I have the pleasure of lending NateRiggs.com to Cheryl Harrison for this guest post.  Cheryl has over 10 years of experience using social media tools, going way back to the days of AIM chat rooms, LiveJournal and GeoCities.

Cheryl is an agency-reared marketer, a member of the Columbus Yelp Elite (where she has written over 2oo reviews of local hotspots).  She has been an active blogger at BeingCheryl.com since early 2008, and works as the Tactical Lead at Social Business Strategies.

Would you like to be a guest blogger on NateRiggs.com?  If so, go ahead and submit your post idea here.  I’ll be in touch.
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If you’re on Twitter, you’ve likely got an agenda.

“I want to sell more products or services.”

“I want to make people laugh.”

“I want to look smart.”

“I want to meet new people.”

While the motives are very different, accomplishing any of them requires some level of influence – people paying attention to what you’re saying.

Here are a few ways you can gauge your current Twitter influence:

1) Number of followers
Yeah, yeah, I know. This number can be spammed, scammed, faked and forged about a million different ways. However, this number still needs to be taken into consideration, because sheer reach does effect how influential your content can become (to some degree).

2) Number of lists
I give this Twitter metric a bit more weight, the reason being that you can safely assume that most of the people who have listed you are actually paying attention to you. Personally, I have 7 lists, 5 public and 2 private, all of which I am significantly more likely to check than the general stream of all tweets. In addition to analyzing the NUMBER of lists you are on, the name and description of the lists you are on can show you how your peers view you and for what you are influential.

3) Klout
Klout is a service that measures a Twitter profile’s influence, using an in-depth algorithm. Klout tells you what type of Twitter user you are (based on how often you share, have conversations, etc.), what users you influence the most (and who influences you), which topics you discuss most, how engaged your network is with you, how often your posts are retweeted, and a few other factors.

4) Tweet Level
Another service that analyzes a Twitter profile, Tweet Level gives users a numeric ranking to influence, popularity, engagement and trust (in addition to pretty good explanations of what the numbers mean). It also stacks you next to a few of your followers, both those ranking higher and lower than you, for comparison.

5) Tweet Stats
Tweet Stats allows you to view what day of the week and what time of the day you post the most often. What does that have to do with influence? Let’s say most of your posts occur early in the morning (EST). It’s safe to say that your influence in other time zones is virtually nonexistent. These are just numbers to give you a starting point from which to benchmark. A low score or list count does not necessarily mean you are not influential.

The best way to increase and maintain your influence on Twitter is to have real conversations with people and create value for them. Even if you only have 10 followers, be influential to those 10 people.

Who are some of the people you think are influential on Twitter?

As a blogger, sometimes new ideas for posts flow like a river.  At other times, however, your brain can run dry for days.

Part of blogging is realizing and accepting the fact that, on occasion, you will get stuck.  Another part of being a blogger is finding ways to get yourself unstuck and continuing to feed the system with your content.

Stuck or not, your audience awaits.  They read and subscribe and tell other people because they want to read what you will type next.  Attention spans, however, keep shrinking. If you keep them waiting too long, they will simply move on.

One of the tricks I use to get unstuck revolves around LinkedIn.  As a community and a communication tool, LinkedIn allows me to get directly to the humans that make up my target readers.  LinkedIn is now up to 70 million members across the globe, and is typically used by professionals of all shapes and sizes.  In terms of finding my audience, it’s a pretty safe bet that they are users.  Here are some of the things I do when I get stuck:

5 Tips for Using LinkedIn to Develop Blog Content Ideas

• Ask questions and get answers to seed questions around your topic areas and gather qualitative feedback.  Pay attention to the comments that folks leave.  There’s oftentimes golden-nugget ideas that can easily be turned into entire posts.
• Build and launch polls for more targeted questions, or for current topics of debate, around your focus area.  Not only does this give you a good feel for where potential readers stand on any given issue, but it will also deliver you a list of new readers to send your finished post.  The graphics that LinkedIn produces (with results) also make great images to include in your post.
• Launch a discussion on specific groups around the topic you want to write about.  In doing this you will be the facilitator of that conversation.  This approach will take some time, but also give you the chance to connect one-on-one with new, potential readers.
• Send InMail or use Introductions to connect with people who might make interesting interviewees for your blog.  This is also a great way to get the ball rolling in relationship development with interesting people by using the social graph.
• Use TripIt to set up video interviews with interesting people who will be within a cab ride of your next distance meeting.  This also doubles as a great way to build relationships with the folks who fit your business’s customer profile.  Why?  Most people will say yes to giving you 30 minutes to interview them on their business and what’s important to them, before they will give you time to pitch them on what’s important to yours.  Don’t ever cheat this one.  Get the first meeting for the interview and a relationship.  Ask for the pitch well after you’ve had time to get to know the human.

