I know a woman who refers to Twitter as a giant cocktail party and loves that you can eavesdrop and jump in on any conversation, at any time. True, but what if your followers stink? They tweet about boring things, share the same links over and over, talk at you not TO you and no one responds to your thoughtful content.

If you focus too much on your Twitter followers being a numbers game and not a relationship starter, you will be blessed with crappy attendees to your virtual cocktail party. Thousands of boring tweeters will clog your Twitter stream with sales promos, what they had for breakfast and whiny tweets about how horrible their lives are.

Relationships beat numbers

What are you using Twitter for? As a broadcast tool? To tell you boss that you have 10,000 followers? Then sure, numbers are good but more often then not, your tweets fall on deaf ears (or um, eyes). If you are using Twitter to build and reaffirm relationships with your customers, establish yourself as an expert in your industry or to get feedback on your products and services, then relationships matter more.

Jason Falls wrote a quick and to the point blog this week about what is more important, ‘influence’ or trust? Many people spend too much time trying to get the attention of the people with the biggest Twitter followers or most blog subscribers. If one of those picked up your content, would you really get the eyeballs you want on your content? You are probably better off finding someone in your niche who has followers that would really benefit from your content, products and services.

3 easy ways to find good people to follow on Twitter

1. Try adding your LinkedIn contacts to your Twitter followers. The Next Web thought that with this new easy integration, this could be the ‘a-ha’ moment for many Twitterers struggling to find meaningfulness in their Twitter streams.
2. Look for hashtags that are in and around the target group you are trying to reach.
3. Can’t find a good hashtag? Start your own or start a Twitter chat. Twitter chats are a great way to find new people you can connect with. I have met some really good people through #blogchat.

Lastly, if you feel like your followers are lacking the qualities you need, don’t feel bad about trimming the fat and getting your numbers down to people who care about you and your content.

In the process of fixing the bug, for about an hour today everyone’s Twitter followers and people they were following was set to zero. No one was following anyone else. Direct messages became impossible because no one was actually following anyone else, according to the Twitter website.

Some people freaked out, while others rejoiced. Some pondered what this could mean for the internet, status and defining real influencers. Some marveled at the thought of starting over and some people were just silly with the thought that no one could read their tweets.

What you SHOULD have been thinking about

What you should have thought about was the reality that none of your Twitter followers or content on Twitter belong to you, it all belongs to Twitter. The same goes for Facebook, LinkedIn or any of your other favorite social networking sites. Your Facebook photo albums, your contact list on LinkedIn, notes, events created on these sites etc. all belong to someone else.

Twitter did fix the problem but what if they didn’t? What if fixing the bug meant you had to start over again at zero?

Many people who read this blog are using Twitter for business. How would this have impacted your online marketing strategy?

3 things to consider after today’s #followgeddon

1. Back up your information – Just like you back up your computer, network, email (you do that right?) you should consider backing up your social networking data. LinkedIn easily lets you export your network data. There are online tools to help you export your Twitter followers. Record who your Facebook fans are. What data would you want if that social network was gone tomorrow? Figure that out and save it.
2. Adding relationships to the sales funnel – How are you taking conversations, leads, connections, inquiries from social networks and recording them? If you have a CRM system, consider a point where you think it is relevant to add connections to your database.
3. None of your content belongs to you on social networks – Social networks are required to have strong privacy policies. What ends up happening is that they now own any content you put on their websites and they have the right to take anything down they want to. This does not happen very often, especially to businesses that play by the rules but, it very well could happen. Be sure you have all your content you need backed up or on your website (that you own). Social networks are a great way to get people to see your content and move them to your website but you don’t want to rely on them to be the ‘end-all, be-all’ for interacting with your content and business.

Today’s bug was good for a laugh and I don’t believe anyone got hurt but it was a good reminder that all your tweets could go up in a cloud of smoke. Protect yourself, your company and your content by keeping the content and connections that are most important to you backed up.

… or should you be both, or neither?

Twitter is becoming more and more popular among businesses and marketers. People are using Twitter to connect with friends, meet new people, look for help and answers, promote products and services and so much more.

As more and more people and businesses join the fight for people’s attention on Twitter, the lines seem to be getting more blurry on whether you should be yourself or your company while you Tweet.

