Archive
Happy Twitter Addict
This is part 1 of the Products I Can’t Live Without series.
For about the last six months I’ve been wanting to clean out my Twitter feed and reorganize my lists. I had been following back everyone that follows me, and it had just become too hard to find good content regularly. Twitter is my main source for news and content (I have two computer screens set up at the office – one with TweetDeck up all the time, and the other I use for the rest of my work). And, when I’m not at my desk I’m checking Twitter about every hour during the week. So, not having a steady stream of quality content was driving me a bit crazy.
Over the holidays, I finally had a chance to revamp my Twitter. And, I set up new rules on whom I’ll follow.
I used two standards to set up these rules. The first, Tony Hsieh‘s rules on what to post on Twitter. He uses the anagram ”ICEE” to remember it.
- Inspire
- Communicate
- Educate
- Entertain
I generally used these rules already for what I post on Twitter, but now I’m using them as a benchmark for whom I follow too. I want people and brands to inspire me, communicate with me, educate and entertain me.
Similarly, I used the AOL’s definition of valuable original content (which I wrote about here and here) as a benchmark for whom to follow. Per AOL,
Unique Content + Quality (trusted, fresh, relevant, authentic) Content = Valued Original Content.
With curation running rampant on the web (note, I don’t necessarily think that’s a bad thing), I come across many people sharing the same content. I want a steady stream of new (or, unique) content. So, I’m going to start following more people that either write original content and/or are excellent curators of content. In both cases that content has to be highly relevant to my intrinsic interests and their manifestations (social media, technology, entrepreneurship), and the person tweeting the content must be a trusted/authentic source (e.g. a successful VC or entrepreneur, an innovative marketer, a trusted journalist or blogger etc.)
The New Rules
So, here are the new rules for whom I follow:
- If someone I know or have met follows me, I’ll follow back (friends, colleagues, industry professionals, etc). These are people with whom I’m going to want to communicate
- I also will follow anyone that I deem will provide me with valuable original content that inspires, educates or entertains me (again, these individuals have to be sharing content that is highly relevant to me and have authenticity in the subject of the content they’re sharing)
- I will follow/follow back anyone that makes an intelligent remark about or reply to one of my tweets. A simple retweet is not enough, and the individual doesn’t necessarily have to agree with my tweet. S/he just needs to add value to the conversation – to be a valued community member, as I write about here
- I follow products that I regularly use, and that I’ll want/need updates on
And, that’s it. Four simple rules.
Lists
To help me organize my stream and community, I set up the following lists
- big-fuelers - Big Fuel is a social media agency I used to work for. This is a list of people I worked with there, and helps me keep up with them
- wcg-ers - WCG is the marketing and communications agency I currently work for. Again, this list helps me keep up with my colleagues
- su - Syracuse University is my alma mater, and we have a very tight Twitter community. This is a list of anyone I’m connected to from SU.
- startups - is a list of VCs, entrepreneurs and people I know that work at startups
- marketing - is a list of everyone I know and follow in marketing (note: this list used to be called social media marketing, but really social media is ubiquitous across marketing channels. So, now the list is just called “marketing”
- clients-past-present - is a list of brands I currently work with, or have in the past. It partially serves as a disclosure should I tweet anything about them, but also helps me keep track their activities
- products - is a list of products I use regularly and want/need updates on
- testing - is a list of individuals I’ve decided to follow/follow back, but want to test out their content before I put them in my main “filter” feed
- filter - is my main feed. It’s the only list/feed that I refer to regularly. This is a list of everyone that has passed the follow test and are providing the best content (e.g. I don’t need the brands in the “products” list in my feed all the time; I just want to reference them every once in a while. So, they’re not included in the “filter” list)
- nyc
- la
- san-francisco
- austin
- seattle
- boston
- boulder-co
The location lists are based on cities where I have lived, travel to and/or want to travel to. I’m hoping these lists will help me figure out people that I can connect with when I’m in those cities. Some I’ve met in person, and some I’ve only met through social media. Either way, connecting with them in person when I’m in town will help deepen those relationships.