How else do you use LinkedIn to come up blog content ideas?

Photocredit: the talented Becky Johns

In the past two days, I’ve been a part of two very powerful hugs.

The first was with a childhood friend when she and her husband came for a visit to Columbus and Community Fest.  At the end of a wonderful (and much needed) evening, one final hug goodbye reminded me of how and why we’ve stayed friends after all these years.  The second hug was with my mom.  Just before dinner one evening, I could tell by the expression on her face that some of the health issues she’s been facing recently were wearing on her spirits.  Without knowing what else to do, I hugged her.

Both of these hugs were real hugs – not simply the “pat on the back” type of hugs that we have all become so used to giving and receiving.  In that moment of real hug, a small chemical reaction occurs in the brain of each human involved.  The chemical emitted produces certain emotions and, with it, a sense of behavior.

Powerful Hugs

One of the most fascinating things I’ve read yet this year was a Fast Company story documenting the work of  Neuroeconomist Paul J. Zak, a professor at Claremont Graduate University.  Paul so believes in power of a hug that he makes a point to hug just about everyone he meets.  That behavior is one of the many things that has led to his Claremont campus nickname, Dr. Love.

Zak is responsible for popularizing the term “neuroeconomics,” an emerging field that combines economics with biology, neuroscience and psychology.

With an eloquent writing style and a good sense of storytelling, Fast Company’s contributing writer Adam Penenberg details his time working as one of Zak’s test subjects in three-part experiments.  Why is this important?  Dr. Zak has discovered, for the first time, that social networking triggers the release of the hormone Oxytocin, the chemical present in our brains that produces emotions of generosity and trust.

This is a video clip from the article, but I also suggest you go back and read it for yourself.  It’s truly amazing thinking and research to follow.

Future of Social Media

I believe that Zak is on to something bigger than we can fully see right now.

Decades ago, the media of the time (television, radio, and print) changed the way that we humans consumed information.  With that, the way we processed information also changed.  Our paradigms, our culture and maybe even our sense of societal norms shifted, as humans spent more and more time in front of the TV, or with the car stereo tuned to to their favorite station.  Over time, the business landscape, and how humans conducted business, changed too.

In the early 1980s, primitive computers and BOD modems started that shift yet again.  Humans started using more technology to communicate.  Communication led to the formation and maintenance of mass amounts of human relationships, developed across geographic and socioeconomic boundaries.

Is This Evolution?

Zak’s work, and maybe even others like Dan Zarella, always leave me with this one question on my mind:

As humans continue to evolve the interwebz, are the interwebz also evolving us as human beings?

What’s your take?

Anymore, I’m selective with the meet-ups and events I attend locally.  I have to be.  However, things out of my own backyard are a different story since I don’t know most of the folks there.

I do enjoy going the local events, but time is a scarce resource and I’m forced to limit myself to 5-7 face-to-face meetings per week.  My networking plan, at a relatively high level, looks something like this:

• Attend larger events to meet new people
• Use social networks to scout people before those events and stay in touch afterward
• As much as time and location permits, meet as many of these folks as possible in a one-to-one setting

Why does one-to-one matter?  Honestly, the answer to this question could be an entirely separate blog post.  But let me sum it up in a few brief bullets:

• Real trust is built with one-to-one human connections and undivided attention
• Some studies suggest that up to 93% of what we communicate happens via non-verbal queues (which also happens frequently in one-to-one conversations)
• One-to-one meetings help to lay the foundation of context for deeper relationships

We, as humans, tend to get closer to one another when we meet in one-to-one settings.  With that said, here’s a list of some of the things I’ve learned over the years that have helped me to grow my network:

