Become A Master Twitter With Twhirl
This video shows you how to use Twhirl to maximize your twitter experience
Performing Keyword Research and SEO, Don’t Assume You Know the Right Words to Target!
When it comes to Natural Search and SEO, performing extensive keyword research for your given business is critical. In my experience, most people are too close to their businesses to understand what people are really searching for. You may have seen this too, like using terminology and acronyms that only industry folks use. Or, if you have been in an industry for 20 years, then you surely must know how people search the web for your products or services, right? Don’t make this mistake! You might get a few by chance, but I’ll guarantee you are missing huge opportunities if you ignore keyword research. So don’t do it. 
Skepticism is Good
Right now, some of you are probably skeptical. That’s good, and I’ll give you some examples to curb your skepticism. Let’s say you are in the summer rental business at the Jersey shore. If you performed keyword research for your business, you would find that beach rentals is searched 4X more than summer rentals, which in turn is searched for 10X more than nj shore rental and beach house for rent. Without keyword research, it’s all based on opinion… I’ll take real data over opinion 99% of the time. That’s one thing about keyword research that I love… it takes guesswork out of the equation. Armed with data, you can make the right decisions from the beginning of your seo project before wasting time, money, and effort.
Here are some more quick examples:
Do you sell jewelry? Did you know that the keyword jewelry showed up 12X more than the keyword jeweler in Keyword Discovery? Let’s shift our focus to a buggy business? Pest control is searched 10X more than exterminator. Sell infant bedding? Did you know that the keyword baby bedding showed up 16X more than the keyword infant bedding? That’s 16X more! I think you get my point… Do your keyword research and move opinions to the side…focus on real data, real searches, and don’t waste your time and effort trying to rank for keywords that won’t pay off.
Keyword Research Tools:
The two most popular options for keyword research are WordTracker (WT) and Keyword Discovery (KD). I have used WordTracker much longer than Keyword Discovery, but I can tell you that I’m really digging KD. Both are great tools and will give you excellent data. WordTracker’s database holds approximately 330 million metacrawler searches where Keyword Discovery holds over 36 Billion from over 200 search engines. I often find myself using both tools to find the right keywords, and if you focus on SEO, I would probably keep accounts with both services. Their prices won’t break the bank… WordTracker is $59/month and you can get a fairly large discount for an annual purchase ($329 for the year). Keyword Discovery is $70/month and I believe both are a small price to pay for finding the right keywords via the multitude of tools they provide. Your return on investment should be huge, to say the least.
A Closer Look at Keyword Discovery:
Let’s say you sell women’s jewelry and wanted to do some keyword research. You would log into KD and enter jewelry in research mode (see screenshot below). You will see the top searched terms with the keyword jewelry in them. The one column provided at this stage is “Searches”, or the number of times that the keyword was searched for over the past 12 months.
Screenshot from Keyword Discovery (Research Screen):
Click the image below to view a larger version.
Now, if you click the icon for “Analyze”, then you will see those keywords with some additional columns like “Occurrences”, “KEI”, and “Predicted Daily”. Occurrences shows the estimated number of webpages the keyword shows up on. KEI is a formula for showing you how competitive the keyword is. I can dedicate an entire post to KEI and you can read more about it on the web, but not all keywords are equal from a competitive standpoint. KEI helps you determine which keywords are worth going after and which ones might be too tough to rank for. Predicted Daily is just that, the predicted amount of times that the keyword is searched for each day.
Screenshot from Keyword Discovery (Analyze Screen):
Click the image below to view a larger version.
Drill in further to find targeted, long tail keywords…
At this point, you can click on any keyword to see a list of longer tail keywords containing the original word you clicked on. For example, click diamond jewelry to see all the keywords in the database that have the words diamond and jewelry as part of the keyword. This will include diamond jewelry watches, black diamond jewelry, diamond jewelry stores, etc. Then click “Analyze” again to view the additional columns I mentioned above.
I have my keywords, now what?
