How To Get More Subscribers On YouTube

12 Most Wise Ways to Use Twitter

Twitter started in 2007 and has grown into a massive social platform. Whether you’re a new user or a seasoned tweeter, these questions can help get your Twitter account in shape. Beware of social media “experts” who tell you that you’re using Twitter or social media wrong. Don’t let bossy platitudes scare you off from having a great Twitter experience that fits your needs. Your goal should be to create your own Twitter style and presence — seek to be original and create something that is really you. This is your Twitter account. As Tim Gunn says, “make it work.”

I want to share some best practices for you to incorporate into your Twitter activity. These are things that I use on a daily basis that have helped me connect with others and grow my social media following as well as my company’s and other accounts that I manage. These are meant to be suggestions for you to use to build your own strong Twitter presence.

1. Is your profile photo a good representation and resolution?

If you are an individual, you should have a photo for your profile. People connect with other people, not logos.

If you’re representing a brand or company, of course you’ll have a logo. Bring in some human element to your Twitter account by listing the name of who tweets or using the tweeter’s initials with a carrot like this ^pf to show that there’s a person behind the brand.

2. Are you maximizing your bio with links?

You can put a link in the bio text and the spot provided for a website.

3. Is your bio interesting enough for people to hit follow?

I know it’s tough to write something great in 120 characters but you can do it! I would avoid using too many hashtags in your bio since they aren’t very personal. Include a few keywords naturally into your text that represent who you are. Writer? Cupcake baker? Book reviewer? These are terms that people may search for on Twitter and find you if you have them in your bio.

4. Are you tweeting on a regular basis?

Look at Twitter as part of your social media garden. If you aren’t watering and feeding your Twitter account, it will wither and die. A common complaint new people have about social media is that it doesn’t work when the problem is that they aren’t active on social media and it’s their own accounts that have died on the vine. Social media is buzzing along daily, you need to take the time to be active to make it work for you.

5. Are you tweeting in a smart way by spacing your tweets out?

Use Buffer to create a Twitter schedule. Buffer is a website that allows you to add your social media content and schedule for certain times during the day instead of tweeting five or ten times in a row when you have fifteen minutes to go on Twitter and then nothing for the rest of the day. By using Buffer, you can create a well-balanced Twitter stream as well as view analytics on past Twitter activity.

Buffer “analyzed a million Tweets to find out when most clicks and retweets are happening. We found that between 8am and 8pm, a daily set of well spaced out Tweets can give you up to 200% more clicks on Tweets.

So, next to being smart with timing, three key things triggered more retweets for our users:

• A higher frequency of tweets: Posting 5-10/day will gradually drive more retweets for your account.
• A higher consistency of tweets: If you can get into a routine of posting great content tweets every day, retweet rate also shot up.
• A great variety of destinations: Try to post to different sources and not just your own blog, to see better results.”

6. Are you tweeting at the right times?

Use SocialBro to create a “best times to tweet report” and send this to Buffer. Also, you can schedule tweets at a certain time in Buffer and Twitter.

7. Are you responding to your mentions?

No brainer, right? But are you? If you are going to be on Twitter in small chunks of time throughout the day, you can respond to tweets that you’ve received and schedule the responses to go out in intervals instead of a big batch, this makes for a nice stream of tweets for people that look to see what you’ve tweeted lately.

8. Are you tweeting images with some of your tweets?

Tweets with images received 150% more retweets! An image ratio of 2:1 works best for the images on Twitter for the full image to show on the tweet. I’m testing that out at 876 x 438 pixels. See the tweet below — looks great, right?

9. Find interesting content to share that is relevant for your industry

Social media is all about what you share and you want this to represent you but not only you. You’ll want to share 80% or more of your content on Twitter from other people. So if you tweet 10 links today, they should not all be about your blog, book, or company. Sprinkle in a few things about what you do and who you are.

Check out 12 Most Useful Sources for Good Stuff to Post

10. Are your tweets clever enough to grab someone’s attention on fast-paced Twitter?

Mix up your Twitter feed with replies to others and new tweets sharing interesting information and mentions to people who you’d like to speak with. Ideally, you’ll have a mix of tweets with links, tweets with photos and links, and conversational tweets with others.

Strive not to have all links or all tweets saying “thanks for the retweet” or “please buy my book.”

11. Are you embedding your tweets into blog posts to bring attention back to your Twitter account?

A simple tweet could spark a blog post for you and bringing the original tweet or collection of tweets to your blog is interesting and social media savvy. See #9.

12. Are you using Twitter lists to keep your time on Twitter efficient?

Creating lists helps you find the people and content that you want quickly.

Read more: HOW TO: Use Twitter Lists

I hope you found a few ideas to refresh your Twitter feed and boost your time on Twitter. It’s a fantastic place to connect with smart people in your industry or just to have a quick conversation.

