Twitter has released its "list" feature and I think it has some potential to be a very useful tool in the context of a Twitter marketing campaign. It lets you create lists of other Twitter users. A separate Twitter sub-page is then created where people can view the updates from those on the list. If you follow lots and lots of people, this is a good way to really keep track of the ones you are interested in.

Another handy feature is that other users can follow your lists. So if you spend some time creating good lists, that is a good way to feed those users into other accounts. Why would this be useful? For one thing, you are providing a service to others by helping sort through users that are actually worth following. Secondly, if you have multiple Twitter accounts of your own, you can include them in your lists, which could definitely help expand the number of followers for those lists.

Creating a list is quite easy. Click on the Create a New List button. On the next screen, you give your list a name and add users to it. You can search for users using the search text box, but you are probably going to want to add existing users you follow to the list. To do that, you just have to visit those users' Twitter pages, then click the Lists button at the top. Your newly created list will appear as an option. Click on the list name to add that particular user to the list.

The new list feature is definitely a Twitter feature you should explore. If you just like to read what others are having to say, you can use it for that. But I also think there are more strategic uses if you put some work into it. We will explore this feature more in later blog posts.

Labels: twitter, twitter lists, twitter management, twitter marketing

Jerry Work here. I have returned to the business of finishing our next book, on the subject of social media marketing. It has been 90% written for a couple of months; I just haven't had the enthusiasm for the project to finish. But I've rededicated myself to getting it done and out to the public.

It's funny...as I read through what I've written, I keep saying to myself "man, that's a good idea...I should do that..." You see, I've spent a ton of time this year studying social media, experimenting with Twitter and whatnot, but then when things get too busy around the office, I tend to drop it so that I can concentrate on getting the work done.

But it can't be that way.

You have GOT to be systematic if you are going to use social media as a marketing strategy. If you post on Twitter once a week, that is going to do absolutely nothing. If you update Facebook once a month, you might as well be invisible. These things have got to be done every day.

I have blogged quite a bit here and in my Twitter marketing blog about automating certain tasks so that your accounts stay updated even when you don't manually update them yourself. But I've discovered something else about myself that I think is probably applicable to most people: once you stop doing something, it is difficult to start back up. So for the last few weeks, my Twitter account has pretty well been on auto-pilot. Sure, it is good because I have kept it going, but social networking is MUCH more effective when you involve yourself...when you read what others around you are saying...when you are part of the community.

So be better than I have been lately. Get your systems in place to automate your accounts, but make sure you set aside a little bit of time each day to log into Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or whatever you're into, and update your account. Respond to what some other users are saying. Look for new friends.

Just do it!

Labels: Facebook, internet marketing, linkedin, marketing, social media, social media management, social networking, twitter

Jerry here. Man, I have been knee-deep in code for weeks now. Sometimes I curse having a background in programming. But the fact is, my having that experience is invaluable. One thing Work Media prides itself on is our flexibility in being able to help someone with their problems, no matter what they are.

Need a new web site? We'll build it.

Ecommerce not working? We'll fix it.

Need a custom program? We'll create it.

None of which is really our core business, which is marketing! But we can't do much in the way of marketing a bad or broken web site, so the behind-the-scenes stuff is pretty important.

We have been customizing the hell out of a Zen Cart installation for one of our clients. We are WAY beyond the default features and functionality. But when the new site is live, I fully expect it to greatly improve our client's conversion rates. And the great thing is...we'll even know it if he does since we'll actually be able to track that stuff now. His old site, which was...well...not very good...could not be properly plugged into our analytics package. So we had a CLUE as to what was working, but not as much detailed information as we would have liked. The new site fixes all that.

It's also wearing me out. I worked 'til past 5:00 in the morning the night before last. But it's what I have to do to get the dang thing done.

I have also begun development of our own proprietary Twitter management tool, which we will make available to the public once it is live and stable. Speaking of Twitter, if you haven't already, I invite you to check out our Twitter marketing blog, www.TheTwitterMarketingBlog.com. I do a MUCH better job updating it than I do this one.

