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Posts Tagged ‘social media’

Five Ways to Get Better at Twitter

Tuesday, September 15th, 2009

Okay, so you’ve gotten on the bandwagon and have set up a Twitter account for your business or organization. But how can you now use your Twitter account to help grow your business, build your brand, and develop meaningful relationships with your target audience? Here are five fairly simple things that you can do to get better at Twitter.

Interact with your followers and those who you follow.
This sounds like a no-brainer, but it is shocking how many businesses simply use Twitter to blast out links. Doing this adds very little value to the people who follow you and will quickly result in your tweets being ignored. By taking the time to respond to and interact with your fellow Twitterers, you will go a long way to turning your Twitter account into a strong business tool and not simply a novelty.
Tweet about more than just your business.
Yes, I’m sure that your business is very interesting. However, what you want to avoid is becoming that annoying ass who, whenever you see them, prattles on and on about themselves. Endlessly tweeting about you and only you is a sure fire way to loose followers and have those who still do follow you ignore most of what your saying. Talk about your business, but also mix in other things. Trending Twitter topics, current events, the weather, music your listening to, movies you want to see, etc. This adds some personality and depth to your tweets.
Tweet in words, not abbreviations.
“Today sign SJR16 Offshore Oil/Gas Revenue bill;passed unanimously;urges responsible OCS drilling & method to share $ from developmt w/states.” That is an actual tweet from Sarah Palin. If you want to take the time to try and figure out what the hell she is trying to say, have at it. You could probably, after the third or fourth read, decipher it. However, in this lightning fast information age, you can not send out garbled messages like that. If I can’t understand what you’re talking about immediately, your wasting my time. Don’t waste your followers time.
Don’t max out your 140 character limit with every tweet.
Yes, Twitter allows you to insert up to 140 characters (including spaces) into your tweets. However, when you can, try to keep it to 130 or less. Why? Because it makes it easier for other Twitter users to re-tweet your tweets. A re-tweet, for those that don’t know, looks something like this: RT @LaserBurnMedia: “original tweet here”. Being re-tweeted is a good thing. It puts your message in front of more people. However, if you constantly max out your character limit, you make re-tweeting your messages almost impossible for your followers.
Don’t mass follow people.
Following a few thousand people, hoping that they will return the favor, is silly. It may get you more followers, but it does nothing to help you use Twitter to build relationships. No one cares about how many people you have following you, or how many people you are following. If your tweets are meaningful, relevant, and interesting, then you will gain followers. And those followers will actually care about what your tweeting about. Mass following others will only result in your Twitter account becoming irrelevant and largely ignored, even by those who follow you. Think quality, not quantity and it will pay dividends for you down the road.

These are five simple things that you can do, every day, to help get better at using Twitter. Twitter is an insanely powerful communication tool, but like any tool, if you don’t know how to use it, it will result in disaster. With a little thought and effort on your part, you will go a long way towards making your Twitter account a powerful part of your marketing and communication arsenal. If you would like to have the marketing experts at Laser Burn Media help use the power of Social Media to build and strengthen your business, please don’t hesitate to contact us directly. Have a great day, all!

-Dan Cheek
www.LaserBurnMedia.com
dan@laserburnmedia.com

Tags: Business Advice, social media, Twitter
Posted in Administrative | 2 Comments »

Catholic Arcbishop Blasts Social Media

Monday, August 3rd, 2009

According to Catholic Archbishop Vincent Nichols, Social Media and other modern communication technology is leading to the downfall of our civillization. In an interview published in the Telegraph (a UK newspaper), Archbishop Nichols says that social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace put children at risk of committing suicide and leads them to “devalue” relationships. He also says that technologies like cellphones and texting results in people losing social skills, unable to effectively communicate in person or to read another person’s body language. In short, the Archbishop makes the case that Social Media is a dangerous thing, something that we should move fearfully away from. Allow me, with all do respect, to explain why the Archbishop is wrong.

Archbishop Nichols was prompted, in large part, to speak out about the dangers of social media after a young girl, Megan Gillan, took her life after being bullied on the social networking site Bebo. This tragedy, in his mind, proves his point that social networking sites are dangerous. Here is an excerpt from the Telegraph story…

The archbishop blamed social network sites for leaving children with impoverished friendships.

“Facebook and MySpace might contribute towards communities, but I’m wary about it. It’s not rounded communication so it won’t build a rounded community,” he said.

“If we mean by community a genuine growing together and a mutual sharing in an interest that is of some significance then it needs more than Facebook.”

He warned that the sites are contributing to a trend for teenagers to put too much importance on the number of friends they have and that this can ultimately lead to suicide.

