Tuesday Tweets
Reviews of Tweets from My Twitter Timeline
Welcome to Tuesday Tweets for August 16, 2011 — where we take a look at tweets from my Twitter timeline for do’s, don’ts, best practices – and sometimes just for fun. Keep in mind that what we examine here is in no way personal. We’re all learning about building audiences online. In that spirit, if you disagree with my assessments, let me have it! I’m learning, too!
@TechCrunch TechCrunch DIY Device Mutes Your TV When Someone You Don’t Like Is Mentioned http://t.co/TkphmcD by @johnbiggs
If you want to stay on top of what’s going on in technology, following TechCrunch is a must. This tweet is the big one from TechCrunch, though; the one I’ve been waiting for. Finally someone’s invented a way that I the tube will mute itself when I’m lunching in front of the screen and a pharma ad comes on, complete with a long list of nauseating potential side effects. I’m already compiling my list of keywords to trigger the blessed silence.
@ItsCoachNick N Jones Budget Friendly Fashion Blogs http://t.co/0TFSZp6
This chick-friendly tweet from Nick Jones got me seeing visions of shopping bags dancing in my head. When I clicked the link it got me to a page with the right headline and a video that said, “The video is no longer available because the YouTube account associated with this video has been terminated.” How disappointing. L But then I saw a link that said, “read the rest of the story…” so I clicked. It did get me to a blog post with links to a few bargain fashion sites, but it seemed as though – even though the post date was today — the content was recycled on this news aggregator site as the post referenced Spring clothing in the stores andHollywoodawards show glam season. It was a bit confusing. Nice idea, but it’s a good reminder to check out what’s at the end of links before we tweet them.
@dragonblogger Justin Germino Challenge me in the Random Twitter Poetry game. Send me 1 word to use in today’s poem.
A few weeks ago in Tuesday Tweets I referenced @dragonblogger’s interesting idea of twitter-sourcing a poem – and stated at the time that it was unique and looked like it would be fun to play. Well yesterday I did. I sent the word ‘vision’. Here are the subsequent tweets and the results.
dragonblogger Justin Germino @elliebpr thanks for playing today’s poetry game.
dragonblogger Justin Germino Twitter poem finished today >> http://t.co/qjggJBq read and share @elliebpr @rajanbalana @opinionatedant
The Climb is a poem about climbing the corporate ladder but doing so any way possible even at the expense of integrity or honor. This poem was inspired by the 10 random submissions (in bold) provided by the following Twitter players:
@ptaylor98 (enthusiastic), @eileencan (peck), @techwork_dk (Monday), @laraca44 (softly), @sweetnote (fiducia), @alanhbush (cacophony), @elliebpr (vision), @rajanbalana (crystal), @opinionatedant (quest), @wordzeal (salacious)
Word Definitions:
Fiducia means trust, faith
The Climb
Monday‘s crystal vision
salacious quest of life
you softly peck your way
silently over the cacophony
Enthusiastic measures pay off
corporate ladder with sawed rungs
caring not for loss of fiducia
as long as you reach the top
Poem by Justin Germino
@elliebpr recommends you follow @dragonblogger who does this out of his passion for poetry. I was pleased to join the others to contribute to his creative ‘vision.’ No corporate ladders at all cost for me!!
Come on and send me some of your favorite tweets!!
The recently adopted Tuesday Tweets graphic is from Freshalex Online under Creative Commons license.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 2 so far )Have Fun with Content: No Telling Where It Will Go
Creating Great Content Opens Endless Possibilities
I’ve written before about the sense of possibility I feel every time I tweet a link or hit ‘publish’ on my blog. Get that content out on the Internet and no telling where it will go, who will read it, who will connect with us as a result.
The reason I’m writing about this again is to drum up deserved enthusiasm for the content creation that’s a required element of today’s marketing. We tend to do what’s pleasurable and I want to convince you that creating content and getting it out into the world can provide you with surprising results that feel very good.
Why am I sitting here writing this post before having dinner? It’s because I’ll feel so good tomorrow when it drives new eyeballs to my blog, website, Twitter timeline, LinkedIn profile, and when it leads new and old friends to interact with me online.
Here’s what motivated me to write this. I don’t always check my @mentions on Twitter, but I did today. This shows me who has mentioned me on Twitter. I found that three times last week, a blog post I’d written was incorporated in followers’ paper.li.