• 1.  Use Tungle or Google Calendar to make appointment scheduling easier and more efficient
• 2.  Try to be on time.  You’re not always going to succeed.  Life happens.  But try as hard as you can.
• 3.  If the other person is late, be gracious.  You never know if they or their loved one has been in a traffic accident.
• 4.  Make sure you have a way to get a hold of your meeting contact.  Make sure that way is something they check frequently.
• 5.  If you’re not on time, call, tweet, text or something.  Let the other person know you will be late and provide an ETA.
• 6.  Do your homework.  Google their name.  What did you find?
• 7.  Use LinkedIn, blogs, Twitter and maybe even Facebook to learn the basics before you meet.  Then you can spend time on the important stuff.
• 8.  Have some questions ready, top-of-mind.  Make sure they are earnest questions to which you really want to know the answers.  People can smell leading questions a mile away.
• 9.  Make small talk, but without going too deep into the personal stuff.  Personal information requires a deeper level of comfort.  It may take some time to get there.  Trust your instincts.
• 10.  To establish trust, open yourself up.  Share something personal about you that might be of interest.  It’s okay to be a little vulnerable.  Trust starts in good faith.
• 11.  Always, always, always hold disclosed personal and professional information in confidence.  Betraying trust will hurt your relationship.  That’s a no-brainer.
• 12.  Look to find common ground right at the start of the meeting.  In what ways can you relate with the person across the table?
• 13.  If you can’t meet in person, use Skype or DimDim or even ooVoo to share a visual connection
• 14.  If you are  meeting in-person, offer to buy coffee first.  Make it a gift.
• 15.  If someone offers to buy your coffee, graciously accept their gift with a “Thank you”
• 16.  When someone says “Thank you” to you, don’t respond with “It’s no problem.”  Rather, reply “It’s my pleasure.”  Notice the difference?
• 17.  Have the ability to take notes.  Napkins, hands, notebooks and even mobile devices work.  You can even use a voice recorder if you can’t read your own hurried chicken-scratch.
• 18.  However, don’t take too many notes.  Engage in the conversation.  Most of the time, there won’t be a test.  Practice active listening.
• 19.  Practice good nonverbal communication.  Make eye contact often.  Nod.  Smile.  Look surprised.  Emote.  Show your attention visibly.
• 20.  Wait for their periods.  Let the other person finish their complete thought.  Pause to consider for a second, then respond.
• 21.  Don’t be afraid to laugh.  Sharing laughter creates a different level of connection.
• 22.  Admit your mistakes, faults, and shortcomings openly, but don’t dwell on them or discredit yourself.  Honesty and self-degradation yield two completely different outcomes.
• 23.  Cheer them on by acknowledging their victories.  Show your support for the efforts they are making in their career or at home, and ask how you might be helpful.
• 24.  Be the first to ask questions.  Don’t lead with: “So thanks for getting together.  Here’s my agenda for today…”
• 25.  If you’re not the first to ask a question, keep your response detailed, but respectfully brief.  Time is fleeting.
• 26.  Respect the other person’s time.  Keep a watch or cell phone handy and check it now and again.  You can also ask: “I know you’re busy.  How are we on time?”
• 27.  Respect and be aware of your own time constraints.  If you have to leave at a certain time, give ample warning.
• 28.  Put your cell phone on vibrate or turn it off.  Lay it on the table and flip it over, screen facing down.  This makes a visual statement that you are focused on the conversation at hand.
• 29.  Review the takeaways and action items from your talk.  Are there people to whom you wanted to introduce them?  Did you mention you’d like to send them some piece of information?  Go over that stuff one last time.
• 30.  Be the one to throw away any trash on the table.  Serving others is a form of respect.
• 31.  Hold doors for the other person, and for others behind them.  This is another way to show humans respect.
• 32.  Practice good verbal manners and etiquette.  Please and thank you go a long way.
• 33.  Shake hands firmly, with men and women. No one likes the wet noodle handshake.
• 34.  Follow through on the promises you make.  Follow-up actions are way better than follow-up emails.
• 35.  Always end the meeting by thanking them for their time.  Genuinely mean it.  Time is valuable to all of us.

I’ve stopped at 35.  There’s much MUCH more that can be added to this list.

What would you add?

We seem to have been trained to lump all social media into the bucket of marketing and external communication.  Why is that?

I believe that our gravitation towards looking at social media as only a new set of marketing tools has been largely driven by advertising and marketing agency’s quick adoption of them.  Their inrerest, largely driven by potential revenue streams to replace what is no longer working as well as before (like television, for instance), has shifted our paradigm accordingly.

For this conversation, let’s shift the paradigm in a new direction.  Will you stand with me while we look at things from the inside out?

What about organizational communication?  If social media is essentially a set of new communication tools where sending AND receiving messages is of high importance, where else can we apply the technology?  Even more important, what are the outcomes we should be focused on if we are to use social media inside our organizations?  How can we be better communicators through this technology?

Speaking of Outcomes

I have to give a hat tip to Jason Baer.  I stumbled across him via Twitter back in January and since that time, he’s become a key influencer in how I see the social media landscape.  The rest of this post was heavily influenced by his post and model discussing 5 Ways to Use Social Media (externally).  Jason is recommending that marketers (external communicators) stay focused on an outcome-driven approach to using social media, rather than on the luster of the shiny technology tools.  He goes as far as to argue that the term “social media” has become almost meaningless.  I agree with him, and recommend that you go back to that link and check out his model.

This is what I believe is the other half of the social media equation.

7 Outcomes of Organizational Communication & Social Media

How do the people inside your company communicate?  Is it working as well as it should be?

Based on Jay’s thinking about how social media can be applied externally, I’ve started developing my own outcome-based model related to internal and organizational communication.  This is a work in progress and should be considered a draft.  That said, feel free to let me know what you think I’m missing or what you would change in the comments.  Okay?

