2010 December | Mason Media Today

Drip Feeding Your Twitter Page

December 20, 2010 By Mason Leave a Comment

One of the keys to attracting followers on Twitter is having an active Twitter page. One someone stumbles upon your Twitter page what will they see? Will they see a page that looks dead with the last update being over a month old? Or, will they see a page that looks alive and kickin’ with routine updates that are relevant and cohesive?

There is an obvious way to achieve having a page that is lively: be an active user with consistent “Tweets.” This is easy for some, but not for everybody. Some people aren’t approaching their social media strategy with daily updates. Some people do it once a week or so. While that is understandable, it doesn’t mean your page has to go for a week or more without updates.

Twitterfeed.com is a great site to connect to your Twitter account. It’s a 3rd party app that takes advantage of RSS feeds to send automatic messages to your social media.

You can use Twitterfeed to do something called “Drip Feeding Your Twitter Page.” Drip feeding is a gardening reference. It refers to a type of irrigation method that is different from your typical spraying sprinkler-head. A drip feeding system delivers a slow steady trickle of water and fertilizer onto soil. In the same manner, you can deliver a slow steady trickle of “tweets” to your followers and potential followers.

What you first need to do is identify a blog (or several blogs) that routinely posts content relevant to your industry context or niche. Locate their RSS feed and copy the link location. Create your Twitterfeed account, then create a “new feed” and paste the RSS feed you copied into the appropriate field. Every time that blog posts a new article, your Twitter account will post the article with a link to it on your page, delivering content to your targeted audience on a regular basis.

Again, this is a great strategy for someone who doesn’t necessarily blog or post updates daily. It’s also a great strategy for someone launching a new page but is in still in the process of building their main website. This way, you can start attracting your following even though your main website isn’t finished yet.

The Twitterfeed setup process is pretty straight forward in my opinion, but if you have any questions or run into any snags feel free to post it below in the comments and I’ll help you out. Thanks!

Filed Under: Social Media, Twitter Tagged With: Social Media, Twitter, Twitterfeed

Nutshell Mail

December 17, 2010 By Mason Leave a Comment

I wanted to let you know about a new tool that looks very promising. It’s called Nutshell Mail and it’s brought to us by Constant Contact. It’s a customizable email service that will send you updates from Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and more. The purpose is to streamline all of your social media updates into one email. From new Facebook updates, pics and friend requests to Twitter followers and updates to LinkedIn connections and so much more.

I just recently signed up for this new free service. After a few days of using it I must say I am pleasantly surprised. You can customize and choose what information you’d like to receive from each network. You can also specify when and how often you want to receive your Nutshell email. The sign-up process is pretty simple. All you need to do allow permission for each of your different networks and setup your preferences accordingly. Here’s their promo video from their site:

My only criticism of it currently is that you cannot receive any info regarding your LinkedIn inbox. You get your Twitter DM’s, your Facebook inbox, but not your LinkedIn messages. I was also curious if this “free” service had any plans to charge end users down the road. So, I contacted Nutshell Mail via email and got this response:

Hi Mason!

1. We do not have a plan to charge for NutshellMail. It is currently free and no word on if we would charge for this. If we did, we would of course let you know!

2. We do not have an option to receive email in NutshellMail for LinkedIn but I will submit that request on your behalf. That is a great feature and I hope that we add it in the future! Thanks for the great suggestion!

I’m so glad to hear that you love it! I love it too!

If you need anything else, please do not hesitate to write me back!

Pretty responsive and enthusiastic customer service.

In order to benefit from this service you would want to turn off your email notifications from your social networks in order to have less email in your inbox related to social media. Again, this service looks very promising. If it holds up over time and I will definitely consider pointing my customers in their direction. Especially if it remains “FREE.”