Labels: analytics, code, programming, twitter

The deeper we dig into the Twitter world, the more different ways we are finding to take advantage of it. I (this is Jerry) have to admit that I am much more intrigued by Twitter than I am with Facebook. I have yet to really realize the benefit of Facebook, although admittedly part of it is that I just haven't put that much effort into it. Part of it is time. I do all of our social media work, and after taking care of our clients, I have fairly limited time for self-promotion. But it is also that I just don't "get" Facebook like I get Twitter. Twitter is an incredibly simple concept, yet remarkably powerful in the things you can do with it.

I think the best way for a business to manage a Twitter account is with a combination of automation and manual posting. For automation, my number one tool hands down is Tweet Later. I really can't do Twitter without it now (the pro version, not the free version which is much more limited in what it can do). However, one issue with using Tweet Later to automate your account is that you pre-program your messages, so the tweets that originate from Tweet Later are not really tied to events actually happening.

That's why I have started combining Tweet Later automation with automatic posts from TwitterFeed. The purpose of TwitterFeed is to let you stream your own blog to your Twitter account. That is a nice feature, but what I have started doing is creating an RSS feed based on Google alerts, and then feeding that into TwitterFeed to in turn update my Twitter account with news items. So now, my account is automatically updated with a combination of pre-programmed messages about my industry, along with Google news results. And of course I do a fair amount of manual posting as well.

If you are active with Twitter, it can keep your name in front of a lot of people. And if some of those people like what you have to say and start retweeting your messages, then there is a powerful viral effect.

I have devoted many hours the last few weeks to a study of Twitter. If you would like to learn along with me, I invite you to check out my blog devoted to the subject, The Twitter Marketing Blog, at www.thetwittermarketingblog.com.

Labels: Facebook, internet marketing, social media, social networking, tweeting, tweetlater, twitter, twitter management, twitterfeed

There is a classic business metaphor that associates being in business with walking down a hallway with lots of doors. Just walking down the hallway (the state of conducting some kind of business) will reveal opportunities that you could not see until you walked down the hall. In other words, moving forward with some kind of business plan will cause you to meet people and come upon situations that may change the course of your business. That is fine, however, because it means that you are recognizing opportunities that you would not have seen if you had not taken action.

The concept of using social media to promote your business falls very nicely in line with this idea. Sites like Facebook and Twitter will allow you to make a social (sort-of) connection with many people you would not have otherwise known. And that is where opportunities come from. The more involved you are with these sites, the better your chance of using them as a tool for opportunity creation.

However, your chance of creating opportunity is better if you focus your friend/follower generating activities on those with some type of connection to your industry for geographic market. For instance, a bankruptcy lawyer in Memphis would be well served to follow and be followed by residents and business owners in Memphis. When one of those people needs help with a bankruptcy issue, they will know who to contact.

It is also necessary to keep your eyes open. If you operate your account in such a way as to get as many friends or followers as you can but you never read what those people have to say, you will not be aware when the possibility arrives to offer assistance or propose business alliances. If the number of people you follow is small, then you might be fine just using the default twitter interface. However, as your accounts grow, it can quickly become difficult to keep up with what is going on. Therefore, it is highly advisable to use a software solution to help you manage your social media accounts.

There are several on the market, and I have spent time finding a solution that works well for me. It would be a good idea for you to do the same. The one I like the best is TweetLater (http://trytweetlater.com), which automates many functions of managing a Twitter campaign, such as posting tweets, sending direct messages, and searching for new relevant users to follow. A good application for just keeping up with what people are saying is TweetDeck (http://tweetdeck.com), which lets you view your Facebook friend updates and Twitter follower updates in the same interface.

