Posts Tagged ‘social media’

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Getting Started with Twitter

Tuesday, February 10th, 2009

Twitter Press birdWith nearly 10,000 people joining Twitter on a daily basis, people find it useful for connecting with friends, growing their business network and for learning about interesting blog articles, content, websites, applications and tools available online. I joined Twitter almost a year ago and it is an incredibly useful tool. I have developed some great new relationships, expanded my business reach, and discovered great articles and websites that people have shared with me.

I do find that many people who I talk to about Twitter find it confusing to get started or intimidating. So while there are many different blog posts and articles about how to get started on Twitter, I figured I would add my own to the catalog with my own unique perspective and set of tools I use to get the most value out of Twitter. Hopefully at least one person out there will find this helpful and if so…it has served it’s purpose.

Create your account: OK…this may sound ridiculous but the first step is of course to go to twitter.com. When selecting a username, I would recommend you create a user name that is your FirstnameLastname. If that isn’t available do not add any dashes or underscores as many Twitter users utilize mobile devices and you have to do some serious finger gymnastics to get those characters in. In this article where I refer to a generic user name I will use my own Twitter user name of “@EricGuerin” as the example.

COMPLETELY fill out your profile: You’d be surprised how many people don’t include a photo, fill out the bio, etc. This is how you are found so be as complete as possible. Add a photograph of yourself that shows your face – your twitter account is your personal brand. I don’t follow anyone who does not have a photo of themselves. Include a link to your blog or…if you own your own company…include a link to your company website.

Start Tweeting: The reason you want to start posting tweets before you try to follow others is because you want to highlight your interests via these tweets. Share your most recent blog posts, links to your latest video, etc. Even though Twitter asks “What are you doing?” it’s more about “What are you reading?”, “What video did you watch?” or “What did you find online?” I would advise against posting tweets such as “I am so tired”, “I am eating dinner”, etc. – you can do this once in a while, but the only way you will get any value out of Twitter is by fostering conversations with other people.

Look for friends: Have some friends already using Twitter? Great! Connect with them using the Find People On Twitter Tool. This can also be a great way to find people to follow, look at who your friends are following and start by connecting with them.

Start following others: Use search.twitter.com and search for people who have posted tweets in areas of your interests. Let’s say you really like talking about the Red Sox…you can do a search for “Red Sox” and the people that are having those conversations will show up for you to connect with them. Click the “Follow” button below their photos. Some of them will follow you back and some of them won’t. Don’t take it personally if some of them don’t.

or don’t follow others: Maybe you aren’t necessarily looking to connect by “following” people at random, maybe you’d rather just hop in and out of conversations that interest you? Fair enough. You’ll want to check out Tweetworks. Tweetworks offers threaded conversations in groups within Twitter…think of it like a chat room on steroids. Best of all it forwards your tweets from Tweetworks into the much larger stream of conversations going on with Twitter so if you want to talk about “Video Blogging” maybe someone will do a search and find you on Tweetworks or will follow you by finding that tweet. Either way Tweetworks is probably one of the easiest and fastest ways to get started with Twitter.

Get the right tools: It’s pretty easy to get a headache trying to stay on top of all your connections tweets and conversations. To make Twitter easier to follow you’ll want to get yourself set up with the right tools. The two best are Tweetdeck and Twhirl. Both run on the Adobe Air platform and are super simple to install. The benefit is they make receiving and replying to direct messages, replies and having conversations much easier than trying to follow on Twitter. There are also apps for the iPhone and Blackberry which make mobile tweeting much easier.

Start the conversation: If someone tweets a question (i.e. What video sharing site gets the most traffic?) and this is a question you want to answer…you want to reply to this person. So you would say:

@EricGuerin YouTube receives the most traffic of all video sharing sites

Again @EricGuerin would be replaced with the name of the person whose tweet you are replying to. In Twhirl you can simply rollover their photo and in the upper left of the photo the “@” symbol will pop up making sending a reply much easier.

Good Karma: Let’s say someone you follow tweeted a really great article or video and you want to share it with others…Retweet them. All you need to do on Twitter is add “RT @EricGuerin“ and their tweet – where @EricGuerin is replaced with the name of the person whose tweet you are retweeting or in Twhirl, roll over their photo and click on the double arrows in the lower right and Twhirl will automatically load that tweet into your typing area with the RT and user name already added. For example, if you want to retweet one of my posts, it would look like.

