MEGO: My Eyes Glaze Over

Customer Care Online: Interview with Logitech’s Ben Hong (Part 2)

May 27, 2010 Blogs, Community Management, Customer Service, Microblogging, Social Media, social networks

Earlier this week I published Part 1 of the interview with Ben Hong, Sr. Mgr. Technical Services, Global Customer Care and Digital Home Group for Logitech.The first half of the interview gave you a brief introduction to Ben and his team at Logitech.

This is the final portion of this written interview.

Part Two: People, Process, & Tools- Logitech with Ben Hong

What kind of training is required for team members who are active online? And, does your company have a social media policy in place? Can you tell us a little bit about these efforts and how they help (or hinder ) the team.

We train our team on how to be online ambassadors and effective writers for blogs, micro-blogs and knowledge bases (SEO). So far, training has been extremely important to maintaining consistency and control. Without it there would be chaos. Currently, the online ambassador training provides our employees with knowledge of the social media policy. It’s helpful, not a hindrance.

If you could share your favorite tips, best practices, lessons learned or social media must have – what are they?

• Look before you leap….have a framework and plan before you get started.
• Start with social monitoring. It is incredible what you learn your customers are talking about and provides critical insight about where your early investments should be made.
• If you are managing a social media program for customer service you must be social internally as much as you are externally. Key learning’s and shared insights complement VoC programs.

There are many tools for tweeting, listening, and overall participating in social media – which ones do you use either personally or for your work?

Co-tweet, Radian6, TweetDeck, backtype, delicious, FriendFeed, NetVibes, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, WordPress, Yelp, Flickr, StumbleUpon, Digg, Google Buzz, ShareThis, Technorati

Whether you have your own community on your “dot com” or you participate in existing social networks (Twitter, Facebook, Get Satisfaction etc) – what do you do to build the community and encourage your community members to become ambassadors for the brand?

We have a reputation model in the community that helps us and community member identify and recognize key contributors. Our Logi Legends and Gurus have a close relationship with my team and we work side by side with them in the community. To help them with their work we often send them our products.

Do you reward community members for the work they do? If so, how?

Nothing formal … yet.

When helping customers in social channels do you reply publicly or privately? Does it differ by channel? Discuss how you make this decision.

We reply both publicly and privately. If we are managing a customer escalation in our forums or on Twitter we respond publicly but ask for specific information to be provided privately. We do this to protect customer information. Otherwise we respond publicly to all else.

Is YouTube a part of your support efforts? How do you use this and other video channels for customer service and support? Do you create the videos or is another team responsible for these? Do you engage with the YouTube community? How do you measure success for your video efforts?

Our plans for YouTube are in development. We plan to publish 1-2 videos per month.

Many companies have gone through some highly visible social media gaffs (Dominos, Southwest); while others have seen offline issues go viral due to social media (Graco recalls, Toyota recalls). In your opinion how should a company deal with crisis online? Do you have a process in place that helps you determine next steps in the case of your own “crisis”?

Responses should be quick, open and honest. To that end, Logitech was put to the test recently when the US National Labor Committee reported on Chinese labor issues back in April of this year. Joseph Sullivan, our Sr. VP of Worldwide Operations, responded with a letter to the committee and we posted in online. In his letter which he shared, he stated the plain truth. Thankfully we had severed the relationship with the offending factory, however, he was clear to state when and why. It was met with positive comments and response.

What is next for you and your team? What are you excited about today?

Twitter enhancements, YouTube and Facebook integration are on our roadmap. Right now I am working on Radian6 setup and configuration.

What is your favorite social media tool, network or other for personal use?

LinkedIn. I was an early adopter and have seen how it evolved. It helps me keep up-to-date with colleagues, recruit, participate in communities of interest/practice and share what I am working on.

Thanks to Ben for taking the time to share!

Popularity: 1% [?]

