How to Follow A Twitter List

Are you following me on Twitter?

Whether you love or hate Twitter lists, it's likely that you'll agree one feature that would make it much more useful is the ability to follow someone's list. There is a way to do it - and the great news is that it will take only a couple of minutes.

There are 2 ways to do this - short way:

1. Go to http://tweepml.org/ and create an account if you don't already have one then log in.

2. On the main page is a box "Follow a Twitter List" - copy and paste the URL for the list - for example: http://twitter.com/SharonHayes/music-blip-etc/members

3. Click on the "Follow" button & it will create a page where you can choose who you would like to follow.

Here is the results page for the above http://tweepml.org/@SharonHayes/music-blip-etc

Here are the steps for the long method:

1. Go to http://tweepml.org/ and click on the yellow icon "add it to your site"

2. In the "Enter Twitter Users Box" put in the full URL of the list you want to follow. For example: http://twitter.com/SharonHayes/inspirational/members

3. Click on the "find" button next to where you entered the URL. It will then populate the box below with all of the users from the list.

4. If this is just for you to follow a list, you don't really need to worry about a description. If you want to share the list with your followers I suggest putting a description in.

5. If you have an existing Tweepl account, you'll need to enter your information in the box otherwise you can create an account.

6. Tweepl will use OAuth to verify your account with Twitter.

7. You'll need to verify your account if you haven't use Tweepl before.

8. Boom - you can now go to the list URL and follow everyone at one time.

Here's an example of the list I set up for my "inspiration" list:

http://tweepml.org/Inspiration/

Note: as of writing this, Tweepl.org can only import the first page of members of a list. Hopefully they'll figure out a way to handle multiple pages in the future.

Are you following me on Twitter?

How to Measure Social Media's Effectiveness

Are you following me on Twitter?

I've followed many debates on how the term "ROI" is being misused in social media. Josh S. Peters (one of my partners on Branded Tweets) has written a couple of posts about ROI. In the first, he explained why it was being inappropriately applied to a campaign The Gap had run. Josh followed up with a post that concluded the use of KPI's (Key Performance Indicators) is a more relevant way to measure the effectiveness of social media usage. I was originally going to comment on his latest post, then realized it was worthy of an entire post on its own.

The same debates about social media are ones that happened over a decade ago with online marketing in general. In the mid-90's, banner advertising was popular. Some people believed that all banner advertising campaigns needed to have an associated ROI. Others believed that banner advertising had to have a call to action otherwise it wasn't effective. The reality is banner advertising back then - and still today - can serve a variety of functions where ROI isn't even an immediate factor. The same kind of rhetoric is being spouted about social media today.

ROI has never, and will never be, the single most important metric that can be applied to marketing. This is true both offline and online. Consider Superbowl ads. The costs of producing and running an ad are enormous. Where does ROI come into play for Superbowl ads? In the short-term, it doesn't.

I agree KPI's are important - what I don't agree with is that KPI's are relevant on their own to social media. Benchmarks, metrics tied into business goals, other kinds of data that are quantifiable and that can be tracked back to social media efforts. But KPI's typically refer to the overall marketing efforts of an organization. Unless a company is *only* using social media for marketing and no other marketing methods, the metrics associated with the impact of social media are just part of the arsenal of what a company does to market.

Here's an example: let's say John sees your ad on TV for the Gizmo - a new product your company is offering. John uses Twitter and asks if anyone has used Gizmo. As part of your company's social media efforts, you have a monitoring campaign tracking mentions of Gizmo. You engage John, answer his questions and John buys Gizmo.

What metrics should you consider here? More importantly, what data should be gathered?

Where things become even more challenging is that it's rare that a company that uses social media will just have one objective. It's more likely that a company will have multiple objectives when using social media - some of which may not even come under the umbrella of marketing. Two examples: customer support and recruiting. Where it becomes even trickier is that business/organizational use of social media is becoming increasingly complicated.

We can compare the evolution of social media to how the Internet itself has progressed. Whereas ten or twelve years ago it was acceptable to just slap up a website - the build it and they will come mentality - things have changed and the same is true with social media. It's not simply enough to have a presence on Twitter, but you need to have objectives for using Twitter. Having a Facebook fan page isn't enough. There has to be some strategy behind it.

