The Twitter Impact on Business Research

by Nicole Munoz

Twitter is more than a social media tool. It is a search tool in its own right. Businesses can find hot topics and join and conversation so that they stay on top of chat trends, track the habits of their influencers, engage with their followers and also spy on the competition.

Build Brand Management

Don’t leave your branding to chance. Following a plan is more likely to help you quickly attract and secure the minimum 1,000 followers you really need in order to gain accurate tracking results. You can use third-party Twitter tools like HootSuite and Twitalyzer to help manage your brand and find out what people are saying about it, as well as how your brand is perceived – but before this will work, you need to make sure you’ve created a strong Twitter presence. Fill out as much of your profile as possible, using your audience’s most popular search keywords; and brand with your business name.

Register using your name in the “Full Name” field and your company name as the “Username”… unless you are branding individual products. In that case, register as your company name in the “Full Name” field and use your company name plus product name connected by an underscore. This not only makes it easy for you to measure Twitter stats for each product or niche; it makes your product or niche Twitter accounts searchable.

Use common sense and keep your target audience in mind, when creating company Twitter accounts. And since 50% of all customers follow a brand for customer service, be sure to create a customer service Twitter account too, if your business involves more than a handful of clients.

List your business Twitter account in Twitter directories such as Social Brand Index, We Follow and Twellow, making sure you place yourself in the correct category, to increase your chances of showing up in search results for those categories.

Don’t forget mobile users…

Twitter’s own official blog reported earlier high engagement from mobile users in the UK, who find Twitter easier to handle on mobiles than other social networks. The blog study’s conclusion: Mobile users follow brands and almost half these users recommend brands they follow – so if your target market members are mobile users, you can’t afford to be casual about your Twitter presence.

Once you have set up strong Twitter Profiles for your company accounts, researching activity around your own brand becomes much easier, with more accurate results.

Do Topic Research

Face it – finding topics by checking out the “What’s Trending” widget doesn’t often result in a relevant match for your business.

And people who throw references to currently trending celebrities into business blog posts are more often than not doing themselves no favors at all, since they are likely to attract:

Zero business searchers
Annoyed searchers looking for news about their favorite celebrity – only to find one skimpy reference something along the lines of “Lady Gaga has the right idea about marketing”.

To find trends relevant to your business: Use Twitter’s own Advanced Search page.

Simply enter your keywords, and view the results.

Notice the wide, practical and useful varieties of search parameters the Advanced Search function offers:

Words – includes hashtags, exact phrases, any or all of “these words” and “written in”
People – you can search particular tweets to and from specific accounts, as well as searching tweets mentioning specific accounts
Places – use geo-targeting by searching tweets mentioning specific places and nearby locations
Other – you can also specify that posts you are searching for be positive, negative or questions. And you can include retweets.

Other Top Tips for Topic Research:

If you want to be counted among Twitter’s top influencers, you need to know that Twitter itself measures this by the number of retweets you generate. One quick way to increase your retweets: Keep your tweets shorter than 100 characters. And ask your followers to “Please retweet”.

Keeping track of who retweeted you and what they retweeted can not only help you monitor your brand, but give you valuable clues as to which subjects (via your tweets) are “hot” for your followers (and target market); which ones make them interact with your tweets – and which ones leave them cold.

Manage Your Followers

Another thing that can hurt you in today’s online climate: Going for numbers over quality, when it comes to attracting followers. Every spammer you leave on your account will hurt it in Twitter’s eyes.

Get into the habit of also checking for new followers daily through your “@Connect” menu tab.

By all means add people when they follow you – but do it manually. Check them out first to make sure you haven’t inadvertently added an auto-spammer who never personally engages.

Go through your account and get rid of anyone who doesn’t fit your niche or actually engage with you.

Find New Audiences

You don’t even have to leave Twitter to find new audiences. In addition to all the usual prompted ways to connect (searching your email accounts, for example), there are third-party sites and apps you can use, as well as searching hashtags and using Advanced Search.

But there are a few key actions that top Twitter users seem to take. Before chasing off after the latest app, make sure you have these set in place:

Tweet focused, fascinating content.

People are tired of serial retweeters and spammy marketing messages. Make sure that whatever you share – whether or not it is personal or promotional – speaks directly to your target listener, firmly hooking into her areas of interest. Keep your company mission or goal as central to every tweet. Before hitting the button, ask yourself “does this detract from what I want to portray… or is it in alignment?”

Make sure your tweet is unique and personal (in that it doesn’t sound as if it was written by a robot).

This tweet was chosen by Twitter as a “Top Tweet” – meaning that out of all the tweets created to promote (in this case) a particular hashtag, this one was the tweet retweeted most – and, if you remember, retweeting increases your Twitter status.

