Tweeter button
Facebook button
Technorati button
Reddit button
Myspace button
Linkedin button
Webonews button
Delicious button
Digg button
Flickr button
Stumbleupon button
Newsvine button
Youtube button

May 19, 2012

How Retweets work with Viral Marketing

The strength of Twitter as a messaging service is its short message feature; besides, the service is user-friendly. Provided you can type within the character limit and are able to work with some fundamental concepts, you can use Twitter easily and swiftly in comparison with a good number of other instant-messaging clients. Besides, there is no need of installing it on the computer in order to use it.

Retweet:

This is one of the basic concepts that involve sending one’s favourite tweet, or the tweet that one approves to followers. Majority of Twitter traffic is generated from retweets; it is also an essential part of the site’s ability to achieve viral content promotion. When a retweet gathers substantial steam, it is capable of making the rounds of the whole web just in a jiffy.

The answer to how this works so efficiently lies in the overlapping spheres concept. Think of Venn diagram. It features two or more circles representing some spheres of influence, and a mutual sphere is described by the overlap. Using this analogy, overlap represents or is the retweet, while the followers of the re-tweeter are represented by the spheres.

What to Retweet

You can retweet just anything; however, the present day’s Twitter etiquette requires more than that. As a user or brand, you should retweet just the things you are genuinely interested in; it could be something that you feel will interest the audience. Also, the object of retweet could be something appealing for your niche. There is no certainty about what will go viral.

Certain programs make retweeting of things easier, these programs also help in evaluation of retweet performance (if need be). Using tools like Tweetbranch and Tweetdeck, you can organize tweets and retweets into logical conversations of info, which could be tracked or keep up with easily, and also to determine the statistics of those that respond to particular retweets or tweets. With this, Twitter has come into the realm of web metrics and analytics – and this can surely be a benefit in regards to viral marketing.

However, Twitter is basically about impulsive action. Once a user is trapped in the cycle of pausing to assess the measurable influence of each retweet, such user may begin to hedge on bets and skip certain topics. When you over-think retweet, the entire impulsiveness is eliminated from the game. Therefore, ensure that you do not overanalyze.  The whole thing should be fun.

Additionally, bear in mind that it is not every brand that is immediate or consciously done. People that visit and use the web have their own minds and ideas as well; also, their attitudes, moods and states of mind are vast and different. They may likely not want to see a thing or topic being retweeted over and over again, they would certainly want another flow of thought, or a good spice-up on the subject of previous retweet. Perhaps you still do not get a full grasp of what should constitute retweeting. Just see it this way; if you just conceive it in your mind to retweet a subject, act spontaneously and do not start over-thinking!

Twitter and customer service – Great scope unleashed !

Clients of web hosting companies must have come across several issues over the years. Issues can crop up when it is a hard drive failure, servers going down, loss of email, awful customer service or a host of several other woes. Even some of the hosting relationships that kicked off on a good note have been ruined by awful customer service.

One of the most effective ways to provide the most excellent customer service is through the use of Twitter – this is the secret behind Hostgator’s effective customer service.

When an unavoidable power failure occurs; there may be other issues that can prevent a web hosting company’s backup generator to supply power to the office. This can certainly impact the ability of the hosting company to offer support to its client online and even via phones. Therefore, instead of curling up in a ball and go into hiding as a result of the technical hitch, your hosting company can take advantage of Twitter to keep clients updated on the situation at hand and also to interact with them.

Hosting services such as HostGator has been enjoying Twitter to keep their customers informed of such technical issues and they also use Twitter to keep constant touch with their clients even when there are no technical glitches. Best of all, you can use mobile devices such as Blackberry phone to update your web hosting company’s Twitter feed. Of course, this is certainly an excellent customer service!

The tweet to inform customers of the technical issues could be easily and quickly sent from ‘Twitterberry’ – Blackberry Twitter application. The clients can quickly retweet the tweet and add their own comments. Our case study web hosting company (HostGator) continuously kept their clients posted on Twitter at all times they experienced technical hitches. This they did, with relevant messages such as ‘unable to answer phones’ – when encountered with such an issue – and stayed in touch until the issue was resolved. Eventually, they also posted a message to that effect in this manner ‘power is restored, technical issues resolved’.

Indeed, this is a very clever way to use Twitter. A company having a large customer base should not fail to follow this smart move. Create a Twitter account and extend invitation to your customers to follow the account. Subsequently, use Twitter to keep your customer base updated during challenging scenarios as well as every other time.

Twitter is a great and effective customer service technique that can help you stay in tune with your customers needs when there are technical issues and also at all times like informing them of changing company policies, website maintenance updates, special offers, upcoming invoices, seasonal greetings etc. Of course, your customers will be grateful to you and most importantly, will get used to the comfort of being updated with relevant information on time!

Applying social media to your business with Twitter

Twitter is fast becoming an important business marketing tool,
If you are looking for a real time communications application, (twitter-Marketing)
Information sharing with people of common interests (whether personal or business),
is achieved with this tool.