I hear this question a lot in meetings and at Social Media Breakfasts and here are some things to consider when deciding who to represent when you Tweet:

Let your goals, not your current place guide you. – I always think it is important to know what you want out of social media before you dive right in and start participating. Make a list of the things you want to accomplish in this space; brand recognition, use for customer service, make new relationships with people in your industry et al. Once you have a clear idea of what you are trying to accomplish, you can decide if this message is better carried out by you personally or your brand.

What type of content will you be producing? – When you sit down to figure out what you want to accomplish with social media, think specifically on the types of content you will be producing (the tweets). If this was an in-person conversation, would the content be better from a person or from a brand representative?

What are you going to be an expert on? – One of the best ways to succeed in social media is to establish yourself as an expert in something. Be the go-to guy or girl on something. Much like above, would this type of advice and content be better delivered from a person or brand representative? If you are establishing yourself as an expert versus establishing your business as the go-to place for these types of services, then perhaps you want a personal tone.

Think about what could go wrong first – I don’t mean to scare anyone but it is better to think about what could go wrong and have a plan for it before something actually does go wrong. Set company policies on what you want people who are representing your brand to adhere to. Determine what content is out of bounds and what content you want more of.

Be honest with yourself – Think long and hard about your 1, 3, 5 year plan. Are you going to be at this company for a long time?

Two scenarios to consider:

• You spend your time tweeting as your brand or company and you leave that organization – The content you produce on behalf of your employer, belongs to your employer (most likely). You may have 4,000 followers and when you walk out that door you have to leave them all behind and start over.
• You spend your time tweeting from a personal account making it be known where you work and you leave the company – Will you audience/followers want to make the transition with you? Will they want to follow you through starting a job search or new business? Did you sell yourself as a marketing expert and then take a job in accounting?

Can you be both personal and professional on one account? – I have a few stories to tell about people who tried to both represent their brand and their personal life on one account and it all went up in smoke in minutes. Your personal life could bring down your organization. Even if you work for yourself, carefully consider what content you are going to produce and stick to the specific content.

Being personal doesn’t automatically equal business – I recently overheard a conversation between two people who are heavy Twitter users. One brands herself as her business and the other as himself. She told him he wasn’t very clear about what he did for work or that he was looking for business. He was surprised. ‘Well isn’t that how this all works? You get to know me and then you are curious what I do for work and I get business?’ Well… no. Yes being likable and sharing information about your town, children, activities is a good way to get some followers but if you aren’t staying on message you could just be clouding the water.

“The trick of being in a personal brand is that there’s a big difference between being known, being known for something, and also being able to turn that into business.”

Chris Brogan – When YOU Are the Brand

What we do

I am not saying what we do here at Hall is ALWAYS the best scenario (although I usually like it) but I did want to share with you what we do here and how it has worked for us. We have been using Twitter for a few years and it took some trial and error but I really like how we are sharing content on Twitter. It is effective and a bit more organized.

Our company account is maintained by one person. We use it to announce new blog posts, webinars, share useful links we find online and answer any questions people may have for us. Yes, it is used more for sharing our news, like a broadcast tool.

If people are looking for a more personal connection with Hall on Twitter we have a large number on our staff who tweet regularly. Each employee who is going to tweet about our business or establish themselves as an expert in our field, has a long conversation with the management team about what is and what is not acceptable, about the responsibility going along with tweeting for our company and we define a niche they are comfortable tweeting about.

As a group we often Retweet each others content, not to broadcast but because we genuinely appreciate the content our co-workers are putting out.

Following Hall on Twitter

If you want to follow Hall on Twitter for news, updates, useful links, new blog posts and webinars: @Hall_Web

If you want to follow Amanda on Twitter for all things social media, blogging, Maine living, Social Media Breakfast Maine, trying to live a healthy lifestyle and for things I find funny: @amanda_pants

If you want to follow Kyle on Twitter for tips on web design, random quips from a Massachusetts native trying to live in Maine, Social Media Breakfast Maine: @kyyuulle

If you want to follow Kasi for all things SEO related, some cute dog pictures, random dance party inspiration: @kasi_marie

If you want to follow Alayna for all things CMS related, Wordpress, Drupal, content marketing and upcoming events and webinars: @CMS_Girl

If you want to follow Jenika for all things web marketing, channel marketing, tips, and random things that make her laugh: @Jenika29

I hope you find this post helpful when trying to decide who you should be portraying when you tweet. There is no exact science at this point. Please feel free to share with me things that have worked for you and your business as well. Our Hall example is just one of many options. I learn best by seeing what other people are doing so I wanted to share that with you.