“Among young people often a key factor in them committing suicide is the trauma of transient relationships.

“They throw themselves into a friendship or network of friendships, then it collapses and they’re desolate.”

He couldn’t be more wrong, in my opinion. Social networking sites don’t make kids kill themselves. Had this girl been bullied in a public school, would the Archbishop be making an argument warning against the danger of public education? Had this girl been assaulted by a member of the Catholic clergy, would the Archbishop be warning people to run and hide from priests and nuns? Probably not. Bullies are a part of life. Dealing with bullies is something that almost all of us must deal with at some point or another. Sometimes it’s in school, sometimes it’s at work, and sometimes it’s online.

Don’t misunderstand me, I think what happened in the Megan Gillan case was horrible. However, if a 15 year old girl is willing to kill herself because of a bully on a social networking site, I would argue that this girl had bigger problems than a cyber-bully. Megan killed herself by overdosing on a bottle of painkillers. I’d say the pills had more to do with her death than Bebo did, but I don’t think that painkillers should be banned or villified. Had she killed herself because of breakup, I also wouldn’t place the blame on the institution of dating. And if she had thrown herself off of a bridge, I wouldn’t think to blame bridges, either. Something horrible went wrong with this girl’s life and it wasn’t a social networking site.

Social Media is becoming a bigger and bigger part of our society. It can add value to our lives, our work, and our culture. Or it could not. It depends, entirely, on how we use it. And, like it or not, the genie that is Social Media has already been let out of it’s bottle. We can’t push it back in, or uninvent it, or expect everyone to suddenly stop taking advantage of all the benefits that it offers. Like any technology, there will be roadbumps and learning curves, and, sadly, sometimes things will go wrong. Horribly wrong. And that’s not just true of technology. That’s true of life.

-Dan Cheek
www.LaserBurnMedia.com
Dan@laserburnmedia.com

Tags: bebo, Facebook, myspace, social media, social networking
Posted in Social Media in Society | No Comments »

Is Your Business Carpet Bombing?

Wednesday, July 29th, 2009

When some business owners hear the term “social marketing”, they often think of it as some sort of overly complicated, super fancy mumbo jumbo that was dreamed up by a bunch of Internet geeks. “Traditional Advertising” is the type of lingo they are more comfortable with. Newspaper ads. Television spots. Radio ads. Billboards. You know, mass media. That’s what you do if you are serious about advertising and growing your business. Right? At Laser Burn Media, we refer to this mindset as “Carpet Bombing.”

For decades, if the Air Force wanted an important target destroyed, they would use a tactic known as carpet bombing. Carpet bombing involved using dozens (sometimes even hundreds!) of large, slow bombers to drop millions of tons worth of bombs on the target. The idea was that even if only 10 percent of the bombs hit the target, it would still be destroyed. Mass media advertising is the same exact thing. Marketers throw up an ad in front of as many people as possible, hoping that maybe 10 percent of the people who see the ad actually visit the store and, of those ten people, hopefully two or three actually buy something. This is as inefficient as it sounds.

But, much like the Air Force, marketers had no other option besides carpet bombing. For the Air Force, that changed with the introduction of “smart bombs.” A smart bomb could be dropped exactly where the Air Force wanted it. One bomb equaled one destroyed target. For marketers, the Internet provided a similar ability. Through the use of various social media technologies, a marketer can identify the target audience, decide the best way to engage them, and then target those people with individual, relevant marketing materials. It’s the marketing equivalent of dropping a laser guided bomb through the front door of the building that needs to be blown up.

Think about it. Traditional advertising prices are based, for the most part, on how many “impressions” they can make. A radio spot during rush hour costs more, for example, than one aired during the middle of the night because more people are listening during rush hour. The radio station has no way of knowing, exactly, how many people are listening to the radio during rush hour. They don’t know how many people change the station once the music stops and the commercials start. And the radio station has no way of knowing how many people that are listening are actually paying attention. All the marketer can hope for is that a lot of people hear the ad and that, of those, at least some people respond to it.

Considering the capabilities of social marketing, this approach is stupid. It’s a waste of money, time, and marketing resources. The radio station will try to convince you otherwise, but that’s because their revenues depend on keeping this backwards, inefficient system operating. Just like a dial-up Internet provider will try and convince people that high-speed Internet is over rated and too expensive. But social marketing, if done correctly, is multiple times more powerful and more effective than traditional media.

