Tag: twitter

Social Media: Some Low Hanging Fruit For Newbies

Posted by Rich Harris – October 26, 2009

323436829_f6afb5c48eMany large corporations are still new to social media and are trying to figure out how it works, their short term plan, their long term plan, etc. After setting up your Twitter account and a Facebook Fan page for your company, now what? A company CAN do a few things almost immediately to expand their presence in social media with little effort/cost. This list assumes you already have a Twitter account, Facebook/MySpace or other sites that are built and established.

1. Spread Your Tweets Like Butter: Make sure all tweets are either manually posted or automatically posted to your other social sites. There are tons of widgets out there and just about everything posted on Facebook, MySpace, Tumblr, etc. has a URL that can be crawled by search engines. That’s money in the bank.

2. Let Your Social Media Hitch A Ride: Talk to any and every internal team in your company that manages outbound communications. At the very least text links to your primary social media accounts/profiles should be on there. You’d be surprised how many of your customers and partners didn’t know you were in the social media space, especially if it’s new for your company. With tens of thousands of emails going out per blast to customers that trust you and have opted in, every email without a link to you on Twitter, is a lost opportunity.

3. Welcome Aboard, Follow Us: Most established companies have an HR dept of some sort and those departments have a process for onboarding new employees. Your company’s social media info should be included in the welcome packet (whether virtual or paper). Most people are using the popular sites for personal reasons so they most likely don’t need to be recruited to use Facebook or Twitter. As long as employees aren’t a disgruntled loose canon, you almost get an extension of your marketing efforts when they can see stuff and contribute to it, even if it’s just ‘liking’ something on Facebook.

4. Let Search Do The Work: This one sounds obvious but even some of the biggest companies do not do this, at all. Some of the mainstay companies that have some of the strongest online consumer brands in the world, like Apple, usually don’t have to link to their social profiles as people will seek them out. However, if you are not Apple, it’s helpful to have text links to social media profiles somewhere as part of the standard footer or navigation on any of your web properties. I’m not saying plaster huge Twitter icons and logos everywhere, but just a text link can do you some good. Also make sure you have some kind of landing page or provision on your site’s contact page with all of your social media links. If you get decent traffic on your site from search engine referrals, there’s some easy intrinsic opportunity to show up in more search results that you are not currently in without those links.

5. C’mon, Everyone Is Doing It: Social media may not be for everyone. I still have friends who even barely have an email account. However, if you have a company that is marketing itself online and you have employees that are online, send out company-wide emails reminding them to join your company on Facebook, Twitter, or whichever sites you have made to be your social marketing avenues. If they are not on Facebook or Twitter yet, they may actually want to check it out and sign up. Your employees are part of your army, make sure they feel like it.

Social Media: Join The Convo or Instigate & Observe?

Posted by Rich Harris – October 22, 2009

talking-headsAn Interesting Question

I recently was sent a really interesting article posted at Adweek.com titled “When Silence Can Be Golden” written by Benjamin Palmer, co-founder and CEO of The Barbarian Group. It was an interesting commentary and perspective on how brands should consider utilizing social media. We’ve all heard everyone say stuff like “get your brand to ‘join the conversation‘ or ‘build a real direct relationship with your customers‘”.

That’s all fine and dandy and of course as a social media guy, I can’t disagree with that statement. However, the article I mentioned above discusses the potential absurdity behind having a static or inanimate brand engage customers directly or attempting to build a relationship with them. A couple lines from the article that I really liked and hadn’t thought about before were:

“Maybe some brands shouldn’t be conversational. Maybe most shouldn’t.

Social media was not made for brands. Lots of other stuff on the Internet was, but not Facebook and not Twitter.”

I mostly agree with the above, with some exceptions. I agree that some brands maybe shouldn’t be conversational but I also think we need to remember that business IS people. People make products and then people pay for those products. ‘Tis life. Later on in the article he talks about how a company should probably evaluate their approach with social media. Your evaluation does not mean that you should wonder if your company should even get into social media at all (of course it should). The real question is: Does it make sense for you to promote your brand having the conversation with your customers OR does it make more sense for your brand to promote the environments where your customers have conversations with each other about your brand and it’s products/services?