What’s that? If you’re unfamiliar, paper.li is a Twitter curation software. Register on paper.li and in a minute or two you can create a newspaper format piece of content that pulls from the links tweeted each day by the people you follow on Twitter. You can focus your paper’s content by indicating a topic, hashtag or Twitter list as the source of your paper’s content. The content is culled from your Twitter timeline via an algorithm + content you refer specifically – a recent improvement.
Paper.li papers can be shared with anyone. And the creator’s followers can subscribe to them. It all adds up to expanded reach for your content. All you have to do is publicize it on Twitter. Use hashtags to help assure your content will come up for paper.li keywords.
All you have to do to take advantage of this extended distribution is to create interesting and useful content. Let me tell you that I got a kick out of discovering that my content was useful enough to be featured beyond my blog. All of this happened without anything but my initial effort to produce the content and publicize it on Twitter.
Paper.li is only one of many ways that your content can proliferate around the Internet. Make it as good as you can and open the door to opportunity.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 3 so far )College of Online Marketing: A Never-ending Curriculum
No Graduation at College of Online
I just spent 30 minutes getting up to speed on the Google+ Project announced yesterday – Google’s new social media network, currently in a limited field trial. It’s quite interesting and I’ll explore it further with you as it rolls out to everyone.
The point of this post, though, is that when it comes to keeping up with online/inbound marketing, we need to commit to constant and continuous education. Not a day goes by that I don’t learn about a new tool, app, initiative, issue or trend related to marketing and interacting on the Internet.
It’s exhilarating and sometimes exhausting to be part of such a rapidly evolving profession. But the benefits that Web-based technology can bring my clients – especially small businesses – make it worth burning the midnight oil or rising at summer dawn to read the latest information.
If you’re a business trying to figure out how to market your company online, it’s a good idea to get some background information – even if you are or will be working with an agency or consultant. Here’s a 101 class, a few best-selling books to read and blogs to follow – in addition to this one — that will help you understand how to best use the Web for your marketing.
- “The New Rules of Marketing & PR,” by David Meerman Scott. Clients of mine are currently reading this and it’s fun to see the lights going on for them as they learn why we’re better off putting resources into blogging than newspaper advertising.
- “Real-Time Marketing & PR,” the latest from David Meerman Scott.
- “Inbound Marketing,” by HubSpot founders Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah, the guys who defined and automated the inbound marketing process.
- “Trust Agents,” by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith, the bible for understanding how and why the Web can help you build influence, improve your reputation and earn trust.
All of the above are published by John Wiley and Sons. Even if you’ve read them before, they bear perusing again from time to time.
In the blog/online media department, I regularly read:
- Mashable (General Tech/Web News and Trends)
- Huffington Post Tech (General Tech/Web News and Trends)
- TechCrunch (General Tech/Web News and Trends)
- SEOmoz (Latest in SEO)
- Chris Brogan (‘Human Business’)
- Technorati (Blogs and Blogging)
- HubSpot (Inbound Marketing)
Another important source of information for me is my online marketing community on Twitter. Follow me, see some of the people I follow, and check out my lists. You can take advantage of the news links they tweet every day.
So welcome to the College of Online Marketing, Class of Forever. Graduation day is not in the picture – unless the Big Power Outage comes. As long as it doesn’t, let’s consider ourselves online marketing lifelong learners.
What are your favorite sources for keeping up with the evolution of the Internet? Thanks for sharing!
Photo by J.o.h.n.Walker under Creative Commons License
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Tuesday Tweets
As I talk to businesses about inbound marketing and read research about adoption of social media, Twitter usually ends up the least understood and least used of the social media. So, today I’m introducing a new blog feature that you’ll find here every week — if it seems that people like it.
In an effort to shed light on using Twitter, Tuesday Tweets will feature actual tweets from my Twitter stream. I’ll give you my best take on why they were effective or why they didn’t hit the mark for me. Please share any great or gruesome tweets from your own feed in the comments. It’s all in the interest of learning – and hopefully we’ll have some fun, too.
And regardless of any critiques, I believe that following any of the people or companies included here has value.
elliebpr Thanks for following Ella. Look forward to learning more about virtual assistant services. Ellie
theofficeescape [thinking of something cool for my welcome message] 🙂
Tweet 1 – This was an exchange between me and a woman who had just followed me. I checked her profile out and found that she has a virtual assistant service – something that I’m interested in knowing more about. I might even want to engage such a service – maybe hers.
