Archive for the ‘Influence’ Category

When is the Best Time to Tweet?

By John Foley, Jr., Chief Executive/Marketing Officer at Grow Socially

Much like any other marketing campaign, Twitter shares one critical ideology—maximum exposure. When you tweet, are as many people seeing it as possible? If we put in the effort to carefully craft influential and noticeable tweets, we certainly would want to make sure they are being sent out at the times of day that will have the most impact.

A blog post on The Social Media Guide says the best time to tweet, as a general rule, is 9:00 a.m. Pacific time. This is because west coast workers are just arriving, east coast workers are on lunch break, and the work day is ending in Europe, specifically London. If you have that much reach, this certainly sounds like an effective time to tweet.

Of course, there are many other theories, studies, and statistics on this topic. For example, this graph posted by Fast Company indicates the best time to be retweeted is at 4:00 p.m. Eastern time. It may be worth taking the time to review tools such as WhenToTweet.com for possible suggestions as to when you personally should be tweeting.

Social media guru and author Guy Kawasaki has also had many things to say on this subject. Here’s one quote: “Try this experiment. Take your most interesting tweets (as measured by how many people retweet them, perhaps) and post them again three times, eight to twelve hours apart. I used to think people would complain about repeating tweets, but I’ve never had a complaint. My theory is that the volume of tweets is so high, and most people check in at about the same time every day, so people don’t notice repeat tweets.”

Mediabistro.com offers another perspective on the subject. “Of course, often this stuff is more art than science, and you could argue that it’s more important having the right people reading your content, inasmuch as influencers and power retweeters, and they might be active at a completely different time.”

If you thoughtfully select who you follow on Twitter, then that may alleviate some of the stress of this notion. If you follow professionals and influential personalities, then someone of value may see your tweet no matter what time of day it is.

Take note of when people reply to your tweets and when you are retweeted, and take these figures into account when you are planning out your tweeting schedule. You may want to save certain tweets for these certain times, depending on how much you want it to be seen. A consistent and steady Twitter stream is always your best bet for reaching the biggest audience, but it might work to your benefit if you know when your audience is most engaged.

Posted in Engagement, Guy Kawasaki, Influence, John Foley Jr., Marketing, Twitter | Comments Off on When is the Best Time to Tweet?

8 Mandates for Social Media Marketing Success—#6: Build Community

By Kent Huffman, Author of 8 Mandates for Social Media Marketing Success

Building a loyal community of fans and followers is not a snap-your-finger deal. You have to put the “right stuff” out there to attract and grow an audience, and you’ll have to continually nurture the crop before it bears any fruit. But the payoff for that investment can be significant.

Where to begin, you ask? Start by identifying key influencers and cultivating individual relationships with them that you can later aggregate into a group of people who share common interests. This is your foundation—the heartbeat of your social media marketing activity. These relationships will become the core of your community and will help you expand its reach and contribute to its growth and influence.

The key to aggregation is providing quality content to your community that interests your target audience—content that’s informational in nature, not a sales pitch. And make sure that content is always relevant to your strategy and your followers. Effective connections with your audience are built when you provide information that’s based on understanding your market segment and your community’s needs, and by presenting those relevant morsels in a concise, easy-to-digest way.

And make it easy for your community members to share your content with their other communities. This will help dramatically expand your reach. Also, you don’t have to create all the content yourself; instead, promote the submission of user content from within your community, so everyone who wants to get involved is able to do so.

Yes, community building can be difficult, mainly because it requires determination, dedication, and grit—and a lot of time. But it’s key to your longevity in social media.

(This is an excerpt from Kent’s new book, 8 Mandates for Social Media Marketing Success.)

Next: 8 Mandates for Social Media Marketing Success—#7: Ensure Value

Posted in Community, Content, Influence, Kent Huffman, Marketing, Relationships, Strategy | Comments Off on 8 Mandates for Social Media Marketing Success—#6: Build Community

8 Mandates for Social Media Marketing Success—#5: Demonstrate Leadership

By Kent Huffman, Author of 8 Mandates for Social Media Marketing Success

Social media leaders—as is the case with their offline counterparts—are most often valued and respected for their knowledge, experience, passion, and vision. The most effective social media leaders also demonstrate a strong sense of responsibility, serve as standard bearers, have a relatively high tolerance for risk, lead by example, think strategically, plan for the short and long term, express humility, and have the innate ability to inspire others.

