4 Ways to Improve Your Twitter Strategy

A few months ago my friend Dr. Ben Hanna led an extensive statistical study to discover the optimal tweeting strategy by running matched tests of tweets over a period of weeks. He uncovered some very interesting ideas that will help you get more out of every tweet!

Tweet quality versus tweet quantity – The study looked at the relevant importance of tweeting only when you had something really interesting to pass along (quality focus) versus a strategy of tweeting with frequency to make sure your content was always in front of your audience (quantity focus). The study showed tweet quality is MUCH more important than quantity.  Tweets that provided a higher average number of clicks per tweet with a track-able link correlated to higher follower growth.

I guess this finding verifies my hunch. People who tweet on a schedule just strike me as unapproachable and disconnected.  While the study definitely verified the “quality” strategy, you still have to be in the game – average tweets/day during their testing ranged from 2.9 to 11.0.

The first words are critical – At 140 characters, tweets are like headlines and people scan them quickly.  If you want to catch someone’s eye, think like an advertising copy writer and make sure that either the main topic keywords or a number/statistic are found in the first 3-5 words.

The results also recommended against using the standard retweet style (i.e. “RT @markwschaefer: …” to start the tweet), instead shift attribution to the end of the tweet (i.e. “… via @markwschaefer”) so people can concentrate on the first words.

Quality tweets live four days – If you measure the lifespan of a tweet by the number of days on which it receives at least one click, then tweets don’t live very long. On average, tweets with a clickable link received at least one click on four separate days with a range of one day (not a very popular tweet) to 23 days (very popular content).

Optimal time between tweets – In a study examining the number of clicks on business-related tweets, the optimal space between business tweets to attract the most clicks is either 31-60 minutes or 2-3 hours. Tightly packed tweets just don’t appear to attract as much attention as tweets with more space between them. The study really couldn’t explain the bi-modal distribution. The cause of the dip in click activity for tweets between 61 and 120 minutes is uncertain.

I found this research interesting and hope it will help you hit your tweet-spot on Twitter!  Any surprises?  What do you think makes a tweet work?

Source: http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2011/01/24/4-ways-to-improve-your-twitter-strategy
About the author:Executive Director Mark Schaefer has 28 years of global sales and marketing experience and advanced degrees in business and applied behavioral sciences.

Facebook Gives Businesses More Security for Their Apps

Earlier this week, Facebook launched some new security features for user accounts. Now, they've followed that up with new security feature for applications. 

"As companies building on Platform grow, they develop the need to give people different levels of access, depending on individuals' roles," says Facebook engineer Harshdeep Singh.

Apps now have roles for: administrator, developer, tester, and insights user. An administrator of course has complete access to everything. A developer can modify technical settings and access Insights, but they can't reset secret keys, delete apps, or add users. Testers can simply test the app in sandbox mode, but can't modify it. Insights users can access insights, but can't modify the app. 

To start, all users listed as developers will become administrators, and Facebook is encouraging them to update their settings.
They've also added more ways to monitor and control application changes. "To help businesses track changes, administrators can now specify an email address to receive notifications when their application's settings are modified," says Singh. "We've also introduced an advanced security feature, which lets administrators require that changes are made from specific IP addresses."

As more and more businesses rely on Facebook applications (a number that is bound to increase significantly as Facebook Credits continue to pick up steam), it's going to be increasingly important that businesses have all the control possible for their applications, so these changes would appear to be much needed.

Source: http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2011/01/28/facebook-gives-businesses-more-security-for-their-apps

About the author:
Chris Crum has been a part of the WebProNews team and the iEntry Network of B2B Publications since 2003. Follow WebProNews on Facebook or Twitter. Twitter: @CCrum237

Now You Can Monetize Your Facebook Fans By Promoting Their Likes

Facebook has a new ad product that may be its most promising ad unit yet - the sponsored story. These ads are simply brand-related stories that users have already shared, but then paid for by the brand mentioned to appear in the ad space, as to attract more attention and engagement. 

Will you be promoting your fans' engagement with your brand? Let us know.

