We like social media. We love eMarketing.
You’ve heard us bang on and on about eMarketing outperforming social media. In our experience it’s true. We know we get more value for our clients from an email subscriber than a Twitter follower or Facebook friend. That said, there is at least one use for social media – building up your email database. Listen to Amy Porterfield of the Social Media Marketing Podcast.
According to Evergreen Search there are 9 specific characteristics behind great tweets. It’s a perfectly OK list but it neglects some proven, measured ways to gain more retweets (the proof that you are tweeting well).
1. Images. Attach interesting images whenever you can. Pictures still tell 1000 words.
2. Links. Tweets containing links are retweeted far more often than tweets containing no link. It makes sense – how interesting can one be in 140 characters? People who never tweet any links must be just talking about themselves, shooting the breeze or – mercy – sending inspirational quotes.
3. Opinion – strong, consistent, confronting – works.
Lots more advice about Twitter and tweeting on our site.
Some simple ways to take advantage of Twitter’s new display options care of Social Media Examiner.
Take the weekends off.
You tweet hard for the money, no doubt hoping that your followers will recognise your genius and retweet you. Well genuises, you can take weekends off as it seems that retweeters have better things to do on Saturday and Sunday. At least this is what this chart from HubSpot reveals.
Ask and thou shall retweet.
Humans are strange but utterly malleable. As this HubSpot graph to the left shows, ask followers to retweet your content and they will. Even the wording of how you ask effects the influence you wield. Who knew? You do. Exploit it.
Due to public demand (yes, really) we are holding another Social Media Savvy 101 webinar Friday August 17. All the details right here. This will be the only Social Media Savvy 101 webinar until at least 2013.
If you are tweeting it’s natural that you want your content to be retweeted. (For newbies, “retweeting” is when a recipient of your message, forwards it to her followers.)
Having your content exposed to more people is a key way to build your following. It’s a particularly honest way to build your following as only strangers who are impressed by your content will choose to follow you. Very meritocratic.
People love links.
So what content is most likely to be retweeted? Take a gander to the left at this graph from Hubspot.com which shows that tweeters who usually contain links in their tweets are the most retweeted.
This tallies with what we know about successful content – don’t talk about yourself, share something of value. Sometimes that value may be found courtesy of a link to your site but often it will be a link to a news site, a blog, a picture.
Note that neither inspirational quotes nor bitchy 140-character diatribes about conservative politicians fall into this category. Nor do “Good morning / good evening” tweets.
There are various ways to measure one’s worth as a Twitterer – the number of followers you have, the difference between the number of followers you have and the number that you follow and of course how often your tweets are retweeted. Hell – you may even analyse the value of the contents you disseminate.
Just 191,738 places to go...
One free, immediate way to measure and track your worth is at Retweet Rank which measures your retweets and ranks you accordingly. We mention this not because Retweet Rank ranks Hootville in the top 6% of tweeters globally but because…you know…we care about you. Deeply.
Truly an overnight sensation.
Oh – you have? But we haven’t mentioned it. Who told you? Oh.
Well in any case this article from the New York Times details how the virus spread.
We’re Facebook cynics. Longer term Citizens know that we feel Facebook’s EdgeRank system is an immovable object separating you from you fans / friends. (In fact we wrote five posts about Facebook last year, each one a gem.) Hootville gets it greatest response from email, then Twitter. Facebook is cooler than shouting out the window and about equally as effective. Social media is a funny bugger to deal with.
Of course, if you are a global force use Facebook and its new look design. For the rest of us...
Anyhoo Facebook is rolling out changes for its Pages format which is popular with many nonprofits and their corporate cousins. Have an ogle at these early adopting Facebook-lovin’ nonprofits.
It’s easy to argue that the new look is more appealing visually. It’s a lot more like a Welcome Tab (a special landing tab for your Facebook visitors as opposed to immediately seeing your Wall) which we’ve been recommending as the best way to improve your Facebook Page performance.
Our tough love advice? Tweet and invest in a website that is updated very regularly and encourages comments and interaction. Use email and Twitter to drive traffic to it. have you checked which channels drive traffic to your site? We have but we still use Facebook anyway. For now.
Do you get value from Facebook? Comments welcome.
Say it like you mean it, Husky.
Why do some videos go viral and others fail? Dr Brent Coker thinks he knows and he has (what else?) an algorithm to prove it. We personally recommend cute kittens.
