Social Media Rules

   In high school, I really wanted to be cool. I swerved from Hawaiian shirts with Jams, ala Fast Times at Ridgemont High, to preppy with boat shoes, argyle sweaters and feathered hair. Swerving from trend-to-trend in an effort to be “cool” didn’t work for me in high school (ask just about anybody in the Shawnee Heights class of ’85!), and it doesn’t work any better for many companies trying desperately to build a cool and culturally relevant brand via social media such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

   Don’t get me wrong – having a Facebook “Page” can be a very effective communication tool if a substantial number of your customers spend time there. Probably for most mobile app developers, a huge chunk of your customers are on those sites every day. Even more importantly, though, is that you’re willing to put the time, creativity and energy into feeding your Page with enough useful information that will cause customers to make use of it and, better, to share it with their friends.

   But, even if they do, will your Facebook Page inspire your customers to click on your links and download your apps? Will the friends they shared your Page with become avid customers of yours? Only if sprinkled liberally with pixy dust!

   Most people hear “social media” and think they must do it because it’s the “cool thing to do.” If you think creating a Facebook Page or Twitter account and blasting out ditties about the latest specials you are offering on your apps is going to bring you fame and fortune and earn you a Featured spot in the iTunes App Store, you’re missing the point.

   The key word in “social media” is “social!” Your Facebook page is an extension of your relationship you have with John and Jane Q. Customer. It provides you a chance to listen as well as talk back.

   One of my clients is the brains behind GoodReader, the phenomenal document viewer for iPhones and iPads. I help them manage their Facebook page by keeping the app’s fans abreast of new features coming out and responding to their “wish lists” of new features that they post to our Wall. It’s amazing how many times we see posts that begin, “GoodReader is amazing! If only it…” and what follows “it” is always something different.

   GoodReader’s Facebook page gives us the opportunity to fine-tune our brand message, adapt the app based on feedback from its biggest fans, and sometimes tell them why certain wishes can’t and won’t come true (like why there will likely never be a GoodReader for Android).

   Getting to know your customer and responding to them is an essential aspect of your social media strategy. My friend and web marketing consultant, Mark Murnahan (check out his blog at www.awebguy.com), says that “customer modeling” is invaluable to being successful with a social media strategy.

   “Customer modeling involves creativity, analytic thinking, and data,” Mark says. “If you do not have the data to tell you who, what, where, when, how, and why people will respond to your marketing, you need to create it. Without knowing how to reach the right people with the right information, you may as well skip all the rest, because your time and money will largely be wasted. Worse yet, it can damage your brand value.”

   Take the time to find out who among your customers are on social media, what they would want from you, and how they would respond to it. Then, and only then, are you ready to put on your pink IZOD, flip up your collar, don your Ray-Ban shades, and be the cool kid with a Facebook page.

How to Pitch via Twitter

I've been at this PR pitching business for 12 years now and I'm still working on getting my pitch down as tiny as possible. The best pitch is one that captures their imagination in as few words as possible.

If you want to pitch to someone via Twitter, you don't have much choice! You only get 140 characters to make your best impression. I've been told by some that you shouldn't pitch via Twitter and that most journalists don't like it. I think for those that don't use Twitter a lot, that's probably true -- but some are die-hard Twitter users and I think most of them are open to being pitched via Twitter. In fact, they're probably quite comfortable with it by now.

To tweet or not to tweet, that is the question! But if you do "Twitpitch," here are some general guidelines:

1. Be sure yourTwitter profile is complete. If they get pitched by you, they'll likely want to know more about you before they give your pitch any credence. Also, be sure to include your URL in your profile.
2. Speaking of which, include a URL in your tweet. You'll want to be sure to use your pitch to drive traffic to a web site or blog post that provides much greater detail on your company, product or story idea than you could include in your 140 character Twitpitch. You'll also want your URL to take up as few characters as possible, so be sure to run it through a shortener like http://bit.ly.
3. Just like with email pitching, don't be an annoying spammer. Don't pitch the same ideas or stories multiple times, and don't send pitches about irrelevant topics to what the writer/blogger normally covers.
4. Engage in conversation. Twitter provides a great way to dialogue with someone -- but don't make it a one-way conversation. Don't use Twitter to simply broadcast your messages, but look for ways to engage those who follow you on Twitter as well.

Counting ticks on Twitter

I've said it before, but I'm not much into Twitter. It's a huge deal and shouldn't be ignored as part of a marketing communications strategy, but I've always wondered how much impact a tweet I make might have.

Let's say I have 1,000 followers. If I tweet something, not all of those thousand people will see it. It will likely scroll off their main Twitter page before they see it and how many dig deeper than the first page -- especially if they follow a large number of people? Of those who see it, a chunk of them won't care about it, and of those who may care about it, not many will probably click on a link to explore further.

In an article I saw on Ragan, Katie Paine said "how many of your followers really respond to anything you put out there? I figure it's only 10 or 20 out of the 330,000 people I allegedly 'reach' according to most influence analyzers."

To be effective, you not only need to increase your followers to increase your odds, but you also have to build a base of "quality" followers to target with your tweets. Be sure you are including your Twitter address on your website, forum posts and anywhere else where people who are most interested in what you have to say are hanging out.

Does Twitter Make Your Business "Cool"?

