Twitter 101, Part 1

There's a lot of buzz right now about Twitter, which has emerged as one of the most popular social media tools. This three-part article is for those who are just getting started with Twitter or who simply want to know what it is and how it works. I'll cover everything you need to know about setting up and using a Twitter account, and share some tools and resources to help you leverage Twitter to market yourself or your company.

What Is Twitter?

Twitter is a social media tool that lets users send out short messages (or "tweets") that are picked up and read by anyone who decides to follow you. This is also referred to as micro-blogging. I like the idea of keeping your message down to 140 characters, because it forces you to be succinct and to the point.

Some have started a Twitter account, sent out a message or two, and then wondered what the big deal is. The big revelation to me came when I found all of the supporting applications and tools that were an adjunct to the Web site. Once you start using some of these tools, the light bulb will go off and you'll find many uses for Twitter. Here are a few:

• Personal promotion and broadcasting
• Business promotion and broadcasting
• Reputation/brand monitoring
• Competition monitoring
• Event monitoring
• Information gathering/research
• Search engine

Setup

The mechanics of setting up Twitter is relatively straightforward. Just go to Twitter's site and click the Join button. But before you do, it's important that you take time to consider a few things before you send out your first "tweet."

First, think about what you want to accomplish and how you want to be perceived. What is your brand strategy, personal or business?

When picking a user name, consider using your name or your company's name instead of a nickname. This will allow people to know who you really are. This is important if you're interested in branding yourself or your company. Also, a real name or company name allows people to find you easier.

Here are some tips about setting up your Twitter account:

• Personal Bio: Consider what to use as your profile description. Again, Twitter forces you to keep it short -- 160 characters, to be exact. Use a couple of professional statements (or more) followed by a personal statement. For example, my bio is: "Internet Marketing Specialist, Trainer, Speaker, Columnist and Avid Cyclist." Regardless, let people know who you are and what you do so potential followers have enough information to decide if they want to follow you.
• Profile Picture: Please take the time to get a real picture of yourself or company logo. You won't be taken seriously if you use the default picture. Think of how you want to be perceived. A professionally shot photo of yourself can go a long way to promoting your personal brand. Smile and give followers some insight into your personality, be creative. Headshots stand out more when your picture has to be condensed down to fit within some applications.
• Background Picture: Next is your background picture. Twitter has some template backgrounds you can use. Pick something that is contextual to your brand strategy. Create your own if you really want to stand out. If you do, remember that people use various screen resolutions, so you need to make it big enough so it doesn't tile. Also, Twitter doesn't give you much space for your bio, so you can use the left side of your custom background picture to display more information about yourself, like your blog or another related Web site.

Following and Listening

You're almost ready to start tweeting. But first, here are a couple more things to consider.

Find people who have similar interests to you and "follow" them. In the top menu, select "find people" and search for friends or companies you'd like to follow. Now look at all of those tiny picture icons representing people they're following. Click "view all" to see the entire list. Click on anyone you'd also like to follow. In short order, you'll be following 30 to 40 people.

At this point, just take the time to "listen" to the conversation. See what's being said and how it's said. You'll probably see some strange language or symbols like RT, @ or #. Don't worry about this yet, I'll cover this in Part 2. Just get a feel for the conversation.

Building Relationships

Before you begin tweeting, think about your conversation and what you can provide your followers that will give them value. You're basically building relationships. To do so, you need to give before you receive.

People like tips, statistics, opinions, and links to relevant articles. Once you have a good handle on your messages, tweet away.

In the next two installments, we'll discuss some of the syntax, and review tips on taking Twitter to the next level. I'll share a boatload of links to tools and resources that will enhance your Twitter experience. And feel free to follow me at twitter.com/ron_jones.

By Ron Jones, Search Engine Watch

Pre SEO Questions

When contemplating an online marketing campaign there are dozens of questions that will start swirling through your head. Each question, in turn, creates more questions, and those questions create others that all will need to be answered before you are able to make a smart, sound business decision.

Over the next several days I'll outline some of these questions and provide a quick analysis to help you answer them sufficiently for yourself. Hopefully this list of questions will help you develop your own questions specific to your situation. In the end, the goal is to have taken a full and complete objective look at the tasks before you in order to be able to a best determine the right course of action.

Questions I need answered if I in-source my search marketing

To in-source or outsource? That's the first big question you may face. But you can't answer that until you have a good idea what it means to follow either path. If you're heading up a large company, outsourcing may be the way to go. Or do you hire your own expert? We'll look at questions for outsourcing later, but for now, if you're contemplating in-sourcing, ask yourself these questions:

Question 1: Do I do it myself? This is no small matter. Thinking through the process of whether you are able to manage the SEO for your site is an important one. While you can always "try", in some cases, failing at SEO can be worse than not having done it at all. So before you decide that you can do it yourself, answer these questions:

Question 2: Do I have the time? As a business owner your time is your most valuable asset, and the simple fact is: you can't do everything. You have to prioritize your time and think about what you can and can't do, and where productivity--and results--will be the greatest.

Question 3: What is my time worth? Take an objective look at the value of your time. Now, if you're the business owner and you crunched the numbers you'll probably find that you make somewhere close to minimum wage. But that's just because you are a hard worker determined to succeed. The value of your time can be better assessed by looking at what you charge for your product or services. If you can put a dollar amount for what your time is worth that can help you determine if you can make time for SEO.

