Continued from part 1…

As we have introduced people to Twitter, we’ve had a lot of questions about the Twitter lingo. Twitter is basically just like a very short blog, but there are some key differences, mainly the built-in social community. So we’ve got a two part post that will help explain common Twitter key terms.

This is PART TWO:

Retweet (RT): To help share cool ideas via Twitter and to give a shout-out to people you respect, you can repost their messages and give them credit. People call that retweeting (or RT), and it usually looks something like this:

“RT @Username: Original message, often with a link.”

Retweeting is common, and it’s a form of conversation on Twitter. It’s also a powerful way to spread messages and ideas across Twitter quickly. So when you do it, you’re engaging in a way people recognize and usually like—making it a good way to connect.

Trending Topics: On the right side of your screen and on the Twitter search page, you’ll see ten Trending Topics, which are the most-mentioned terms on Twitter at that moment. The topics update continually, reflecting the real-time nature of Twitter and true shifts in what people are paying attention to. A key feature of Twitter, Trending Topics aggregate many tweets at once and often break news ahead of the mainstream media. (Note that the trends often include hashtags, described below.)

Hashtag (#): Twitter messages don’t have a field where you can categorize them. So people have created the hashtag—which is just the # symbol followed by a term describing or naming the topic—that you add to a post as a way of saying, “This message is about the same thing as other messages from other people who include the same hashtag.” Then, when somebody searches for that hashtag, they’ll get all of the related messages.

For instance, let’s say you post, “Voted sixty times in tonight’s showdown. #AmericanIdol.” Your message would then be part of Twitter search results for “#AmericanIdol,” and if enough people use the same hashtag at once, the term will appear in Twitter’s Trending Topics.

Companies often use hashtags as part of a product launch, and conferences and events frequently have hashtags associated with them.

Tweetup: A tweetup is simply an in-person gathering organized via Twitter, often spontaneous. Companies use them for things like hosting launch parties, connecting with customers and introducing like-minded followers to each other.

Shortened URLs: With just 140 characters at your disposal, Twitter doesn’t give you much room to include URL links—some of which are longer than 140 characters themselves. If you post a link on Twitter via the website, sometimes Twitter automatically shortens the URL for you. There are also a number of services—URL shorteners—that take regular links and shrink them down to a manageable length for tweets, and some even let you track clicks.

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Facebook is now a household name (especially for those with teenagers in the house) and as business owners become more aware of the effectiveness of using social sites to market their business, there are many frequently asked questions about how to put your business on Facebook.

Let’s start by noting the difference between a Facebook Profile and a Facebook Page.

Facebook Profile:

• Strictly for people (not a business or product) to interact with friends and family
• Any individual can create a profile, just not a commercial business or product
• A business that opens a profile page is in direct violation of the Facebook Terms of Service and will be disabled
• Other users become FRIENDS of a Facebook Profile
• A Facebook Profile can upload pictures, videos, status updates, and can invite people to become friends

Facebook Pages:

• Designed for businesses, brands, companies, products, and celebrities
• Other users become FANS of a Facebook Page
• Can upload pictures, videos, status updates, host a discussion board, display wall posts, and other features
• Can track metrics like fans, page views, interactions, gender, age, location, language, and more
• Can not invite other members to become a fan

Example of Facebook Page metrics:

The reason for keeping companies and individuals separate on Facebook is to reduce the amount of spam. If a business was able to invite you become a fan of their page, users would be flooded with businesses looking to inflate their number of fans.

The purpose is to make the user experience as enjoyable as possible. Sites like MySpace and Twitter do not have such strict boundaries between individuals and companies. This unrestricted access has contributed to the ongoing decrease in MySpace’s traffic and could lead to the death of Twitter if stricter rules are not put into place.

This points back to the first three rules of social media marketing:

1. Content
2. Content
3. Content

If you don’t provide interesting content with a positive experience for your readers and fans you will never achieve success in developing a strong online following. It wouldn’t be good business practice to cut corners in your trade, so it’s equally unprofessional to break social networking etiquette.

Questions? Comments? Let us know in the comment box below. Or contact us here.

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Over at mashable.com they have an interesting blog post discussing how Google News has opened their Google News search engine to YouTube publishers.

What this means is when you do a search on Google News you will get search results with not only news articles, but also there are embedded videos directly from YouTube.

I tested this out doing a search on “obama healthcare” and I received this search result page (screenshot below).