With an increasing number of Internet users and organizations looking to social media to get answers, conduct research etc, is it really even necessary at this point to consider social media in isolation when it comes to any kind of quantitative analysis? Would it not be better to look at things from an overall integrated campaign perspective where social media may be just one component? Then under the umbrella of social media, shouldn't we look at individual sites and applications and the metrics just as we would look at PPC advertising, banner advertising, etc?

Consider this question: what distinguishes "social media" from everything else that existed before? I first got started online when I was 16 years old - 25 years ago. What did I do online? I used forums on bulletin board services. Over a decade ago, I started to work with clients on ways they could engage prospects and customers. The term "social media" may be relatively new but what it means isn't.

What has changed is three-fold: 1. the speed at which information/news can be disseminated; 2. the strength of some very dominant presences not tied to specific companies (Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, etc) and 3. the voice of the consumer has more impact. The end result is that consumers today are much more empowered than they were even a few years ago.

Where we are now is that a lot of traditional marketing/corporate folks are just plain confused about how to handle it. There is simply too much conflicting information about what social media really is and there's this unnecessary "push" to look at it in isolation - which is completely unnecessary. From an organizational standpoint, you should be defining what kind of social media presence you want to have. From there, you should then be looking at your use of social media in conjunction with everything else for individual campaigns - your website, your blog, your email marketing, your PPC advertising, your banner advertising, your online PR, your offline advertising, your offline PR, and so on. Now with this more integrated approach, reliance on KPI's is relevant - with social media being just one part of overall efforts yet with individual benchmarks being relevant to individual social media activities.

As more and more consumers become involved in social media activities, I think we'll see a natural progression where organizations almost automatically integrate social media into their business models. Whether this will happen in three, five or ten years - I have no idea. But it is coming. And sometime between now and then the accepted standards will evolve to where "social media marketing" as we know it will no longer be a catch-all phrase.

Are you following me on Twitter?

Top Ten Mistakes Businesses Make On Twitter

Are you following me on Twitter?

I've now worked with a few dozen clients in some capacity that involves Twitter. The work has fallen into three categories: Twitter as part of their overall marketing strategy, training on how to use Twitter and "correcting" errors previously made in using Twitter. Clients have included corporations, small & medium sized businesses, non-profits, professionals and a few well-known individuals. It's really easy to work with an organization or individual not already on Twitter. There's no "unlearning" that needs to be done. It's a different story when that organization or individual already has been using Twitter in ways that are not following best practices or that is not right for their situation. I want to share with you the top ten mistakes I see made. Hopefully, whether you are new or old to Twitter, you will gain some insight.

Mistake #1: Focusing on quantity over quality

As of writing this, I am almost at 50,000 followers. To some people this is an impressive number. However many people are unaware of the fact that it took me 10 months to get to this level. Unless you are a household name or a company that already has a solid fan base, it is very difficult to try and build a following at a rapid pace while developing relationships. You'd be better off having 1,000 followers you communicate with and who can help you get the word out than you are to have 10,000 followers who have no idea who you are.

Mistake #2: Not having a defined strategy

Why are you on Twitter? What is your objective? Is how you are using Twitter meeting this objective? What can you be doing differently in order to reach your goals faster or more efficiently? From working with clients and discussions with Twitter users, I've discovered the most costly mistake most are making is not having a defined strategy never mind a game plan they are following that ensures the strategy is implemented.

Mistake #3: Not understanding reciprocity of follows

If you are a regular Joe Blow who is using Twitter to simply network and socialize, reciprocity is probably not an issue. However, if you are a company, non-profit or an individual who is trying to build a fan base, reciprocity is almost a must in my opinion. Reciprocity is important for psychological reasons. It leaves people with this nice cozy feeling that they matter to you and your organization. It is an easy, cost-free way to bond. Isn't that what social media is about?

If you are an individual marketer, guru, expert or whatnot, I believe that reciprocity is even more crucial. There's been a huge trend on Twitter for individuals to proactively build up large followings and then to purge most of those they follow. Some people refer to this as "Pump and dump." Blog post after blog post have been written by those who have done it explaining the reasons why. There is no reason not to reciprocate under your primary account - especially now with Twitter lists & Tweetdeck/other software allowing the use of multiple accounts.

I'm not advocating following back every single follow. I am suggesting that to gain the maximum benefit from your usage of Twitter to not have a limiting follow-back policy.

