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Twitter Marketing

Social Media Fun Facts and Stats

January 28, 2013/by Corey Padveen

Social media is constantly evolving and at shockingly high rates; these numbers prove that.

Over the course of the last few years, social media has made its way into virtually every aspect of our lives. As such, in this short period of time we have seen some unprecedented numbers when it comes to social media. Below are a few fun facts and figures as they relate to social media as a whole and by network.

Social Media

Roughly one third of bloggers are mothers.
There are more devices connected to the Internet than there are people on Earth.
40% of people spend more time socializing on social networks than they do face-to-face.
AllTwitter reports that every minute of the day:
- 100,000 tweets are sent.
- Over 680,000 pieces of content are shared on Facebook.
- 2 million queries are made on Google.
- 3,600 photos are shared on Instagram.
- Over $270,000 is spent online by consumers.
22.5% of time spent online is spent on social media networks.
70% of adults on social networks shop online.
53% of adults on social networks follow a brand.
57% of marketers say they have acquired a customer as a result of blogging.
44% of marketers say they have acquired a customer from Twitter.
The use of social media has increased more than 350% since June 2006.
65% of traffic on Pinterest is from the United States.
Blogs increase web traffic by 55% for companies.
35% of the comments on brand Facebook Pages are compliments.
Over half of all mobile searches lead to a purchase.
90% of mobile searches lead to some sort of action.

Facebook

Facebook users combined spend over 10.5 billion minutres on the social media network every day.
Only half of all Facebook users have over 100 friends.
People spend over twice as much time on Facebook as they do on Google every month.
AllFacebook reports that in an analysis of over 60 Facebook marketing campaigns, 49 percent reported a return on investment of more than five times, while 70 percent had a return on investment greater than three times.
Less than 0.5% of Facebook users engage with the brands they are fans of in a given week.
20% of Facebook have made a purchase as a result of an ad or post they saw on the social network.
Half of all smartphones are connecting to Facebook every hour of every day.

Twitter

There are over half a billion registered accounts on Twitter but only 140 million active users.
15% of adults user Twitter.
29% of the Twitter user base is between the ages of 18-29, the largest demographic on the network.
Users aged 30-49 represent 14% of people on Twitter and 50-64, 9%.
The average number of followers for any Twitter user is 27.
A quarter of all Twitter accounts have no followers.
40% of Twitter accounts have never sent a tweet.
79% of Twitter users are more likely to recommend a brand they follow.
67% of Twitter users are more likely to buy from a brand they follow.
57% of businesses that use social media use Twitter.

61% of LinkedIn users use the social media network as their primary professional networking site.
81% of LinkedIn users belong to at least one group.
82% of users are aware of ads available on LinkedIn.
60% of users on LinkedIn have clicked on an ad feature on the site.
90% of surveyed LinkedIn users find the site to be helpful.
61% of LinkedIn users are registered for the free version of the network.

Mobile

10% of Internet usage worldwide is now done via mobile smartphones.
Roughly one quarter of the world’s 4 billion mobile devices are smartphones.
Nearly 8% of web traffic in the United States is mobile traffic.
29% of mobile users are willing to scan mobile codes (i.e. QR codes) to receive specials and promotions.
39% of consumers who leave a store without making a purchase are influenced by mobile.
91% of mobile access to the web is done for social networking purposes.
Over one third of Facebook users and half of Twitter users access the social networks via their mobile devices.
QR code scans increased 300% year over year from 2010 to 2011.
73% of smartphone users access social networks using mobile apps at least once per day.
One in ten dollars spent on e-commerce in the United States is done on mobile devices.
87% of the world’s population subscribes to a mobile device.