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: Nutshell Mail, Social Media

Winning the Facebook News Feed

December 16, 2010 By Mason 2 Comments

Do you believe Facebook is a great way to share your content? You probably answered “yes” because you can publish your own Facebook page and once people “Like” your page they will see all of your posts in their “News Feed.” Is this right??? Sorry, the conclusion mentioned above is actually WRONG.

Next time you’re on Facebook, take a closer look at your News Feed. In the upper right-hand portion of the screen, your News Feed is actually divided into two categories: “Top News” and “Most Recent.”

Through private conversations with Facebook staff, Jeff Widman at BrandGlue – a Facebook management company – revealed that 95% of Facebook users only read their newsfeeds by “Top News” instead of “Most Recent.”

(In the tone of Homer Simpson) D’OH!

This means that it is possible that only 5% of your fans may actually see your content. Factor in research from ExactTarget and CoTweet that states 65% of Facebook users do not log-in during the workday, but rather at night and on weekends. This means that a large portion of your fans could be missing out on your content.

According to Emily Molitor, writer for Smart Blog on Social Media, the “Top News” is determined by Edge Rank, an algorithm that reflects three components:

Affinity Score: The amount you have historically engaged with content by a person/page increases your affinity to the content creator.

Timing: The more recent the post, the higher it ranks.

Weight: As posts are commented on, liked and shared by other Facebook users and their networks, their overall weight increases.

Emily recommends 3 actions to get your content into the Top News:

1. Post content frequently. This increases your chances via the timing angle.
2. Consider your post timing. “Off hours” might work best for posting your content.
3. Use calls to action in your posts. Encourage your fans to like, comment, or share your content to increase the weight.

I would like to add 1 spiritual recommendation to that list: If you have your own page, make sure you are interacting with other pages. If you see a post from another page, be generous with “Likes,” comments, and sharing. Whatever you sow, you will reap.

Mason Media factors this information into clients’ packages when setting up their Facebook page and implements strategies to help them in “Winning the Facebook News Feed.”

To read Emily Molitor’s complete article, click here.

As always I hope you found this article helpful. Thanks for stopping by!

Filed Under: Facebook, Featured Articles, Social Media Tagged With: Facebook, Facebook News Feed, Facebook Page, Facebook Top News, Social Media

Adding Fans To Your Facebook “Like” Page

December 15, 2010 By Mason 4 Comments

Most of us are familiar with a “Facebook Fan Page.” Recently, Facebook changed this to a “Like Page” but it’s basically still the same. In regards to your “Like” page, one of your goals is very simple: Get as many “Fans” and/or “Likes” as you possibly can. There are numerous different strategies out there to grow your FB Page that involve some type of investment. There are referral contests with prizes to special discounts to Facebook Advertising. I’m going to offer up a list of things that will only cost you some time to do. I spent no money launching my FB page (Facebook.com/MasonMediaToday) and had over 200 Fans/Likes in 24 hours of launching.

1. Before launching your page, fill up your page with content. Do not launch a page that is not full of content. It doesn’t matter if the posts are two minutes apart. If no one is following yet, you’re not going to SPAM anybody’s news feed. Post some links, quotes, photos, videos, etc. A half-empty page is not enticing.

2. Invite every single contact you have in your profile. Ask a handful of friends and family to invite their friends and family. I recommend inviting 35 people at a time in a batch to avoid being flagged as a spammer by Facebook.

3. Once you hit 25+ Fans/Likes create your own custom (aka simple) URL for your page. I wrote a short article on this: Custom Facebook URL

4. Add a Facebook widget to your website. If they’re on your website, it’s not that hard to click over and “Like” your page. You can also add FB Badges to other sites/pages you may have and/or your weekly/monthly email newsletter (cough, cough).

5. Interact When People Interact – don’t leave a comment un-responded to. Affirm their participation with a response. People will see that it’s not a dead page but that a living, breathing, human being is actually checking it. If you’re not going to check it routinely, don’t make it.

Some people de-activate the ability for others to post. If you do that you’re nullifying the whole concept of Social Media which is a two-way conversation.