For example, a social marketer who is marketing a new beer can scan blogs, Twitter, and social networking sites to identify people who 1.) Like beer 2.) Live in the target geographic region and 3.) Talk about beer to their peer group. The marketer can then customize relevent, value-adding interactions to these individuals via things like Twitter direct messages and replies, responding to blog posts, providing links to YouTube video clips, invited to Facebook groups, etc. The result is that the marketer’s efforts are being targeted directly at the right people. People who have no interest in drinking beer, for example, aren’t targeted. The marketer can then track the effectiveness of the marketing campaign and make adjustments to make it even more pinpoint and more effective.

I’m not saying that traditional mass marketing doesn’t work. I’m saying that compared to social marketing, traditional mass marketing is less efficient, both in terms of time and money. At Laser Burn Media, for example, we are constantly looking at ways to make our methods more pin-point and more effective. Are the owners of billboards doing that? CAN they do that? Probably not. So to all you “carpet bombers” out there, maybe you should consider adding a few smart bombs to your aresenal.

Enjoy the day, everybody!

-Dan Cheek
www.LaserBurnMedia.com
dan@laserburnmedia.com

Tags: carpet bombing, smart bomb, social marketing, social media, traditional marketing
Posted in Social Marketing Strategy | 1 Comment »

Twitter Role Models: Warren Ellis

Monday, July 27th, 2009

Like many other people, real life examples help me learn. Concepts that may seem complicated or confusing on paper become much more clear when coupled with examples of those concepts in action. The use of Twitter as an effective marketing tool is no different. The Internet is stuffed full of blog posts and articles talking, in great detail, about how you should be using Twitter. You will find lists, tips, tricks, premium services, consulting services, charts, and diagrams. All of that is very good information, but I think analyzing some examples of real people and businesses already using Twitter effectively will go a long way to helping others do the same. For the first installment in a series that I am calling, “Twitter Role Models”, I would like to take a look Warren Ellis.

Mr. Ellis (of whom I am a HUGE fan) is an English author. Warren is best known for being one of the premier comicbook writers in the industry. In addition, Ellis has written several screenplays, magazine articles, and is a best selling novelist. Warren Ellis’s work is, in my opinion and in the opinion of millions of other people, great. Mr. Ellis’s writing style is strikingly unique and, without hesitation, people like myself will gladly trade our hard earned money in exchange for a copy of his latest work. In addition to being a wickedly talented writer, Warren Ellis has also proven to be very effective in using Twitter as a marketing tool.

To date, Warren Ellis (@WarrenEllis) has 37,064 followers on Twitter. And, on an almost daily basis, Mr. Ellis uses Twitter to entertain, poll, and converse with those followers. Ellis’s Twitter posts, if examined individually, can seem insignificant (as most Twitter posts do), but collectively, something much more subtle comes into clarity. Unlike many (most?) other Twitter users, Ellis has found a way to connect with his audience. As a result, Warren has been able to use Twitter to grow and strengthen the brand that is Warren Ellis and, to a lesser degree, market some of his work. There are several large corporations and even some self-professed marketing experts who would be well served to seriously examine Warren Ellis’s Twitter strategy.

Mr. Ellis recently attended the San Diego Comic Con and sent out a series of tweets during his time there. Here’s a sampling of what he tweeted…

I has a limo10:06 AM Jul 24th from UberTwitter

I have now been filmed12:07 PM Jul 24th from UberTwitter

…Why does the minibar have a glowstick in it? Do I appear as the sort of man who’d drink glowstick chemicals?3:11 PM Jul 24th from UberTwitter

…Okay, don’t answer that. Bastards.3:13 PM Jul 24th from UberTwitter

Stop watching me using twitter you bastards4:57 PM Jul 24th from UberTwitter

As you can see, these aren’t traditional brand marketing tweets. But that’s the point. Anyone can send out mindless marketing tweets containing all they typical and expected things that one would expect to see in a sales pitch. Mr. Ellis, however, takes a different approach. He almost dares you to follow his Twitter feed. He doesn’t specifically mention any of his work, or his appearance schedule at the Comic Con, or even talk about any of the publishing companies that sponsored his trip to the event. Well, actually I take that back. At a few points, Mr. Ellis does mention Joe Quesada, the editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics (one of Ellis’s employers)…

@JoeQuesada I will cut you1:18 PM Jul 24th from UberTwitter in reply to JoeQuesada

Caught ebola off @templesmith. Knifed Joe Quesada. Ready for Marvel Anime panel.4:33 PM Jul 24th from UberTwitter

