Tweetdeck Archives - Lissa Duty

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Have you taken the Social Media LEAP?

By Lissa Duty

Wednesday, February 29th, 2012

Have you taken the Social Media LEAP? Taking a LEAP is sometimes what using social media is all about.

Are you LEAPING today? Have you taken the big LEAP? What’s LEAPING for you? What is the big LEAPING deal? I can sit around all day thinking of LEAPING puns (ahhh! There was another one!), but what would be the good in that? Waste of time perhaps …. Wrong… you need to be different … stand out from everyone else ONLINE!

Taking a LEAP, otherwise referred to as being creative, entrepreneurial, inventive, etc… with WHAT you say and HOW you say it, is exactly what you need to be remembered by your prospective clients and current clients ONLINE and OFF!

Using Social Media when you first start out is about taking a LEAP of faith. There is so much out there about ROI – Return on Investment. Let’s call it Return on Influence for the sake of this blog post!

I tell all prospective clients your ROI is going to be new friends, followers, connections initially when using social media. There are not any promises or golden ticket to success as some social media professionals promise. Social media is about branding yourself ONLINE. (I am not going to go into this topic more at this time – been there, done that! Read it here. )

Before I go forward on LEAPING Social Media, I must mention the importance it is to have your ONLINE and OFFLINE presence in sync from your logo, your business card to your website design and layout. The image you present to your customers needs to say Who You Are and Give them a Message that will help them to remember you! See my friend Robin’s blog post – 7 Marketing Tips for Leaping into your Customers Hearts and Minds for more on this important part of branding yourself and your business.

The questions I get most often from someone using or considering use social media are:

Where should I be? i.e. Should I be on all the social networking websites
What do I post?
Why would someone want to Follow, Subscribe, Friend, Like or Connect with me?
How can I do it easiest?
When should I post?

I am going to give you the quick self promoting answer first! Yep! I am getting straight to it – Hire me – I do social media coaching and I will answer all these questions and more in a private training hands-on!

Now for the long answer, that I will try and make not to confusing!

1. Where should I be? — What social networking sites do your customers use most often? That is where I would start out. I can’t answer this for you as I don’t know your product/service.

2. What do I post? Content that would interest your ideal client (usually that means it interests you also). Use Alltop.com as a resource to find content that would interest your audience.

3. Why would someone want to Follow, Subscribe, Friend, Like or Connect with me? Because people are hesitant to say right off they are interested in your services/products. They are concerned you’ll try and sell to them. They want to get to know you, your products and services before they put themselves out there with the “I am in interested in knowing more commitment.”

4. How can I do it easiest? First, I must say here “You only get out of social media what you put in to it, the less you put, the less you get”. With that being said, using a social media tool such as Hootsuite or Tweetdeck to update your Facebook Profile, Facebook Page, LinkedIn and Twitter is the easiest method. (This blog post links you to social media tool reviews for doing this easier.)

I actually recommend in my social media coaching sessions, that you do a little of both. You definitely want to use a social media tool to monitor Twitter all the time, but because Facebook groups updates from other 3^rd party tools together during high volume times, I recommend you post directly on Facebook when you can from your computer or Smartphone with the Facebook App. LinkedIn doesn’t do this grouping yet, but I just think it looks better for people to see you care enough about LinkedIn to actually log in and post a physical update now and again. Using Hootsuite to post in your LinkedIn groups is just awesome and easy! Ask my dear friend, Ana, if you don’t believe me. She loves it.

5. When should I post? That is always a difficult question to answer quickly. It depends on who your audience is and when are online. With Facebook I post at random times and see which posts gets more comments/likes and interactions. With Twitter the best time is usually between 10 am EST and 12 pm EST from my experience. There are 3^rd party tools you can purchase to optimize this for you. I recommend checking out the free ones first – Tweriod is a Twitter tool and Buffer is another tool you can use to do this analyzing for Twitter, Facebook and more.

Now that I have given you the Where, What, Why, How and When to get you moving forward successfully I am going to close with some advice I gave in a blog post – Is your Social Media in the RED or the BLACK? I published almost two years ago!

Learn the best way!
Increase your followers/friends/connections!
Stop with the obligatory updates!
Share tips, content and resources!
Ask for help!