How to use Twitter for your small business:

  • Don’t EVER Hide Your Identity – Be Real
    When registering on Twitter, do not leave out any field on the profile information section. More importantly, don’t hide your identity.
    Use your real name as your Twitter Id instead of your business name. However, you can still add your company’s name by the side of your personal name if you insist on including your business name. Post your URL in full on the profile section. Full link rather than a short one will aid your site’s SEO rankings. Also in this section, put in relevant search words for your profile description.The custom-Twitter background will help you squeeze in additional content about your site; such as logo and URLs that your site links to.
    However, bear in mind that search engines, as well as search tools used by people to locate your offering cannot spot terms or content placed in background image.
    For this reason, you really need to ensure that you include your key words in the profile description section, bearing in mind that you only have 160 characters for the entire profile bio.

    It is also necessary that you do not forget to upload an image; this is extremely needful as people are curious about the person they are communicating with. If you are representing a company, you still need to upload your picture;
    Twitters tend to withdraw from those who they feel are trying to be hide their identity.

  • Be Actively Involved
    Make inputs; share, contribute and also respond to contributions. Participate in Twitter conversations. Ask brainstorming questions that will elicit responses. Also, make your own responses to the questions of others. Don’t forget to retweet valuable tweets, including your own contributions. Recommend or promote others when they perform exceptionally. Be a master of your site topic or happenings in your industry, so that you can stun your audience and attract them. On the other hand, do not in any way sound as if you are all out to get your listeners to patronize your business.
    Note that the ranking sites and graders also consider your activity and participation as well.
    You can track who is speaking about you, and those responding to your contributions using some applicable tools in Twitter such as ‘@replies’. With this and other applicable tools, you can easily spot the conversation that suits you, to join in the conversation and establish relevance. Relevance, contribution and responsiveness help you in building a good following.The amount of key phrases in your tweet cloud counts as well. How active are you in tweeting? If you are active, what is your tweet subject?
    Do you wander away from a line of discussion or are you consistent? Know that tweeting for business requires an online targeted approach to your identity, and also topics that border around your website. It’s not like a normal tweet in social tweeting. When you employ a specific targeted technique and tweet very sensibly, your site could be moved to ‘elite status’ by the grading sites.

There are other useful and powerful Tweeter tools you can use when tweeting for business; they include the automate tool, Tweetlater, TweetBeep, Summize, Twellow etc.

Using twitter as social media for small business promotion

Here are a few essential and highly effective tips on how to achieve promotion of your small business with Twitter:

  • Be yourself – Don’t ever fake around
    Don’t miss out any information when signing up on Twitter. It is better to use a personal name to set up a Twitter id rather than use a business name. But if you still need to put your business name, you can suffix it to your personal name. Example is what Dell has been recognized to do with names – “FrankAtDell”. The full link of your website should be posted in the profile section to help your website ranking rather than a short link. Also, include related search phrases when describing your profile.The limited number of characters for the profile bio is 160 characters, so be economical so that you can include applicable keywords. You should also strive to include more content about your business such as relevant websites, logo or articles using custom Twitter background. However, the contents or terms placed in the background image may not be found with the tools used by search engines and the user; this is why it is essential that you include keywords in the profile description section.

    The best and most important part of getting real in Twitter is to upload your personal picture. People want to see who they are relating with, or else they won’t bother to continue communication with you. It is therefore for your best interest that you get real in order to succeed with the promotion of your business via Twitter and other social media networks.

  • Be an active participant
    Don’t just register your presence without contributing, responding, sharing or being relevant. Participation is the only way you can get relevant and be known. Ask questions that will attract responses, tweet both your relevant contributions and others that you find useful.
    Give positive attributes and even promote others when there is a need. Being reliable will give you the edge over others and will contribute towards generating a faster following. Be well informed about your subject matter and don’t sound as if all you are there to achieve is business promotion. The ranking sites and graders will look at your following and activity as well. @replies is one of the search tools that will help you know the subject being discussed, by whom and also about who all responds to you. This will help you know when to join in a conversation and achieve relevance; this is essential in getting noticed by other users’ searches.The amount of keywords in your tweet cloud counts a lot. Do you tweet actively? If yes on what? Do you maintain consistency in a subject matter? Your twitting for business should be with a targeted specific technique to your internet identity, and the terms you are concerned about.
    This will also help you in moving to an elite status on your choicest keyphrases when the grading websites grade you.
  • Use Automation Tools
    There are several automation tools that will help you quicken your own tweeting, attract automatic followings, and achieve easier and faster ranking. Some of these tools include ;
    TweetBeep
    Summize
    Tweetlater
    TweetBeep
    Twitscoop
    Twitter dom
    Twellow etc.
    Take time to learn how each tool works.Use tools such as Twitterfeed to tweet content automatically from the RSS feeds of other blogs and website of yours. This will help ease the tasks since you also have to take care of your customers, run your business and embark on promotion of your website in other social media websites.