Tag Archives: TheBeautyBean.com

About 1008 days ago Tools on Managing Technology

5 Secrets of Highly Effective Twitter Users

You know Twitter can be a game-changer. You’ve read about companies achieving amazing results with tweeting campaigns. And you wonder if you could you make the same magic work for your product or company. There’s no way to guarantee success with a Twitter campaign, but you can stack the odds in your favor by following some simple tips to vastly increase your effectiveness. Here’s how to get the most bang for your tweet: 1. Follow wisely. Some think of Twitter as a numbers game, in which the more followers you have, the more powerful you are, and so they build up as large a number of followers as possible. Experts say a more surgical approach works better. Whatever you do, don’t automatically follow every account that follows yours. Some may be spammers or even porn spammers. And services that promise huge numbers of followers are probably a bad investment. “If you have 25 super powerful followers willing to review your product and they each have a lot of followers and blog readers, then you are going to do a lot better than with 5,000 more random followers,” notes Penny Sansevieri, CEO of Author Marketing Experts. She particularly recommends following industry experts who do a lot of retweeting—with any luck your posts may get retweeted too. How do you get these powerful followers? The first step is to follow them. Some will follow you back if your tweets contain valuable or interesting information. Another good strategy is to connect by reading and commenting on their blogs. 2. Take full advantage of search. “The biggest unused Twitter resource for small business owners is the search.twitter.com function,” says Alexis Wolfer, founder and editor-in-chief of TheBeautyBean.com, an online publication that got its start on Twitter. “You can search for what people are talking about in real time, which is very powerful. I can search for ‘drugstore mascara’ and see the people doing anything using those words. So if someone is at a drugstore wondering what mascara to buy, I can say, ‘Hey, did you see this article we wrote on the best drugstore mascaras?’” Advanced search settings give you many useful options, including the ability to search for keywords in a specific geographic location, or in tweets containing question marks. These are likely to be questions that you may be able to answer, which will build good will and gain you new followers. “Twitter’s search only goes back for a few weeks, so if you want to search further back in time, consider using FriendFeed, advises Tim Frick, author of Return on Engagement: Content Strategy and Design Techniques for Digital Marketing. He also suggests getting an RSS feed for the keywords most important to you. (You can do this on Twitter by clicking “RSS feed for this query” near the bottom of the page after entering a search term.) By the same token, you should know which hashtags are most important for your industry and company. How do you find out? On hashtags.org you can enter any hashtag and see how it’s trending. 3. Time your tweets. Most Twitter users don’t look at tweets that are more than a couple of hours old, so if you want people to actually read your posts, you should time them for when you have the largest live audience.  When is that? “If you have followers all over the world, Eastern Time during business hours is the best time to tweet,” Sansevieri says. “Generally, past noon Pacific Time is less useful. Retweeting starts to drop off toward the end of the day.” Although this is a good general rule, your customers’ habits may be different, so try experimenting, for instance by offering giveaways on different days and at different times to see which get the greatest response. If the best tweet time for your market isn’t the most convenient for you, you can schedule tweets in advance using applications such as TweetDeck or HootSuite. Wolfer does this, for instance, to schedule some tweets in the middle of the night Eastern Time in order to reach her followers in Australia and Asia. 4. Aim for Friday. One of the most popular hashtags is #ff, an abbreviation for “Follow Friday.” Follow Friday is a tradition in which Twitter users on Fridays list interesting Twitter accounts that they recommend following. Though the hashtag is overused and sometimes abused, it’s still worth considering when making your plans. It’s counter-productive to ask your followers or customers to recommend you on Follow Fridays. But you can time your most interesting tidbits of information, giveaways, announcements or other posts you know the Twitter community will especially like so that they happen on Fridays. That way, you may be top of mind when your followers start thinking about whom to recommend. “Friday is when you want people talking about you,” says Ashley Jewell, director of social media marketing for NAP, Inc. which launched its Boba Baby Carrier with a highly successful Twitter campaign. 5. Think retweet. What’s the longest your tweets should be? If you answered 140 characters, you’re wrong. That’s because — you hope — your most interesting tweets and appealing promotions will be retweeted by your followers, and then their followers, and on and on. A retweet means adding the initials RT followed by your Twitter name. If someone retweets someone else’s retweet of your tweet (whew!) a second Twitter name may be included as well. If you started out with 140 characters, some will get lopped off at the end to make room for these additions. “If the end of the tweet is a link, as it often is, then your link will be lost,” Frick notes. To avoid having this happen, he and other experts recommend keeping your tweets to 120 characters at most. A relatively short Twitter name can help too. But you won’t get retweeted in the first place, or gain much attention on Twitter, unless you tweet information and links that others find interesting or valuable. Thus, you should avoid having your Twitter stream consist of a list of announcements about your products and other marketing messages. “Business owners get caught up worrying about issues such as what their background will look like or what their brand will be,” Sansevieri says. “None of that is as important as their engagement with the community. That’s why posting things on Twitter when you have nothing to gain will bring huge rewards. The more you give people what they want, the more they’ll give you what you want.”      