Let’s say you performed keyword research, found your target keywords, and have the spreadsheet sitting in front of you. Now what? Well, you would want to include these keywords on your website within the right HTML elements. For example, you would want to use these keywords in the title tag, the meta description tag, in the page copy, within your page headings (H1, H2, etc.), in your navigation and anchor links, and in image alt text. You would want to take a hard look at the pages on your site and optimize each one for the specific content they hold. Yes, it’s a lot of work, but well worth it. If you have a large site, definitely work with your developers on how to optimize the site dynamically. I can also write an entire post on optimizing the elements I just listed, but you’ll unfortunately have to wait for that one! I want to keep this post from being 25 pages long. 
In SEO, your work is never done.
Once you optimize your website, you can’t just sit back. Like everything in web marketing, you need to track your results and refine your strategy as needed. Maybe some of your optimization isn’t paying off like you want it to, so you may need to go back and research more terms and optimize more pages. Or, you might want to tweak some of your pages, based on changes in your industry, your products, or seasonality. If you are using a robust web analytics package (Omniture, Coremetrics, Google Analytics, etc.), then you should have some great data to analyze. Then learn from the data and make changes to improve your rankings. I have written several posts about web analytics and you should definitely check them out.
OK, I’m sure you are chomping at the bit to get started (at least I hope you are!) Definitely stop back and let me know how keyword research works for you and your business. Go ahead, real data awaits!
BTW, did you know that SEO is searched for 3X as much as Search Engine Optimization? We are lazy typists, aren’t we? Quick tangent…do acronyms affect your business?
Did Digg Try to “Tigerproof” Their Course?
The changes in the Digg algorithm over the last week have resulted in a lot of chatter among marketers, bloggers, and media. Giving credit where credit is certainly due, I do think that Digg’s update definitely made it harder to push through non-organic popularity (read: spam). In spite of these changes, my contention is that all these changes for “diversity” just make it harder for the littlest guy (the organic user) to participate in the process and it’s negatively impacted their product.
As Tiger Woods started winning tournaments and absolutely turned Augusta National into his personal playground, some tournament directors made the decision to “Tigerproof” their courses. They started lengthening holes so that Tiger would have to hit long irons into greens rather than wedges. This “Tigerproofing” was supposed to level the playing field again.
It was a phenomenal news story but it actually makes very little sense to anyone who has ever played competitive golf. Sure, Tiger may have to go Driver -> 4-iron into a long par 4 now, but what about the other 95% of the Tour players that are faced with a par 4 that is essentially a par 5 for them now? In the end, all this “Tigerproofing” did was favor Tiger and the longer players. It’s all relative and a real “leveling” of the playing field would have been to shorten everything leaving everyone to score with wedges and putters (which, incidentally, Tiger probably still would have won as consistently).
So, when Digg raised the vote threshold to a pretty ridiculous standard for power accounts in the name of “diversity”, this was their attempt to “Tigerproof” their course from a select few users who had above average success in getting stories to the front page. It’s a strategy that does hold some merit as many of those accounts were built by marketers or users with other agendas, but it’s also a slap in the face to many of their oldest contributors who never took a dime and acted as meta-guides to much of the content.
Additionaly, these changes made in the name of “diversity” has also produced the unfortunate side effect of killing the freshness factor of their product. In the era of short news cycles and instant consumption, it is taking almost a full day for yesterday’s news to make the front page. Somewhere, Matt Drudge is laughing.
Now, if you raise the bar to success at Digg, who do you think will adjust and adapt…organic users who get very little benefit or power marketers who are incented to generate Digg traffic? Over the long haul, it’s going to be the power marketers (and the one or two organic users who maintain some sort of religious affinity to Digg, aka “the never touched bewbs” crowd).
I’ve seen this type of inflection at least three times in Digg’s history. It generally takes us a few months to recover…but we always do. We are incented by profit. We adapt. The large publishing partners that Digg is getting into bed with have no problem bringing “diversity”, so they will succeed. And the people Digg probably wishes would be there best users are left out to dry with that knife in their back.
