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Engagement With Psychology Principles on Twitter

13 Friday Mar 2015

Posted by leonidesignoryblog in Best Practices, Content Marketing, Twitter

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Want to discover how to engage more users on Twitter?

Have you considered using psychology techniques?

Using some psychology tips in your tweets can make your Twitter feed more interesting and your followers will be more likely to engage with you.

In this article I’ll share six psychology tips you can use to create tweets that’ll engage your audience.

Learn 6 ways use psychology to improve twitter engagement.

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Why?

The methods used to construct language and motivate customers often stem back to basic psychology, which is something used to persuade, engage and influence buyers.

For example, using rhetorical questions at the start of Twitter ads or general “sales” tweets might work well for you. The tweets will engage users and make them consider how your product or service could benefit them.

Here’s how you can improve brand recognition, catch the attention of more users and increase the number of clicks, retweets and favorites that your tweets receive.

#1: Take Advantage of the Bandwagon Effect

Humans are innately social beings; we’re born with a powerful psychological need to belong. This dates back to our ancestors who lived at a time when it was best to live in groups to ensure a higher chance of survival. Although society is different now, identification with and a sense of belonging to a group or organization are paramount to our well-being.

Psychologists say that there are three primary groups that people aim to associate with: groups to which they’d like to belong (aspirational), groups that share the same ideas and values (associative) and groups to which they don’t want to belong (dissociative).

The language you use within your tweets can help users identify with one of the three primary groups. As a result, they’re more likely to respond.

York Hornets used an aspirational tweet to encourage followers to become part of their team.

In the aspirational tweet above, a cheer team recognized that some of their followers might want to try out for their team. It uses that desire to influence them to join their Facebook group.

The tweet below from the Huffington Post uses the values of association to engage users and encourage them to respond to an article. The tweet asks if followers agree with a strong statement. Users will reply, retweet and click through, as they try to decide which side they are on.

This controversial tweet uses the value of association to encourage followers to respond.

The language used within tweets can also help customers make a dissociative connection to a competitor, and as a result, a better association with your brand. Technology companies often compare their product to a competitor’s spec or an older product, and receive excellent engagement.

In an attempt to gain customers Samsung compared two products, showing its product as the better choice.

Anyone viewing the above image from Samsung would want to associate themselves with the newer camera and improved image, rather than the old one.

Key Takeaway: Use Twitter to link your products and services to the three primary groups that customers respond to: aspirational, associative and dissociative. This will promote higher engagement, as well as cultivate users who have an affinity for your brand.

#2: Use Image Psychology

Many marketing and advertising studies have been conducted to see what type of images have the highest conversion or click-through rates. In nearly all studies, an image of a person, particularly a close-up of his or her face, increased the success of the ad or the web page.

Apply this research to your Twitter strategy. Tweet images with faces. And be sure tohave a nice headshot on your Twitter profile.

37 Signals conducted a test that looked at different variations of the Highrise home page to see which one converted the most visitors to paying customers. They found that a page where they included an image of a person created a 102.5% increase in signups.

The landing page on the right, which used a person’s image in the design, increased signups by over 100%.

Jakob Nielsen, an expert in user interface design, explains that “a huge percentage of the human brain is dedicated to remembering and recognizing faces. For many, faces work better than names.”

To make your brand more recognizable to your Twitter audience, head up your profile image with the face of the company, such as the CEO or founder. This will make that person more recognizable to the audience, which is an especially important tactic for a new company.

Even for a SaaS company, where there is no obvious “person” to sell, it’s useful to include images of happy customers within individual tweets, particularly those linking to blog posts or case studies. The effectiveness doesn’t really come from who is in the image, it’s more about what the image conveys to the reader.

Shared with permission via SM Examiner

The data-backed findings for the optimal length

It seems like people love to be told what works best. They love to have a starting point.

And that’s what these ideal lengths represent: starting points. We wrote a bit on the topic of how to implement data into your social media strategy. Do you take best practices like these ideal lengths as gospel truth? Not quite.

Take these as best practices, as jumping off points, as ideas to iterate on.

Put them to the test, and see what is right for you.

The optimal length of a tweet — 71 to 100 characters

Not only does this length give you enough room to share your message, it also provides room for someone who retweets you to add a message of their own.

If you’d like to get ultra-specific with exactly the optimal length of a tweet for your specific Twitter account, you can find this by running the numbers on your Twitter analytics. We wrote up instructions on how to find your ideal tweet length by graphing it vs. engagement.

For the Buffer account, our sweet spot is between 80 and 120 characters.

Until you test and discover the right length for you, stick to the 71-to-100 character guideline.