Question 4: Is my time better spent on other things? Just because you have time to work on something doesn't mean that you should. We can all make time for the urgent/important tasks, but that isn't to say there are not more important tasks or tasks better suited for our skills. You may find that you are more adept at (and therefore your time is better spent on) customer relations. Or perhaps you're an idea person, therefore your time is better spent developing new products, services or tools. Think about what you can do that provides the greatest benefit for the company before you decide that you should allocate your valuable time to the SEO.

Question 5: Do I have the knowledge and skills to do it right? SEO, on the surface, may not be inherently difficult, but there is considerable knowledge needed in order to do it right. And some of the more technical aspects of SEO often require someone with more in-depth programming skills. Gaining the knowledge and skills necessary is no small task.

Question 6: Do I have the time to stay up to date in critical knowledge? The basic information on SEO remains pretty consistent, but there are often new developments, technologies and strategies that can become important for the long-term success of your marketing campaign. Keeping abreast of this information can consume a considerable amount of time, not to mention the time implementation and testing of these ideas can take as well.

Question 7: What if I screw up the site? There are many easy ways to screw up your optimization campaign. Sometimes it can be the wrong character in a robots.txt or .htaccess file. Other times it can be from bad advice you were told or read about online. Not all screw ups will be make or break, but there are some that can cause significant long-term and potentially permanent harm to your efforts. Sometimes the risk simply isn't worth it.

Question 8: Is this something I really want to do along with my regular work? SEO isn't your "full time" job. You've got a business to run and we shouldn't be afraid to admit that it takes the majority of our time. You need to consider if you really have time to add another time consuming task to your already full plate. Anything new you add will take away from other, possibly more important tasks. It'll do you no good if you SEO the site if you can't handle the business it brings.

Question 9: Will this take me away from my family? If adding something to your plate increases the amount of time you spend "at work," how will this affect your family life? Are you willing to add more to your plate if it means less time with your loved ones? Even if you don't have family conflicts, you also need to consider how much time this will take away from your own leisure activities. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy!

Question 10: Is this worth the cost of NOT hiring or outsourcing. Overall, you need to consider if the cost of doing it yourself is worth the sacrifices you'll have to make. If you outsource, it's just money. If you in-source its your time, your skills, your knowledge and even your sanity at stake. Don't lose out on other important things just to save a few bucks.

Question 11: Will this diminish my capabilities at being effective that my primary job? Finally, you need to consider if doing SEO yourself means you become less effective in other important areas. The worst thing you can do is skimp on quality--whether its quality of customer service, quality of products, or quality of results. SEO is important, but not if it causes you to lose value in other areas. Getting people to the site does you no good if you can't properly engage with them and meet their needs.

By:

Stoney deGeyter, Search Engine Guide

Bigger Is Better

For Brand Ads Online, Bigger Is Better

OPA Members Push Units That Can't Be Sold by Networks

by Michael Learmonth

Published: March 10, 2009

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Web publishers such as NYTimes.com, ESPN.com and CNN.com think they know what will attract more brand advertising online.

Paramount Pictures used a version of the pushdown ad format for its 'GI Joe' marketing campaign on ESPN.com.

Hint: Try ads that look more like the ones Apple has been running on the front page of NYTimes.com and WSJ.com than, well, those belly-fat, IQ and credit-score ads the networks are spraying everywhere.

Members of the Online Publishers Association have decided that bigger is better in their quest for brand-advertising dollars, and 26 members of the group are adopting a new set of three interactive ad units to get agency minds on better creative and off low-CPM ad networks.

The publishers, including Martha Stewart Living, Conde Nast Digital, Discovery and CBS Interactive, have agreed to only direct-sell the new units, and not sell them through ad networks. The new ads will run alone on the page, giving advertisers exclusivity that publishers hope they'll pay a premium for.

"We are giving the agency community a lot more real estate on our pages," said Martin Nisenholtz, senior VP-digital operations at The New York Times. "Design clutter has affected the web, particularly in the advertising space, and it needs to be cleaned up."

Branded campaigns vs. typical banner ads
The move by these publishers is meant to address the increasingly bifurcated world of web publishing. On the one hand, there are the custom branded campaigns sold directly, which garner high ad rates as measured by the cost to reach a thousand viewers. On the other are typical banner ads sold by ad networks for pennies on the dollar.

The new units are designed to move more money to the high end and give advertisers a format that scales across many publishers, in hopes of drumming up higher-end branded campaigns that can run on pages other than only the publishers' home pages

The publishers hope to present a branded alternative to the standard banner ads, which helped the online ad industry get off the ground but also have been commoditized by ad networks and are blamed for stifling creativity.

"The ad units have remained the same, but the web has moved on in its capabilities," said Atmosphere BBDO CEO Andreas Combueche. "Will it solve all the issues? No. But it's a step in the right direction."

Three ad formats
With standards in place, agencies will be able to create units compatible with all participating OPA sites. OPA President Pam Horan said publishers that have signed on have agreed to adopt at least one of the three formats by July 1. So far, publishers involved represent an unduplicated reach of 108 million visitors, according to Nielsen Online.

The three formats were derived from units some publishers had already been using but that hadn't been standardized across multiple sites. They include a tall, wide vertical unit called a "fixed panel," an oversize box with page-turn and video capability called an "XXL box," and a "pushdown" ad that expands from a thin strip to take over the top third of a page.

Paramount Pictures used a version of the pushdown for its "GI Joe" marketing campaign on ESPN.com.

Members of the OPA hope it works: Online display advertising is looking at a flat year in 2009, growing slightly to $8.27 billion from $8.1 billion in 2008, according to Citibank internet analyst Mark Mahaney.