WTF is Twitter?

Twitter users are the gatekeepers

to the rest of the Internet

Out of all the digital tools that have sprung up in the last 15 years, Twitter is perhaps the one that is most hated by business owners. Saddled with a ridiculous name and adored by the hipster technorati, the idea of having to “tweet” fills most busy executives with horror. However…

Twitter users are more likely to impact your brand than any other network.

Twitter users are more likely to impact your brand than any other network.

Twitter is Marketing

Conceptually Twitter is no different than traditional marketing channels; you have a message that you want to put in front of potential clients so that they know you exist, are impressed with your offer and remember you when the time comes to purchase a product or service. The difference is the mechanism in which your message reaches potential clients

Twitter is Word of Mouth Marketing

A billboard on the freeway and a Google ad act in pretty much the same way; a static message is shown to hundreds of thousands of eyeballs. Through Twitter your message can also reach hundreds of thousands of eyeballs but it has to be passed on from one person to another, with each person making a value judgment on the validity of your message.

Why does this work?

The number one thing that makes a Twitter user feel good is to have one of their Tweets “re-Tweeted.” This is where another Twitter user takes the time to read a Tweet and consider it relevant or interesting enough to share with their followers.

If a Twitter user develops a reputation for sharing good information they gain more followers, likewise, if they rehash crap they lose followers

Twitter is your access to the outside world

If you want your message to get out to the internet, Twitter’s 250 million users are the gatekeepers:

• 72% publish blog posts at least once a month
• 70% comment on others’ blog posts
• 61% write at least one product review a month
• 61% comment on news sites
• 56% write articles for third-party sites
• 53% post videos online
• 48% share deals found through coupon forums

You only get what you give

I know – you want a quick solution that you can plug in to your existing operations and forget about – everyone does. The reality is that unless you invest a little time in the network, no matter how compelling the content, chances are it won’t be found and shared.

Twitter isn’t about Twitter – it is about people, it is about getting those people to share your message with potential clients. Treat the relationship as a one way street and people will stop listening to you, invest a little time to build a network and you dramatically enhance the chances of your message being shared.

If you would like to discuss a Twitter strategy for your business raise it with me in your next session or drop me an email to book one

Geolocation - Really?

Take Away:

Get ready for local

It’s about mobile

Smart phone penetration is projected to be 50% of the US market by the end of this year – closer to 80% by the end of 2012.

Smart phone users access the internet through their phone just as much if not more than desktop users.

Smart phone users have the internet in their pocket and they are getting more comfortable with using it on the go.

It’s about location

If you use a smart phone you’re already aware of apps that ask to use your location.

If you search using your smart phone your location is submitted (unless turned off) as part of your search criteria

Google and the others have already tweaked their search algorithm to give greater weight to location in search results.

It’s not about being the Mayor

Location data is relatively new and people are still figuring it out.

Sure it’s nice to be the mayor of your local Starbucks on Foursquare or the Duke of the Townhouse on Yelp but what is the benefit to you, the business owner?

The more activity that surrounds your business as a location, i.e. – the more people that interact with it, check in, comment, review on Yelp, Foursquare, Google places etc., the better your business will do in search results – particularly for mobile customers.

What to do?

Make sure your business is registered on the big three:

https://google.com/places/

https://foursquare.com/business/

https://biz.yelp.com/

Once you are registered you can incorporate your local profiles into your content strategy as part of your overall marketing effort. If you don’t know where to start, raise this with me in your next session.

How Google Works

Take Away

Updating Your Site Improves Your Visibility

Google’s mission statement is to “organize all the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” As a search engine, Google’s job is to read the entire web, receive a request from you, and then decide which single page across the pool of the fifteen billion best matches your search. This is a tough job, and Google can only do as good a job as we (those in control of website content) do.

There are two basic parts to the search engine, the bot and the indexer, and they have a bee and hive sort of relationship. The bot is the bee, and it spends all its time reading the internet. It makes no decisions, but simply trolls the internet and collects information. The bot then feeds the indexer (the hive) all the data it has gathered, and the indexer then decides which results should be shown for which searches.

The first step in SEO is ensuring that the bot is interested in reading your site. Since the bot is responsible for reading the internet, it has to make decisions as to where its time is best spent. If you put a new site live today, and the bot indexes it tomorrow, then again in a week, then in three weeks, and then six, and if, each time it visits, it sees that your site has not changed, it will begin to visit your site less frequently.