Social Media for Business

27% of small and 34% of medium businesses are using social media for business (expected to reach over 75% in the next three years).
MarketingMag reports that 25% of SMBs have no strategy and only 28% of small and 24% of medium businesses measure their ROI of social media activity.
83% of socially savvy consumers have walked away from a purchase in the past year after a negative customer service experience – compared with 49% of everyone else.
Of businesses using social media, 80% are using it to monitor and extract data related to competitors.
Only 44% of customer questions on twitter are answered within 24 hours.
56% of customer tweets to companies are being ignored – that’s much too high!
55% of consumers share their purchases socially on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and other social sites.
59% of Pinterest users have purchased an item they saw on the site.
33% of Facebook users have purcahsed an item they saw on their news feed or a friend’s wall.
79% of Pinterest users are more likely to purchase items they’ve seen on Pinterest.
64% of Facebook users have clicked on a Facebook ad.
87% of the Fortune 100 now use social media – with Twitter being the most popular social media network.
75% of the Fortune 100 are on Facebook.
50% of Fortune 100 companies have a Google+ account.
25% of Fortune 100 companies have a Pinterest account.
Facebook is the number one social marketing tool for brands at 83%.
On average companies respond to only 30% of social media fans’ feedback.
40% of young workers rate access to social media at work above receiving a higher salary!
Over 50% of workers aged over 50 use social media every day at work.
94% of corporates use social media and 85% say it’s given their business more exposure.
74% of brand marketers saw an increase in website traffic after investing just 6 hours per week on social media.
65% of corporate marketers use social media to gain market intelligence.
70% of brands ignore complaints on Twitter.
83% of people who complained on Twitter loved the response from those companies that did make the effort.
Only 26% of businesses regularly include a call to action in their tweets.
42% of marketers believe Facebook is critical or important to their business.
Social media has a 100% higher lead-to-close rate than outbound marketing.
80% of US social network users prefer to connect to brands through Facebook.
Facebook is responsible for 86% of social referrals, Pinterest 11% and Twitter 3%.
Over 25% of Twitter users would consider contacting a business via the platform.
39% of companies do not track their social media responses at all, and 55% ignore all customer feedback on Twitter and Facebook, largely because they have no process in place to respond.

That’s a ton of information! Social media is growing more and more important to business every year. We are still at a stage where entry barriers are low and the benefits of using social media for your business are notable and impressive. The proof is in the numbers! Which of these statistics did you find to be the most impressive? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

Twitter Marketing Done Right: 3 Tips to Maximize Your Twitter Marketing

January 15, 2013/by Corey Padveen

Twitter marketing can be an excellent resource, but only if it is done properly.

Time and time again we stress the importance of a strategy when it comes to Twitter marketing and other forms of social media marketing. Where Twitter marketing differs, however, is in the approach you take to promoting your brand. As we never tire of pointing out, Twitter is not a realm apt for self-promotion. And if you approach the social network as a place to simply tout your brand and aggressively pursue conversions, you will be disappointed with the results. So how can you go about conducting your Twitter marketing in an efficient manner so that you get the most out of all the social network has to offer from a business perspective?

Below are three pointers that should help you get the most our of your Twitter marketing efforts. Twitter can be an exceptional tool for driving business, but your strategy must be in line with Twitter best practices in order to see the best results.

1. Establish Your Goals and Measurement Criteria

There is an entire world of untapped leads and potential clients on Twitter, and heading into the social network blind may leave you stumbling to get on track. Therefore, before embarking on your Twitter marketing campaign, you should first define both your goals and how you plan on measuring said goals. If you jump into Twitter expecting that your first tweet will garner dozens of retweets and loads of conversions and followers, you’re going to be disappointed. (Unless of course you’re a celebrity, in which case we appreciate you reading our blog!) Your strategy needs to include a few key criteria. Below is a list of things to consider when launching your Twitter marketing campaign.

Who is your target audience?
Are you looking for followers in a geo-targeted area or worldwide?
Are you hoping for conversions on a website or at a location?

Once you’ve answered these questions, it is time to get a little more specific.

Do you already have a set of followers? If so, how would you categorize them? If not, how do you plan on acquiring them?
If you are looking for followers in a specific location, how do you plan on finding them?
What do you consider a conversion from Twitter? Is it s click through? A download? A subscription? A purchase?
Are you hoping to use Twitter to increase your current business or start something new?

The answers to these questions are essential before you begin marketing on Twitter. Once these goals are defined, you can establish your measurement criteria. This is a little trickier, because in order to measure the success of your Twitter marketing, you need to have answered the third question in the second set of bullet points above: What do you consider a conversion from Twitter? Once you have this answer, you can set up the appropriate criteria for monitoring the success of your campaigns.

