News Round Up
Thursday September 8, 2011

MoreVisibility’s Twitterchat (#MVCHAT) took place today, September 8. We discussed the late breaking news that has been announced over the past couple of weeks, including:

• Steve Jobs (Apple) Resigning
• Carol Bartz (Yahoo) Fired
• GA Multichannel Funnels Released
• New Facebook Updates
• Google’s recent purchases

MVCHAT is a weekly 30 minute discussion starting at 3:30 pm (EST) covering a variety of online marketing topics. Clients, advertisers, and online marketing enthusiasts are invited to participate in this rapid-fire conversation by following and including #MVCHAT in tweets. Read more about #MVCHAT in the news here.

Google Analytics New Function: MultiChannel Funnels, with guest @jtex316
Thursday September 1, 2011

MoreVisibility’s Twitterchat (#MVCHAT) took place today, September 1, with special guest the Joe Teixeira, Director of Web Intelligence for MoreVisibility. We discussed the new tool available for Google Analytics Users that significantly improves the ability to properly attribute conversions. Specific topics included:

• Overview of the tool
• User benefits
• Broad spectrum of advantages that having this new data can add

MVCHAT is a weekly 30 minute discussion starting at 3:30 pm (EST) covering a variety of online marketing topics. Clients, advertisers, and online marketing enthusiasts are invited to participate in this rapid-fire conversation by following and including #MVCHAT in tweets. Read more about #MVCHAT in the news here.

There are over two hundred million registered users of Twitter.  This number grows by hundreds of thousands each day as new users sign-up.  There are over one hundred and fifty million Tweets per day.  So many, in fact, that many people find it hard to monitor ongoing conversations without using special platforms.  Twitter is used not only by individual people, but by businesses, organizations, governments, and individuals on behalf of animals or fictional characters.  It seems everyone wants to share information in 140 character snippets. 

The White House ( @WhiteHouse ) uses Twitter to share quotes, information, and interact with citizens.  Jason Scott uses Twitter on-behalf-of his cat Sockington ( @Sockington ) and has amassed almost 1.5 Million followers (dubbed Army of Socks).  The mastermind behind the internet meme “Nyan Nyan Cat” (a looped music video of a pixelated cat shaped piece of buttered toast flying with a rainbow) signed-up for a Twitter account to share the sage advice “Nyan Nyan.”  On April 23, 2011, @NyanNyanCat had 114 Tweets and @replies containing little more than a variation of “Nyan” and some symbols.  Which makes one wonder, a repetitive looping fictional cat can make over 100 Tweets in a day – is there a maximum Tweets per day allowance?  How many Tweets can a business make before they reach Twitter’s maximum daily Tweet limit?

The answer is 1,000.  A Twitter user can make 1,000 Tweets in a day (although special restrictions apply. 

The takeaway from this blog post is simple: You have little to worry about with regard to the maximum number of allowed Tweets per day.  Your business should focus on delivering the most relevant content in 140 characters on a frequency that works for your audience.

Community Building through Social Media, with guest @bocachamber
Thursday August 25, 2011

MoreVisibility’s Twitterchat (#MVCHAT) took place today, August 25th with special guest the Boca Raton Chamber of Commerce. We discussed the current activities and success stories that the group has used, including:

• Current Member Engagement
• Recruiting and New Member introductions
• Future Collaboration plans for the Chamber members including Foursquare and QR codes

MVCHAT is a weekly 30 minute discussion starting at 3:30 pm (est) covering a variety of online marketing topics. Clients, advertisers, and online marketing enthusiasts are invited to participate in this rapid-fire conversation by following and including #MVCHAT in tweets. Read more about #MVCHAT in the news here.

Affiliate Marketing, with guest Sharon Mostyn
Thursday August 18, 2011

MoreVisibility’s Twitterchat (#MVCHAT) took place today, August 18th with guest and Affiliate Marketing Specialist Sharon Mostyn. We discussed the new topics and trends in Affiliate Marketing. Specific topics discussed included:

• The current tax implications for Affiliate Marketers
• Holiday opportunities to prepare for now
• Tips about the upcoming Affiliate Summit 

MVCHAT is a weekly 30 minute discussion starting at 3:30 pm (est) covering a variety of online marketing topics. Clients, advertisers, and online marketing enthusiasts are invited to participate in this rapid-fire conversation by following and including #MVCHAT in tweets. Read more about #MVCHAT in the news here.

MoreVisibility’s Twitterchat took place today, August 11th. MoreVisibility’s chat (#MVCHAT) was led by EVP Danielle Leitch (@DanielleLeitch) and discussed the importance of testing different variables in your communications, to discover what best delivers your desired results. The topics discussed included:

• The value and critical instances of when to test variables
• Understanding the importance of recognizing external factors that can sway your test results
• Introduction to resource GWO, Google Website Optimizer, with 2 links to blog posts

MVCHAT is a weekly 30 minute discussion starting at 3:30 pm (est) covering a variety of online marketing topics. Clients, advertisers, and online marketing enthusiasts are invited to participate in this rapid-fire conversation by following and including #MVCHAT in tweets. Read more about #MVCHAT in the news here.