What Are Your Options?

So based on what I’ve said above, you basically have a couple concrete options that could be considered a best fit for your company. You ALSO have a massive grey area that may need to be explored, demanding that you get creatively amorphous and nimble with your approach.

Join The Conversation:

This is the old adage, the trendy social media goto defacto standard tagline that any marketer uses to bring his/her newly discovered career path to the customers. It still has value and substance and has a proven track record for success when done right. Industry types where I think this would be most appropriate are ones whose business is serving human beings and their experiences, where tangible goods are just a facet of the overall experience. These would be anything like hotels (as mentioned in the article by Palmer), restaurants, airlines, general product support services like Geek Squad, etc. People pay for a good experience from other humans that represent or are employed by these industries so direct engagement with them via social media would most likely feel more natural.

Instigate, Observe, Tweak, Observe, Repeat.

Next up is the other concrete option that Palmer spoke of which is: create an environment, or mechanism, or medium, for your customers and target audience to hang out and discuss your brand with each other while you watch and learn and strategize your next moves. In many cases, you can learn how to humanize your non-human products. You can learn much more by listening to your customers as a fly on the wall of your company’s Facebook Fan Page, the stream of tweets containing your brand name (or your competitor’s for that matter), and so on. The industries or companies where this applies are pretty much any company where a tangible product represents their brand. A hard drive, a pack of gum, a bottle of water that supposedly has vitamins in it. :-)

Meet Me In The Middle

The third option is that your real triumph may require you to do a combination of both. You may have a static tangible product that you will sell the most of if you create environments for your customers to talk with each other about their experiences while also conversing with them directly in the same environment so they feel like the brand is their for them, backing it’s product(s). It all depends. Every company and audience is different and complex in it’s own way. It’s all doable but the intuition of your social media/marketing team is crucial to find that balance yielding the best return so that your compay’s foray into social media is worth the hype behind the lengthy social media pitch you just gave to your execs.

Onward.

[ Talking Heads image courtesy of, and borrowed from, 8ninths ]

Stats from The Solis

Posted by Rich Harris – October 13, 2009

Brian’s recent blog post: “The Great Social Divide: Twitter, Facebook Traffic Surges, Myspace Fades“, was chock full of some really great social media nuggets. The behemoth that is Facebook, the rise of Twitter, the process of the fall of MySpace. I highly recommend checking this post out. It’s always nice for us social media guys when someone else goes out there and pulls and the information we really care about into one location instead of the 8 different ones we have to go. The best quote by far from the post at the bottom that is in sync with the rest of the better known social media/marketers was this:

“This is why, in social media, digital anthropology, sociology, ethnography, and psychology prevail…”

Amen to that.

Automation Killed The Social Media Star

Posted by Rich Harris – September 1, 2009

So a short while ago the mighty Chris Brogan (@chrisbrogan) tweeted the following: “Social media isnt cool. Human interaction is cool. Just fyi.”

Some people took that as him dogging Social Media but if you know Chris you know that’s not true. I think he’s just getting a little spent on the level of noise and clutter that is being slung around Twitter spammy DM’s and other social sites. I’m sure he’s also probably tired of all the new social media “experts” that have cropped up that are more savvy as used car salesmen than they are true marketers who actually care about the conversation. The buzz-word minutiae that won’t seem to let up when it comes to “Social Media” is…..overwhelming, like tidal wave :-) . When I hear or read that phrase now, it is starting to feel like I’m getting my first tattoo and the artist keeps going over the same spot again and again and again even though he should be moving on to another spot. “STOP I GET IT!” Shotgun marketing methods and not knowing the real point of Social Media is the cause of all this chaos.

Here’s How I See It

Now onto the main point of this post. Whether you are using Auto DM messages on Twitter or regularly and aggressively scheduling libraries of recursive tweet ads (twads? blech…) on TweetLater, you are tired of the time commitment and maintenance of this new “social media” fad that you are trying to convert into a “get rich quick” scheme. My humble message to those people: I have some news for you.