Now you’re ready to find a bigger, targeted audience – and they are ready to find you.…

Search through authority blogs you regularly read. Look for people who comment or guest-author.

Follow the blog administrator or creator. (Particularly follow the Twitter Advertising Blog, since this tells you what makes money for Twitter – and therefore will be important for your own Twitter research.

Join Twitter Chats. This is a great way to become known and find quality people to follow. There are several sites like TweetReports displaying the latest TweetChat schedules – both multiple subject and niche-specific.

Create a Chat. Don’t just wait to find the right one – create a regular, weekly TweetChat specifically for existing subscribers – and ask them to share it. Don’t forget to put your TweetChat name and hashtag right in your Profile Summary.
Join Groups: LinkedIn Groups for strictly business; Facebook for a wide selection of special interests and Yahoo Groups for hobby niches.

Again, Groups allow you to become known – which lead to “follows”. So be sure to include your Twitter handle in your Profile and posts or post signatures (if allowed).

Join Forums or Membership sites that are built around your niche. Provide quality comments, answers and questions. Be there – daily and regularly.

And – again – include your Twitter handle wherever it’s allowed within those sites.

Searching and using Hashtags

Hashtags can be a powerful tool, when it comes to letting your ideal follower know you exist and allowing you to find quality people to follow

Surprisingly, a recent report released by Business Insider Intelligence on factors affecting follower growth cited the use of hashtags (along with tweeting negative emotions and talking about oneself) as one of three factors adversely affecting account growth.

Who overuses hashtags? Anyone who inserts more than two in a post – and uses hashtags in every post.

Two hashtags should be the maximum you ever use in a post.

Using Twitter as a business research tool doesn’t just mean finding out facts on Twitter: it means that you, your company and your products should be researchable too. The best strategy involves starting out with focused branding. This will quickly allow you to research the impact of your own brand within Twitter, as well as your competitors’ brands.

How to Use Facebook as a Business Research Tool

by Nicole Munoz

Nowadays, you can – and should – be using Facebook for business-related research. Not only can you research your audience and your competitors, but you can also monitor your own business interaction, perception and feedback by using Facebook activity.

You can find posts and photos you or your business are tagged in, search for local competitors or audiences, find posts or Pages containing specific keywords – and now Facebook is working hard to refine its new Hashtag functionality so that it aligns more with Twitter functionality.

Let’s start by seeing what you can do with Facebook’s new Hashtag feature…

Step 1. Facebook Hashtags 101

Facebook hashtags started out as far from Twitter hashtags as you can get. They are evolving all the time, so right now your best bet is to put Twitter out of your mind and concentrate on what they can do for your business research.

Using Hashtags

You can now create hashtags for Facebook and use as tools for tracking your own posts containing them.

You can also use them to track posts that others make, using:

Your specific hashtags
Hashtags you are following, tracking or researching

Right now, according to Edgerank Checker, hashtags haven’t caught on firmly enough to positively affect your viral potential or Facebook rank.

But they can be extremely useful in quickly tracking down random Facebook conversations containing them, via your Facebook Graph Search function.

Searching hashtags

You can search for Facebook hashtags that already exist – and for those that don’t exist.

For example, say you wanted to create the hashtag #facebookcontests: Type it into your Facebook search bar.

If it already exists and is in use, it will appear like this:

If the hashtag you type in doesn’t exist, you will see this (and possibly other search results):

If you click on the yellow icon under a non-existent hashtag search result, you will be taken to a page like this, where you will be prompted to create your first post around that hashtag:

How to Find Existing Facebook Hashtags:

Note that you will not see similar hashtag suggestions in search results: You will only see Pages and People suggested, if appropriate.

However, you can use existing Twitter hashtags for purposes of monitoring and research. You can find the best of these at Hashtags.org.

Step 2. Using Graph Search

Running Facebook searches is the other half of the “using-Facebook-hashtag” process. But you can search this social network for business research purposes without necessarily concentrating on hashtag-finding alone.

Facebook has already rolled out graph search. If you have it, you will have already been invited to “Take a Tour”. If you don’t, expect any day now to see the popup inviting you to check it out.

With graph search, you can:

Search for friends by name (“or anything else”)
A simple phrase (e.g. “Friends who live in Wyoming”)
Any information contained in your friends’ Facebook accounts (e.g. Photos, businesses, places, movies, music)
Any information contained in Public accounts or in your Friends’ Public categories

For example, if you want to search for “Coffee”, you will see results such as coffee shops, coffee brands, Pages about coffee (all Pages being Public) and similar results.

In short, anything you have ever posted to Facebook is now searchable. So before you start searching for friends, phrases or information, you’re going to want to quickly adjust your privacy settings to segregate anything that doesn’t fit with your business branding.

