Social Glitz

I’m not telling you anything new when I say that Web 2.0 and social media have changed the way we use the Internet. Neither am I telling you anything new when I say that that’s the reason why marketers and PR professionals are finding themselves in an increasingly difficult situation. We, as consumers, are no longer as easily identifiable as we used to be. These days, us consumers can be any number of things. Producers, users, active participants, members of niche communities, and if worse comes to worst, even critics.

So how can the companies of today ensure that they don’t only find new customers and retain existing ones but also avoid all hell breaking lose when they are confronted with a critic that happens to be quite influential in the online space?

The answer to that question is rather simple but sadly, still very often misunderstood. It’s this question and the simplicity of the answer that led me to conduct research on how to use Twitter as a tool for relationship marketing. By telling you the topic of the research I’ve given away quite a bit upfront but not to worry, the most interesting part is yet to come.

The term “relationship marketing” is used frequently. In fact, it’s used to a point where everyone things they know what they are talking about but only few really do. What is it? How does it work? And how do we best use it in combination with online communication tools such as Twitter?

Transactional vs. Relationship Marketing

Before the 1990s mass marketing was all the craze. Most marketing activities were focused on finding as many customers as possible for a product. But then one of the most important changes in marketing took place. One that is now as important as ever. Companies these days continuously develop the right products for their customers, which is also where the idea of relationship marketing comes in. The idea behind it is simple. It’s not about solving individual customer problems but rather about the long-term support of customers in their processes. In contrary to transactional marketing, that has a raise in market shares as a goal, relationship marketing builds upon long-term relationships to raise customer value. Read more at socialmouths.com

Over the past few months we’ve seen Google push location reviews pretty hard. Its Hotpot feature has been developing quickly and today the company has added something pretty significant – Twitter integration for place reviews in the Android Maps app.

The ‘Post Review to Twitter’ feature is available in an update to Google Maps that launches today. Also included is a new feature for social location sharing service Latitude. Now when you see that a friend is nearby on the map, you can ‘Ping’ them right from inside the app. This will cause a notification to appear on the friend’s Android device, helping you arrange to meet. Read more at thenextweb.com

Trend: The Social News Paradigm

The new culture of sharing and curating news has progressively increased the importance we give to what our social network is sharing. This includes the latest news, uncomfortable private details of our friends’ lives, or immediate product and service reviews.

The latter of the three is of particular concern to business owners and consumers, especially because complaints on Twitter are public by default. Whereas answering complaint calls and dealing with clients privately used to suffice, a private response to a Tweet will likely be interpreted as silence or disinterest in a social media setting.

Trend: A New Sense of Real Time

Twitter brought the news feed to the masses – just a few years ago, RSS feeds were exclusive to uber-geeks. Whereas being updated used to mean reading the newspaper every morning, it now means reading headlines produced or shared within the previous hour.

For companies on Twitter, the real-time news stream mentality means last-minute sales. Potential profit-optimization possibilities include:

If approached strategically, real-time updates also allow Twitter to act as a sort of crystal ball, helping marketers and businesses predict revenue.

Trend: The Age of Public Influence Meters

One of the hottest new measurements with regard to Twitter success is influence. As flawed as influence scales may still be (as depicted by Amy Vernon in a recent blog post), there is no question that Twitter showcases its users connections and popularity – by nature. One’s following-to-followers ratio, the frequency with which one gets ReTweeted, or one’s ability to obtain responses from “big deals” are all visible to any Twitter user.

So is your brand’s reputation. The people – and other brands – with whom you interact help determine the level of influence you have in your niche.

In practice, this means businesses need to: Read more at www.blueglass.com

Fifty-two percent of Twitter users say content that becomes repetitive or boring over time is a reason to stop following a brand on the site, according to [pdf] a new report from Exact Target and CoTweet. Data from “The Social Break-up” also indicates 41% say the need to clear a crowded tweetstream is a reason to stop following a brand.

Four in 10 (41%) Twitter users report they have stopped following a brand, and 47% who have created a Twitter account no longer use it. However, in good news, 56% of active Twitter users follow at least one brand, 64% of active Twitter users check their account at least once per day, and 48% check it several times per day.

Fewer than one in five (17%) online US consumers has a Twitter account, and only about one in 10 (9%) has an active account. Five percent of all online US consumers follow at least one brand on Twitter.

Fifty-two percent of formerly active Twitter users who no longer use their account say they left because it is pointless. Thirty-eight percent said it got boring, and 23% said it got too chaotic (more than one answer permitted).

Demographic analysis of Twitter usage clearly shows younger adults tweet at much higher rates than older adults, according to a recent study from the Pew Internet & American Life Project. Fourteen percent of internet users age 18-29 use Twitter, double the 7% of internet users age 30-49. The oldest internet users (65-plus) have the lowest tweet rate (4%). Read more at www.marketingcharts.com

There are plenty of social analytics tools, but the most full-featured ones are often too expensive (i.e., geared towards enterprise-level users) and the inexpensive ones usually offer limited functionality.

And then there’s Topsy Social Analytics, which was just launched this morning and immediately becomes one of the best free Twitter analytics tools I’ve seen. There are a number of ways to use it and, if you click that link to check it out, don’t be surprised if you spend the next hour there.

