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Having a social media presence can be an invaluable resource for providing insights into consumer needs, sentiment, and opinions towards a business, service or brand. Social media is by no means a replacement for traditional market research, but it can be used in a broader sense. That broader sense is becoming a widely adopted trend referred to as Crowdsourcing.
Crowdsourcing is the act of outsourcing tasks to an undefined, large group of people or community (a "crowd"), through an open call. Twitter is the perfect platform for implementing such a tactic and will often yield insightful, and sometimes surprising, results. Using Twitter to openly ask your followers and the community as a whole has additional benefits. By listening, organizations gain first-hand insight on their customers' desires.You have the option to follow up with your respondents in real time. Plus, because participants are not being led by moderators or necessarily thinking about the expectations for responses, the answers they give can be more genuine and revealing....
Twitter’s latest ad product provides a call to action right inside a tweet — showing the company is finally creating marketing tools closer to the “bottom of the funnel.” Even as Twitter has grown into a media and marketing giant, not everyone is persuaded that the social media site is useful for selling things. As one marketer recently lamented to me, the platform’s effectiveness is hard to measure — and justify to clients — because “no one’s going to buy a car off Twitter.” [Update: Twitter says "au contraire" and sent this research] The perception, then, is that Twitter is useful for what the ad types call “top of the funnel” marketing — building brand awareness and so on — but that it has yet to deliver paying customers in the way that GoogleAdwords can. Today, though, it appears Twitter has responded with a new ad product that will make it easier for brands to assess what they get for their marketing bucks. The product, called a “Lead Generation Card,” lets marketers post expanded tweets that invite users to sign up for stuff right inside Twitter. The company showed what this might look in a blog post describing the product...
It’s hard to imagine a world without Twitter. It was the faster-growing social network in 2012, and 1/5 of all US Internet users are also active on Twitter.* For bloggers especially, the world would be very different without Twitter. But maybe there’s something we can learn from that. Twitter is an amazing way to reach your community, but it can perhaps cloud our vision. By thinking about what the world would be like without Twitter, we can perhaps find some new opportunities for our blogs. Here’s how blogging would be different if Twitter did not exist...
Just about the time a client becomes proficient using Facebook and LinkedIn, another new social media platform comes along to complicate things. Pheed, Snapchat, the new and improved MySpace, Thumb…not every platform is right for every business, and a few are a guaranteed waste of time for some. So what about Vine? Vine is an application from the makers of Twitter that allows you to create 6-second looping video using your iPhone or iPad, and share using Twitter and/or Facebook. You don’t need any editing skill to put something together – just your iPhone or iPad and your thumb (your digit acts as the camera’s start/stop tool). Posting to social media is easy, too, and explained below. We think this latest entry into the social media universe is both viable and valuable to business, if used properly...
When brands engage in friendly banter online, their quips can show personality, elicit smiles, and bring in a lot of retweet.... When you think of a Twitter feud, what comes to mind? Is it a vicious war of words between celebrities, resulting in the ultimate loss of your respect, (looking at you, Donald Trump), or is it just social anarchy? How about when your favorite brands go head to head in 140 characters or fewer? Here are three examples that show how big brands used humor and vision to interact with followers in real-time, win (or lose) with grace, and most importantly, appear human....
There are some really great reasons why you should think about using Twitter’s new video sharing app to promote your business or brand. Vine is already extremely popular, which means it should become a part of your social media plan. Using Vine is also incredibly easy. Create a quick 6 second video, integrate it into your Twitter feed and make your tweets even more interesting. With a few creative yet simple ideas, you can make Vine an effective tool in your social media strategy. Read these 10 excellent tips and get inspired by several videos shown as best practice examples...
More than half of U.S. business to business (B2B) marketers plan to increase spending on their social media budget in 2013, reveals a new study. 56 percent of respondents to BtoB Magazine‘s 2013 Outlook: Marketing Priorities And Plans survey said that their marketing spend on channels such as Twitter and Facebook will rise this year, with social media being favoured above both search (52.5 percent) and mobile (a surprisingly low 35.5 percent). Website development (70.1 percent) and the ever-reliable email marketing (61.9 percent) were the top digital marketing priorities....
You’ve listened to the hype. You’ve read case study after case study. You’ve seen that little bird logo everywhere. And your brand could certainly use a little push. So, excitedly, you sign up for a Twitter profile for your business. And wait. And wait. And wait. And nothing happens. Does this sound familiar?... [Terrific Twitter tips to transform your business ~ Jeff ]
By Amy Gahran
News outlets of all kinds increasingly have been aggregating or curating Twitter content to augment news coverage and liveblogs—but Twitter is changing the rules. As Twitter gets more serious about its search for a long-term business model, it’s started limiting how third parties are able to access and use Twitter content. On Aug. 16 Twitter announced upcoming changes to its application programming interface (API), the “firehose” which supplies Twitter content to third-party tools such as Storify.