Tags: ben hong, community, customer care, customer service, Logitech, support forums, technical support, twitter

Give Tweets a Chance

Mar 29, 2009 Digital Marketing & Metrics, Microblogging

I get a kick out of people who put down Twitter as ridiculous (Who cares that you are eating your cereal) or that it is all about ego (Why wouldn’t they care what I was having for breakfast!) According to Margaret Wente of the Globe and Mail; ” If you thought Facebook was banal, try Twitter. It makes people who write their thoughts on Facebook sound like Shakespeare.” Ian Brown of the same newspaper suggested in a CoverItLive discussion that it was our fear of dying that made us gravitate to Twitter.

At least Ian Brown gave it a chance, tested it out by using it for a DISCUSSION. He ENGAGED by CONVERSING with his followers. Check out his Twitter stream – he has 80 updates, and the majority are @replies. Wente, on the other hand gave it 4 updates over the course of a week.  She followed 5 people.  82 people followed her banal tweets about trying to figure out this Twitter business. Considering she had 5 updates, and only 82 followers – and Twitter is in real-time – she likely didn’t get too many replies.

The first few times I used Twitter I wasn’t immediately sure about microblogging. However, now I watch it for news, go there to ask questions (sometimes before Google), chat with friends, and sometimes I just listen. My suggestion is – if you are going to try out Twitter, or become a Twitter tourist – give it a few weeks. Follow people, and not just celebrities because they won’t likely reply to your tweets. Tweet frequently. Reply more. Put up a picture, and stay awhile!

Just for fun, watch this video.

Popularity: 84% [?]

Tags: Globe and Mail, Ian Brown, Margaret Wente, twitter

Social Networks and the Net Generation at Work

Mar 15, 2009 Blogs, Books, Customer Service, Digital Marketing & Metrics, Internet General, Marketing & Communication, Microblogging, Social Bookmarking, Social Media

When I joined the workforce e-mail was pretty standard as a method for communication and the Internet was commonly used for research purposes. But, in the early days of email many business owners and managers did not allow e-mail in the offices for fear that their employees would not get any work done, they were concerned over how to manage, store and capture e-mailed information, and of course they grappled with security issues surrounding e-mail. Today, business owners and managers have realized that e-mail has increased the speed of business communication, and concerns over data capture and management as well as security have largely been overcome.

Social Networks Stats and Facts

There is a new tool that has caused much consternation and hand-wringing for IT Managers and business owners – social networks and social media.  A new report by Nielson puts social networks ahead of e-mail in online activities according to a recent article in the Globe and Mail.  Neilson found that 1 in 11 minutes online is spent on a social network or blog site, bringing social networks and blogs to the fourth most popular activity following search, general interest portals and software manufacturers. More telling is the growth seen by social networks during the period of the study (Dec 2007-Dec 2008) which saw between 1.4 and 1.9% growth for the top three activities versus an incredible 5.4% for social networking.

There are 150 Million active Facebook users and a recent research study from Pew Inernet shows that 11% of online adults say they have used the social network Twitter. A Netpop report shows that 7 Million people in the U.S. are contributing to content online and that social networking sites have grown a whopping 93% since 2006!

Despite the growth in the use of social media and social networks specifically, many corporations have decided to bury their head in the sand and hope it goes away, much like they did when e-mail came on the scene. Instead of facing the issues these companies have decided to simply block employees access.

Blocking Access

The concerns for social media are similar to those in the 1990s when e-mail entered the workplace: productivity, data capture, privacy and security. The approach the same – block, refuse access, refer employees to old technology (oddly in the case of social media it is often e-mail!). But this is short-sighted, unrealistic and a passive approach that will eventually (if not already!) be seen as anti-productive.