So far, MoreVisibility’s Social Media blog has covered Promoted Tweets and Promoted Trends.  Promoted Accounts is the third form of paid advertising currently available through Twitter.  First introduced in October of 2010, Promoted Accounts is a way of having Twitter suggest following your account to users who may find you interesting.  It almost goes without saying that within this calculation there is a note to check if those users are already following the account and only to display the message to those who are not. 

The calculation takes into consideration a Twitter user’s public list of who they follow and what categories those followed accounts could be grouped into.  It then tries to display Promoted Accounts that fall into related categories. 

An example of a Promoted Account in Twitter is @DietCokeUS who showed up during a recent log-in under the Who to follow section of the Twitter Sidebar:      

Many household name companies have tried Twitter’s Promoted Accounts to have their Twitter account suggested to Twitter users, the first of which was @Xbox.

As you can see, a small yellow-orange icon with an arrow pointing to the top right corner of the screen is present with the word “Promoted” next to it, clearly noting that this was a paid placement.

If you are interested in learning more about Promoted Accounts and other paid placement options on Twitter, please contact us.

In a previous blog, we touched on Twitter’s first form of paid advertising: Twitter Promoted Tweets.  Twitter then came out with Promoted Trends in June of 2010.  There were a lot of trending searches for hashtags and keywords and many people saw “Toy Story 3″ with a yellow-orange button next to it with the word “Promoted” inside.  Today many people have seen Disney-Pixar’s animated movie and so too, have those continuing to use Twitter, seen the progression from a button with the word “Promoted” to a small yellow-orange icon with an arrow pointing to the top right corner of the screen.

An example of a Promoted Trend hashtag is #BornElectric – the following is what may appear in the Trends section of your Sidebar as you are logged into Twitter:

It should be noted that advertisers can not simply pay to be on the trends list.  To be eligible to be a Promoted Trend, a topic must meet or exceed a minimum level of popularity on Twitter.  In other words, a topic must already be trending toward the Trending Topics list on its own.  Being accepted as a Promoted Trend simply gives the topic an extra push into the Trends section.

Just because some Promoted Trends are seen at the top of the Trends section does not guarantee that your topic will make it there.  Twitter experiments with placement much the way that the search engines do and does not guarantee placement amongst the displayed topics.

If you are interested in learning more about Promoted Tweets and other ways your business can leverage from Twitter, please contact us.

If you use Twitter regularly, you may have noticed a small yellow-orange icon of an arrow pointing toward the top right corner of your screen.  This little icon indicated that the tweet, hashtag, or username it appears near is a promoted – read “paid” – Tweet, trend, or account. 

An example of a Promoted Tweet is the following from @generalelectric:

This Tweet does not show up in the regular stream of Tweets from @generalelectric.  It is displayed in the home streams of Twitter users who have conducted a relevant search or are one of the advertiser’s followers.  The Tweet can be replied to, retweeted, or marked as favorite, the same as a regular (non-promoted) Tweet.

Promoted Tweets helped move Twitter from a micro-blogging platform into a paid advertising platform.  Today, hundreds of advertisiers have tested the waters of Promoted Tweets and eMarketer, Twitter, and ClickZ have compiled some data as to the level of engagement to be expected.

Because Promoted Tweets allow your business to get in front of a large number of people with varying interests that are using Twitter but who are not necessarily currently following your account, by adding Promoted Tweets into your marketing mix you can extend the reach of your brand.

You can sign up for more information from Twitter’s advertising department by filling out this form or you can contact MoreVisibility to talk to our paid placement team.

As you can probably guess from the title, this blog post will focus solely on Twitter. If you are not already familiar with Twitter, this link from the Twitter Help Center is an excellent resource. Twitter is an ideal way of communicating information to your followers in 140 characters or less, of course. Yes, that includes spaces and punctuation. 140 characters may seem like a very little amount, and if it seems that way now, just wait until you start tweeting!  Not to worry.  A URL shortener can be your best friend. It is basically a very creative way of sharing a link without compromising as many of the precious 140 characters you are forced to work with.

So, as a company, what are you tweeting about? The amazing sandwich you just ate? No. Whether or not you loved the movie you saw last night? Try again. There are way too many companies out there tweeting about irrelevant topics that have nothing to do with their industry. Those topics may be fine for a personal Twitter “handle” but are not appropriate for most companies. Below are just a few suggestions of topics that companies could (and should) tweet about:

• A discount or promotion offered only to your followers.
• The mention of a new product, service or deliverable your company is offering.
• Announcement of an upcoming event either by your company or in your industry.
• An invitation to a future Webinar that will be held.
• Your Newsletter.
• Your blog.
• Any and all Retweets that are relevant to your industry (a professional way to give a shout out to another handle in Twitter world).
• Any industry related news.

Many companies have turned to Social Media and Twitter specifically, as a means of staying in touch with their clients and customers, which is a great medium. It is important to have a strategy in place as to how you will be presenting your company from a professional standpoint.