What makes this length optimal? Tweets at this length get more retweets. They also have higher reply rate, retweet rate, and combined reply/retweet rate (these latter of which shows engagement per followers).

Where’d this data come from? A pair of studies have found the 100-character mark to be the sweet spot for tweet length. Track Social studied 100 major brands (Oreo, Zappos, ESPN, etc.) for a 30-day period in the fall of 2012. Buddy Media studied 320 Twitter handles from major brands for two-and-a-half months at the beginning of 2012.

The optimal length of a Facebook post – 40 characters

Shorter seems to be better on Facebook.

Maximum engagement happens at 40 characters (so, too, does minimum quantity, meaning that a vast minority of Facebook posts hit this 40-character mark). And engagement slowly wanes the longer you go.

An 80-character post is better than 100-character post.

A 40-character post is better than 80.

The upside to such a small window is that sharing a Facebook links lets you fudge a little on the amount of text in your update. Links show the title and description of a post, along with the update you type.

And how much can you fit in a 40-character window?

Here’s a post that landed under 40 characters (26 to be exact).

What makes this length optimal? Posts at this length tend to receive higher like rate, comment rate, and combined like/comment rate (stats that include a comparison of total engagement to number of Facebook fans.)

Where’d this data come from? A pair of studies have each found that shorter is better on Facebook. A Buddy Media study of the top 100 retailers Facebook pages during a six-month period in 2011 is one of the most-cited sources. Also in 2011, BlitzLocal studied 11,000 Facebook pages over a seven-month period.

The optimal length of a Google+ headline – 60 characters maximum

Google+ updates often take on the appearance of blogposts with bold headings up top and a body of text below. These top headings are the ones you’re best off optimizing. And 60 characters is as long as you should go.

What makes this length optimal? It’s the maximum length for a Google+ headline to span one row before breaking to a second line.

Where’d this data come from? Demian Farnworth of Copyblogger tested out the length with posts on the Copyblogger page. He found that bold headlines could reach 60 characters before additional words would be bumped to the second line.

The optimal width of a paragraph – 40 to 55 characters

Before researching this one, I seldom thought about the width of my paragraphs. Readers might not think much of it either, but usability studies and psychology suggest that they notice it nevertheless.

What makes this width optimal? At this width, the content appears simple to understand, and readers feel they can comprehend the subject matter.

Where’d this data come from? Derek Halpern of Social Triggers synthesized a pair of research studies to arrive at the 40-to-55 character recommendation. The studies he cited include a 2004 meta-analysis by Mary C. Dyson of the University of Reading and a 1992 study from a team of Netherlands researchers.

The optimal length of a domain name – 8 characters

What characteristics do some of the best domain names have in common?

is short
is easy to remember
is easy to spell
is descriptive or brandable
does not contain hyphens and numbers
has a .com extension

Length, in particular, can be a tough one to nail down as dot-coms get snatched up so quickly. If you can’t secure the dot-com of your dreams, there are more and more websites going the route of .co and .io.

What makes this length optimal? This is the most common domain name length for the Internet’s most popular websites.

Where’d this data come from? In 2009, Daily Blog Tips conducted an analysisof the top 250 websites in Alexa site rankings, counting words and characters that appeared in each domain name.

The optimal length of a hashtag – 6 characters

What makes this length optimal? The 6-character hashtag recommendation comes from a handful of Twitter experts and is cited by Hashtags.org, one of the leading sites on the data and usage of hashtags.

The optimal length of an email subject line – 28 to 39 characters

How does an optimal subject line look in the inbox? Here’s a sample from my Gmail.

Clearly, there are a ton of different ways to approach writing a subject line, and length is equally as important to test as the rest of the elements. If you’re looking for a place to start your tests, the optimal length of 28 to 39 characters is a good bet.

What makes this length optimal? You may see a slight uptick in open rate and click rate at this length.

Where’d this data come from? A 2012 study by Mailer Mailer looked at 1.2 billion email messages to identify subject line trends.

The optimal length of an SEO title tag – 55 characters

SEO titles are the titles of your webpages and blogposts that show up in search results.

If you want this …

… instead of this …

… stick with the optimal SEO title length.

What makes this length optimal? Google search results tend to truncate titles with an ellipsis (…) if they go beyond the 55-character mark.

Where’d this data come from? In March 2014, Moz analyzed 89,787 titles in search results pages.

The optimal length of a blog headline – 6 words

I absolutely love good headline advice, which is why this bit is such a fascinating learning. On the Buffer blog, we tend toward the biggest, boldest headlines we can come up with. Could it be that the smaller, six-word headlines do best?

vs.

What makes this length optimal? Our eyes tend to pick up on the first three words of a headline and the last three words.

