Danny Brown

podcaster - author - creator

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How to Sell Social Media – Twitter

One of the questions I’m most asked is how do you sell social media to your boss or client. Sure, we’re in the space and can see the numerous benefits, but how does that transfer to a wary client?

A lot of that comes down to your belief in how social can work for businesses, and how you relate your client or boss’s needs into their social media equivalent. It’s not always easy, but it’s not rocket science either.

With that in mind, here’s the first in a series of presentations on how you can relate certain social media benefits to a business need. This time around it’s Twitter.? I hope you find it useful, and feel free to share with your friends, download, use on your own blog, etc. And if there’s anything you’d add to the presentation, drop it in the comments section below.

How To Sell Social Media To Your Client Or Boss

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I’m a Twitter Snob? Maybe

StopI received an email today that said I’m a “Twitter snob”. The reasoning behind it was that my follow-to-follower ratio was skewed – I had more followers than people I follow.

Therefore, I wasn’t using Twitter correctly; instead of following everyone back that followed me (which I should be doing, according to the email), I was obviously a snob that only followed the “elite” and I should “re-evaluate my Twitter use”.

The email ended by saying I shouldn’t advise on social media because I’m breaking a cardinal sin – which is, connect with everyone or don’t connect at all.

Okay….

So, I sat down and thought about it. Am I a Twitter snob? Should I follow everyone who follows me? Maybe. Maybe not. If snobbery is down to reciprocal numbers then, yes, I am a Twitter snob. But (and excuse my cussing), to me numbers on Twitter mean f**k all.

You can have 100,000 followers. But are they all live? Are they all human? Or are they a mix of humans, live accounts, dead accounts, spammers and bots? If they’re not all actual people that are active and engaging, then they don’t count. Unless you’re after false numbers, of course, to make you feel more important than you are. And there’s plenty of that going around…

So, fair enough. I have a skewed ratio. Which makes me a snob. But here’s the thing.

I’d rather be a snob with a skewed and (mostly) accurate ratio, than someone pretending to be something they’re not. Which, after all, is the real snobbery. No?

Creative Commons License photo credit: teotwawki

Making Twitter Sticky

Day One Hundred TwelveThere are a lot of changes happening over at Twitter at the minute. They recently updated their Terms of Service and now they’re working on Project ReTweet, where sharing someone else’s tweet with your connections will be performed differently from the current user-generated method.

As is usual when wide-scale changes happen at a company (or, in this case, on a digital stream), there are both fans and dissenters to the new proposals. That’s normal. But what if Twitter could bypass the need for changes like the retweet one?

Twitter’s reasoning for the change is that it can be a confusing mess for new users, and it’s one of the reasons a lot of new users give up within the first month.

While that’s true, a lot of that comes down to the fact that Twitter itself doesn’t offer a great user guide for newcomers. A really simple FAQ or intro sheet emailed to new users would make all the difference, and then they could advise of user-created options, how they fit in and how best to use them.

This would help settle in new users and create something similar to the WordPress community, where you’d have the official tools as well as the community-created ones that existing users can help with. It’d help people settle in more quickly and get the sticky factor that Twitter needs (if reports that 40% of all new users quit after one month is accurate).

But why stop there? There are other areas that Twitter could help keep new and existing users stay happy.

Kill the Private Spam

This is a major problem for Twitter. We know there’s a chance our public streams will have some spam content. But I don’t recall signing up for private message spam from third-party platforms that I didn’t even register for. Pirate games and mafia clans are just two current examples. How can they get into my private message area when I’m not a user? Not good, Twitter.

Make the Suggested Users List Relevant

When you sign up for a new account, Twitter gives you a list of suggested users. The problem is, this list is usually filled with either celebrities or Twitter “power users”. These accounts can often be amongst the most active and busy as far as content goes – how can that be a good introduction when you’ve just joined? Instead, why not work with something like Twellow, ask a couple of simple questions and use these keywords to offer suggestions that actually make sense? So, people in your locality, industry, interest zones, etc, and ease new users into the system as opposed to scaring them off with hyper feeds to follow.

These are just some options that Twitter could take to make the experience better. They’re nothing major, yet they could possibly make a big difference (at least from a user-friendliness viewpoint).

How about you – how would you make Twitter more sticky?

Creative Commons License photo credit: Dustin Diaz

Is Twitter Killing Blog Comments?

'Re:give me my peace of mind'_ or_'awakening' //2If you’re a blogger, you’ll know how comments make a blog. They can take the original post into a whole new level altogether, with opposing views and discussions opening up some great viewpoints.

Personally, I’ve used the comments on some of my posts (and those on other blogs) as inspiration for new posts here. I’ll add my comment on the original post, and then expand on it with a new or slightly different take. That then opens the discussion up even further, both on the new post and the original (play fair – always link back to your inspiration).

While content may be the instigator, it’s the conversations by the community that often make the content. And maybe it’s just me, but Twitter seems to be taking more of the conversations and making them 140-character bites.

I’ve seen many great posts by some truly remarkable bloggers be tweeted, and the conversation remain on Twitter. Points and questions raised in the post start the conversation rolling, but instead of via the comments section on a blog, they take place on the little blue bird nest. And that’s a shame.

There’s nothing wrong with this, of course – after all, Twitter is the king of instant feedback and interaction. And weekly events like #journchat and #blogchat , and others like them, show just how effective a medium Twitter can be for conversations. And yet…

Imagine how much a conversation could build without the limitations of 140-characters. Imagine how opposing views could be fully fleshed out with unlimited text. Imagine how communities could be forged, and new friendships built, through the reasoning and acceptance that long tail blog comments can offer. Imagine being the catalyst or inspiration for a blog post by your favourite blogger, all from a single comment you left.

Of course, you could say that it’s down to the blogger to make the content as open as possible, to encourage discussion – and this is true. Yet at the same time, maybe we (as readers) need to take part more as well? Maybe we need to encourage bloggers more by being part of their community, as opposed to rubbernecking on Twitter?

There are a myriad of ways for conversations to take place. Sometimes little snapshots like Twitter are ideal, if you’re pressed for time. But isn’t it nice to get away from the noise at times, and relax where you have time and space to say what you really want?

What’s your take?

Creative Commons License photo credit: Shirin K. A. Winiger

Twitter Advertising on Facebook? No Thanks

Have you signed up for Sponsored Tweets on Twitter? Or Magpie? Or TweetROI? Do you offer sponsored posts and paid reviews on your blog? If so, you might have to re-think how you share this information, thanks to a Terms of Service update from Facebook.

Why does a Facebook update affect you if you’re on Twitter, or writing on your blog? Think of your Status Update box. Many users of both Facebook and Twitter have their accounts synced, so when you post on Twitter it goes to your status box (or main feed). The same for blog posts – a lot of bloggers auto-update their Facebook status with their latest post.

Now, however, if that tweet or post includes an advertisement from the likes of Sponsored Tweets, or a paid review from a company like?IZEA and other paid blogging services, Facebook would be in their rights to see that as part of their “unauthorized commercial communications”. This could, in return, see your Facebook account closed or deleted.

Of course, the easy thing to do would be for IZEA and other companies to talk to Facebook. Or, for people to stop syncing accounts and blogs (Twitter updates is something a lot of “just Facebook users” have already complained about). The question is, will people want to change their current set-up?

What’s your take? Do you sync accounts? Will this make you change or will you keep posting regardless? Or should advertising companies be the ones taking the proactive approach to work to a solution?