1.  Information Flow & Decision Making
Traditionally, and especially in more corporate environment, communication flows from the top down.  This thinking goes as far back as militaristic organizations do.  Decisions are made by the top level, then passed downward through the hierarchy and ideally implemented from lower levels in the organization via middle managers and rank-and-file teams.  Google is an example of an organization that has taken certain aspects of this model and flipped it upside down to create an environment of innovation  by increasing the ability for communication and information to flow upward in an efficient, effective manner.

Readily available social media tools (like Facebook and blogs, for instance), when used to facilitate internal conversations between the C-level with middle managers and rank-and-file employees, create an environment where information can be shared faster and more efficiently. Quicker access to information flowing up from the ground floor of large organizations can alter top down-decisions and, in turn, reduce the cost of having to change direction mid-stream.

2.  Promoting Internal Transparency
While it may not be true in all cases, I’ll argue that a growing number of employees want to know what’s going on in their organizations.  Having the ability to understand why decisions are made is just as important to internal audiences as external audiences.  To couple that, humans have a a desire to connect with there affinity groups and have input on decisions that may ultimately effect their work environment.  Using social media tools to create internal transparency, context and understanding around organizational decisions can result in greater satisfaction, trust in and connectedness to organizational leadership.

3.  Reducing Communication Breakdown
One key advantage to using social networks and social media as internal communication tools is creating visibility to information on a one-to-many platform.  Information shared does not exist in a vacuum, but rather in a sort of living and searchable FAQ format.  Organizations should consider how these tools can be used to keep information in a centralized bucket where multiple users have access 24/7.  Doing so with the right strategy and user policy in place can help to reduce the amount of information that falls through the cracks.  I believe that this is especially applicable in the areas of training and development for rank-and-file employees.

4. Visualizing Organizational Culture
One of our core goals in working with my client Incept is to increase employee retention and subsequently reduce training costs associated with teaching a new hire how to be a conversational marketing expert (CME).  We’re currently using their company Facebook page to increase employee engagement and strengthen the sense of belonging in regards to the Incept’s brand values and mission.  The Facebook page is creating more opportunities for what organizational communication folks call “conversations at the water cooler,” while doubling as a very genuine lens into how the CME’s at Incept interact, support each other and build relationships with their coworkers.  Targeted Facebook Ads are being used to drive potential candidates who might be looking for a new career direction into that conversation.

5.  Employee Retention & Recruitment
Going back to Chris Penn’s idea of the the ROI Black Box, money comes in and money goes out.  Significant dollars are spent across the board to recruit and train new employees.  Social media can be used by employees throughout the organization to bring on new talent, if they are provided with a centralized and visible platform that makes it easy for those interactions and referrals to be made.  Retention is very much related to bullets 1-3 in that informed employees who feel a sense of trust and belonging for the organization in which they work, tend to want to stay on board if factors like pay, location and opportunities for self-actualization are on par with their personal objectives.  Higher employee retention rates typically result in lower training costs.

6.  Reduction of Communication Noise
In the 1980s, email was piloted on internal company servers as a way to make it easier for coworkers to share information and communicate.  In the mid 1990s, email gained popularity as a key communication tool in organization and shortly after for personal use.  Yet along with all the advantages that email creates, also comes significant overload and stress.  Consider this for a moment: as you read this, how many unanswered emails currently sit in queue in your inbox?  How many of them come from people within your building?  Get the picture?  What was once a much more efficient means of communicating has morphed into a time suck.

A variety of social media tools have been under development with one of the main objectives being to reduce the amount of internal email communication that clutters in boxes.  While I’m not at all advocating that email will eventually be abandoned, tools like Yammer and SocialCast are starting to open new opportunities for employees to not only communicate, but also gain analytical data on where inefficiencies and breakdowns might exist.  My gut tells me that internal communication tools such as these will gain even more traction over the next few years.

7.  Communicating Across Boundaries
Many organizations have multiple offices that sometimes span timezones.  This can be as simple as having multiple locations in one city or as challenging as having locations across the globe.  One of the key advantages to any web-based communication tool, social media or not, is the ability to literally obliterate physical boundaries in a very efficient way.  Some organizations have already adopted chat as a means to an end, yet chat is primarily a one-to-one focused technology.  Taking a similar view of social platforms and training internal teams to use those tools in a similar way will open the doors to new communication flow processes and could significantly impact travel and telecommunication budgets.

Again, this is a work in progress.  What’s your take?

For me, one of the most relevant chapters in Chris and Julien‘s Trust Agents describes the idea of being “Agent Zero”.  In June of last year (prior to the book launch, I believe), Chris wrote this short description on his blog of what an “Agent Zero” does:

Agent Zero
Connecting and networking and building relationships is what moves you from an individual contributor to an interdependent kingmaker. Learning how to be a core element of several networks is where we think a trust agent works best. Take Robert Scoble. He went from being a guy talking about Microsoft to a guy on a mission to be moved by what he saw around him. Robert connects with people all over, and finds himself at the core of many important networks.