For example, if one of our Facebook fans likes an article that we posted or likes our Facebook page in general, we could pay Facebook to promote that, and that story from that fan would appear in the column to people who would have already seen it in the first place. 

"So, my friend Joe goes, and he checks into Starbucks," explains Phil, a Facebook engineer. "That will appear on my news feed, and I may or may not see it, and what we've seen is that a lot of impressions do get lost because there's so much content coming through. Starbucks can come in and say, 'I want to promote check-ins to our locations', so when I come to the site, I see a story that my friend checked into Starbucks. Now, I can click through. I can like the Starbucks page from that story, and when I like that page, it creates more organic content."
"When we make decisions about the products we want to buy or places we want to go, we're basically looking for cues from our friends about what those things should be, and all us aren't out there trying to market ourselves or try to influence people to go somewhere or do something, but the reality is when we make a decision, we're looking for information, and we want that information to come from people we trust," says product manager Kent.

If you're worried about how Facebook is using your content, the company says it will never show it to somebody who's not your friend. The only people who will see it are the people who would've seen it in the first place via the newsfeed.
According to AdAge, there is no opting out of the feature (that could change if enough people complain about it). The publication also says, "The way that the product is today, a check-in post will show up in the ad feed exactly as the user wrote it. So if a user checks into Starbucks with a 'I hate this place, but it's the only coffee around' then that's exactly what the 'ad' turns out to  be." Advertisers can limit their sponsored stories to likes though, if they want.
According to recent estimates, Facebook took in about $1.86 billion in ad revenue in 2010. I expect that will increase significantly this year. 

These ads could prove to be extremely effective, as they're not really ads at all. They're real stories from friends - at least that's how they start out. Like Phil says, "It's your friend saying, 'Look, I did this, and I want to tell you about it.'" 

Ning, a Facebook engineer, says that in the pilot cases, sponsored stories increased brand lift and the likeliness to recommend the product to another friend. 

Source: http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2011/01/25/now-you-can-monetize-your-facebook-fans-by-promoting-their-likes

About the author:
Chris Crum has been a part of the WebProNews team and the iEntry Network of B2B Publications since 2003. Follow WebProNews on Facebook or Twitter. Twitter: @CCrum237

If nothing else, it's a clear cut way to monetize Facebook fans. More in this video from Facebook.

Add Sponsored Stories to Facebook's already powerful ad platform, targeting users based on their profile information, and Facebook is becoming a more and more attractive place to spend online advertising dollars. I still haven't ruled out the possibility that they'll eventually launch an AdSense-like network that will send targeted Facebook ads out across the web, but they've still given no indication that they're going that direction. It still seems like an obvious choice though.