Where’d this data come from? KISSmetrics author Bnonn cites usability research that confirms scanning of headlines. Also, Jakob Nielsen ran usability testing in 2009 based on the idea that readers typically consume only the first 11 characters of a headline.

The optimal length of a LinkedIn post – 25 words

The results on optimal LinkedIn length depend on whom you’re targeting. Are you trying to reach out to businesses or consumers?

One of the few studies on LinkedIn length—a 2012 report from Compendium—pulled statistics for each type of business: B2B and B2C. Here’s what they found.

What makes this length optimal? The results in the Compendium study tend to focus on clickthroughs as the basis for recommending best practices. It’s safe to assume an ideal length of a LinkedIn post would be based on clicks, too.

Where’d this data come from? In 2012, Compendium released its findings on a study of 200 companies on social media, looking at business-to-business and business-to-consumer best practices.

The optimal length of a blogpost – 1,600 words

We recently ran a blog content audit, and one of the results of the audit was some insight into the ideal length of Buffer blog posts.

1,600 words makes for a good guideline to get started.

We’ve found that 2,500-word posts tend to do best for us.

This reinforces the need to check these lengths against your own data. And if you’re just starting out, it might be smart to start off with 1,600 words per post and adjust from there.

What makes this length optimal? At this length, you can expect readers to spend the maximum amount of time reading your content. Total time on page is highest at the 1,600-word length than any other length.

From the Medium study:

7-minute posts capture the most total reading time on average.

Where’d this data come from? In December 2013, Medium published the results of its time on page analysis for blogposts on its network.

The optimal length of a YouTube video – 3 minutes

How much time do you get to tell your story in a video? How long until someone loses interest and clicks over to the next link? These are big questions for video marketers who compile their content with timestamps in mind the same way bloggers compose with word count.

What makes this length optimal? This is the average video length of the top videos on YouTube.

Where’d this data come from? In 2012, ReelSEO counted the length of the top 50 YouTube videos and found the average duration to be 2 minutes, 54 seconds. Google researchers from the YouTube team confirmed the ideal length to be three minutes as well, according to an interview with Clinton Stark.

The optimal length of a podcast – 22 minutes

Podcasting has become more and more a part of content marketing strategies for brands big and small. There are sure to be additional studies that come out on best practices for publication and promotion. In the meantime, optimal length is a good place to start. Keep things 22 minutes or shorter.

What makes this length optimal? The 22-minute mark is when an average user disconnects from a podcast.

Where’d this data come from? The data is reported from Stitcher, an online podcast streaming service.

The optimal length of a presentation – 18 minutes

Famously, the 18-minute mark is where TED Talks max out their presenters. Anyone who shares must stay under 18 minutes. Here’s why.

What makes this length optimal? This seems to be the upper limit for how long a person can pay attention before losing focus.

Where’d this data come from? Author Carmine Gallo, who has written on the history of TED Talks, cites scientific research from Dr. Paul King of Texas Christian University as well as insight into how the brain processes new information (and expends energy while doing so).

The optimal length of a SlideShare – 61 slides

You’d think that SlideShare best practices would be cut-and-dry. My research wasn’t quite so clear.

The 61-slide recommendation comes from HubSpot’s Dan Zarella who is well-known for his in-depth and accurate research on social media. From a data-backed perspective, 61 slides seems like a safe way to go.

Per HubSpot:

We can only speculate about why this is true, but it may be owed to the fact that SlideShare is a site mostly used by professionals who are likely seeking data-focused, meaty presentations with a lot of depth. Don’t be afraid to get detailed in your SlideShare content, and load your presentations with lots of data. Unlike YouTube, where shorter content tends to be more successful, SlideShare users welcome comprehensive content.

Here’s the breakdown of number of slides per presentation and SlideShare views, courtesy of Dan.

Beyond the data, there is a bit of opposite advice that many hold as a best practice: Guy Kawasaki’s 10/20/30 rule.

10 Slides
20 Minutes
30 Point Font

It’s a system that a lot of people swear by. Is it right for you? There’s only one way to find out, and that’s by testing.

What makes this length optimal? Slide decks of this length get more views on average.

Where’d this data come from? In 2010, HubSpot’s Dan Zarella shared results from his social media research, pointing to this optimal length.

The optimal size of a Pinterest image – 735px by 1102px

Curalate found that vertical images, featuring an aspect ratio between 2:3 and 4:5, receive 60 percent more repins than images with a more vertically-skewed aspect ratio.

Combine this with the best practices from the folks at Canva who recommend a starting point for Pinterest image templates at 735 pixels wide by 1102 pixels tall and—bang!—you’ve got your ideal size, backed by data.

