Central Perk

miercuri, 4 septembrie 2013

17 Tactics for More Twitter Followers (And Two New Followerwonk Features to Help!)

Posted: 03 Sep 2013 04:19 PM PDT

Let's talk turkey! And by "turkey" I mean "followers." And by "talk" I mean "get more!"

To start, put aside those quaint olden-times notions that seeking more followers is unsavory. Heck, even Twitter promotes their tools as means to quickly get more:

Of course, the early days of Twitter were very different than today. Back then, there were all sorts of spammy ways to get followers. Perhaps it is the hangover from those days that makes people queasy when thinking of "techniques" to get followers.

Nowadays, though, Twitter has clamped down hard. Spammy techniques will get you banished quickly. And most of those old grey-hat methods don't even work: Twitter has radically limited how many people you can follow, as well as how many you can follow each hour.

You might ask, why do I want more followers anyway? Twitter does little for SEO (at least not directly). And followers are just chaff that don't listen to me anyway (maybe so).

Well, I don't want to get into a whole sales pitch for social media generally, but a few points stand out:

Twitter is a lightweight, frictionless, and serendipitous way to engage customers. It doesn't require an email blast or the customer actively visiting your site. Once they follow you, they'll encounter you on their timeline during the normal course of their social experience. The little pings and pops you'll have with them accrue tremendous value.
Your follower count is a good measure of your influence, and other people see it as such. The more followers you have, the more you'll attract, and the more you can use your influence to drive customers, conversations, and engagement.
The more you are followed, the more likely you will appear in the "Who to follow" Twitter promotion on the left hand side of Twitter.com.

With those in mind, let's dive into the tactics. I also want to use this tips-and-tricks excursion to highlight two awesome new Followerwonk features.

Tactic 1: Tweet when your followers are online

Followerwonk's analysis feature helps you do exactly this. You can quickly see when your friends (people you follow) or your followers are online.

Our integration with Buffer really streamlines the process to queue tweets when your followers are fully engaged.

A new chart we've added helps you even more:

Here, we highlight when my followers are most active (top chart) with when I'm tweeting (bottom chart). (Sigh, as you can see, I do a terrible job of matching my tweets to my followers.) Do this every week or so, and try to adjust your tweeting so the two charts closely match.

Tactic 2: Initiate conversations

If you go to Followerwonk right now, you can search for key terms in your industry or do a comparison of competitors' followers. Take a look at the resulting users, then sort them by Social Authority. Find those that have the highest @response rate and engage with them!

But you can take it one step further with our new filter feature:

Yep, now Pro users can quickly filter any list of users by their relationships with those people. You'll be able to quickly find:

Those people who are following you but whom you're not following back
Those people whom you follow but who don't follow you back
Those with whom you have a reciprocal relationship (you follow each other)
Those with whom you have no relationship

This way, you can quickly search for any term in your industry and surface a list of users with different types of relationships.

This is helpful when considering the type of engagement to initiate. If they follow you (and you don't follow them), well, you can more personably address them? No relationship? Then perhaps a responsible @reply to one of their queries? In short, take advantage of the relationships you have right now. And carefully build new conversations with those you don't.

After all, the more back-and-forth engagement you have with superstars (or even semi-superstars) in your industry, the more you'll get others in the field to follow you.

Tactic 3: Use content as incentive

Of course it's not always easy to get others' attention. But if you produce good content, you can use that as a way to start conversations with experts on Twitter.

In any blog post, for example, you can directly include significant users' tweets (or quotes or blog elements). Reach out to each of them on Twitter. Invite their comments, or solicit retweets. Did they respond or retweet? Great! Include them again in another blog post in a few weeks and repeat.

Tactic 4: Continue the conversation

Don't just reply and let that end. Keep the conversation going as much as possible, particularly with positive customers. Close with a question. And with a positive response, reinforce that behavior with a retweet.