Establishing A Sustainable Social Media Marketing Strategy

For companies trying to make sense of social media and online marketing, it’s important to take a step back from all the “TwitFaceBlogTubeIn” mania for a second and look at the nature of how these things are going to work for the overall business.
There are many questions that need answers:  ”Should we develop a strategy first before engaging?”,  ”Should we experiment and develop a strategy as we go?”, “Will it ever be OK to ask customers if they want to buy directly within social channels or will we always have to tiptoe around the subject?”
Here are a few considerations to help answer those questions and establish the framework for a sustainable and successful social media marketing program.
Social Media Strategy: “An ounce of prevention is worth a pond of cure”.  Having some idea of what measurable goals and business outcomes you’re after is essential for planning resources and forecasting outcomes. This is true with any kind of marketing and is certainly the case with social media.
I polled a number of industry smarties on social media strategy vs. tactics and while there was some distance between the approach Guy Kawasaki preferred and that of people like Chris Brogan, the consensus was that developing an approach is essential for planning, implementation, accountability and measurement of success.
The formation of a social media strategy is a ripe opportunity for creativity and certainly shouldn’t get in the way of getting started. Gaining consensus about social strategy within a corporation could easily create a bottleneck.  A strategy that calls for experimentation with iterative improvement in the context of overall goals, approach, tactics, audience and an effort to measure success is more likely to be implemented and gain support.
Social Media Marketing Tactics: The best mix of tactics needs to tie into the plan for reaching business goals.  Whether it’s “Better engage with our customers” to “Filling the top of the sales funnel”, an understanding of audience preferences and behaviors will lead to the right tactical mix.
A lot of companies take the path of least resistance and go for what I like to call, “The Social 5-Pack” of: Facebook, Twitter, Blogging, YouTube and LinkedIn without thinking through tactics. For example, one common question often I hear is, “Is a LinkedIn group a better use of time and resources or a Facebook Fan Page?”
What the marketer might want to ask is, “Where do social networking vs. blogging vs. microcontent vs. media sharing fit in the context of our social media goals?”  Then do the research and implement a listening program to discover which social networks, media sharing sites or blogging communities the target audience is present and participating in. That homework will answer the question about Facebook vs. LinkedIn and any other social communities where customers spend time.
Social Media Process: “Companies who start with implementation are at risk”, is a great quote from Jeremiah Owyang in his recent post, “A Pragmatic Approach to Social Business“. There he lists a checklist of 8 steps that form a process for approaching social media.  Jumping into tactics can send a company in a very unproductive direction. Working through a strategy, tactics and developing processes leads to efficiencies, scalability and social engagement that is true to the business goals.
We’ve published a social media checklist that can serve as a prompt for companies to gather the information necessary to make smarter decisions about how their organizations can incorporate social media in their marketing and communications mix.
Process with social media marketing is important for a variety of reasons ranging from quality assurance to accountability. How can an organization scale its social media efforts without some kind of processes in place? Redundant processes can often be automated by software. Processes also outlive internal social media subject matter experts who move on to other opportunities.
From a personal process perspective, take a look at Tac Anderson’s daily routine as a social media strategist, which he calls a “workout”.  In addition to planned activities and tactics, there’s room for putting out fires or handing spontaneous situations. In the end, a routine or process helps keep social media marketing tactics on track over time.
Social Commerce: Social Media that Leads to Sales: Question - What’s the ROI of Social Media?  Answer – What’s the ROI of having a phone system in your office?  That phone systems facilitates communications for a wide variety of reasons that are important to the functioning of the business from product/service inquiries to hiring new employees to customer service.
Social media in a business sense, is technology that facilitates communications, sharing and connecting brands with customers.  For the most part, people buy from those they like and social media helps build, maintain and improve those relationships.
So how does social media influence or result in sales?  A helpful post on BarnRaisers summarizes several studies that show exactly that. Click on the link to see the post (How Social Media Drives Sales Relationships).  I’ll also summarize them here:
Facebook - “The top reasons people press the “Like” button on Facebook is to have a sales relationship with a brand - either to receive promotions & coupons (40%), get updates on upcoming sales (30%) and show their support for companies (39%).” – ExactTarget 2010.
Twitter - “For over 40% of the time people are on Twitter, we spend it learning about products and services, listening to what others have to say and giving opinions.  That explains why over 20% of the time we’re on Twitter, we’re ready and willing to buy directly off Twitter.” – Edison Research 2010.
Social Networks – “For every hour we spend on online, we spend the most amount of time on social networks, almost 15 minutes of every hour. Roughly half of the time (approx 6+ mins), we are seeking out products and services and looking to have a sales relationship with brands.” Nielsen 2010.
As more brands include commercial offers in the social experience they provide for customers, those customers will become increasingly comfortable with the notion of social commerce. At the same time, more social features are being added to ecommerce websites. In the way that blogs and Twitter accounts are expected features of brand websites, so will social commerce functionality.
Building a flexible strategy that considers business goals and the people to engage will help marketers identify the best mix of tactics for their social media marketing program. Developing processes from a corporate and an individual standpoint will help sustain, not stifle, social engagement activities in the long run.  Start by building community and relationships.  Listen, respond and create value. Monitor and analyze for opportunities to implement social commerce features, but don’t rush it.
How have you incorporated social media into your business processes? What are you doing to create more sustainable social participation within your organization?


