Posted by Rick Burnes

So you’ve been listening to your techie nephew talk about Twitter and Facebook. You understand the appeal from the social and networking perspectives — but you’re still stuck on one question: What, exactly, can social media do for your business?

If you look at our experience here at HubSpot, one answer is clear: leads.

The graph above represents leads generated on HubSpot.com from visitors who were originally referred to HubSpot via a social media platform like Twitter or Facebook between April 2008 and March 2010. The data is clear: Social media is a significant, growing lead generation channel.

This is by no means our biggest lead channel, but it’s also nothing to sneeze at. Based on the leads alone, social media is worth the time we put into it.

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You can save time and money by leaving social media marketing to the pros.

Savvy entrepreneurs are looking to social media as another way to market their businesses.

MySpace, Twitter, and Facebook are all the rage, but for most business owners there are better ways to stay close to customers

By Gene Marks

Comedian Jim Gaffigan has a suggestion for preparing a Hot Pockets frozen entrée: “Take out of package. Place directly in toilet.” Gaffigan is not a big fan of Hot Pockets. He doesn’t like exercise, either. But he loves bacon. “Without bacon, no one would even know what a water chestnut is,” he says. Gaffigan’s also a fan of social networking sites.

You’ll see him on Facebook, Twitter, and News Corp.’s (NWS) MySpace. He keeps fans up to date on his concerts, albums, TV appearances—and naps. In short, he’s a social networking success story. For a one-man band like Gaffigan, who probably has a decent amount of free time between eating bacon and being on stage, social networks and blogs have proved effective vehicles for marketing his business and staying close to his audience. But for many business owners, social networking is as valuable as a Hot Pocket is nutritious.

We’ve been misled as to the benefits of social networking sites. Many of us are finding that these tools do not live up to the hype, especially for small business. Once we start digging deeper, we’re finding a lot of challenges. Are you thinking of using Facebook, Twitter, or the like in your business? Before you go any further, consider the following myths:

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March 20, 2009 at 11:46 am by Janet Tanguay

Call me a twit, but at a recent staff meeting, I mentioned I had signed up for Tweeter, and what I really meant to say was that I had signed up with Twitter. If you have no understanding about what I just wrote, read on, because, for entrepreneurs, the social networking scene is rapidly becoming the best place for personal branding, web marketing and business promotion. It is one key to success for your small business.

Sure, there are people who will argue that nothing is going on in these sites, that it is like showing up for a networking event and finding no music, food, or drinks. Sure, some people make updates about brushing their teeth and sneezing, but how can you argue that point when fifty billion dollars is currently being spent in on-line advertising? China alone spent one billion in on-line ads last year. Professional marketers are cashing in on these daily connections by taking the art of building relationships and networking from offline to online.

Here’s how social media marketing or attraction marketing works. You post something about yourself on your profile page. That message goes out to all of your friends and then to all of their friends. This helps you develop an on-line presence and is a powerful tool to add to your direct sales plan, get your message out to your target audience and find new business leads. It is always better to do business with a personal referral than to cold call a prospect.

Personally, I’ve been able to link in with many new artists and coaches on social networking sites, and those are the key contacts in my business. In fact, someone from the high school I went to linked in with me on FaceBook recently. It turns out he and his wife now live 6 months out of the year on an exotic island. We are now discussing the possibilities of my doing an island getaway retreat for some of my creative clients. I have discovered people I know now living in Australia, China, India, and New Zealand, and that helps me make global connections.

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When it comes to creating relationships with other companies, take a long-term approach.
By Ivan Misner

I was recently speaking to a friend of mine who’s a partner in an international consulting and training company when we discovered we had a mutual acquaintance–a bestselling author and fairly well-known speaker.

In our discussion, we found out he’d contacted each of us individually to see if there were any possibilities for some type of strategic alliance with his company and each of our own, individually. We were both open to the possibility but couldn’t see an immediate and dramatic way our companies could link with his and undertake any specific projects at that time. We were both a bit amused to then discover that we were summarily “dropped” from his radar after that.

We sensed he was looking for that one big alliance that would help his company soar to the next level. Ironically, we’d had the same type of phone call with each other just 18 months earlier. We had come basically to the same conclusion: There was nothing on a grand scale that we could do together at that moment. The difference, however, was the rest of the story.