I followed her back and sent a personal direct mail that specifically addressed her service. See how she DM’d back. I can tell you that I would have preferred a personal reply, in kind, rather than a cool automated welcome message that wasn’t even thought of yet. I’m still following @theofficeescape, but the point I’m making is that we have to be vigilant for actual prospects/buyers in our day-to-day Twitter interactions.
eric_andersen Eric Andersen Ha! “@TEDTalk videos are like a Kiss or a chip…you think you just want one” http://j.mp/lj3DuJ #tedxboston23 minutes ago
Tweet 2 – @eric_anderson is a seasoned Twitterati who I’ve been following for a long time. I liked this tweet. It was humorous and had the ring of truth for me as I’ve occasionally started watching one TED video and gotten sucked in to watching numbers of others. For that reason I resisted clicking on the link. I finally succumbed, but the thought of eating a whole can of chips made me click off after watching the one video, which was interesting.
marketstrategy Strategic Marketing Google+: First Impressions – Google has just unveiled Google+, its ambitious answer to Facebook. It turns all of Goo… http://ow.ly/1dv2rV
Tweet 3 – I don’t know about you, but I find tweets that go beyond the allotted 140 characters annoying. I’m eternally interested in all things Google, which is innovating constantly. So I clicked on the link anyway. Turns out that @marketstrategy copied and pasted the first paragraph of a story on Mashable.com that’s really important. Google+ apparently turns Google into a giant social network in an effort to compete with Facebook. It seems a bit lazy not to take the opportunity to write a great headline with social value, like: Google Fights Facebook on Social Battlefield by Becoming a Social Network. Then I would have added the short link and given credit a la via @mashable. Market Strategy wasn’t too strategic in this tweet.
chuckfrey Chuck Frey I maintain a to-do list with priorities and deadlines in a mind map. Helps me to get organized & focused. #ktt
Tweet 4 – @chuckfrey is my new go-to guy on mind mapping – a topic I’m learning more about as a creative and productivity tool. I liked this short and to the point tweet that shared a practical way to use mind mapping. The hashtag #ktt belongs to Kitchen Table Talks, part of a venture of @chrisbrogan and @joesorge.
jaimy_marie Jaimy Szymanski Spending the afternoon crafting an SEO strategy and staring across the table at @andrea_judith. Eye contact … NOW
Tweet 5 – This tweet made me smile. Even though I don’t know who @andrea_judith is, @jaimy_marie painted a picture that I can identify with, having spent many a day in strategy sessions that needed just such a mental break. She often gives insights to her life in very relatable ways. Perfect for social.
Please pluck a tweet from your feed and give us your review!
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Writing as Conversation: 7 Do’s and 7 Don’ts to Find Your Voice
In previous posts I’ve mentioned my daily email vocabulary builder, A Word A Day (www.wordsmith.org). It’s free and if you’re blogging and trying to spiff up your writing, I recommend you sign up. A Word A Day also includes a Thought for Today, a wise quote from a variety of sources. This morning’s quote inspired this post.
“Writing, when properly managed, (as you may be sure I think mine is) is but a different name for conversation.” -Laurence Sterne, novelist and clergyman (1713-1768)
Writing as Conversation
I love the idea of writing as conversation. Straight from the 18th century comes a concept as fresh as though it were communicated for the first time in 2011. Contrary to the sales-y communications of traditional advertising, or the corporate-speak of the last generation (and in some cases the current generation) of company websites, or the overly-nuanced language of press releases, writing in a social, Web 2.0 world calls for a different – and conversational — style.
As I’m writing this, I’m thinking about you and wondering what you might have to contribute on this topic. Also, I’m hoping that you will add to it. We’re all learning new tools and new tactics everyday. So conversing to pool our knowledge, experience and wisdom is a very good thing.
When we communicate verbally, though, it’s easier to have our personalities come through. In addition to the visual cues in-person talk provides, it’s somehow more spontaneous when words spill from our lips and don’t require fingers on keyboards lagging behind a thought process.
Nonetheless, we’re all communicating in writing all the time these days – especially in emails, on blogs and on social media sites. So please allow me to offer a few thoughts about finding an authentic voice for written conversation.
- Do write as though you were speaking.
- Don’t over think the first draft. You can – and should – always go back and edit.
- Do share occasional personal thoughts, perceptions and experiences when they serve to illustrate a point.
- Don’t go overboard with personal info. Learn to walk a line that offers an authentic peek at who you are, while retaining a business-like decorum.
- Do use interesting words and turns of phrase.