Source: http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2011/01/26/lee-odden-social-media-marketing-strategy-to-commerce

About the author:Lee Odden is CEO of TopRank Online Marketing, a digital marketing and public relations firm in Minnesota that specializes in search, social and online PR consulting and training for companies worldwide.

New Twitter Feature Shows Mutual Connections for Users

Twitter has launched a new feature accessible at Twitter.com that shows connections you may have with other Twitter users. 

If you go to someone's Twitter profile, it will display a section in the right-hand pane (of the new Twitter design), just under the account info (tweets, following, followers, listed) that says "Connections", and displays people that are following that person and people that both you and that person mutually follow.
It's a simple and subtle feature, but one that could help build relationships on Twitter. As others have pointed out, its' similar to what Facebook does when it displays mutual friends. 

The feature could actually help people use Twitter in a more social manner, as opposed to (or at least in addition to) as a news reader.

Hat tip to Carolyn Penner with Twitter Communications for pointing the feature out (as there has not been an official announcement).

Source: http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2011/01/26/new-twitter-feature-shows-mutual-connections-for-users

About the author:
Chris Crum has been a part of the WebProNews team and the iEntry Network of B2B Publications since 2003.

Republicans And Democrats “Like” Twitter And Facebook

Nearly a quarter of Americans used Twitter or social networking sites such as Facebook or MySpace in the months leading up to the November, 2010 elections to connect to the campaign or election, according to a new report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

In contrast to the 2008 race—in which Democratic voters led the way in their use of online social networks for political purposes—Republican voters and supporters of the “Tea Party” movement caught up with Democrats in their use of social media in 2010.


*The “political social media user” group represented by these 22% of internet users voted for Republican congressional candidates over Democratic candidates by a 45%-41% margin.

*Among social networking site users, 40% of Republican voters and 38% of Democratic voters used these sites to get involved politically.

*Tea Party supporters were especially likely to friend a candidate or political group on a social networking site during the 2010 election—22% of such users did this, significantly higher than all other groups.

“The social networking population as a whole has grown larger and demographically more diverse in recent years, and the same is true when it comes to political activity on social networking sites.” said Aaron Smith, a Senior Researcher Specialist at the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project and author of the report.

“These platforms are now utilized by politically active individuals of all ages and ideologies to get news, connect with others, and offer their thoughts on the issues that are important to them.”

The main reason Americans follow political groups on social networking sites or Twitter is that it helps them feel more personally connected to the candidates or groups they follow-36 percent say this “major” reason they follow these groups or candidates, and an additional 35% say it is a “minor” reason.

Two-thirds (67%) of those who follow politicians or other political groups on social networking sites or Twitter say that the information posted by those they follow is interesting and relevant, and a similar number say that they pay attention to most (26%) or some (40%) of the material posted by the politicians or groups they follow.

Source: http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2011/01/27/republicans-and-democrats-%E2%80%9Clike%E2%80%9D-twitter-and-facebook

About the author:
Mike is a staff writer for WebProNews.

Facebook Shuts Down Facebook Phone Rumors...Again

Every now and then, rumors will start about a mythical Facebook phone. Eventually, Facebook will shoot them down, as is the case this week. 

The rumor, this time, was that HTC was going to launch a Facebook branded phone at Mobile World Congress next month. Details of the phone were made available as well, and rumors began to spiral into "Facebook's going to compete with Apple and Android" territory. 

Not so much. From Reuters:

"This is really just another example of a manufacturer who has taken our public APIs (application programming interfaces) and integrated them into their device in an interesting way," said Dan Rose, head of business development at Facebook...

"The rumors around there being something more to this HTC device are overblown," Rose told journalists at a company event in London. Asked whether the device would be Facebook-branded, he answered: "No."