Let’s look at the concerns companies have regarding social media:

Productivity: This has to be the most ridiculous of the reasons. 1) If employees want to be slack off all they need to do is go stand by someone else’s desk, go for a smoke break, chat at the water cooler, close their eyes and have a snooze. Let’s face it if you can’t trust your employees are doing their job…then you didn’t hire the right people or they are bored, unchallenged or unempowered. 2) If employees are allowed to use social media they can actually become more productive! (More on this in next post)

Data Capture/Management: Many social networks are easily followed, stored and saved. People have clearly moved beyond this issue with e-mail – and this can be accomplished with Social Networks. Ownership can be overcome by businesses as well by contracting space on sites for block of space that would be under control of the company as suggested by Salesforce.com precedent. Another alternative is to set up internal IM systems, social networks and Wikis for use with Internal Communication. While this does not help customer and vendor communication it can allow employees some use of tools that will help productivity while maintaining data security and capture.

Privacy and Security: This is a biggie, and closely related to data capture and management. Panic has ensued amongst business owners with regards to data privacy and corporate secrets. And, of course it can be an issue as more and more employees spend time on social networks discussing their lives (which includes work) with Facebook status changes, LinkedIn profiles, and of course the tweets on Twitter. Companies obviously want to limit and retain close control over sensitive company information, at the same time they also must find ways to engage and communicate directly with their customers (or risk losing them). As social media becomes increasingly interconnected and more customers EXPECT companies to be active on social networks it will become inadequate to simply block social media sites and use URL filtering. Instead companies can help alleviate the privacy and security (and avoid potential lawsuits) issues by creating policies and educating employees on safe data handling. (Note: There are also IT tools available on the market to help monitor, examine historic patterns of leaks and discover and eliminate malware that have in the past been issues with some Web 2.0 sites). Privacy and security is an issue whether your employees are using social media or not – but a easy to understand policy, and a central contact for questions related to privacy and security can help companies avoid future issues.

Net Generation at Work

Companies that decide to limit or block use of social media are not only unnecessarily limiting their communication with their customers through online methods, they are also forfeiting the chance to discover new tools for collaboration within the organization. By closing the company off from social media they are also driving away younger employees who are looking to work for companies whose culture fits their life and ideals.  Don Tapscott in his book Grown Up Digital says the “Net gener [age 18-32] arrives at work, eager to use his social networking tools to collaborate and create and contribute to the company. For starters he’s shocked to find that the company’s technological tools are more primitive than the ones he used in high school…And they are surprised, perhaps naively, to learn that corporations have antiquated ways of working.” These same Net Generation workers can, if given a chance, show companies how to collaborate in new ways more effectively and efficiently. But, these workers don’t stick around long according to Tapscott – they usually only last two years before moving on. Which is too bad since Tapscott’s research shows that those companies that embrace the Net Gen norms perform better than those that don’t..

This generation, of which I am a part of (well I missed it by a month…), view life and work different from other generations according to Tapscott – and that view is defined by 8 characteristics or norms: Freedom, Customization, Scrutiny, Openness, Fun/Entertainment in life and work, Collaboration, Speed, Innovation.

Tapscott definies these characteristics as they relate to work (summary):

Freedom: Net Geners expect to mix work and their personal lives, and this includes choosing when and where they work. They want flexible hours, the ability to telecommute, and other services that make their lives easier.

Customization: They want employers to treat them as individuals and this means giving them learning and development opportunities that are right for them. They want an adaptable work environment, job descriptions that are project based and customized, flexible benefits,  and more frequent discussions on their contribution to the organization.

Scrutiny: How we search for jobs has changed and how we research the company before we make a change has as well.  According to Grown Up Digital 60% of Net Geners check out a company before accepting a job offer. They want to work for companies that are transparent, share information, and have integrity. Tapscott says: “Young people respond well to management integrity…there is greater loyalty and lower turnover, and employees are more likely to do the right thing.” (For example more likely to get their job done even if they take a break to check Facebook, and more likely to hold company secrets sacred and follow company privacy policy).

Collaboration: Net Geners want to work with other people and collaboration is how they get stuff done. To them the workplace should be less about hierarchies and departmental silos and more about connecting with others to solve a problem. Using social networks, social bookmarking, Wikis, aps like LinkedIn Huddle Workpaces or Virtual worlds (Second Life) to meet, collaborate, plan, and execute.