Using this space and using it well is tough to do. Twitter alone is raw and happening at rapid tweets per second. A major part of using Twitter well for your business is making sure you have a loyal, interested and active list of people you are following and who are following you. Remember, this is networking not broadcasting. It is usually better to have a small active Twitter following who reads, reacts and republishes your content versus having thousands of followers but none of them contribute to your effort.

Each morning as I drink my coffee, I check for any new followers on my Twitter accounts (@Hall_Web and @amanda_pants). I manually (that is by hand not a plugin or bot that follows back anyone who is following me) check each new follower.

I look at lots of things when determining whether or not to follow someone back and with a collection of all the information, I make my decision.

Here is what I look for before following back a new follower:

• Avatar or image – Does the person have a picture? Is that picture of them, their face, a logo?
• Location – Is the person from my geographic location? Are they from someplace I have lived, traveled to, am interested in, do business in?
• Recent Tweets – What kind of content do they publish? Are they conversational or are they simply broadcasting?
• Number of Followers and Following – Do they have tens of thousands of followers? Unless they are super important or famous, they probably used some type of bot of following scheme to garner so many followers.
• Twitter lists – How many are they listed on and what topics are they listed for?

Twitter Lists

Twitter lists are pretty new. When they were first rolled out, not many people knew what to do with them, some thought they would hurt already standing Twitter traditions and some just plain old didn’t like them. Since the dust has settled, I have found Twitter lists very useful in determining if I am going to follow someone on Twitter.

First – How many lists are they on? The act of creating a list and adding people you want to it takes time. Someone took enough time to create this list and categorize this person because they wanted to organize or bookmark this person’s information. Time = Value in my mind. A human being took the time to categorize my content. I think that is a big deal. I have looked around and if you can get 5-10% of your followers to add you to a list, I think that is pretty good.

Second – What lists in particular are they on? Consider what lists people are on. Is their expertise something you are hoping to learn more about? Are they in your industry, local market, attending an event you are attending? Or perhaps they could just clog your Twitter stream with information you are not looking for.

This is also a good way to monitor your own Twitter content. If you consider yourself a Social Media Expert and you are being listed as an SEO expert, you could be sending people the wrong message (or tweets). If you are an HR Blogger and people are listing you as social media expert, whiskey connoisseur, running blogger and the list goes on and on, you could be sending mixed messages. By talking about all of your interests you may have diluted your message.

This is just one way I try to keep my Twitter efforts organized and make sure I am following and being followed by good people. I want both parties to benefit from this relationship. What other precautions or tips do you have for streamlining your Twitter efforts?

Perhaps you are just now getting to signing up for a Twitter account. More likely is that when you joined Twitter, you were not sure what you were going to do with this space so you chose a name you are less than excited about now. Many people choose a nickname or a confusing combination of numbers and letters, and find that it’s not appropriate to be using for marketing their business.

So what happens when you find a username you want and someone else is using it? Even worse, what happens when someone has your company name and they aren’t even using the account?

Name squatting is against the Twitter rules. Unfortunately there is little Twitter can do about the inconvenience unless you are covered under the terms of service or if someone is impersonating you. If you have your name trademarked you can email terms@twitter.com to let them know that you own the trademarked name. With any type of interaction like this you should provide all documentation you have and perhaps screen shots of the account you are discussing.

Before making your claim, it is important to understand what you are asking for. For more information about the difference between name squatting, impersonation or trademark infringement read this post from how-to-blog.tv, which also includes Twitter’s snail mail address and fax number.

Twitter is always working on releasing all usernames attached to accounts that have been inactive for more than 18 months. An account is considered a squatter if the account hasn’t been logged into or updated for 6 months. An account that has no activity, followers or people they are following can be immediately removed because they are considered squatting. Finding and ousting squatters is a manual process and can take weeks for Twitter to implement.

If you think you deserve a username that looks like it’s being squatted you can submit a request for someone to review the account.