How do you like to use Twitter?  Read more here:

http://12most.com/2013/12/24/12-wise-ways-twitter/

2014 Online Marketing Trends

Photos in direct messages and swipe between timelines

Every day, people come to Twitter to find out what’s happening in the world and talk about it. Today, we’re updating our mobile apps to make this even easier.

Now you can send and receive photos via direct messages and swipe back and forth between timelines.Tweet

Direct messages: Now with photos

For the first time, you can share and view photos via direct message (DM) on your mobile phone. We’ve also introduced a new tab in the navigation bar that makes it easy to access DMs –– they’re just one tap away from wherever you are on Twitter. You can also view photos in DMs on twitter.com.

Swipe to discover what’s happening

Now you can swipe from your Home timeline to the Discover timeline to find trends, popular Tweets and new accounts tailored for you, and then swipe to your Activity timeline to see Tweets and accounts that are popular among people you follow.

There are a bunch of other great updates in this release. For example, on Twitter for iOS, new in-app notifications show you when people send you a DM or favorite, retweet and reply to your Tweets. And on Twitter for Android, you can easily turn on mobile notifications for specific users by tapping the star on their profile.

Download Twitter for Android or Twitter for iPhone to check out these new features, and keep an eye on @twittermobile for more tips and updates.

https://blog.twitter.com/2013/photos-in-direct-messages-and-swipe-between-timelines

The Future of Online Digital Marketing 2012 -2015

The Top 7 Online Marketing Trends That Will Dominate 2014

The Internet has drastically altered the way in which information is shared, and has had a profound impact on marketing. Over the past few years, there has been more of a shift toward inbound techniques, while many outbound tactics have become antiquated. More businesses are finding success publishing original content rather than embedding advertisements within external content, because of the additional benefits these tactics offer, such as branding and audience growth.

With these trends in mind, let’s discuss my predictions for the top online marketing trends of 2014.

1.      Content Marketing Will be Bigger Than Ever

One of the main ways that companies are establishing authority and gaining trust with consumers is by consistently creating valuable content through a variety of channels. This typically involves relevant industry information that provides insight or entertainment to an audience. Doing so allows a company to steadily build rapport with its demographic and develop a loyal following. According to the Content Marketing Institute, the top B2B content marketing strategies are social media, articles on a business’s website, eNewsletters, case studies, videos and articles on other websites.

By using one or more of these channels, businesses are able to build a positive reputation within their industry. This trend suggests that marketing to the masses through techniques like television ads and radio ads are becoming less effective. Instead, it’s better to concentrate on inbound marketing, by producing valuable, engaging content designed for a specific audience. For help designing your content marketing strategy, see my articles “11 Places to Find Awesome Content Marketing Ideas,” and “How to Build a Kickass Content Strategy.”

2.      Social Media Marketing Will Require More Diversity

Just a few years ago, businesses were limited with regard to the social media networks they could implement into their marketing campaigns, with the biggies including Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Now, it seems like new social media sites are appearing all the time. While some never really get off the ground, others like Pinterest, Google+, Tumblr and Instagram have surged in popularity and have provided businesses with a plethora of new options that allow them to produce engaging content in a variety of media forms and build their audiences across more channels than ever before.

Consequently, it has become common for businesses to branch out and experiment with multiple networks with the aim of reaching the maximum amount of consumers. This diversification seems to prove fruitful for many companies because it often builds brand equity by making it easier for consumers to recognize a particular brand. For help figuring out which social media networks are right for your business, see my article “How to Determine Which Social Media Network Fits Your Business.”

3.      Image-Centric Content Will Rule

As consumers are hit with an increasing number of advertisements, it’s becoming more important to make content easily and quickly digestible. If you look at the social media sites I mentioned previously that are on the rise, three of the four have a common characteristic…they place an emphasis on images. The rapid rise to success of Buzzfeed and Pinterest are testaments to the power and viral potential of image-based content.

Successful blog posts that receive the most social shares also usually have a common characteristic: they pepper in some well-placed pictures to break content up and emphasize certain points. Another example is infographics, which combine images with a minimal amount of text to explain a topic and provide statistical information or data from research studies.

While I doubt that traditional text-based content will ever completely go out of style, it’s pretty clear that incorporating images is beneficial to a marketing campaign.

For more information about using Image-based social media networks in your online marketing initiative, I recommend the following articles:

• How to Use Pinterest in Your Online Marketing Initiative
• Visual Micro-Sharing Platforms: The Next Big Time in Social Media Marketing?
• The Power of Images in Social Media Marketing

4.      Less Will be More

One notable trend is the apparent shift in consumer preference regarding simplistic marketing messages instead of in-depth messages. When you think about some of the top brands in the world like Apple and Google, they clearly value simplicity. A large part of Pinterest’s appeal is its clean, uncluttered, and minimalist aesthetic.

With many consumers feeling burned out by a constant barrage of information and advertisements that scream “look at me”, some of the most innovative marketers are going the opposite direction. The’re now making efforts to tone-down their campaign messages and not overwhelm consumers with hype.