Fun/Entertainment: Fun and work go hand in hand for this generation – they don’t need to be separate. Cultures that allow employees to have a little fun at work end up with more productive staff. We all need a break before diving back into another round of work – and if surfing on a social network is that little bit of fun – why block it?

Speed: This generation is used to speed and instant responses. Why not? We no longer have to wait for dial-up or snail mail! For Net Geners red tape is frustrating, feedback should be in real-time and bureaucracy can mean doom in the market. They use social media tools such as Wikis and IM to speed up communication within the workplace.

Innovation: This is a fascinating point Tapscott makes: “If video games taught this Net Generation anything, it’s that every problem has seemingly endless solutions” and so this generation is looking for new ways to their jobs, to be innovative in their workplace, to challenge status quo. Many of these young workers bring their knowledge of social media to the work place creating new communication channels, building collaborative work systems, and finding new ways to solve a business problem.

In the End

Social media such as instant messaging, blogging and social networks have gained ground as communication tools outside the workplace by leaps and bounds, and it is only a matter of time before they, like e-mail before them, become necessary and an acceptable part of the work place.  The concerns for productivity,  data management, and security and privacy are valid – however they can be overcome by education, corporate policy and new IT tools. Ultimately, if a company hires good people they will need less process and bureaucracy to police the space – as the employees in an open and empowered culture will be more likely to use social media tools wisely. Through using social media in the workplace employees will find new ways to harness collective knowledge, collaborate, and create ways to communication effectively internally and externally.

As always  – connect on Twitter and Google Friend Connet (right hand side). And, if you enjoyed this content – subscribe!

Images from Stocl.xchng (bigevil600, brokenarts, glennpeb)

Popularity: 100% [?]

Tags: facebook, Grown Up Digital: How the Net Generation is Changing Your World HC, linkedin, socia, Social Bookmarking, social media, social network, twitter, Work

Twittering Television

Mar 9, 2009 Digital Marketing & Metrics, Microblogging, Social Media, social networks, word of mouth

Last night on Twitter Mack Collier tweeted (rather retweeted @kathyoreilly)

It reminded me something that I had thought about a few times – TV is more fun with friends,  and therefore TV is more fun with Twitter! During the U.S election I watched the news, and twittered; after the bruhaha in Parliament Stephane Dion and Stephen Harper made speeches on Canadian television and I listened to the speeches while joining the conversation on Twitter. Beyond politics, I have twittered about Lost, Grey’s Anatomy and the Oscars. Last night I tweeted about my dislike of the Simpson’s (simply tired of it….):

I received a number of replies – only one admonishing my remark, the remainder agreeing and one suggesting that the Family Guy is far superior. But, I digress…

We already know that many people are using their computers while watching television – multi-tasking at its best. We are more engaged checking our email, chatting, surfing social networks, playing games and tweeting than we are with the television program.  Of course what we are doing on the Internet doesn’t usually have to do with what we are watching on TV. Except in the case of the social networks as we often IM, tweet and change our status reflecting what is going on with the television program at hand.

Some of my recent tweets for example were regarding a program Inside the McDonald’s Empire.

So, what better way then for the networks to engage with its audience again then through social networks like Twitter that are “real time”.

According to Mack Collier who immediately tweeted back to me in reply to my comment there are some Interactive uses in the US through Dish.

Here in Canada we can get “more info” on some Sat channels such as CBC and The Weather Network. The Weather Network for example allows you to choose your region. Occassionnally I have seen news casters refer to a Facebook group, and increasingly I have seen and heard Twitter mentioned (The View, Canada AM, The Hour, The Daily Show).

But while TV isn’t always a “social”, we do often end up in social situations talking about TV. So, why not bring those two things together? As, you saw from the first “tweet” – on Sunday night the 5 of the top 10 trending topics were TV programs, so what is the opportunity for networks? How can they get some excitement back into TV? Is there a possibility for new revenue streams?