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On Twitter yesterday Yaro asked me whether I like Twitter more than Blogging.

My reply was of course limited to 140 characters and as a result not overly comprehensive:

“no I like blogging more than Twitter but Twitter is fun and a useful part of the mix of what I do - both have their place”

I thought perhaps it was a topic worth expanding upon here on ProBlogger. While I’ve shifted most of my blogging about Twitter to TwiTip I thought it might be worth sharing a few of the thoughts on how I’m using Twitter here on ProBlogger.

What follows is both a more extended answer to Yaro (and others) but also a collection of thoughts on my experiences of working with Twitter over the last few months.

Blogging Remains My Primary Activity

While I tweet more often than I post to my blog - my blogs remain my primary focus and what I spend most time building.

It may not always seem like it when you look at the 20+ tweets that I produce a day on my twitter account but when you consider that a tweet takes seconds to write and a post can take hours - the blogs I run do take considerably more of my time and focus to produce.

My thinking around this is something that I’ve talked about previously in my description of how I use social media as outposts as opposed to my blog which I see as a home base.

In essence my use of twitter is something I do as a support to my blogging.

I guess the question will come at some point whether I will need to change this approach a little when my Twitter follower numbers go past my blog reader numbers. I suspect my approach won’t change at this point - however it’ll probably present some interesting challenges in working out priorities.

Blogging and Twitter have Different Strengths

Having said that blogging is my primary focus it is increasingly obvious to me that both mediums have their own strengths and that Twitter is able to achieve things that blogging can not (at least for me).

The immediacy of Twitter and the fact that it is a network that can spread word of a story, idea, question or thought quickly around the world to many thousands of people very quickly makes it unique.

For example one of the main ways that I find Twitter useful is getting quick feedback or answers to questions from a diverse group of people. While you can get similar feedback from a blog post Twitter is much faster. On the other hand a blog lends itself more to discussions among readers that are a little more considered, in depth and interactive (between those responding).

Blog are also great for more in depth posts. This post is a perfect illustration of this - when Yaro asked me his question on Twitter I had 140 characters to sum up a lot of different thoughts and experiences and ended up not really saying a lot whereas this post is able to explore the topic in depth.

While some people see the strengths of one and the weaknesses of the other as reason to choose between Blogging and Twitter - I’ve come to see the power of using both in tandem. The key is to know what you’re trying to achieve with your online presences and to understand what each medium can do to help you achieve this.

Twitter and Driving Traffic

I’ve written previously about the topic of Twitter driving traffic to a blog and each time have talked about how much traffic ProBlogger gets directly from Twitter. The figures have increased each time I’ve written on the topic as my own follower numbers grow and of late the numbers have continued to grow considerably.

My Google Analytics stats show that Twitter.com is now the 3rd largest referrer of traffic to this blog (only behind Google and Direct Traffic). This probably sounds a little more impressive than it is - overall it sends around 4% of my traffic (Google is 46% and Direct Traffic is 21%). This doesn’t count traffic arriving from Twitter applications - so the figure is probably closer to 10%.

My other two blogs illustrate that Twitter’s ability to send traffic is varied depending upon your site. TwiTip has over 16% of its traffic directly from Twitter.com and Digital Photography School gets 0.34% of its traffic from Twitter (although my DPS Twitter account has considerably less followers).

Twitter is Quick but Takes More Time to Use Well as Follower Numbers Grow

Actually tweeting on twitter is a relatively quick and easy process. I’ve used a variety of tools in my use of Twitter that have helped me manage the process really well - however as my number of followers has grown so does the amount of time needed to manage the account - at least if I want to remain interactive and engaging.

The number of @replies and DMs that one gets as follower numbers goes up also rises and there comes a point where a Twitter user needs to decide how interactive that they can be.

As I write this my follower numbers are just over 42,500 - to this point I still read all replies and DMs but it is becoming more and more challenging to do and I’m aware that I’m going to have to make some tough choices in the coming weeks and months if the number increases as it has.

The ReTweet is Powerful

The practice of ‘ReTweeting’ has really come into its own over the last 6 months. While people have always ‘re tweeted’ what others have tweeted - a lot more tools and services have risen up around the practice of late. Some see retweeting as a measure of authority of a twitter user - I’ve personally been more interested in its viral nature, particularly when your link is the one being retweeted.