What makes this size optimal? At this size, you can expect more likes, repins, and comments.

Where’d this data come from? In June, Curalate analyzed over 500,000 Pinterest images posted by brands. Their findings also included recommendations for faces, hue, texture, brightness, color, and more.

Bonus Pinterest tips:

As for the optimal length of a Pinterest description (maximum is 500 characters), Dan Zarrella found that 200-character descriptions are the most repinnable.

A great use for the description is a call-to-action. Brandon Gaille found that pins with CTAs receive an 80 percent increase in engagement over those without.

Conclusion

Hopefully you’ve found some good insights from this experiment. Definitely use data like this as a starting point for your own testing and iterating. What’s right for many others in terms of best practices might not be exactly what your specific audience needs.

It sure is nice to know where to start, though.

How do these optimal lengths feel to you? How long are the social media updates that you send?

Shared via By Kevan Lee @Buffer Social

Image sources: Track Social, Compendium, PlaceIt, Hubspot, Dan Zarrella

What exactly does the “perfect Tweet” look like?

21 Wednesday May 2014

Posted by leonidesignoryblog in Twitter

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Tweets

Tweets including photos have up to 35 per cent more retweets, according to new research by Twitter into effective tweets across verified accounts.

However, this is in stark contrast to what B2B brands are actually sharing. B2B Marketing’s recently published Social Media Benchmarking Report revealed 79 per cent of brands share written copy over social, despite only 34 per cent believing it to be ‘very effective’.

Meanwhile, video was listed as the ‘best type of content’ to share on social media, despite only 63 per cent actually sharing video clips.

So, how do you create the perfect ‘retweetable’ tweet? Basically you can’t. It’s not an exact science, it’s all down to experimentation. For example, after I followed all of Twitter’s rules to creating a retweetable tweet, my update (although mustering half dozen favourites) received less than half the retweets than its basic text-only counterpart.

In order for brands to succeed on social media, marketers need to take on board this information, keep track of their social activity, draw up reports and then tailor updates to what best suits their audience. Because, after all, every audience is different.

Twitter for Marketing and PR – A Comprehensive Cheat Sheet

05 Monday May 2014

Posted by leonidesignoryblog in Twitter

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Advertising, Best Practices, cheat sheet, MOBILE SOCIAL NETWORKING, Online Marketing, SEM, Social Media, Twitter

witter offers a social network and microblogging service that is the go-to place for real-time rumors, news, customer complaints and service. All messages or “tweets” are capped at 140 characters, which enforces brevity and clarity of thought.

It’s also the originator of the hashtag, at least in its modern sense and usage. Twitter is in the process of rolling out a major profile redesign, with a greater focus on photos and content cards.

The People

Twitter claims to have 18 percent of all Internet users as account holders. Its users tend to be city dwellers (20 percent). The numbers drop to 14 and 12 percent in suburban and rural communities respectively. Users are usually younger adults, and they’re more likely to access the site on a mobile device (60 percent).

The Challenges

Twitter is rapid-fire copy. To stand out, brands need to consider clever wording and visual media. The new profiles will dedicate significantly more real estate to the header photo, offering brands additional space for creative imagery.

The Tips

1. Optimize your bio. You could fill your bio with hashtags and humor, but if you intend to use Twitter for business, your bio needs to be a miniature version of your LinkedIn profile. You can be funny but make sure to share essential information about who you are, what you do, and where to find you.

2. Set up searches. If you want to turn conversations into conversions, you have to monitor mentions of your brand as well as relevant and competitive keywords.

3. Don’t forget the hashtag. If you want to track tweets and conversations, use a hashtag. It not only lets conversations be found more easily, but also allows you to measure your Twitter efforts.

4. Use Promoted Tweets. If you want your message to reach more people, you’ll have to pay to do it. Two tips for Promoted Tweets: define and target your audience and don’t run your promotion for too long. If you need to run it for an extended length of time, find different ways of stating your message.

5. Implement Twitter Cards. You can share Vine videos or attach images to your tweets, but if you want to provide a richer experience, you’ll want to delve into Twitter Cards. By adding some HTML to your website, any tweets of your content will include applicable visual media.

6. For Twitter’s official guidelines, go to Twitter for Business.

2014 Top Social Media Channels

03 Saturday May 2014

Posted by leonidesignoryblog in Bloging, community manager, Facebook, Google Analytics, LInkedIn, Marketing, Multi Channel Marketing, Online Marketing, Pinterest, tumblr., Twitter, Yelp, YouTube

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Community Management, Engagement, facebook page insights bug, Marketing, MOBILE SOCIAL NETWORKING, Online Marketing, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, social media tools, Trending

My clients are always asking me “What is the best social media channel” and I always answer the same, “the one that works best for you. Truth is that not all social media channels are the same, just as not all businesses are the same. I recommend using the channel(s) that best suite your particular business. However to keep the the ranking monkeys happy here is the industry list of social media channels ranked by use, and popularity.