It has stuck with me, but perhaps that is because it spells my name L – I – S – S – A! LOL!

It’s your turn … Let me know what you are going to do on this LEAPING day, tomorrow and every other day to keep you LEAPING forward for social media success!

Categories : Social Media

Tags : facebook, Hootsuite, linkedin, Marketing Tips, Social Media, social media coaching, Social Media LEAP, Social Media Questions, Social Media Success, social networking, Social Networking Sites, Tweetdeck, twitter

Is your Social Media in the RED or the BLACK? #BlackFriday

By Lissa Duty

Tuesday, November 23rd, 2010

Is your Social Media in the RED or the BLACK? #BlackFriday

Every year I go shopping on Black Friday and I have been planning my route and purchases, it got me thinking about my clients’ social media and what I do to help them get out of the RED and into the BLACK. I decided I am going to share some information to help YOU get out of the RED and into the BLACK. First, let me give you a little background on BLACK Friday.

BLACK Friday has many meanings. The one that triggered this blog post is the one for retailers. The Friday after Thanksgiving is known to be one of the largest shopping days each year and many stores run huge sales and open extra early to encourage extra foot traffic. It got the name BLACK Friday because many retailers that were running in the RED often sell enough merchandise to put them in the BLACK on this day and throughout the remainder of the holiday shopping season that follows up to Dec. 24^th.

I want to ask you to read the following and consider is your social media in the RED or the BLACK?

1. Do you log into your Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn account because you feel obligated? Do you think to yourself I have to go in and post a status update/send a Tweet because I haven’t done it today, this week or this month? Are you only doing enough to get by?

If you are using social media as a strategy to grow your business, consulting practice, sell books, websites, whatever your business may be and you are posting status updates because you feel obligated – STOP! If all you are doing to work your social media is an obligatory daily, weekly or maybe even monthly update DON’T bother. For social media to work for you and your business you need to have a presence ONLINE on a repeat basis. Remember, customers do business with those they “Like, Know and Trust”. You are not achieving this goal with your obligatory updates. You are wasting your time and energy. (Sorry to be so direct, but part of my relationship with my readers is based on honesty and forthrightness!)

You need a structured plan, great content, ideas and a presence that one update will not get you. You need to be using groups, discussion boards, chats, conversation and comments to establish a relationship with your connections and a rapport that you can not achieve with an obligatory update.

2. Do you tweet on Twitter, post status updates to Facebook, or LinkedIn, etc…. on a regular basis, but only have 20 people following/friends/connections? Do you get any “Shares”, “Likes”, “Comments” or “Retweets”?

Part of social media is a numbers game. I am not saying you need to have 10,000 etc… connected to you online for social media to work, but you do have to have an audience, i.e. when on Twitter your Tweets are seen by those following you. A new person to Twitter doesn’t always understand/realize that if you only have 20 followers only 20 people are seeing your Tweets, maybe. If they are not online when you send the Tweet they may never see it. I will see many times someone on Twitter sharing great content, but have no audience. I immediately realize (1) they don’t understand this concept or (2) don’t know how to get more followers.

Shares, Likes, Comments and Retweets: This is a great way to know and see if (1) people are actually seeing your updates and (2) see if you are sharing the kind of content your followers/friends/connections are interested in reading. If you don’t know what I mean when I say “Shares”, “Likes”, “Comments” or “Retweets”, or ever get them, your social media is in the RED.

3. Are you still logging into Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc… via a web browser? i.e. Internet Explorer, Safari, Firefox, etc…. to view and post status updates.

Using the web browser to access your Twitter account is good for some things, however there are better tools available to help you manage your social media accounts. Tweetdeck is my favorite! Hootsuite is another popular tool for this purpose. There are many to choose from. You can actually use Tweetdeck to view Tweets of those your are following, and the Facebook and LinkedIn updates of your friends/connections.

You can use a Tweetdeck to post updates to your Twitter, Facebook Profile, Fan Page and LinkedIn accounts. You can select which accounts get which updates and you can even schedule them in advance. It’s important to have activity on your social media accounts throughout the day at peak times, not just when you have the opportunity to be online.