While your company may not be a news distributor, this new feature points to the growing integration of videos and the search engine world. We’ve discussed this factor many times before.

- Growing number of online video viewers
- Social video distribution is critical to your social media campaign
- The importance of videos in a universal search world

The internet is not a closed loop. The term universal search refers to the inclusion of multiple forms of media within a search result page and the more channels that your social marketing campaign includes, the more reach and depth your campaign will gain.

Read blog post at Mashable.com

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We listed things every website must have, tips for landing pages, and ways to engage your readers, so now we want mash all of that up into a new idea, integrating your social campaign with your main website.

#1 – Add live streaming content to your website.
Your visitors want to know that what they are looking at is the newest most current information. Give your site a fresh look by adding an RSS feed from a continually updating data source.

For example: Add your Twitter feed to your homepage. Check out the Twitter widgets for an easy way to display your Twitter updates on your website.

BONUS TIP: Try adding an RSS feed from a popular news source that publishes content about your industry. Like Digg or CNN.

#2 – Add social features to your website.
Offer your visitors a way to connect and interact other than just a phone number or a contact form. While you may not want to offer comments on your site a good alternative would be to add a Get Satisfaction profile to your website. It’s a great way to help connect your customers to your business.

#3 – Add social buttons to your website.
A critical component to facilitating an online conversation about your services or products is to offer your visitors a way to easily share your content with others. An easy “email this” button or bookmark button might be the difference between a visitor sending your website to a friend or adding it to their own social bookmarking site. Try addthis.com, it is a clean easy to install button that features all of the major social bookmarking sites.

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It’s actually very simple to understand why social media marketing works. If you provide quality content using social distribution channels your marketing message is more likely to be viewed, interacted with, and shared.

Viewership
Social media is different (not better, just different) from search engine marketing because you are relying on your customers to perform two actions before you even get a chance to present your message.

1. First they have to actually search for your keyword.
2. Then they have to see and click on your ad.

Social marketing does not rely on your viewers to take an action before your message is delivered. You are distributing your content to them. As they browse Facebook they might notice that a friend of theirs recently became a fan of your product or company. That’s a customer testimony you didn’t even have to ask for!

Interactive
Because your viewers are consuming your content using a platform (Facebook, Twitter, ect) that they already love and feel comfortable with, they are more likely to interact with your message. It is more likely that they will view, comprehend, and comment on your content because rather than pulling them into your website and force feeding them information, you are pushing interesting content to them.

Shareable
The core of social media marketing is housed in the ability for people to share interesting content. Surrounding every memorable video or well written blog post is a plethora of “share” buttons (our own blog, for example, has lots of them). And blogs are structured so that people can send static links directly to the content that they want to share with their friend. The viral factor is a natural phenomenon.

In summary, your viewers are more likely to see, interact, and share you social content because that’s what social networking is all about. It’s about the end user and if you provide quality content, the rest will take care of itself.

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Starting a blog? Having the right tools makes a huge difference when it comes to blogging.

In this case, the blogging tools are called plugins, and we’ve put together a short list of some of our favorite Wordpress plugins. These little apps can help you with a wide range of tasks, from ranking higher in search engine result pages to ease of content distribution through the social networks.

1. Akismet – No more comment spam! Unless you’ve had a blog before, you have no idea how bad this problem is and Akismet and help stop the spammers.
2. FormBuilder – Build complex forms without any coding. Forms at the click of a button
3. Retweet – Allows your blog readers to share your blog title and link by creating a tweet on Twitter. The link output is your dynamic url.
4. SEO Title Tag – Search engine optimize your blog’s title tags. Create a customized title tag for any post, static page, category page, or any URL!
5. Shockingly Simple Favicon – A few clicks and you’ve created a favorite icon for your blog.
6. Twitter for Wordpress – Displays your public Twitter messages for all to read.
7. Wordpress Database Backup – On-demand backup of your WordPress database. Maybe you think it won’t happen to you, but the day your Wordpress database fails is the day you wish you would have installed this little gem.
8. Audio Player – Highly configurable single track mp3 player.

Do you use or recommend other Wordpress plugins? Please share! Tell us about it in the comment section.

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So you’ve decided to create something new in your business. Creating a blog that is engaging and interesting for people to read can be difficult when you are staring down that blank white page. You can write in waves, write only when you are inspired, and read lots of other blogs about your topic to help generate lots of new ideas on what to write about, but sometimes it is still difficult to be inspired to write.