2. Design Your Messages Around Your Niche

As you begin building your audience, you are going to want to keep them captivated. One devastating mistake many marketers often make is sending out nothing but self-promotion. While you might be the expert in a given field, constantly telling people about it and ignoring engaging content will get you nowhere. You will want to design your messages around the niche you wish to target in order to keep them engaged. Below are a few helpful tips to consider when drafting your messages and content.

People love advice and garnering knowledge, so share what you know to showcase your expertise as opposed to simply stating that you are the expert.
Quick, entertaining content is a great way to engage with your followers. Share fun facts and quirky anecdotes that people want to see.
Focus on a designated subject or theme that stretches across all of your messages. Keep your content on track so that the niche audience you build stays engaged.
Do not bombard you followers with links and promotional content. Once in a while a message like this is fine – but this should under no circumstances be your starting point.

Engaging content should be the focal point in drafting all of your Twitter messages. One goal that should always be present is to convert your audience members into brand advocates. We can’t all be Coca-Cola or Harley Davidson – we have to work to get our fans coming back. And, as with all social media, content is king when it comes to boosting your audience.

3. Narrow Your Audience with Twitter Lists

Twitter Lists are a fantastic way of segmenting your audience into appropriate categories. Say you have a thousand followers. Great! But not all of them will be following you for the same reasons. Some might follow you because they are in the same industry. Some might follow you because they are interested in your online product or service. Others might follow you because they live in your area, and are already physical customers. Each of these three categories will respond to your content differently. Lists will help you engage with all of them in the right way.

Once you have segmented your followers into lists, you will be able to design campaigns and messages to go out that are geared towards engaging with one of these groups specifically. The industry members might not be interested in your sales and promotions, but they might find some of your industry-relevant messages much more useful. Your physical customers may have no use for online promotions, but they might jump at the chance to collect in-store offers promoted via Twitter. Take this into account when setting up your campaigns, and use the Twitter Lists to your advantage.

These are just a few of the best practices when it comes to Twitter marketing. Over time, your Twitter strategy evolves and some of these points change and disappear while new ones are added. But to get the most out of your Twitter marketing when you are getting started, these pointers should certainly help.

Can you think of any other best practices when it comes to launching your Twitter marketing? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

Social Media Marketing: Top 3 Twitter Marketing Tools

January 3, 2013/by Corey Padveen

What tools can you use to enhance your social media marketing when it comes to Twitter?

Social media marketing has paved the way for developers to create some fascinating and efficiency-boosting tools when it comes to Twitter management for your business, but with so many tools out there, it can sometimes feel like the more complicated aspect of your social media marketing arises when you have to choose the right tool for your Twitter management. Below is a breakdown of the three best social media marketing tools to manage your Twitter efficiently.

1. Hootsuite/Seesmic

Millions have signed up for and are currently using Hootsuite to manage their corporate Twitter accounts. The numbers alone go to show that this is a powerful tool when it comes to social media marketing, and there are a few reasons why. First, Hootsuite allows users to amalgamate all fo their Twitter handles under one roof, which eliminates the time wasted when it comes to managing multiple handles for one business. This may seem like a minor detail, but when you think about it, how much time can be wasted switching from account to account throughout the day and managing all of these accounts properly? It adds up.

Second, Hootsuite is one of the only tools available that allows you to integrate your Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and Google+ accounts. Once the API is made available, Pinterest will be added to the mix, and virtually all of your brand’s social media marketing efforts will be manageable under the Hootsuite dashboard. No other programs make it as easy as Hootsuite, but that does not mean you can simply sign up and go. Yes, Hootsuite is a relatively intuitive program, but in order for your social media marketing to be successful, you need to take the time to learn the program. This means signing up for the Hootsuite University and going through every aspect of their training. It does not take long, and the benefits to understanding the program in its entirety will make for a much simpler management of your social media program.

There are also some strong reporting capabilities when it comes to the management system, so you will be able to observe, tweak and develop reports for your campaigns that allow both you and your managers to see exactly how successfully your programs are working.