6. Add the simple URL of your Facebook Page to your email signature and business card.

7. Deliver consistent content. Whether it’s once or twice a day, or, once or twice a week, make sure you regularly add fresh posts.

A Facebook page can be just as effective as a website. If it’s going to be created, it needs to be treated like you treat your website: Have a plan/strategy for it, monitor it daily and get the word out about it. I hope you find this post helpful.

Filed Under: Facebook, Social Media

Getting Targeted Twitter Followers

December 14, 2010 By Mason Leave a Comment

Twitter is a great tool to connect with people. In regards to blogging it can also become a forum for discussion with your blog’s theme/topic/message. In order for this to become a reality you must not only have followers, but you must have targeted followers. People are constantly asking, “How can I get more Twitter followers?” There are actually many different answers to that question and I will be sharing a lot of them on this blog in future posts. What people should be asking, though, is, “How can I get more targeted Twitter followers?”

First off, the simplest way to get more followers on Twitter is to “follow” other people. A lot of people don’t realize this. Most Twitter users will eventually follow you back within 2-3 days unless they’re some high profile celebrity or unless they “think” they’re some high profile celebrity. So now that we know “what” to do, we need to know “who” it is we should do it to.

Before I go any other further I want to put a disclaimer on this particular strategy: It’s not an exact science. This strategy should yield a healthy portion of targeted followers but you will also get some followers that don’t necessarily fall into your niche. That’s okay.

Tweep Search is a free and effective tool to find Twitter accounts related to specific information. When you pull up the page there is a simple search field where you can enter your desired parameter and then simply click “Do Your Thing.”

So let’s say you wanted to find Twitter accounts that were “small business owners.” Simply enter that parameter into the search field and you’re one click away from instant leads. The tweep search engine will bring up a list of profiles that have your parameters in a particular Twitter user’s profile description. This brings up the question, “Does your twitter profile description allow people to find you by keywords related to your niche?” We’ll cover that one at greater length another time.

Another way to get targeted followers on Tweep Search is do a search by geographic location. Put a city and state in the search field and you’ll have numerous twitter users related to that location. But wait, you’re not done yet. Tweep Search also allows to re-organize the results by certain categories. One of the categories you can choose from is “Followers.” Click on that and you’ll now have profiles from a specific location with the highest number of followers. Why is this helpful? Now, you can go to that specific Twitter profile and begin to follow the people who are following them. We are assuming that a healthy portion of that profile’s followers will also be from or interested in that specific region too.

This is a just one of the many strategies I employ when building a client’s following for their specific niche. As you can see it’s not an exact science, but you can still yield thousands of targeted followers who will be more likely to engage with your theme/topic/message. I hope this article was helpful. Thanks for the reading and come back soon!

Filed Under: Social Media, Twitter Tagged With: Social Media, Targeted Followers, Tweep Search, Twitter

Sunday At Candlestick Park

December 13, 2010 By Mason Leave a Comment

What good can possibly come from starting Alex Smith at qb??? Well, a niner season ticket holder was boycotting the game in spite of the niners starting Alex Smith (who can blame him right?) and he gave me his tickets!

Niners Tickets

It was a beautiful December Sunday at “The Stick.”

Mason at Candlestick Park

Niners vs. Seahawks

As a niner fan it was a very satisfying experience as the niners rolled 40-21. The images here don’t do the seats justice. I had a panoramic view of the entire field, stadium, and video/animation scoreboard. I’m looking forward to going to future games when they open the new stadium in 2014 in Santa Clara, but it was good to visit historic Candlestick Park to watch a 49ers game. Here’s a video clip I took with my iPhone (3GS) of a 15 yard TD pass from Alex Smith to Josh Morgan in the 2nd Qtr:

Filed Under: Life Tagged With: 49ers, Football

The Missing Link

December 10, 2010 By Mason Leave a Comment

Have you ever had trouble getting traction on LinkedIn? Hopefully, when you initially signed up you took advantage of inviting your email contacts, but what do you do after that?