The other question I’m fielding a lot is, “How do you think this plays into their strategy to sell Digg?” First, it gives them something to point at when bigger, older media companies start talking about the risk of user generated ecosystems. Secondly, it gets everyone talking about Digg again while they are soliciting buyers. Thirdly, it certainly isn’t a coincidence that it drives many more page views for each session at Digg. Crusty old media companies and advertisers love them some page views.
So, if you’re scoring at home:
1. Good quality tweak.
2. May impress acquirors of Digg.
3. Because it appeases their risk models and page view appetites.
4. But it pissed off their meta-users.
5. And reinforced the chances for marketers over the long term.
6. While ruining the “freshness” of their news.
I’m really not sure who wins here. It’s certainly not bewbs.
Using Twitter in IT Support
So, Twitter. A “microblogging tool.” A way for you to tell the world what you are doing, right this second. (or at least your friends who want to know). Admittedly. when I initially read about Twitter in the SXSW web coverage, my first thought was “Who the heck would want to always tell everyone else what they were doing all the time? And who the heck would want to know that?” Then, after about 30 seconds, I slapped myself - gently - and thought “IT Support organizations, that’s who!”
Picture this scenario. You have a support team of 10 that handles incoming calls, and also provides deskside support to the main corporate site that the team resides in. Usually, you have three people performing deskside, with the remaining seven handling the phones and email. The typical daily chaos ensues. Nobody is sure where the deskside support folks are, or when they’ll be back, because they haven’t been seen for 40 minutes and didn’t leave a post-it note describing their whereabouts.
In addition, you have four third level support folks who are supposed to take warm transfers of difficult support calls from your front line staff whenever time and resources permit. It’s a pain to hand off support calls off to this team, because each of your first level support staff have to play “IM roulette” to see who is available to take a warm transfer, interrupting your third level support staff multiple times an hour with an endless barrage of IMs; and all the while your customer is waiting. What this situation needs is a way for everyone to see what everyone else is doing at that moment.
Twitter to the rescue. Here’s what you, as an IT manager, should do to get Twitter working for this support team.
- Set everyone up with consistently named Twitter accounts (usernameXYZCorp, for example).
- Get everyone on the support teams a feed reader, or an application like Twitbox
- Get all the twitter feeds for your support team into everyone’s reader. This gives your team a consistent view of everyone elses twitter blogs.
- Make sure you have everyone’s readers set to update often (1 or 2 minutes)
- Explain to your support staff that you want them to be consistently updating their Twitter account with their current actions or tasks, and that it’s not optional.
- Create a set of acronyms that support staff can use to describe what they are doing, so that sending “tweets” (micropost updates) only takes a couple of seconds.
Examples
OaC - On a call, and the estimated time until the call will end.
AfC - Available for Call
DSS - Desk Side Support visit, the name of the user being helped, and the estimated time until the support tech is back from the visit.
BR - Bathroom
Lunch - self evident
GCBMAYP - Getting Coffee, Bother Me at Your Peril
And so on and so forth.
You can also use Twitter to set up an impromptu deskside support queue, where your call takers place updates describing a needed deskside support visit. That feed can be piped to your deskside support teams mobile phones or Blackberries; letting them know about needed visits, without them having to return to their desks or call into your first level support agents.
With this kind of set up, the support team gains back all the time they used to burn trying to figure out what everyone on desk side and third level support was doing. That can be pretty significant over the course of a day.
As with any technological solution, there are pros and cons.
PROS
- Twitter is a free service. No hit to the budget whatsoever
- Setting up a configuration like this will take minimal time and training, especially if your people are familiar with RSS feeds and readers (and really, everyone should be.)
- Low network and workstation resource requirements.
CONS
- Twitter is an external service with no guarantee of uptime or service delivery.
- Because Twitter is an external service, viewable by the public, it’s essential that proper security policies about content are adhered to. If it wouldn’t go in an email sent out to the public, it shouldn’t go in a tweet. This can limit the amount of useful information your team can send through Twitter.
Of course, a Twitter-like service would be relatively easy to set up internally, if you have people familiar with the common blogging software packages. But again, the advantage of Twitter here is that you can set it up as a proof-of-concept with minimal time investment, then change over to an internal solution later, should you get the needed server space and development time.
