by tradesmeninsights | Nov 17, 2009 | Marketing Tools, Social Marketing, Twitter
Some B-to-B marketers are having a hard time including Twitter in the marketing mix. You need to think of it as a relationship-building tool. Twitter should never be used as a stand-alone tactic. It should be used in conjunction with other social media as well as traditional tools like e-mail. Jon VanZile wrote an interesting post, Is B-to-B Ready For Twitter? that you might find interesting.
One of the concerns of B-to-B marketers is that “none of my customers or potentials are on Twitter.” While that may be true now, they will be soon. And how do you know unless you ask them? This week Twitter passed the 5 billion tweet mark. Somebody is using it! According to a study released this summer by Nielsen Co., Twitter growth has been phenomenal especially toward adults. According to Nielsen, Twitter reaches 11% of all Internet users. 80% of people who Tweet are over 25.
While you’re waiting for your customers to get in the game, Twitter still offers you some great free analytic tools you should be using to keep track of competitors as well as find conversations related to a post or article. Here are 5 good ones to start:
- Twitterstats Hour-by-hour and for any 24-hour period, track up to three keywords (think competitors) w/g/t click volume. Useful if, for example, there’s news being dropped during the same time period and/or an event/tradeshow and you want to compare message volume/activity around keywords or companies.
- Tweeps.info Nifty free tool that lets you track on individual Twitter accounts (think YOUR competitors). Inside look at #tweets per day, current and prominent keywords, to what degree the account is using hashtags, following snapshot. Also has a keyword search which is useful if you’re looking to build your follow list around a particular topic.
- BackTweets A real-time, conversational-tracking tool which allows for keyword and/or URL searches to find conversations related to a post or article; connects: WordPress, Blogger, TypePad, Twitter and Friendfeed. Useful for community buzz centralized listening, brand monitoring. An “alert” function.
- Twitteranalyzer Google Analytics for Twitter users. More than 50 statistical measures displayed with graphics and maps. Among the views: Reach, Subject Matter, Follower Growth, Follower Density Map, Follower Activity, Sharing Capability. Primarily a tool for Twitter users to analyze themselves or their friends.
- TwitterFriends A “reach/extended-reach” tracking tool that helps you discover information about the network behind your follower/their follower lists. Identifies meaningful users you should be talking to, or who are feeding you useful links. Capability to account search/compare (think comparing your company to your competitors, or thought leader accounts, etc.)
by tradesmeninsights | Oct 21, 2009 | Marketing Trends, Social Marketing, Twitter
Social media as a whole continues to surpass growth estimates. eMarketer reported earlier this month that Twitter has over 18 million adults who access on at least a monthly basis. That’s a 200% increase over last year.
Universal McCann’s “Power to the people-social media tracker” also sees social networking continuing to increase. eMarketer estimates that 44.2% of all Internet users in the U.S. are social network users. Worldwide, 62.5% of active users ages 16-54 have a social networking profile in 2009. Worldwide, 62.5% of active Internet users ages 16-54 have a social network profile.
Users are looking to social networking sites that can consolidate multiple social media into one place. As noted above, despite consolidation, social media is not a one-stop shop. Universal McCann advises marketers to give consumers options when engaging them through social media. Allowing individuals to share and discuss on their platform of choice remains important.
by tradesmeninsights | Oct 14, 2009 | Marketing Trends, Social Marketing, Twitter
The idea of marketers adopting social media by the boatloads is not a surprising statement. One of their biggest concerns has been will the consumer return the favor. Well some recent data shows that half of social networking users have became a fan or follower of a brand online. eMarketer recently published a report from Anderson Analytics that said, “52% of social network users had become a fan or follower of a company or brand, while 465 had said something good about the brand or company on a social networking site, double the percentage who had said something negative (23%).”
Another study from Penn State indicated that 20% of all tweets mention specific brand names or products. They studied over 500,ooo tweets and found both positive and negative comments about the brands or products.
Measuring social media success remains difficult for marketers. Many of the metrics that marketers can track on social networks today involve what is called “soft ROI”— which does not show up in the bottom line. But a study from the Altimeter Group and Wetpaint, along with a separate study from Razorfish, indicates that the stronger a brand’s social media presence, the better the brand performed—whether measured in conversations or in financial performance.
“Social networks are a constantly changing database of consumer sentiment, attitudes and information, and marketers today have only the earliest glimpse of the potential,” said Ms. Williamson, senior analyst at eMarketer. “Companies that want to maximize their presence on the social Web must take advantage of social networks in all stages of the purchase funnel, from awareness to learning to buying to loyalty.”
What does this mean to you and me? It means that you can’t just simply set up shop on social and sit back and wait for people to come. Users are seeking out their favorite brands whether it’s online or through other avenues and you must be there.
