2012-01-23-Linked In Part 2
Seminars@Hadley
Networking with LinkedIn Part 2
Presented by
Dennis Lembree
Moderated by
Larry Muffett
January 23, 2012
LarryMuffett
Welcome to seminars at Hadley. My name is Larry Muffett. I’m a member of Hadley’s curricular affairs department. I’m also a member of the seminars team here at Hadley. Today’s seminar topic is “Networking with Twitter Part II” It’s the second part of a two part series on this very interesting topic. Your presenter today has a resume that I would certainly give my right arm for. Dennis Lembree is an accomplished web developer. He has developed easy [Chirp] for web accessible Twitter application. He also authors a blog on web accessibility. He has worked for some premiere organizations like Walt Disney, Ford Motor Company and Google, PayPal. We’re looking forward to getting Dennis’ knowledge today through this particular seminar.
Social networking as we all know is just such a heart topic. In all of its form there is a lot of interest. We get a lot of questions about it here at Hadley and today we’re going to look at a social networking tool that kind of presents a leveled playing field. It evens things out for the small business person and the entrepreneurs and that’s Twitter. With the Twitter application, with the limited characters it allows you to compete pretty much on an even keel with a major corporation. Let me welcome today’s presenter, Dennis Lembree. I’m going to turn over the microphone to him and I’m going to also get his slide show loaded up. Dennis, take it away.
Dennis Lembree
Thank you, Larry and thanks for that great introduction. Just to clarify I was a contractor at Google and Ford. I don’t want to mislead anybody. Those were great experiences. My day job now is at PayPal which is really cool. The first slide is up; this is networking with Twitter Part II. Twitter for you small business—Today I’ll just introduce myself real fast again and give a real quick review of part one. Then we’ll talk about your profile on Twitter and writing a tweet, some recommendations and some ideas of what you can tweet. How to create a list, a Twitter list and just some general strategies for marketing on Twitter and some tools you can use. We’ll talk about maintenance of your account on Twitter and some things what not to do. We’ll briefly discuss some security issues and also some things beyond Twitter and of course questions.
In case you missed Part One, or the quick introduction; I am the author of easychirp.com, a web accessible Twitter client and the author of Web Axe a podcast and blog about web accessibility. Those have both been around for more than a few years. My day job now is at PayPal and I’ve also worked for Ford, Google, Disney and several start ups. I’m from Michigan but I currently live in Cupertino with my wife and two little boys.
A quick review, in part one we went over the basics of Twitter and the basics of Easy Chirp and what a tweet is, some of the core uses and how to do it on Easy Chirp. This is just a quick review of some of the things we talked about. When you open up a Twitter account try to choose a short memorable user name that identifies you or your business. A retweet or RT for short is when you copy or pass along another person’s tweet. A quote tweet, a QT, is when you pass along but you can comment on it so it’s actually considered a new tweet but it’s an edited copy.
Clicking a hash tag—a hash tag is a pound sign with a word, that’s a keyword—that will take you to the search results page in most applications. DM is a direct message and that is a private tweet to another user, like a private message. Like we said Easy Chirp is a web accessible Twitter app that provides all the basic tools including search, saved searches, creating and viewing lists, subscribing to lists, so lists, trends; viewing trends and viewing the most popular links. Also I wanted to mention that in Part One I said there was a bug on the trends page in Easy Chirp. It was more of an API, Twitter API issue so it is working. I didn’t have to change any code. I do need to add some better error catching in case the API is not working correctly you’ll get a proper message.
You’ve created your profile on Twitter but is it good enough? I see from the polling results, I guess about two thirds of you or so did attend part one. A request to spell the name of the podcast, sure; it’s web ax W-E-B-A-X-E .blogspot.com. If you Google “web accessibility blog or podcast” hopefully it will be at the top of the list. Your profile; make sure your profile is complete. You may or may not want to put your full name depending on whether it’s a personal or business account. Obviously just use your judgment there. If you can try to upload a custom picture or avatar because that always helps as far as the research and studies show in marketing. You should try to customize your avatar.
The description, make sure you complete that, it’s like a short text field where you can enter a description of your account, so saying who you or your business is. Who you are what you do; kind of like a tweet you need to keep it short. Try to keep it accurate, clear and concise and keep it interesting. Some people come up with some pretty strange things to put in their description. The location as well, you may not want to put the location but in general, especially if it’s a small business it’s a good idea to put that in there so people at least know what country you’re in. sometimes when I read a tweet or I look up a user sometimes I want to know at least what country they’re in and I can’t really tell. That would help especially if you have a small business.