I hardly every log into Twitter through the web browser, Tweetdeck has integrated all most all of the features available on Twitter through the browser to work with the Tweetdeck. You still will log into your Facebook and LinkedIn for important aspects of social media. I actually just teach/coach on using the Tweetdeck to schedule updates to Facebook and LinkedIn. Everything else within these social media networks you will do through the browser for the most part.

4. Have you heard of the tools I mentioned above and you keep thinking to yourself I need to learn about them and be using them more? Or are their names Greek to you? Have you tried to use these tools and they confuse you?

Ask for help!!! Ask friends using these tools to teach you, go to YouTube and search for tutorial videos others have made on how to use them. You may find the best and most cost effective route in the long run, when you consider your time, energy and frustration is to hire a social media professional to teach you.

As part of the social media coaching services I offer training on Tweetdeck. I coach my clients on how to create a presence on social media, how to use each social media tool and understand whatever thing means. We focus on marketing strategy and maintenance, which can be performed mostly through a Tweetdeck, one centralized area.

5. Have you claimed your business listing on Yahoo Local, Google Places, Bing Local, etc …? Are you using Ping.Fm, Google Reader, Social Oomph and Twellow? Do you even know what these sites/tools are?

If you aren’t REGISTERED on them this is a sure sign your social media is in the RED.

Does this blog post trigger more questions for you? I am going to stop here and close with this advice:

Learn the best way!
Increase your followers/friends/connections!
Stop with the obligatory updates!
Share tips, content and resources!
Ask for help!

If you want to get your social media out of the RED and into the BLACK use the acronym above as a guide!

I look forward to your comments, feedback and tips! It’s an important part of learning for all of us! So comment away! Thanks in advance for “Commenting”, “Liking”, “Sharing” and “Retweeting”! LOL!

Categories : Social Media

Tags : #BlackFriday, Black Friday, branding, facebook, linkedin, Lissa Duty, marketing, media marketing, mentions, retweets, Social Marketing, Social Media, social media coaching, social media marketing, social media tools, status updates, Tweetdeck, tweets, twitter

Twitter Tips (Contributed by users)!

By Lissa Duty

Monday, February 15th, 2010

At the end of December I put out a challenge to all my Twitter friends to submit their Twitter Tips and Twitter Etiquette. I am posting a disclaimer right now that I don’t always agree with these tips. Or at least maybe I don’t follow them all, I am sharing them with you and it’s your job to determine which ones you’ll follow or ignore.

Twitter Tips Contributed by Users

1. Don’t use an automated welcome direct message and if you’re going to use an automated direct message, don’t share a link, etc… Submitted by @VickiBerry.

Submitted by @julialilly: Use an auto-reply message for new followers. Make sure the message clearly states that it is an auto-reply and that you will get back to their bio soon. Don’t try to be sneaky about it. The trick to making this work is that you actually do get back to the new follower. Set aside some time each day or each week to go back and read each new followers bio and reply to all that are not spam. All real people should be acknowledged, even it just a simple reply such as “Jim, thank you again for the follow. I hope you enjoy my posts”.

My perspective: I use an automated direct message, but tell the people I’m connecting with that it’s automated. If you don’t want to receive automated DM’s follow @optmeout on Twitter, follow their directions and you’ll be opted out of receiving automated direct messages from social oomph users.

2. Do not autofollow Twitter users. Be selective and make sure they are a fit for your interests and needs. Submitted by @mikedmerrill!

Again, another tip I don’t follow. I do autofollow users back. However, I do vet them as they appear in my Twitter stream. (I can always unfollow those that are not interesting to me or send spammy direct messages.)

3. Remember to check your @yourname replies/tweets so you don’t miss something said about or to you. Respond accordingly. Submitted by @iPresort

Great tip here! I do this and would like to add to this, if you use a TweetDeck run a search for yourname, sometimes mentions will get overlooked in the @mentions, but not as often in the search option!

4. Businesses – a high percentage of your tweets should be relevant content to your company, but don’t just tweet company ads. Submitted by @iPresort

Another great tip! Your tweets need to be content, articles, interesting information, etc… related to your industry. Keep your self promotion down to occasionally! Use a 1 to 6 ratio!

5. Make your #FollowFriday recommendations one at a time, with info on “why to follow”. Keep using multiple Twitter id’s to a minimum. Submitted by @evolutionfiles!

I don’t always follow this tip! I do some of both! I do like to give #FollowFriday with by industry.