Now, I’m sure some of you are thinking “There are already tools that accomplish the same thing.” Fair enough. But let me ask you:
Are they as cheap as Twitter? (It’s pretty hard to beat free)
Are they as simple to set up as Twitter? (A few accounts piped to RSS readers?)
Can they be as rich information-wise while being as flexible as Twitter? (Free form text blogging with RSS feeds that can go pretty much anywhere. The possibilities are pretty broad.)
At the very least, if this doesn’t sound like a solution your support organization needs, I hope I got you thinking about how to leverage Twitter beyond basic social networking.
So, what are your ideas to use Twitter in a technical business setting?
7 Reasons Why You’ll Click on Everything I Post
It’s all about the avatar, baby. Don’t believe me? Well yes, content is king, but it needs to be noticed. Your diamonds are trying to stay afloat in the cesspool of spam, viagra, forex, and all sorts of other trash. And yes, killer titles are also a part, but a crappy avatar can ruin all the time and effort that went into the otherwise compelling piece of content you’re oh so proud of.
So, here is a list of 7 suggestions I have for having a compelling avatar:
1 - Don’t be the tool that uses the community default icon.
This one should be a no brainer when engaging in any community. Why get lost in a sea of default icons? Tamar “Schwagwhore” Weinberg wrotoe a good piece on Digg default icons making the difference in the upcoming section of Digg.
2 - Big or Small?
Some like to take up the whole 120×120 box, while others like to overpixelate. Some like tiny, but my opinion is the bigger the better.
3 - Seasonal?
Sure, why not. I personally don’t, but here’s an entertaining one:
vs. 
(MrBabyMan)
4 - Company Logo? Sure, but maybe just the icon. People aren’t going to squint to try to read your whole company name at 120×120.
5 - Attractive People.
People like to see attractive people. But don’t go overboard like sexyseo, or you might get your avatar yanked off mybloglog.
6 - Just Plain You.
Folks like Digidave (Propeller admin / citizen journalist) just have an avatar of themselves. Plain and simple. Then, people even recognize you at events. Good show.
7 - NO copycatting. Seriously. I will smack you personally.
Ben Yoskovitz of Instigator Blog will probably smack you too. He had a good post about having an avatar so good that others try to steal it. Again, if you copycat an avatar, you are a moron.
And I have decided to use a “Star & Crescent” as my Avatar.
My Avatar here on WordPress
My Avatar on Twitter ( Twitter.com / MediaMavens )
Ultimately, how do you choose? try an avatar and see the response you get. See if you get an increased number of friends and votes. Ask others. The Thinking Blog went so far as to asking its audience which of 5 avatars they should use in a poll!
Top 10 reasons you should be using LinkedIn
There are a lot of social networking sites out there that can help you network with other people on the internet. Some of them are there to share stories, images or video. LinkedIn is there to help you share yourself with other professionals. You can get endless amounts of work on LinkedIn if you simply sign up and add people that you already know to your network. Understanding the importance of LinkedIn and how LinkedIn can help you become a more networked and well-known industry professional is impossibly helpful for everyone.
LinkedIn can help you become better networked
#1 It can bring you more money and job opportunities
LinkedIn can bring you job opportunities, freelance and fulltime that can help you to move of within your industry. It doesn’t even require you to do much extra work, you may want to add others in your industry but aside from that there is very little work that needs to be done to ensure that your name is in the industry pool. You may want to participate in LinkedIn answers to get your name out there a little better. There are also posted jobs on LinkedIn that you can put your name in the hat for aside from just being networked with others.
#2 It can help you keep in touch with industry leaders
You don’t have to just add the people you know on LinkedIn, you can have others introduce you to someone that you may want to know. Someone that can help you with your career or possibliy someone that would be willing to go into a business venture with you. I have been contacted by multiple people about blogging ventures recently through LinkedIn.
#3 Stay in touch with other professionals
You may have the best job out there or be an industry leader yourself, but LinkedIn is an easy and professional way to stay in touch with other professionals you have worked with or for. It is also an excellent way to stay in touch with other professionals in your industry that you may have met at a convention. It is better than sharing your MySpace or Facebook account and other professionals getting to see how unprofessional you really are.
