8 Talking Points On Twitter Follower-Building Tools

July 3, 2009 – 8:00 am

Earlier this week I wrote a post about follower-building services on Twitter, warning about the dangers and how people may perceive you if you use them.

It felt a little bit like preaching to the choir.

Amy Mengel made an excellent point in the comments to that post:

“Unfortunately the people on Twitter who promote these schemes and have tweet streams full of nothing but the garbage you outlined above probably won’t be reading this post and getting the message!”

This made me think – did I target the post correctly? I came to the conclusion that in that case, no, I didn’t. If the people reading this site already view follower-building services that way, they’re more likely to be the people talking others out of these tools than the ones using them.

With that in mind, here are a few suggestions on how to approach people using follower-building services and help them to re-think their approach to their followers (which, it seems, we all agree isn’t a good one).

How to approach

  • Approach delicately: No-one likes to be backed into a corner publicly. Consider approaching them privately.
  • Give them a way out: Ask questions instead of pointing the finger.

Reflective questions

  • Benefits: What benefit do you get from using this follower-building tool?
  • Relationships: Do you think they the people following you through this tool care about what you say? Do you care about them?
  • Spam: Do you know this tool is filling your Twitter stream with spam messages? Have you looked at your stream recently?
  • Noise: Have you noticed any change in the value provided by the people you follow (if they’re using an auto-follow-back tool)?
  • Perceptions: Have you thought about how the people who see those messages perceive you?
  • Trust: Given that they’re already spamming your Twitter account, do you really think you can trust this service with your login?

As I said before, you really aren’t hurting anyone but yourself if you use these tools, so if self-reflection doesn’t get the point across, I would likely leave the conversation there. Still, hopefully these points will be helpful.

What other talking points would you suggest?

By Dave Fleet | Posted in Twitter | Tagged , , , | Comments (10)

Anti-Brandjacking Basics: 10 Profiles To Claim For Your Company

July 2, 2009 – 8:00 am

Have you taken the basic steps to prevent people from hijacking your company’s brand? Or have you left the door open to it happening right now?

I’ve been thinking a lot about brandjacking fortunately. Fortunately, I’ve been thinking about it in terms of prevention rather than having to fix it.

Brandjacking is a broad term, the most common connotation of which refers to cybersquatting, which Business Week defines as:

“…the unauthorized use of a trademarked name or phrase in a Web domain pointing to a Web site that isn’t owned by the trademark holder.”

A common manifestation of this in the social media age is third parties claiming your company’s name on any online property. The easiest way to make sure that no-one does this to you: make sure your company claims them itself.

So, if you’re helping your company to take the tiniest baby steps beyond the boundaries of its own website, make sure you recommend it claims its name on these sites (or just do it for them!):

Twitter - the golden child right now. With episodes like “Janet” from Exxon Mobil and the fake Aston Martin account, you’d be a fool not to claim your company and brand identies on here.

Facebook - with the highest number of active users of any social networking site, Facebook is an obvious target for would-be brandjackers (especially in Canada, where Facebook penetration is upwards of 70% in some cities). Add to that the fact that you can now claim a custom URL for Facebook pages with more than 100 fans, and you have a compelling reason to ensure your company has at least a passive presence there.

MySpace - Facebook may have claimed the top spot and Twitter may be more of a media darling right now, but MySpace still has almost 57 million unique US visitors per month according to Compete, and that number has risen in each of the last four months. Don’t discount it just yet.

YouTube – the Google-owned video sharing monster YouTube may be a long way from turning a profit for its parent, but it’s still by far the most popular site for posting videos online. That includes parodies of companies. Well worth claiming.

FriendFeed – this one isn’t a mainstream service, but some of the bigger names in social media are predicting great things for it. I’m not convinced, but that’s no reason not to cover your bases.

WordPress – your domain name portfolio should cover the obvious choices for domains similar to your brand. You should consider adding WordPress profiles to that set. Don’t let someone claim [company name].wordpress.com because you forgot to.

Google – Claiming your company name on Google doesn’t just safeguard your company’s identity on Google’s services; it also provides a useful place to aggregate the bacn email that you will receive from your social media profiles.

Yahoo - No longer the Internet powerhouse it once was, Yahoo still draws enough traffic to make claiming your company name there well worth your while.

