Archive for July, 2009

Jul 27

How The Death of Twitter Spammers Can Help Your Business

For those who keep up with Twitter news, you couldn’t have missed the big news last week that Twitter was attempting to kill off all spam accounts on their website.

Twitter spam was getting out of control, and even though many users experienced heavy drops in the number of their followers because false accounts were being deleted, this can only have a positive impact on your business.

Once Twitter has mostly gotten rid of spam accounts, then you will have a more accurate picture of the genuine people are that are actually following you. For example, when you are thinking about tweeting about your newest blog post to your 10,000 followers, it will reach a much lower number of people, as almost everyone has some sort of spam account following them. Once these spam accounts are removed, you will have a more accurate number of people you are reaching through your tweets.

If you follow @tless, they will automatically send you a direct message every week with your total number of new followers and a total number of people who have ‘dropped’ you (stopped following you). For my personal Twitter account last week, I had 20 or so adds and 56 ‘drops’, due to the eradication of spam accounts.

While I’m not happy with the lower follower number, I do know that this is definitely more accurate, and I applaud Twitter for their efforts to get all that nasty spam outta’ there!

NOTE: If you don’t want your business account to be labeled as spam, read this great article on What is and Isn’t Spam on Twitter on ClickZ.

NOTE’S NOTE: Follow us on twitter: The Social Robot

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Image courtesy of: http://blogs.sun.com/davetong

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Jul 27

8 FireFox Addons That Unite Multiple Social Media Networks

This is a great post on Search Engine Journal from Ann Smarty about some great Firefox add-ons that help you share and navigate content. I really like AddThis, but Shareaholic is a close second.

One of the reasons why I use FireFox is because of the addons- they offer a unique web experience that has not been matched by internet explorer 8, safari, or even Google Chrome.

See the article here: 8 FireFox Add-Ons That Unite Multiple Social Media Networks

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Jul 22

Are You Taking Full Advantage of Your Facebook Page?

Recently Facebook announced they’ve surpassed 250 million users on the site, maintaining their number one slot as the biggest social networking site on the web. That’s a growth of 50 million users in just under 4 months. Have you jumped on the bandwagon yet? If you are like most of us you’ve started a personal page and might have put up a business listing, but did you know you can make better use of your pages which can help you grow your business, brand, and traffic?

One great tool Facebook allows you to utilize is for your RSS feed. If you have a blog and have yet to set up an RSS feed, DO IT! RSS feeds publish your frequently updated work in a condensed version based on your posts. You are able to import your feed and update your friends on your personal page, and also update your fans on your business page….without having to lift a finger. Heres how:

Import RSS Feed On Your Facebook Personal Page:

  1. Log into your personal page, and click the “Applications” icon at the bottom left of the Facebook toolbar on the homepage.
  2. Click on “Notes”.
  3. Once there you will see “Note Settings” on the right hand side of the page. Click “edit import settings” and follow the prompts to import your RSS feed.

Import RSS Feed On Facebook Business Page:
There are several applications that provide you with RSS capabilities. Doing a simple Facebook search for RSS will yeild several of these, like SocialRSS. Follow the simple instructions, and you’ll soon be up and running.

Many other Facebook applications are available, in addition to SocialRSS. Have a Flickr page? Add it to your Facebook page. Active on YouTube? You can add that too. Customizing your own static Facebook box is available too, if your so inclined. You can even update your Facebook status from Twitter through Facebook’s Twitter application. Facebook applications allow you to update your pages simultaneously, while also allowing users who might not frequent those sites to view your information.

Last month Facebook started allowing vanity URLs. These customized URLs allow you to optimize your business page for branding efforts. Business pages are not allowed vanity URLs until they reach 100 fans, but personal profiles are allowed vanity URLs without those requirements. Be mindful of the URL you decide to use. Think about your brand, your name, and the keywords associated with the content on your blog or for your business. Some opt to keep their personal profile seperate from their business associations, and others don’t. Make sure you decide which route to go before you choose your URL, as Facebook WILL NOT allow you to change it. Most reccomend keeping them seperate, securing your personal name for your personal profile URL and securing your business name for your business profile, after you reach 100 fans that is. Intigration of your keywords in with your business URL can be a good idea. For example, if you had a business as a web hosting company in Miami you might want to have a customized URL like the following: http://www.facebook.com/MiamiWebHosting or http://www.facebook.com/MiamiWebHostingbyBlueWater.

Another new development at Facebook was the integration of the Facebook Fan box. These fan boxes can be placed on your blog or website so your on-site visitors can stay up-to-date. Just remember to actually partipate on your Facebook page! Converse with your fans, use your status messages to announce things of interest, upload pictures, and act human. The last thing your fans will want to see is a lack of interaction.

Utilizing your Facebook page in the best way possible, and organizing your online social efforts will provide you with increased traffic to your site, a better brand identity, and soon you’ll find that your efforts truely pay off.

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Guest Blogger Kaila Strong is the social media architect at Vertical Measures, a link building company providing social media marketing services to a wide variety of clients. In addition, Kaila writes on the Vertical Measures Blog: Link Building Best Practices, and is a self described Twitter addict (@cliquekaila).