With Topsy Social Analytics, you can analyze domains, Twitter usernames, or keywords — and they can be compared over four timeframes: one day, a week, two weeks or a month. Each type of analysis returns different results. Compare three domains, for example, and Topsy analytics will chart the number of links it found to each. Type in three keywords (including names, as in the image at the beginning of this article) and Topsy shows how many times each was mentioned. And if you compare up to three Twitter usernames, Topsy shows how many replies/mentions each received.

See more at searchengineland.com

Let’s say three months ago you convinced your boss to let you put up a page for the business on Facebook.  Then a couple of weeks later, the boss gave you the go-ahead on spending a few minutes a day on Twitter.

But that was three months ago.  And you’ve been spending more and more time on Facebook and Twitter, and the boss is noticing.  So tomorrow, the boss is going to mention all this to you, how he’s noticing that the 5 mins a day you used to spend on Facebook has ballooned into an hour a day.

He’s going to ask you the logical business question: What are we getting for that hour a day you spend on Facebook and Twitter?

Choose your next words VERY carefully.  The natural thought process may be to tell the boss that the company has X number of Likes on Facebook, and X number of Twitter followers.  But the problem is, your boss doesn’t care about the conversation.

If you want to be successful at social media, you pick the strategy first, then the tactics.  You can’t pick the tactics first, then the strategy. Read more at mackcollier.com

One common way small business owner’s work to build up their social media profiles is through online promotions. They may hold a Twitter contest or a Facebook giveaway in the hopes that it will help them catch a user’s eye and provide incentive to get them engaging with the brand. However, that doesn’t mean they’re always successful or they go about it in the right way. Far too often SMB owners fall victim to innocent (and very preventable) marketing mistakes that cause them to lose potential customers without even realizing it.

Below are some tip for running a social media promotion if you WANT people to completely ignore it. Read more at smallbiztrends.com

Running out of cereal is usually a problem that one must face on his own. But when David Berkowitz awoke to the dilemma one morning this October, he got some support from an unexpected source. After reading a tweet about his irritation, Edge Shave Gel sent him enough cereal that it should be a very long time before he runs out again.

“I’m still eating the cereal they sent me, so the positive brand association continues,” says Berkowitz.

Since September, 234 people have benefited from similar random acts of kindness from the @EdgeShaveZone Twitter account. As part of Edge’s Anti-Irritation Campaign, a team of two devotes its full-time efforts to seeking, responding to, and relieving irritation across Twitter (), much of which is conveyed using Edge’s #soirritating hashtag. The team has given out everything from iPads and computers to megaphones and dancing panda YouTube () videos in their efforts to “solve irritation.” One woman tweeted that she had voices in her head that were speaking in Spanish — Edge responded with the gift of a Spanish/English dictionary.

In about three months, @EdgeShaveZone has gathered about 1,500 followers, the #soirritating hashtag has been used about 6,800 times, and attention from numerous media outlets has contributed to mounting buzz — all of which likely contributed to Edge’s decision to continue the campaign throughout 2011. Mashable () recently spoke with the team at Edelman Digital, that runs the campaign, about the factors that have contributed to its success. Read more at mashable.com

When someone asks, “what’s the next Twitter?” more often than not, there is not a response.

Over the past few years the answer has been, “Foursquare, Gowalla or Groupon” until recently. Over the past little while, a new online platform has been gaining ground, momentum and attention. It’s called Quora. At it’s core, Quora is a question and answer service. Anyone can post a question and anyone can answer it. Answers can be voted up and down (ala Digg) and you have the ability to follow the individuals and topics that are of interest to you.

“It doesn’t sound all that groundbreaking.”

If that’s what you’re thinking, please remember that they never sound all that groundbreaking. I still get the old, “Twitter just sounds stupid to me,” or “why would anybody want to post all of their personal information on Facebook?” First off, never be a “market of one” (just because you would not do it or that you do not find it interesting, it does not mean that others will feel the same). Quora seems to be working because the questions are smart and the varied answers are smarter… and coming from some very smart people.

What makes Quora cool?

Here’s a great example: Someone asked: What do people at Twitter think of Facebook? While this question can be answered by anyone, in this instance, Albert Sheu, a former Twitter Search Engineer (and current employee at Quora), candidly replied, “I will try to step through this question carefully, but honestly, people at Twitter are generally not fans of Facebook,” (but you’ll have to click on the question above to read his full response). Part of Quora’s cool factor is that it seems to have captured the hearts and minds of the Silicon Valley luminaries and all of the Bloggers and Tweeters that follow them. They’re not just watching Quora become popular, they’re actually diving in and mixing it up… answering questions (and even posting questions). Read more at www.twistimage.com

There are many local and small businesses using Twitter as a marketing tool. We’ve seen the headlines highlighting stand out examples of businesses using Twitter–yet many local, small businesses still have not gone beyond 101 activities.  Let’s look at the many ways businesses can leverage Twitter.

Our list is assuming you’re familiar with the basics of how to use Twitter and already have a presence. Read more at websuccessdiva.com

I get the question all the time: “Who uses Twitter?” It’s usually delivered with a snarky tone and a nose up in the air.  The subtext is unmistakable: “Isn’t Twitter just a bunch of babble?”

New data from the Pew Internet & American Life Project provides some fresh answers.

What does it all mean? First of all, 8% may not sound like much, but it is a LOT of people.  According to the latest data, the total U.S. Internet poulation is 239,893,600.  That means 8% a “mere” 19,191,488 individuals. Read more at www.mpdailyfix.com