Flickr – Facebook may have the world’s most popular photo sharing application, but Flickr is still a big gun, with nearly 22 million unique US visitors in May 2008. Now that you have your Yahoo account, use it to claim your Flickr identity.

Social bookmarking sites – There are plenty of these to consider. For starters, think about claiming your company’s name on Reddit, Delicious, StumbleUpon and Digg.

This is just a starter list, not a comprehensive set. What other sites would you add?

By Dave Fleet | Posted in social media | Tagged , , | Comments (7)

Twitter Follower-Building Services – Gain Numbers, Lose Respect?

June 30, 2009 – 8:00 am

As time goes on, it feels like more and more people are feeling the allure of Twitter follower-building services. Look at their follower numbers one day and they have a few hundred, and a couple of days later they’re up to several thousand.

It’s easy to see the allure of this. You have the ego boost of believing your tweets are read by thousands of people – that’s pretty cool, right? It takes a really long time to build-up that many readers of a blog.

Personally, while I’ve occasionally been tempted by the dark side, I’ve never used one of those services, for a couple of reasons:

  • Consider how much you care about the people that those services ask you to follow. What’s that? Not at all? That’s how much they care about you, too.
  • If the people who follow you through that scheme don’t care, who are you doing it for? Your existing followers? I think not. Potential followers? Do you really think they care either? Your ego? Maybe that’s it.
  • It feels wrong, and when it comes to social media, I tend to go with my gut (especially when the evidence supports that feeling).

There’s also one big down-side of many follower-building services on Twitter:

They spam your Twitter account.

Glancing at my Twitter stream recently, I spotted a post from someone in my stream (note: I’ve removed the links):

viralwordpress: Want 10,000 Followers FAST? FREE Twitter Followers Software http://tinyurl.com/twitterp… http://bit.ly/LlwDL

Ah, yes – Twitter spam. Out of curiosity I clicked through to their profile to see if this was the first time it had happened (in case they were unaware of it). Here’s what I found:

Twitter spam messages

Is this how you want people to see you? That’s how people see this “SEO pro.”

Why not go about things differently? Why not build a following by providing useful information; by saying useful things; by helping other people? It takes time, but you’ll find yourself with followers who pay attention when you ask a question, and who care when you post.

I guess you’re not hurting anyone else if you use these services, but consider the damage you may do to your own reputation – especially if you tout yourself as a social media expert.

What do you think about follower-building services? Setting this example aside, do you (or would you) use one of these tools?

If you have used one of these tools, am I off-base on this? I haven’t used these follower-building tools, so I’d love your input. Did you get the results you were looking for?

By Dave Fleet | Posted in Twitter, tools | Comments (30)

The Volume/Personalization Trade-Off

June 29, 2009 – 8:00 am

The trade-off between volume and personalization is an ever-present dilemma in public relations. If, as I do, you subscribe to the notion that one of the best ways to build loyalty is to develop a relationship with people, then you’ve likely hit the point where you have to make a trade-off between the number of people you can engage with and the quality of those interactions.

A couple of weeks ago I received a pitch about the upcoming launch of Gary Vaynerchuk’s first book. The pitch wasn’t fantastic, but as I’ve followed Gary’s activities for a while and it was well enough targeted, I replied and moved on. Fast forward to this weekend, when I read an interesting post by John Cass about a similar (not identical) pitch that he received. Reading the comments (those on the original post and the re-post on Social Media Today are all worth reading), I started to really think about the optimum point along the scale/personalization continuum when it comes to pitching.

Volume/personalization extremes

Purists will tell you that you need to read 10-20 posts or stories from each person you pitch, and that you should completely tailor every pitch you issue. Meanwhile, some other people will argue that by reaching a large volume of people with your pitch, the law of averages says you will connect with enough people who do care that you will come out ahead.

I’d argue that there are downsides to both extreme, although I still favour one side over the other.

I’ve written before about some of the issues involved with personalized blogger relations. The primary one, of course, is time. Even if you take just a minute or two per post you read, that time adds up quickly. To then tailor personalized emails takes more time. When you work for an agency, the process can quickly chew through your client’s budget.