#4 Get recommended by other professionals
You can easily get recommended by other professionals that you have worked with by just asking. These recommendations add a lot of power to your ability to get hired or your caliber of professionalism within your industry. The more people that recommend you the better your profile will look to others in your industry and connections list.
#5 Get answers to your questions from other professionals
You can easily ask a question on LinkedIn to find help from other industry professionals. Their answers area is very helpful and there are always quick responses to your questions. It can even be a way for you to further network— beyond the normal benefits of getting a quick and reliable answer to your questions.
#6 LinkedIn is your online resume
There are more and more people leaning towards a paperless method of doing business. Global warming is a real issue. I would personally almost prefer to see someones LinkedIn profile before they are hired then a regular resume. There is a lot more information available on a LinkedIn profile than would be available on a resume. You have your work history, school history, bio, web sites and how much work you have put into networking with other professionals. Which says a lot about who you are and how serious you are about the industry you are in.
#7 LinkedIn is like having a website
For those that don’t have a website or a means to have people locate them on Google. LinkedIn fills that void. I know that I see my personal LinkedIn profile come up in Google near the top of the results. This can help other professionals find you if they have lost your phone number or email address. It can even help other companies locate you if they are interested in hiring you for contract or full time work.
#8 Helps you keep track of you
I know that anytime I have to go and make a new resume I always have to reference my old resume to make sure I don’t miss any important points that I want to include. It is nice to have an online version of your resume to reference and ensure that you are including all the pertinent information that you will need to use.
#9 You can put your picture on it
Last year they added the ability to put your picture on your profile. You can now be recognized easier if someone has forgotten your name but remembers what you look like. It is also helpful for people to remember what you look like if it has been awhile since they met you. Especially if you are about to meet them in a public place that may require somewhat quick recognition.
#10 It isn’t MySpace
It isn’t going to send you spam from people wanting to be your friend. There isn’t a way to spam LinkedIn users and there isn’t any way to add additional code that can be manipulated to trick you into giving out your LinkedIn account information. You don’t have to worry about other not-so-savvy professionals adding glitter and 18 videos to their profile either.
Questions to ask before starting a Social Media Campaign
1: Why do you want to use social media? While, I think that many companies should exploit the numerous benefits that social media marketing affords them, there are equally as many companies who should stay clear from the medium. Determine what the underlying goal is and why social media should be used to achieve same before you continue.
2. Which department will social media become a vertical to? Often it’s the technical department that gets the thumbs up. But think carefully. The Marketing and PR departments are generally the creative, content-driven folk who hold the key to any company’s target market. This is at the soul of any social media strategy! Also, well executed social media is a result of an integrated approach.
3: Is the company ready for social media engagement? Often, so much blue tape exists within corporate society that we forget that it’s not conducive to the pace-of-lightning speed that social media is. Determine beforehand what processes need to be in place for your engagement to be real and timely.
4: Similar to point 3, is your company ready for the brutally honest feedback that exists on the Internet about your company or brand and if so, is the business ready to make positive changes to the business? This includes having access to senior management - even Exco level - so that they’re aware of what’s happening in the space.
5: What part of the bottom line are you hoping to improve on with social media? This is a biggie. You see, I’m all for brand positioning. It’s important. But it generally costs a lot of money and on its own does very little to a business’ profit margins. Social media, like any other online marketing channel, needs to be used for the purpose of generating leads. Sure, the approach may be different but there needs to be a financial target. It’s that simple. Anything less is fluff.
6: Have you got access to target social media communities that you can rely on to launch a blogger or social networker seed campaign? Being able to reach out to influential online networkers with a large following is important to accelerating the campaign and its message into the social media community.
7: Speaking of bloggers, are you aware that social media goes beyond bloggers and blogging? Often a company will jump on the blog bandwagon not realising that other social media channels do exist that could offer far more value to both your business and customers. Do the research. Call someone in. Make informed decisions.