You may want to consider using more than one Twitter account. That’s a question that you have to answer and there are some different things to consider. One thing is the size of your company. If you just have a small business and it’s a few people, then you probably want to do just one account. Unless maybe your business concentrates on two different areas, maybe you have two different products or services then many you want to have two accounts where you keep those two products or services separated. A lot of people mix, if you just have a small proprietorship, if it’s just you and your small business, a lot of people will mix their personal and work life in one account. That’s a choice; if you don’t want to do that then you should create one account for work and one for personal.
If you have more than one person in your business that will tweet from your business account then it’s probably a good idea to create your own separate personal account. You obviously don’t want to be mixing your own personal tweets with an account that another person is using. One other reason is in order to tweet in different languages, so if you’re customer based or if your country is bilingual, for some reason you need to do that, then you can have one account for English and then use a different Twitter account for another language, Spanish or German, what have you. Somebody asked “Can we have more than handle per email address?” That’s a good question. I’m going to have to get back to you on that one. I don’t believe so but I’m not positive.
Once you have your profile, you’ve got your picture in there, a good description, location; you may want to consider submitting your profile to directories and you don’t have to do this it’s just a suggestion. But there are several Twitter directories out there that you can just submit yourself too and say “My business tweets about this and my business is affiliated with that.” Some of the directories are “wefollow.com” and there is one called “listorious” and “Twellow” and “Justtweetit.com” Those are the ones that I found. “Wefollow.com” “Listorious” and that’s L-I-S-T-O-R-I-O-U-S. “Twellow” T-W-E-L-L-O-W.com and “Justtweetit.com”
Okay, so you want to write a tweet. This isn’t on the slide but the first rule that they say in Twitter is there are no rules. The last thing you want to do is tell somebody else how to write a tweet on Twitter. Just keep that in mind, these are not rules, they’re just guidelines. I’ve been on Twitter four years. I think I’m pretty well versed in Twitter and social media so these are some guidelines that I came up with. I think they’re pretty good so I try to stick to them as much as I can. The first thing is to use concise, simple language. Obviously if you only have 140 characters you want to keep it concise. Some people make the argument that writing a tweet is good for writing in general just so you can keep your writing concise and simple. The simple part if good just for readability and also for accessibility. These tips are also good for translation. So if you write in simple, concise language it’s going to be easier for someone or for Google Translate to be able to translate your tweet, so keep that in mind.
For the same reasons, use proper grammar and punctuation. You want to appear professional if you have a business. It’s also good because it’s easier to understand and easier to translate, etc. Try to avoid slang and foreign phrases—mixing languages. If you do use slang or a foreign phrase in your tweet I suggest putting quotation marks around it to denote that it’s a special word or phrase. If you are replying to somebody else’s tweet, say if you reply it requires just a short response you may want to include the subject of their tweet after. I like to type “RE:” like regarding just so that the person you are replying to is reminded about what the conversation is because it might be a day or two until they see that reply and forget what the original tweet was. Unusually with the Twitter client you can look up the original tweet but that’s not as user friendly that way. Also if other people read that tweet they’ll know the subject is if you put it at the end and can figure out what that’s about.
Another tip is if you are using multiple account owners, if you have one account and say you have two or three folks in your business that are tweeting from that same account, it’s a good idea at the very end of the tweet to put the author’s initials at the end. The standard is like a character and then the initials. That way you can indicate which author it is. Another good tip is to leave at least a dozen characters for others to more easily quote tweet you. When you write a tweet you have 140 characters. Some people say 20 characters even is good. If you can try to leave ten or up to 20 characters so your tweet is only 120 characters. That way if somebody doesn’t retweet but quote tweets you and might want to add a comment or something, plus your username, you’re leaving some room there for people to do that. You always want to make your tweet easier for people to retweet it.
One other tip is don’t write in all caps. You’ve probably heard that before but you don’t want to appear like you’re shouting at people by writing in all caps. No matter how important it is, it’s probably not a good idea. Using hash tags; a hash tag is like the pound sign and a word. You use that on important or searchable key words in your tweet. I like to use hash tags a fair amount but it’s easy to get carried away because you want people to find it. Try not to use too many because your tweet can start to look cluttered and become unreadable. I think hash tags are good but they’re only good to a certain extent. Some studies have shown that most people will find your tweet through other methods—if you’re on somebody’s custom Twitter list. In addition to the regular timeline and hash tags someone can find your tweet through a re-tweet or quote tweet or if you’re on a list or even a Google search.