RT @EricGuerin Blog post: “Helping E-Commerce with Video” a look at the recent eMarketer article with my thoughts http://is.gd/iuBV

Most of all have fun: You are new to Twitter don’t take it too seriously. Don’t obsess about how many followers you have, don’t worry if someone stops following you, don’t worry about the significance of your 100th or your 10,000th tweet (believe it or not some people do). It’s all about the quality of the conversations you are having and whether it is worthwhile to you…not anybody else.

Getting started is the most difficult part, but once you have started it’s pretty easy. You’ll learn what you like and don’t like and what works best for you. after that you will learn as you go and figure out how to use Twitter the way it works best for you.

So what do you think? Did I leave anything out? Anything that needs clarification? Let me know in the comments below or ask me on Twitter by replying to @EricGuerin.

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5 Question Interview: Ken George of WBUR

Tuesday, January 27th, 2009

kengeorgeKen George, new media production manager for Boston-based public radio station WBUR, 90.9 F.M., (one of the largest NPR-affiliated stations in the country) was bitten by the social media bug early last year.

Prior to 90.9, Ken was production editor for Masslive.com, a regional web portal based in Western Massachusetts.

After reading Ken’s blog, a chronicle of 90.9′s “web 2.0″ initiatives, and following his “Tweets,” I got a chance to finally meet him at the station’s first “Tweet-Up” held in July 2008. Since then Ken has taken to organizing and hosting these events on an almost monthly basis.

WBUR is embarking on some really cool experimentation in the social media space, demonstrating a level of engagement and transparency pretty unusual for a major market broadcaster. As Ken is the mover and shaker behind this, I asked him to share his perspectives on what he is trying to accomplish for the station.

Without further ado, here is our conversation:

Eric Guerin: What prompted WBUR to get involved with social media and what websites/applications are you active on?

Ken George: We had been marginally tooling around with various social media sites like Flickr, YouTube for a number of years now. While great channels to port our new media content into, we never used those spaces to “converse” with users or listeners.

My eureka moment is a direct result of my attending one of the social media breakfasts last May. What I heard blew my mind. I left with a steely resolve to engage far more transparently and consistently with listeners via social media tools.

Twitter proved instrumental to this end. Why? I think the way it enabled almost real-time conversations. The more I Tweeted, the more followers I accrued and the more I would Tweet. A real self-reinforcing positive feedback loop.

EG: According to the most recent statistics I heard for public radio, the average age of an NPR listener is 47 and continues to trend older year after year. How does this age demographic of WBUR listeners, affect your approach to social media engagement?

KG: You’ve identified a huge problem with that question. For the most part, the “traditional listeners” are not the ones responding to our social media outreach. And frankly, I am unconvinced there is much I can do to reach those listeners via social media.

I see my efforts as helping the station to reach new markets and position itself for the future characterized by a limitless supply of on-demand content. Community will be the one trump card we can play to distinguish us from all the other guys.

EG: What are the biggest challenges WBUR faces as the way people receive news is changing?

KG: The unparalleled access to information, content, news on demand presents a huge challenge. Public radio operates best in an environment of information scarcity. When locked in your car you choices are 90.9, some innovative college programming or boatloads of crap.

This completely breaks down on the Web, where you can get all kinds of radio programs and other compelling content ad infinitium.

And of course there is the issue of money, specifically the amount advertisers (underwriters in public broadcaster parlance) will fork over to get mentioned over the airwaves. That revenue helps cover the considerable costs associated with radio production. On the web, those analog advertising dollars become digital pennies.

EG: You’ve started a monthly “TweetUp” at your studios where anyone can show up, get a tour and engage in a round table discussion about many different topics. How did you come up with the idea for this and what was the driving force behind it?

KG: The “Tweet-Ups” where a natural outgrowth of our social media experimentation. NPR resident social media evangelist (oh that term again!) It was from Andy Carvin, who among other things is tasked with getting National Public Radio affiliated stations onto the social media bandwagon, that I learned about “Tweet-Ups.”

So I thought “What the hay, let’s give it a go and see what happens.” I was dubious folks would attend, and was very gratified to see my misgivings were unwarranted. And these events have been of tremendous value to the station. The core attendees (yourself included of course) serve as a brain trust of sorts that have in no small way helped guide 90.9’s digital media efforts.

