Twitter | Mason Media Today

Getting Tweets From Celebrities

March 24, 2011 By Mason Leave a Comment

I am constantly sending out DM’s to Twitterville offering to answer any questions someone might have about social media. I received one question that was interesting and I thought I’d share it with you on my blog.

@Setnakt asked me, “How do you get someone famous to respond to you?” I told him that I honestly didn’t know since I have neither been contacted by someone famous on social media nor I have I attempted to be contacted by someone famous on social media. Since I didn’t know I posted the question on Mason Media’s Facebook page and Twitter account.

Neste Event Marketing replied to the question and shared the following:

“This is a great question. Neste is a company that does entertainment buying and festivals and concert events all around the country. We do a lot of interaction with artists based on our scope. My best advice for anyone inside the entertainment industry or out of it would be to start with the artists that have a smaller fanbase and work your way up. This also raises your Klout score! Retweeting videos and photos is always exciting for your users as well Hope that helps!”

Thank you NesteEventMarketing for taking the time to share your thoughts with us! I also want to thank @RodMBryan who retweeted this question to his followers as well. He is now on our Retweeters List.

I also tracked down an article entitled, “How To Get Celebrities To Tweet You.” It recommended some helpful tips such as “timing your tweets and waiting until you seem them tweeting RIGHT NOW before you send them a message.” There were some other helpful hints in the entire article which you can read by clicking here.

Early on, many people started using Twitter so they could “follow” favorite celebrities. They’re presence and interaction on Twitter has really added to it’s popularity. Getting a tweet from a favorite famous person would definitely add to the tweeting experience, not to mention, get some exposure for your profile and content.

Hope you found this interesting. What are you thoughts?

Filed Under: Social Media, Twitter Tagged With: Twitter

Which Social Media Perform the Best?

February 2, 2011 By Mason 2 Comments

As an internet marketer, people ask me all the time which forms of internet marketing/social media get the best results? I always answer the question with a disclaimer. The disclaimer is: what works best for one business may not work the best for you depending on what type of business you have and what type of results you’re looking to achieve.

As far as internet marketing is concerned, if you have very little time to put in and very little money, I would always recommend to start out with a bi-weekly or monthly electronic newsletter (aka email marketing). This yields an acceptable ROI when considering the small amount of time and money it takes to make it happen. If you have more than a little bit of time and money, you still want to make sure that you have an electronic newsletter.

If you want to do more than that, you begin to get into different forms of social media. There are now an endless amount of options when it comes to social media. If you would have asked me 2-3 weeks ago to prioritize the most effective forms of internet marketing/social media I would have shared the following:

1.Electronic Newsletter

2. Internet Forums

3. YouTube/Video Podcasting

4. LinkedIn

5. Twitter

6. Facebook

That usually surprises people because Facebook isn’t near the top of my list. Now, this list may change depending on what your business is and what kind of goals you have, but as a general answer, that is what I would share. Now, my answer is based purely on experience with my customers and where their customers tell them they’re coming from.

Well, a study was recently released where social media marketers revealed what platforms were giving them the best return. The image below is from the article, “Where Are Social Media Marketers Seeing the Most Success?“, on eMarketer.com.

Message/bulletin boards are also known as “Forums.” I can confirm that Forums can be a highly effective way of marketing. I have one customer on eight different forums and he gets most of his business from those communities. Not all industries have popular forums relevant to a specific context, but if there is one out there related to your niche, see what it takes to be a sponsor and start posting content and answering questions.

Podcasting can be audio content (for audio podcasts) or a close cousin to YouTube (video podcasts). If you’re already posting video content on YouTube, you might want to consider duplicating your content in the form of a video podcast on iTunes.

Blogging comes in third, which isn’t a surprise. I don’t really see blogging as a form of social media. Blogging, to me, should be your website that is an anchor for all of your social media. If you don’t have a website or are considering what kind of website to build for your business, build it with a blogging component.

Notice that “online video” (aka YouTube), comes ahead of Twitter and Facebook. I completely agree with this feedback. If you only have the capacity to post up one video a month, that’s more than enough reason to get started. There’s something about consistent video content that entices people to talk to the real person and/or experience the real product. After watching a number of your videos on a consistent basis, people will be compelled to take the next action step in your sales funnel.

If you’re looking for more web traffic for your site, than Twitter would probably be higher on this list. A growing Twitter page is a blog’s best friend in my opinion.