Once you get to the kind of numbers that Gary mentions in his comments on John’s post, you’re talking astronomical amounts of time. That limits this approach to a very small number of recipients.

This brings us to the other extreme – mass communications. This is the approach that relies on building a large list, emailing out a standard (or mail-merged) email to that list and letting the law of averages do its work. Sure, you may annoy some people but you’ll also hit other people who will take the action you’re after. This is the “email marketing” form of pitching – the collision of the two tactics.

Is the sweet spot in the middle ground?

In an ideal world, every company would take the former approach. Unfortunately, we don’t live in that wonderful place – time is tight, budgets are tighter and we need to deliver results for our clients and bosses with less resources than we would like to have.

I wonder if the ideal solution, as with so many dilemmas, is somewhere in the middle.

The chart above shows roughly how I view the dilemma. At the top-left of the curve, you have the idealists who say you should completely tailor every word of every pitch you send out. Small, highly-targeted outreach also fits into this part of the curve. At the opposite end of the chart, you have the spammers who pitch massive numbers of people with the same message. They’re easy to spot – they’re the ones where you’re bcc’d, with no salutation or a “Dear Blogger.” They often lead with the words “For Immediate Release.”

I’ve worked for clients where their only targets are one or two highly influential blogs, and in that case you can function over  at the top-left of the curve. However, unless your target audience is an extremely small number of sites (or their readers), you may need to make some compromises.

Still, I am strongly (and often vocally) against untargeted spam pitches that hit everyone with the same email. Note that the potential “sweet spot” I suggest sits closer to the tailored, low-volume end of the scale than the other. Critically, it sits above the tipping point where the volume reaches the point where significantly less personalization is possible.

The reality of the “sweet spot”

In this sweet spot, for a new client:

  • You research the targets of your pitches – you read their stories or their websites;
  • You create a pitch template covering the key points you wish to communicate;
  • You tailor that template for every person you pitch;
    • That personalization includes, but isn’t limited to:
      • The medium you use to pitch them (if that information is available)
      • Your greeting
      • Your opening paragraph
      • The points on which you choose to focus
      • The supporting collateral you offer – do they lean towards video? Images? Interviews?
  • You keep some less-critical parts of the email the same, to save time and budget.

Time changes things

I say “for a new client” above because, as time goes on, I believe the line in the chart moves up – as you get to know the market and the media in that market better, you can reach more of them more effectively in less time, meaning more personalization, less time required and better use of resources.

Having worked on some accounts for a while now, I can reel-off the names of key journalists, how they like to be contacted, when the best times are to reach them and the types of information they like, without even needing notes. That makes the pitching process more cost-effective as time goes on – meaning the line in the chart has moved way up the Y axis.

Your thoughts?

I’m curious as to your thoughts. Does this click with the challenges you face?

Let me know what you think – I’d love to hear your feedback.

By Dave Fleet | Posted in blogger relations, media relations, pitching, pr, public relations | Tagged , , , , , | Comments (12)

Scribnia Helps You Discover And Review New Blogs

June 26, 2009 – 8:31 am

A little while back, a few people drew my attention to Scribnia. I glanced at it at the time, but unfortunately I didn’t have a chance to dig too deeply. In a way I’m glad that I didn’t, as since then I’ve watched it grow into a very useful tool and I think my opinion is better informed now.

Scribnia describes itself as “a rating and discovery engine for bloggers and columnists” that lets you “find better writers online.” For once, a company’s description of itself is spot-on.

Scribnia, at its base level, lets you find new blogs and sites to read based on the sites you like. It determines those preferences by letting you rate and review other peoples’ sites.

When you rate a site, rather than only giving a grade along a simple scale, Scribnia asks you to rate authors along several criteria. These criteria vary depending on the type of site the author writes for. If you review my site, for example, you will be asked to rate me on:

  • Technology - from exclusively e-marketing through to print and billboard
  • Approach - from low budget through to high budget
  • Radicalness - from mainstream through to maverick

Scribnia rating criteriaThis means that each review gives a good amount of context along consistent criteria, along with the open-ended input that the reviewer also gets. This gives it multiple factors to consider when recommending sites for you, and that’s Scribnia really gets interesting.