Automation (“in the recurring output of scheduled ads” sense) and Social Media cannot live in the same in universe philosophically with causing the apocalypse. This does NOT include one press release tweet being scheduled early one morning, an Auto DM set up to let people know you are on vacay, etc. I’m talking about the meager attempt, whether intentional or not, by low quality marketers who are trying to replace human interaction and relationship building, with scripts and automated tools.

We all know that the marketing relationships with our customers are only as solid (and lucrative over the long term) as the amount of time, effort and genuineness that we are willing to give to them. It takes time to cultivate real conversations and relationships in marketing. You can’t automate that. It’s like me trying to write a script that will raise my 3 sons for me…..as much as I’d like to have that lying around when they are bickering so I could go have a peaceful cup of coffee some place until my new bickering children script helps them figure it out, there will never be a time when marketing is not about real people having real conversations, especially in this day and age.

If you don’t like people, interaction with people, investing time in people, then please don’t get into social media. :-)

TwitterFox – Social Media App Integration – We’re Gettin’ Closer

Posted by Rich Harris – June 11, 2009

twitter foxTwitterFox

Ok so we are getting closer…slow but sure. I’m testing out the TwitterFox app for Firefox (installed on my Flock browser) and so far I like it. It actually has (albeit drop-down vs. the tabbed I’ve requested and hoped and dreamed for in the past) solution to managing multiple Twitter accounts in one spot. The beauty of TwitterFox  for me is that I use Flock for all my social media work and play. Since this sits nicely in the corner of my Flock browser, I don’t need to open TweetDeck or Twhirl on the side….AND with the new version of Flock that adds the Facebook notifications widget into the browser itself even though you can simultaneously look at other tabs that aren’t logged into Facebook, I’m now getting used to, and enjoying being able to check the lower-right hand corner to just see what is going on activity-wise with the tools I use all day. My only ‘con’ I’ve seen so far is that I’m totally addicted to how TweetDeck overlays 4 buttons on top of each person’s avatar. I find myself hoping all Twitter apps operate that way…oh well…not at all a showstopper for me though with TwitterFox..more of a personal nit.

The more I can do with the less apps the better and TwitterFox is pushing us another step closer.

In a perfect world I’d be able to use Flock and have a bunch of little icons on the browser’s bottom toolbar for Flickr, Facebook, MySpace, etc. that were always checking/active/displaying notifications or little indicators while I did other stuff, so that I could open one app – Flock – and see and monitor all. It’s pretty fascinating to watch it all unfold.

Social Media Experts? You Have Lots To Learn Grasshopper.

Posted by Rich Harris – March 11, 2009

Now that title may at first glance appear somewhat pretentious but even being someone who manages social media for a large company like myself, I have a hard time proclaiming guru or expert status.

Here’s the thing. You can’t be an expert at something that first of all has really only started culminating the last couple years, and second, changes almost every week. You can call yourself a social media ninja, bad ass, maestro, whatever the hell you wanna call it….but there’s a 96.87% chance you are no guru or expert.

First, to say something positive (I’ve been trying to start off all my recent blog posts on a positive note), I love social media and I love how excited everyone is about it. It’s reshaping company/brand PR/Marketing efforts in a way that is healthy, creative, and cost effective…most of the time. I’d say my only complaint about it is that it’s made internet life quite a bit “noisier”…which I expected to happen.

Now then…..my point in this post is that to those claiming to be social media experts or even someone that claims to be in the know with social media and it’s big picture….this is probably not true. Just because you have a twitter account and you know how to use it, doesn’t make you a social media marketer. There’s an art to understanding that social media is all about people, about meaningful conversation that is genuine, relevant, intelligent (sometimes), and more importantly: REAL.

No one likes repeated spammy comments on Twitter, their MySpace comments section, or their Facebook walls, etc.

