The Jury is In -- Following the Masses on Twitter

Several weeks ago, I was still undecided on whether one should follow everyone that followed them on Twitter (see two previous blogs ago). Well, now, I have a clear answer for you -- at least, from me.

I say, Yes! follow your Followers. Follow each one (except maybe those annoying marketers who keep sending you solicitous direct messages -- and BTW, you know, I don't even like it when they send even one of them without asking nicely first).

Following has multiple advantages. First, the social psychology of "Reciprocity" still rules (my old professor would be so proud): you do something nice for me, chances are, I'll do something nice for you. Same for following -- and it works in reverse too; If you are not following someone, there's the possibility that they will be offended, disappointed, ticked off, whatever, and un-follow you. And you like to be followed.

Next, if each of you are following each other on Twitter, then you can send each other Direct Messages. This can come in handy. You may not realize how this might come in handy right now, but it will. Trust me. You'll see....

So, scratch my previous ambiguity on Following. Follow, follow, follow...the yellow brick road (paved in gold?).

Twitter - A Voice but am I Listening?

I learned recently that the "scientific" threshold to relationships is 150. What this means is that a person is apparently only capable of having a true connection with 150 people; after that, they can't maintain the relationships.

What does this mean for Twitter? Well, I'm at a few shy of 500 Followers and I am following 0ver 200. I passed my threshold a couple of weeks ago and I'm clearly realizing its effects (see my article and thoughts previously, below on the Twitter Threshold).

On the positive side, my daily Followers has decreased. Maybe this isn't an advantage if my goal is as many Followers as possible. But where I can appreciate is in the fewer people I need to thank and the less profiles I need to review. Again, if my goal is just to increase my audience and not my connection with people, this probably wouldn't be important to me. But it is. I appreciate the relationships I foster and the connections I have with my Twitter friends. I am not there for a one-way relationship. I want to read what others have to tweet, respond to their tweets, re-tweet their great 140 or less characters, even banter a little.

So, you start to see the dilemma. How can I maintain this by following over 150 tweeters? Unfortunately, the answer is I can't -- at least, not with all of them. In fact, with over 150 people that I'm following (or whatever the real number is, though I suspect it might be even less) I can't even see all their tweets on the small length of the page Twitter gives me (about 25). So -- and I'm not a mathematician but -- with 25 tweets per page and 200 tweeters, how many tweets can I see if even a quarter of them are tweeting at the same time? About half?

And, as those I'm following and new users only gets larger, this dilemma grows. Do I lessen my list of people I'm following? If so, am I seen as too picky, non-congenial, or even rude? What's the Twitter etiquette in this case? Many Twitter users follow everyone who follows them. But clearly, we see that this does not create true relationships; it only lessons them.

I will be interested in how the Twitter platform develops and our ability to maintain -- or decrease -- our virtual relationships (all be them 140 characters per seconds) develops.

Your thoughts? Tweet me at http://twitter.com/kairaca.

How to Attract and Keep Twitter Followers

This is my third week on Twitter. I have over 300 Followers, so I imagine I must be doing something right!

Truth is: I Love Twitter. I mean love it. So, that probably helps a lot. However, I think I have learned a few good tips I'd like to share that I believe will help you attract and retain Twitter followers.

1. Be Interesting - Don't tweet about the mundane such as what you ate for dinner, how cute your dog is (okay, they are, but unless they're exceptionally special, we probably don't care enough), or how you've just finished your laundry. Yawn. That stuff will leave us bored and to the Unfollow button.
   
   
2. Be Creative - Be different. Don't just tweet the same stuff everyone else is. Tweet tweets that are unique to you. You have a lot of competition.
   
   
3. Don't just RT others - This may be a personal anti-preference, but if I see a lot more RT's (Reply - Tweets) thank original tweets from the person, I won't follow them. It's hard to follow a discussion between tweeters, so come up with some interesting things to say by yourself.
   
   
4. Acknowledge your Followers - This gets much harder to do as your Followers grow, but I still believe in the "connection" between people and there's nothing like a "Thank You" to those who follow you. People like to feel appreciated. Let them know you appreciate them! After all, without them, you are a voice on a deserted planet.
   