LinkedIn is a professional networking site (if you’re not familiar with it, look for more info in a couple weeks with our “Origins” series). LinkedIn has been designed differently than sites such as Facebook and Twitter. On Facebook you can send a friend request to anybody. On Twitter you can follow anybody. On LinkedIn, if you have a basic account (aka “Free”) you can’t contact any LinkedIn user directly. If you want to add them as a connection you have to pass through a filter proving that you have some type of history with them. If you lie about having an association with someone and they report it, you can be banned from the ability to add people to your network (yeah, that’s intense). See the image below for a sample of what the filter looks like:

Some people claim that this type of filtering adds more integrity to LinkedIn as a social network. This way people are less likely to have inflated numbers in regards to their connections. What do I think about that? I think that for $25, $50, or $100 a month LinkedIn will let you contact anybody! Granted, the $100 “Executive” rate only allows up to 25 contacts a month, but I think the filtering system is partially motivated as a way to make some money.

The whole concept of networking is to meet more people. With the LinkedIn filtering system, many give up on trying to use LinkedIn to connect with people. That’s why you’ll run across many profiles with 2 connections or, God forbid, 0 connections. Obviously users know more people than this. The problem is they’re used to sites like Facebook where you can just add someone and start interacting.

Aaah, but there is another way. And no, it’s not paying money to be added to a list or use special software. It’s a completely natural way to connect with a targeted audience.

Many LinkedIn members are unfamiliar with “LinkedIn Groups.” Once you sign-in, look to the top navigation bar for a tab marked “Groups.” Click on “Groups Directory.” Here you can search from thousands of topical groups on LinkedIn. Some groups are small, some have thousands, and a few have hundreds of thousands of LinkedIn users. Just type in a theme like marketing, sales, etc and browse away.

Most LinkedIn groups are fairly easy to get into. Some groups are open while others require approval from a group manager, but even those usually accept your request within a few days. I really like LinkedIn Groups and will be offering a more detailed explanation of them in a future article, but for context sake I’m going to get right to the point.

Once you’re part of the group you can view a list of all the members. Look through the list and find targeted users that you would like to network with. Once you find someone, click on their name to go to their profile and click on “Add (Insert Name) To Your Network.” Now, when you’re connection filter appears there will be a new option marked “Groups.” Click on the “Groups” button, select the shared group, hit “Send Invitation” and now you have just requested to connect with someone you previously didn’t know without any potential penalties from LinkedIn (I do believe there is a limit of adding 50 shared group members a day to your network).

Using this small tip is a very easy way to start meeting and interacting with people on LinkedIn. Again, I will share more about LinkedIn Groups and their value to you in a future article. Thanks for reading!

Filed Under: LinkedIn, Social Media Tagged With: Adding LinkedIn Connections, LinkedIn, LinkedIn Groups, Social Media

Do YOU “Like” the New Facebook?

December 9, 2010 By Mason 3 Comments

Please leave a comment below the article and let me know your thoughts on the new Facebook profile setup. If you’re wondering what I’m talking about, it’s just a matter of time until you visit someone’s profile and see this invitation:

That’s right, Facebook has changed things again. In my opinion, this is the biggest shift Facebook has made in comparison to past changes.

As explained in a Facebook blog post, “The profile begins with a quick overview of basic information such as where you’re from, where you went to school, and where you work—?the kinds of conversation starters you share with people you’ve just met or exchange with old friends as you get reacquainted.” True, some of this information is a typical dialogue when first meeting someone although I don’t recall asking people how old they are along with their birth date. I guess Dale Carnegie feels stupid now (How To Win Friends and Influence People reference).