2. SocialBro

SocialBro is a tool developed exclusively for Twitter and, more importantly, focuses on optimizing your Twitter efforts to get the most out of your campaigns. The reporting capabilities of SocialBro are unparalleled, and the data derived from the software gives insights that will help you maximize nearly every aspect of your campaigns.

SocialBro develops reports that show exactly where your tweets resonated, at what times you stand to derive the greatest benefits from tweeting, where your audience is most active throughout the day and week, and so much more. Using these reports in-house will allow you to quickly and efficiently modify your social media marketing strategies in order to ensure that every aspect of it is performing at peak levels and driving the highest results.

We have pointed out multiple times in past posts how crucial strategy is when it comes to successful social media marketing, and SocialBro allows you to optimize that strategy much faster than almost any other tool available on the market.

3. Buffer

Buffer is a simple, efficient publishing tool that, like Hootsuite, allows you to incorporate Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Combined with SocialBro, this tool is made all the more impressive as you can coordinate your scheduling with the reports generated with SocialBro to ensure that your social media marketing is functioning at maximum capacity and you are not missing out on any opportunity.

Buffer allows users to load multiple accounts, schedule posts and messages across a variety of networks, and provides some solid analytics when it comes to the success of your campaigns. (Never ignore the power of good reporting!)

There are also a ton of great apps and extras that are available with Buffer that make your social media marketing management that much simpler.

While these are just a few of the tools you can use to manage your Twitter and social media marketing, they are certainly not the only ones. However, these have been tried, tested and are true, hence our listing them as the top 3.

Can you think of any other tools that you have worked with and find to be among the best? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

5 Tips to Optimize Interaction in Your Social Media Marketing

December 27, 2012/by Corey Padveen

What are some ways you can optimize your interaction to maximize your social media marketing efforts?

Social media marketing is about one thing: being social. It is one thing to have a Facebook page, a Twitter or YouTube account or any other social profile, but if you are not engaging, you are not reaping the benefits that social can offer. Perhaps what is most important is to realize that your social media strategies and social interactions should not be confined to the individual social networks alone – you need to incorporate your social media strategies into your web strategy.

Below are a few helpful pointers that you can use to optimize your social interactions and get the most out of your social media marketing strategies.

1. Incorporate Social Media Into Your Site

It may sound intuitive, but you would be surprised to find how few brands incorporate their social media into their websites. If you are looking to optimize interaction with leads and clients, your social media marketing efforts must go beyond social networks themselves. By simply incorporating social media into your website, you are extending the ability to interact with your brand beyond social networks themselves, and opening up a whole new realm of possibilities when it comes to lead engagement.

2. Don’t Forget the Little(r) Guy

Everyone knows about the Big 4: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn. But there is a ton of potential when it comes to smaller, or less frequently used social networks like Google+ and Pinterest. With the growth Pinterest has seen in the last year, it won’t be long before it is added to the Big 4 to make it the Big 5, but until that happens, it is still one of the most overlooked social media networks despite the tremendous potential it holds when it comes to growing your brand.

A little while back, we posted an article about the benefits of Google+ to your business. With the added benefit of being integrated with both YouTube and search giant Google, Google+ offers certain benefits to SEO that other social media networks do not. So remember, as your social media marketing grows, don’t forget the little guys.

3. Focus On Your Blog

HubSpot conducted a study some time ago and put together a few impressive marketing statistics that should not go unnoticed. One of their key findings was that companies that blog get 55% more web traffic than companies that don’t. Take a survey of every brand in the world, and we bet that increasing exposure by 55% is something every one of them would agree they want to do. Now, operating a blog with consistent and engaging content being published is not the easiest thing to do. It takes a time and resource commitment, but the numbers show that it is one of the most effective ways to increase your audience and get them engaged with your brand on-site.

4. Reward Your Fans

People like being rewarded for their efforts. By rewarding fans for their engagement, you prompt a much higher interaction rate with your brand than if you simply wait for engagement to increase organically. There are a few ways of doing this, like caption contests, promotions on different social networks, and there are even plugins with different CMS tools that allow you to reward fans for high levels of engagement. One example of this is Achievements for BuddyPress offered on WordPress. This is a simple app modeled after the concept of achievements and rewards available in video games. It is as simple as fans engaging with a brand and receiving badges and awards for high engagement rates. And putting this campaign together is as simple as installing the plugin.

