticed: 1.   There are too many people being shouted out to in one post. 2.  Your followers don’t know why they should follow these people. 3.  Your followers [...]