Also, you need to understand that because you have accounts on all the various sites, it does not make you an expert. If you want to eventually be an expert or guru at social media, the most important aspect of it that you need to understand, more important than the tools themselves that are at your fingertips is PEOPLE. To be really good, you need to ‘get’ people….different types of people, their interests, personalities, various thought processes, locales, etc. You might say to yourself..”ok that’s basic segment marketing analysis,” but we, as social marketers, have to understand that this landscape is different. The consumers of social media don’t like to be spoon fed empty one way communications about products, services and other crap. They are smarter than the old consumer, they have a lower attention span, and they put up with less bullshit than ever before. They have the power to immediately weed out and block all crap, unlike email spam which is and will always barely be under control.

The other side of this on the tools/technology side is that you need a cohesion that takes the sum of all the parts of what you do for a company or client. There should be a high level premise and plan on how all the accounts/tools all tie together to push out one message and a wave of consistent content. If you don’t have that, your efforts are null and void. Might as well head home and start gardening.

To be a social media expert or guru, you need to understand all the tools, how they all work together and you need to have a passion for human beings and their behavior, good, bad and ugly. If you understand that stuff, have a vision,  and are fascinated with human beings, you will be a social media jedi one day. I hope I get to be one too. :-)

Twitter, Twhirl, TweetDeck, Twinsanity?

Posted by Rich Harris – March 1, 2009

So what can I say? Twitter is rad. Aside from all the poachers and spammers out there that try and ruin it (which always happens with any new tool that comes out), the function and the culture is awesome. And of course all the accompanying indie apps that have come out to support it like TweetDeck, Twhirl, TwitterBerry, etc….these are all excellent.

Will there be enterprise level tweeting tools available?

TweetDeck and Twhirl have allowed me to definitely speed up the process of managing my tweets and interactions with others but companies like Dell and soon Seagate are maintaining multiple Twitter accounts to server multiple purposes. Dell has accounts ranging from customer support, to enterprise computing, to discussions and tweets on Dell’s thoughts on cloud computing….as they should. While it’s easy if you have individuals maintaining each account, what happens when you’re like me and several other social media people that I know that maintain several accounts all day and need to be retweeting, DM’ing, posting and replying simultaneously? Twhirl sorta helps but then I have a mess of about 15 windows on my desktop and on more than one occasion have posted or replied to the wrong account out of sheer desktop organizational confusion.

I’m aware of Twitterhawk. I think it’s got some powerful features but they’re still trying to automate certain thing to the point where you are borderline spammy in nature even though not blatant. I cannot have very strong opinions on this app yet though as I have not tried it myself…but I will try it out hopefully in the next couple weeks.

What I would like to see is a really nice granular interface that takes the Twhirl concept, pulls all the windows together in a tabbed format like a web browser, and allows you to manage view your different accounts that way. I know that based on what I’ve seen with TweetDeck, if you have several accounts with several threads going at once, the API calls could get pretty obnoxious for the infrastructure guys to the point of hundreds of thousands of calls per second if it really blew up, but hey…this is 2009 and we have the technology. I’d almost like a more refined Flock concept but ONLY for tweeting and managing Twitter accounts. This would be SO useful for me and many other corporate social media folks that I know who are making Twitter, or at least trying to, an essential tool in their web marketing toolbox.

If someone out there makes a tool like this, I will pay for it in cash.

Tweet on my brothers and sisters! If you know about something that I don’t app/solution-wise, please comment here.

[dude in trucker hat artwork credit: Steve Hamaker]

Flock Social Networking Client

Posted by Rich Harris – April 9, 2008

This is my test blog post using the Flock “Social Browser”. Basically it’s goal is to effectively pull together all your standard social communities into a browser experience, automatically pulling in your feeds/accounts/etc. from Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, etc. The main issue I see with it so far is that there’s no MySpace add for it. That seems silly to me.

Anyway. I’m blogging this post right from within the Flock blog post client and I was able to have it detect my blog type (WordPress) by just giving it the domain, it figured it out, probably looking to see if standard WordPress URL existed, etc.

I was also able to add my gmail and yahoo mail accounts to it and easily use them through the browser alongside my social sites.

I’m really liking this so far and will grill it a lot harder of the next few weeks.

Peace and Grease.

-Rich