You want your Twitter handle in circulation as much as possible. The more others are talking about you, the more likely their friends will take a peek at what you're about. Here's a great example from @windows in an otherwise humdrum tech support back-and-forth:

@petebray Thanks for the kudos, Peter! The ability to edit PDF's has been a major hit. Have you already edited your first PDF?
â€" Office (@Office) August 23, 2013

And, you know what, it worked. Here's my response.

@Office yep, I sure have. Question: is there a way 2 turn off the status bar at bottom of Outlook? It's such a vibrant blue it's distracting
â€" peter bray (@petebray) August 23, 2013

They succeeded in prompting me to continue the conversation, ricocheting their name and message around my network.

Tactic 5: Have many more followers than friends

For many, a sure sign of a spam or an otherwise suspect account are those who have a large number of followers and a large number of friends. It suggests the person's followers are largely a result of following in anticipation of a followback.

But it's more than that. Even if you have only 100 followers, if you only follow 10, that ratio suggests you're more compelling than those with an equal number. So, always keep an eye on your ratio. It has practical benefits, too: You won't be able to follow over 2,000 people (not that you ever want to approach that many) unless you have a very healthy ratio.

Tactic 6: Make your profile and recent tweets compelling

Look carefully at how you will appear to most people on Twitter. They may see you @mentioned or RTed by others. And they may wonder who you are. So they'll click on your name and see this little preview. (Note that on mobile the profile they'll see is even more scant.)

Everyone who previews you will see your four most recent tweets. Remember, @mention tweets (those where you are engaging with others) are of little value except to those with whom you're engaging. As such, try not to exceed a string of four @mention tweets in a row. You always want a non-@mention tweet with unique, compelling content to serve as a follow-attractant to those previewing your profile.

Note, too, the value of having a lot of relationships. The more you have, the more likely you will have implicit "recommendations" when someone views your profile.

Tactic 7: Every tweet has a larger audience than you think (so fill in the gaps)

Engaging with others is a vital part of Twitter (duh). But @mentions are roadblocks to anyone viewing your profile (except the person at the other end of the mention). For third party viewers, it can be like listening to one half of a phone conversation. So, from time to time, provide strategic retweets of the person you're engaging with as a means to provide narrative for third-parties.

Tactic 8: Track your churn

Did you know that in Followerwonk we track every person that unfollows you? Yep, we do (Pro only).

Look carefully at who you're losing. Sort the list of unfollowers by influence and follower count. Are you losing any big names? On what day? Go and look at that day and see what you did that might have driven them away.

Tactic 9: Don't blindly follow back

Remember, you want a compelling follower to friend ratio. Your default should be not to return follow, except for those whose content you're truly interested in. These new followers are "in the bag" and there's no value, from a follower growth perspective, in reciprocating.

Tactic 10: Prune, prune, prune

On a similar note, get rid of the dead weight that you're probably already following right now.

Do an analysis of your account. Scroll down and find the list of "recencies of tweets" of your followers and the people you're following. Ask yourself, "why am I still following people who haven't tweeted in 2 years?" Unfollow them. What about those tweeting in a language you don't speak? Unfollow. Or what about those who themselves are following 1000s of people? Do you think they're really reading your tweets? Consider them, too, as good unfollow candidates.

Go to the "Sort" page where you can view all your followers. Use the awesome new filters to view those users you follow but who don't follow you back. Are those one-directional relationships worth it? If not, unfollow them.

Tactic 11: Follow with a purpose

You want to be part of a bright constellation of like-minded people in your industry, not part of a mishmash nebula. Why? Because Twitter's sidebar recommendations for who to follow are very much based on groupings of interconnected people. As such, your follows should be both strategic and designed to elicit follow backs.

So, go to Followerwonk. Search for your industry. Compare your competitors, and sort by influence. Don't follow those with only a handful of friends (and who have many thousands of followers). Look for those with a relatively equal number of friends and followers. This suggests they'll likely follow you back.

Also, look for those with high engagement rates. Check their tweets. Look good? Follow them.

Tactic 12: Super-engage those super-important

Remember, most engagements with others are recorded on those users' Twitter timelines, and those timelines (for many of us) are checked religiously.