In particular, Twitter’s existing guidelines for how Tweets can be displayed will become requirements.
They sound pretty serious about it. According to Twitter: “If your application displays Tweets to users, and it doesn’t adhere to our display requirements, we reserve the right to revoke your [API access].” Yes, they can do that. This would be more likely to directly affect popular Twitter-powered tools (applications) and perhaps large media outlets, but indirectly it would affect any news publisher using these tools.... [Curators, bloggers and content prod take note - JD]
C-level executives are often apprehensive about diving in to the social media space. For some, it’s a question of the time commitment involved, while others might be unsure of how to balance personal with professional – and of course there is always reluctance when it comes to the elusive ROI question. But Twitter and other social media platforms are ideal for communicating directly with partners, employees and customers in an informal and conversational way, especially when it comes to connecting with individuals located miles or countries away. By sharing personal anecdotes and industry expertise, as well as engaging with followers directly by responding to questions and commentary, executives have the opportunity to improve their perception as an industry expert and ultimately improve perception of their brand. Here are five handy tips for launching or maintaining a C-level Twitter handle...
A study shows that the more tweets a URL receives, the better its search ranking. PR professionals can (and should) benefit from this revelation. According to a study performed by U.K. digital agency Branded3, there is a strong positive correlation between the number of tweets of a URL, and its corresponding Google ranking. The study suggests that a Web page’s search rankings start to improve when its URL has received 50 tweets, but the real benefits start to accrue after it’s tweeted more than 1,000 times. Public relations teams are often responsible for the content organizations publish. As a result, it’s important to consider how they can build rank and visibility for their organizations’ websites by fine-tuning their Twitter strategy and working more closely with their Web marketing teams....
In a recent study, 31% of Twitter users said that they follow bloggers that put out original content, while 33% claim to follow news organizations according to AYTM Market Research. And 42% of those surveyed follow brands. “Businesses have the ability to appeal to Twitters users on multiple fronts by using a comprehensive social media marketing strategy,” says the Brafton News article. “Focusing on providing branded content that is timely and engaging will attract prospects looking for company information and news.”....
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Nowadays, many businesses are using Twitter as a tool for connecting with their customers, building traffic to their sites and expanding their businesses. Here are some tips which will help you succeed in your Twitter marketing plan....
Data from Unruly shows that five Vine clips are shared every second on Twitter and branded Vines are four times more likely to be shared than branded online videos. It’s also interesting to note that weekends are the most popular time to share Vines and in most cases they are more popular than all the previous weekdays combined. We’ve previously looked at fashion brands and football teams that have begun using Vine, as well as highlighting both good and bad uses of the platform. As with any new technology it’s good to keep experimenting and work out how it can benefit your brand, but there are a few guiding principles that it’s worth considering....
Twitter is a brilliant tool for communicating with consumers and when used effectively can be a great way of building customer loyalty. In recent weeks I’ve come across a number of brands that have excellent Twitter strategies and several that I thought were less impressive. This could be because they were dull, unimaginative or simply weren’t living up to their potential. So to shine some light on the differences between those brands getting it right and those that perhaps aren’t, here are five good and four bad examples of brands using Twitter....
Twitter is an effective social media marketing tool for your business. With over 500 million users, your business needs to be here.... Setting up your business Twitter profile is easier than you think. This simple step-by-step guide shows you how . (Note: The following is an example only, made for Wishpond (@wishpond). @SocialUserOnly Twitter account is not in use. Do not follow!) 1. Go to Twitter.com and sign up. Use your name, your email, and a password. Use your real name and email. You will be able to customize your profile later. Note: Twitter only allows one account per email. If you have a p ersonal Twitter account, you will need to use a different email to set up your business Twitter account....
Twitter was never meant to be a social network. In fact Twitter started life as an internal messaging service for a podcasting company just over seven years ago. But how things have changed. On the social web we live on a diet of fast change and rapid media evolution. Twitter’s slow burning maturation often flies below the radar and Facebook changes such as the new timeline and graph search attract numerous blog articles, comments on Facebook and mass media attention. Twitter has become a multi-media social network without anyone really noticing....
