5 Ways Marketers Can Use Twitter Lists

I subscribe to some great MediaPost publications and a favorite columnist of mine is David Berkowitz, one of the authors of the Social Media Insider newsletter. Today he wrote a great article about Twitter lists called Make A Twitter List and Check it Twice. Those of us using Tweetdeck or Seesmic Desktop have been making lists for a while (also called Groups), but Twitter now enables lists on its site and has added the ability to share and monitor them, which is very useful. While the whole article was valuable, he offered five powerful ways marketers can use lists:

1) Aggregate multiple professional accounts

If you have several faces of your business on Twitter. It's a natural for businesses like Comcast, which has a number of customer service representatives on Twitter, or Zappos, which has hundreds of employees tweeting. This can also work well for a company like Walmart that has a section on its site with all of its Twitter handles. A newspaper can bring together all of its reporters, or a packaged goods conglomerate can compile all of its brands in lists. Even if these lists don't bring in millions of new consumers or clients as followers, they may be useful for important constituents such as reporters, investors, or employees.

2) Aggregate passionate consumers

If you run a TV show, make a list of tweeters who love talking about every last plot twist. If you're a travel company, consider making lists of some of the most vocal Twitter users in each city where you have a presence. If you're a product manager for a technology brand, pull together all your die-hard fans. At the very least, you'll make it easier for all of these influencers to find each other to expand the noise in your echo chamber. But packaged right, it could be a way to pull in new fans and show others how much passion there is for your brand beyond those on its payroll.

3) Be a resource

Make lists of the most knowledgeable people in your industry, whether they're colleagues, reporters, consumers, or even competitors. While my lists are a work in progress, I've added many friends and people I respect from other agencies to lists. Mostly this will be convenient for me, but I'm more than happy to make these lists public in case they're useful to others.

4) Monitor what lists you're on

And what lists include your competitors and peers. It's a way to gauge anecdotal brand perception. You can also find new people to follow this way.

5) Share lists beyond Twitter

It's going to take a while for lists to catch on beyond early adopters; this highly anticipated feature for die-hard tweeters may just be one more thing to learn for casual users. If you cater to early adopters, though, creating useful lists and sharing them in other channels like your site, email newsletters, or Facebook page should resonate.

Thanks, David!

Real-time social media counter

OK, this has got to be the coolest widget I have ever seen! Blogger Gary Hayes has created a continuously updating widget, which displays the real-time use and adoption of various social media platforms and applications. See how many blog postings were published in the last five seconds; how many people have joined Facebook; how much money has been spent on virtual goods; how many videos watched on YouTube; how many tweets sent via Twitter; etc.



Want this widget on your site? I got the code (and the description above) from Personalize Media.

Road tar is not a substitute for nail polish

Somehow, the freezing Colorado weather has me missing my childhood summers growing up on the Chesapeake bay. Then, out of nowhere, pops this memory- which I had NOT missed.


There were five of us kids and we lived in a very rural area of Maryland. The back-country roads were mostly black tar and they would get so hot in the summer the road tar would get hot and bubbly. We decided it would be fun to "paint" our fingernails and toenails with the black tar. We scraped the soft tar up and smeared it on all our nails (5 kids x 20 fingers/toes = 100 tar-covered nails). But the time we walked home, the tar had cooled and hardened. My mom was appalled/shocked/angry to say the least. She would not let us into the house until got it off. So we sat outside for hours with the hose trying to scrape, scrub, and wash the tar off our nails. As a reminder, road tar, by design, is meant to last a VERY LONG time. I don't recall how long it took to get it off, or even if we got it all off that day, but it sticks in my mind as a painful lesson for my siblings and I. I have never done it since :)

Note to marketers: Less talking, more listening

I'm often amazed at how many times I need to hear a message before it sinks in. In the marketing world, they say a person has to actually see your message at least six times or more before it motivates them to take action. When you are the one responsible for getting the message out those six times, its humbling to be reminded that listening is more important than talking.

My business partner, Rustin, and I have been working like crazy people for the past month building a new set of Premium features to help bloggers get more visibility for their blogs. We've sorted through hundreds of emails from users who write to us with suggestions, ideas, complaints, kudos, and "what ifs". Every time someone takes five minutes to write us an email or tweet us feedback, its like a gold nugget of insight. Making time to sort through this feedback is one way of listening. But listening is not a one time event. Its not like you can listen today and then say you're good for the rest of the month.

Our next step is to build the features we heard people wanted, give them back to users to play with and then ask "Is this what you wanted?". Its another way of asking "Did we hear you correctly?" After you do that, shut up and listen again. If we marketers would stay quiet long enough and tone down our urge to put thoughts in other people's heads, we might actually hear what they really want. Its way more efficient (and profitable) to give users what they really want instead of trying to convince them they want or need something you want them to want.