- Don’t use industry jargon — and no off-color language.
- Do try for humor at moments that can benefit from a bit of lightening up or to poke fun at yourself for some human foible that anyone can relate to.
- Don’t make jokes at someone’s expense – including your own. Leave sarcasm and snark out of the equation. It’s not attractive.
- Do be polite. Welcome your readers, acknowledge them and thank them.
- Don’t be overly-solicitous; it’s not credible. Invite disagreement.
- Do be a cheerleader for others. Use your content to include their ideas and praise their achievements.
- Don’t promote your own stuff exclusively
- Do listen for what’s important to your audience/s.
- Don’t assume you know what’s important to others. Asking questions is divine.
And so I’ll conclude with this question…
How have you found your conversational writing voice?
Photo by Kris Hoet Under Creative Commons License
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 8 so far )Your Fabulous Face! Where is it?
We wouldn’t put bags over our heads to go to a party. But those who don’t provide an online photo in their content or social media interactions are performing the digital equivalent. The nature of social is that it’s not anonymous.
Here’s what prompted this post. This morning I had a few emails from Twitter announcing new followers. Two of them had the default Twitter egg icon where a photo of the person should have been.
Now, I always check out the profiles of people who follow me to see if their tweets are interesting to me and add to my knowledge or extend my reach to a particular community or network. If so, I’ll follow back.
However, when the Twitter email shows an egg next to the Twitter handle, I rarely do. I like seeing who I might be creating a social media relationship with.
After checking out the Twitter follow invitations with photos, I went over to Linked In to look at the list of suggested folks I might want to invite to connect. There were so many blank spaces next to names where photos should have been. That means that there was no photo on those people’s profiles either. I found myself sending invitations only to people I could see.
In one of those moments where you say, how come I didn’t think of this before, it dawned on me that lots of people still don’t understand the importance of a photo in social media – or simply don’t know how to get one up there – and maybe I could be helpful to them by writing a post about the importance of photos.
If your fabulous face is already online, great. Please pass this along to any friends who may still be faceless. If you don’t have a photo online do it today. If you’re concerned that it’s too time consuming to upload a photo for every blog you comment on, social media site you join or the many other online activities you engage in, I’m going to make it easy for you.
Just go get a gravatar – a Globally Recognized Avatar. Navigate to www.gravatar.com, open a free account – which takes a minute or two — upload the photo you want to use to represent you online and voila!! In a short while, your gravatar will follow you all over the web – almost wherever you go.
Just a couple of tips – use a head shot – not a full body image. Your gravatar will appear as a thumbnail and full body shots can barely be seen. Make it friendly. Smile!! Unless you’re creating a gravatar for a business where a company logo would be appropriate, use your own face. Not a cute picture of your puppy or your favorite flower or whatever.
Aside from being more social, the best reason to get a gravatar on line is that a picture is more memorable than an online handle. In fact, you may have numbers of online handles – but you only have one face. Your gravatar becomes your individual logo. As you leave your mark around the internet, you’ll become a recognizable Brand You!
By the way…today’s musical post is That Face, written and sung by Alan Bergman, half of a legendary composing duo with his wife Marilyn – for whom he wrote the song and won her heart!!!
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )My NY Times Electronic Edition: Ending a Moral Dilemma
What are you doing New Year’s Eve? While you read my last post of the year, enjoy saxophonist Houston Person and friends asking that question in their swingin’, jazzy way.
In addition to writing one last post, I decided to end 2010 by finally changing my New York Times paper subscription to the Electronic Edition – a day ahead of the Times’ new pay policy for online-only readers. I’ve been working my way to this moment gradually.
A while back I downsized from daily to the ‘Weekender’ subscription. Most of my papers were going into the recycling bin unopened. I had lost the luxury of time to sit and read the paper leisurely over coffee and instead began grabbing the Times news headlines and my favorite features online.
Even with the weekend-only change, I still ended up tossing out most of my papers unread and decided to go to the online only subscription. Now it’s interesting to know that the Times will allow us to change our home delivery subscriptions online. But if you want to ditch paper in favor of bytes, it’s not so easy. It requires a phone call. And voice mail hell offers every option but switching to an online-only subscription.
When I finally got a ‘customer service’ rep on the line, she practically begged me not to go all-electronic but to just try a Sunday-only home delivery subscription and she would give me a special promotional price to keep receiving the print paper. I would continue to get full online access as a print subscriber for free. The promotional price and the almost desperate appeal got me to relent and, until now, I’ve been receiving the Sunday paper. Same thing. It still often goes unopened, while I read the Times daily on my computer or smart phone.