In regards to Facebook’s place on this list, I am not surprised. Facebook is good place to reinforce your message/brand and remind people you exist. The bottom line is, people still go on Facebook to socialize more than they do to spend money. This dynamic could change down the road though.

An interesting surprise on this list is the absence of LinkedIn and the presence of Foursquare. Was LinkedIn even a part of the survey? Is Foursquare the next Facebook? Who knows. What I do know is that LinkedIn has been very effective for my business as well as my customers.

Filed Under: Blogging, Featured Articles, Social Media, Video Content, Video Tips, Tricks, & Info Tagged With: Email, Facebook, Social Media, Twitter, YouTube

Twitter Hashtags

January 31, 2011 By Mason Leave a Comment

You can use hashtags(#) to associate a tweet or topic along with similar tweets posted by Twitter users. This is usually a hard a concept for new Twitter users to understand when they see tweets using the hashtag(#) before keywords or phrases.

For example, let’s say you tweet regarding the Super Bowl in the near future. Instead of using “Super Bowl” in your tweet, you would use “#superbowl.” This would turn your hashtag into a click-able link that a browser could use to search all tweets containing the same hashtag. Hashtags are useful when tweeting about events, like the Super Bowl, that are commonly popular and talked about it. Hashtags are also useful for a particular brand or event. Let me share a couple items to keep in mind when using a hashtag in a tweet:

1. No Spaces

If your hashtag is more than one word, make sure to leave no spaces. For example, you wouldn’t use “#Happy New Year.” This would make your hashtag refer only to the word “Happy.” Instead, you would use “#HappyNewYear.”

2. Identify Hashtags

There are many tools you can use to test out and see what hashtags people using before you decide what hashtag to tweet with. One site you can reference is twitterfall.com. Here you can search for hashtags to see if others are using the same hashtag for your particular topic/keyword.

3. Search Tool

Since a hashtag becomes click-able link to similar tweets, it is a valuable search tool to surf the Twitter-sphere. You can find more info on a certain topic as well as like-minded people tweeting about you’re particular interest.

4. Exposure

If you’re tweeting about a popular topic, a hashtag can be an effective way for people to find your content. Hashtags become one more weapon in your arsenal to grow your Twitter influence and following.

Hope you found this article helpful! Thanks for stopping by!

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

Customer Evangelists

January 10, 2011 By Mason Leave a Comment

Through retweets on Twitter, you have the opportunity to cultivate and inspire customer evangelists for your particular niche. Customer Evangelists share your information and their opinions about it with their circle of influence, thus multiplying your broadcasting ability.

Retweeting is where a Twitter user takes ones of your Twitter posts and shares it on their own Twitter page while also giving you the credit. When your mouse pointer is held over a single Twitter update, an option appears beneath it to “Retweet” it. Your followers are simply one small click away from being your brand evangelist now. Retweets demonstrate your influence. Retweets distribute your content beyond your own following. Retweets indirectly advertise your Twitter page and grow your following. Retweets can drive more traffic to a page if they have a URL link in them.

You need to have an intentional strategy to encourage and affirm retweeting. So what are some ways to inspire customer evangelists? I’m glad you asked…

1. Say Thank You

In the “Home” section of your Twitter profile it’s real easy to spot your retweets. Just go to the “Retweets” drop-down menu and click on “Your Tweets, retweeted.” You’ll see a list of your tweets that have been retweeted and when you click on each you’ll see who it was that retweed it.

Click on their icon to bring up their account and send a quick @mention saying thank you. On Twitter, “RT” is short-hand for ‘Retweet.” How long does it take to type in: Thanks for the RT? Not very long, especially if you consider the free advertising.

2. Retweet List

“Lists” are a great and often under-used tool on Twitter. With “Lists,” I can follow a few even though I’m following thousands on my overall account. Each person that retweets one of my tweets gets added to my “Retweeters List.” This way I can pay closer attention to these loyal supporters and give them more interaction which leads me into my next point…

3. Give Back

If someone has retweeted your tweet, go to their page and see if you can retweet one of their tweets. One of the reasons I use the list feature is that I can click on the list and see my “Retweeters” latest tweets. If I find a tweet that seems relevant for my audience, I Retweet it! This is Participation and The Law of Reciprocity at work.

Another way to retweet is using the @mention. Let’s say JohnDoe tweeted: “Have a great weekend!” You could simply retweet it, or you could copy the text and paste it into an @mention like this: “RT @JohnDoe Have a great weekend!” If you wanted to share a reply with the retweet you could do this: “RT @JohnDoe Have a great weekend! | You too John!” The vertical line acts a separator between the retweet and your reply.