What if our favourite shows advertised a Twitter hashtag in the corner for people to follow along? What kind of conversations would take place? Could there be trivia? Maybe polls? Analysis by crowd? A real-time forum to discuss the intricacies of our favourite dramas! Fact checking could be shared with others watching the same debate/interview/speech; programs could request real-time questions and requests from their audience; or perhaps during the Oscars they could share tidbits from live tweets on the best/worst dressed. There could be special access to clues or theories (for Lost!), or  a “backstage pass” as producers tweet behind the scenes (imagine the green room at Letterman….or MTV awards).  A live event such as concert, sporting event would become social even if you can’t make it to the event! Of course there could be shared links to pictures, video, or interviews with the stars or experts.

What else can you think of? Would you participate?

As always  – connect on Twitter and Google Friend Connet (right hand side). And, if you enjoyed this content – subscribe!

Popularity: 45% [?]

Tags: canada, Family Guy, mack collier, Politics, social network, stephen harper, television, twitter

Down with Twitter Authority: Up with Influence

Jan 18, 2009 Digital Marketing & Metrics, Microblogging, Social Media

Twitter “Authority”

A lot has been written recently on so-called “Twitter Authority”.  Apparently a few Social Media “A-Listers” thought it would be great to be able to rank the people on Twitter by authority. Why? Because, more companies are searching the web, including  Twitter – to find brand and product mentions. This is done to monitor brand reputation and to facilitate customer service.  Even a few years ago, when people talked about our brands, it was behind our backs and we only found out about it if they contacted us through 1-800 numbers, letters, or e-mails. Today, those dialogues are online and can be accessible through a variety of search processes. It is not an easy task by any means and certainly not a 9-5 job! There are innumerable ways to search the web for your brand name, for example I have used Tweetscan, Twitter Search for Twitter (more on using Corporate Tweeting), Technorati and Google Alerts for Blogs and News, and BackType for Blog Comments. But, there is also Social Mention, AlertThingy and some great paid Services such as home-grown Radian6.  With so many ways to search, and even more possible “mentions” – it makes sense, to find ways to narrow the search, evaluate the comments that we should tackle, and find a way to rate and analyze the messages coming through.  At first glance it may seem logical to assume that number of friends, followers, or potential eyeballs would be the best way to do this. This is how we have measured traditional media for years. With publicity we say an article about our product had X number of impressions, or an ad on TV or in print had X number of potential eyeballs. In these traditional forms of media there wasn’t much more we could do to measure one against another or to give meaning to our marketing efforts to the big wigs, and the sales force.

But the web is different. We can do so much more, then measuring Twitter authority by how many followers you might have. And, is authority truly what we want to measure? Virginia Miracle makes a great point on her blog Marketing Environmentalism when she says it is “less about authority and more about influence.”

Authority vs Influence

Check out the definitions:

authority: an expert whose views are taken as definitive; or a person accepted as a source of reliable information …

influence: The power to affect, control or manipulate something or someone; the ability to change the development of fluctuating things such as conduct …

We might say that Martha Stewart Living Magazine is an authority in ribbon and paper crafts, however does it influence its readers to start paper crafting? Hard to say without doing some market research on the subject! Online however, including Twitter we can get an idea of a person’s influence, but unless we can nail down the parameters of what having authority means – and it doesn’t mean how many followers you have (Mack Collier has some great points on why) – then we won’t actually have a clue who has it. In a vlog post by Jackie Huba and Ben McConnell they question- if someone has written a book do they have authority – and the decision – yes.  Therefore, being an author can make you an authority (on that subject) – but what other factors make you an “authority”? Who decides?

So perhaps we forget this concept of “authority”. Go beyond numbers of followers – this eyeball/impression mentality is best left to television and print. Examine who has the influence to effect change, make someone else take action.