Labels: Facebook, internet marketing, linkedin, social media, social media management, social networking, tweeting, twitter, twitter management

Once your Twitter account gets up to a couple thousand followers, it can be difficult to manage. Unless you're rich and don't have anything better to do, you can't really sit around all day and do nothing but read tweets. However, checking out what the people you follow are saying is sort-of the whole point of Twitter's existence.

A program for organizing your account so you can keep up with those you find interesting or useful is TweetDeck. TweetDeck is a client side program that presents your Twitter information in an efficient, organized way using columns. By default, the tweets from all of your friends are listed in a column on the left-hand side of the screen (although columns can be moved around however you want). The next column lists tweets that mention your user name. The third column lists direct messages. The last column, by default, shows TweetDeck recommendations, which I found to be a waste of space. I use that column to build out groups.

If you take the steps to build up a large list of people you follow (and who follow you), there are going to be many people that you're really not that interested in reading. Likewise, there are going to be some people who you really want to keep up with. The way to account for this is to place those you really want to read into groups.

I have several groups set up in my account - one for those who post about legal marketing, one for those who post about affiliate marketing, etc. This lets me track posts on specific subjects from specific users, rather than having to dig through thousands of tweets that I really don't care about.

You may choose to use groups differently, instead just grouping anyone you find interesting regardless of their line of work or the nature of their tweets. That is fine. The main thing is just to find SOME way to keep up with your most followees, rather than just having a big unorganized mess.

Labels: internet marketing, marketing, social media, tweet, tweet deck, tweeting, twitter

Using a tool like Ping.fm, you can integrate your blog, your Twitter account, and your Facebook account. We're talking about dynamically combining content from multiple sources into content for a third or more web page.

Here is a hypothetical example.

Let's say I run an Internet marketing company in Nashville...wait a minute, that's not so hypothetical is it? Anyway, I update my company's blog every Tuesday and Friday. A couple of times per day, I also update our Twitter account. Assuming it takes me one hour per blog post and five minutes per tweet, that would represent a total time investment of just under three hours.

At the moment, I am only updating my blog and my Twitter account for those three hours. With a little ingenuity, I can also keep a major social networking site such as Facebook updated with very little additional time.

With an application like Ping.fm, I can have my Facebook status updated every time I post a new tweet. Taking it a step further, I can use the Facebook Notes application to update my Facebook account every time I update my blog. So now, for those same three hours, I am not only updating my blog and Twitter, I am also updating my Facebook page.

One problem is that just having a Facebook account doesn't do us any good if we don't have any friends in the account. So I may need some additional time to periodically log into Facebook and search for new friends. I could even automate that part using a tool like Facebook Blaster. But I would still want to periodically log into my Facebook account to check things out. You never really want to automate something and then just forget about it.

Since I'm using Ping.fm, I could also choose to set up some more social media pages and have them update every time I update my blog. In this case, it will be important to separate blogs from update sites using groups. Otherwise, I will end up with a bunch of extremely short blog posts with no titles. I have made that mistake before and it looks really bad.

So, the whole point of this exercise: whereas before I put in the time and only managed to update my firm's blog and Twitter account, I can now update the blog, Twitter account, AND a Facebook account.

Labels: blog, blog management, Facebook, internet marketing, social media, social networking, twitter

This weekend, it seems that many thousands of Twitter users had their accounts suspended for no reason. Twitter's excuse is that there was a "spamcloud" that had to be dealt with...

So, my first question is: what the heck is a spamcloud?

My second question is: is the only way to deal with it really shutting down the accounts of thousands of innocent users?

Twitter may just be a victim of its own success. I'm sure it is difficult managing and scaling an application that is growing as rapidly as it is. But come on...shouldn't Twitter have a plan in place for managing things like this? I think Twitter risks driving away many users if it continues to operate in this fashion.

This whole episode highlights an important point about Internet marketing:

You should focus your efforts on driving traffic to Web properties that you own. Otherwise, you are at someone else's mercy. Do you own your Facebook page? No. Facebook does. Do you own your LinkedIn account? No, LinkedIn does. Do you own your Twitter page? Nope. Twitter does.