Perhaps an article by Forbes said it best: “there is a sense that from the hyper-connectivity of our highly-digitized lives to the bright, flashy, complicated sensory input we’re fed everyday, there is no way to continue at this pace. As a result, 2013 is likely to be a year where the most successful marketing strategies will be ones that are not only simple in nature, but promote goods and services that serve to simplify the consumer’s life, or even just their customer experience.”

5.      Mobile-Friendly Content Will Be Necessary

Due to the widespread (and quickly growing) use of smartphones and tablets, it’s necessary for companies to create content that’s accessible to mobile users. According to Forbes, “87% of connected devices sales by 2017 will be tablets and smartphones.” Whether it’s creating an alternate mobile version of a website or utilizing responsive web design, it’s important to provide a positive experience to users that are browsing via a mobile device.

Otherwise, it’s easy to lose customers to competitors who have adapted to this trend. As the shift from traditional PCs and laptops to mobile devices continues, businesses that aren’t onboard are likely to suffer.

6.      Ad Retargeting Will Grow in Effectiveness

This is a marketing strategy that has really caught on recently. In a nutshell, it works by utilizing browser cookies to track the websites that users visit. Once they leave a certain site, the products or services they viewed will be shown to them again in advertisements across different websites.

It’s fairly obvious as to why this technique can be so effective. With only two percent of web traffic converting on the first visit, ad retargeting works to increase the overall conversion rate by reminding consumers of the product or service they viewed. This keeps the brand and the product at the top of the consumer’s mind. There are even psychological studies that have shown that simple exposure to brand names and logos creates familiarity, which builds trust and makes consumers more likely to make a purchase.

Even if there’s no immediate purchase, this can really pay off in the long run. Due to the success that many marketers have had with ad retargeting, there’s a good chance that it will become more mainstream in 2014.

7.      SEO and Social Signals Will Become Even More Intertwined

Although social signals still don’t typically carry the same weight as traditional inbound links, it’s pretty undeniable that they play a role in organic search rankings these days. After all, they’re one of the three pillars of SEO. Since the goal of Google and other search engines is to provide users with the most relevant and highest quality content possible, it makes sense why they would factor in the number of social shares that a blog post, article or product page receives.

The more people that are sharing a piece of content, the higher quality it’s likely to be, and therefore its position should increase within the search engine results pages. It’s no coincidence that the top-ranking search results tends to have lots of social shares, while those ranked lower have fewer.

Besides this, social shares can serve as a stamp of approval (ie, a trust signal) for visitors landing on a page. If they see that it has hundreds or thousands of shares, it’s likely that there’s something of value. That’s a big reason why so many businesses are installing social share plugins and encouraging consumers to share as much as possible.

While it’s difficult to predict algorithms will evolve in the future, there’s a reasonable chance that social shares will match or even outweigh traditional inbound links by the end of 2014. For more information on how SEO and social media are becoming intertwined, see my article “How to Integrate Social MediaWith Your SEO Campaign.”

Conclusion

There you have it, my predictions for the top seven online marketing trends of 2014. Did I miss anything? What do you think about my predictions? Leave a comment and let me know!

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jaysondemers/2013/09/17/the-top-7-online-marketing-trends-that-will-dominate-2014/

Internet-Free Twitter Service Coming to International Markets

Twitter will soon be available to some international mobile users without Internet access,according to Reuters.

Twitter is partnering with U2opia, a Singapore-based mobile applications provider, to bring aspects of its Twitter service to users on phones that don't have Internet capabilities. Users will need to type in a short code and will then have access to trending topics on Twitter from their respective areas.

A Twitter spokesperson confirmed the partnership to Mashable but did not comment on how many international users will have access to the new service. According to Reuters, users will only have access to trending topics, meaning the majority of tweets will not be viewable. It does not appear users will be able to send tweets using U2opia's application.

Facebook has a similar partnership with U2opia, as does Google Talk. Fonetwish, the company's product that allows users to access Facebook (and soon Twitter) without the Internet, only works with text-based messages, meaning pictures and videos won't be viewable. U2opia claims that more than half a million users from around the world access Facebook each month without Internet.

U2opia did not immediately respond to Mashable's request for comment.

Twitter has more than 218 million users worldwide, almost 80% of which reside outside the United States. Much like Facebook plans to add its next billion users from emerging markets like South America and Asia, Twitter hopes to do the same.

In Twitter's S-1, which was filed ahead of its IPO in early November, the company listed a handful of foreign countries as targets for increased user growth. Markets like Argentina and South Africa were highlighted as areas where user growth should, and most likely will, eclipse growth from the United States. Making even parts of the service available to users with older phones is a step toward accomplishing that.

The new Internet-free version of Twitter will be available in Q1 of 2014, according to Reuters. Read more here:

http://mashable.com/2013/12/06/internet-free-twitter/

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