5. Any Press is Good Press – Especially if it is Good Press

Review sites are a great way to get found. Reviews are taken into account heavily by search engines, and the more positive they are the better. This last tip is a bit of a two-fold pointer. Social media is a great way to conduct customer service. It is a public forum, and if done right, people will want to work with your brand is they see you are professional, courteous and helpful when it comes to helping your customers in real time on social media. If you can do this, encourage your audience to post reviews on sites like Yelp!. Again, these are very helpful when it comes to getting found, and the more positive they are they more authority your brand has.

Can you think of any other ways brands can optimize their engagement using social media? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

Social Media Marketing Trends in 2013 [INFOGRAPHIC]

December 20, 2012/by Corey Padveen

Where should you be focusing your social media marketing efforts in the new year?

Social media marketing evolves constantly with trends in social media. Knowing what social networks and what media are working well is essential to success when it comes to social media marketing. This infographic does a great job of detailing how social media is trending and where we can see it going in 2013. Have a look below and let us know, is this where you expected to see social media marketing trending in the coming year? Why or why not? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

Social Media Marketing in 2013: The Essentials

December 18, 2012/by Corey Padveen

What does your social media marketing strategy need to have in 2013 in order for it to be successful?

Social media marketing has, once again, proven to be a crucial tool for a brand’s growth in 2012. The marketing medium has made tremendous strides over the course of the year, and it is sure to grow even larger in the next. As we approach the new year, we thought it might be helpful to take a look at some of the most important items to address with regards to your social media marketing strategy for 2013 in order to see your success grow, too.

1. Set Your Goals and Your Road Map for Achieving Them

As with any venture, social media marketing requires a strategy in order for it to be successful. The concept of “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” is one that no longer applies in the conventional sense. (RIM, the makers of BlackBerry are a perfect example of this.) The contemporary version of this theory falls more in line with, “if it’s working, figure out a way to get the most out of it” – and that is exactly where your goals should focus if that’s the case. Below are a few pointers to consider when devising your social media marketing strategy for the new year:

Who is the audience you are looking to target with your social media?
How effective was your social media marketing in 2012?
What aspects work, and where does your social media marketing need improvement?
Are you studying the right data when it comes to analysis of your program?

These pointers follow a general theme, and that brings us to our next point.

2. Before Anything, Evaluate Your Social Media Marketing in 2012

As the pointers above may suggest, evaluating the performance of your social media marketing in 2012 is going to be crucial to the success of your strategy in 2013. Where did you benefit? Where did your stretegy fall short? What were your goals for 2012? Did you achieve them? Why or why not? These questions all need to be answered before devising a strategy for your social media marketing in the coming year. And there are quite a few ways you can go about doing this.

The first aspect you need to look at are your goals in 2012. Using some of the insights tools available both in social media networks (e.g. Facebook insights) and external tools, you can see where you reached your goals and where you need improvement. Then evaluate each social network individually to see what strategies you employed that were either a success or a bust. Build off of these in order to get the most out of your social media marketing in 2013. Trim the fat where it is necessary and devote those resources to areas that saw success in order to maximize the efficiency of your strategy. Social media marketing is not about quantity necessarily, but about quality. Don’t forget, despite what some people might suggest, social media is not free, and if you are draining resources into something that is not benefitting your brand, you are losing considerably more than you might think.

3. Take SEO Into Consideration in Your Evaluation

SEO has long been a cornerstone of web marketing. And social media plays an integral part in your SEO efforts. In a post last month, we noted why social signals are an ever-growing part of the Google algorithm. It stands to reason that social signals will continue to factor into SEO in a significant way in the coming year, so evaluating your SEO strategy and aligning it with your social media strategy will prove to be crucial in finding success.

Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Google+ directly impact your search rankings, so look to your keywords to find out how you can capitalize on this reality. Shares and retweets with links work the same way as a backlink, but they make the link-building process infinitely simpler. So use your Google Analytics Webmaster Tools to find your best keywords, and optimize accordingly.