About 1064 days ago Online Marketing

Launch a New Product on Twitter

our beautiful site

Until last year, NAP, Inc.’s best known product line was its Sleepy Wrap baby carrier. But when the company launched the Boba Baby Carrier last year, it focused its efforts on social media, especially Twitter. “Prior to that, we were just using traditional online and print advertising,” says Ashley Jewell, director of social media marketing for NAP. “We went from having one follower to selling out our whole inventory in a matter of weeks.” NAP’s experience shows what some marketing experts already know: Twitter is an incredibly powerful tool for creating buzz and an ideal way to get customers’ attention for a new product, service, company, or location.  “Twitter today has 100 million active users, and 100,000 new users per day. That’s an astonishing shift from something that used to be a niche outpost,” notes Dallas Lawrence, managing director for Burson-Marsteller’s Proof Integrated Communications agency. And, he says, Twitter continues to evolve. “In the last six months, we’ve witnessed dramatic maturation for Twitter. It’s grown from a platform driven by press releases to a true social platform that values information sharing and transparent corporate leadership.” So how do you make the best use of Twitter’s astounding power to reach your customers? Use your peacetime wisely This motto comes from Lawrence’s expertise in crisis communications, but it applies just as well to product launches and other big announcements. The point is that the launch of your new product or service should not be the first time your Twitter followers hear from you. Instead, use the quiet time before the product launch to begin tweeting regularly and develop an identity. “Before asking anything of users online, companies need to build credibility that they are committed to a sustained dialogue,” Lawrence says. How do you do that? “Listen before speaking. That’s probably more important in the Twittersphere than any other social media platform,” Lawrence says. This means re-tweeting useful or interesting information, paying attention to anything being said about your company or brand, and immediately responding to any problems, complaints, or questions anyone has about it. You should also seek to provide interesting information that relates to your product or industry — or your community. “Your dialogue has to provide value,” Lawrence says. “Even if you’re a pizza shop, you can use your Twitter account to highlight good things local charities are doing or even a local Boy Scout Troop. Make Twitter your testing ground “I really don’t think I would have an online magazine if it weren’t for Twitter,” says Alexis Wolfer, founder and editor-in-chief of TheBeautyBean.com, an online beauty and health magazine for women that gets about 20,000 unique visitors per month. “I was working in an editorial job part-time and finishing graduate school and I wrote my thesis on women’s magazines and their influence on body image,” she explains. “And I started posting health, beauty, and nutrition tips on Twitter. They were much like what women’s magazines would provide, except I took out all the focus on weight loss. It was all about healthy living, and in one month I had 1,000 followers.” Wolfer had already thought about starting an online magazine offering health and beauty tips without weight loss advice. “Had I not received the Twitter response that I did, it would have been much slower to develop. But the response I got from Twitter in particular made me feel there were other women out there looking for healthy living information.” Wolfer, who launched TheBeautyBean.com this past January, more recently used Twitter to try out a new idea, Makeup Free Mondays, which started as a tradition around TheBeautyBean’s office. “It was in line with our online message to promote inner beauty while still being glamorous and a place for women to get their beauty and fashion fix,” Wolfer says. “We started tweeting about it, and we had a ton of people retweet about it.” Responses came in from around the globe. And when TheBeautyBean officially launched Makeup Free Mondays as an online movement in May, it drew a lot of attention from celebrities and the media. “We asked people to send pictures of themselves without makeup, and our inbox was flooded,” Wolfer says. Connect with influencers who can help you For every product, industry or topic, there are influential Twitter users whose tweeting about your new product can make a big difference, either because they have a large number of followers, or highly influential followers, represent your biggest customers (such as a retail chain that might carry your product) or write an influential blog. “Start with the top 200 people you want to engage with,” Lawrence advises. “If you follow them, by and large you will follow you back, which says they are willing to be engaged in a dialogue.” This is not the time to start a “one-way marketing push,” he cautions. Instead, begin a dialogue, and offer something of value, such as a free sample of your product for the influencers to try out or an exclusive discount they can share with their followers or blog readers. You can also use invite these influencers to judge contests and host “tweetups” or other events. “We’re doing a Twitter party for Sleepy Wrap, and we have a mom blogger who’s posted about it on her blog and invited people to RSVP. When they do, they’re given the details on the time and hashtag for the party,” Jewell says. The blogger will also select party attendees to receive some giveaway items that NAP is providing. Think beyond Twitter Twitter, though very powerful, is very limiting, with no opportunity to advertise (at least for the moment), no way to directly incorporate photos or videos and, of course, a draconian 140-character limit. So Lawrence recommends a multi-pronged approach that gives you several possible points of contact with customers. He particular likes directing them to Facebook, where you can have tie-in advertising, images and video integrated right into the platform, and can write longer posts. Jewell, on the other hand, likes using Twitter as a central place from which to leak new designs or new product news, and otherwise connect with customers. But customers are also encouraged to “like” NAP’s product lines on Facebook, and, like Lawrence, she recommends a multi-pronged approach that also includes both Facebook and Twitter. Either way, Wolfer says, using Twitter to connect with customers is so easy it doesn’t make sense not to do it. “Most small business owners I’ve met have smartphones that have Twitter capabilities. It doesn’t take much time to write 140 characters. If you’ve got a few minutes to kill before a meeting, why not? It can only help.”