Taking matters into your own hands

In some circumstances people feel it is best to take matters into their own hands. If you want you can contact the user and ask them to drop the name (politely of course). Send them an @ reply or DM (direct message) pleading your case. If you don’t hear from them on Twitter, try following the link to their website and see if there is a better way to talk to someone there.

If you think it would be easier to reach out to the account owner on your own you should also be aware that any attempt to buy, sell or solicit compensation for a Twitter username is also considered a violation of policy and could be grounds for your account being suspended.

Lastly, if you have the people skills to pull it off, here is a Twitter list of staff members at Twitter. With a little time and networking skills you may be able to make a personal connection with someone in-house that can help you resolve your name squatter issue.

Few other things to remember…

• Try to get there first – Twitter will do its best to do what is right but the easiest way to avoid any of this hassle is to make sure you secure your name first. If you are not ready to take on a full Twitter strategy for your business just set up the account with your information, website, upload a logo and put one post up to secure your name and make sure you aren’t deemed a squatter. For a first post just say ‘Thank you for visiting us on Twitter. We are not quite up and running but if you have any questions please email us at email@company.com’.
• Keep your username short – Usernames can only be 15 characters long. The longer the username, the harder to RT someones content due to lack of spaces in a standard tweet.
• Pay someone else to secure your company name – It is possible to secure your company name on social networks with services like Claim.io
• Check the copyright of a name you want – Before you make a stink, check to make sure someone else doesn’t have the name you want already copyrighted. You can go to the United States Patent and Trademark Office and search for existing trademarks.

Social Media is just conversations happening online. We have covered that. People are talking online with people they know and people they know only virtually. In those conversations they are also inadvertently reviewing products, services and looking for advice about their next purchasing decision.

By participating in social media in the B2B world you have the opportunity to reach new customers at a new touch point, share content about your company online in other spaces than just your website and the potential to create trust with your audience… All so when it comes time for a purchasing decision or expert advice, they come to you.

Should your company be participating in social media?

I have two things to answer that today:

1. Are your customers participating on social media sites? And are your BEST customers there?

   Figure that out first. Send out a survey with your next newsletter, have a conversation with your best customers, ask other people in your industry etc. Don’t set up your business on social media because your favorite author is or your marketing buddy told you to after your hike last weekend.Your company has a unique niche of people who use your products and services (doesn’t it?).

   You are trying to reach those people and probably not your friend or your favorite author. I also just read a blog by Seth Godin, Some people are better than others. I like Seth’s blog because it makes me think. You aren’t just trying to reach everyone but your best customers.

2. What are you missing out on by not participatingIn Chris Brogan and Julien Smith’s book Trust Agents, they remind us that you will survive if you don’t participate in social media. You will probably be just fine actually. What you need to weigh out is what potentially will you be missing out on by not being a part of these online discussions?Tom Hall has had great success using LinkedIn to foster business relationships, I have put quite a few people in our sales lead column through Twitter. Social Media is a tool that we find very valuable for both B2B and B2C industries.

   Use tools like Google Blog Search, Twitter Search and the new social searches to see if people are talking about your business right now. Is there benefit for you to be participating in social media to react and respond to content in these networks?

All the world a Twitter

The social network we get asked about the most is Twitter. It is still pretty new, it is unlike anything else we have seen yet and those who are participating seem to be addicted and that is all they can talk about.

Unlike any other social network, on Twitter you choose to ‘follow’ people or not by the content they produce (their tweets). Sometimes you follow people because of their geographic location, their picture or because you know them ‘in real life’ but generally people find people to follow (or subscribe to) strictly on their content they produce.

This unique phenomenon is still being figured out but I am seeing some really great work done by people in the B2B space who are using Twitter effectively. I will be doing a webinar next month Tweeting For Your Business! An introduction to Twitter.

Laura Fitton aka @Pistachio, co-author of Twitter for Dummies, tackled the “Twitter for B2B” question recently. A video of her interview with Jeff Cohen from Social Media B2B is on his site. Check out her interview here.

The outcome of this experiment was at once both enlightening and alarming.  The amount of misinformation that’s still out there about SEO is shocking and left me hoping that the people feeding this stuff out have as few followers as possible.