TwitterRank

Huba and McConnell suggest that perhaps what we are looking for is a complex algorithm, and that one factor may be the “retweet”. How often are you submitting content worth “retweeting”, how many people are “retweeting” it?  In this case it is more about the quality of what you are sending into cyber-space then the quantity of your followers.  It also has more to say about the quality of your followers than the quantity. An active base of similarly interested followers is more likely to “re-tweet” your tweets, than followers who have simply followed for the numbers, who are robot tweeters (here’s a blog post, here’s a sales promotion….), or who set up an account and have since moved on. Once “retweeted” your tweet can be seen by innumerable others outside of your followers, so having 50 or 5000 followers will not matter.

As (authority – he has written a few books so clearly he is that!) Guy Kawasaki said in a recent interview “I’m sure people will figure out a way to game retweeting too but until they do, there is no better measure of the quality of a person’s tweets than retweeting.”

There are a growing number of tools to follow “retweets”

• Retweetist
• Tweetbacks (brings RT to blog posts)
• Retweet Mapper (which has a “Most Retweeted List“)

Beyond the retweet I think there are a few other factors that indicate someone’s influence. Certainly the numbers game should count to a certain extent, but they would count even more if we could look at it based on their rank as far as influence. We know that Google’s PageRank is a complicated (unknown) algorithm that is based on over 200+ factors (or so the experts say), perhaps something like this could be created around Twitter users. It could include factors such as the retweet, but also include the @ replies to and from the twitter user (interaction with others has to count for something), number of updates, number and quality of followers, and number we follow (can’t just talk to ourselves!) and if possible click-through on links shared (this one is likely technically impossible since we all use different URL shortening services). What other factors might indicate influence?

Is it possible? I don’t have the technical background to know. But, if someone can create “Most Retweeted Lists” and create aps that follow  Twitter conversations by programs like TweeTree, perhaps it is feasible. It is likely easier to find these influencers online than it is finding them offline which of course marketers have tried often to do in order to facilitate WOM.

Would this change how we follow? Would it change how we interact? In a good way? Maybe it wouldn’t be friendly Twitter anymore?

Update:

Thanks to Amber and Matthew for reminding me about another key issue and that is if the “influencer” is directly related to the business.  If a company is monitoring brand mentions for reputation analysis a person who may be seen as an “expert” (or in this case we could also say “authority”) then they will hold more weight than someone who has little connection to the category or is not part of the target demographic.  I use “expert” and “authority”, but in this case an expert is not one in a traditional sense of a talking head on the news.

An example perhaps? I will use what I know – small appliances. Lets say that a Silicon Valley tech geek tells their followers that he just loves his “X Brand Blender because it makes the smoothest drinks in the morning getting him off to a great start in the morning. ” This particular tech geek has an enormous and engaged following. But, is the tech geek an influencer in the realm of blenders? Will he influence his tech geek followers to run out and buy X Brand Blender next time? What if on the other hand  cooking blogger, also with an large and involved following tweets that she used “X Brand Blender to make Butternut Squash soup and it was so lovely and smooth, yummy!” Will she influence her followers to buy X Brand Blender next time?

When I did some brand monitoring online I would pay far more attention to the cooking blogger than the tech geek in this situation. That is not to say that the popular tech geek wouldn’t matter, but I see these mentions as potential eyeballs, possible points for brand awareness. They aren’t authorities on the subject, but neither are the celebrities we use to sell make-up, cereal, vacuum cleaners, and other consumer products. The tech geek will likely get his followers to test the latest web tool, but unless they are in the search for a new blender the mention will not mean much (sort of like TV and Print ads!) The cooking blogger on the other hand is an “authority” on cooking to her followers – what she says holds a lot of weight. Even if the followers aren’t looking for a blender at the moment, they may recall this statement down the road when they are.