Useful recommendations

Recommendations on ScribniaRight out of the box (or login, I suppose), Scribnia will recommend authors similar to any that you view, based on the reviews other people have given of those sites.

The image on the right, for example, shows the recommendations when you look at my profile. You can see that it recommends Seth Godin, Drew McLellan and Maria Rayez-McDavis – all authors in a similar field to me.

However, Scribnia really begins to shine once you’ve added a few reviews yourself. At that point, it begins to recommend other sites for you to read based on the reviews you’ve given – based on the sites you like. In my case it recommends Stuart Foster and Connie Bensen (who I already read – if I like I can note that and it will recommend more) and Ryan Stephens (who is new to me – I’ll now check out his site based on this recommendation).

Features that add value

I’ve only scratched the surface of Scribnia in this post. There are plenty of other features, such as:

  • myScribes - which lets you aggregate the content from authors you like in one place and rate individual posts to obtain even better recommendations in future
  • In-depth author and publication recommendations – in case you want to dig deep
  • Blog widgets – to feature your ranking on your site (see my sidebar)
  • Sribup – an odd name for a simple feature which lets you easily tweet about an author you especially like

Conclusion

If I have one quibble about Scribnia it’s that it feels like a bit of a hug-fest. No-one seems to write anything but positive reviews (I feel the same pressure on this) in order to avoid offending anyone. Essentially, the universally positive reviews reduce the value of that side of things. One way of solving this might be to add an ‘anonymous’ review option, but that itself has downsides.

Still, this doesn’t reduce the usefulness of the recommendations that you receive, which to me are one of the most useful parts of this service. Even if you only ever write nice things, if you only write reviews about people you genuinely admire then you will receive useful recommendations.

I like Scribnia. I find it useful, and its usefulness is growing over time which is good to see. If you haven’t checked it out and you’re looking for new inspiration, it’s worth a look.

What do you think?

Oh, and if you feel like writing a review of this site, please do. I’d love to know what you think (good or bad)!

By Dave Fleet | Posted in social media, tools | Tagged , , , , , | Comments (6)

Feedburner and FriendFeed: FailBurner

June 25, 2009 – 8:00 am

FailburnerFeedburner is probably one of the most-used services available for bloggers. Its RSS analytics, promotion and advertising features have made it a staple of many peoples’ blogging toolkits.

FeedBurner was also a first mover in the market, enabling it to attract a large number of people before viable competitors appeared. Thanks to its purchase by Google, it has been able to take advantage of the powerful Google Analytics system to enhance its statistical reporting.

That’s fortunate, because the team at FeedBurner seems to be doing everything in its power to alienate its users.

Inconsistent Reporting

On one hand you have the random blips in FeedBurner stats, where they tell you that half of your subscribers have disappeared overnight. That alone would be a significant issue for a service providing analytics – for sites publishing those numbers (especially those using those numbers to sell advertising) consistency is critical.

This problem is just that, though – a problem. Frustrating and unacceptable, yes, but still a problem that gets fixed.

Contrast that with the latest silliness.

FriendFeed? Huh?

In the last week, FeedBurner users may have noticed a significant jump in their RSS subscriber numbers. For this site, my total subscribers increased by 25%. On another site of mine, they jumped by 1860%.

This wasn’t caused by a technical problem. The reason for this is that FeedBurner now counts a person’s FriendFeed subscribers in their blog RSS subscription count.

Personally, I completely agree with David Spinks’ take on this. The fact that I subscribe to someone’s FriendFeed doesn’t mean I subscribe to their blog. It means I subscribe to their FriendFeed.

To me, this completely undermines the relevance of FeedBurner’s subscriber numbers. I get essentially zero referrals from FriendFeed, but this site now apparently has another 600 subscribers.

Communications fail

There was no direct communication to users around this change. The only reason I found out was because I noticed the big jump and looked closely at the stats. Where’s the option to turn this off? Where’s the communication with FeedBurber users?

Frankly, this could be the last straw for me. I’ve used Feedburner for several years now, but given that Feedblitz is taking a run at FeedBurner, they finally have a competitor. I may give FeedBlitz a try.

What do you think about this change?