About 1064 days ago Blogging and Social Media

Launch a New Product on Twitter

our beautiful site

Until last year, NAP, Inc.’s best known product line was its Sleepy Wrap baby carrier. But when the company launched the Boba Baby Carrier last year, it focused its efforts on social media, especially Twitter. “Prior to that, we were just using traditional online and print advertising,” says Ashley Jewell, director of social media marketing for NAP. “We went from having one follower to selling out our whole inventory in a matter of weeks.” NAP’s experience shows what some marketing experts already know: Twitter is an incredibly powerful tool for creating buzz and an ideal way to get customers’ attention for a new product, service, company, or location.  “Twitter today has 100 million active users, and 100,000 new users per day. That’s an astonishing shift from something that used to be a niche outpost,” notes Dallas Lawrence, managing director for Burson-Marsteller’s Proof Integrated Communications agency. And, he says, Twitter continues to evolve. “In the last six months, we’ve witnessed dramatic maturation for Twitter. It’s grown from a platform driven by press releases to a true social platform that values information sharing and transparent corporate leadership.” So how do you make the best use of Twitter’s astounding power to reach your customers? Use your peacetime wisely This motto comes from Lawrence’s expertise in crisis communications, but it applies just as well to product launches and other big announcements. The point is that the launch of your new product or service should not be the first time your Twitter followers hear from you. Instead, use the quiet time before the product launch to begin tweeting regularly and develop an identity. “Before asking anything of users online, companies need to build credibility that they are committed to a sustained dialogue,” Lawrence says. How do you do that? “Listen before speaking. That’s probably more important in the Twittersphere than any other social media platform,” Lawrence says. This means re-tweeting useful or interesting information, paying attention to anything being said about your company or brand, and immediately responding to any problems, complaints, or questions anyone has about it. You should also seek to provide interesting information that relates to your product or industry — or your community. “Your dialogue has to provide value,” Lawrence says. “Even if you’re a pizza shop, you can use your Twitter account to highlight good things local charities are doing or even a local Boy Scout Troop. Make Twitter your testing ground “I really don’t think I would have an online magazine if it weren’t for Twitter,” says Alexis Wolfer, founder and editor-in-chief of TheBeautyBean.com, an online beauty and health magazine for women that gets about 20,000 unique visitors per month. “I was working in an editorial job part-time and finishing graduate school and I wrote my thesis on women’s magazines and their influence on body image,” she explains. “And I started posting health, beauty, and nutrition tips on Twitter. They were much like what women’s magazines would provide, except I took out all the focus on weight loss. It was all about healthy living, and in one month I had 1,000 followers.” Wolfer had already thought about starting an online magazine offering health and beauty tips without weight loss