Are you Agent Zero to several networks?

Breaking it down, Agent Zero simply means the bigger nodes on a human social network.  The people who earn this title know how to be visible epicenters of communication.  You might even consider them to be a sort of junction point that connects various social circles (or even clicks).  Good Agent Zeroes have the ability to  be naturally jump from one social circle to other social circles, genuinely adapt their own communication styles, while at the same time leaving a wake of added value as they move through out the system.

Great.  We know what it is, and that makes sense.  But how do we get there?  What do we do to become an Agent Zero?

Let’s dig deeper, shall we?

How To Be a Good Agent Zero

• See the matrix – Part of being a good Agent Zero is being able to see how pieces in various networks fit together like a puzzle.  When you build relationships with your connections, look for the gaps they need filled and try to fill them with another connection in your network.  For instance, maybe one of your clients needs a service you don’t directly provide.  Do you know and trust someone who does provide that service?  Can you be proactive in helping them fill a gap?
• Only connect people the right people -  If you connect people only for the mere sake of connecting people, you may put them in a position that wastes their time.  Don’t do this because it will leave a bad impression about your credibility (and network).  For all of us, time is very valuable.  When connecting, always keep a respect for each person’s time in that introduction.
• Be transparent with your level of relationship – If you only know someone as a LinkedIn connection, but have a relevant reason to connect them with someone else you know, state that as the backdrop of your introduction.  Always make sure that people know the difference between your loose-tie connections and deeper relationships.  Stating your level of trust and acquaintance is very important.
• Ask your connections who they need to meet – Keith Lampe once helped me land a client by asking his contact if there was anything else he could help with, outside of what his company had to offer.  When the client said: “I’m really looking for someone who has their head around social media for business,” Keith thought of me.  See how simple that is?  Always ask that question at the end of a meeting.  It’s a good habit to get into.
• Always ask permission to connect – Don’t ever connect people blindly.  That type of a surprise is simply bad form and can put your connections in an uncomfortable position if they have to say no.  I like to start by asking the person in need if I can have their permission to introduce them to someone who might be able to fill a gap or add value to what they are doing.
• Don’t have hidden objectives – If you connect people, only with personal objectives in mind, your connections will eventually see your real intentions.  Don’t ever connect people simply to win a gold star for yourself.  That approach to being Agent Zero will eventually get you in a mess.
• Never bombard your connections with too many introductions – Less is more.  Focus on making one or two quality connections, rather than a high quantity of irrelevant connections.  High quantity and low quality will only annoy people.
• Don’t push an introduction more than once – If you make an attempt to connect and one party doesn’t respond, reach out to that person and ask them directly if they still have interest.  There’s always chance that the attempt may be low on their priority list at the given time.  If, in the end, the parties never end up connecting, leave it at that and don’t be pushy.  No one bats a perfect average.
• Make a solid introduction – This is important.  Make sure to provide enough background to let each party know why you’d like to connect them and what value they can add to each other, but don’t write a book or be preachy.  Remember that this is about them, not you.  Seed a conversation and let them take it from there.
• Use the appropriate medium to connect people – If your contacts use email, stick to email.  If they are big Linkedin users, go there.  If they like phones or web conferences, use that.  If they are local and you can have coffee, go for it.  Make the right choice by asking them how they prefer to connect.
• Don’t connect people for a ROI – Good Agent Zeroes connect people because it’s the right thing to do, not because they believe they reap a benefit from the time and effort they spend making an introduction.  Don’t view your ability to connect people in terms of reciprocity. Rather, approach each connection you make as a gift to both of those individuals.  By not expecting something in return, you will get it (eventually).  Social Capital and karma have strange ways of working out…

Agent Zeroes are simply master networkers.  From your experience networking, what would you add?

I’m pleased to feature the very talented Hannah DeMilta as a guest blogger today.

Hannah and I met a few months back via social media, and found that we both shared the Otterbein College experience in Westerville.  She is set to graduate from Otterbein this Spring and has already begun weaving the threads of her professional network, in large part with the relationships she’s built using tools like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.

In my opinion, Hannah is an extraordinary example of  how students can jump ahead of the career curve by making a commitment to using social media tools to reach career goals, developing a personal brand presence and networking like crazy.  My advice?  Keep your eye on Hannah.  She is on the rise.

Hannah DeMilta blogs about PR, college, her career goals and other communication-related topics.  Here are a few how-to tips from her own experience using Twitter to promote the Otterbein PRSSA PaRtners Conference.

HOW TO Promote an Event Using Twitter

There are some simple ways we are using Twitter to promote our upcoming event.