An interesting change is a five-photo-array of your most recently tagged pics at the top of your profile. The only criticism I have with this feature (and I had this criticism before too) is that somebody else can post a pic of me on the front of my profile without permission . I don’t know about you, but sometimes I get tagged in photos that I don’t want people to see at the top of my profile. In fact, after I upgraded my profile, I went into my album and untagged myself in the photos I wanted to show and then re-tagged them to bring them back to the front of my profile. Does this mean I don’t like the new photo feature? Absolutely not. Photos have never been a bigger part of social media than right now and this was definitely an innovative idea. Your photos are no longer tucked away and attached to a tab, but are now part of the main presentation of your profile. The benefit to using the “most recently tagged” photos is that your five-photo-array becomes a sort of visual status update for your profile. Again, it’s not quite ideal yet, but I can smell the innovation at the same time.

Here’s Facebook’s new promo video (I liked Twitter’s new promo video better):

Before, I give them too much credit though, Facebook usually adds “new” features that are strikingly similar to other social sites. Take for instance the 5-photo layout…it is a remarkably similar concept to Flickr’s “Photostream.” Personally, I upload many more photos to Flickr then I do Facebook and now I’m sure I’m not the only one. Flickr still has a lot more “convenience features” for the end user, in regards to photos, compared to Facebook so I hope Zuckerberg isn’t getting insecure about Flickr’s success. This world is big enough for Facebook AND Flickr to co-exist.

Another new “original” idea is that you can now add “projects” you are working on. Honestly, this doesn’t do much for me, but maybe that’s because I already use this other little site called LINKEDIN!!! Yes, it’s pretty obvious Facebook is trying to keep up with the professional networking site as well. Good luck Zuck! A lot of people actually pay to use that site, so they must know something Facebook doesn’t.

This next feature kind of made me chuckle. You can now “create new groups of friends, or feature existing friends lists.” As soon as I read that I immediately created a friends list and titled it my “MySpace Top 8.” Now I know it’s not exactly the same concept, but I am already anticipating controversial lists that make people wonder, “Why am I not on their list?” or, just as confusing, “Why am I ON their list?” For my friends and family, I created my “MySpace Top 8″ as a joke so please don’t think about it too much. I really hope this doesn’t ressurect the ranking of relationships online again. As Jerry Seinfeld once said in regards to a wedding ceremony, “Why does the groom have a best man? I mean, if he’s the best man why isn’t the bride marrying him?”

Facebook is also encouraging people to share more information about themselves in the two contexts of philosophy–which includes political views, religion, favorite quotations, and inspirational figures–and sports. And surprise, surprise…the new design has a greater emphasis on advertising as well.

Last but not least, Facebook has removed the empty field at the top to input your status update. You now have to click one extra time to bring this field up before updating your status. That’s interesting to me, since that was a feature they added a while back to keep up with Twitter’s simple status update field. I wonder which of these new features that Facebook has added now, will be obsolete in the next year? I have my guesses…

Some people get intensely angry when Facebook changes things. How do I feel about Facebook with the new changes? Pretty much the same: “Facebook is one of the best social media sites because it organizes a lot of concepts in a very clean manner.” Are the changes good or bad? Well, “change” is a double-edged sword. Change is good because it shows that you are working hard to improve your product. Change can be bad though if it makes you look like you are trying too hard to be something you’re not. So far, Facebook has made several shifts without losing their dominance so it must mean that they are improving their product. Well done.

Facebook has already started to roll out the new look and all users should receive the upgrade by early 2011 (or you can elect to upgrade here). When I upgraded I was taken through a five-stage-tour of the new features. Here are the screenshots of the tour (click on each photo for full view):

Filed Under: Facebook, Social Media Tagged With: Facebook, facebook changes, facebook profile changes, new facebook, new facebook profile, Social Media

LinkedIn Offers Year End Special

December 8, 2010 By Mason 2 Comments

LinkedIn is currently offering a year end special for half the price on all Premium Accounts. Normally it’s $50 a month for a Premium Account but now you can sign up for only $25 a month. If you were considering going with a Premium LinkedIn account before, now is the time to jump in! If you weren’t considering this or still don’t know much about LinikedIn, then just stay with the free version (I’ll be doing a post in the near future about the “Origin of LinkedIn” if you’re still not sure what it is).