Putting your hash tag at the end of the tweet is best, that way it makes your tweet more readable. Then at the end, after your URL or initials or whatever you have at the very end put one or two hash tags at the end. If your hash tag is more than one word then use camel case. You want to do uppercase in the first letter of each word with no spaces of course. I write some tweets about social media and Twitter. So if you hash tag “social media” you would do # or pound, the capital “S” social, capital “M” media no space. It’s not only more readable but it’s also, for screen readers it’s more readable.
Somebody asked “Can you explain the use of the timeline?” You may want to be more specific with that question. We did go over it in part one. The timeline refers to just like your main Twitter page in most Twitter clients. So it’s your main Twitter stream. What that is is all of the people that you follow on Twitter; it’s like the latest tweets from those people. The default is 20 so on Easy Chirp when you log in you’ll be sent to the timeline page, the main page and it will list the latest 20 tweets from your followers. I hope that answers your question.
Here is an example of over use of hash tags and last week Christian [Howman] a world renown Java script guy, he’s a great follow @codepoe8 I think re-tweeted his tweet. He’s got a bunch of hash tags because he’s making fun of people who over use it. He tweeted “I always #snicker at #people #thinking #everything in a #tweet should be a #tag #probably had a #social #media #coaching. If you read it without them he goes “I always snicker at people thinking everything in a tweet should be a hash tag, probably had social media coaching. So I’m not going to do that, I’m going to tell you don’t over use them. Put them at the end.
Okay, we’ve got the basics down on how you’re going to write your tweet but what are you going to tweet about? Once in awhile, I must admit, I will tweet about what I’m eating which some people don’t like. But supposedly if you’re answering the question “What’s going on right now?” and you have a very interesting dish in front of you it’s hard to stop. That’s my personal account. What you want to tweet, some ideas for your personal/business account, first thing if you have a press release that’s always a good idea. Press releases are great because you try to get in the news. You can get some SEO going if you get it on the web; on the internet release it there. It’s also a great source for a tweet, so if you have some news about your business a press release and tweeting it is a great idea.
Or events, if your business is having some kind of event or even any kind of related event; if you have maybe a small restaurant and there is some kind of wine festival going on or a food tasting party, any kind of event it’s always fun and it’s a good source for a tweet. Another thing I failed to mention is, I think I bring that up later in the presentation but it’s a good idea to put a web address or a URL in your tweet so if you’re tweeting about a press relate obviously it’s a good idea to put a link in there pointing to the source on your webpage. The same goes for most of these ideas. Unless you’re super clever, a tweet with a link, studies show, generally get more re-tweets than without a link.
What else to tweet related articles, news worthy articles and blogs related to your business. Also you can answer a question or ask a question, that’s a great way to tweet. Just ask a general question or even better if you have a small business, answer a question, which is also kind of like customer support. That’s another way to use Twitter, more and more companies are doing so if you have customers following you they may voice some concerns or ask questions. Another idea is staff changes. Maybe more important ones if you have say a new vice president or something, it’s probably a good idea to let people know, that open communication. Contests and promotions, those are always interesting and fun things to do and to tweet about, some people will tweet “Oh if you’re my 5,000 follower we’ll send you a free t-shirt.” One account, I’m not sure they do it anymore; some account was doing a quiz every week. A trivia, they would ask questions and the first person to respond through a tweet response with the correct answer wins a book or something. So those are pretty neat ideas.
Emergencies; you definitely want to tweet if there is any kind of emergency, maybe if your store is closed or if you have a small business and you’re on vacation or something, anything super important you want to put on Twitter. Obviously Twitter is a great tool for that, you probably heard in the news about the natural disasters, the earthquakes and tsunamis and everything going around the world. People using Twitter to help communicate, to warn or communicate what is going on. You can also use Twitter to thank you followers, your customers. It’s always a good idea once in a while if you have somebody who re-tweets you a lot or that you re-tweet a lot or maybe somebody that’s just a good customer or something, you can thank them on Twitter and publically acknowledge that you like what they’re doing.