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Tuesday Tips: 7 Ways to Success With Twitter

1 Feb

Are you using Twitter for yourself or for your business? Are you getting anything out of it?

What I hear from folks (all the time!) is that they don’t get Twitter or they’re on it and they’re not getting anything out of it.

So when I read this email from @Biz, @Ev, and @Jack co-founders of Twitter http://twitter.com, and saw these four basic tips for you to improve your experience on Twitter in 2011, I knew I should pass them on.

1) Follow your interests.

The Twitter founders say they’ve found that the people who enjoy Twitter most tend to follow a variety of accounts: friends, family, people in their profession, local shops and events, and most importantly, people who share their passions.

That’s true for me, too! I follow about 1200 people, many of them social media savvy and from the wine industry, but I also follow poets, and travelers, and artists…  a wide range of people who share content of interest to me.

2) Get specific. Like sports? Follow your favorite leagues, teams, players, coaches, commentators, writers and fellow fans. Love food? Follow chefs, restaurants, critics, bloggers, specialty shops and respected foodies.

As I said above, I follow a number of my interests, but a lot of it is related to wine and social media. My husband, who does not have a Twitter account, went to Twitter first to see if I was posting anything on it while I was in Egypt (and yes, he did find a tweet or two and a link to a some photos!) From there, he went to various hashtags (#) on topics of his interest. He’s gone back to Twitter to find out about specific events or people and he’s surprised to find out how useful it is.

3) Don’t panic. People turn to Twitter during emergencies. Snowstorms, power outages and fires are just a few emergencies where Twitter may be helpful. Search for #hashtags and follow local civic accounts to stay informed.

This is similar to my husband’s approach–turning to Twitter for specific information. You don’t have to have an account or follow anyone or be followed in order to use Twitter.

4) Return to Twitter. There are about 200 million accounts on Twitter now – that means new interests, new voices, and new ideas every day. Twitter offers services in seven languages, apps for most devices, and SMS worldwide.

The truth is, while there may be 200 million accounts on Twitter (according to Twitter), but most of them are barely active or they fall into the “This is what I had for lunch” and “I’m bored” and “I’m at the gym” etc type tweets. Just ignore the content that doesn’t interest you. It’s not necessary to judge a whole social media platform based on how some people use it.

Curious if you have any Twitter “clout”? Want to know how to get more? (more…)

Tuesday Tips: 25 Best Practices for Email Marketing

25 Jan

Kelly Flint, self-professed email geek says “Stay in front of your customers by landing in their inbox.  Less is more; get it out the door!”

In this blog post, I go over some of what I learned from Kelly about email marketing: why and how it works, tips, strategy, techniques, list building, permission marketing, and content tips.

So why should you use email marketing? 91% internet users use email; 225 million people in the US, including seniors which is the biggest growing segment of the internet population. Direct mail costs 20x more than email.

Email ROI: average $43. 52 returned for every $1 (WOW!)  Learning how to do it well by increasing your use of the following best practices, your open rate will increase that ROI. Average open rate is 12%, but if you have great content, the open rate can increase greatly–and your return on investment.

Here are 25 Best Practices for Email Marketing: (more…)

The Write Alley 2010 in Review: Wow!

7 Jan

This year WordPress.com did something new: they summarized the action on the blogs that use their platform and sent an email with their results. The email was formatted in such a way to make it easy to post on our blogs. (Read about my other blog Art Predator’s 2010 in review http://artpredator.wordpress.com/2011/01/03/2010-in-review/which I was able to post from my iPhone’s email!)

So how can your blog get a WOW rating in 2011? Blog regularly!

According to report on business blogging mistakes I read recently, 90% of businesses which blog daily get customers that way while if you blog less than once a month, you have a 13% chance of getting a customer. (More from that report and a link to where you can get it yourself in an upcoming blog post!)

My goal on this blog is to post daily Monday-Friday except for legal US holidays and the occasional break (like for last week’s vacation in Baja Mexico!) I achieved my goal most weeks in 2010; let’s see how I do in 2011!

It definitely helps to set a goal for how frequently you will update your blog. If you plan to blog every Monday, Wednesday and Friday for example, your creative self will help you! But if you blog randomly, your writer self will have a harder time than if you blog on a regular schedule. Your readers will also come to expect and look forward to your blog posts!

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

Healthy blog!

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.

Crunchy numbers

Featured image

A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 3,800 times in 2010. That’s about 9 full 747s.

In 2010, there were 93 new posts, not bad for the first year! There were 60 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 42mb. That’s about a picture per week.