What I Observered (Not Necessarily Scientific)

#seo and “seo” seem to be used largely by SEO companies, not by ordinary people.  Of the 1000s of posts I reviewed, roughly half were links to blog posts, created by and promoted by a search company (or consultant, or so-called “expert”).  Approximately 10% were direct solicitations with no benefit to the reader (“Do you need free SEO advice regarding your website? Just let me know and I can help with free tools and help anytime. Thats right, free!” or this gem: “Link Builders pls add me for Link Exchange at xxx@xxxx.com.”  The remaining 10% was split between foreign language tweets and legitimate questions and chatter.

“Google Rankings” was better, with a large number of terms being people talking about how to improve Google Rankings or wondering why their Google Rankings suddenly tanked.  Unlike SEO, which seems to suck in black hats like a magnet, much of the chatter here seemed legitimate (if not always accurate).

SEO myths still being propagated by Twitter?

• Submitting your website to Google and Yahoo is still important (it’s not, way not!)
• META Keywords are still important.  Um, no.
• The META Refresh command is an acceptable way to redirect a website.  No!  Use 301 redirects.
• Reciprocal links, links pages, and link directories are good link building strategies.  They aren’t.
• You can buy your way into Google Organic results.  Eh?  Seriously, there are articles out there that seem to blur the definition of organic search and pay per click.

I also learned some fun things – “Google Slap” seems to be a trending term, and I came across the Derek Powazek SEO controversy as it was unfolding.

The key takeaway? “SEO” is a word used by those in the know, and good luck separating the wheat from the chaff if you’re using Twitter to start your education about search engines.  That said, organic search is more important than ever for businesses and seeing how wild west the landscape still is re-affirmed the importance of putting out good quality and useful information out there.

Photo credit: zappowbang

Holy smokes!  Yesterday was a whirlwind of internet news! Keeping up with any and all changes is trying sometimes, so what we like to do here at Hall is give a recap on any events that may have happened that could effect your internet marketing strategy. Let’s get right into it:

Facebook purchases Friendfeed

The darling of social media aggregators, Friendfeed, has been snatched up (for a cool $50 million) by the most popular social networking site, Facebook. I am not going to go into the nity gritty too much because everyone else already has but there are a few things you should consider:

• Friendfeed has become so popular because of its non-partisanship – all social networks were the same. With the partnership of Facebook and Friendfeed, will we see some favoritism shown in Facebook’s general direction?
• As we already know, Friendfeed is now a part of your Feedburner stats, measuring your blog subscribers. This change took some of us awhile to get used to.  With the merger, what could happen next? Could our Facebook friends count as subscribers too? Who knows.
• Facebook’s FriendFeed Acquisition Could Have Implications for Search. This comes at a time when Facebook is toying around with real-time search (perhaps to compete with Twitter). Friendfeed has real time – Facebook wants it – hmmm… Users could get quite accustomed to searching for products and services on social networks that they actively participate in instead of heading over to a search engine to enter their query.

Facebook branches out into Real Time Search

Facebook has struggled with Real Time search for sometime now. The popular social networking site Twitter has dominated in up to the second updates on friends statuses, news and events. Now Facebook is ready to be a contender. The official Facebook blog states “You now will be able to search the last 30 days of your News Feed for status updates, photos, links, videos and notes being shared by your friends and the Facebook Pages of which you’re a fan.” Read the full post here.

Some things of note for you:

• Not comfortable with your Facebook content being search-able? You can change your account settings so that your content isn’t open to everyone. Change or view your privacy settings here.
• Facebook has over 250 million registered users. That is half as many people as Google gets per day but like I said above, with real time search functionality added to a site like Facebook that you are already an active member on, Google may feel a hit as fewer people leave Facebook to enter a search query.
• If users are searching more and more for products, services and reviews right on Facebook, are you marketing yourself on Facebook? Should you be?

Google changing how it searches

Did you hear that? The needle scratching the record and silence… but yes, Google is changing the way that search is done, totally.  Not an algorithm change, but a complete rebuilding of their infrastructure. It is testing out the new search functionality publicly. What does this mean for you and your SEO? Kasi is going to tackle that question for you tomorrow morning but things will definitely be changing.

So, that is my very quick wrap up on all the news from yesterday in the realtime search, SEO and social media worlds. If you need to know more check out some of the links embedded in this post.