Another important characteristic synonymous with social media leadership is integrity—and because of the ability for others to quickly and easily spot insincerity and dishonesty on social media, a leader’s integrity must be solid as a rock at all times. Innovation is another hallmark of a strong leader. The most successful leaders on social media not only create new concepts and trends and serve as change agents, they also figure out unique ways to generate value and generously and consistently share that value with their online communities.

Are you an influencer? Every effective social media leaders is. In fact, many of their friends and followers are subconsciously looking to be influenced. It’s how they learn. And that’s why they keep coming back to the leaders for guidance and inspiration.

Finally, what about leadership style? Think about those leaders you know who are akin to a tyrant straddling a big black stallion. Or the other ones you know who are compassionate but have a firm hand on their ship’s tiller and wise words of advice for their shipmates. Which approach do you think has the most impact in the social media world?

Demonstrating leadership is probably the fastest way to create a loyal following on social media. But along with that comes responsibility. So take it seriously.

(This is an excerpt from Kent’s new book, 8 Mandates for Social Media Marketing Success.)

Next: 8 Mandates for Social Media Marketing Success—#6: Build Community

Posted in Community, Influence, Innovation, Inspiration, Integrity, Kent Huffman, Leadership, Loyalty, Strategy, Value | Comments Off on 8 Mandates for Social Media Marketing Success—#5: Demonstrate Leadership

Influence Measurers: Will Klout Kill Community?

By Gary Schirr, Professor at Radford University

Like many of you, I sign up for the free influence-measuring sites. I am skeptical of all of them but check out my scores and those of online friends. I am well aware that I am no Justin Bieber (Klout score 100) or Barack Obama (Klout score 87) in online influence. But I take comfort if I am near the scores of tweeters I admire, such as @CKBurgess, @KentHuffman, @ChuckMartin1, @DavidAaker, and @WareMalcombCMO.

I find early efforts to measure influence interesting, but I am concerned that parties are taking these fledging measures seriously and making decisions based on them. Some tweeters choose who to follow by their influence score. A recent Wall Street Journal article discussed the importance that businesses are assigning to Klout scores: marketing freebies and even job offers may be tied to Klout scores.

Although I am not concerned that my tenure committee will pass me over for Justin Bieber or Britney Spears, I worry whether the influence of the influence measurers may impact SM communities. If tweeters believe that their online status, likelihood of being followed, and even employability may be affected by these measures, they will adjust how they act. A well-known management dictum notes that nothing can be managed until it is measured. The relevant corollary is that what is measured will affect behavior: bad metrics can lead to bad behavior!

Will the clout of Klout cause loutish behavior in social media? @Econsultancy summarized the flaws of Klout’s measures in a recent blog post. And in one study by @Adriaan_Pelzer, a bot achieved a 51 Klout score in 80 days simply by 1) tweeting gibberish once a minute and 2) not following back new followers. Senior officers at Klout responded to that study (and similar ones) by noting that they were working on algorithms to spot bots. Klout proposes to attack the symptom head on (who wants to be fooled by a bot?) but downplay issues of the metrics themselves.

What kind of “community” will Twitter be if everyone follows these “winning” behaviors? Do you judge tweeters by quantity of tweets? Is it optimal to have 10 times as many followers as people followed? Phillip Hotchkiss, Chief Product Officer at Klout and a serial start-up entrepreneur, commented on an earlier post I wrote on this issue. His most interesting observations are that Klout’s metrics are always being modified to measure influence, and that Klout is trying to differentiate between “bad bots” and “good bots.” It is good to know that Klout is constantly evolving in pursuit of good influence measurement. Phillip’s “good bots” are a little scary. Maybe there is a good science fiction story there!

Be wary of even well-intentioned measurers. For example, many researchers believe that U.S. News & World Report’s college rankings hinder educational innovation by focusing on reputation and resources that please faculty, rather than cost/benefit measures that apply to most services. Similarly, focusing on factors such as tweets that generate action (regardless of content) and on follower/followed ratios could impair Twitter’s evolution.

Be wary of these developing measures. Do not let the measures affect your behaviors or enjoyment of social media. Do not make hiring decisions based on Klout, unless you honestly believe that Justin Bieber is the perfect 100 and the most influential person online! And please, please don’t start tweeting every three minutes!

Posted in algorithms, Analytics, Bots, Community, Engagement, Gary Schirr, Influence, Klout, Marketing, Measurement, Monitoring, Research, Twitter | Comments Off on Influence Measurers: Will Klout Kill Community?