By Dave Fleet | Posted in Google, social media, tools | Tagged , , , , | Comments (18)

Community Alone Isn’t Enough

June 23, 2009 – 8:00 am

One of my favourite roles to play (and one that likely annoys my colleagues the most) is that of devil’s advocate. I try to constantly question the things that everyone takes for granted, because one day things will change. It happened to many traditional PR folks, and if we don’t keep a close eye out for that day, we get left behind ourselves when it comes.

Today I’m turning my mind to an old social media chestnut – the idea of “giving back to the community.”

I see it written so often – something along the lines of:

“To be successful in social media, you have to give back to the community.”

Sounds great, right? Group hugs all around, everyone gets along and no-one loses.

But does it really work like that? I mean really, when you move past the “well it should work like that” and on to the “does it really happen?”

Nice guys finish first?

There are certainly plenty of people who would appear to have made it work. The Chris Brogans; the Shel Holtzes (show me a dictionary that says I spelt that wrong…), the Brian Solises and so on. I, and my employer, also subscribe to the notion that what goes around comes around.

Nice guys finish last?

Still, there are plenty of other people who do equally well with little input into the community other than money. I won’t name them, but they’re easy to spot. They sponsor events, they show up at the events they sponsor, they rub noses when big names come into town, and they schmooze at conferences. That’s about it. What’s more, they appear to rapidly get ahead – their organizations grow and their stars appear to shine ever brighter.

One thing that stands out from both groups: they’re all excellent self promoters. You’ll see them in magazines, you’ll see them name-checked widely, and you’ll see them promoting their companies in a wide variety of forums.

Is there anything wrong with this? Absolutely not. They’re simply practicing for themselves what our clients pay us to do for them.

It does, however, lead me to one conclusion.

Community alone isn’t enough for business.

As an individual, doing something as a hobby, community is absolutely enough. In fact, it may be the sole end goal for hobbyists and that’s wonderful. For companies, however, you can’t only give back. You need to withdraw push for yourself, too. Community alone doesn’t pay the bills. Revenue and growth does.

That’s why the Brogans, the Holtzes (seriously, deal with it) and their like do so well – they contribute but they also market themselves and their organizations.

Pure altruism may seem like a lovely concept, but it seems to be those who both give and take that get ahead.

My thoughts on this are still evolving. What do you think?

By Dave Fleet | Posted in social media | Tagged , , , | Comments (25)

You Aren’t Always Right

June 18, 2009 – 8:00 am

As our team does more and more online outreach on behalf of our clients, I’m increasingly coming to realize that you can’t expect to “win” every debate.

Interestingly enough, “you” in this case can refer to either side of the discussion.

Companies – you don’t have to win

As a communications pro, with inside knowledge of the company/companies you represent, it’s easy to get caught-up in your own story. I mean that in a positive way – the best job is one you’re passionate about, whether that passion is focused on your employer or a client. Still, it’s easy to get swept away by the great things you’re doing, by the benefits your organization can offer, and by the great story you’re telling.

Trouble is, other people have a different story.

Maybe they have a history with that company. Maybe they perceive the situation in a completely different way to that in which you perceive it. Maybe they’re looking to solve different problems to you.

As a communicator who listens and engages with your target market online, you need to remember that you don’t have to convince everyone every time. Sometimes it’s enough that you show you’re listening. Sometimes it’s enough to put forward an alternative angle. Sometimes it’s best not to engage at all.

Consumers – you’re not always right

Social media, and the increased voice that it gives to the average person, seems to have led to many people believing that one person’s issue means a company has to change course.

Reality check, people: no company is ever going to be able to make everyone happy. What’s more, most changes in business have a counter-effect:

  • Lower the price on one thing and the revenue has to come from somewhere else (or increased volumes)
  • Basic management theory explains that of the three basic elements of a project outcome – cost, speed and quality – you can optimize two but have to compromise on the other.

My point here is that you may not like something, but that doesn’t mean that everyone else feels the same way. The opposite is potentially true, too – just because you’re happy with something doesn’t mean everyone else is.

Don’t expect every single company to leap to attention because you, personally, don’t agree with fundamental aspects of their business model.

So, next time a company responds to your concerns but puts forward an alternative perspective or just doesn’t drop everything to make big changes to their business based on your feedback, consider:

Is it them not listening to their customers, or an individual not necessarily representing the masses?