Mistake #4: Not engaging & sharing

The best way to show how this can be a mistake is by sharing an example. I've been working recently with a client who has an established presence on Twitter. They have several thousand tweets. Every single tweet had been either company announcements or links to their site. They brought me in to consult because they rarely get any click-throughs on their links and in spite of having over 10,000 followers, Twitter has done nothing to help their bottom line. By simply starting to interact with followers who send replies and passing along information in their industry from other Twitter users in a matter of a few weeks, they have started to see 200+ visitors a day from Twitter, retweets of their links (which they had not seen before) and other great stuff happening. They are spending the same amount of time on Twitter as they had been - they have simply had a shift in focus to broadcasting/self-promoting to engaging and sharing and the results are paying off.

Mistake #5: A bio with spelling mistakes

The in's and out's of an appropriate bio would take a full blog post (or two) to cover. The one simple thing you can do to enhance your credibility is to make sure your bio has no spelling mistakes. I did a random check of my last 20 "real" followers and 20 corporate Twitter accounts I am familiar with. Of the 20 "real" followers, 6 had either spelling or grammatical errors that were glaringly obvious. Of the 20 corporate Twitter accounts, 3 had spelling mistakes or grammatical errors.

Mistake #6: Not being careful of your last tweet

Most people will tweet in set time intervals. Often there will be many hours - or sometimes even days - between tweets. The last tweet you make should be done with at least a little bit of thought. Why? For two reasons: 1. It will help you get more of the right kind of followers. The last tweet of accounts show in following lists and on various sites and 2. When people go through their own following list to decide whether or not to unfollow, your last tweet could impact their decision. What the last tweet should be depends on your overall Twitter strategy.

Mistake #7: Not using keywords

Many people find Twitter accounts to follow by conducting keyword searches - both with and without the hashtag. What are the keywords for your business/organization? Are you using them in your tweets? When communicating with others, are you using the proper terminology that people would use when conducting searches? Do you have any kind of schedule for rotating keyword usage in tweets? I am not advocating keyword spamming but ensuring you actually are using terms relevant to your business. Note: I've often seen a single tweet bring in 10-20 followers alone because of using keywords. Do that once a day and that is an extra 300-600 followers per month.

Mistake #8: Not having any kind of monitoring in place

Are you watching Twitter for mentions of your company, your name, your brand(s), your competitor(s), etc? I routinely mention specific brand names and companies in tweets with comments. I'm amazed how many go ignored. When mentions are positive, it's great to reinforce a customer/client. When mentions are negative, it can be dealt with and be turned into a positive for your company. Again, dealing with explaining monitoring would take at least a blog post or two to cover - but if you aren't doing any kind of monitoring, find out how to do it and start to do it.

Mistake #9: Trying to sell directly on Twitter

Yes, mentioning a special in tweets to your followers, new products, etc is okay - as long as it is not all you are doing. However, where a lot of people go wrong is by employing monitoring methods to essentially spam people via tweets. I've even seen large companies do this. Sure, engaging people that mention your company or the industry it deals in is okay. Answering questions is okay. But avoid trying to use Twitter for a direct pitch without establishing a connection with someone first.

Mistake #10: Leaving personality at the door

Twitter IS social media. Even if you manage a Twitter account for a Fortune 500 company, showing some personality is a part of engagement and building a rapport with followers. If you have multiple people handling a Twitter account, then have the pictures of those that tweet in the background of your profile page. Have them sign off their tweets with their initials at the end so they have a chance to show their personality. Instead of having your Twitter link go to your company's main page, have it go to a special page so that people can find out more about those tweeting for the account. McDonald's has set up a great page. I don't agree entirely with their tweeting methods but they are doing a fairly good job compared to many large companies.

If you have a small business, showing your personality is even more important. You want to build a rapport with your followers. Just make sure what you do is always consistent with how you want your brand/image to be perceived!

I hope that you found this helpful. If you're interested in gaining some additional insight about using Twitter for business and non-profit usage, I invite you to attend a free teleconference I'll be a part of on Tuesday, October 20th. If you aren't available to attend the call live, you can still register and receive a link after the call to listen at your convenience. Click here to get more info and to register.

Things To Know About Twitter's Lists

Are you following me on Twitter?

Twitter has started to roll out the much-anticipated Lists functionality. Here are the highlights:

• Lists allow each user a way to group some or all of the people they follow by assigning them to a list.
• It also helps with discovery: When you go to a user's profile, you can see which lists they have created and follow relevant people. You can also see which lists someone belongs to and follow the others on that same list.