Don’t give up yet. The creativity well has not run dry yet! Here are 7 more tips on how to engage your business blog readers.

1. Offer Advice
You’re likely blogging about business because you have business experience. One way to gain loyal readers is by sharing your knowledge and giving them practical information they can use in their own businesses. You can give your readers an instant benefit by avoiding abstract ideas and providing specific tips, advice and tools they can use right away.

2. Talk to the Audience
You’re already ahead of the game with this one, because the readers of your blog have interests that are common to yours, otherwise they wouldn’t be reading your blog. Get to know them by keeping an eye on comments, watching for trackbacks and listening to feedback in other forums. All of this input can be material you can use to make your posts resonate with your individual readers.

3. Share a Personal Story
Business is business and personal is personal, right? Not anymore. Today there is an increasing amount of overlap between the two, and people want to know a little more about the person behind the blog, beyond that they are an expert in business. So give a little of yourself to create a stronger relationship with your readers.

4. Go Off-Topic
Throw in an occasional post that’s not exactly business-related. If it bombs, it bombs and you know to go a different route next time. But if it is successful, you can insert some comic relief, mindless banter and maybe even a personal story as listed above to give your readers a brief change of pace.

5. Keep It Short and Sweet
You could probably write some very long posts when you’re discussing your latest business endeavor or what it took to have your website redesigned. If that much information is necessary, split it up into a multi-part series. Use lists, subheads and images to break up heavy content whenever possible.

6. Give Up the Wheel
Ask directed and specific questions at the end of your posts to encourage reader commentary. For every few posts where you provide advice, throw in a post that asks for the answer. Involving your readers will give them an opportunity to take an active role in your blog.

7. Give readers what they want
Carefully read the comments provided by your readers. They are invaluable because they allow you to tailor your posts to the information your readers are asking you to provide. Acknowledge the comments, answer the questions, and address the requests and you’re on your way to building great relationships with your readers.

Tips via problogger

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If the economic slowdown has slowed the volume of your workload or maybe your number of patients has decreased, we’ve got great news for you…

Use this opportunity to take more time with your clients. We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again, your small business is built for customer interaction.

Traditional marketing campaigns take lots of money to launch, so try:

1. Starting a blog
2. Joining Twitter
3. Starting a video blog
4. Inviting your clients to participate in your social media campaign (guest blog, customer review, answer their questions online)
5. Making an informative video about your industry and publish it on a social video site
6. Launching a low budget marketing campaign
7. Ditch your email newsletter and create a blog
8. Creating an alert based on keywords twittered in your territory
9. Monitoring your online reputation
10. Adding some social networking features to your boring website

I keep hearing that during the tough times are when some of the most innovative things are created. So, get out there and create something!

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This is no April Fool’s joke. Telegraph.co.uk is reporting that Birmingham City University is now offering a social media degree about Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites.

During the course we will consider what people can do on Facebook and Twitter, and how they can be used for communication and marketing purposes. There has been significant interest in the course already, and it will definitely appeal to students looking to go into professions including journalism and PR.

Social media is very important for jobs within the marketing and communications sector, as a skill set within other jobs, and as an industry within itself.

more at bcu.ac.uk

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The other day I was explaining to someone why a blog is such a good idea for a business that is trying to optimize their website for search engines. I used the word “refreshing content” and I got a blank stare. They had no idea what I meant.

So if you too are confused by the term “refreshing content”, here’s an explanation.

Refreshing content is NOT

• An article that makes you happy
• Served with chilled, bottled water
• A type of coffee drink
• Good news about the economy
• Edible

Refreshing content is

• Preferred by search engines
• A great way to achieve high rankings in search engines
• Indexed (searched) faster than static content
• More up-to-date than static content

Examples of refreshing content would be a

• Blog that is updated at least 3-5 times a week
• New product page that updates often
• Weekly specials page
• Newsletter page
• Company news page that updates a few times a month
• RSS feed from your Twitter or other social networking site

Refreshing content is not only for preferred by search engines, visitors like to see that your website has been updated recently. People like to know that what they are reading is relevant and current. People don’t Tivo CNN’s headline news. They want to know the latest information and if you provide a steady stream of information not only will the search engines find your site to be more relevant, but your visitors will also find your site to be more useful.

Keep in mind, refreshing content is important for search engine optimization (SEO), however I would not recommend this strategy for search engine marketing (SEM). Best result for SEM would be to use a landing page.

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