Closing-out

Social media engagement isn’t an all-or-nothing game. Not from the customer’s perspective, and certainly not from the company’s.

Social media allows companies to reach out to customers, and vice versa. It lets companies listen to concerns; to answer questions; to help people; to develop relationships. It lets customers voice opinions; receive support; put forward ideas.

Just remember – whether you’re the company or the customer, you aren’t always right.

By Dave Fleet | Posted in social media | Tagged , , | Comments (11)

TweetDeck and Seesmic Desktop: Racing To The Bottom?

June 17, 2009 – 8:00 am

Twitter was buzzing last night as the latest version of free Twitter client TweetDeck was launched, to fairly universal acclaim.

Mashable has a detailed run-down of the new Tweetdeck features, and a good comparison of the new version with its closest competitor, Seesmic Desktop. In a nutshell, the big-name new features are:

  • A new TweetDeck iPhone app;
  • Support for multiple Twitter accounts;
  • The ability to synchronize accounts across multiple computers and the mobile app;
  • The option to save groups and searches for future use when removing them from your screen.

There’s plenty more, but those are the key functions from my perspective.

Amidst the geeky excitement of a new, improved application for use with Twitter, though, I have one concern:

Are these free apps racing themselves to the bottom?

Is this race for new functionality going to eventually drive these free services out of business?

Here’s my thinking:

  • Right now neither TweetDeck nor Seesmic Desktop generate revenue from their apps.
  • Neither ‘main’ app seems to have a critical mass of users. Fickle audiences flit back and forth between the applications as one gains advantage over the other. 
  • Minimal barriers to entry mean that, at any time, a new application could emerge to challenge the big two (as Seesmic Desktop did, out of the ashes of Twhirl, not so long ago). 
  • Only “power users” will get a lot out of these features. I certainly appreciate the feature, and the power users are the ones with a loud voice, but most people frankly don’t need multiple accounts.
  • If either app tries to charge users without introducing a killer, unreplicable new feature, users will simply switch to the other.

Where does this leave us? Two companies engaged in an endless race for features that benefit very few people, while not being able to monetize their products.

What’s the end game? Being bought-out by Twitter or another company? That’s bubble thinking, not recession planning. I really don’t know the answer.

What do you think?

By Dave Fleet | Posted in Twitter, tools | Tagged , , , | Comments (23)

Is The State Of The Twittersphere Declining?

June 16, 2009 – 8:00 am

On June 10 HubSpot released its second State of the Twittersphere report. The report looks at information collected from over 4.5 million Twitter accounts over the last nine months. Their conclusion:

"…many of the accounts on Twitter aren’t actually using it all that much."

The report found that:

  • 79.79% failed to provide a homepage URL;
  • 75.86% of users have not entered a bio in their profile;
  • 68.68% have not specified a location;
  • 55.50% are not following anyone;
  • 54.88% have never tweeted;
  • 52.71% have no followers.

The report also combines three criteria (followers, friends and updates) to determine that 9% of Twitter users are inactive.

The lack of homepage URLs and locations doesn’t surprise me – many people don’t have blogs or something they’d consider a "homepage," and many more are concerned about their privacy. However, the fact that 55% of Twitter accounts have no bio, that 55% follow no-one and/or have never tweeted and that 53% have no followers is food for thought.

A few mitigating factors come to mind, which might explain some of these statistics:

  • This report looked at 4.5m Twitter accounts compared to the 500,000 included in the last report. Twitter’s exponential growth means that a large proportion of accounts are likely new, and new users have less followers, friends and updates;
  • Spammers  and bots represent an increasingly large proportion of the Twittersphere;
  • Savvy people and companies are claiming their Twitter IDs whether they’re ready to use them or not;
  • According to Technorati’s latest State of the Blogosphere, less than 6% of blogs have been active in the last four months. By that measure of activity, Twitter’s users are quite active.

Still, these statistics are a useful wake-up call. Twitter still isn’t a silver bullet solution to your problems. Neither is social media as a whole. They may be an important part of your toolkit, but they cannot operate in isolation.

Integrated communications approaches are, and will continue to be, the best approach.

By Dave Fleet | Posted in Twitter | Tagged , , , | Comments (23)