So, for those folks with whom you really, really want a relationship, don't just @mention them. Go the whole nine yards. Follow them, RT one of their tweets, favorite one, and @mention them. It's exuberant engagement like this that gets noticed, and stands a better chance of getting you on their radar. (Of course, if you get no response, don't keep pestering.)

Tactic 13: Track your follow success

Just as you can track your unfollows in Followerwonk, you can also track everyone you follow (and whether they follow you back). This is great stuff.

Follow a bunch of people. Two weeks later, look at those follows in Followerwonk. How many now return follow?

What I suggest is setting up a series of experiments. One week, focus on following people you find by comparing competitors. Another week, focus on following people by analyzing a competitor's profile. Does one outperform the other in terms of follow backs? (If so, repeat that one!)

(We'll have more tools in Followerwonk soon to help you better track performance like this. Stay tuned.)

Tactic 14: Engage un-reciprocating friends in a timely fashion

So what to do about those you've followed who don't return follow? Consider a targeted engagement. Take a careful look at their use of Twitter.

Note, in this new Followerwonk chart in our Analyze feature, how, for any user, you can quickly assess when that user is tweeting.

Not only that, but we also highlight the types of tweets they're making at certain hours. Perhaps during the early morning, for example, they're doing most of their @mentions (a great time to reach them, then); while the afternoons are dedicated to retweets.

You can use this data to help plan a campaign around especially important Twitter users, but it's also very helpful for non-VIPs.

Tactic 15: Carefully purge

Look, it's a messy subject: the idea of following someone and then unfollowing them later. And by no means do I propose that as your bread and butter.

But the simple fact is humans live on reciprocal relationships. I extend my hand, you extend yoursâ€¦ or else I'm gonna retract mine!

As such, there's nothing wrong with prudent unfollowing of those who don't reciprocate your follow. But give them time, and use Followerwonk to help understand the full history of your relationship with them before you walk away.

Tactic 16: Tweet frequently, but not too frequently

Make a concerted effort to generate new, unique, and compelling content on a daily basis. Don't just sit and respond, but actively create content. There are plenty of great Chrome (and Firefox) extensions to help make tweeting a less-intrusive part of your regular web browsing experience. Use them to make generating content a natural part of your day. You're going to attract very few followers without fresh, regular content.

On the other hand, don't go overboard. Space your tweets out, rather than clustering them all within a few minutes. (Buffer can really help you do this: we.) If you tweet more than a dozen or so times a day, you'll risk pushing people away.

Tactic 17: Respond as fast as you can

Unless I'm sleeping, I typically will read and respond to any tweet coming my way within minutes. (Try me out!) That's partly because all the various apps I have instantly alert me. I get emailed with @mentions, desktop alerts on Windows 8, and iPhone alerts, too.

A fast response ensures that you're catching the other person when they've got you on their mind. From there, it's more likely that you'll be able to continue the conversation. As I discussed, you want your name in circulation in Twitter as much as possible, because the more it is out there, the more others will stumble across it.

In the past few weeks, I've looked closely at how some of our "power users" utilize Followerwonk. Perhaps not surprisingly, they use the product to manage their Twitter relationships.

They use our search and comparison features to find potentially enriching new relationships, particularly with those likely to engage (or follow) back. And they use our track, and other tools, to understand the life history of those relationships: when they follow, when they can expect return follows, and what to do when the relationships just don't work out.

I hope I've provided a useful summary of that research above. We're particularly excited about the two new features that complement these relationship strategies: a new chart detailing when (and what) users tweet, and advanced filters for any list of users.

Stay tuned for more exciting things to come! (A hint: the ability to track competitors' relationships!)

And don't forget to follow me on Twitter!

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President Obama Arrives in Stockholm

Photo of the Day

President Obama Arrives in Stockholm

Today President Obama landed in Stockholm, Sweden where he'll highlight the close friendship and partnership we share. He'll also focus on our leadership together on issues such as trade and investment, advancing clean technologies and environmental sustainability -- and advancing opportunity and dignity for people around the world.