If a link gets retweeted widely it can drive many many thousands of visitors to a blog post.

In the last few months we’ve seen more and more bloggers adding retweet buttons to their blogs in a similar way to how social media buttons are often added to blogs - I’ve done it on TwiTip with a button from Tweetmeme which has worked well but I suspect we’ll see more and more tools released.

Usefulness Remains the Key to Both Mediums

I can’t stress it enough - the key to both success in both mediums is to become the most useful resource that you can to those who you come into contact with online. Solve problems, meet needs, connect with people where they are at and both mediums will come into their own for you.

All in All….

All in all I’m continuing to see the fruits of investing time and effort into both Twitter and Blogging. What about you?

By Mike Nelson

The primary challenge of successful social media is being able to listen and communicate with the broader community. This requires knowing who your community is, and where to find them online. To do this, engaging top influencers is essential, but how do you find them?

Generate top keywords

Think about how the community likely identifies itself online. For example, if you are searching for the “polar bear community,” write down a list of keywords related to the community’s interests. Additionally, consider the breadth of the community’s focus. If the target community is exclusively people interested in polar bears, the search will be focused; if a broader community is needed – e.g. environmentalists or people concerned about endangered species – keywords should encompass its broader interests.

Label keywords as primary or secondary, based on relevance; if representing an automobile company, primary keywords would be what the company does – company name or automobiles. Secondary keywords would be what the company makes – hybrid cars or station wagons.

General search

Conduct a Google search of the keywords:

• Using an advanced search, scan the top 100 results of primary keywords and 30 results of secondary keywords.
• Track blogs, social networks, multimedia, and other social media sites.
• Conduct a secondary search by coupling the keyword + company name, and search the top 30 results.
• Track the number of results and top themes found within them; new themes that arise should also be added to the list of keywords.

Top blogs and bloggers

There are many tools available to search for influential blogs and bloggers. Several especially useful tools include:

• Technorati and S.Technorati: Track search results of blogs and blog posts, looking for influencers that are repeatedly top sources of information. Ask yourself if the blogger is part of the target community, or if this is a random post on the topic: A climate change blogger may mention polar bears in a post, but that doesn’t mean they are active members within the polar bear community. Further, don’t let the Technorati Authority or ranking play too large of a factor. A top influencer in the polar bear community may only have an Authority of 50; whereas in a large, broad community – auto enthusiasts – top influencers would expectedly have over 1,000 Authority.
• Google Blogs: Is particularly useful for finding the volume of conversation occurring on particular search terms. It is also a useful for finding posts within a period of time.
• socialmention: socialmention allows searches across blogs, microblogs, bookmarks, comments, events, images, news, video, audio, and Q&A. This social search engine searches for unique posts across Technorati, Google, Yahoo! Wordpress, Wikio, Twitter, YouTube, Delicious and other social sites and search engines. It also provides a Social Rank within every category of media for the keyword search, and an overall grade across all categories. Rankings are out of 100, and are based on level of activity. Moreover, the frequency of new media related to the search term is also presented, letting you know of the latest video, blog post or tweet was added to the social web, and how often content is added. The tag cloud, linking to other popular related keywords, is also a useful feature.
• Delicious: Search for popular posts regarding the keywords. Track top taggers, and top tags based on the keywords. It is useful to search top tags to better assess a specific keywords popularity compared to the broader conversation.
• daylife: Is useful to find topics, photos, and articles by keyword. In particular, daylife provides top quotes on the search term, and it highlights themes of articles that mention the searched keyword. For example, top topics of articles that mention “polar bears” include the Environmental Protection Agency, Barack Obama and others.
• AllTop, the online magazine rack, is useful to find an assortment of top blogs by category. If there are no categories in AllTop for a particular keyword – polar bears – expand the search to include broader terms that would encompass the original keyword – Green.

Visit the blogs

Many top influencers have blogrolls. Read through this list of blogs, visit those that appear to fit within your community’s interests, and add relevant blogs to the growing influencer list. Often, these new blogs have blogrolls of their own. Spending the time navigating through blogrolls and top blogs will begin appearing repeatedly; these are often the community’s top influencers. Another tip is to keep an eye out for the blogger’s Twitter handle while visiting their blog. Influencers usually share blog posts from within the community on Twitter too, introducing you to other community influencers.