How to (correctly) Use Hashtags to Increase Your Social Media Presence

16 Wednesday Apr 2014

Posted by leonidesignoryblog in Hashtags, Twitter, Uncategorized

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hashtags, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Social Networks

Hashtags first started out on Twitter and have made their way onto all of the most popular social networks including Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram and Google+. A hashtag is a symbol used to mark a certain category on social media.

The use of a Hashtag in a strategic way can be effective when creating popularity around your brand or business. Finding relevant conversations and interesting people to follow is one of the key uses of hashtags along with increasing engagement.

It is important as a business to understand why hashtags are so important, especially onTwitter. Below you can see some great statistics around how hashtags improve a business’s online interaction when it comes to Twitter.

Hashtags have become somewhat of a trend which isn’t necessarily a good thing if a user doesn’t understand why they are using a hashtag and the reason behind why they are so powerful. Here are three benefits to using hashtags;

1)Gain Followers

Using the right hashtags when trying to build engagement can increase your following extensively over just a few days.

Improve Reputation

If you show expertise when using a hashtag to start a conversation, people will see you as an influencer and follow you because of your reputation.

Get Information

Searching the right hashtags will allow you to find vital information on an subject matter.

When using hashtags on Social Media, they can lose their value if not used correctly. Hashtags should have a purpose whether it is to increase engagement or following, their is always a reason. Below are 5 uses of hashtags that you should be aware of.

The whole idea behind a hashtag when using one is to make sure it is not to obscure or too long. Remember that a hashtag is only effective is people are actually using it. If it isn’t popular enough, it won’t help you boost your profile however you don’t want your post to get lost if your hashtag is too popular.

It’s great if you are using hashtags and you understand why you are using them but you also need to make sure you measure conversions and by this I mean making sure that you are using the right hashtags. If your key performance indicators (below) have not increased since you have changed your hashtag strategy, you might need to revise your plan.

If you don’t know how to measure the above KPI’s, you can use hashtag applications and social analytical tools to measure your businesses performance. To see how certain hashtags are performing in general, you can follow the conversations yourself or Google the specific hashtag to see how it is performing.

I hope you now know how to use hashtags to increase your social media presence.

Images taken from Digital Formation World

11 signs your small business social media strategy isn’t working

01 Tuesday Apr 2014

Posted by leonidesignoryblog in Facebook, Google+, LInkedIn, Marketing, Multi Channel Marketing, Pinterest, Twitter, YouTube

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Best Practices, Engagement, Marketing, Social Media, social media tools, Strategy

Today, small business owners are busier than ever trying to run their companies while handling marketing and sales, too. An important part of marketing today is social media. For many small business owners, the world of social media is still foreign territory, and finding the perfect strategy that actually works can often be difficult.

So how do you know if what you’re doing is really hitting the mark? Here are 11 signs that your small business strategy isn’t working. If you’re doing any of the things on this list, chances are your strategy is falling flat and you’re missing prime opportunities to use social media to engage, inform and promote.

1. You delete negative posts.

Negative posts about your brand can be shocking, scary and hurtful. One of the key mistakes small business owners make is taking negative comments personally. Most often when you see a negative post about your brand, the person posting isn’t talking about you. They’re talking about your product or service. Instead of hitting the delete button when you see something negative, think of it as an opportunity to engage. But make sure that you directly address the negativity head-on. Don’t try to sugarcoat your response.

For example, if you own a delivery service and a customer makes a negative comment about your company because their package was late, don’t panic. Instead, let the person know that you will direct message (DM) them with a response and take care of the issue. Once the issue is resolved, go back to the original post and let your followers know you’ve handled it.

In 2011, a Harris survey looked at customers who posted negative reviewed during the Christmas season. The survey found that 68 percent of customers that left negative reviews got a response from the business they were reviewing. As a result, 18 percent of them became regular customers and made additional purchases. Of the customers who received a response from their negative post, 33 percent of them actually posted something positive after and a whopping 34 percent deleted the original negative post.

So don’t ignore negative posts. Deal with them directly, and you might just turn a negative into a positive!

2. You don’t have a solid company social media policy in place.

Most small businesses don’t have a formal social media policy in place. If you’re in that boat, you really should take the time to develop one. Think of it as a road map to helping your promote your brand better on social media. If you define procedures and protocols upfront for how often you’ll post, who will maintain the accounts and how you will handle negative posts, it makes it a lot easier to run your accounts and spring into action quickly when something goes wrong.