The busiest day of the year was December 21st with 319 views. The most popular post that day was winter solstice lunar eclipse: rituals for self, world, business!.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were facebook.com, artpredator.wordpress.com, twitter.com, mail.yahoo.com, and mail.live.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for winter solstice rituals, lunar eclipse rituals, the write alley, how to be an effective writer, and write alley.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

1

winter solstice lunar eclipse: rituals for self, world, business! December 2010

2

Keeping Track of Friends, Unfriends & Twitter Followers November 2010
2 comments

3

Tuesday Tips: The Writing Process & Lamott’s “Sh*tty First Drafts” June 2010
4 comments

4

How To Be An Effective Writer: 26 Tips from Meg Maker June 2010

5

So “How Do I Look?” October 2010
1 comment and 1 Like on WordPress.com,

Thank you for being one of my readers and subscribers in 2010! Please join us in 2011 by subscribing to this blog and joining the conversation on facebook!

Why I Love WordPress; Why I Teach WordPress

6 Jan

Is one of your New Year’s Resolutions to explore social media and learn what it can do for you?

Yesterday I had two meetings with two very different people about how to use various social media platforms for business and pleasure.

Both are comfortable with facebook and understand the basics of how to use it for themselves. One had a twitter account but didn’t do much with it beyond broadcasting links to products (which is basically kind of spammy) and the other thought it was only a place where people posted about what they had for lunch. Both were curious about blogging and whether it might be a worthwhile endeavor.

Our sessions were incredibly productive, satisfying, and rewarding for them and for myself. One person I knew quite well already and we were able to jump right in while with the other person we spent some time getting to know each other to learn how social media might be useful and how we might work together. Both learned quite a bit more about facebook, twitter, and blogging.

Whenever I talk about blogging, I talk about WordPress. While there are many different platforms out there, and sometimes people who I talk to already are on one of them.

But I’m convinced WordPress is the best blogging platform out there whether you’re looking for something that’s free or you’re going to host a blog or website yourself. The result is that both are very interesting in learning the basics of blogging. Since so much of it is introductory, it makes sense to offer another class on blogging using WordPress. Watch for more news on that soon.

A few of my reasons for using WordPress:

easy and intuitive

beautiful, flexible, graceful easy to read themes

open-source supportive helpful community

intuitive and easy

nice people

Watch the video and you’ll learn more!

How to get a Facebook biz page in 3 easy steps & what’s next

23 Dec

Is your business on Facebook? Or have you avoided the Facebook revolution even though you know you should be using Facebook for your business?

Here’s how to get a Facebook account for your business and not really be on Facebook yourself, and what to do with your Facebook page once you have it. (more…)

More Social Media Tips & Tools

15 Dec

I’m attending Constant Contact’s free social media workshop…so you don’t have to…and will be sharing the highlights here for you! See the previous post for the first part of this two part blog post.

While social media tools are free or low-cost, they can have a huge price: your time.

The presenter argues that all a small business needs to do is 15 minutes a day three days a week to maintain a social media presence that’s consistent and active.

I would disagree: if you have plenty of time, if your business is young, or if you’re underemployed, invest time in social media, especially if you are blogging–which she isn’t addressing in this workshop.

Recycle and reuse content. Post the link to your email or blog post to social media sites. You can even break down information from a larger article into smaller Facebook or Twitter sized updates.

Make sure you cross promote your various social media platforms.

Social networks offer YOU a chance to share your message but also a chance for OTHERS to talk about you, so you’d better monitor the web for what people are saying.

If someone says something, respond! If it’s positive, thank them! Engage them! If what they said is NOT positive, you need to respond immediately and take it offline quickly.

Bad feedback? Contact the person immediately and take it offline. Don’t be defensive: fix the problem.

In addition to monitoring, it’s important to measure your impact. Start with a baseline. Figure out what you want to measure and get that information, possibly into a spreadsheet like Excel. Then experiment with the different platforms and see what the results are.

Some tools:

NutshellMail.com is a monitoring tool.

Google Alerts sends you an email notice about whatever topic you want to know about: your name, your business, your blog, your community.

HootSuite and TweetDeck help you to monitor what’s happening on various social media platforms.

bit.ly shortens links and provides tracking information.

Constantcontact.com offers more free tools and free trial for 60 days.

Constant Contact Workshop Part 1: Focus on Facebook

15 Dec

So I’m devoting the day at two workshops on social media presented by Kelly Flint of Constant Contact…so you don’t have to! Or if you’re considering attending one in the future, you’ll know whether it’s worth it or not.

What follows is based on my notes from what Kelly had to say in today’s morning workshop, an introduction to social media.

The people who are your customers already are your best customers: your best customers are your current customers.

But how do you keep those customers? How do you let them know what’s new and exciting in your business? How do you engage them?

The presenter started with a brief overview of the major social networks: Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube (she didn’t mention blogging). The main idea is to be where your customers are. Are your customers hanging out on facebook? Then you should be too!

First you need to figure out where your customers engage you online. She offered a case study of a nail salon who offered a 20% discount to people who mentioned a keyword which changed depending on the source. The salon owner listened to which key phrase the customers shared to get their discount and learned that 50% used the discount they got from the email.

Average open rate is 12% but in one case she shared, the open rate was 22%, and even more amazing, the share rate was 60%. Why? The email was about an international bacon day and offered significant information, content, that inspired sharing. And since the user turned on the “share” button, people did.