Note: if you do not see lists yet, don't worry! You'll be getting access to it soon!

I jumped the gun and created my lists rather quickly. Here are some tips:

• Carefully consider how you want to structure your lists before you start to set them up.
• You can only create 20 lists.
• Each list cannot have more than 500 people.
• If you want to edit a list's name, go to: Lists You Follow, Click on List Name and on the right hand side towards the bottom is an "edit list" link. That will allow you to change the name of a list OR change it from public to private & vice versa.
• If you want to delete a list, go to: Lists You Follow, Click on List Name and on the right hand side towards the bottom is an "delete list" link.

Note: at the time of posting this, neither the edit nor delete functionality are working.

Hope this helps!

Are you following me on Twitter?

More Twitter Tips

Are you following me on Twitter?

A few months ago, I posted a ton of Twitter tips on this blog. That post represented a small fraction of what I know about how to use Twitter most efficiently & effectively. I thought it was time to give up more of my secrets ;) I hope you learn something new!

Color Counts

Take a few minutes to make sure that the color of your tweets and the background for them is easy to read on both desktops & via mobile web access. I look at every new person I follow back and see that maybe 1 in 50 are using a color combination that make it unreadable to read the tweets. It's best to use contrast - i.e. use a dark color on a light background or a light color on a dark background.

Why is this important? Most Twitter users manually follow people back. They want to have a look at the tweets of those they follow. If people have difficulty reading your tweets, it might reduce the likelihood they will return the follow (if that is important to you). There's another reason: often people will go to a user's profile page to catch up with them or because they want to see exchanges they have with other users. Again, why make it more difficult for people to read your tweets than it needs to be?

Your Avatar

Try and avoid changing your avatar unless it is necessary. If you do change it, try and keep a similar look. I made a major change in April with my avatar from a glam-style photo to the one I use now. Six weeks after the change, I was still getting tweets from people who hadn't recognized me. People reading their stream look at avatars more often than names. A major change in your avatar can make it difficult for people to realize it is you.

If you do want to make a major change, make sure it is to something you can be consistent with from that point on or that at least you can be recognizable.

DM Hygiene

If you delete a DM from your sent folder, it will also delete it from the recipient's inbox. Since many Twitter users do not receive text messages or emails of DMs, this means if you delete an unread DM, the recipient will never know you sent it.

Every few weeks I will tweet this as a tip & there are always many long-term Twitter users that aren't aware of this so I thought it was worth adding to my blog :)

Getting Behind In Mentions

If you are away from Twitter for an extended period - let's say vacation or you've been too busy with other things - be aware that if you are using tools that access Twitter via API, there is a limit of 200 mentions that can be retrieved per API call. If you know you were up-to-date with replies the last time you logged on, retrieve your mentions and check the date of the oldest one that shows. If the date/time doesn't coincide with your last tweet, then what you may want to do is use Twitter search. Twitter search also has limits on how many tweets it will show per request. However, if you go to advanced search, you can specify a date range. (This was partially covered in my previous post but I neglected to mention the API limitation.)

Using Twitter Search

Be aware if you are using Twitter search on your own mentions or for some other reason, many tweets do not show up in search. Aside from those that have protected tweets, the tweets of those people who are not appearing in search will not show up. I estimate that in my own case around 1 in 15 mentions do not appear in search.

Bio URL

I strongly recommend you do not use a URL shortener in your bio. If people do not know what they are clicking on, they will often not click. I did a short test with this and found that my click through from bio with a URL shortener vs domain name resulted in less than 50% of the clicks.

Follower Hygiene

For personal reasons, I choose to follow back everyone that follows me. (Although I may start to change this policy soon with new followers.)

I am awful with removing those that unfollow me. I did a few batches of 100-200 a few months ago and have done nothing since. Part of the reason is because with the number of people I follow it is tedious to consider doing manually via the Twitter pages. Also before Twitter changed the page numbers for following/followers, I had blank pages so none of the tools would work on my list. There were many inaccuracies.