I think my strong feelings about empowering the “public” in “public radio” is what has made me a fanatic about hosting these events monthly. You folks have supported us through thick and thin. It is only fair play that you be invited in to tell us what you think (even if at times it is not necessary something we want to hear). I think that is incredibly empowering for listeners.

Speaking of events, the next WBUR Social Media Meet-Up is February 5th at 7pm and at the end of February we are hosting an “Eat Up at WBUR” – making a concerted effort to reach out to local food bloggers as part of the station’s new community-based “Public Radio Kitchen.”

EG: Being public radio you need to do fund-raising to stay on the air, how have you used your social media connections to help promote and donate to your pledge drive?

KG: We are in the embryonic phrase of tying social media to pledging. The end of the year fund drive last December represented the first time we tried using social media to solicit pledges. I would remind folks (mostly via Twitter) that the fund drive was on and direct them to a specific landing page so we can quantify the results. Our overall take via social media was small, but then the initiative was rather last minute and haphazard.

The plan is that the next time we try this we are a little more organized and consistent. We may (“may” being the operative word) even deploy “micro-pledging” applications across the social media space.

EG: Thanks for taking the time Ken!

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5 Questions Interview: Danny Brown at Press Release PR

Tuesday, December 2nd, 2008

A couple of months ago, I responded to a request on Twitter from Danny Brown asking if anyone would be interested in being interviewed for a discussion on social media. I replied with my answers and became one of the first in a series of posts he did as part of his “Discussing Social Media” blog article series. Knowing what my answers were for why I used social media, I was very interested to hear what Danny’s perspective was on a lot of the same issues, however I changed some of the questions a bit to focus more on PR and how that is changing.

Danny Brown is the owner of Press Release PR, a boutique agency specializing in search engine optimized press releases and social media PR. He is a blog partner of the iEntry and WebProNews business network and a contributor to the Dad-o-Matic project.

Eric Guerin: Why is it important to have a search engine optimized press releases in this Web 2.0 world?

Danny Brown: There are many reasons why a search engine optimized press release still offers value even with social media and Web 2.0 taking such prominence. The key advantage is your prominence in search engines. If a press release is optimized properly then your keywords will see you appear near the top of the major search engines for relevant searches.

This makes it easier for your target audience to find you, as well as bloggers who’re interested in your product. So there’s a definite synergy between SEO press releases and Web 2.0 / social media. And of course there are the backlinks to your site.

EG: How does traditional channel public relations differ from Social Media PR?

DB: Traditional PR will see you approach your promotional campaign from the viewpoint of getting your news on TV, radio or print. You send your news out to your media contacts and relevant outlets and hopefully it’ll be picked up. Social media PR still uses these tools, but it also uses much more. Imagine a Twitter conversation where you can have your client answering questions in an impromptu Twitter meeting, using hashtags to separate from the normal conversation. Or you get to the front page of Digg and all of a sudden your news is viral.

Then you have the social media news release benefits, where you can show videos and a visual tour of you, your company or product. This is far more stimulating and interactive than a traditional PR campaign.
THAT’S the beauty of social media – your client can truly interact from the off, as opposed to hoping for interaction with traditional media outlets. It’s also incredibly cost-effective for the client, compared to often prohibitive traditional PR campaigns.

EG: What social media tools or applications do you use?

DB: There are a few I use for different reasons on a personal level. These are the usual suspects – Twitter, Digg, Stumbleupon, Technorati, etc.

However, from a PR side, there are some excellent applications that aren’t being utilized anywhere near enough. For example, I’ve been a big fan of BackType from Day 1 – the ability to view comments on blogs that are discussing your business or brand is invaluable, and offers a great way to offer instant reaction. I’ve already mentioned how Twitter can be used for PR – but its applications are where it’s really at.

For instance, I use Tweetcloud to offer clients a visual overview of why Twitter is invaluable at connecting with their audience. It shows how popular a brand or term is, as well as offering a business an idea of what their competitors are discussing, and with whom. This kind of information is invaluable when extolling the benefits of social media. I also recommend any client to use Google Alerts and Serph to monitor their company’s reputation online.

EG:f you only had access to one social media tool which would you choose and why?