3. You’re on autopilot.

Most social media platforms have an automated message feature, but it doesn’t mean you have to use it. When many social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook were first introduced to the public, the automated message feature seemed like a convenient way to thank people who followed you. Today, automated messages are widely considered annoying and impersonal. Instead of sending the same message to every new follower, take the time to send personalized thanks when you can.

Remember, you don’t have to thank every follower, but it’s a good idea to thank those that stand out. For example, if you own a restaurant and the food columnist for your local newspaper starts following you, you may want to reach out directly to establish an ongoing dialogue rather than letting an automated message do it for you.

4. You’re not tracking what others say about your brand.

Many small business owners make the mistake of thinking that consumers only post about them on their brand page. In reality, consumers post about brands everywhere — Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram and review sites, to name a few. While it’s a great idea to monitor your own social media accounts to see what people are saying about you, it’s an even better idea move to using a social mention tracking tool to find out what people are posting about your brand around the Internet.

Social Mention is a great free tool for doing this. Visit http://SocialMention.com to check it out.

5. Your updates are sporadic.

If you’re not updating your social media pages on a regular basis, you’re missing out. You don’t have to post multiple times a day, but you should at least make a few posts a week to keep your followers, who are essentially your customers, engaged and excited about your brand.

6. You don’t know the difference between a reply and a mention on Twitter.

Did you know that if someone posts something on Twitter and you start your response with @, you’re limiting the number of people who are going to see the reply? For example, if @customerx posted something about @xyzbusiness and that company starts their reply with @customerx, it will only be seen by the customer and the business. That’s a reply. To make sure it’s seen by all of your followers, add a period in front of it like this — .@customerx — to make it a mention.

7. You overuse hashtags in your posts.

Not every word in your post needs to have a hashtag. In fact, hashtagging every word is going to make your post harder to read. Instead, use hashtags sparingly. Try not to use more than three per post.

8. You don’t proofread your posts.

Grammatical errors make your posts hard to read and reflect poorly on your brand. Proofread everything you write before you post it.

9. You only share things related to your brand.

This is a cardinal sin of social media. Remember that your purpose is to engage and get to know your customers. Your brand isn’t the only one they follow, and it’s certainly not the only thing that is of interest to them. Be sure to spend some time browsing your customers’ page, find out what things they like and leave positive comments. This is an excellent way to foster lasting relationships with your customers online. It also shows your customers that you are interested in them, too.

10. You make it hard to retweet your content.

It’s a fact that Twitter gives you 140 characters to post, but it doesn’t mean you have to use all of them. In fact, you should leave about 20 or so characters that can be used by others who retweet your content for the “RT @customerx” that will automatically be part of the retweet. This makes it easier for people to share your content quickly with no hassles.

11. You don’t retweet your followers’ content.

While you definitely want to make it easy for others to retweet your content, you also have to spend some time doing a little retweeting yourself. Find content from your followers that you find interesting and take a minute or two to retweet it. Remember social media is a two-way street and engagement is the key to success.

The social media manager is (almost) dead: 5 tips on how to evolve as a marketer – #MyIndustry

28 Friday Mar 2014

Posted by leonidesignoryblog in Bloging, Facebook, Google+, LInkedIn, Marketing, Multi Channel Marketing, Pinterest, Twitter, YouTube

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Best Practices, Community Management, MOBILE SOCIAL NETWORKING, Strategy, Trending

This is an amazingly insightful article about a subject that it near and dear to my heart (for obvious reasons) and some not so obvious reason. I love to learn new thing, I always have. In fact I have had to practice quite a bit of restraint, and condition myself to not chase after every new trend and tool. Having said that I do agree, completely with Kelvin’s assessment of the Social Media Marketers landscape. In a nut shell, evolve or die.

Almost three years ago, right after university, I talked to an awesome HR professional about my career prospects. While she gave me a lot of great info that day, one thing that stuck to me was her advice not to pursue positions that are only about social media. Her reasoning was that more and more marketing and business professionals were learning social—meaning, the need for professionals who specialized in this space was about to decrease.

Persuaded by this reasoning, I avoided roles such as “Social Media Manager” and even “Community Manager.” I ended up with a position in PR, which had some elements of social but mostly included media relations.

Fast forward to last year and I’ve decided to leave the world of PR to take on a social media role. The thing is, I liked PR—and quite frankly, I excelled at it—but it wasn’t my number one passion.

Last year, Hootsuite’s Ryan Holmes proclaimed the role of social media manager dead. He cited a study that found that the growth in positions with the title “social media manager” has slowed down by 50% between 2012 and 2013.