PaRtners Conference is a one-day event being held at Otterbein College on April 24. It is geared toward public relations and communications students, organized by Otterbein PRSSA (Public Relations Student Society of America). You might consider some of these same details when promoting your next event through Twitter.

We decided not to create a separate Twitter account for the conference. We had already built a following for @OtterbeinPRSSA and decided to focus on the network we already had. We knew that a lot of our followers were communication students, PRSSA chapters and local professionals already invested in what we had to say. A lot of times I see groups create new accounts a month before their event and they don’t have the time to build their following. Don’t reinvent something that is already working for you, because your followers won’t need to be messaged from two accounts.

The alternative to developing a new Twitter handle was establishing a conference hashtag. We wanted to be very clear on what the official tag was before other people could come up with their own. We chose #ocpartners because it was short and hopefully easy to remember. We shared the hashtag by tweeting it, listing it in emails, posting on fliers and our Facebook wall. There will also be a sign the day of the conference during registration. Don’t let someone else beat you to the punch, as it’s part of your event’s brand.

We also utilized additional hashtags that are popular with PR and communications students. Some examples are #PRSSA (general PRSSA tag), #PRSSANC (PRSSA National Conference), #PRStudChat (a popular PR student chat on Twitter), and #COPRSA (Central Ohio PRSA). You will have to research if there are appropriate hashtags to partner with your event tweets.

Another Twitter feature that many aren’t taking advantage of is lists. We created a list called ocpartners with the sub-line “Speakers, organizers & registered participants for Central OH PaRtners Conference @ Otterbein 4/24” and added everyone who we knew was on Twitter. Generally people love being put on lists so it was a positive decision regardless. It also created visibility for people who viewing the list. It allows students to network more easily with their peers and attending speakers, beforehand.

Follow some basic guidelines when promoting your own event:

• Use Twitter as a way to properly promote to your network, not spam them.
• Make sure you are communicating with the people who are actually potential attendees.

If properly executed, Twitter can be a quick and low-cost way to spread the word.

What advice would you share?  Have you successfully used Twitter to promote a past conference or event?

Photo credit: eellewzeeya

Getting more Twitter followers seems to be a big trend and, at the same time, a heated topic of debate in social media.

When I launched the new NateRiggs.com last week, I sent a direct message to Chris to let him know a new design was up and running and to get his feedback on anything I might have missed.

Hat tip to Chris, as he was kind enough to share the content via a tweet to his tweeps, which, might I add, is more than ten times my current sphere of influence on Twitter.  What you’re looking at in the screenshot of my Google analytics was, in large part, the result of one mention from Chris.  Pretty crazy spike in web traffic, huh?

Two Sides of Using Twitter
There are two sides to the Twitter followers argument.  Let’s break it down.

• People who believe that you should only spend time on Twitter connecting with the people you actually know or will some day meet
• People who believe that on Twitter you can gain information flow and a potential advantage from connecting with just about anyone

My personal opinion on the issue goes back to one question: How do you want to use the tool?

Localization & Niche
In their book, Tactical Transparency, Shel Holtz and John C. Havens make a comparison of Twitter to “a sort of Web 2.0 telegraph system.”  That definition would bucket the medium as a two-way communication tool, focused on the sending and receiving of messages between humans.  I’ve always liked that definition.

If you think about it, we as Twitter users tend to have online conversations with the same groups of people on a regular basis.  For the most part, your active core followers will be made up of the people you interact with on a regular basis.  This can be determined by your geographic location and even your niche interests, depending on how frequently you engage, but you will have some type of deeper relationship offline with the people you tweet with most frequently.

If you live in Columbus, Ohio, you probably tweet frequently with other Columbus natives.  If you are a marketer, you might tweet with other marketers who live outside of your home base.  Much like the profile-centric social networks (Facebook, LinkedIn or Ning communities, for example), Twitter has started to make a move to it’s own niche communities.  The localization of Twitter lists and, more recently, location-based trending topics, would seem to suggest that microblogging is becoming a smaller and more manageable world.

For some users, keeping a smaller follower and following base makes sense in regards to using it as a fast and effective communication tool.  This approach is not much different than how users would view text messaging.

Broadcast Approach
One the other hand, Twitter has been compared by many to a sort of broadcast tool, with similar qualities to how radio waves are sent out to the masses.  There’s merit in this argument in that the rules of the medium and the ease of following new people make it very useful for sharing information with the masses.  In the case of helping me to promote my new blog design, Chris was able to double my blog traffic by tapping into his social graph with one well-positioned tweet of less than 140 characters.

So, what does all that mean?

Numbers Game
In the more promotional sense, Twitter is a numbers game.

What I mean is that you can expect a very small percentage of your followers to actually convert on any action you would like them to take.  Those actions could be to retweet your content, follow a link or even engage with you in conversation via replys or direct messages.  At any rate, your percentage of action will be small.