Message boards and forums

Message boards and forums are primary meeting places for some communities. Developers frequently use forums to discuss code, ask questions and offer suggestions. BoardReader and Board Tracker are useful tools for tracking conversations happening within forums. They aggregate discussions across all forums and message boards under one site.

Search social media sites

Using the list of keywords, conduct searches on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, and LinkedIn. Use TwitterGrader.com’s search feature and Twitter Search to find top Twitterers in the community. Additionally, YouTube and Flickr both offer easy Google Searches that make finding content by search term easy.

Throughout your search, don’t simply track the top influencers, consider what they are saying.

Listen to the conversation that is happening, and consider ways of adding your own thoughts and opinions. Once you have listened, begin nurturing relationships with these influencers through thoughtful and continuous engagement.

I’m interested, how are you finding influencers?

by Marinel Mones

Twitter, the popular micro-blogging site, publishes online messages with a maximum of 140 characters. Currently, Twitter has an estimated 4.1 million visits to the site and climbing per month in the U.S. alone. It is considered to be the fastest growing social network, and is one of the most viral social media tools freely available. Many brands attempt to use the tool to market their services and products, but the successful brands use Twitter to listen and engage with their stakeholders. (img from seyDoggy’s photostream)

Brian Solis, a Principal at FutureWorks, said, “Of all of the social tools and services that are pervasive throughout our digital society, only a select few communities can boast the pseudo fanatical conviction that Twitter’s users unanimously possess.”

Twitter can be compared to skimming the headlines, only viral with links, tweets and conversation moving at the speed of 140 characters. At the same time, it lacks the depth of other forms of social media, like content rich blogs or a contact manager like LinkedIn.

Similar to other social networks, organizations should not just jump onto the Twitter bandwagon. Before engaging companies and organizations need to assess their purpose and potential benefits of using Twitter. Below are key questions to consider:

• What can Twitter do for my organization? Twitter connects organizations to their target audiences and allows them to build trust and relationships. This micro-blogging site is excellent for nonprofits and social good advocates to raise awareness for their efforts and a good place for micro-campaigns.
• What can we do for our Twitter community? Can we add to the conversation? What value do we bring to potential followers on Twitter? Are we ready to be present the other 90-95% of the time when we don’t have a need to communicate with the marketplace? Are we ready for an ongoing conversation?
• One account or multiple accounts? One account per organization is recommended. Multiple accounts create confusion. It’s OK for employees of an organization to have their own personal account as long as employees are being transparent of who they are and who they work for, i.e. “@Richard from Dell”. Organizations can elect a person to manage the account and engage with stakeholders. All Twitter correspondence regarding the organization’s information can be addressed with the main account. Employees could provide the Twitter handle (username) of the organization’s main Twitter profile on their own profiles (crosslinking is important for consistency and unification).
• How do I use Twitter? The opportunities for organziations to use Twitter are incessant. Twitter is a tool meant for engaging, not just following people and vice versa. The Dosh Dosh blog shares different ways beginners, professionals and organizations can you use Twitter. The list includes:
  • Networking – There are many ways to network on Twitter. Organizations should use Twitter search to find fellow industry organizations, professionals, and potential stakeholders to follow. If organizations can effectively build relationships on Twitter, the potential for leveraging Twitter in promotional efforts is endless.
  • Receiving feedback – As with every social media tool, listening and engaging with fellow Twitterers are fundamental. Network Solutions is a prime example of this. Network Solutions monitors the “Twittersphere” for conversations about the company – from customer service to providing potential stakeholders with coupon offers. Network Solutions responds to Tweets (the post/entry made on Twitter), often asking for feedback, and in turn learns how to better serve their clients.
  • Direct traffic – Crosslinking blog posts, new campaign information, etc. about your organization will help drive traffic to your site. Synchronize updates with your website. Micro-blogging sites offer badges (an image, usually squared and displayed on a blog, which signifies the blogger’s participation in an event, contest, or social movement) and widgets (mini applications that performs a specific function and connects to the Internet) to embed on web pages such home sites or blogs.
  • Provide information – Share information about organization on your profile and in your Tweets. This information should be relevant to your stakeholders. Information about local events, conferences, etc. are all appropriate. Providing information does not mean pitch your organization.
  • Read News – Twitter users tend to share information using tiny URLs. This can be blog posts or online news article URLs. In addition to following and engaging with industry professionals, the organizations should read the content – including the links – of those they follow and their followers, if the Tweet deems relevant.
  • Branding – An organization’s brand should permeate on and offline. Remember, brands are perceptions of organizations in the minds of their consumers. Be consistent by using established logos, colors, etc. Consistency signifies a united front for organizations.