See what I mean? Ellis doesn’t communicate with his audience like someone who is sitting on a stage, pitching a product. He talks to them like he’s sitting at the bar with them, making small talk and jokes about the day that he just had. Making small talk with over 37 thousand followers. I know several people who have Ellis’s tweets sent to their cellphones, because they enjoy receiving his updates throughout the day. Additionally, when talking to others about Twitter, these same people often explain that Warren Ellis is one of the people you HAVE to follow, because, you know, he’s funny. And perhaps a little disturbed. But mostly funny. (And yes, I am one of those people who receive tweets from Warren Ellis on my phone)

Ellis uses Twitter to speak directly to his fan base. He doesn’t try to sell them things. He doesn’t spam them with link after link. He doesn’t beg people to buy his work or to come see him when he makes appearances. He does, however, strengthen his brand. He does this by incorporating the same dark-humor that permiates his writing style into his tweets. If you follow Warren Ellis on Twitter for a week, by the end of the week, you will have a pretty good idea of who he is. You will get a clear sense of his writing style. You will know that he is a writer, he has a website, and that he also frequently writes for other websites and magazines, in addition to his comic gigs. You will hear his honest opinions on all sorts of things (especially music and alcohol). And he will, at times, make you laugh out loud. How many businesses and organizations would pay good money to be able to accomplish something like that? Probably a lot of them.

Warren Ellis is an example, and a good one, I think, of someone who understands how to use the service to build and strengthen his brand. Through Twitter, Ellis is able to interact with his existing fan base, introduce himself to potential fans, and make daily connections with his followers. And while snobby marketing experts and social media bloggers may scoff at the idea of learning how to use Twitter from, of all things, a comic book writer, I think we would all be well served if we did just that. Perhaps it is only fitting to end this post with one of Ellis’s own tweets, explaining his Twitter marketing strategy…

“I have fooled you all. I use Twitter to steal your souls and increase my Powers. Which Compel you. (Yesimighthavehadadrinkshutup)“2:42 PM Jul 23rd from UberTwitter

Have a great day, all.

-Dan Cheek
www.LaserBurnMedia.com
dan@laserburnmedia.com

Tags: brand marketing, Online Marketing, social media, Twitter, warren ellis
Posted in Social Marketing Strategy, Twitter, Twitter Role Models | No Comments »

Why Is Your Company On Twitter?

Friday, July 24th, 2009

Seriously. Why is your company on Twitter? This may seem like a silly question, but it’s one worth considering. Too many companies, brands, and organizations don’t consider the question, I think. They jump on Twitter and begin spitting out Tweets, follow thousands of people hoping that all of them will return the favor, and for the most part, begin what can essentially be described as a Twitter Spam campaign. This type of “strategy”, as you can imagine, accomplishes nothing. And, in fact, it can even hurt your brand, as opposed to strengthening and growing it.

If your business is on Twitter, or thinking about using Twitter, you need to have a strategy in place. Twitter is, in the right hands, a very powerful and effective marketing tool. It allows you to identify members of your target market(s) and engage them directly. It can also be used to quickly respond to questions and concerns from customers and other stakeholders. Backed by a well-planned marketing and communication strategy, Twitter can be just as powerful, or even more powerful than a traditional media campaign. Without a strategy, however, none of this is possible.

The world that is Twitter is a fast-paced, hyper-crowded environment. Attention spans are low and you only have 140 characters (or less) to grab your audience’s attention, convey your message, and to make it resonate. Imagine standing on a small stage with hundreds of other people, all shouting at one person in the audience. This is what Twitter is like, as the average Twitter user follows at least 50 other people. It’s not uncommon for someone to follow over a hundred or more. If you don’t have a plan to successfully operate in this environment, why even bother? Your time will be better spent focusing on other aspects of running your business.

I’m not trying to talk you or your organization out of using Twitter. Quite the opposite. I think you should be using Twitter. But you need to go about it in the right way. Like any other communication strategy, if you can produce a message that effectively communicates the value that your products or services offer to the customer, you will do well. Basically, if you can provide a reason for people to pay attention to what you’re saying, people will listen. This isn’t necessarily hard, but it does require some effort and thought. And, really, this is no different from any other marketing campaign.

The important thing is to develop a Twitter marketing and communication strategy. If your Tweets are “spammy”, irrelevant, or unclear, your organization will never achieve any level of success on Twitter. The old saying of “Anything worth doing, is worth doing well,” comes to mind. Twitter can help your business and your brand become more successful. Hundreds of organizations are achieving this type of success right now. With a well thought out plan, yours can, too.

-Dan Cheek
www.LaserBurnMedia.com
dan@laserburnmedia.com

Tags: business strategy, marketing strategy, social marketing, social media, Twitter
Posted in Social Marketing Strategy, Twitter | No Comments »

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