4. Make Sure Your Entire Team Believes in Your Social Media Strategy

What is the biggest hinderance to the success of a social media marketing strategy? Skepticism. For marketing divisions and firms alike, hesitation by management to accept social media as a crucial avenue to a brand’s success has proven time and again to be biggest hurdle when it comes to reaching al of your goals when it comes to social media marketing. So before moving forward, take the steps necessary to ensure that everyone, from the highest level executive to the mailroom clerk believes in the strategy, and you will be able to move forward faster than ever before.

Can you think of other points that will be crucial to the success of your social media marketing strategy in 2013? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

Social Media Strategies: Integrated Social Media Marketing

December 17, 2012/by Corey Padveen

Social media strategies must consist of a multi-platform integration aspect in order to be successful.

What does this mean exactly? Well, let’s look at an example. Say you have a Facebook page, accounts on Google+ and YouTube and a Twitter handle. Now, it’s a given that there will be some crossover among fans and followers on these different social networks, but realistically you will have a wide audience as a result of the different demographics on multiple social networks. The graphs below detail exactly how different social networks’ demographics are broken down:

As a result of this age and gender distribution, it is appropriate to have social media strategies in place that take into account your different audience, but you must also be sure that your social media strategies reach all of these audiences by integrating these social media strategies into every one of your networks. How can you go about doing this? Let’s take a video, for example. Say you are a real estate agent and you have put together an instructional video on staging your home before it goes on the market. These kinds of videos tend to gain a lot of attraction, and will help you build credibility in your field. What is important is showcasing this expertise on every one of your social networks.

On Facebook, short, noticeable posts garner the most exposure, so posting a short introductory line with the video uploaded directly into the social network might work seeing as how links tend to have the lowest click-through rates on Facebook. But this post should contain a link to your YouTube channel, which in turn will allow you to integrate your Google+ page. Dom Carr of Google recently posted about the newest feature on YouTube that allows users to simply upload a video to both YouTube and Google+ by simply checking a box. As for Twitter, a link to your YouTube channel showcasing the video would be best along with a short description of where the link is going. (Remember, people hesitate to click on links that are not clearly defined.)

By integrating your social networks, an umbrella is created for your social media strategies. While it is important that every one of your social networks has its own, clearly defined strategy in place, there should be an overarching plan in place that encompasses every one of your social networks. Social media marketing is a category unto itself in your marketing strategy, and you should have clearly defined goals and a clear roadmap to success for all your social media, not just the individual channels themselves.

How have you configured your social media strategies to integrate all of your platforms? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

Maximize Your Twitter Marketing

December 15, 2012/by Corey Padveen

How can your Twitter marketing efforts pay off for your business?

Having a Twitter marketing strategy in place can do wonders for your social media marketing, but if you don’t know how to properly monitor and optimize your Twitter marketing, how can you know if you are doing it right? Below are a few pointers that can help you get the most out of your Twitter marketing by using some analysis techniques that often go overlooked.

1. Monitor Your Click-through

URL shorteners like bit.ly can be very helpful when it comes to monitoring click-through rates for a given campaign, the only problem is that studies show that people are hesitant to click through to a link when they do not know where it is going. So, the first step is to customize your bit.ly links. This is easily done, even if you do not have a professional account. For the Webmaster experts, there is a free way to customize a bit.ly link with your website. However, for those of us who are not well versed in the world DNS servers, shortened URL customization is as easy as typing in a new extension. When you save a bit.ly URL, you can edit it by simply clicking on the small pencil next to the link, and typing in your own title.

Now that we have that settled, we can employ a strategy for these links. Data in the backend of your bit.ly accounts allow you a great deal of insight into who is clicking, how often and which links are working best. Take advantage of these bits of data when it comes to evaluating your Twitter strategy, and find out where users are clicking. It is important to make sure that links are not used without a conscious decision on where they should be focusing. So if you have a link that you have designated to a Twitter campaign, keep it in Twitter so measurements are not skewed. You can also pull out the bit.ly link after it has been active for a while and add a “+” to the end of it. This will bring you to that link’s statistics page where you can evaluate how it is working. This is also great if you plan to use a link for multiple platforms, as it tells you where the clicks are coming from (i.e. Twitter, Facebook, Comments, etc.).