8. Have you experimented and ideally succeeded with a SEO campaign? Because Search is the lifeblood of online traffic, it is important to understand the fundamentals of Search and Optimization to reap the benefits across online marketing disciplines. Similarly, it’s important to be able to make sense of quantitative and qualitative metrics.
There’s probably many more things that I can add to this list. What do you think is missing?
Please leave your comments. Thanks.
How-To: Using Twitter to Build Brand Integrity
Use it wisely Enterprise blogging has been lauded for its ability to “humanize” a company and make distant executives feel available to ground-floor customers. Twitter can serve the same purpose much more quickly.
Twitter spearheads the “microblogging” trend, where people air thoughts and share information in real-time while observing a 140-character limit. Here are tips for getting the most out of it:
Subscribe generously. Twitter is among the only social media brands where the subscriber:subscribed ratio is reversed. Most users follow a higher number of people than the number following them.
Don’t just be casual; be personal. Enterprise blogging works best when a blogger is frank about what’s happening in his company. But it is generally understood that the blogger will not discuss his personal life.
On Twitter, people expect to learn about you. Only then will they care about your company. The CEO of Zappos generated a sizable following for taking this philosophy to heart. He addresses Zappos employees and Zappos issues, but he also shares the things he saw while walking to the airport.
Be responsive. When you address the CEO of Zappos, he replies to you. The sense you “know” him contributes to goodwill surrounding the brand, which many people already have strong positive feelings about.
Seth Godin was recently critiqued for calling Twitter a good resource for building trust and sales, when the Seth Godin brand on Twitter lacks the quality of reciprocation so crucial to relationships. The critic wrote, “I love discovering your posts via Twitter, but Twitter Seth doesn’t follow anyone and as far as I can tell has never sent a message to anyone. It’s exclusively a one way relationship.”
Godin argued, “If I twit, and do it well […] then what shall I give up? I already don’t sleep or comb my hair…”
If you don’t have time for Twitter, find an employee or brand advocate who does. It will probably serve you better if people build relationships with your warm and friendly intern, versus with cold and negligent you.
Be faster than RSS. Online news or content sites often build dedicated Twitter RSS feeds for their readers. If you don’t have a lot of time, that’s fine.
But RSS feeds don’t upload headlines right away. Twitter-based news resources like BreakingNewsOn generate followings because they aren’t just feeds; they literally break news more quickly than content sites.
When you can, give your followers one of these two things (both, for best results): personality and timeliness.
Spark interactivity. Twitter users sometimes like to play games to pass the time: “ALL CAPS Day,” “Name that Lyric.” Last month, San Francisco activists used Twitter to coordinate the activities of a war protest.
Ask for help. From time to time, ask followers what they think about a given campaign or product. Consider their advice. Tell them if you incorporate it. This lends the sense your company values them — not merely as users but as friends with sound opinions.
Some users will even pass your message to their own friends (this is called “ReTweeting”), improving the odds that you’ll get useful assistance and more exposure. Hence the magic of Twitter.
Be Tweet-worthy. Take opportunities to join or moderate panels at industry conferences. Audience members increasingly “tweet” conference sessions — sometimes word-for-word — especially in the advertising, marketing and technology space.
If you take this route, be sure to have something valuable to say. Twitter users scalded Sarah Lacy in real-time when her interview with Mark Zuckerberg went awry at SXSW in March.
In the event that you do find yourself on a well-tweeted panel, avoid cheesy references to the technology like, “Don’t Twitter that, guys!” Twitter users hate that — and they’ll let the world know about it.
10 Blogging Tips from the Web 2.0 Expo
It’s been building for a while now, but being at the Web 2.0 Expo and attending sessions led by, and attended by, some of the biggest names in blogging right along side first-timers, made me realize how common blogging and micro blogging are now. Every session had a plethora of busy bloggers/wannabes from all over the world, with laptops open with Twitter up all day, cameras and camera phones, audio recording devices and of course PDAs constantly in hand. Everyone in the same boat feverishly plugging down nuggets to share with their respective online audiences. We are all becoming bloggers and want to tell our stories in one way or another whether it be blogging or micro blogging or both, we were all there to gather information and share it with our friends and colleagues as soon as possible.