   
5. Follow - Follow those who follow you and follow those who don't. Followers you engage with and learn from also help you gain more followers. Now, does this mean you have to follow every person who follows you? That's unclear to me at this moment. There's a certain psychology to reciprocity; meaning that if I do something for you, you're more likely to do something for me in return. But I don't believe that every person you follow is going to reciprocate. So, my tip is to follow whom you find interesting and things will fall into place.
   
   
6. Engage - Interact with both your Followers and whom you follow. Engaging gets you noticed, builds relationships, and helps build your reputation as a serious Tweeter.
   

Questions? Feel free to Follow me and drop me a line on Twitter! I'm usually there - @kairaca.

Be Careful What you Ask for - Social Networking Saturation Point

Being very excited about social media and networking online (I'm a "community builder" by nature), I found myself adding more and more connections to my LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter lists. An experienced networker will find that, the more connections you have, the more you tend to attract. And, probably somewhat similar to offline networking, the more connections you have, the more busy you find yourself.

Offline, you may find yourself faced with more phone calls, more discussions. Online however, you find yourself swamped with more emails, more "clicks" to accept connections, more time reviewing new Friend's or Follower's profiles.

The good and the bad however is that it happens to be a LOT easier to accumulate connections in your online network. Many big networkers have more than 500 people on each social media site. Some have 1000.

At some point, a big online networker will reach their Saturation Point. At only 150 Followers with my Twitter Profile within the past three weeks, I'm feeling it hard already. The Facebook and the LinkedIn connections I can handle more easily (although click Accept, Thanks, Review, click Accept Thanks, Review 50 times in one day on LinkedIn is a bit tiresome). But the 10 to 20 to 30 a day Twitter followers is getting me.

You see, for each one of those Twitter followers, I like to review their Profile, see if I want to follow them. I usually choose to follow several of them. Then, I like to thank my followers, which requires me to Tweet each one of them (I'll do it in one to two group tweets). Even after that, I may want to engage in a discussion with some of them, make a comment on one of their tweets. All of these tasks are very important. In fact, all of them helps me promote my own page and increase my followers. But you can see the ever-growing chain of reaction here. This is why I say, Be careful what you ask for!

A large network of Friends and Followers may seem hip, cool, exciting, but can one sustain it?

So, I ask myself, are these conglomerate social networkers really engaging well with their followers? Even working on it full-time, how can they possibly review 100+ followers a day, let alone even thank them all? They probably can't.

So, the next question that follows is, What is the ideal maximun point of saturation for one social media marketer?

More Support for Full-time Social Media Staff

Per my earlier article on how much time social media marketing can take, I'd like to follow up with this blog from BrandWeek.com supporting the need and understanding to businesses that social media marketing takes a big -- but a necessary -- commitment.

It highlights Ford, Pepsi, and others who are leading the trend in focusing and realizing the benefits of social media.

http://www.brandweek.com/bw/content_display/news-and-features/digital/e3ie2a94edbc5b0a7c1150d6cbf4741dede

Comments?

The Twitter Tag Experiment

It all started out as a joke, but now several of us are twittering using the Twitter tag (also called "hashtag") "#datingexperiment" (note that Twitter tags use the pound sign - #). To search on tags -- from #socialmedia to #dating -- go to Twitter's Search page: http://search.twitter.com/.

From love to dating to relationships, we've started an interesting conversation all using the experimental tag: #datingexperiment. To follow the discussion, search this tag at http://search.twitter.com/. You can also search on my username: "kairaca".

We'd like to see how many conversations an unique perspectives we can get using this tag. Please join us! Start by signing up on Twitter and following me at http://twitter.com/kairaca.

Hope to see you there!

Social Networking Takes Time

If you are planning to take social networking seriously, whether for business or personal use, be prepared to allocate at least 30-60 minutes a day to keeping in touch.

If you are a business wanting to partake in social media to promote yourself, you could seriously delegate one person to a 1/2 to full day on social media and blogging sites, networking with current and potential customers and getting your "buzz" out.

