Day TEN: Twitter Advanced Find & Follow

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Franklin Bond
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Day TEN: Twitter Advanced Find & Follow The small print: All this material, whilst given freely for this course, is for your use only, and not for dissemination to anyone else, even

1 Day TEN: Twitter Advanced Find & Follow The small print: All this material, whilst given freely for this course, is for your use only, and not for dissemination to anyone else, even inside your own organisation. Please do recommend that your colleagues sign up for the course so that they can participate too 131

2 DAY 10: Outline Twitter Advanced Find and Follow Activity: Search for current conversations using #twooc on your Twitter profile, and get a feel for what s going on in our classroom. Read through the notes for the day and: Use Lists to find some people to Follow Use #hashtags to find some people to Follow Have a conversation with someone that you want to Follow you E-tivity: Amplify relevant messages from the #twooc community, to help your followers grow their network through your network. You can do this them or by retweeting. Tools: Resources: Dr Robert Cialdini is famous for his Six Tools of Influence model in marketing, which predates the advent of social media. However, he was interviewed about how he felt the model applied to social media, and you can read and listen to his answers 132

ferociously. Then the internet came along, and with it email, and the ability to send links to each other easily, and to cc lots of people into the conversation.

3 Why use social media for business? Sarnoff s Law states that a network with 100 people is 10 times as valuable as a network with 10 people. This was back in the good old days, when advertising was paperbased, we all used fax machines, and believed in the expression it s not what you know it s who you know, and guarded our networks ferociously. Then the internet came along, and with it , and the ability to send links to each other easily, and to cc lots of people into the conversation. This was the era of Metcalf s Law, when a network of 100 people because of the cascade effect - was worth roughly 1000 times as much as one with 10 members. Now we re in the era of Social Media, when we no longer talk to individuals, but to their networks as well. Every time there is a conversation on Facebook, it shows up on the homepages of their network, seen by an average of 132 friends. Whenever we tweet, not only is it going out to our network, and to the Twittersphere in general, but when people join in our conversation use our #hashtag us, it can be seen by members of their network. Reed's Law, or "The Law of the Pack", states that compared with a network of 10 people a network of 100 people is worth 2 raised to the power of 90. I just put this in an online calculator, and the number is so big it has an E in it literally, the value of your network is exponential. There s also a value to be placed on the number of transactions (or Tweets, in this case) within a network. Expressed by Beckstrom s Law: Which is more easily understood as: The value of a network equals the net value added to each user s transactions conducted through that network, summed over all users. So that s the science bit, as they say in the adverts, what does this mean for Twitter? It means that the more people you connect to, and the more your tweets add value, the more valuable the network becomes. (we can call that one Cable s 133

The REACH model Twitter can be used to achieve many business outcomes, but here we are going to concentrate on marketing. Remember our REACH model? How many people are we talking to?

4 The REACH model Twitter can be used to achieve many business outcomes, but here we are going to concentrate on marketing. Remember our REACH model? How many people are we talking to? How many people are talking to us? How many people are talking about us? How many people are converting into customers? How many people are choosing to stay with us beyond the first purchase? The Purpose of One-to-Many tweeting When we write a tweet to broadcast to the world, we are simply Reaching according to the model above. Our purpose is to get people s attention, with an innate call to action: Follow Me (reach & hold) Click on my link or respond to me (engage) Buy me (convert) Retweet my message and/or my link to your followers (amplify) The success can be measured: Number of Followers Number of times I ve been Listed (and the number of people who follow those Lists) Number of clicks on my links Number of retweets leading to: Number of impressions (how many unique times the message was shown) Audience (how many unique individuals saw the message, however 134