So we've had our listening hats on for weeks. We released the new set of Premium Features on Friday to our Community Leaders, a group of 30+ super-users who love our product and are opinionated about what makes them happy. The pickier the better, I say. We emailed, twittered, and talked on the phone. We walked through every screen and asked about icons, links, messaging and expectations. We made changes over the weekend and today we'll send our Premium features back out into the world to an even larger audience to try. This time, we're inviting our Facebook fans and a set of randomly selected users to give it a whirl.

Once we invite them to try it, I will bite my tongue and listen. If you teach your users that you are open to receiving criticism and feedback (and genuinely mean it), you will find a very willing audience of people eager to help make your product better. So stay tuned and I'll share how this next "wave" of features was received.

Note: Want to be one of the users to try our new Premium features early? Sign up here and let me know what you think. I promise I will listen :)

6 tips for getting your blog noticed

I read lots of social media blogs and participate in some great blogging communities and one of the most often-asked questions by bloggers is "How can I get more people to notice my blog?" While there are books and entire consulting business built around answering that question, there are definitely some basic, self-help tactics that can make a huge difference. I work with thousands of bloggers and here are six easy tips that seem to really help:

1. Twitter
If you are a blogger, it really pays to learn to love Twitter. Its a great way to share your new posts with a large audience and find other blogs to comment on. You can also search Twitter by topic (i.e. "teenagers" or "day care") and share your posts with people who are looking for info you might have blogged about.

2. Use Categories and Tag on your posts
Both Blogger and Wordpress let you add keywords to each post (and WP lets you add categories). Assigning a category to each post helps your readers find "buckets" of posts that were written about the same topic. If they liked your posts about "disciplining a toddler" or "getting toddlers to each vegetables", they might like your other posts about toddlers. Also, take a few moments with each post and think about what terms someone might type into Google. Adding those keywords helps search engines connect your blog with people who are looking for topics you've written about. Here's a great article from Problogger on Using Categories and Tags Effectively.

3. Comment on other posts
Not just a quick "hi - love your pics!" but a genuine, thoughtful comment that tells that blogger you really connected with their site and looked around. Your comment can add value to that bloggers post by providing even more info for their readers. Make your comment as interesting to read as the post.

4. Guest post on other blogs
Most sites and blogs are always looking for more content and posts. It gives the blog author a break for a day and exposes your writing to new readers. Its tempting to think that your efforts would be better spent on your own blog but giving to others ALWAYS comes back to you.

5. Link to bigger blogs
I'm not suggesting you go link-crazy but its helps your Google rankings when you link to larger blogs that have high "credibility" ratings with search engines. So if you are posting about something at Target, go ahead and hyperlink to their site. If you blogging about a product, store, celebrity, quoting from a news source, visiting a city - link to their site.

6. Add social tools to your blog such as BlogFrog
BlogFrog is a network of almost 20,000 bloggers who all link to one another via widgets. So when you visit a BlogFrog site, your blog actually shows up on their widget for ALL their readers to see. It drives reciprocal traffic. You can even add an instant community to your site that lets readers interact, which draws more traffic. (In the interest of full disclosure, I am one of the founders of BlogFrog. Members have shared many stories about how their traffic has increased after signing up for BlogFrog because more people were discovering their blogs so I thought it appropriate to share).

Just wanted to share some tips that bloggers I have worked with seem to really like. If you have tips or advice you'd like to share - please comment!

Is it healthy to let kids win at games?

I was playing chess with my teenager this week and it got me thinking about the many years we have spent playing games – chess, checkers, card games, Monopoly, Risk and dozens of others. When he was younger, I would often let him win and it got me thinking about the benefits and pitfalls of letting kids win at games.

Some experts claim that letting kids win at games gives them a false sense of confidence and undermines the natural process of dealing with failure. That letting kids win is essentially stealing a learning opportunity that would otherwise motivate them to strive to get better. “Throwing the game in the kid's favor is not a healthy way for him to learn about relating and playing well with others…” says Alyssa Giacobbe in her post Why I Never Let my Four Year Old Win at Games.

Others believe that letting younger kids win helps balance the intellectual inequality that clearly exists between parent and child. In games of skill and intellect, an adult win is hollow and only teaches kids that they can never win. In her iVillage.com post, Should You Let Kids Win at Games?, author Sarah Caron quotes Susan T. Howson, a professor of early childhood education at Ryerson University in Toronto. "Younger children often have a harder time losing a game and (associate) losing a game with not being good at anything. As self-esteem and self-confidence are developing, losing might be a hard thing to swallow." says Howson.

Whether or not letting kids win is a good thing depends on the awareness a parent brings to the decision. In her post Letting a Child Win, How Bad?, Sabrina Weill at ParentDish.com quotes some great points from Robert Schachter, a New York City-based psychologist and faculty member of Mount Sinai School of Medicine.

• Be a teacher, not a staunch competitor. "It's just like how, until a certain age, you make decisions for your child. Then, as they start to be able to make decisions for themselves, you still tell them your decisions but you carefully explain to them your rationale so that they start to learn how to make decisions for themselves."