Reading Ryan’s blog post—and now that I’m fully entrenched in social media management—I can’t help but re-visit that HR person’s advice. What if she was right and my current role becomes obsolete soon? What can I do now as a social media manager to make sure that I’m still in demand in the future?

After thinking about this, I’ve come to a simple conclusion: To remain relevant and employable, I have to evolve from a social media specialist to a marketing leader.

I brainstormed a few ways social media managers can make the transition successfully. If you work in social media and want to thrive in your career in marketing, here are some tips to keep in mind:

1. Acquire new (but related) marketing skills.

Content marketing has been hot for a couple of years now—and for good reason. Many marketers are learning that providing true value through content is a great way of increasing brand awareness and turning prospects into leads. Influencer marketing is another trend that will likely grow in the next year or so.

The point is, there will always be something new in marketing. Learn these trends because some of them will stick.

You also want to acquire older—but still very essential—marketing stills. The lessons I’ve learned in PR in my previous role are applicable to influencer marketing, for example. My basic SEO knowledge helps me drive organic traffic to our company blog. Email is still very hot, and learning MailChimp and other similar systems is a good skill to have.

Keep learning. Take some time everyday to peruse blog posts, to try new apps and networks, and to get your hands on new technology. Embrace your inner geek. Readinsights from creative and successful business leaders.

We have a lot of opportunity to keep on building on our hard skills. If numbers isn’t your thing, something like Analytics Academy, a program provided by Google Analytics, is a good option

By diversifying our skills and acquiring new ones, we can ensure that our marketing skills are up-to-date and relevant.

2. Become the customer advocate in the marketing team.

In an IBM C-suite study, 55% of CEOs said that customers have influence on a company’s strategic vision and business strategy. Executives are waking up to the fact that they need to involve their customers in every business process.

So how does this relate to you? Social media managers fundamentally understand the value of listening to and engaging customers. Together with the folks at customer insights, we’re in a good position now to be the customer experts in the marketing team.

Use social media to capture trends that will affect your company’s future. Trends like the Internet of Things, wearable tech, the collaborative or sharing economy, and big data have the potential to disrupt many industries. Listen on social to determine how these trends might affect your industry, and then share what you know to your CMO and the rest of your marketing team.

By becoming customer-centric, we do not only demonstrate the true ROI of social media—we’re also positioning ourselves as experts in the organization, which might help when we make career moves in the future.

3. Write—and then write some more.

Marketers require great writing skills, and they will continue to do so in the future. If you’d like to stay in the marketing field, learn how to organize your thoughts and to write well. From blog posts to emails, from landing pages to ebooks, writing has a lot of practical marketing applications.

Whatever is the next hot trend in marketing, you can bet that your writing skills will be required. So if you’re already blogging, keep on doing that, and find a way to improve your craft.

If you’re not blogging yet, now’s the time to do so. I have some tips in the embedded Slideshare. Get writing!

How to rock blogging: The beginner's guide from Kelvin (KC) Claveria

4. Learn how to market to the entire sales funnel.

Let’s face it: most (if not all) social media efforts help with top-of-the-funnel stuff. But many CMOs are looking for people who understand the entire sales process. Those who can drive prospects from awareness to information and evaluation are a lot more valuable to brands. You can provide more business value if you know how your skills can contribute to the entire funnel.

5. Build your online reputation.

Here’s the thing: The more real influence you have—and the stronger relationships you have with people—the less likely you’ll ever be unemployed. As social media nerds, we are experts at building communities for brands. The same marketing skills that allow us to build brands can also help us build our own personal brand.

Don’t wait until you’re in need of a job to start enhancing your online presence. Use LinkedIn to its full advantage. (Some tips in the embedded presentation.) Build your Twitter following (and always keep your eye out for possible future employers). Maintain a credible blog that provides real value and that communicates your expertise.

The social media manager will not die quickly

As long as people use social networks, it’s unlikely that social media managers will completely go away. Yes, social is “part of everyone’s job, or soon will be,” but businesses (particularly enterprises) will need specialists who will keep up with the ever-evolving social media landscape.

Given that social media is still expanding and continues to evolve, it will probably take years before our position becomes 100% obsolete. But just like any other roles, social media managers like myself need to evolve—and the time to evolve is now.

Brands need us: after all, most of us understand the value of engaging customers, and we know how to communicate with people using digital technologies. To prepare for the future—and to bring even more value to our employers and/or clients—let’s also make sure that we’re acquiring the skills that businesses need tomorrow.

P.S. I wrote this article as part of the LinkedIn’s #MyIndustry campaign. For more social media rants, I invite you to read my marketing blog. If you have any comments on this post, please tweet me @kcclaveria.