So while we can perhaps come up with a ranking on Twitter, but how do we differentiate between the different influencer circles? Unfortunately, Twitter doesn’t have a whole lot of information on us in fields we fill out (compared to Facebook!). We tell Twitter our location (and here we could say anything from country to town), and a brief bio which could say almost anything or nothing. However, Twitter is information rich when it comes to our Tweets. If we could harness the information in the tweets we might be able to determine interests and determine “authority” to the influencers. Twitscoop gives us clouds of popular words, what if something could pull these for individual Tweeters? Sort of a Keyword ranking for Twitter users? The cooking blogger might Tweet more often about cooking, recipes and such while the tech geek might tweet about web tools, social networking and Apple.  A company could then choose a plethora of keywords that they want to locate the influencers for within Twitter. As a small appliance company I might choose Tweeters that talk frequently about “recipes, cooking, mixing, cups, food prep…”

Is this possible? No idea. I also want to mention, I don’t like the idea of ranking for regular use (for example I only follow people who rank number “1″) but for business purposes this could be helpful IF done correctly.

Remember to connect on Google Connect (right hand bar!) And, of course follow me on Twitter!

Popularity: 34% [?]

Tags: alertthingy, authority, backtype, ben mcconnell, church of the customer, google alerts, guy kawasaki, influence, jackie huba, mack collier, monitoring, pageRank, radian6, retweet, retweet mapper, retweetist, social mention, tweetbacks, twitter, viral garden, virginia miracle

The Best Twitter Tools

Jan 9, 2009 Digital Marketing & Metrics, Microblogging, Social Media, Web Tools & Applications, social networks

I have written a few times about Twitter, just take a look in my Microblogging Category or search “Twitter” in the search function on my blog.  I am a fan. Want to know what Twitter is? The Do’s and Don’ts of Corporate Tweeting? Just to point you to two of my previous posts on the subject.

I have been on Twitter for nearly a year and a half now. Since that time there have been many introductions of new tools to use to follow, search, and Tweet. Here are my current favourites:

For almost everything on Twitter

Tweetdeck: This is a desktop application that allows you to follow, tweet, search, group your friends, keep a list of “favourite” tweets, and even see what the hot topics are on Twitter.

Let me run you left to right to show you what this program can do!

Note: this is how I have my columns currently set up, you can have them in any order you like, by using the arrows at the bottom of the column, or by simply opening them up in the order you prefer.

1st Column: This is the running feed for the people I follow.  In real time it changes as your Tweeps send out their Tweets! If you minimize the Tweetdeck an alert, and a small box will pop up letting you know of Tweets and Replies.

2nd Column: I have a search running currently in this column. If you are Tweeting for work,  searching for information on a particular topic, or interested in following a particular #hashtag you can use the search function on Tweetdeck. It will pull, again in real time, the tweets containing your search term.

3rd Column: These are my @replies. If someone on Twitter wants to contact you directly they can do so in two ways – by Direct Message (private) or by an @reply (can be seen by everyone). These @replies can be sorted to the reply column.

4th Column: This is Twitscoop a tag cloud including the trending terms on Twitter “right now”. Must be a game on since two of the biggest words are Panthers and Giants!

The other things I love about Tweetdeck:

In this upper dashboard you can type your Tweet, add columns (All, Replies, Favorites, Search, Group, DMs and Twitscoop), and shorten URLs which is a necessity in Twitter since you only have 140 charactors. Once shortened it automatically adds the URL to your Tweet.  The Group function is nice if you follow a lot of people and want to occassionally focus on some key people at a given time.

If you run your mouse over the image of the people you follow this box will appear with four icons. These icons let you reply (automatically puts @twittername in your tweet box), direct message (automatically puts D twittername in tweet box), retweet (which means you are tweeting someone elses message to your followers) or “favorite” the tweet. Just a neat little time saver, for the busy tweeter.

For Searching and Alerts

Tweetscan/Twitter Search: If you don’t have acces to TweetDeck, or if you aren’t interested in searching in “real time” you can use one of these two browser based sites. You can of course watch and refresh, or you can subscribe via RSS to the search. This makes it possible to never miss a tweet on your favorite topic!