These are just a few simple strategies to inspire customer evangelists on Twitter. If you have any more feel free to share them with us below in the comments section.

Filed Under: Social Media, Twitter Tagged With: Customer Evangelists, Retweets, Social Media, Twitter

The Perfect Twitter Page

January 5, 2011 By Mason Leave a Comment

Today I would like to give you 7 Tips on Setting Up the Perfect Twitter Page. It is possible to miss out on potential followers because your profile isn’t setup right. Some people will dismiss your Twitter account as a viable page to follow if it doesn’t have the right feel and look to it. So let’s dig in:

1. Your Twitter URL – Be strategic with your Twitter URL and remember that simplicity is ideal. I always recommend to customers that are designing a brand new site to not only check the URL against the world wide web, but check it against Twitter as well. For example, if you wanted your site to be coolshirts.com and it was available, also check and see if there is a twitter.com/coolshirts. If you really want to be strategic, see is there’s a facebook.com/coolshirts too. This just makes it easy to not only find you but also remember for future return visits.

2. Profile Pic – Remember that social media is supposed to be a place for people to connect. This is why it’s ideal to use a pic of your face for your Twitter image rather than a logo. People are much more likely to follow a person compared to a cold entity.

3. Bio – When you fill out your bio, make sure to use keywords that would be common for people search with when researching your niche and/or industry context. As of Fall of 2010, Google began indexing Twitter as it does with other websites. If you currently do not have a website, just use your Twitter page for the URL field (if you have a professional Facebook page you can use that instead).

4. Background – Make sure to create a custom background image for your Twitter page. This is relatively easy with a couple options to consider. If you are a graphics type of person, have at it! If not, you can upload an image of your logo and make your background a “Tile” format. If you want more customization and information to be displayed you can go to twitbacks.com to create a more specialized theme for free.

5. Follow Others – When creating a page, Twitter leads you to a page where they share other Twitter users of similar interest/context. It’s good to start out and pick a good 10-15 influential people within your context so you look to be somewhat active. Unless you’re a celebrity, following 0-5 people makes you look very disengaged and most won’t follow you. Also take advantage of contacting people in your email database and invite them to follow you on Twitter too.

6. Content – The next thing you want to do is fill-up your page with tweets aka content. Do not leave one tweet on your page saying, “Trying to figure out Twitter.” Fill-up your page with 8-10 tweets consisting of quotes, links to beneficial articles, and interesting retweets from other relevant Twitter pages. It doesn’t matter that the tweets are minutes apart or even seconds, the important thing is, your page doesn’t look empty.

7. Schedule Tweets – The last thing you want to do is register with cotweet.com. Co-tweet is a very efficient platform to manage Twitter and it’s free (they do offer a paid version). One of the things you can do with co-tweet is schedule-out tweets in advance. It’s very important when starting out, to have a steady flow of consistent tweets on a daily and weekly basis. This shows you are active and engaged with Twitter and worth following.

Doing these seven items when setting up your Twitter page will lay the foundation for social media success. If you haven’t read it, I encourage you to also read my article entitled, “Social Oomph.” You’ll also want to take advantage of the features mentioned in that article when launching your Twitter page.

Hope you found this helpful, and thanks for stopping by!

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

Social Oomph

January 4, 2011 By Mason 6 Comments

For your Twitter account, I highly recommend using the Twitter tool/service called Social Oomph. It helps you setup your Twitter page in two specific and strategic ways: Automatically Following Those Who Follow You and Sending Out Auto-DM’s. I will breakdown the importance of these functions as well as how to use them appropriately. Social Oomph does have a “Professional” version you can purchase that comes with multiple bells and whistles. The “Free” version, however, allows you to do the following items outlined below at no cost.

The first task you will have to undertake is registering with Social Oomph and adding your Twitter account. Once you’ve registered and logged in, go to “Social Accounts,” “Add New Account,” “Add Twitter.” There you will have a simple one-click button to authorize access to your Twitter account.

Once you’ve done this, you can go to “Edit Welcome DM” under the “Social Account” menu extension. The page that comes up will look something like this:

First off, check the box that gives you the option to automatically follow those who follow you. Why? This is good social etiquette on Twitter. It’s a way to say thank you to those that follow you. Celebrities take pride in following no one and having everyone follow them. Why? Because nobody is as important to follow as the celebrity themselves. Don’t try to be a or look like a celebrity. The other reason this is good is that many people will unfollow those that don’t follow them back after a while. By following everyone who follows you back, you increase the odds of retaining your followers. Social Oomph was one of the first free services to provide this option.