11 Tips To Double Your Twitter Followers

12 Wednesday Mar 2014

Posted by leonidesignoryblog in Twitter

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

MOBILE SOCIAL NETWORKING, Social Media, Trending, Twitter

Twitter plays by its own rules.

It has kept it’s 140 character limit despite the jokes , the pressure to change by many of its followers and the demands to be more like Facebook or Google+.

It is is misunderstood by many people who throw stones at it from the sidelines. Despite the knockers it has kept true to its initial design and constraints that don’t seem to fit it into an online world that is about bigger being better.

This succinct reporting has made it the channel of choice for breaking news. Twitter is now often seen popping up on the television screen as viewers interact with a show. The character limitation demands means it lends itself to one liners that are often humorous, pithy and sharp.

Twitter has enhanced the art of comedy and the throw away quip.

Why should you bother increasing your Twitter followers?

Increasing your Twitter followers does have some distinct benefits for business and brands. Here are three worth mentioning

It increases brand awareness. What business doesn’t want that.
Distributes your content wider and faster. This can improve link building to your website and hence improving your organic SEO
Drive traffic to tyour blog or website. This can lead to more leads generation and sales.

So how do you double your Twitter followers?

The average Twitter account has a 126 followers and has tweeted 307 times. Doubling that number isn’t hard if you implement some of the following tips. And you can do much better than that if you apply a little focus and discipline.

Make sure your profile and “Bio” (which is limited to 160 characters) is to the point and attracts followers in your niche. Check out Hilary Clinton’s Twitter Bio in the infographic below.
Tweet more often. Those with 15,000 plus tweets have between 100,000 to 1 million followers
Use hashtags. This will expand your tweet visibility
Schedule and automate tweets with tools like Hootsuite and Socialoomph.com
Follow people in your niche or industry. Especially those with substantial numbers of followers on Twitter.
Retweet the content of influencers and let them know with the @mention
Join in Twitter chats or start one of your own a regular basis
Find new followers that share your interests by using tools like Tweepi
Twitter is not an inbox but a stream so you need to keep your followers engaged by tweeting valuable content for your target audience
Learn from the best. Check out Anton Perlkvist does it with @Fun and @Googlefacts
Promote your Twitter account “everywhere

For some more tips check out the infographic.

Source: WhoIsHostingThis? on Visually

What about you?

How do you use Twitter? Is it still an enigma? What have you found to be an effective tactic to gain more Twitter followers?

Look forward to your insights and stories in the comments below. Want to learn how to make your blog and content contagious and increase your Twitter followers?

My book – “Blogging the Smart Way – How to Create and Market a Killer Blog with Social Media” – will show you how.

It is now available to download. I show you how to create and build a blog that rocks and grow tribes, fans and followers on social networks such as Twitter and Facebook. It also includes dozens of tips to create contagious content that begs to be shared and tempts people to link to your website and blog.

I also reveal the tactics I used to grow my Twitter followers to over 223,000.

Download and read it now.

Author:Jeff Bullas Jeff Bullas RSS Feed View full profile This article originally appeared on Jeffbullas’s Blog and has been republished with permission.

Find out how to syndicate your content with Business 2 Community.Read more at http://www.business2community.com/twitter/11-tips-double-twitter-followers-0803260#ir7KjIsha6x2z2iT.99

leonidesignoryblog

~ socially savvy design

Category Archives: Twitter

Engagement With Psychology Principles on Twitter

Listen to this article:

Why?

#1: Take Advantage of the Bandwagon Effect

#2: Use Image Psychology

What exactly does the “perfect Tweet” look like?

Listen to this article:

Why?

#1: Take Advantage of the Bandwagon Effect

#2: Use Image Psychology

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The data-backed findings for the optimal length

The optimal length of a tweet — 71 to 100 characters

The optimal length of a Facebook post – 40 characters

The optimal length of a Google+ headline – 60 characters maximum

The optimal width of a paragraph – 40 to 55 characters

The optimal length of a domain name – 8 characters

The optimal length of a hashtag – 6 characters

The optimal length of an email subject line – 28 to 39 characters

The optimal length of an SEO title tag – 55 characters

The optimal length of a blog headline – 6 words

The optimal length of a LinkedIn post – 25 words

The optimal length of a blogpost – 1,600 words

The optimal length of a YouTube video – 3 minutes

The optimal length of a podcast – 22 minutes

The optimal length of a presentation – 18 minutes

The optimal length of a SlideShare – 61 slides

The optimal size of a Pinterest image – 735px by 1102px

Conclusion

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The People

The Challenges

The Tips

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The social media manager will not die quickly

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Why should you bother increasing your Twitter followers?

So how do you double your Twitter followers?

What about you?

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