Maximize your social network marketing. Download the new eMarketer report, “Marketing on Social Networks: Branding, Buying and Beyond,” now.
by tradesmeninsights | Aug 5, 2009 | Marketing Tips, Social Marketing, Twitter, Uncategorized
There are many traditional ways of generating leads, i.e. pay for click, list rentals, etc. But social lets you go beyond some of these typical methods and lets people find you. In my mind, one of the biggest benefits to social media is the ability to identify and start conversations in a low-key manner with potential contractors. The two top tools I use are LinkedIn and Twitter.
LinkedIn – I find that this is a very useful and friendly site for B-to-B users. The group section is a great way to join groups with common interests and start participating.
- I’ve joined groups like E-marketing Association Network and The Air Conditioning, Heating & Refrigeration Institute. Both are targeted and are great ways to see what the hot topic of the day is and how people are reacting to it. You can even start your own group and invite people to join.
- It’s a great spot to throw out a question to the group or put your two cents in on an area where you are an expert.
- I’ve also used these groups to do short surveys and I post at least once a week and sometimes twice a recent relevant post from my blog under the news section. This helps drive folks to my blog and hopefully position me as an expert.
- You also need to update your status regularly and make sure your co-workers do the same. We’re in the process of organizing a webinar and will not only post it on my page for folks to register, but also put it as a news item on my group pages.
Twitter – I use Twitter to communicate to my followers many times a day to promote my most recent posts.
- I use Tweetlater to schedule and manage my daily tweets. There are several other applications out there that do the same thing.
- If you want to reach people who don’t follow you, include relevant hashtags. Experienced users will search for those terms.
- Encourage re-tweets. In order to do so you need to keep your message shorter than the 140 characters so the person who is doing the re-tweet has room for their name and message.
These are some things I do to use social to generate leads. I’d like to hear from you on how you utilize social.
Here’s an article that might prove to be of interest, 5 Ways to Find Prospects on Twitter.
by tradesmeninsights | Jul 16, 2009 | Marketing Tools, Social Marketing, Twitter
Finding your best prospective client online audience is not yet an exact science. But for now you can be in the right ballpark. The same is true regarding Twitter. There are plenty of search applications out there, but all have their limitations. The following five sites have been the most helpful to me in locating prospective client “tweeps” to follow.
1. Twitter Search – Twitter’s built-in people search is the easiest place to start, but isn’t necessarily the best way to find people on Twitter. Twitter Search is much better, especially using their advanced search page. Be sure and check out their search operations pages for some handy examples for your search query.
2. Twellow – Is an excellent search tool for prospective clients with over 6.2 million Twitter user profiles now indexed in Twellow and placed into a huge number of categories. You can search the entire lot of profiles, or confine searches to a single category. Twellow also operates a local directory called the “Twellowhood.”
3. Tweepz – Allows you limited searches to specific parts of Twitter’s user information (such as name, bio and location). Through the advanced search filter results by follower/following numbers, location, and other extracted terms, enhances your search results.
4. Twitterel – You can search for prospective clients to follow by doing keyword searches of tweets. This service can update you by email, direct message, or @reply when it finds new people it thinks you might be interested in following. It’s similar to Google Alerts.
5. WeFollow – Is a Twitter user directory that organizes people by hashtags. WeFollow is user-generated and anyone can add themselves by tweeting @wefollow with three #hashtags that describe them.
If you have helpful search sites/directories that have been helpful to you, please share them in the comment section below.
by tradesmeninsights | Jul 15, 2009 | Marketing Tools, Social Marketing, Twitter
Social media is trying to be taken seriously, and in late 2008 came out with several tools to measure the effectiveness of Twitter. Two of the more popular tools are Twitter Grader (I scored 97.6 out of 100) and Twinfluence (I scored 98 out of 100).
How much credibility do you put into these type tools? I use them as a guidepost to make sure I keep on track.
It makes me:
- Check my network to get rid of non-contributing (spammers) followers.
- Re-evaluate my end game to make sure you’re still on target. You want to search for like-minded people (in my case, those looking to talk to tradesmen). You’re not looking for the biggest list of followers; you’re looking for the right ones!
- To make sure my messages are timely and rich in content for my target audience.
Twitter Grader bases its score on the number of followers you have, the power of your network, the frequency of your updates and how complete your profile is.
Twinfluence bases its criteria on Reach (what’s the maximum number of people that could get your tweet),Velocity (how fast are you adding followers), Social Capital (how many followers do your followers have) and Centralization (how dependent are you on a small number of followers who have big followings).
You may or may not agree on the metrics, but at least it’s a start. If it does nothing else but make you stop and evaluate your program at a 30,000-foot level, it has served a purpose.
So what are you waiting for? What’s your score?