5 You can also have conversions direct from Twitter, for example people clicking on a link to book a course, or direct messaging you to book a service, buy a product, etc. #twooc You can also think of the value in terms of the equivalent media burn i.e. how much the equivalent coverage would have cost you in other paid-for media online. To explain, there are four types of online coverage you can HOPE to achieve: Hosted Coverage online that is about you but not owned by you, and you can t control how long it stays up for e.g. your Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn accounts. These profiles aren t actually owned by you, they are hosted on your behalf by other people who could pull the plug. Hosted covers free services, once you pay for a hosted service it falls into the Owned category. Owned Your own website, your own hosted blog, anything that YOU are in control of that is entirely your own digital real estate. Paid for Banner advertisements, pay per click Google adwords, etc. Earned This is the golden goose. Where other people are talking about you (in ways that you want to be spoken about). Twitter is the easiest and simplest way to earn coverage in online media. You may already know how relatively hard it is to get people to like your page on Facebook (as opposed to friending your profile), or to comment or subscribe to your blog, but Twitter is a very low-key, low commitment, even lightweight way of getting others to spread your message to many people, and when used well, can be used to increase your followers / friends / connections and earned coverage on other channels. We re going to get specific as to how. The purpose of one-to-one tweeting is to influence When someone responds to a tweet, uses your hashtag, or otherwise enters into conversation with you on Twitter, this is where a one to one relationship can start and can flourish. Obviously, there s a whole host of reasons that Twitter is useful in business, but for marketing outcomes, the purpose of one to one tweeting is to influence people to: Buy from me (convert) Retweet my message and/or my link to your followers (amplify) Ultimately you should be able to measure the Return on Investment of Twitter by attributing and counting sales started (and completed) 135

Six of the Best Follower Strategies (well, one of them isn t): Here are some of the best following strategies and tools you can use to find new users to follow on Twitter.

6 Six of the Best Follower Strategies (well, one of them isn t): Here are some of the best following strategies and tools you can use to find new users to follow on Twitter. Remember your following strategy framework from Day 2? You can use some of these tools and strategies to help find the types of users to follow that you identified. 1. Find & Follow People Earlier in the course we discussed that the way to get followers is to follow other people. Around two thirds of them will follow you back, according to statistics (although as more people arrive on Twitter, this seems to have dropped to about 40% in my experience). Also, you need to be aware that the main automated tool for following people, does so on the basis that people follow back in a couple of days. You can tell people who are using this automated tool (Tweetadder) by the fact that they will have pretty equal numbers of following and followers, usually following about 1000 more than they are being followed by. People who have grown their network organically by influence, will have more followers than following. Celebrities of course, follow very few people, and those they follow they generally pay attention to and converse with everyone else is just a spectator. There s a useful tool called Refollow (it has a limited free version) that allows you to search bios for keywords, and to follow the followers of any other Twitter user useful for getting in front of the audience of your competitors. Here is a screenshot of the tool that allows me to analyse the people who are following an account like mine (in this so I can follow them or engage them to get 136

Followerwonk is a similar freemium tool, in this screenshot it s telling me when @TrinityVisionUK s followers are most often online, see how late at night our students are on Twitter?

) Notice that at the bottom of the screen, Followerwonk has integrated with Buffer to offer me a schedule appropriate to this particular audience.

7 Followerwonk is a similar freemium tool, in this screenshot it s telling me s followers are most often online, see how late at night our students are on Twitter? So if I want to get the best results, I should be interacting about 6pm, 9pm or midnight(!) Notice that at the bottom of the screen, Followerwonk has integrated with Buffer to offer me a schedule appropriate to this particular audience. We have already discussed using directories (such as Twibes and Wefollow) to find people, but let s also look at Lists in a bit more detail. Lists When you go to someone s profile, and they are your IDEAL AUDIENCE, Lists are a really easy way of finding other people just like them. Go to the top right hand corner of your home page and click on your profile picture, then 137

On the left you can select List Members or List Subscribers If I m subscribed to a list that means I am either following a list or it is a list I have created.

Once I click on it, up comes a list of people and their profiles, who are more or less similar to me. A handpicked selection of people for me to follow.