Content is always king. If you share content with your readers that engages them, they will want to share it.

In another example, people who are on an email newsletter list are members of a “club” who get discounts. What happens if people are excited about the content of your email it can and will be shared with their friends via social media outlets if you use them.

Facebook Content tips: (more…)

Tuesday Tips: Keep Learning (free workshops Weds on social media & email marketing!)

14 Dec

I love learning. That’s one of the reasons I love writing–you really learn a subject when you try to write about it and explain it to someone else.

I love attending conferences and blogging about what I’m hearing; that gets me to pay attention better because I’m taking notes not just for me but to share with others.

And I love workshops too. Even if it’s a topic I know something about, there’s always more to learn. As a teacher myself, it’s valuable to me to see how others teach a topic. I’m keen on picking up metaphors that others use that click for me!

Finally, I love FREE–especially if I think I’m going to learn something of value!

So that’s why I’m going to spend tomorrow at the Ventura County Office of Education participating in two sessions on social media and email marketing sponsored by Constant Contact, a company that you probably recognize from emails in your inbox. They’re a very popular company (if my inbox is to judge) when it comes to email marketing. I completely expect them to “sell” me on their product; afterall, they are sponsoring the workshop to teach me how to use it.

The sessions  are free–only cost of admission is a business card for each session: 

-10:00am Social Media Marketing Made Simple
-Noon Lunch Break (Lunch on your own)
-1:30pm The Power of Email Marketing

For more events go to: www.losangeles.constantcontact.com

Let’s All Go Zin Nov. 19!

19 Nov

Did you know that The Write Alley Head Coach Gwendolyn Alley is also known as the Wine Predator? Yes, indeed!

And did you know that today, Nov. 19 is Global #Zinfandel Day? Yes again!

Learn more about #Zinfandel Day and my adventures in wine at my Wine Predator Blog! Among the 200 posts there, you’ll find a page full of posts about the Wine Bloggers Conference in 2008 featuring Sonoma Wines, 2009 on Napa Wines, and in 2010  on Washington Wines! There’s also a page about the European Wine Bloggers Conference that I attended as a guest of Enoforum and where I discovered the joys of Potuguese cuisine, culture, hospitality, landscape, and wine!

As a coach and as a content provider, I would love to work with more wine related businesses. Let me know how I can help you tell the stories about you and your wines!

Let's All Go Zin: Nov. 19 is Global Zin Day How do you plan to celebrate Global Zinfandel Day, Friday November 19, 2010 from midnight to midnight? All you have to do is open a bottle of zin and enjoy it! I tell you, I am such a zin fan I’m ready to pop a cork at midnight and begin tweeting! (After all, I cut my wine “teeth” working at Ridge!) If you want to get social, use the #Zinfandel hashtag to connect with other zin lovers on  Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Gowalla, blogs, etc.  You c … Read More

via Wine Predator

Keeping Track of Friends, Unfriends & Twitter Followers

17 Nov

(Note: some people may find this video hilarious. Others may find it offensive. Don’t watch it if you have your doubts!)

According to a facebook friend (and subscriber to this blog, thank you, you know who!), Jimmy Kimmel has announced it’s National “Delete FB Friends Day” today.

To quote my source’s facebook status: “My sword is sharp, and my patience is limited. Love to all. May THE FORCE be with you.”

How do you decide who to keep and who to cut on facebook and twitter? Since this is a business and writing oriented blog, I’m not going to stray too far into advice, especially since I’m torn by a “ya’ll come” approach to my own friends and a “do I really need more than 600 friends?” I wonder how many is too many, how many is enough, how many is just right. (What are your parameters?)

I can’t imagine having too many friends on my business page of course! If you haven’t done so yet, please click the find me on facebook link and join us over there!

So far I’m accepting just about everyone who is a legitimate person as a facebook friend, not some bot. I have hidden people who have politics that make me angry or who do nothing but post the same status update promoting their business over and over. So far, I may not have actually unfriended anyone. That may change later on tonight! There’s a few people that I find annoying and I’m wondering why I continue to be friends with them when they never comment on my posts and I don’t see anything that they offer worth commenting on and sharing.

I have, however, been unfriended. Yes, even though I have a Klout score of 39 (bigger is better and it has been as high as 41!) and my influence is in the 70th percentile and my friends tell me they like the content I share, I have indeed been unfriended. (There was a steady stream there after the Women’s Conference! Okay, maybe 5.)

So how do I know I’ve been unfriended, you wonder? By using an app, of course–the unfriend app! If you want to learn more about unfriend finding, here’s the link to their facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/San-Francisco-CA/Unfriend-Finder/148784361800841

While I haven’t done any unfriending yet today, I did do a little Twitter house cleaning by using Twitter Karma to see who follows me back. I found about 200 people who don’t and I unfollowed most of them. Now what I need to do is follow the people who have faithfully followed me and who deserve to be followed back.

Please follow me on twitter! The link is in the sidebar. @ me a message with who you are and I’ll be sure to follow you back!

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