The Result
Since revamping my Twitter stream, I unfollowed about 500 people, so now I’m only following 361 people. I actually went through and looked at every individual’s profile and tweets before deciding whether or not to continue to follow them, and how to list them.
My “filter” list/stream is now on fire. I have a constant stream of quality content – more than I can keep up with really (but, that’s a high class problem and a much better situation than the one I was in before). Also, I’m testing a product called Undrip - a San Francisco-based startup that is attempting to help individuals filter through all the noise in their streams and identify the best content in real-time, or from the last 24 hours or 7 days. I’m hoping this product will increase my efficiency in consuming and curating quality content for my community.
I’ve also lost about 60 or 70 followers. But, considering I un-followed about 500 individuals, that’s not so bad. Plus, it’s about the quality of the community, not the quantity of it. I preach that to clients all the time, and it’s the truth. I’d rather have less, but more engaged individuals following me than more, but less engaged individuals.
In fact, I have 590 Twitter followers, 441 Facebook friends and 391 LinkedIn connections (1,422 total across the three networks on which I’m most active; many of those people are duplicative – i.e. I’m connected with them on more than one of the networks). Klout measures my True Reach (the number of people I influence, both within my immediate network and across their extended networks) at 826 people. That means I’m influencing/engaging with 58%+ of my community at any given time. I’d say that’s pretty good!
My True Reach on Klout
I also noticed that, since revamping my Twitter stream, my Network Impact (which measures the influence of my network) increased about 10 points to a score of 33. So, not only am I now engaging with a higher percentage of my network, but that network is more influential on average!
My Network Impact on Klout
I was already addicted to Twitter. It’s my first source for news and information that I care about, and a way for me to connect with people and share ideas. But now, after the revamp, I’m a happy addict. More than ever, Twitter is a product that I can’t live without (or at least don’t want to). Thumbs up!
Related articles
- 5 Tools to Battle Social Media Content Overload (hubspot.com)
- Top 10 Tips to Tweet your way to 1000′s of Followers (socialmaximizer.com)
- How to use Twitter to market your company (premierlinedirect.co.uk)
- 5 Types of Twitter Account #Fail (themodsocial.com)
- How Twitter Fits Into Your Social Media Strategy (dreamgrow.com)
- 5 Easy Fixes for the Most Common Twitter Faux Pas (hubspot.com)
- Twitter Etiquette (accesscomptech.wordpress.com)
Calculating the ROI of Content and Engagement Strategy
I often get asked, particularly by clients, what the ROI of content and engagement is. What is it going to cost, and what are they going to get out of it? This is always a tricky question to answer, but I’ll attempt to do so at the end of this post. First, some context.
Nothing in life is guaranteed…unless you’ve been working in advertising.
Content in old advertising was pretty simple: shoot a nice, glossy ad, pushing your product/service and then pay CPMs to distribute that content. Advertisers knew exactly how much that ad was going to cost to produce, how much it would cost to distribute and how many people the ad would (potentially) reach (“potentially” because impressions are not synonymous with engagements).
The Wild Web
Today’s content is a different beast. A good content strategy incorporates paid media, owned media, relationship media and SEO to generate earned media. None are mutually exclusive. And, the emphasis is on the engagement, not the impression.
Social Media
Notice I didn’t even mention social media in there? That’s because social media is ubiquitous across the aforementioned forms of media. Social media is a channel for paid media (e.g. Facebook Ads and Stories, Twitter’s Promoted Trends and Tweets, to name a few of the biggies). It’s a channel for owned media (e.g. Facebook Pages, Google+ Brand Pages, YouTube Channels, Tumblr accounts, Twitter accounts – these are all places to build an owned community). Social media is a channel for relationship media – my term for modern day PR (you can now identify who the top influencers for your brand are; many, if not all, will have a social media presence). Leverage these three media well, coordinated with a strong content strategy, and social media helps facilitate scaled earned media. But, please do not mistake social media as a siloed form of media.
The Brand’s Predicament
Now coordinating these media and solidifying one unified content and engagement strategy is difficult – particularly for Fortune 500 brands with large marketing budgets. That’s because each medium is often handled by a different agency or group. Paid media is handled by media agencies. The content for paid media is produced by the creative agencies. Relationship media is handled by PR agencies. You have a new breed of social media agencies doing some pieces of each (paid, owned and relationship media), while the PR, creative and media agencies are all fighting each other and the social media agencies for a piece of the social media pie. No wonder brands are confused.