Consumer social media marketing takes 2x the time

Networking and blogging for B2B can take enough of your precious minutes. You'll see yourself mostly on LinkedIn, Twitter, and blogging sites -- writing, connecting, promoting, answering and informing. But consumer attention can take up to twice amount of that time because there are multiple -- and worthy -- avenues to reach consumers.

Facebook, MySpace, blogs, and Twitter are where you'll want to focus consumer attention most, but there might be additional sites, depending on your brand. Adding connections ("Friends"), writing blogs, answering questions, creating and maintaining "Pages," promoting new features/products/services, updating your current and prospective customers takes time and organization (just thinking about it tiring - whew!).

So, if your new "social media" expert explains that they're spending most of the day evangelizing your product, don't be surprised. The question you'll ask yourself is whether it's worth it. After all, a part to full-time salary for something that almost seems "fun" might appear a bit trivial. But the answer is a big YES. Allocating resources for social media sites and social networking is very worth it. With proper and consistent evangelizing, you'll see results sooner than you think.

Join me in a little social media experiment on Twitter

I am enthralled by Twitter. I am in love with Twitter. A Twitter junkie? Not quite yet (I never was the addictive type, but rather the ambitious one).

There's something exhilarating to a person like me (Virgo thing?) to be able to share my thoughts with the World, my pithy, terse, philosophical, psychological, or analytical blurbs (yes, it sounds like a Virgo thing).

But aside from that, I've decided to try a little experiment with hashtags (like meta tags) on Twitter. Using the hashtag #datingexperiment and delivering expressions about the centuries old topic (what better topic that everyone knows?), I and others I've asked to join me are attempting to see how popular we can make this hashtag.

For now, since I just started promoting it, most of the comments are mine. But stay tuned, we're going to rock the social media world a bit with something new, something different. Something a little experimental.

Come along for the ride!

Follow me on twitter at www.twitter.com/kairaca. Write your pithy comments and add the tag #datingexperiment to them.

How Businesses can Promote through Social Media Sites - LinkedIn and Plaxo

The buzz is out about social media. Most decision makers have been scratched, got the itch, and feel the nudge to know more. They are asking,"How can we use social networking for our business?"

I'm glad to help. With all my experience developing, using, and seeing the potential of Social Media/Networking sites, it only made sense to focus on helping businesses promote themselves and increase their market share through these tools.

This will be a multi-article blog. In this first posting, I'm going to feature LinkedIn.com and Plaxo. Following, I'll cover and contrast Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and others.

LinkedIn

Where I usually like to start with clients is LinkedIn.com. It's a wonderful business networking site and I was very excited about it from the start. If you're in business, you need to be on LinkedIn. The site started out fairly corporate-ish, with subscribers in high-tech and others who were Internet-savvy. However, their representation has expanded to categories as diverse as "Ranching" and "Religious Institutions" (wonder if the Pope's on LinkedIn...).

Aside from the cool "Six Degrees of Separation" feel of the site (though it seems it's more like three degrees - or less in your industry), it's the place to find, meet, and connect with just about anyone you need to find. As a business, you want to be found, and that's why you want to be on LinkedIn. You will be searching for people as much as they will be finding you.

The more connections you have, the more other people you can reach. For example, LinkedIn tells me that through my network of 287 people, I have access to over 5 million more people. That's a big network! (BTW, feel free to connect with me.) This is why some folks on LinkedIn (mainly recruiters and Bus Dev folks) go nuts and invite anyone and everyone, extending their networks into four digits. So, when they post messages to their networks, they're reaching an amazing amount of people.

What's really great about LinkedIn, is the ability to receive and promote yourself via Recommendations from customers and colleagues. The Recommendations are posted on your profile. What's more, your activities are monitored and reported to others in your Network, which keeps you on their minds (not good for ex's). This can include your blog posts, recent connections, new Recommendations (for you or ones you've written), or if you've changed jobs.

LinkedIn's groups have been growing and see quite a bit of activity. Groups allow people to network, discuss, and share relevant information on the site directly and through email updates. Lately, they've been a main source of both recruitment and job hunting. You can additionally post business-related "Questions" to your own network -- and get answers (or not).