I am happy to pay for the New York Times’ content in whatever format. It’s worth it. It costs a lot of money to hire the best reporters, editors and columnists, build an online future and whatever else is required to keep high quality news coverage coming. We shouldn’t expect it for free.
As I struggled with the waste of paper that my subscription continued to represent, I also thought about the guy who delivers it daily and the fact that I’m contributing to his having a job. Same with the paper mill workers and the printing plant employees. We have to reckon with the fact that the gains of evolving technologically into the future usually mean losses for older platforms.
That said, I decided to make a statement about the importance to me of my ‘newspaper of record’ by standing up and saying, “Of course I’ll pay for this; even before I have to.” So I braved the Times’ subscription phone lines once again to switch to the Electronic Edition. Once again the rep tried to sell me on another Sunday-only promotional price to keep me getting the paper.
“Why?” I asked. “My current subscription costs me $4.90 a week and the online subscription will be $20 a month. So you’re not losing any revenue on my switch – and, in fact, The Times is gaining margin. And, while we’re talking, why can’t I make this switch to online – online?”
The answer to the latter question is that it’s to be sure that it’s really me requesting the change. Given the process I had to go through to switch – it also appears that there are two separate subscription systems for print and online readers. Not very tech-forward.
“But,” I asked further, “If the reason I have to do this on the phone is security, and you’re not losing me as a customer, nor are you losing revenue, why the big push to keep me as a print customer.”
Her answer was bemusing: “Lots of people are switching to the Electronic Edition, and we’re trying to keep the paper in circulation.”
As far as I can tell, whether its content is in digital or print format, the Times remains in circulation. In fact, digital has the potential to circulate the stories far beyond a print run. Maybe the paper needs to make a further conceptual shift that what it has of value to sell is content, regardless of the delivery system.
The evolution of media is a fascinating topic to me. It would be great to hear more from someone at The Times about what its online transition strategy involves. In my effort to go paperless, I felt somewhat manipulated and I’d really like to know why the Times thinks that’s necessary.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 5 so far )It’s Awesome When Your Content Connects!
This post is dedicated to the thousands of bloggers around the globe who read my last post when it was featured on the WordPress homepage showcase, ‘Freshly Pressed’. First of all, it was amazing to have one of my posts selected from almost half a million posted that day. Second of all, the response was humbling and heart warming. A special thanks to those who commented or hit the ‘Like’ button to share it and welcome to those of you who subscribed.
Although our blogs provide a doorway to the entire world, when people comment on a post it reminds me how much a one-to-one connection it is. So today’s musical post is “Just You, Just Me”, played on several overdubbed tracks by one of the greatest jazz pianists of all time, Bill Evans. Bloggers, it’s from an album ironically titled, “Conversations with Myself” — how our writing often feels.
For businesses, I believe in blogging as a way to share one’s expertise and create thought leadership. Because of its search-ability online, the content we create helps people who are looking for not only our products and services, but also our knowledge and experience, to find us. The knack is to share that info in an authentic and human way that connects.
At the moment we hit the keyboard, it’s hard to know whether what we write will resonate. We can write with our “Buyer Personae” in mind as David Meerman Scott explains in his book, “World Wide Rave”. But when we launch our content into cyber space, we can only hope it reaches its intended destination. 
The gift of the Internet is that when we connect, it lets us know! Whether it’s your WordPress blog stats, Google Analytics, Hubspot analytics or any of the robust tools out there, the value of our efforts is knowable.
When I wrote the post “10 Reasons Why I ‘Heart’ My Blog,” I didn’t say to myself, “OK, I’m going to sit down now and write some remarkable content.” I was thinking about people I speak to who are not convinced that they can or should blog. In my head I was talking to them and at the same time reminding myself that I want to dedicate more effort to my own blog.
What happened was a post that ended up connecting in a far bigger way than I ever intended. There have been other posts I’ve written that I thought shared meatier information. No one could have been more surprised than I was to receive a flood of response to this post that I wrote on a whim when I had a spare hour to think about blogging as an enjoyable path to success for my clients and myself.
The result reinforced for me in a very personal way that what I’m advocating for others works! When your content really connects it is the most awesome thing!!
Please share some of your stories about how your content has connected.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 2 so far )
New PR Words - and Music! 