You may recall when such rumors went around last year. Facebook gave WebProNews the following statement in the comments of an article we did about it:

“The story, which originated in Techcrunch, is not accurate. Facebook is not building a phone. Our approach has always been to make phones and apps more social. Current projects include  everything from an HTML5 version of the site to apps on major platforms to full Connect support with SDKs to deeper integrations with some manufacturers. Our view is that almost all experiences would be better if they were social, so integrating deeply into existing platforms and operating systems is a good way to enable this. For an example, check out Connect for iPhone and the integration we have with contact syncing through our iPhone app. Another example is the INQ1 phone with Facebook integration (the first so-called “Facebook Phone”). The people mentioned in the story are working on these projects. The bottom line is that whenever we work on a deep integration, people want to call it a "Facebook Phone" because that's such an attractive soundbite, but building phones is just not what we do.”

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg himself then did an interview with TechCrunch to set the record straight, in which he detailed the company's mobile strategy. Essentially, Facebook wants to be everywhere - on all phones. Given the new app for feature phones, just announced last week, they've got to be pretty close.

Source: http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2011/01/27/facebook-shuts-down-facebook-phone-rumorsagain

About the author:
Chris Crum has been a part of the WebProNews team and the iEntry Network of B2B Publications since 2003.

Facebook Will Never Let You See Who's Viewed Your Profile

If you use Facebook, there's a good chance you've encountered some app or some friend claiming they've found a way for you to see who has been viewing your profile. Chances are, it was a scam. 

In fact, a few months ago, there were reports circulating about such scams. One in particular, security firm Sophos said attracted 60,000 clicks in just a few hours. Such scams still pop up from time to time. Your best bet is to ignore them, no matter how curious you are. 

Facebook has acknowledged in the past that there is no way to view this information, but a post on Quora makes it pretty clear that there never will be a way either. 

When someone asked the question: "Will Facebook ever offer a feature like LinkedIn's, where you can see who has viewed your profile, Facebook Director of Engineering Andrew 'Boz' Bosworth simply says:

"No."
 From the sound of it, you probably have a better chance of seeing a Facebook-branded phone. 

My advice to you is to only let people you want to see your profile be your friend on Facebook.

source: http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2011/01/27/facebook-will-never-let-you-see-whos-viewed-your-profile

By Chris Crum

How will you generate traffic on your site by SMO (Social Media Optimization)?

SMO, abbreviated for Social Media Optimization, an integral part of search engine marketing or search engine optimization is very helpful in pushing your message out into different social media sites and portals to make users aware about your products and services. No doubt, there are innumerable users who really rely on different social media optimization sites and also express their views and experiences. In this highly competitive era social media optimization or SMO is really very helpful in persuading a huge amount of users to your website.
Social media optimization is not just limited to post a few comments or company profile in different social networking sites, but it has expanded to the level beyond your expectations. According to social media optimization or SMO experts, this innovative way of web promotion

:

• Works as a mediator between your product and targeted audiences through different social networking websites and portals
• Gives a platform of conversation in the world of internet about your brand or products
• Provides a much improved as well as more comprehensive brand visibility

Showing your visibility to different sites like facebook, MySpace, Orkut, Twitter, and also YouTube through various mediums like:

• Blog posting and commenting
• Facebook account and commenting
• Uploading product videos in YouTube
• Submitting forums and articles

Increasing your linkability, making tagging as well as bookmarking simple and easy, rewarding inbound links, helping your content or comments travel and above all encouraging the mashups, are some of the other benefits of perfect social medial optimization or SMO that is now essential for effective search engine marketing.
It goes without saying that for small business, SMO or social media optimization is essential in a number of ways for its effective and durable online presence with firm Google search engine ranking. No doubt, after getting the benefits of these services, you will understand the real value of perfect and cost-effective social media optimization or SMO. No doubt, it really helps in leveling up the link ability for optimizing the website. Apart from this, through social media optimization you can promote your services, products and website name more instantly without wasting so much time.

Source:  http://www.articlesbase.com/smo-articles/how-will-you-generate-traffic-on-your-site-by-smo-social-media-optimization-4058012.html

ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 schedule and Cricket World Cup 2011 fixtures:

ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 schedule and Cricket World Cup 2011 fixtures: ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 schedule and Cricket World Cup 2011 fixtures are given below on our website.