LinkedIn is additionally an ideal place to source for employees. They have a job posting feature where candidates can apply to postings and you can view their profile with a click. But, for free, you can search the entire LinkedIn database directly, for any type of guru that may otherwise be hard to find.

Like many social networking sites, LinkedIn is also a great place to find old friends and colleagues and stay in touch with them. You never lose their email address (and vice versa) because LinkedIn regularly tests emails. You can also add multiple addresses to your profile.

Plaxo

Plaxo started out as a fancy online address book, where keeping in contact with friends and associates was made easier. It didn't have a lot of features and had a corporate look and feel to it (well, the look is still simple).

Since then (and via social media competition), they've been successively adding more and more social networking features that are slowly giving it a more "personal" touch, releasing it from that corporate feel that LinkedIn still retains. Examples are status updates ("Pulse Streams") that can include blogs, photos, videos, links, or polls; a calendar; photo albums; Fan Pages. They also have groups, but they don't seem to get the traffic or popularity as on LinkedIn. Unlike LinkedIn, Plaxo allows categorization of connections, which I like (LinkedIn Wish List!). For jobs, Plaxo uses SimplyHired and postings aren't as integrated into their site as well as on LinkedIn.

Unfortunately, Nexo hasn't fully gained the same level of use as LinkedIn. Plaxo's social media features have grown quite a bit, but they still don't seem to get the same buzz as the other social networking sites. Their focus is limited to one's current network more than an extended (no degrees of separation here). Nor do I get a good sense of where they are going. They are clearly trying to compete with the Facebook's and even though they've garnered a decent crowd, their competition is tough unless they can pull away users from other social networking sites.

Summary

Maintaining multiple profiles on different sites can take some work and some duplication is unavoidable. Inviting friends to what originally seemed like two business networking sites seemed redundant. But since Plaxo has expanded their features and their search is still focused on one's immediate network, it remains to be seen whether they will take a more personal or business slant in regards to networking and promotion (I'm betting personal). For now, I recommend creating profiles and networks on both sites so you are visible and "find-able." However, for promotion and market expansion, my advice would be to focus your business networking on LinkedIn.

Of course, the nuances of networking and promotion aren't quite as simple as summarized above, but this will give you a good place to start -- just the place I have my clients begin.

Why you want to Spend Money on Marketing (especially the Web) in a Tight Economy

During hard times, our first inclination is to cut costs in all areas except with necessities. In business, being financially smart in a downturn can be tricky, especially when it comes to deciding what is a "necessity." While cutting expenses is necessary, choosing where and when to cut takes some research, practice, and wisdom.

Where many companies make a grave mistake is by cutting their Marketing expenses. A Marketing budget is often large, but if we stay true to the business adage, "You must spend money in order to earn it," a business can confirm that attracting and keeping customers requires some marketing expenditures.

Most savvy marketers know that, even if you have a strong customer base, you need to inform them of specials and consistently remind them to buy. The great thing about the Web is that it's really easy and inexpensive to do this via emails and other low-cost forms of online advertising. If they're a past, current, or potential customer, then they won't mind being tossed an email once or twice a week (sometimes more) about your current, great sale. People are busy and get a lot emails (we all know!). By reminding customers of what they're missing, you eventually help facilitate that desired connection, which will in turn, hopefully get you a sale.

It's just as when I keep calling a potential client I know is really busy until I reach them; Usually, they thank me for my persistence, as their priorities aren't necessarily reaching out to me, even if they are interested in my services.

One customer of mine (luckily for both of us) understands this concept. Now, more than ever, they are plugging resources into marketing their products, especially on the Web. They are announcing sales, modifying prices, goods, etc., constantly adjusting to the deflation in prices and sales. And they ARE getting bites! They're online sales are steady.

Another business I know, isn't that smart. They laid off their Marketing Manager, cut the marketing budget and activities, and aren't seeing new sales. They slashed prices, but few of their customers know about it and are too busy to check out their site without the encouragement.

So, when you look at that business budget again, reconsider what you're leaving for Marketing and how you might tap customers cost-effectively but consistently.