Image courtesy of James Duncan DavidsonOne of the Tuesday afternoon workshops; Intro to Blogs & Social Media Marketing 101, hosted by Nick Gonzalez (SocialMedia), Eric Eldon (VentureBeat) and Trisha Okubo (eBay & Omiru fashion blogger) was my first observation point. The workshop was well attended, and though many more experienced bloggers probably found it fairly basic, they indulged the audience with their presence, rolled their eyes and probably left patting themselves on the back for how much further ahead of the game they were than others in the audience. For others it was an eye opening experience that provided some great basic tips on how to get into the game or be more effective as a blogger and micro-blogger.
Here are the Top Ten take aways Nick, Eric and Trisha shared during the session:
- Create content that’s easily packaged and reusable for example; Top Ten Lists and How-To’s
- When blogging or micro-blogging provide news or exclusive content that’s not available elsewhere
- Remember Seth Godin’s Purple Cow use catchy headlines and out of the ordinary content to draw attention
- Take advantage of blogging distribution channels and measurement tools such as; FeedBurner, Digg, StumbleUpon, Yahoo Buzz, Friend Feed, Facebook, Techmeme, Del.icio.us, and Aide RSS to ensure maximum distribution
- Let your fans know when a new post is up, email influencers and key sources cited to let them know you’ve posted and ALWAYS give credit to other bloggers and use link backs on Twitter, and other micro-blogging applications, whenever appropriate
- Do offer free advice and incentives like a free informational PDF file or white paper as an incentive to gain new subscribers
- Guest write on other blogs and offer the opportunity for other bloggers to guest write for you
- Share opportunities with other bloggers and get involved in the community, posting regular comments on other blogs
- Meet other bloggers in the ‘real world’ to get know each other in person
- Be passionate about your content and don’t shy away from including some of that passion in your blog profile page, the more your readers know about you the more they will connect with your content.
28 Tips To Make You a StumbleUpon Superstar
StumbleUpon or SU, can be a great asset for your online marketing
strategy. Here are 28 tips to take you to SU heaven.
- Your Avatar, the little picture which represents your account. You need to have one, it seems obvious but I regularly come across “anonymous” accounts with ghost avatars. Your avatar is usually the first thing which people know about you, in the seconds or even micro seconds where your avatar is digested it’s important not to make simple, initial mistakes. You want to get to the situation where when people see your avatar they get excited
- Make your Avatar stand out, it’s only a small space so use high contrast colours.
- Only use a photo which has been designed to be an avatar. Do not use a passport photo or the “Best Employee of the Month”, type photo you find in fast food joints.
- If your logo works well as an avatar, use it. But most don’t, you may be in love with your logo but think about how it will be perceived on SU. People using SU to improve their business are not welcomed with open arms so it’s best to adopt a regular user status.
- Be bold, be striking, but don’t offend unnecessarily. Your avatar should not cause offence and the use of religious or political symbols should be avoided.
- Pay a graphic designer to put together an avatar based on your website or company logo, if you don’t have the budget create it yourself but show it to lots of friends to get feedback before you publish.
- Concentrating on quality is the most effective way to stand out from the crowd. In a competitive environment it is quality which is the most important element when it comes to attracting friends and influencing people
- Having more friends and fans means your stumbles will be seen by more people. Stumbleupon allows you to friend only 200 people, so make sure each one you friend, friends you back. Make sure they are active stumblers too, if someone hasn’t logged on to their account they are not likely to be of any use to you. Drop them and friend someone more useful.
- If your focus for using SU is business then you are not on StumbleUpon to make friends to meet hot partners of the opposite sex or even the same sex if that’s your bag. As Marlon Brando in the Godfather says, “It’s only business.” I keep this in mind as I use SU. Forget making friends or meeting the love of your life, that may happen, but it’s not why you are there.
- Keeping focused on business means: Not friending every hottie in a bathing suit (they are probably fake accounts designed to sucker you in anyway). Keep in mind that networking can sometimes be better described as notworking.