Scobleizer posted a piece on the tale of two motorbike racers. One is atop the rankings, but the other has a better brand and embraces the idea of engaging people via Twitter. He even puts his Twitter page on his cycle. So who gets the fan love? Not the top ranked racer.

So Scoble poses the question: does adding Twitter to a brand make it cooler?


He thinks it does:


1. It sends a signal to the world that you want to hear from your customers.
2. It sends a signal to the world that you’ll use the latest technology to communicate with them. Many of whom are no longer using email.
3. It lets you feature your customers. The pictures on Lorenzo's bike are his fans on Twitter. Win-win.
4. It gives your team a way to communicate in one stream all the photos and stuff.
5. It lets you bridge audiences around the world. Look at how he mixes Spanish and English together on Tweets.

Finding the Right Blog

In my PR biz of publicizing mobile software developers, I discovered early on the high value of finding and developing relationships with bloggers who have a high-level interest in mobile tech. They're not journalists in the traditional sense, but the good ones have a niche following of people who would be a good audience for my clients.

Sometimes, the most popular blogs are really difficult to crack. They hear from PR people all the time -- and what makes me different than all those others? I need to do more than keep sending product news to them. I have to be a resource for them. I need to follow what they're interested in writing about, and engage them in dialogue about it even if it has absolutely nothing to do with any of my clients. If they response and find me a "wise ol' owl" who is fun and useful to talk to, I may have made a new friend in the blogger business and can become a trusted source.

How do you find good blogs? Start by searching your topic keyword(s) at Google Blog Search and Technorati. You may also want to add BlogPulse to that list for fun. Build a list of blogs, then look at each one to see if they have their own favorite blogs listed out for you!

Microblogs, such as Twitter, can be researched at TweetScan and Topsy. BlackBerry users can have Twitter hits on their keywords sent to their mobiles using an app called Twitterlerts.

If you want to follow what's being said about your company or brand in the social media sphere, try searching at SocialMention which will also pick up news from Twitter and blogs.

Shortening Long Links for Twitter Posts

You want to tweet a link to a great article about Apple's new iOS 4, or a great app that you like, but out of 140 characters, the link itself takes up 100 of them. What do you do?

Let's say your tweetable link is http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/198758/goodreader_for_ipad_adds_vga_output_performance_boost.html.

Go to http://bit.ly/ and enter that URL in the URL Shortener, then click on "Shorten." The URL is shortened to http://bit.ly/dbhD2z.

Then when you hover over that shortened URL, it gives you the option to copy it to your clipboard, which you can then paste into your Twitter post.

10 Dos and Don’ts for Brands on Twitter

From Mashable:

Interesting tips for using Twitter to support, promote and defend your brand. Click to the post for the details on each, but here are the 10 headers...

1. Don't be a showoff
2. Use proper grammar and spelling
3. Don't get too personal
4. Don't auto-Tweet
5. Don't leave air in the conversation
6. Don't overtweet
7. Do shout out to those who tweet about you
8. Do monitor keywords and competitors
9. Do make an informative profile
10. Do fish where the fish are

To me, the most interesting AND most painful as a PR guy is #1: "Give Twitter users your features and benefits. Let them know about special deals. Don’t post links to your latest press release, promote articles written by your CEO or make extravagant claims. A good rule of thumb to determine whether a tweet is user-friendly or brand vanity is to ask yourself, “If I didn’t work here, would I care about this?” If you’re not sure, ask a brutally honest friend who doesn’t work at your company."

When I have a good press release, I want to at least link to it. There are journalists and bloggers that follow me. So what do we do? From #3: "Keep your conversations warm but professional; it’s what users expect from a brand ambassador, and anything else comes off as creepy."

Twitter is a place for conversations, not broadcasting. And if you're going to converse, who wants to converse with someone jargonizing in PR-speak? When I tweet announcements, I keep them casual and fun. I also like to use it for breaking or leaking the news. Twitter followers like getting exclusives! Who doesn't?

Increasing Twitter Followers

When it comes to social media, everything has its place:

Facebook is MOSTLY for my personal friends, acquaintances, and a bunch of people that I know somewhat. In retrospect, I wish I would have limited it only to people that I really know, instead of the 450+ people that I'm sure I've met at some point.

LinkedIn is where I prefer to network professionally, and I have this blog connected to it so that anyone following me on LinkedIn can easily see my thoughts on any given day. I've joined a number of business groups on LinkedIn and have made some good connections there.

Twitter is the odd one I was never sure what to do with. I'm not one of those who wants to tweet when I go to the bathroom or have a bologna sandwich, or how cool so-and-so was on such-and-such awards show last night. I pretty much use it to tweet about successful media placements for my PR clients so that more people can discover how awesome they are, and of course that will hopefully make me look like a good PR guy that others will want to use. In order for that approach to be a success, I need followers!

To increase the number of followers, I've been finding people who tweet about topics I tweet about -- mobile technology -- and begin following them. I often get followed back, and people discover me on those Twitter pages and begin following me because they too like learning about mobile apps.

I have heard that around 30% of the people you follow will follow you back.

I just downloaded something new to help me greatly expand my number of followers. It's called Twitter Adder, and it is supposed to help me manage Twitter followers, auto follow, and auto unfollow. I'll let you know how it goes!