Building A Newsroom
To help solve this issue, I’d like to see brands build something akin to a newsroom. This would be a cross-divisional/agency team focused on content and engagement strategy. They would work together to
- Identify the key existing and target audiences (i.e. consumers) for the brand;
- Identify what content is valuable to each of those audiences at different stages of the purchase funnel;
- Identify where (Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, blogs, TV, news outlets, etc.) and how (video, pictures, text, slides, etc.) audiences like to consume that content;
- Identify who the brands’ top influencers are; and,
- Then, assign team members and agencies to produce the appropriate content and distribute it through the appropriate channels (i.e. execute on the plan)
For more detail on the above bullets, see my posts “Content As A Platform” and “Building A Content Platform”.
Calculating the ROI of Content and Engagement Strategy
Now, I believe that social media and mobile technologies have empowered brands (large and small) to
- Access more specific data about their audiences;
- Produce and distribute a higher volume of content that is more valuable to their audiences, and do so more efficiently; and,
- Build deeper, longer lasting relationships with their audiences
With this in mind, I’d like to see brands and agencies use the following as a benchmark for calculating ROI
- calculate the average Customer Lifetime Value (= revenue x time [per month/per year])
- calculate Allowable Cost Per Sale (i.e. the amount your willing to spend to acquire a sale – e.g. 10% x CLV)
(Note: Jamie Turner does a great job describing Customer Lifetime Value and Allowable Cost Per Sale in this post)
With a successful content and engagement strategy, average Customer Lifetime Value should increase over time, while average Cost Per Sale should decrease over time.
I’d like to place emphasis on the words “over time”. While you can certainly run one-off social media campaigns, content and engagement are long-term initiatives that involve constantly listening, learning and iterating. You won’t see ROI tomorrow, or maybe even six months from now. Anyone that has ever started a blog and tried to build an audience/community around it will confirm that. But, I think a year in, you should probably start to see these effects starting to take place.
Are any of you building a newsroom in your organization? How are you calculating ROI for your content and engagement efforts? Would love to know.
Related articles
- Google+ Pages: Real-Time Platforms for Connected Brands (greatfinds.icrossing.com)
- The Content Strategy Burger [Infographic] (socialmediaexplorer.com)
- Infographic: The Content Strategy Burger (aht.seriouseats.com)
- How to Design a Content Marketing Strategy in 3 Simple Steps (e1evation.com)
- 7 Tips for Stellar Social Media Community Management (hubspot.com)
- How does an effective website content strategy benefit a business? (marketing.yell.com)
- A Deep Dive Into GetSatisfaction’s Content Strategy (contently.com)
- 5 Trends That Will Shape Small Business in 2012 (ducttapemarketing.com)
- Measuring Social Media ROI: 3 Things to Consider (socialmaximizer.com)
- Building a Content Platform (reciprocitytheory.com)
- Why Every Agency Needs an Earned Media Director (adage.com)
- How Can Startups Leverage Social Media? (currentindiaaffairs.wordpress.com)
Cold Calling on LinkedIn? Offer Up A Strong Handshake
Get InMail
First of all, instead of asking someone to join your network without them knowing anything about you or having had any experience with which to judge you (and, they are judging), send them an InMail. InMail is LinkedIn’s in-network email. It allows you to send messages to people you are not connected with. This will give you more characters to write a more complete introduction.
Grab Their Attention
Subject line matters. Identify the 1-3 main points you want to make and write them in the subject line (limit to about 50 characters). If you’re selling a product/service, I suggest including the name of your company as one of the points in the subject line.
Make It Short and Sweet
People are busy. They have a short attention spans. So, get to the point and make it easy for them to understand what you want and whether or not they’re interested. I like to limit my introductory emails/InMails to 3 paragraphs and under 10 sentences.