It's part of President Obama's G-20 Trip -- you can learn more about it here.

President Barack Obama talks with Foreign Minister Carl Bildt of Sweden during the arrival ceremony at Stockholm-Arlanda International Airport in Sweden, Sept. 4, 2013. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

Seth's Blog : The timing of El Greco

The timing of El Greco

The man who invented modern art lived two hundred years too early.

Look at some of his work. It's incredibly fresh and relevant. At the time (1600!), El Greco was a radical outlier, and his most impressionistic paintings didn't resonate... not with most of the market, nor with his peers. As a result, it wasn't until the 19th century that impressionistic paintings like his became the new 'ism'.

It's entirely possible that you're too soon. That your riffs, your book, your blog, your invention, your product are just so far ahead of the sync that you will not find the market acceptance you seek.

It's your fault, of course, because the market is the market. You can lead it, but you cannot force it to change.

Given the market you've got, are you just far enough ahead?

No one can doubt the genius of El Greco. But if you want impact, you need to go beyond genius and work on your timing.

Real change happens when we're in sync. Just a little bit ahead. Trusted and connected and leading. Too far ahead is a form of hiding.

[Please don't confuse "too far ahead" with bold, or daring. The real lesson of El Greco's timing is that for every person with the guts to be too far ahead, there are 10,000 who are too far behind. The worst thing you can do is decide that the lesson of El Greco is to back off and not be bold. Please don't!]

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marți, 3 septembrie 2013

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Future of Education is At Hand: Online, Accredited, Affordable, Useful

Posted: 03 Sep 2013 01:18 PM PDT

I have long been in the camp that the price of education is so expensive as to make college a poor choice for many who attend, and a downright bad choice for those who go heavily in debt for degrees in little demand.

The entire education system is and has been for some time unsustainable. The cost of education keeps rising along with ...

Government aid
Union contracts
Pension benefits
Salaries of coaches
Competition for the most elaborate dorms
Fundraising

Dylan Matthews at the Washington Post has a 10-part series called "The Tuition is Too Damn High". The first seven articles in the series are already available. Part-10 is the writer's proposed solution.

I have talked about most of the points above except point five. Matthews discusses "dorm competition" in Part VI — Why there's no reason for big universities to rein in spending.

Freddie de Boer is a grad student at Purdue University, one of Indiana's flagship public research institutions. Purdue has a new gym – excuse me, a new "sports center," the France A. Córdova Recreational Sports Center, to be exact. When de Boer went to check it out, he found treadmills that each featured a TV and an iPod dock, a bouldering wall and a 55-foot climbing wall, a spa with Jacuzzi function that can fit 26 people, six racquetball courts, and a "demonstration kitchen" for cooking lessons.

The Córdova Center wasn't an expense that needed to be paid for. It was an expense made because it could be made, because the nonprofit university rewards those who spend money, not those who save it.

I suggest the problem with the education system is largely that of government throwing more money at the problem. Just as hundreds of affordable housing programs raised (not lowered the price of homes), the same happened in the education system.

Throw in union graft, pensions, sports, and you have the problem in a nutshell. The solution is simple.

Three-Part Solutions

Stop all student aid programs
Increase competition via accredited online programs
End the preposterous pension plans of educators and administrators

Of my three proposals, number two above is now at hand, in the form of more accredited online education, at reputable institutions, giving advanced degrees at affordable prices.

The MOOC That Roared

Reader "Tom" pinged me today with this email:

Hi Mish,

I've read your thoughts and comments on higher education and the future of college degrees. I agree with most of your ideas, but I would have guessed we were 5-10 years away from some of that stuff. Nope. Georgia Tech has a Master's in Computer Science that is going to bust higher education wide open. Check it out:

Maybe I'll get that PhD after all.

Best.... Tom

Radical Change

Tom sent a link to a Slate article The MOOC That Roared, subtitled "How Georgia Tech's new, super-cheap online master's degree could radically change American higher education".