To see what is searchable on your Facebook account, click the little padlock icon:

It will display who can:

See your present, past and future posts
See posts and photos you are tagged in
Send you friend requests
Send you Facebook messages

You can also limit past posts and decide whether or not you want your Facebook account to be searchable by other search engines.

Your Profile – To control who sees your profile information, use your “About” tab. If you are still using a personal feed, click on your Name in your top, horizontal menu bar to the left of the padlock icon. You can then choose to edit your Profile and its privacy settings by performing one or both of the following functions:

Click on your About tab, under your Cover Photo

Click on the Activity Log tab that will appear within your Cover Photo. If you are exploring Graph Search for the first time, you will receive prompts.

Use your Activity Log to review posts with location or other tags; or review tagged Photos

To make sure the right people find only the most appropriate information about you or your business:

Assign one of the following three categories to each type of contact:

Only Me – Information you want to use for personal and/or business research or reference
Friends – Information you want personal friends and family to see. (That would also include any networking peer or friend you’ve “Friended” on Facebook.)
Public – Ideally, anyone at all, including your target audience, business peers, networking contacts, clients or customers.

A good rule of thumb is to never post anything that (a) clashes with your branding (b) you wouldn’t be comfortable with strangers or your grandmother seeing.

And here’s the best tip of all about Privacy settings: If you want a narrow, specific, target audience to see a particular type of post:

a) Create a List containing that specific group of people (e.g. “Clients”)

b) Use the Custom setting for posts you only want – for example – “clients” to see, specifying the particular list you have placed them within:

Finally, remember that Facebook Pages are always Public.

Part of business researching always involves controlling what others can research about you and your company – business researching being a two-way street! Do this intelligently, and it will have a positive effect on your monitoring.

How to Research Effectively with Graph Search

Just as others can research you, you can research competitors, business peers, industry influencers and your potential audience – keeping in mind that you too may only be seeing what they choose to share.

Just click in the Search bar to see what categories you can search in.

When you search, do keep in mind that you can enter any keyword or phrase with or without selecting a category – or even just “Take the Tour” again.

Of the categories suggested, “Pages I might Like” can be exceptionally useful – if you have optimized your Profile to your audience and adjusted your privacy settings effectively.

For example, if you have populated your profile with things irrelevant to your business – for example, favorite movies – you will most likely get suggestions for pages with no business worth whatsoever.

These pages will be presented based on:

Related personalities, business entities and other things in that same category that you have “Liked”
How many of your friends share those exact preferences too.

If, on the other hand, you have optimized your Profile for business, your “Pages I might like” results will be more likely to contain useful suggestions.

Finally, make sure you’ve also optimized Notification settings for your Pages.

(Note: If your Graph Search suggestions don’t contain a particular category, simply enter the best keyword you can think of.)

You can use Graph Search to:

- Search keywords for your own or a competitor’s Page
- Geo-target (using hashtags or keywords) for a local business
- Find industry influencers and potential followers – using keywords
- Generally making your Facebook business presence more searchable, if you optimize your profile in a focused manner

Useful Links:

https://www.facebook.com/about/graphsearch — If you don’t yet have Graph Search and you are operating from an English-speaking country, click on this link, scroll down the page until you come to “Try Graph Search”. Press the button.

This also works if you are not sure if you have Graph Search yet. When you mouse-over the “Try Graph Search” button, a pop-over will tell you whether or not it is installed on your account:

https://www.facebook.com/about/graphsearch/privacy — More complete instructions on how to optimize your privacy settings. (Keep in mind that Facebook’s goal is always to get you to share as much as possible!)

Conclusion:

Facebook is evolving and changing almost as much as mobile use and technology in general are evolving and changing.

What seems clear is that Facebook is actively doing its best to please both business and personal users – with the edge shifting towards business users (potential advertisers).

Follow Facebook’s official blog, AllFacebook.com, to keep on top of changes in functionality and find new ways to boost your business research.

Getting Trendy With Twitter Promoted Trends

by Nicole Munoz

Promoted Trends is one of Twitter’s methods of advertising that allows you to advertise directly to twitter users’ homepages. Your ad will appear in the “Trending” area, with a “Promoted” box next to it to indicate that your trend is an ad, not an organic listing.

Unlike Promoted Tweets, Promoted Trends allow you to get your advertising message in front of your users without them having to type in a specific search message.

This can result in a massive infusion of impressions, user activity and engagement.

Here we’ll talk about how trends work, how Promoted Trends work, who initial advertisers are and what their results were and finally how much it costs to use Promoted Trends.

HOW TWITTER TRENDS (UNPAID) NORMALLY WORK

Twitter has developed a proprietary algorithm that ranks the most talked about topics and displays them on the front page of all its users.