Always keep in mind that there are literally thousands of tweets streaming through the system every minute.  In the context of an expansive microblog, it’s easy for content to get buried and disappear.  By adding more followers to your account, your small percentage of conversion will grow in parallel.

To illustrate this idea, let’s say that your tweets convert at a 1% rate.  Here’s the basic math:

• 1,000 followers X .01 = 10 people who’ve clicked on your link
• 10,000 followers X .01 = 100 people who’ve clicked on your link
• 100,000 followers X .o1 = 1,000 people who’ve clicked on your link

Pretty simple.

Why then would getting more Twitter followers be to your advantage?

The truth is, if you want to use Twitter for more promotional actions like building blog readership, creating awareness of your Facebook page or website, or any conversion-focused activity, actively building your base of followers is going to be time well spent.  If you’re more focused on using Twitter in the communication sense, you may not need to spend the time expanding your following.

How are you using Twitter today?  Do you see any advantage to changing your strategy?

After writing a few posts on how businesses might start thinking about how they could leverage Fourquare, it’s been a topic of conversation in just about every coffee meet up since.  Today was a great conversation with Faye Stock Oney and Jan Antauer.  Jan is in the coffee business in Historic Dublin, and makes a great cup of Joe.

Given her location among other very active small business entrepreneurs in the district, using Foursquare would make a ton of sense.  Here were some of the bullet point action items we came up with:

• Get a small monitor to keep behind the counter so that employees can pull in a Twitter feed and keep Java Jan Coffee’s Fourquare profile front and center
• Hang some signage at the counter and around the store, and ask or remind customers to check in.
• Java Jan’s uses a paper customer loyalty card where patrons get a free coffee after the 5th purchase.  Why not apply this same idea to Foursquare check ins?
• Java Jan’s shares a building with Our CupCakery and is within a few blocks of other local businesses.  Tips could be used to suggest a sequence tour for walkers in teh district.

Web Traffic & Adoption
But why has conversation suddenly picked up around Foursquare?  In Columbus, Gowalla seemed to somehow claim the local market as a strong player in location based applications.  But how long will that last?  Your guess is a good as mine.

Take a look at some of the traffic numbers from Compete.

You can see the explosion in Foursquare adoption over the past 6 months.  I believe that the spike can at least in part be attributed to the gaming aspect and visible point system present in Foursquare. What’s interesting is that one of the original location based payers, BrightKite, is actually on the decline in terms of website traffic.

However, these numbers should be taken into current context.

• Remember that the majority of usage on location based applications lives on mobile devices.
• Recent press surrounding the dangers of location based applications have been centered on Fourquare
• The traffic report above looks at total visitors and does not necessarily break out repeat visits versus new visits.

Could Yelp Still Win
Google had a major advantage when they launched Buzz.  Millions of people were already Gmail users, which automatically made them Buzz users, whether they wanted to be or not.  Yelp is now finding themselves and there user base in a similar situation.

Look at Yelps traffic in comparison to Foursquare and Gowalla.  You only see a orange line graphed because Yelp’s traffic is literally more than 20 times that of the other location based apps.

Yelp’s established base could potentially position them as the leader in location based applications, if they focused on the following:

• Create a cleaner user interface than the other two competitors
• Focus on building out a score-based gaming aspect to their location based application
• Use more traditional tactics like email to promote their service and raise awareness
• Develop a partner program for locations that promote the use of Yelp’s location based applications at the retail storefront and point of purchase

Time is Short
My gut tells me that we will see the major player in location based applications determined by the end of 2010.  The trend has taken hold and despite some of the negative publicity in recent weeks, location based applications are being quickly and broadly adopted.

In recent months, the rate of growth for Foursquare adoption is nothing short of staggering.  Given that Foursquare’s current velocity is maintained, it’s going to be challenging for any of the more start-up players to compete for market share.  And even with a large base to build from, more established players like Yelp still will need to act quickly to capture users and re brand themselves into this new category.

What’s your take on the location based race?  Who do you think will dominate by the end of the year?Why?

Photo Credit: @fayeincolumbus

In my opinion, LinkedIn is still one of the most powerful social networking tools for business.

I know Lewis will agree with me here.  Yesterday, while finishing up a day of corporate training with Incept, I received two invitations to connect.  Both were fully targeted to how I’ve optimized my profile, connecting with me to ask questions about how to develop a social media strategy.  One was from Tulsa, Oklahoma, and the other from the San Francisco Bay area.  Amazing.

To be honest, the power of LinkedIn profiles still blows me away.  Without my LinkedIn profile, and, specifically, it’s ability to make the Social Graph visible and searchable, how on earth would these two individuals had ever known I existed, let alone that I might be a resource for them?  Simple answer.  They wouldn’t have.