DB: If it was just one, I’d seriously have to say Twitter. This is without a doubt the future of business networking and micro-blogging, as well as brand promotion, and I can’t believe how many businesses haven’t realized this yet.

EG: What is the one thing you know about social media that many people don’t know or don’t understand?

I’d probably say the understanding that social media is a two-way thing. Most companies that enter social media do so for the wrong reasons – they’re either looking for the quick result, or the all-important Return on Investment (ROI). Social media doesn’t work this way – one thing I always make sure my clients are aware of.

It’s all about building the relationships with the people that can make a difference for you – customers, contemporaries, even competitors in some instances. Interact with your audience, build up that mutual trust and respect. Know that you’re in it for the long haul and that you can’t use social media just to broadcast messages about you and you alone.

Gaining that understanding will enable you to place more emphasis on building long-term relationships that will offer sustained results, as opposed to the quick buck ones that never last. You’ll also be in a far stronger position to build brand loyalty than any of your competitors that aren’t using social media – and that’s a powerful enough reason on its own for using it.

EG: Thanks Danny!

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Motrin Moms Viral Video

Monday, November 24th, 2008

Okay so if you haven’t heard, (and if you are on social networking sites…chances are you have) there was a HUGE uproar about the online video by Motrin about “wearing your baby”. Which, to be frank, was a lame online video campaign to begin with. The problem was the video made the mistake of pissing off one of the most vocal communities online – Mom’s using social networking. This also happens to be the demographic the video was targeted at.

Just to be clear – I’m not siding with Motrin. Nor am I dissing the social networking juggernaut that is the collective community of Mother’s online. The video itself wasn’t anything breathtaking and may have been marginally condescending – I’ll give it that much. You can watch it below to form your own opinion:

Pretty dumb, right? Let’s be honest. The phrase “It totally makes me look like an official mom”…come on. I doubt there is a mom out there that wears her baby in a Bjorn carrier because all the other cool mom’s are doing it.

But all this blogging and Twitter conversation, with a very small amount being negative, is getting people talking about Motrin. What their ad campaign did was create a truly great viral marketing video. People are talking about their campaign although there are a small group who are angry about it, the vast amount of comments I read on Twitter just called it dumb or criticized Motrin for generally not connecting with their demographic. There were many complimenting it too. Think about it…when was the last time you had a conversation about a pain reliever or an ad campaign by one?

Here’s where Motrin really fell on their face with this campaign. Their first reaction when this small amount of negative feedback started trickling in? They pulled the site down that was hosting the video. That’s right…so the video finally generated some buzz about their product after it had been up for over a month with barely a blip on the radar and then they pulled the site down after a little negative feedback launched the video virally rather than trying to immediately put out the fire on their website with this group of social networking Moms who were offended or people who may just be curious about the video and to see what all the hub-bub was about. Brilliant.

Now that you already know you screwed up, why not engage the demographic you insulted and open up conversation? Don’t run and hide…engage.

Now that they’ve acknowledged they made a mistake, what they really need to do is launch a social media rescue campaign. Start checking Google alerts and comment on as many of the Mommy blogs as possible, start a Facebook group to allow public discussion and get feedback on their solutions, connect with Moms on Twitter and come up with an offer especially targeted to those offended by the ad. While they’re at it, they should start a blog themselves and speak from the heart about what they were thinking.

So what’s the moral to this story? What Motrin should have done originally was to hire a team of Mom’s using social networking to get their opinion of what they would find funny and what would appeal to them. Listening is rule #1 of social networking and Motrin tried to skip that step. If you’re going to speak on behalf of any group of people, you should listen to what they have to say first.

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Discussing Social Media with…Eric Guerin

Wednesday, November 5th, 2008

I had the pleasant opportunity to be interviewed for a blog post by Danny Brown, the owner of Press Release PR, providing search engine optimized press releases and SEO-friendly content for the Web 2.0 world, and a vocal advocate of social media PR. Below is a snippet from his blog post with a link to the full interview on his blog. Enjoy!

Discussing Social Media with…Eric Guerin

A little while back, I sent out a request via Twitter asking if anyone would be interested in being interviewed for a discussion on social media. With the medium meaning so many different things to so many people, as well as how it can be used, I was interested to hear the views of the people I connect with.

>>> continue reading >>>

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