For my needs, the free version suffices but you might feel differently. What say you?

This is what I got in my inbox this morning…

Here’s more info about the different options on LinkedIn:

Filed Under: LinkedIn, Mason Media Updates Tagged With: LinkedIn Cost, LinkedIn Discount

Avoiding ‘Negative Social Proof’

December 8, 2010 By Mason Leave a Comment

Social Media is a powerful tool when it comes to perception. Perception equals fact in the business world because even if a certain perception is not completely true, it is the reality in peoples’ minds. This is why it is important to avoid “Negative Social Proof.”

Your social media page is an extension of your brand, your message, and your influence. When people first see it, you want their ‘perception’ to be a positive one. Now there are multiple factors to consider for each social site in order to create that positive vibe but I’m going to focus this article on one in particular. I will definitely point out others in future posts.

Unlike RSS Feeds, you can’t hide your list of friends, followers, or connections on your social media sites. It’s right out there for everyone to see publicly. How many times have you visited a page and immediately looked at their ‘social stats?’ I believe it’s safe to say, that many times it is the first piece of information that gets processed in a browser’s mind.

Now I know what some purists out there are thinking: “Here’s a shallow marketing approach making social networking all about numbers!” That’s not what I’m doing here. What I am doing is pointing out a common sub-conscious pattern of human behavior and thinking which is simply this: “Unless I know you, I don’t feel the need to follow someone who isn’t being followed by anyone else.” Your follow stats add digital weight to the information your posting. I will consider what you’re saying more when I know others are listening. I will really consider interacting with your ideas publicly when I know others are watching.

That’s why the worse thing you could do is start a page on a popular social site and then do nothing with it. You would be better served to simply not use a specific site than have something like this:

Now, there are multiple things that are not good to do here, but the poor follow stats are the final nail in the coffin. Chances are, unless you know them well, you’re probably not going to follow them. Heck, I know them personally and I didn’t follow them (I say that humorously as this particular person is actually a good friend who just doesn’t know much about Twitter).

I whipped up some sample metrics for you to use as a measuring rod for your own social media pages. Don’t be offended if you don’t measure up. The point is, if you can be persistent until you hit some of these levels you will increase the likelihood of your page growing on it’s own.

SOCIAL MEDIA PERCEPTION SCALE

Personal Page/Hobby Page:

25+ Facebook Fans/Likes

100+ Twitter Followers

25+ LinkedIn Connections

Small to Mid-Size Company:

250-500+ Facebook Fans/Likes

2,000+ Twitter Followers

100+ LinkedIn Connections

Advanced Social Media Strategy (Ideal):

2,000+ Facebook Fans/Likes

10,000+ Twitter Followers

500+ LinkedIn Connections

Unless you’re a rock star, pro athlete, Hollywood diva, or Nike, some of those levels might seem pretty challenging to hit. If so, take your time with each page. Start one page on one particular site and get it established first before moving on to the next site. I would recommend starting with Twitter first. It’s simpler to start, in my opinion, being that there’s not as many ducks to line up in a row, figuratively speaking. When I setup networks for customers, I always setup their Twitter and LinkedIn first, then launch their Facebook page last.

In closing, let me give you an idea of what I’m talking about. I have some networks currently setup that hit and/or exceed those metrics. When nobody even touches them for a week they will still grow by over 150 people or more across the board. The opposite of ‘Negative Social Proof’ is experiencing a ‘Social Tipping Point’ that stimulates growth on it’s own. This is the goal I have with each of Mason Media’s customers.

Filed Under: Facebook, LinkedIn, Social Media, Twitter

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