The algorithm takes into account impressions, retweets and general activity and looks for tweets that are getting more popular at a rapid pace. It also filters out topics that people are likely not to be interested in. For example, if the teenage population suddenly got interested in Justin Beiber’s new album, you may not necessarily hear about it because Twitter will filter it out.

Here’s how the Twitter trending topics normally looks like:

The trending topics are located just below the “Who to follow” on the right hand side.

HOW PROMOTED TRENDS WORKS

Promoted Trends allows you to pay for a placement where the trending topics appear. Your ad will also appear as a Promoted Tweet along the top of the results.

Here’s an example of how your Promoted Trend might look:

Courtesy of Twitter Business

WHO HAS USED PROMOTED TRENDS AND WHAT WERE THEIR RESULTS

Pixar was the first company to use Promoted Trends to advertise on Twitter. They used it to promote their Toys Story 3 movie release.

Coca Cola was the second company. During the World Cup, Coca Cola advertised #WC2010 as their Promoted Trend.

They got 86 million impressions within that one day. Their estimated ad spend was in the high tens of thousands. For Coca Cola, spending a few tens of thousands to get 86 million impressions was a very successful outcome.

THEMING ADVERTISING TO TOPICS

One of the most powerful things about Promoted Trends is that your advertising is being tied to a current event or a topic that people are interested in.

For example, Coca Cola would have never gotten as much of a response as it did if they hadn’t picked the World Cup as the time to advertise. Twitter users flooded to the site to tweet about the World Cup and Coca Cola took advantage of that brilliantly.

What could you hitch your business on to? What are current events or events happening in the near future that your business could hightail on to with a Promoted Trend?

HOW MUCH DOES IT COST AND HOW TO GET STARTED

In 2010, a day of Promoted Trends was estimated to cost around $70,000 to $80,000. Today the cost is estimated at around $200,000, according to CNET (report here).

While the price is steep for small advertisers, it’s important to remember that your ad will be shown to almost Twitter’s entire database. This kind of exposure is extremely difficult to get anywhere, especially with a brand as trusted as Twitter.

To apply to become a Promoted Trend advertiser, visit:

http://business.twitter.com/advertise/start

All About Hashtags

by Nicole Munoz

One thing is certain: the internet world is constantly changing. This is the challenge for those of us who make a living utilizing its power. But as we keep up with the latest trends, we can come across interesting ways to capitalize on the social media front.

One example of change on the web is Twitter. Seemingly, this social site came out of nowhere and jetted right to the top of the popularity list. There are all sorts of people on Twitter, tweeting about anything and everything that comes to their minds. While many Tweeters are there strictly for social purposes, there seems to be a strong emergence of business people treading their way through the Twitterdom.

Hashtags were created to create groupings within the site; an organizational tool of sorts. They are a popular way of getting focused attention to your Tweets. Additionally, you can search hashtags to find tweets that are relevant to research you may be conducting, or just relevant to what you want to know about. For instance, if one would like to find tweets relating to article marketing, you can perform a twitter search for all tweets specific to that by searching “#article marketing”.

If you look further into the use of hashtags, you will discover that they have somewhat of a limited fan base at the moment. While their was a surge in popularity for a time, as well as a usefulness, overuse by some has caused popularity to wane. During the 2007 San Diego wildfires, hashtag use was instrumental in alerting the public to current events. They also were used as a call to action on the part of emergency services. This shows just how useful hashtags can be.

When considering the use of hashtags in your Tweets, it may be worth the time to perform a bit of research to see if your particular keyword is already being used in a hashtag thread. As you use hashtags, the key is to use them sparingly and to use them when you really want something to be followed. By looking around a little bit on Twitter, it is easy to find users who hashtag just about every Tweet they type. Really, nobody wants to read “I had the most amazing #chocolate #milkshake from #Carl’s Jr. today!”
Remember, Twitter asks a simple question: “What are you doing?” Answer the question; use natural keywords, use hashtags sparingly when you really want to drive home a point or call attention to something. Some of the things that hashtags are good for are emergency situations or natural disasters, as proved in 2007. Hashtags can also be used when tweeting quotes from others. “Highly developed spirits often encounter resistance from mediocre minds.”~Albert Einstein #quote
Hashtags may have their place, but Twitter IS a social media site directed at fulfilling peoples’ curiosity about one another in the here and now. Part of using social media in your business is to gain visibility…and familiarity. Overuse of hashtags can make your posts seem aimed not at the individual, but at the inner workings of the site itself.

Don’t lose sight of the other benefits of social media marketing. Pairing high touch with high tech is the way to build an enormous following. Hashtags, used sparingly, can be a part of your Twitter life, but shouldn’t take over the personal touch.

All About Hashtags

by Nicole Munoz