Secondly, check the box to automatically send a welcome message to new followers. Then in the box below you can type in your welcome message. Social Oomph also gives you the option to have multiple welcome messages that randomly rotate, but I don’t currently see the need for this.

Most people use this auto-welcome message to put links to their site or Facebook page. DO NOT DO THIS! This makes you just as annoying as everyone out there that fills up everyone’s Twitter inbox with spam. Most of the time I see a link in my DM’s, I delete it without reading it.

I choose to use this auto-DM as a way to serve my followers. Since I am in the social media niche of the online community, I ask my new followers if they “have any questions regarding social media?” This auto-DM accomplishes several things for me. It communicates my niche in the world wide web to my new followers and creates a relevant context for me regarding all future dialogue with them. It helps me to initiate the relationship building process by asking a question and possibly helping them versus just spamming them. It saves me time since I don’t have to manually contact each of my followers. Lastly, it creates a mechanism in my social media strategy to generate warm leads that could potentially turn into paying customers!

After setting this up and following targeted users, simply filter all the DM’s with links from your inbox (by deleting them) and you should be left with genuine responses from real people that you can begin to engage with.

So as you can see, when setup properly, Social Oomph’s free Twitter services can be a valuable tool for, not only your Twitter page, but your business as well.

Filed Under: Social Media, Twitter Tagged With: Social Oomph, Twitter, Twitter Lead Generation

Humor

January 2, 2011 By Mason Leave a Comment

What do you call using Twitter all week long? Tweeking. Try to avoid this as it is hazardous to your health. Worse, it can also turn your Saturday and Sunday into a Tweekend. Happy New Years from Mason Media!

Tweeking

Filed Under: Humor, Twitter Tagged With: Humor, Twitter

Twitter Origins

December 27, 2010 By Mason Leave a Comment

In the 2006, a San Francisco-based start-up company named “Obvious” created a microblog as the result of an R and D (research and development) project. It was initially used by the company’s own employees to communicate internally, and launched to the public seven months later in October 2006. In 2007, Jack Dorsey – Obvious CEO and the man behind the concept of Twitter – gave a humorous acceptance speech as he received the Southwest Web Award in the blog category: “We’d like to thank you in 140 characters or less. And we just did!”*

The result is what we now know as Twitter: a social networking and microblogging service. It was immediately received as a simpler and more streamlined version of blogging and social networking. Twitter was partly inspired by SMS, the most popular mobile-messaging technology. SMS “text messages” are limited to 160 characters, which leads to some creative abbreviations or as others might put it, “the end of the english language as we know it.” With Twitter, Dorsey shortened the length by twenty characters, limiting messages to 140 characters but also allowing messages to be identified by the author’s name. I’m reminded of Mark Twain paraphrasing of French mathematician Blaise Pascal’s famous comment by saying: “If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter.” Truly, it can be more difficult or more thoughtlful to summarize a message to someone else in a short and succinct fashion compared to loosely communicating in an endless stream of “and’s” and “then’s.”

Twitter was also unique, in contrast to Facebook and Myspace, in that there was no single mutual friend request action. You can folow someone without them needing to follow you back. This allowed us “normal people” to follow famous celebrities, if we wanted to, because apparently their lives are super-interesting (yeah right). Thus the “Follower” stat on one’s Twitter page became an instant reflection of one’s digital influence.

But why is it called Twitter? Well, a status updated is referred to as a “tweet.” When birds “tweet” to each other they do it in a very loud and public way for all to hear. In the same way, unless you set your “tweets” to private, everyone can see what you’re saying to all of your friends and followers. In fact, a lot of people don’t realize that all tweets are indexed and can be searched in the exact same manner that google allows you to search for websites. Hence, the strong caution not to tweet once intoxicated.

Even though it was designed as a message system, it also became a type of blog in that a person’s tweets were displayed on their page under one common theme or topic. “What theme or topic would that be?”, you ask? With Twitter, the person or account IS the theme or topic.

There are many other unique features to Twiter which I will cover in future posts but these are some of the core functions of it. Many copy-cats have surfaced since Twitter but none seem to have been able to copy their success. I hope you enjoyed this look at the some of the origins of Twitter. Come back this week for more origins of other social media networks.

*The Social Media Bible, Safko and Brake, 2009, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ

Filed Under: Social Media, Twitter Tagged With: Origins Series, Social Media, Twitter

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

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

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