Georgia Institute of Technology is about to take a step that could set off a broad disruption in higher education: It's offering a new master's degree in computer science, delivered through a series of massive open online courses, or MOOCs, for $6,600.

The school's traditional on-campus computer science master's degree costs about $45,000 in tuition alone for out-of-state students (the majority) and $21,000 for Georgia residents. But in a few years, Georgia Tech believes that thousands of students from all over the world will enroll in the new program.

The $6,600 master's degree marks an attempt to realize the tantalizing promise of the MOOC movement: a great education, scaled up to the point where it can be delivered for a rock-bottom price. Until now, the nation's top universities have adopted a polite but distant approach toward MOOCs. The likes of Yale, Harvard, and Stanford have put many of their classes online for anyone to take, and for free. But there is no degree to be had, even for those who ace the courses.

George Washington University's online MBA Healthcare degree, for example, costs the same $1,485 per unit (52.5 units gets you to the finish line) as the standard program. The reasons for this are many, but perhaps the most important is that universities are terrified of debasing the value of their diplomas.

Drop the price of the online degree, the logic goes, and you could have a Napster-like moment sweeping college campuses. Revenues spiral down as degree programs are forced to compete on tuition. That's a terrifying prospect for universities, which have depended on steadily rising tuition—growing at more than twice the rate of inflation—to cover costs.

Georgia Tech's new program, though, throws a monkey wrench into the system by reordering the competitive landscape. U.S. News & World Report ranks the computer science department among the nation's top 10. The new degree—which is a partnership with MOOC pioneer Udacity—is intended to carry the same weight and prestige as the one it awards students in its regular on-campus program.

Uncharted Territory

Someone at Georgia Tech is thinking, and that person is Zvi Galil, the head of Georgia Tech's school of computing.

"This is uncharted territory," he says. But, he warns, if Georgia Tech doesn't do this someone else might come along and do it first—grabbing the notoriety, the students, and the revenue. "There is a revolution. I want to lead it, not follow it".

As I have stated repeatedly, someone was bound to do this, and here we are. And it will not stop with advanced degrees, but rather spread like wildfire to lower degrees.

I have warned parents with kids in grade school to not lock in education costs at today's rates because I expected costs to come down. And they will, dramatically, within a few years.

Unfortunately, this will not do much for high school seniors right now. And it certainly will not do anything for those buried in student debt with no job and no way to pay it back.

But relief is coming for those still in grade school.

Welcome Deflationary Event

College dorms will be for kids of the wealthy, but even then, expect costs to mitigate somewhat when parents decide there is no extra "value" in spending an additional $40,000 a year for education.

Yes, this is a deflationary event, and one that everyone will welcome (except those who benefit from the current system of waste and graft).

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

Exploring the Impossible: India Seeks to Expand Trade in Rupees; India Stock Market Sinks; Rupee Decline Continues

Posted: 03 Sep 2013 10:26 AM PDT

The desperate act of the day comes from Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid who says India Looking to Expand Rupee-Payment System.

India is exploring possibilities of a rupee-based trade-payment mechanism with several countries, Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid said Tuesday, a move that may help stabilize the local currency and reduce the country's current-account deficit.

India already has a rupee-based payment mechanism with Iran, which was worked out by New Delhi and Tehran to skirt Western sanctions against Iran. Under that, Iranian oil would be purchased with Indian rupees, which Iran would use to buy Indian goods, which include food, drugs, consumer products and auto parts.

India imports more than three-fourths of the crude oil it requires and a depreciating rupee has increased its energy costs in the local currency, adding to the government's fuel subsidies. The Indian rupee has fallen nearly 20% against the U.S. dollar since early May.

"Our commerce [trade] minister is in touch with many countries. Let's see where it is possible," Mr. Khurshid told reporters here. "If it is possible, than it would be of help to us right now," he added.

Exploring the Impossible

The only reason Iran accepts Rupees is because of embargoes by the US and Europe on trade with Iran. As a result, Iran is shut off from trade in dollars and euros, and in a desperate move of its own is willing to accept rupees.

