Archives : Twitter
Putting Together a Social Media Plan
Recently we were asked if someone could promise 2500 unique visits to their business website a month—from social media alone. It’s a good question to ask—there’s no point in working on a social media plan unless it drives traffic to your site, and brings conversions. But when we replied asking about their numbers on current social media channels, we were told that they have 25 fans on Facebook, and have yet to set up a Twitter or Linkedin account.
Our answer? Yes. It is possible, but not right away. Social media is a gradual exercise, not something that can be completed once and forgotten about. When you’re starting from scratch, it will take some time to truly gain a following and get some results. You need to have a social media plan.
Why you need a social media plan
To stay on top of current trends
Social media platforms come and go. If you set up a MySpace account for your business and left social networking years ago, you’ve fallen behind. There are new platforms announced every year, and each one updates and changes from month to month. You need to be on top of the latest social media advances, and so does your business.
Your customers are there
One thing that every business owner knows is that you need to be where your customers are. Your customers are on Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and StumbleUpon without you—so join them!
Your competitors are there
Many small and large businesses have come to see the importance of marketing on social media, and they’re out there talking to your customers, while you’re not. Don’t let them take control of your market!
But if you can’t…
Sometimes it just isn’t possible for you to keep up a social media plan. If you don’t have the time to check your social media outlets once a week, much less every day, get someone else to. Designate a person on your team, get your daughter to handle it or hire social media services—just don’t neglect it. Social media is only becoming more popular, don’t fall behind—get a social media plan in place!
Timing Twitter | Scheduling Tweets Ahead of Time
If you are in charge of managing a business Twitter account, you know how time consuming the service can be. Professionals suggested that you tweet several times a day, but every time you log into Twitter, you end up spending time that could be better spent elsewhere.
Frankly, you don’t have the time to stare at Twitter all day. The minutes that you spend on the site are taking away from other important projects, and even though it’s beneficial—it isn’t necessary.
Scheduling Twitter updates is an important aspect of social media marketing. If you don’t have a grasp on how to do it—or a service to help you, you are losing valuable time. We’ve listed a few of the basics below, to help you get started with scheduling Twitter.
Finding a Twitter Scheduler
If you don’t have a Twitter scheduler in use already, than it’s time to start looking into the different options available. There are several great services, and we’ve listed a couple of our favorites here:
This is the tweet scheduling service that we use, because you can simply log in with your Twitter account, and you’re ready to schedule. You don’t have to remember another password! It’s as simple as it gets, though, so you won’t have any other feature but the scheduling.
This is probably the most popular system for scheduling Twitter updates. It comes with a lot of other features other than scheduling though, so if you’re looking just to schedule, this service might overwhelm you. You can also monitor your other social networks on Hootsuite—so it isn’t strictly Twitter.
TweetDeck has actually been acquired by Twitter. It’s a program that you can download right to your desktop, program tweets, look at mentions and messages, and monitor other social media platforms, as well.
This service is a lot like Twuffer, but you can also use it for Facebook. We don’t recommend using a scheduling service for Facebook, but it’s an option you have with this website. You can log in straight through your Twitter profile—no extra password to remember—but it’s not the service we chose, because it isn’t as pleasant to look at as Twuffer is. If you’re scheduling tweets as much as we do, you need a site that’s easy on the eyes.
Scheduling Twitter Updates | Putting Together a Twitter Schedule
Once you’re set up with a Twitter scheduler, you’re going to want to figure out a plan:
- How many times will you tweet a day?
- How many links, mentions and hashtags?
- What time of day will you schedule Twitter updates for?
- How often will you load tweets into your Twitter scheduler?
You can save a lot of time by scheduling twitter updates, and it’s something we suggest for all of our clients. However, sometimes it’s still too overwhelming to put together a Twitter schedule and keep your business Twitter account updated. If you want to save some time and stress, give us a call about our Twitter monitoring services.
Twittonary
“Tweeps! That was a twitterific twoosh of twitterage in twitterese from this Twitterholic, yeah? Can I get a retweet, here?”
If you’re confused reading that sentence then you’ve come to the right spot. The ever-evolving world of Twitter just gets more and more intricate as it grows, and if you’re not on top of it yet, well… now’s the time to get there!
We recently stumbled upon a web-page full of words; many, many words. Words that would astound you, confuse you, and potentially just frustrate you if you weren’t up with the play. http://twittonary.com/
It is what you think it is – a dictionary of Twitter words.
Searching the “T” page, specifically, there were over 400 – over 400 words starting with the letter “T” relating to Twitter. It is truly mind-boggling to look through this list and realize just how much time people spend on this site we call Twitter.
So, we’d like to inform you of a few words that stood out to us – some of the words that we thought might be a little more ‘useful.’
Let’s start with the basics. The most important word that you’ll have to know in utilizing Twitter is this one: Tweet. Easy, isn’t it? The official definition is “The singular version of the name given to all posts on Twitter.” Basically, it’s any news update.
Going a little deeper, we find Tweetaholic. Now, you might be able to guess this one, but the official definition? “Someone addicted to Twitter, so much that it may be an actual problem.” This is the user who tweets that he is going out to get the mail, that he iss now coming back into the house, and that he just started opening the mail.
Twirgin, “Virgin to Twitter – new to Twitter.”
Twitsomnia, “When you have difficulty falling asleep and/or difficulty staying asleep because you’re so into twittering!”
Twitternope, “A term, phrase or tag yet unused on Twitter. Such that searching for the exact phrase on Twitter results in ‘No results for.’”
Tweepish, “Feeling sheepish or regretful about something you tweeted.”
That’s six. Six silly words that will get you a little more involved with the wonderful world of Twitter. And in case you were wondering… the sentence at the top of the page, in English, means “Friends! That was a terrific 140-character post of rage in the Twitter language from this man addicted to Twitter, wasn’t it? Can someone re-post it, please?” OK, we admit it, it doesn’t really make a lot of sense either way.
Social Media for Small Business – May SmartGroup Recap
Here is the presentation, and recap notes for those not able to attend. We’ll see you next month (it’s always the last Tuesday of the month!) for Linkbuilding Techniques for SEO (Register Now!)
Twitter Background Design Concepts
So, you’re a business and have taken the leap to setup Twitter account, congratulations! One element that often gets overlooked when using Twitter for business is creating a custom background image that speaks to your business objectives. (See our Smart Solutions Twitter Background…heck, follow us as well!) If you have questions on the information below or would like us to create a Twitter background for you, just give us a call, we’d be happy to assist!
Consistent with your main marketing brand and messages, your Twitter background should include:
1) Your logo/brand mark (typically set vertically)
2) Your tagline/brand message
3) Main contact information
4) Call to Action
5) Visual Image(s) that connect to your brand and are appealing
Image Considerations:
1) The national standard screen resolution is still 1024 x 768 – develop your image to meet that requirement and beyond (we recommend 1600 x 1200 pixels)
2) For a 1024 x 768 resolution, you have approximately 120 pixels on the left to work with your message (otherwise Twitter window will overlay on top).
3) For your avatar, use a 73 x 73 pixel image
4) Twitter limits background image size to 800k (although for speed, you want to stay away from the upper end of that)
How to implement a Twitter Background
5 Steps to Edit Twitter Background
A Reputable Twitter Example….
Zappos CEO on Twitter
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