buildandbalance
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@margieclayman Thanks for the thoughtful reply. Twitter will always be both interesting and confusing because there are so many different types of people on there who treat it differently. Then, there are the spammers. Sigh. The blessing and the curse of social media. Like the world, it's still more positive than negative. :-)
The title of the post was so intriguing I had to have a look. It's a good post. I have gone through those same ups and downs on Twitter. I did almost quit about a year ago because it just seemed to be so much noise and just link after link occasionally interrupted by a quote.
I've gotten frustrated by the lack of response from some accounts. To wit I unfollowed one just today because I've written him back a few times and have never gotten a reply. Obviously I was writing a robot as I've actually never seen any humanish post from that account. Just automated tweet after tweet.
I try to be human and engage as well as share my content and sometimes sell as you suggest. I can't say I've generated a lot of business from Twitter, but I don't sell online really so it's all right. I still find it more interesting than Facebook. Google + is becoming more interesting as it's like Twitter but with more depth. I plan to spend more time there this year at the expense of Facebook, which is becoming way too commercial imho. I hope to engage with you from time to time. I'm now Follower #7,298. :-)
The Pinterest data is interesting indeed. However, what caught my attention even more is that the research tells me that blogs are still incredibly valuable. Meanwhile I recall reading recently that businesses are tiring of blogging. Wish I had the link to share on that, but I don't. Anyway, social media gets a ton of attention while it's blogging that should be getting even more (if you're looking to sell online)!
I'm a small business coach who spends time in the trenches with local businesses like chiropractors, mattress stores, janitorial companies and the like. I can tell you from my perspective this is a huge game-changer that will dissuade more small biz owners from adopting Facebook Pages. They already thought the old Facebook was complicated. I could spend hours training a group of owners on the old network.
How am I supposed to now ease them in to all these new tasks to make the most out of their Page while explaining to them the 7.5% reach? As a small business owner who actually understands most of what Jay posted above I can tell you that I'm not looking forward to the time investment for the potentially small payoff and probably will have a hard time recommending it to my clients and prospects.
LinkedIn is looking much more attractive now if only more than 6% of the users would log in daily. Hmm, email marketing? Sounding better by the day.
Wow, super list! I need to curl up next to the fire and go through it thoroughly. I was first attracted to the YouTube list because I believe I under-utilize that social network. I definitely need to pursue tip #12 and get some client testimonials on video going.
Tips 4 and 5 under Biz Cards seem contradictory. Don't clutter, but add your Twitter bio? Maybe it's up to the person to pick the one that works for them. Thanks for plenty of food for thought on improving my marketing!
I had not heard of PostRank previous to this post. Learning about that tool alone made it worth stopping by. Thanks for pulling this list together. I agree that no one should say social media would be great if only you could measure it.
Speaking of links, are the ones from your blog Comments follow or no-follow?
Nikki, Thanks for reposting Chris' tips. There are some really good ones in there. Tough thing about replying to peoples tweets is that about 50% of the people whose tweets I reply to never tweet me back. It seems they're too occupied to notice that someone has replied to them, or worse, they notice it and don't care to engage a stranger. It's all right, I just keep on going as engagement on Twitter is much more fun than simply tweeting in one direction.
Now, one additional tip from me: Write people a real message who follow you from time to time. They'll appreciate not getting a standard DM, but instead a genuine message of appreciation that's personalized to them. Try it!
profkrgAustinClarkEnnis I guess that would be a compliment in a way.
AustinClarkEnnis Yes, I agree. One tool I use from time to time is Nutshell Mail, which tells you who has Quit following you. If you don't have too, too many followers you might find this useful, but then again, who really has time to care much about who stops following them? I mean I don't play that game where if you unfollow me I'm going to unfollow you. I may still find your content interesting!
profkrg Kenna, Hi. No, I've not noticed problems with spam...yet. Interesting point about being penalized for following inappropriate accounts. I'm a company of 2 and I'm the owner so this isn't a concern for me. However, I could see how it might be for larger companies, but then again you have to take the good with the bad, at least initially, if you're going to auto-follow. As soon as I see an inappropriate account I unfollow them.
I originally decided to vet everyone who follows me to see if I'd like to follow them back. I wanted to top out at 200 Follows and truly engage with that core group. Only problem was people who were following me were unfollowing me in droves just a few days later when I wasn't following back. As you point out, that's not a good thing for a company using social media. So, now I use the FOURTH philosophy, which is to follow everyone back, but selectively unfollow those over time that tweet out content that I can't connect with in some way. I like this philosophy as it doesn't lose me any followers that I don't mind losing. Thanks for the opportunity to opine on this topic. It's an interesting one! I am buildandbalance by the way.
@jaybaer had me thinking about this some time back. Pictures used properly in tandem with good copy is an unbeatable combination. I blogged about it and hope you won't mind me sharing the post here: http://www.buildandbalance.com/2011/07/the-power-of-pictures-in-marketing/
I also recall @guykawaski mentioning that Facebook is a picture economy as you noted using other words in your post. It got me to thinking that I "really" need to post more pics on Facebook to get more engagement. So, this past weekend I posted 2 personal pics on my profile and got much more engagement than I had using Foursquare check-ins or simply posting random thoughts. Pictures are important online. Thanks for re-emphasizing the point and for sharing numerous good follow-on posts to explore.