6. Keep using quotes for your tweets to a minimum. And if you do post a quote, make it relevant to your target audience. Submitted by @evolutionfiles!

I agree! Right on with this tip! Quotes are inspiring, but you can only handle so much inspiration in one day, right?

7. Basic one – “at” people to engage and connect. Then connect in real world if possible. Don’t just tweet your pitch repeatedly. Submitted by @evolutionfiles!

I love this part of tweeting! Having a conversation online one on one is the key to developing relationships, taking an online relationship offline to become strategic partners or even gaining a new client!

8. Instead of, or in addition to, thanking tweeps for #FollowFriday, Retweets & Mentions… *Reciprocate* by Retweeting them back or giving #FollowFriday back. Submitted by @evolutionfiles.

I agree with this tip and actually use this strategy often. However, if someone retweets, #FollowFriday’s or mentions me that doesn’t have good content, I kindly just thank them and skip the returning the favor part.

9. Follow LOTS of peeps. But check their weblink and quality of their content first. Unfollow most who don’t follow back after 1 month. Submitted via @evolutionfiles.

I agree totally! Don’t try and look good on Twitter by having lots of people following you and you following no one. It makes you look like “You think you’re to good to follow back”. Who wants to develop a relationship with this type of person! Not me!

1o. Use a Twitter tool (ie Tweetdeck, Seesmic, etc) to manage followers and your tweets. Submitted by @anitasantiago.

11. Go for quality instead of quantity when it comes to followers. If you provide quality to your followers, quantity will come on it’s own with time! Submitted by @anitasantiago.

Nothing to add here! Right on, Anita!

12. Try to avoid Retweeeting yourself (tweeting with your own username in the tweet). Submitted by @evolutionfiles.

I actually follow this tip for the most part! I do retweet someone that has mentioned my Twitter id sometimes, if I feel they added some value, however, I remove my Twitter id for the most part!

13. Help me to retweet you. Make your tweets 120 characters or less. Submitted by @billhurlbut.

I sent Bill a direct message after sending this tip and asked him if it was a hint! I know this rule, recommend it to others, but don’t always follow it!

14. When modifying someone else’s tweet to fit within the 140 character requirement, add a P for partial in front of the RT! Lets the readers and the person you are retweeing know that you modified their tweet. Submitted by @pattyfarmer.

15. Make sure if you use a tweetdeck to manage your Twitter accounts, don’t forget to log into your Twitter account through your Internet browser occasionally and check for retweets. Users that retweet your through the browser don’t also show up in the tweetdeck @mentions column. You sure don’t want to overlook thanking someone. Submitted via @pattyfarmer.

Here are my Twitter tips (@lissaduty) to add:

16. When you are adding comments to someone else’s tweet, add your comments at the front before the RT! Not after. If you place your comments after, it looks like the original Twitter user posted the comments.

17. Secrets to Shorten words to meet the 140 character requirement: i.e. for use 4, to use 2, great use gr8, about use abt, forward use 4ward, see use c, before use b4, Thanks use Thk or Thx, with use w/, without use w/o.

18. If someone mentions you, retweets you, etc… in the public stream Thank them in the public stream. If they direct message you a request, respond via direct message. If you answer a question for them via direct message, but want to share the answer – write the message as a tip and share publicly, without using their Twitter id in the public stream.

19. Be a generous retweeter. Twitter is not just about you sharing interesting content to make yourself look good and knowledgeable. It’s about helping your friends on Twitter look good also! Retweet them, mention them, etc….

20. Don’t SPAM! Everyone includes this as one of their Twitter tips, so I thought I would add this tip also.

Realizing, most of you that read this post don’t plan to spam on Twitter, however what you view as not spam, another will. Keep in mind when sending a tweet or direct message, is this relevant to my followers. Am I trying to sell them something or share a success. Sometimes spamming is all in the wording!

I highly recommend you follow and connect with all the Twitter users that contributed to this post! As they are excellent at following the tips listed above! Happy tweeting! Please feel free to add any of your Twitter Tips and Twitter Etiquette in the comments section!

Categories : Twitter

Tags : Lissa Duty, Mike Merrill, networking sites, Personal Branding, Social Marketing, status updates, Tweetdeck, tweets, twitter

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