- 1st Paragraph – Introduce yourself. Who are you? From what company? (don’t assume people will look at your profile to figure it out)
- 2nd Paragraph - Why are you contacting them? Would you like to discuss a potential partnership? Have a product/service that they might find useful? Interested in their career and would like a 10 min call for advice?
- 3rd Paragraph - End with a “yes”/”no” question (i.e. a call to action).
I love emails where all I have to answer is “yes” or “no”. Unfortunately, I rarely get them, but I do try my best to write them.
If You’re Using a A Basic LinkedIn Account and Don’t Want to Pay for InMail
Then, you have 300 characters (or about 3 sentences) to make your introduction. I suggest following an abbreviated version of the outline above.
- 1st sentence – Introduce yourself
- 2nd sentence – Why are you contacting them?
- 3rd Sentence – Ask to add them to your network on LinkedIn
If they accept, then you can follow up directly with an email or call.
Have you received or made cold calls on LinkedIn? Would love to hear your thoughts.
Related articles
- 10 reasons why I won’t connect to you on LinkedIn [Mike Morrison] (ecademy.com)
- Facts About LinkedIn That May Surprise You (community.constantcontact.com)
- Using LinkedIn for personal marketing (abhishekkathuria.wordpress.com)
Practice Social RECIPROCITY, not Social MEDIA
Here’s what traditional advertisers and brands don’t seem to understand: social media isn’t about pushing out messages or distributing amazing branded content or even about innovation in technology. It’s about human behavior. It’s about creating efficiencies in, and scaling, basic human behavior. Or, as Ted Rubin so aptly says, “Please, please remember… Social media is NOT about tools or technology, but about PEOPLE.”
To paraphrase “The Thank You Economy”, it’s a big world out there, but social media makes it a small town. And, you better mind your manners.
I named my blog “Reciprocity Theory” because it keeps me focused on the human intuition that powers social media: RECIPROCITY.
People inherently want to do business with people (and companies) that they enjoy doing business with. If you’re going to spend the vast majority of your time at work, don’t you want to spend that time with people you connect with? Same goes for consumers. They want to buy products and services from companies that they connect with – companies that value their customers and show it. Social media empowers brands to connect with their customers in a scalable, yet personal way.
Zappos is the pinnacle of reciprocity. They have built a billion dollar company by developing a culture focused on delivering happiness. They deliver happiness to their customers, sure. But, they deliver happiness to their employees and partners first. Every year, every employee and vendor gives their honest assessment of the company, and all those perspectives – good and bad – get published publicly in their culture book. The company truly listens to, and cares about, its people and partners, and that culture of caring – of delivering happiness – trickles down to Zappos’ customers. It’s a reciprocal effect of epic proportions. (Side note: if every business and marketing professional read Tony Hsieh‘s book, “Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion and Purpose”, the world would be a better place…honestly).
I always say that small to mid-size companies are better structured than large companies to take full advantage of social media’s power. That’s because social is a real-time medium, and practicing social reciprocity means trusting and empowering your team to make decisions in the customers’ best interests, in real-time. That starts in the c-suite. It starts with the company’s visionary. Only s/he can decide to reinvent the company’s culture and make customer caring and innovation a priority, and hold his/her team accountable for developing that culture. That’s easier to do for the owner of a local coffee shop or president of a privately owned, boutique hotel group than it is for the CEO of a publicly owned, Fortune 500 company. But, that shouldn’t stop the latter from trying! Because the effects of social reciprocity are well worth the efforts.
I discussed the ROI and opportunities presented by participating in social media here. Ultimately it comes down to what Ted Rubin likes to call ROR (“Return on Relationship”). ”Relationships ARE the new currency”, says Rubin – “honor them, invest in them, & reap the benefits!”
Social media isn’t so much an investment in money, as it is in time and relationships. Care about your customers. Develop a corporate culture that cares about its customers. Then, use social media to practice social reciprocity.
Related articles
- 6 ways to measure your social media results (holykaw.alltop.com)
- Social Media @Work convention at Hilton Harrisburg aims to educate businesses on the power of social media (pennlive.com)
- 5 Tips to Great Social Media Customer Service (us.cision.com)
- Social Media Guru: What to do and what NOT to do (thecustomercollective.com)