According to a survey from the Wall Street Journal, Twitter has fallen out of favour with small businesses, preferring other channels like LinkedIn and YouTube. Despite it being the world’s fastest growing social platform at the moment, it seems that Twitter isn’t getting a lot of love from small businesses. A recent survey ran by the Wall Street Journal and Vistage International found that six out of ten small-business owners say they believe social media tools are valuable to their company’s growth. So far, so unsurprising, but what was particularly interesting wasn’t the fact that LinkedIn topped the survey, 41% said that it had the most potential to help their company, but only 3% of those surveyed felt that Twitter could do the same. The Wall Street Journal’s survey is worth looking at if you want an idea of how social media is used among small businesses in the U.S. (as well as having some nice interactive graphics to look at)....
What factors influence whether or not a tweet is perceived as credible? According to this recent study, users have “difficulty discerning truthfulness based on con-tent alone, with message topic, user name, and user image all impacting judg-ments of tweets and authors to varying degrees regardless of the actual truth-fulness of the item.” For example, “Features associated with low credibility perceptions were the use of non-standard grammar and punctuation, not replacing the default account image, or using a cartoon or avatar as an account image. Following a large number of users was also associated with lower author credibility, especially when unbalanced in comparison to follower count [...].” As for features enhan-cing a tweet’s credibility, these included “author influence (as measured by follower, retweet, and mention counts), topical expertise (as established through a Twitter homepage bio, history of on-topic tweeting, pages outside of Twitter, or having a location relevant to the topic of the tweet), and reputation (whether an author is someone a user follows, has heard of, or who has an official Twitter account verification seal). Content related features viewed as credibility-enhancing were containing a URL leading to a high-quality site, and the existence of other tweets conveying similar information.”...
A couple weeks ago, Twitter unveiled its new “header” functionality. Very similar to the header image on Facebook’s Timeline. So, relatively (I stress “relatively”) big news for brands, right?
But since that unveiling we really haven’t seen a lot of examples of which brands are using the header image. I mean, I’ve see the Ryan Seacrest example about 4 million times in the last two weeks–we get it, Ryan Seacrest is creative. Enough already.
So today I thought I’d share 25 examples of what other brands (NOT named Ryan Seacrest) are doing with the new Twitter header....
[Thanks to @ArikHanson for compiling this list ~ Jeff]
Comparing a traditional news story about a recent shooting with a news report from a Reddit user -- who pulled together Twitter messages from the perpetrators and victims -- provides a glimpse of what a real-time, crowdsourced newsroom of the... ...Mark Little of Storyful, which works with mainstream media outlets to do exactly that kind of thing, has written about how journalists need to stop seeing themselves as gatekeepers of information and start to look at journalism as a collaborative effort involving all kinds of different sources. Twitter is clearly one of these sources, as the Toronto shooting shows — and so is Reddit, which has already proven in the past that it can be a crowdsourced fact-checking engine. And those who learn how to make use of all these tools will wind up producing better journalism.... [Very thought-provoking and worth reading - JD]
The deal that Twitter announced on Thursday with NASCAR will see an editor employed by the network curating and highlighting tweets and other content, a deal that takes Twitter even further into the realm of being a media entity. ...the real-time information network has created a kind of portal for the Pocono 400 race this weekend. The site looks like a fairly normal Twitter feed, with one important difference: in addition to highlighting tweets using an algorithm, an editor hired by Twitter will also be selecting or “curating” the stream. If that sounds like the kind of thing a media company might do, it’s probably because it is the kind of thing a media company would do — the NASCAR deal takes Twitter even further into the realm of being a media entity. Should traditional media players be concerned?
Small business owners that are looking to learn how to have a productive presence on Twitter could do a lot worse than to download and read a new guide that comes direct from the source. Twitter published the 22-page PDF last week to coincide with the rollout of its small business ad products. It covers Twitter in three chapters, going back to scratch with the most basic info such as “anatomy of a Tweet” — a section that shows and explains hashtags, mentions, replies, retweets and other basics. There’s a tutorial on using Twitter search to find users that tweet about the keywords associated with your business, and a suggestion to search on your product or business name to see what’s been said about you. But the guide goes beyond that level and actually offers some fairly nuanced tips for the small business crowd....
...Content curation is the art and science of finding, organizing, and sharing information that adds value and encourages engagement for the audience you’re hoping to influence. It is a cyclical process: What you find and what you post influence what people search and find about you....
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![Tweet Smarter, Not Harder [INFOGRAPHIC] | AllTwitter | Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight | Scoop.it](https://img.scoop.it/T4WNAuvBnU-uyHaZKyi9Gjl72eJkfbmt4t8yenImKBVvK0kTmF0xjctABnaLJIm9)
![Twitter Users Crave News Updates [STUDY]The Content Strategist | Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight | Scoop.it](https://img.scoop.it/YJzdS1WISy1ckORGeXu_ZTl72eJkfbmt4t8yenImKBVvK0kTmF0xjctABnaLJIm9)
Good suggestions on how to use Twitter for additional market research.