Match	Date	Teams	Venue
1	19 Feb	India vs Bangladesh	Dhaka
2	20 Feb	New Zealand vs Kenya	Chennai
3	20 Feb	Sri Lanka vs Canada	Hambantota
4	21 Feb	Australia vs Zimbabwe	Ahmedabad
5	22 Feb	England vs Netherlands	Nagpur
6	23 Feb	Pakistan vs Kenya	Hambantota
7	24 Feb	South Africa vs West Indies	New Delhi
8	25 Feb	Australia vs New Zealand	Nagpur
9	25 Feb	Bangladesh vs Ireland	Dhaka
10	26 Feb	Sri Lanka vs Pakistan	Colombo
11	27 Feb	India vs England	Kolkata
12	28 Feb	West Indies vs Netherlands	New Delhi
13	28 Feb	Zimbabwe vs Canada	Nagpur
14	1 Mar	Sri Lanka vs Kenya	Colombo
15	2 Mar	England vs Ireland	Bangalore
16	3 Mar	South Africa vs Netherlands	Mohali
17	3 Mar	Pakistan vs Canada	Colombo
18	4 Mar	New Zealand vs Zimbabwe	Ahmedabad
19	4 Mar	Bangladesh vs West Indies	Dhaka
20	5 Mar	Sri Lanka vs Australia	Colombo
21	6 Mar	India vs Ireland	Bangalore
22	6 Mar	England vs South Africa	Chennai
23	7 Mar	Kenya vs Canada	New Delhi
24	8 Mar	Pakistan vs New Zealand	Pallekelle
25	9 Mar	India vs Netherlands	New Delhi
26	10 Mar	Sri Lanka vs Zimbabwe	Pallekelle
27	11 Mar	West Indies vs Ireland	Mohali
28	11 Mar	Bangladesh vs England	Chittagong
29	12 Mar	India vs South Africa	Nagpur
30	13 Mar	New Zealand vs Canada	Mumbai
31	13 Mar	Australia vs Kenya	Bangalore
32	14 Mar	Pakistan vs Zimbabwe	Pallekelle
33	14 Mar	Bangladesh vs Netherlands	Chittagong
34	15 Mar	South Africa vs Ireland	Kolkata
35	16 Mar	Australia vs Canada	Bangalore
36	17 Mar	England vs West Indies	Chennai
37	18 Mar	Sri Lanka vs New Zealand	Mumbai
38	18 Mar	Ireland vs Netherlands	Kolkata
39	19 Mar	Australia vs Pakistan	Colombo
40	19 Mar	Bangladesh vs South Africa	Dhaka
41	20 Mar	Zimbabwe vs Kenya	Kolkata
42	20 Mar	India vs West Indies	Chennai
43	23 Mar	First Quarterfinal	Dhaka
44	24 Mar	Second Quarterfinal	Colombo
45	25 Mar	Third Quarterfinal	Dhaka
46	26 Mar	Fourth Quarterfinal	Ahmedabad
47	29 Mar	First Semifinal	Colombo
48	30 Mar	Second Semifinal	Mohali
49	02 Apr	FINAL	Mumbai

Once you bookmark this page you can view ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 schedule and Cricket World Cup 2011 fixtures anytime you like.
Cricket World Cup 2011 venue: With India as the main host of ICC Cricket World Cup 2011, Cricket World Cup 2011 venue includes stadiums of cities like Dhaka, Mumbai, Kolkata, Mohali, Colombo, Chennai, Nagpur, Ahmedabad, chittagong and Bangalore. Cricket World Cup 2011 venue also includes new venues like Pallekelle and Hambantota – both being in Sri Lanka.
Cricket World Cup 2011 teams: Cricket World Cup 2011 teams include 4 times winner Australia, 2 times winners West Indies, South Africa, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe, New Zealand, Netherlands, Canada, Ireland, England and Kenya. Groups in which Cricket World Cup 2011 teams are divided:
Group A – Australia, Pakistan, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe, Canada and Kenya.
Group B – India, South Africa, England, Bangladesh, West Indies, Netherlands and Ireland.