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Posted in Featured

Jul 21

How Opinions Can Help You Profit: Using Review Sites to Increase Visibility

In the digital world, it’s now more crucial than ever to pay attention to what people are saying about your business or website, mostly because “word-of-mouth” advertising has extended onto the web, utilizing social media and various websites for customers and users to share their opinion with people they don’t know, from locations around the world.

There are a lot of review websites out there, but Site Jabber and Yelp! have gone above and beyond in order to build effective and fun social communities right alongside the review process (full disclosure: I was a freelance Yelp! scout for 3 months in 2008).

Site Jabber, which I found out about from Mashable is a really creative idea- users can create a profile or login using their facebook account information and write reviews of websites. The review process is very simple and any website can be reviewed. They are then categorized. Webmasters and site fans can also ask members of the Site Jabber community to review a website, allowing them to receive feedback about what users expect out of a website. Users can say whether or not an individual review was helpful, along with having the option to share it on other social media sites.

Yelp! begin as a local review site in San Francisco and has since expanded to include all of the United States and is now in the United Kingdom. Yelp! users can review any business, from their dentist to the new jazz club that opened up downtown. They can also post pictures of that business and give compliments to other users. Reviews can be rated as “funny”, “useful”, and/or “cool”. The Yelp! profile is very fun to fill out and offers fields such as “My Most Recent Discovery”.

Yelp accepts advertising from businesses and sometimes makes them ‘featured’ pages or puts that business first in the search results. At this time, because SiteJabber is still relatively new, it has no advertisements.

The following are some tips for making the most of these review websites, in order to not only increase customers’ opinions of your level of customer service, but to also learn from feedback in order to make your website and business the most successful it can be. But remember, always be upfront and honest about who you are — never pose as a user and give your website or business a positive review. This is not reflective of the positive image you are trying to build.

Respond to Both Positive and Negative Reviews
When I first started “yelping” about businesses in the Kansas City area, I gave a great review to this new bar and restaurant in the Power and Light District that I really enjoyed. The establishment’s owner contacted me personally and said he appreciated my review and that he hoped I’d come down for their specials that Friday. That really impressed me, and lead me to recommend it even more than I already did to friends and family.

As far as negative reviews go, respond in the same manner. Recognize the person’s gripes and say what you will do to rectify the situation. Emphasize that their opinion is important to you and you hope they’ll come back again. But remember, NEVER bribe customers to change their review or post a positive review of your website or business. That is not good business practice and may get you in trouble with Yelp! or SiteJabber.

Add Photos and Update Contact Info
Yelp! allows any users to add photos to a business listing, as well as recommend changes to the businesses’ address or operating hours if they are incorrect. Yelp! has to approve the change, but the turnaround time is usually quick. Both sites allow you to submit a new business entry that can be reviewed right away.

Ask your customers to post reviews
Ask your regular and new customers to post a review of your website or business. Place a link on your website to your listing and make it easy for people to share their opinions. It’s crucial to be objective and never bribe for good reviews or threaten customers if they post negative reviews. It’s important to remember that all feedback is good feedback.

Use feedback to make changes
This is the most important part of utilizing review websites. Take all negative feedback as constructive criticism and emphasize the things that are being done well. Use direct messages, Twitter, Facebook, Email Newsletters, and other mediums to get the word out that you have not only heard what your customers and users have to say, you are implementing it. This will increase your image, bring in new members and customers, and cause more people to leave reviews!

Have any of you used review websites to improve your website or business? Let us know!

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Note: TownMe is a new review site that is generating a lot of positive buzz as well. It is developed by former employees of Google. Urban Spoon is also a respected restaurant review site.

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Jul 21

Still resisting social media?

As reported by SearchEngineWatch.com, a new engagement index calculated by The Wetpaint/Altimeter Group is debunking some myths about social media, for example that it can’t be measured or that it doesn’t work in B2B environments. It also reveals that companies who’ve invested in social media are weathering the recession better.

The study looks at the depth of involvement of the top 100 global brands in various social media channels in an attempt to measure the true value of social media. Customized criteria were used to score each company’s involvement in social media channels including blogs, branded social communities, discussion forums,  social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, Wikis, and content distribution sites. The highest ranking company was Starbucks, which uses 11 channels and employs a social media team of six people. By comparison, #2 ranking Dell spreads social media responsibilities around to all employees, who spend 15-20 minutes a day sharing their thoughts on Twitter and personal blogs.

Although the engagement index reveals a significant correlation between social media involvement and financial performance, don’t expect social media to be a magic solution for disappointing second-quarter profits. Engagement takes time, and the quality of your social media campaigns is critical when it comes to building relationships with your customers and earning their trust — which is, after all, what social media is all about.

More key findings from the study:

  • Focus on quality over quantity. Engaging deeply in one or two channels is preferable to skimming the surface of several.
  • Keep content fresh and respond to comments;  customers want companies that engage with them.
  • Make social media a part of everyone’s job, from the CEO on down. A few minutes a day from all employees adds up.
  • Tailor your social media campaigns to your industry. Luxury automotive brands such as Mercedes-Benz and Porsche engage in just two channels each. If your target audience doesn’t depend on social media, certain channels may not be right for you.
  • Do something. You don’t have to do it all, but you must start somewhere, or risk being left behind as consumers become more dependent on social media.

Read the full study here (PDF).

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Posted in Et cetera, Featured

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