What do you own? You own your web site.

So if you've spent all your marketing time and energy promoting your Twitter page, and Twitter suspends your account (like it probably did this weekend), then you are stuck. But if you devote your energy toward getting people to your main web site, then you have more control and more freedom. You are not at anyone's mercy (except maybe your hosting company).

I do think you should promote your Twitter page and your Facebook page and whatever other social media accounts you have, but first and foremost, promote your own web site.

Maybe next time you can avoid the meltdown on Twitter Street.

If you are having a hard time with this social networking stuff (or anything else related to online marketing), contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or www.WorkMedia.net.

For maximum control of your Twitter account, I advise the use of Tweet Later, which you can try for free at www.TryTweetLater.com.

Labels: domain names, internet marketing, social media, social networking, spamcloud, twitter

I am reading an outstanding book right now, Jay Abraham's The Sticking Point Solution. I cannot recommend it enough. If you don't know who Jay Abraham is, he is possibly the world's top marketing expert. To hire Abraham for personal consulting for your business will likely cost you tens of thousands of dollars (for just a few hours of his time). But his book brilliantly distills his formulas and strategies into a blueprint that any business can follow to achieve stratospheric results.

One thing I really like about Abraham's writing style is that he deals with specifics, rather than vague generalities. His book is filled with all kinds of examples highlighting the strategies he talks about, taken from his personal experience working with clients in hundreds of industries.

Abraham is big on the use of leverage. I use the word leverage a lot in talking about what I do. Write something once and then use it hundreds of different times. That's leverage in the context of online marketing. Abraham talks about leverage in terms of utilizing the resources of others. For example, finding a possible joint venture partner who has access to companies you would like to sell your services to.

Work Media is going through a transitional phase, and this book is the perfect material for what we are going through. My mind has been racing with ideas since I started reading the book. I'm not even done with it yet, but I like it so much I just had to go ahead and write a bit about it. I rarely endorse particular books or products, but The Sticking Point Solution by Jay Abraham comes highly, highly recommended.

The book is out now and can be found on Amazon.com or just about anywhere else, I would imagine.

Also, have you checked out my Twitter blog? It is our newest blog devoted exclusively to Twitter strategies.

Labels: book review, Jay Abraham, twitter

Okay, check out http://twitterforbusiness.blogspot.com/. I've been deeply involved lately in researching various Twitter management tools. You know how we are...always trying to do more with less. This new blog is the start of our attempt to document what we learn in the process of trying different tools and strategies for using Twitter for business promotion. We hope you'll hang out.

Now, as to blogging in general...

Be better than me.

Jerry Work here. I do most of the blogging for Work Media. And I haven't blogged here in over a week. I have been very busy and have actually done a lot of blogging, but for other projects.

So be better than me. Don't forget about your main blog. Take the time every week to type out original thoughts about your business or industry.

You're situation is probably a little different than mine. I do a lot of content distribution and blogging type stuff for my clients in all different industries. Honestly...sometimes I just don't feel like typing out any more blog posts. I really shouldn't use that as an excuse. But I will any way.

You probably have the luxury of only talking about things related to your business. So take the time to type out your thoughts. It will be well worth it.

Labels: blogging, microblogging, twitter

I LOVE Tweet Later. I started using the free version several weeks ago to help build up my Twitter follower list by setting the program to automatically follow back anyone who follows me, and to send a personal message to anyone who follows me. Just doing those two things has helped tremendously in launching my Twitter account.

I just started using the paid version, and if you are serious about using Twitter as a marketing tool, then it is well worth the money. With the professional version of Tweet Later, you can pre-configure a bunch of spinnable tweets to be posted at regular intervals. If you set it up right, this can save you a TON of time managing your account.