8 On the left you can select List Members or List Subscribers If I m subscribed to a list that means I am either following a list or it is a list I have created. If I am a member of a list, that means I have been put in a list by another user. #twooc So now you can pick a list and click on it, let s look at the Social Media Gurus list that I am in. Once I click on it, up comes a list of people and their profiles, who are more or less similar to me. A handpicked selection of people for me to follow. You can use this tactic on your own profile, using lists that you are a member of to find people who share your interests or expertise. Or you can look on other people s profiles: once you find someone who is your ideal target audience, use the lists that they are members of to find more people just like them. WARNING: Twitter now allows tools that allow software to automatically create lists, and these lists now have no limit on their length. If you see that a list has been automatically generated like this one has, I wouldn t trust it: Which reminds me, putting someone on a list with a really flattering title (e.g. Digital Gurus above) is a great way of getting their attention, too - they get an alert saying they are on your list. Plus your list appears on their profile, so you are getting some of their audience s attention too. Of course you have all seen this 138

9 Twitter also helpfully provides its own suggestions for people who are like this person on the person s profile page, and as you follow them more will appear: #twooc Geographic location When you need to find people who are influencers in a particular location if you only want customers within a certain radius of your premises, for example then establishing relationships with people who already have a big following in your geographic location can help. Followerwonk allows me to search profiles and bios here I am looking for people with the word writer in their profile, and the location Leeds. Which very usefully brings up a list which I can re-order. Here I have sorted it by social authority so they are the top five most effective as well as famous users of Twitter who are writers in Leeds. It s getting good now, isn t it? Use the ranking to find people to connect with and influence, using some of the other suggested tactics, and hopefully they will follow you, or at least converse with and 139

10 On Twitter you can talk to anyone. Join in their conversations, agree with them (if you do, don t be a sycophant) restating someone else s case pithily when they are having a rant about something is a great way to get their attention. They ll retweet you because you ve expressed so well something they are trying to articulate themselves (this is why copy-writers should be very successful on Twitter). If you say something before mentioning their username, as this will be seen by more people, and by people watching their Twitter stream, as we discussed yesterday. 3. Incentivise Some people exist on Twitter just to win #competitions or #twitcomps, and many brands will have a go at these competitions to gain followers. This can be good at getting quantity, but not necessarily quality of followers. Also, they may leave you soon afterwards, unless you make sure all your competitions are explicitly open to all followers, not just new ones. Be careful not to ask for DMs either, as people can only send you a direct message if you follow them already, which defeats the point (or would require you to be psychic!) 4. Use their #hashtags People divide themselves into further tribes or marketing sectors on Twitter by the #hashtags they use. When we were trying to build up a following for our Leeds United page on Facebook, Twitter proved to be a great way of reaching the same audience. Note that even though many supporters tweet about Leeds United and all belong to #lufc, they also belong to different Twitter tribes: #Twitterwhites, #mot (Marching On Together their theme song), etc. By using these hashtags and joining in their conversations, we quickly become part of the supporter scene at LUFC with 4,500 Facebook fans and more 140

11 For every #hashtag there are other #hashtags that further break that audience down. #Crafters are sometimes #knitters, sometimes #quilters. Mums are sometimes #mumsoftwins #newmums or #postnatal (or all three). The more you niche your message, the more you will reach the individual in the crowd. Try it. 5. Be so nice that people amplify for you Support people s causes, retweet them, use their hashtags, take a genuine helpful interest in other people s well-being and you will reap what you sow. This will take time and effort to build, and it can t be faked. You need a genuine empathy for and shared interest with your audience for them to be a community. Remember, a community is something YOU are part of, too. 6. Buy followers I don t just mean paying for advertising on Twitter-centric sites, which I think is legitimate when it s appropriate. But yes, it s true, you can buy followers. There are various ways and means on the web which I will leave you to discover for yourself, but they come with a stark warning. As in the real world, friends you pay for aren t friends at all. You can either pay for an account that already has followers (on ebay) and change the name. Or you can pay people to follow you, literally. You can enter into a bizarre world of seeds/token economies of followers where you follow people in order to earn currency to pay people to follow you (think for a moment of what that community would feel like). Enter at your own peril! And with that warning I ll leave you to it for the day. @TrinityVisionUK 141

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