For example, social media consultant and social media for social good advocate, Beth Kanter, used Twitter to help a young Cambodian woman receive treatments for her health. Kanter challenged people at the Seattle Gnomedex 8.0 Conference in August 2008 to use their Twitter networks to raise money for this woman. In 90 minutes, Kanter raised $2,500 and by the end of the conference $4,000. Kanter was successful because she has a large network, but she also cultivates her relationship with her Twitter followers.

What Twitter Can Do For You

Tracking keywords and conversations is one of the benefits of Twitter. Organizations can follow dialogues and research key issues using Twitter Search and hashtags (#). Following conversations provides the organizations with benchmarks and results.

• The tracking keywords feature is used on your phone or IM. People simply send text messages with “track” in front of the word they’d like followed (i.e. “track nonprofits”). Results are given in real-time.
• There are many tools for performing Twitter searches. The most popular is Twitter Search (formally known as Summize before Twitter acquired it). Twitter searches enable organizations to filter conversations.

If an organization wanted to see what the Twittersphere was saying about them, they could easily use Twitter search to monitor the conversations. Twitter search also provides an RSS Feed (a system that generates frequently updated information from a site) for specific terms. Organizations could really use the search to answer questions and track trends.

• Hashtags make it easier to follower conversations on Twitter. Words or phrases marked with a hash (#) as a prefix signify tracking. People create hashtags in order to view the results and conversations in the Twittersphere. Hashtags are excellent to use for campaigns.

Communicating provides only140 characters to capture your stakeholder’s interest. If organizations continuously build relationships and network on Twitter and the campaigns are thoughtfully executed, then the campaign will be successful. It’s critical for 98% of marketers out there to ensure they don’t just broadcast using a Twitter profile (CNNers, Guy Kawasaki and Shaquille O’Neal aside). Success demands participation and conversation.

Take the Twit2Fit effort as an example. Twit2Fit is an ongoing Twitter movement that supports the health and wellness of people and challenges Twitter users to exercise and create or maintain a healthy lifestyle. When people tweet about exercising, they add the #twit2fit to their post. The movement encourages people to become healthy and allows Twitterers to show their support for better health and wellness.

Another example is Epic Change’s Tweetgiving campaign, an effort to raise money to fund a new classroom for a school in Tanzania. In just 48 hours, Epic Change was able to raise $10,000 through the power of Twitter and social media.

The best benefit organizations get from joining Twitter is the relationships. The Twitter community is continuously growing and thrives on participation and interaction. Think of your Twitter relationships as investments of the organization. To keep a client, you must continue nourishing that relationship and offer assistance as needed. Offer your Twitter community with information by providing answers pertaining to their sector-related questions. Listen and engage with your stakeholders.

Conclusion

Twitter is a helpful tool when effectively used. The dynamics of the Twitter community allows organizations to use connect with their stakeholders and offer information about themselves or their cause. Through this micro-blogging tool, the organizations can meet new people, share information with their stakeholders about organization updates or events, track trends and conversations in the nonprofit industry and even create a micro-campaign. With Twitter, organizations are listening, engaging and building relationships that extend beyond the social network.

What about communities beyond the oft talked about majors – Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, Delicious, Friendfeed, StumbleUpon, etc.?  How does one engage is a very common question, and there are general principles that apply across all social communities major or not. In some ways, Brian Solis and I tried to provide guidance to that effect with Now Is Gone with the Seven Principles of Community Engagement.  But there’s more to that (Image: Community Building Competition by absingla).