- Don’t get personally offended when someone does not friend you back, simply remove them and try someone else.
- It is not a popularity contest but a way to market your brand. It’s not the amount of people in your network, it’s what the people in your network can do for you.
- Learn to say no. Learn to reject, learn to say get lost to your best pal who is sending you low quality spam to stumble. People know what you stumble and you will be judged on that.
- Focus on those why certain people are successful. Some stumblers are more powerful than others, make sure you understand why they are power users. A lot of people spend a huge amount of time Stumbling, you cannot do this, you have a business to run. But closely analyze those who get stumbles in your sector and ask yourself, how can you get them to not only friend you but to submit your stuff.
- There is a specific culture that exists on SU and it will help if you can understand it. It’s not one that can easily be taken advantage of by someone running a business. Those who make the mistake of going against this culture, rightly or wrongly can attract a vicious element on SU. Tread carefully and do not annoy the natives.
- There is a psychological technique called modeling, where someone wishing to emulate the success of someone puts themselves in the mindset of that person. SU is no different. If you have the time, spend a whole day looking at the those people who stumble the hot stuff in your sector and beyond. Then either create similar content or expand on the themes raised.
- Think of SU as people stumbling ideas rather than websites The power users on SU are bright, erudite, literate, curious and deep thinking people. Think less about content as something you look at, but at the ideas it inspires. Model your own content with the same concept. People swarm around ideas on SU and it’s important to deconstruct the content down to its original idea; you can then take that idea and create your own content.
- Your politics, or personal view are irrelevant, for example if you think Global warming is bogus, then raise the issue. But not in a dogmatic or “out to make people look stupid” way, but in a way which attracts people into the conversation and into stumbling you. For example you could highlight the hypocrisy of so called ” green” celebs who drive a Toyota Prius and yet have a private jet which they fly their personal chef in to cook them breakfast.
- Don’t only stumble your own stuff, but make it a healthy ratio. Stumble other peoples stuff at least 5 times more than your own.
- Learn to find cool stuff to stumble. A website called popurls.com can do a lot of the work for you by scanning what is popular on other websites. The logic being that if it’s hot on digg it could be hot on SU also. However, competition is stiff amongst professional submitters to submit the best stuff, so be aware that a considerable time investment may need to be made.
- Choose your topics carefully. SU allows you to decide what kind of areas you stumble, some other members of SU will use this list to judge whether or not you are worthy to add. Rule of thumb is to be honest and pick the things you are passionate about, just don’t go crazy and keep it focussed.
- Be polite. Yes you may have had the third cringe worthy, low life, spammer request to ask you to friend them, but good manners costs nothing and yet being rude has the danger of creating enemies with no real bonus except being a smart ass.
- It probably does not need to be said but best not assume anything. Do not spam, do not send out random requests for people to friend you and do not submit low quality, spammy content. SU works without a real algorithm, if you submit good stuff it will rise to the top and your account will rise in value. Submit rubbish and you will get nowhere.
- Accept criticism. When someone gives you the thumbs down, learn from it. It’s not personally (unless it’s the spammer you just told to get lost) it’s probably just about the content. Look at the content again and ask yourself what you could have done not to have got that thumbs down. Thumbs down are rare, so when it happens take note.
- Do not submit front pages of e-commerce sites. People are just not interested. If you have an e-commerce site, think about a blog, think about creating some interesting content specifically crafted for the SU audience.
- You need one of two things to really take advantage of SU, time or money. If you have the time you can see down and build an effective SU strategy. If you have the money you can pay someone to do it for you.
- Don’t think that SU is the answer to your online marketing problems. It may not fit your ROI, don’t get sucked into spending resources on it till you are sure it’s for you. My Dad has an engineering business where SU would be of little use. The ROI would be worthless. Perform tests before you commit time and money.
- The definition of a valuable Stumble account is one in which people visit regularly because of the useful and interesting posts. See it as a mini blog, a way to demonstrate your knowledge of your sector. As you go on, your reputation and brand will build enabling you to use your SU account to further your business.
The above article was written in collaboration with Lyndon Antcliff, a social media marketing expert.