Last week, I went to FriendorFollow.com, entered my username and then exported a list of "following" - ie people I was following and who were not following me back. There were almost 2,000. This was way too many to get rid of manually at one time so what I did was this: I added an extra column in that divided the following into followers and then sorted on that column. This let me see right away who was "pumping and dumping" - ie building a following proactively only to dump many/most of them once they were happy with their numbers or for some other reason. I've unfollowed around 500 since then. The rest I'll eventually get to :)

Miscellaneous Tips

• Don't include a personal url when sending someone an @ reply. It's perceived as spamming. By this I mean tacking on your domain name to a tweet that has nothing to do with your business.
• Don't tweet everyone new that follows you or that you follow. It's really annoying for your existing followers and you'll likely lose people.
• If you want to greet new followers, take a minute to look at their bio and tweets to use "something" to start a conversation with. Too much effort? Then why follow people unless you intend on building some kind of relationship or network with them?
• Create goodwill - if you share something someone else has tweeted, make sure to give attribution to it by using either RT or via. :) See my last tips post for more on retweeting.
• If you will be away from Twitter from an extended period - whether it is 12 hours, a day or a week, try and make sure your last tweet or two is representative of you. I've noticed huge fluctuations in how many new followers I get based on the tweets I leave up when I am not around.

See you on Twitter!

Are you following me on Twitter?

P.S. If you feel you could benefit from some professional Twitter training, check out my Twitter landing page for what I am currently offering :)

New Twitter Landing Page + Training

Until now, I've always linked my Twitter profile to this blog. However, with the growth in the number of followers I have, I'm finding that I get a lot of the same questions over and over again and I thought it was time for a change. I set up a page at http://www.sharonhayes.com that answers many of the most common questions I receive from followers. Hopefully it will allow me to avoid being repetitive and to focus on providing new, fresh content on a continual basis. :)

This page is a definite work in progress. I have tons more to add and will soon be offering an inexpensive consult on a by question basis for SMBs that may need help. This will be provided in conjunction with a live show I'll be starting very soon :)

On a daily basis, I have anywhere from a few to a dozen people ask if I provide any kind of Twitter training. For the most part, this is from small business owners who want to learn how to use Twitter more effectively. Until now, the training I've done has been primarily high-end - and out of the reach of the "little guy." I'm currently working with Joshua Denney and Josh "Shua" Peters on a comprehensive group Twitter training program we'll be rolling out very soon.

In the meantime, I am making myself available to take on a very limited number of clients for 1 or 3 hour one-on-one training sessions. This is at a fraction of the rate I have performed any work at in years. I've generated 7 figures of income from Twitter this year - without openly promoting any business. I do it by following rule #1 of social media: being authentic. If you find yourself struggling with Twitter in any way... if you want to grow your follower base..if you're having a hard time translating Twitter into $... if you're having trouble positioning... or just learning how to use Twitter effectively... this may be just what you need. This is NOT an out-of-the-box program but will be customized training based on the responses you provide to a questionnaire. I have been helping clients for 2 decades make more money and have fun doing it.

My schedule right now is very tight and I can only offer approximately 20 hours of training over the next 4 weeks. I suggest if you are remotely interested in this, don't delay. I will never offer one-on-one Twitter training again at this price.

Sessions will be conducted by Skype and can be coordinated to meet any schedule/time zone. Here's how it works: choose one of the 2 payment options below. Payment can be remitted easily via Paypal. If you cannot use Paypal, contact my staff via email asking to be invoiced for either the 1 or 3 hour Twitter training via Google Checkout. Within 12 hours of when payment has been received, you will receive an initial client questionnaire. This will take you anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours to complete. When you have finished it, you will return it via email and we'll then schedule your training session(s). If you order the 1 hour training, you'll receive a 45 minute session and then one follow-up 15 minute session. The 3 hour training is comprised of 2 x 1 hour sessions and 2 x 15 minute follow-ups. If you order the 1 hour training, you'll be able to receive a credit against the cost of the group training should you feel you need more assistance. If you order the 3 hour training, you'll receive the group training for free which will also include your additional 30 minutes of one-on-one assistance.

Purchase 1 hour Training

Purchase 3 hour Training

New personal blog

I just set up a new personal blog at http://iWeightTrain.com. The blog will tackle some emotional issues I am dealing with right now. The first post is "Putting up Walls." In the few short hours since it has been up, I've received several comments publicly and a few dozen privately. Many people have commended me for being honest and open. Most people seemed to be able to relate to it in some way. Read it and let me know what you think. It's a huge move for me to go public with this given that I'm generally a very private person.