advice. “Had I not received the Twitter response that I did, it would have been much slower to develop. But the response I got from Twitter in particular made me feel there were other women out there looking for healthy living information.” Wolfer, who launched TheBeautyBean.com this past January, more recently used Twitter to try out a new idea, Makeup Free Mondays, which started as a tradition around TheBeautyBean’s office. “It was in line with our online message to promote inner beauty while still being glamorous and a place for women to get their beauty and fashion fix,” Wolfer says. “We started tweeting about it, and we had a ton of people retweet about it.” Responses came in from around the globe. And when TheBeautyBean officially launched Makeup Free Mondays as an online movement in May, it drew a lot of attention from celebrities and the media. “We asked people to send pictures of themselves without makeup, and our inbox was flooded,” Wolfer says. Connect with influencers who can help you For every product, industry or topic, there are influential Twitter users whose tweeting about your new product can make a big difference, either because they have a large number of followers, or highly influential followers, represent your biggest customers (such as a retail chain that might carry your product) or write an influential blog. “Start with the top 200 people you want to engage with,” Lawrence advises. “If you follow them, by and large you will follow you back, which says they are willing to be engaged in a dialogue.” This is not the time to start a “one-way marketing push,” he cautions. Instead, begin a dialogue, and offer something of value, such as a free sample of your product for the influencers to try out or an exclusive discount they can share with their followers or blog readers. You can also use invite these influencers to judge contests and host “tweetups” or other events. “We’re doing a Twitter party for Sleepy Wrap, and we have a mom blogger who’s posted about it on her blog and invited people to RSVP. When they do, they’re given the details on the time and hashtag for the party,” Jewell says. The blogger will also select party attendees to receive some giveaway items that NAP is providing. Think beyond Twitter Twitter, though very powerful, is very limiting, with no opportunity to advertise (at least for the moment), no way to directly incorporate photos or videos and, of course, a draconian 140-character limit. So Lawrence recommends a multi-pronged approach that gives you several possible points of contact with customers. He particular likes directing them to Facebook, where you can have tie-in advertising, images and video integrated right into the platform, and can write longer posts. Jewell, on the other hand, likes using Twitter as a central place from which to leak new designs or new product news, and otherwise connect with customers. But customers are also encouraged to “like” NAP’s product lines on Facebook, and, like Lawrence, she recommends a multi-pronged approach that also includes both Facebook and Twitter. Either way, Wolfer says, using Twitter to connect with customers is so easy it doesn’t make sense not to do it. “Most small business owners I’ve met have smartphones that have Twitter capabilities. It doesn’t take much time to write 140 characters. If you’ve got a few minutes to kill before a meeting, why not? It can only help.”