• Up your game as the child improves. "When he can fight harder, you can play harder. You don't need to let them win every single time if they have equal abilities. You need to help a child learn the skills to fend for themselves. I think the more success a child can feel the better, but you do need to teach them the skills of competing so you should push against them as hard as they can push back."
  

• Remind yourself why you're playing the game. If your child has become an equal rival at a game, it's one thing to play hard against him or her. But if you're clearly far stronger at a game, Schachter asks, "What's the point of winning when you're playing a child? If the adult is always winning, it just makes the kid feel like he can't win."

I can actually see both sides of this argument and the right answer really depends on each circumstance and each child. But there is one aspect of the debate that I have experienced, but have not seen discussed much. It’s the idea of compassion and empathy. I would let my son win for very simple reasons. I wanted him to feel good and to see him happy. And it made me feel good that I could give that to him, however sneaky and subtle. So we both ended up feeling good. I probably stole some learning opportunities from him that I will regret later but sometimes its hard to choose in favor of long-term learning when instant joy is right at your fingertips.

Now that my son is a teenager, I am starting to see him show that same compassion and empathy to others when it comes to games. Chutes and Ladders and Memory have given way to NASCAR video games and I sometimes watch and play. I really do not like playing video games at all but I do it anyway to stay connected to his teen world and share in the things that he enjoys. Just because I don’t like them, doesn’t mean I can’t support him. Something surprising happens when we play. He wants me to win. He wants me to enjoy myself.

He’ll drive his car backwards or go the wrong way on the track on purpose just so I can win. He’ll choose a faster car for me and a slower one for himself. If I get in a jam (bridges and hairpin turns tend to send my car off the nearest cliff), he’ll take my controller and guide me to an easier part of the track. When we play Guitar Hero, I get to play on “easy” and he plays on “expert” so I can win. He clearly isn’t playing to win. He’s playing to play. And not only is he playing for his own enjoyment, he’s taking an active role in making sure I enjoy myself, too.

That’s profound.

It tells me he’s playing from his heart, not his head. It tells me that somewhere inside, he gets the idea that giving so everyone can win is far more enjoyable than being the best. Or perhaps he’s reached a level of confidence in the game where he has nothing to prove, his ego is safe, and he can just let go and have fun. Whatever the reason, it makes me proud and absolves all the guilt I’ve ever felt about letting him win when he was younger.

Do you let your kids win at games? Why or why not? Join the discussion in my reader community here!

6 ways to help Google find your blog

I attended the Front Range Blogger Meetup last week, hosted by our very own Dave Taylor. One of the traditions they have each month is to take someone's blog (they ask for volunteers), project that blog up on the screen, and the crowd provides constructive criticism. A great opportunity for bloggers who are open to feedback. I don't always make it each month but I was very glad I came to this one because Katharine Zaleski was there as part of a two-week visit to Colorado. She is a senior editor for The Huffington Post and a highly experienced and influencial blogger/editor. Katharine has worked for CNN and has appeared on MSNBC, Fox News, CBC, Air America, BBC Radio as well as other media outlets. You can see her latest interview with CNBC here (she arrived on the set seconds before introductions). She had some valuable advice on improving SEO (search engine optimization) for blogs and some of her suggestions are included in the list below, which stemmed from a conversation about how blog post titles and links benefit (or hurt) your search engine rankings:

1. Titles matter to Google. When you set up your blog, make sure your template puts the title of your post in the "title tags" on the back end of your blog.
2. Use keywords. Think of the keywords someone might be searching on and include those in your post title. For instance, if your post is about finding consumer deals to save money, consider including "surviving a recession" or "saving money" or "best coupon deals" in your title. Google likes that.
3. Pay attention to word order. The words you use at the beginning of your title are more important than the later ones. For instance "Free music at Oskar Blues on Saturdays" won't do as well as "Oskar Blues live music - free on Saturdays". Google also likes proper nouns at the beginning of a title.
4. Use the verbs people are more likely to search on. For instance "Michael Jackson dies" does not do as well as "Michael Jackson dead". Not a happy example but that is the example Katharine used so I'm passing it along.
5. Link to other posts you've written. When you write a post that references a place, person, event, or topic that you have written about before, be sure to include a hyperlink to that previous post.
6. Link to blogs that are bigger than yours. Google analyzes all the links (incoming and outgoing) in each post and loves "one-stop shopping". If you are writing a post about a new recipe, consider linking to bigger food blogs that cover that dish, link to places readers can buy the ingredients, restaurants that serve that kind of food, origins of the special spice it features, etc. You can get really creative with this. It will take some extra time to write the post, but it's worth it.
   

These are more "behind-the-scenes" tips and won't show results immediately but if you make a habit of doing this with your posts, your blog stands a much better chance to showing up higher in search results.