Inbound Traffic Through SMO
Social media optimization is the rave this year.  Brian Solis has even made the statement that SMO is the new SEO.  I wholeheartedly agree with him on this.

Every social network out there has a search function, and LinkedIn is one of the more robust in terms of search functionality.  With that in mind, it makes sense that each LinkedIn profile can then be optimized to be found by people running queries inside, and sometimes outside the network.  What’s more is that you not only have the ability to optimize your individual LinkedIn profile, but also your company LinkedIn profile.

I’ve written about how to use company LinkedIn profiles for business development.  But what about getting your company (and the people inside) found?

So that you can get the maximum benefit for lead generation and inbound traffic, here are a few how to tips you can use to optimize your company LinkedIn profile, establish good rankings against your competition, get found by potential sales-ready buyers searching for your products or services, and convert those visitors into real business opportunities.

Double Check Your Company Name & URL
To make sure that people don’t create duplicate profiles for the same company, LinkedIn places internal controls on the company name and company URL present in your page.  The reason for this is the aggregation of your personnel’s profile onto the page.

Once you select a company name and URL, each person in your company MUST use the exact same wording, company name and spelling in their personal profiles in order to show up under the page.  Having consistency allows LinkedIn’s algorithm to crawl the network and pull in each individual profile under your company profile.

If there is an inconsistency, or if you notice that a few different companies share your same company name, your profile admin will have the ability to submit a ticket to LinkedIn to have it worked out.  When you compose that message, be extremely clear and concise, and be prepared to wait about a week for a reply.  They will get back to you and work to fix the problem.

Develop Your Keyword List
If your company is already doing organic SEO or running a PPC campaign, you should have a developed keyword list.  If not, get a white board, a few members of your company, and start brainstorming the terms and phrases you believe your customers will use to search for a company that provides your type of products or services.  It’s important to keep in mind that some of your customers might not be familiar with your industry jargon, so focus on plain speak first.

Once you’ve narrowed your list to between 5-10 words or phrases, run some searches and look for the number of results the query returns.  You can even save these searches for later reference.  Typically, the queries with the highest number of results will indicate the more popular terms.  For your page, you will want to pick 2-3 main key words or phrases to focus on.  Here are a few more quick tips:

• Don’t forget to include your company name on the list.
• Search companies, as well as people, to see how many results get returned in the query.
• Search from different people’s profiles.  This is important because everyone has a different social graph.  A user’s social graph is a factor in LinkedIn search results.
• Don’t forget your company’s location.  You can narrow results by targeting a specific geographic area.
• Don’t for get to look at general “head-tail” terms (typically one word), as well as “mid-tail” and “long-tail” terms (between 2 -5 word phrases).

As an example, Incept’s main targeted phrase is “blood donor recruitment,” as this is the core service my client provides.

Write Compelling & Optimized Page Copy
Now that you have your keyword list and it’s been tested and searched, start writing your page copy.  Remember that copy writing is an art that helps a visitor receive a message about your company.  It will be important for search optimization to include each keyword with a density of 3-5 times in the copy, but also remember that you are writing for a human.  Make sure to clearly explain the important information about your offering(s), how you do business, your company’s unique selling proposition, and clear calls to action.  Always make sure to tell a story.

And a fine point that’s one of my personal pet peeves:  Please make sure to utilize short paragraphs for maximum readability.  LinkedIn does not give you the ability to include images in the actual page copy to break up the text so make sure to focus on 1-2 sentences, and then a break.  Doing so will make your company profile much easier to read.

Provide Multiple Ways for Visitors to Convert
This is another very important aspect of your LinkedIn company profile.  You’ve done your work to get the readers to your profile and explain the offer and benefits of working with you.  You’ve included a solid call to action, asking your visitor to take the next step.  As the final step in conversion, make sure to give your visitors the information they need to connect with you in multiple ways.  For instance:

• Name specific people in your company as contacts in your last paragraph.
• Let visitors know that they can connect with them directly on LinkedIn.
• List your contact’s email address right on the company profile.
• List each contact’s direct dial phone number.
• If you plan on using other forms of social media (like Twitter, Facebook, a company blog, etc.), list those URL’s as well.  You might want to call them out in brackets or parentheses.

And For Good Measure

• Make sure to check your page and rankings often, and adjust as needed.
• As you add new associates to your team, make sure that they have the correct company titles and information on their personal profiles.
• Test out various calls to action over time to see if you can isolate a variable and learn what specific CTA converts at a higher rate.
• As you meet new prospects, make sure to mention your company LinkedIn profile as an available resource for them.

That’s a lot of info and a long post.  Whew!

[Oh, and by the way, go ahead and search Companies on LinkedIn for "Blood Donor Recruitment".  The results may vary, depending on your personal social graph.  What do you see?]

What’s your take?  Are you using your company’s LinkedIn profile to its full potential?