This strategy is most useful if you already have a lot of content to link to in your tweets. For instance, if you have been publishing a blog for a while, then you can set up a bunch of tweets that link to various blog posts you have written. Similarly, if you have a web site that offers a lot of products, then you can set up a bunch of tweets that link to different product pages.

If you don't have any existing material to set up lots of tweets for, you can still make good use of Tweet Later. It just might take more work to come up with material for all of your pre-configured tweets.

I do VERY little affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing, to a large extent, is offensive to me because it involves people pushing products that are basically garbage. But I am impressed enough by this product that I am officially promoting it to my readers. I officially recommend the professional version of Tweet Later. To learn more, visit this link:

http://www.tweetlater.com/86969.html

By the way, there is a one week free trial (no credit card required!) for the professional version, so I definitely recommend you try it out with all of its features.

Labels: blogging, internet marketing, micro-blogging, tweet later, twitter

I am a big fan of marketing integration. Your offline marketing makes reference to your online marketing, your online marketing ties together with real world promotion, and everything links to everything else. This includes your social networking. One of my favorite techniques for combining blog content and static web page content is to stream the blog to the static pages via RSS. Sometimes it can be tricky to work out the code to make it happen, but it's a beautiful effect when your entire web site gets updated every time you make a new blog post.

In keeping with that tradition, I am now exploring the idea of streaming your Twitter content to your web pages. Fortunately, there is really no code to figure out, although you may have to do some in-line styling to get it to look right. To use it, first log into your Twitter account, then visit the following URL:

http://twitter.com/downloads

You can also get there by clicking the "Apps" link at the bottom of the page. To stream your Twitter posts, click the Widgets link. Then select the type appropriate for your site. You can create a Flash-based widget, or one that is HTML-based. I suggest going with straight up HTML because, for search engine purposes, you really want to have the actual words from your Twitter posts on your web pages, rather than a Flash movie.

Then just copy and paste the supplied code into your web pages. At this point, it is also VERY helpful if your site makes use of include files. For example, our law firm Internet marketing site, www.law-firm-internet-marketing.net, uses an include file for the left side of the pages, which looks like this:

#include virtual="leftside.asp"

So when I want to update the left-hand side of the web pages on the site, all I have to do is change this one file, rather than manually updating every single web page.

Initially, the design of the widget did not look right on my pages, so I used some in-line styling, as shown:

ul id="twitter_update_list" style="list-style-type: none;"

I did not like the way the bullet points looked, so I inserted the style code to tell viewers' browsers not to display bullet points by telling it the list style type is "none."

New widgets are coming out all the time, and we will discuss some more, but if I were you, the first one I would look into using is the Twitter widget that lets you stream your Twitter posts onto your web site.

Need some help using social networking to promote your web site? Contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: internet marketing, social media, social networking, twitter, twitter widget, widget

Today I begin Twittering with renewed enthusiasm. Last night I even updated my profile and image. I've got a yellow post it note stuck to the side of my monitor to remind me to update Twitter. If you don't update, then the whole exercise is pointless.

Are you on the Twitter yet? It may seem like an unproductive use of your time, and I can't really blame you. But if you ain't on the Twitter, you got a problem.

Here's the lowdown. Twitter really can help you build up an online network of people who are interested in what you have to say; who can influence events in your life; who can recommend your products or services to others. It is a legitimate business tool. And it's free (not counting the time you spend actually doing it).

So start today. Go set up an account if you don't have one, and make your page look interesting. Upload an image of yourself so you don't have the default brown loop-looking thing as your image. Fill out the fields on your profile page. People want to learn who you are.

Your Twitter posts should: contain relevant keywords; be industry specific; and be interesting to read. If you can make them funny, that's even better. You want to entertain as much as possible.

I'm a professional search engine marketer, but I'm a newbie at using Twitter. But if I've learned anything in the short time I have been using Twitter, it's that you've got to be interesting!

By the way, you can look me up on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jwork.

Labels: internet marketing, ppc search engine marketing, social media, social networking, twitter