No one else wants the damn things including India citizens who would rather own gold. See India in Serious Trouble (and Gold at the Heart of It).

Such reality does not stop foreign ministers from exploring the impossible, and wasting more time in the process.

The real world does not stop on such foolishness. For more on the real world, please see DeLong-in-Wonderland.

Also note the Rupee itself.

Rupee vs. US Dollar

The Rupee has declined 35% against the US dollar since July 2011.

Asia Pacific Stock Market

BSE is the India stock market.

That India's Foreign Minister is on a mission to explore the impossible is sure sign that desperation has set in, and India has no idea what to do.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

Damn Cool Pics

Sexy Girls of Monster Energy
Frank Zane - 1972 vs 2012
The Most Expensive Sunset Strip Home
50 Things a Geek Should Know [Infographic]

Sexy Girls of Monster Energy

Posted: 03 Sep 2013 12:25 PM PDT

Frank Zane - 1972 vs 2012

Posted: 03 Sep 2013 11:21 AM PDT

Frank Zane (born June 28, 1942 in Kingston, Pennsylvania) is an American former professional bodybuilder and teacher.

1972

2006

2007

2012

The Most Expensive Sunset Strip Home

Posted: 03 Sep 2013 10:51 AM PDT

The most expensive house on the Sunset Strip has 8 bedrooms and 9 bathrooms. It's located at 1232 Sunset Plaza Dr. It's on sale for $28.8 million.

Via theagencyre

50 Things a Geek Should Know [Infographic]

Posted: 03 Sep 2013 08:49 AM PDT

Remember that time when geeks were the ones that always got stuck in their lockers at school? That really changed… However, even today not everyone is a real geek, so take this test and find out who's the winner of this "geekathon".

Click on Image to Enlarge.

Courtesy of: VirtualHosting.com

miercuri, 4 septembrie 2013

17 Tactics for More Twitter Followers (And Two New Followerwonk Features to Help!)

17 Tactics for More Twitter Followers (And Two New Followerwonk Features to Help!)

Tactic 1: Tweet when your followers are online

Tactic 2: Initiate conversations

Tactic 3: Use content as incentive

Tactic 4: Continue the conversation

Tactic 5: Have many more followers than friends

Tactic 6: Make your profile and recent tweets compelling

Tactic 7: Every tweet has a larger audience than you think (so fill in the gaps)

Tactic 8: Track your churn

Tactic 9: Don't blindly follow back

Tactic 10: Prune, prune, prune

Tactic 11: Follow with a purpose

Tactic 12: Super-engage those super-important

Tactic 13: Track your follow success

Tactic 14: Engage un-reciprocating friends in a timely fashion

Tactic 15: Carefully purge

Tactic 16: Tweet frequently, but not too frequently

Tactic 17: Respond as fast as you can

President Obama Arrives in Stockholm

Seth's Blog : The timing of El Greco

The timing of El Greco

More Recent Articles

marți, 3 septembrie 2013

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Damn Cool Pics

Damn Cool Pics

Pagini

Persoane interesate

Arhivă blog

miercuri, 4 septembrie 2013

Tactic 1: Tweet when your followers are online

Tactic 2: Initiate conversations

Tactic 3: Use content as incentive

Tactic 4: Continue the conversation

Tactic 5: Have many more followers than friends

Tactic 6: Make your profile and recent tweets compelling

Tactic 7: Every tweet has a larger audience than you think (so fill in the gaps)

Tactic 8: Track your churn

Tactic 9: Don't blindly follow back

Tactic 10: Prune, prune, prune

Tactic 11: Follow with a purpose

Tactic 12: Super-engage those super-important

Tactic 13: Track your follow success

Tactic 14: Engage un-reciprocating friends in a timely fashion

Tactic 15: Carefully purge

Tactic 16: Tweet frequently, but not too frequently

Tactic 17: Respond as fast as you can

More Recent Articles

marți, 3 septembrie 2013

Pagini

Persoane interesate

Arhivă blog

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