2. Don’t Focus on Going Viral

Hashtags might be nice to use if you are trying to join a conversation, but they are relatively useless when it comes to generating business from Twitter. Marketers love seeing a campaign’s virality on social media, but virality does not necessarily mean business generation. If you use a generic and somewhat obscure hashtag, like #blahblahblah, you might find that it picks up steam in the Twittersphere, and you might even find that your hashtag is a trending topic on Twitter. That’s great news, right? Not necessarily. Particularly if it is a generic term of phrase. Specificity trumps obscurity when it comes to trending, because you might see #blahblahblah trending, but does anyone even know that you started it? There is no point of origination that users can observe on Twitter when it comes to trending topics, so while you might have started a trend, you will eventually get lost in the noise.

Using something specific might benefit you far more, like #yourcompany. If you see that trending, then you have good reason to be on cloud nine. But you might be better off focusing your efforts on measurable actions, like the click-throughs we mentioned above, as opposed to something like hashtags.

3. Pay Attention to Your Google Analytics

Sure, click-throughs from your shortened URLs might look good. And hey, you might notice a spike in traffic on your Analytics dashboard. But how much of that traffic is converting, and what is the quality of the traffic you are driving from Twitter?

It is important to pay attention to your social signals in Google Analytics by setting up a Social Media Dashboard. It is here that you will be able to see exactly what the quality of your social traffic is, and if your efforts on social media networks like Twitter are paying off. This is especially important if you are seeing clicks but no conversion. Google Analytics gives tremendous insights into your social activity, and it will help you greatly when it comes to evaluating your Twitter programs and repositioning them to increase your returns.

What other Twitter marketing tips can you think of? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

How Are Small (and Some Large) Businesses Using Social Media [INFOGRAPHIC]

December 10, 2012/by Corey Padveen

How exactly are businesses implementing their social media strategies?

In a recent blog post, we showed you where small businesses were spending when it came to social media, but how exactly are they using it? The infographic below does a fairly good job of showing you exactly how small businesses are using social media, and how it is paying off.

How Small Businesses Are Using Social Media by Infographiclabs

How are you using social media for your business? How do you plan on using it in the new year? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

Maximize Your Twitter Marketing Efforts

December 5, 2012/by Corey Padveen

How can you go about maximizing your twitter marketing efforts to get the most out of the social network?

Twitter is a phenomenal resource for any kind of business. The real-time conversational aspect that it brings gives it a certain unique feel and a environment apt for engagement, but what are some Twitter marketing techniques businesses should adopt in order to get the most out of it? Below are some of the top Twitter marketing strategies businesses can employ in order to capitalize on all that Twitter has to offer to businesses.

1. Be Authentic

Don’t automate your posts – no one wants to hear what a machine has to say as it randomly generates messages using your pre-loaded content. People follow you to hear what you have to say, so tell them! If you decided to take the stage, and hundreds or even thousands of people came to hear you speak, would you simply play a recording a leave? Probably not. And if you did that, di you think they would stay? Also unlikely. So share what’s on your mind and engage with an audience that is eager to hear what you have to say.

2. Engage!

People like to converse and be heard. As a brand, it is your responsibility to listen to the customer and engage with them wherever possible. Nowhere is it more possible than on Twitter! As we noted above, Twitter is an avenue build for real-time conversation. So when someone is engaging with your brand, it is always in your best interest to address their comment, be it positive or negative.

3. Avoid Self-Promotion

Sure, the end goal is to convert these leads into clients, but endless self-promotion is nauseating, and the only thing you’ll succeed in doing is alienating your brand. We noted this in an earlier blog post and we are sticking by it. Social media is not for self-promotion, but for brand promotion thriugh engagement. When people are loyal to your brand, they will convert into customers.

4. Create a Relevant Database

It might be nice to see that you have thousands of followers and are following thousands of others, but this might not mean you have an account full of quality. If the goal is sales, then you will want to have as many targeted followers as possible, and the same goes for those you are following.

Can you think of any other best practices when it comes to Twitter marketing? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!