First, let’s recap the Seven Principles, which are outline in the closing strategy chapter of Now Is Gone, Think Liquid:

1) Do not try to control the message: Command and control is dead. Though must folks out here get it, organizations are still struggling with relinquishing control. Let’s put it in the context of a relationship — which is the core of traditional PR and again, now with social media marketing.

2) Honesty, ethics and transparencies are musts:  This isn’t about baring trade secrets or intellectual property. It’s about basic human relations, and creating a strong foundation for long-term, two-way mutually beneficial relationship. Think about the golden rule here.

3) Participation within the community is marketing (Heuer): Get out there into the stakeholder’s realm. Comment and contribute to larger community groups and social networks. Read customer and related blogs (or vlogs and podcasts), and interact with the writers.

4) Communication to audiences is an out-dated 20th century concept (Rosen):  Audiences receive one-way communications — movies, radio broadcasts, speeches, etc. Thanks to social media the audience talks back, forcing organizations to address them in a conversational, two-way manner.

5) Build value for the community: Building value for a community means a core decision to serve them, either with meaningful conversations, links or number 6, content.

6) Inspire your community with real, exciting content, not corporate propaganda: Understand your community has problems, and you have some answers. Creating content for them does not mean give them a press release. It means give them Great Content, fight for their interest, and deliver content on a schedule so readers’ expectations of regular updates are met.

7) Intelligently manage your media forms (RSS, frequency, etc.) to build a stronger, loyal community: When acting in a community, create calls to action, manage your RSS feeds intelligently, make them obvious and accessible.

Now What?

Well, that was a more than a year and a half ago, and much has changed in social media communities since Now Is Gone (image: MacBraynes Bus by conner395).  I think it’s fair to say that there are some basic tactical best practices that have arisen. Some of these are obvious human behaviors that when engaged in a two-way conversation would obviously turn users off. Some are best practices based on mistakes and actions others have taken.

1) Bring People Back to Your Web Site. Be smart, especially if you are building a community within a larger network.  If you want to build relationships with people, give them a way to contact you, and perhaps further engage.  Provide intelligent calls to action.  Post meaningful links and content that your community members may want to see. And then provide calls to action for those who want to develop an even stronger relationship with you.

Many nonprofits do well in branding and awareness on major social networks, but fail to achieve significant relationship development. Getting people to interact with you on your site is the difference maker here. The numbers are less, but the relationships are stronger.

2) Relating versus spamming.  It’s not kosher to auto DM or spam people.  This is basic human relationships, but if you are using your community, either hosted elsewhere or on your own platform as an auto-response and/or pitch mechanism, you will alienate community members.  This should be obvious to people.

I mean who wants to walk into a car deal and snake-oiled?  The same thing goes for online communities.  Talk with – as opposed to at – people.

3)Play within existing communities: It doesn’t make sense most of the time to create your own community. In fact, most organizationally started communities fail. Usually one already exists on Ning, Squidoo, a community board, or yes, one of the majors. See where open APIs, value added content, and groups will let you play withing the larger community.

One of the best examples I’ve seen of this was how HubSpot created Twitter Grader then used the data to produce the State of the Twittersphere report. Oh, by the way they produce inbound marketing software, a natural hit for those who are really into the report data… and how to make a successful app. like Twitter Grader.

4) Don’t dictate to the community. Another somewhat obvious people relations skill, but one that companies like Facebook need to fail before they comprehend that their users are also their partners. On the otherhand, a company like Southwest Airlines has figured out how to use their social community to vet online significant changes.

5) Stay Relevant: Sometimes communities grow stale. Keep updating the technical prowess, features, content and capabilities that are feeding you community. For successes, consider the updates networks like Twitter and Facebook have made over the past year, or lying fallow for too long like Second Life, LinkedIn, Jaiku and MySpace have done over periods of time. Recently, MySpace and LinkedIn made significant progress, but only LinkedIn seems to have benefited from it.

The point is the same though, whether you are on someone else’s platform or your own, the community lives on currentness. Make sure you stay relevant. This in many ways is about the final chapter of Now Is Gone, Think Liquid. Water strategy keeps you moving forward.

Most of these tactical best practices are common sense when you consider them in the context of relationships with other people. You can never go wrong with Golden Rule based actions and principles.

This week’s Georgetown class is being taught by Qui on Now Is Gone.  Students will mercifully miss me pontificating on my own book due to a business trip.