For Following Conversations

Tweetree: Have you ever found it difficult to follow a conversation between people you follow? Tweetree makes it easy to see the replies and back and forth of a conversation without visiting multiple profiles. It also shows linked URLs right on the page, without you having to link elsewhere. Here is a quick screen shot of Tweetree:

At the top you can see an indented tweet – that is a reply. At the bottom you will see a inserted URL. (Seriously, why can’t I do a Twitter screen shot without Scoble in the picture!)

Tweettree

For Mobile:

Twitterberry: For the Twitterer on the go, there is Twitterberry. Never leave your obsession for long…get your friends timeline, @replies, and of course tweet from ANYWHERE.

Finding Tweeps

Yes, I dislike the word “tweeps” too, but look I have used it twice already. Woot! (other disliked word I hear too often on Twitter!)

TwitterLocal:
Check out Twitter Local to find people in your area. I used this and have connected with some very nice individuals, who also write some great blogs on digital marketing (Direct Approach; Digital Socialite) politics (Jeejeebhoy) and shopping (Bargainista).

Other Good Stuff

Tweetburner:
When I tweet a URL I use Tweetburner (on Tweetdeck “Twurl” is in the drop down menu by the shorten URL field), this allows me to “track” the clicks on the URL. Tweetburner also tracks it over time and will give you your “Top Twurls” and a weekly and bi-weekly archive of your twurls, and the clicks on the Twurls!

PeopleBrowsr:
This is a new site I have played around with. Similar to Tweetdeck you can have multiple columns, create searches and groups etc. It is however browser based and so if you are working from a work computer where you are unable to download applications it might be ideal (although, then again it could be blocked by a firewall!) The other great thing about PeopleBrowsr is that it allows you to watch a news feed for FriendFeed, LinkedIn, Flickr, YouTube and more. If only Facebook wasn’t such a “closed garden” – then perhaps I could have my Facebook feed there as well….oh well wishful thinking.

Do you have a favourite Twitter Tool?

Follow me on Twitter!

And, connect to MEGOAgain through Google Friend Connect (right hand side of page!)

Popularity: 20% [?]

Tags: peoplebrowsr, tools, tweetdeck, tweetree, tweetscan, twitter, twitter search, twitterlocal

#GNO with @jessicaknows: A Summary of Twitter’s Girl’s Night Out

Jan 7, 2009 Advertising, Blogs, Books, Consumer Brands, Digital Marketing & Metrics, Microblogging, PR, Search Marketing, Social Bookmarking, Social Media, Web Analytics, social networks, word of mouth

Jessicaknows

I missed some of the #GNO (Girls Night Out) discussion on Twitter last night so I went into Twitter Search and read the discussion. As always, it was a bit of a dizzying conversation last night – trying to keep up with the multitude of posts. So, it was difficult getting all the tips from @jessicaknows during the discussion.

I tried to pull as much as I could into this compilation. I hope this helps others as well.

Attracting PR Peeps for your Blog

A lot of participants were interested in reviewing more products and wondered how to go about doing this more often.

@jessicaknows said that she doesn’t think that there is a magic number with regards to traffic on your site in attracting PR. She noticed a lot of attention once she had about 20,000 monthly visitors to her blog. However, she suggests if you write about the products you are passionate about the PR folks will follow.

My two cents: She is absolutely correct, while the PR people will look for an engaged community the numbers may not matter as much if you are passionate and are considered an “influencer”. In this case, your review would simply be the tip of the iceberg. An influencer will tend to spread “word of mouth” throughout a variety of networks online and offline -giving a lot of added value to the campaign – beyond the blog post.  I hope to write more posts on books in 2009 since that is my passion. I don’t have 20,000 monthly visitors – but I have already received two books for review in the past. (Dan Ariely – Predictibly Irrational and Don Tapscott – Grown Up Digital)

Use Social Media to Build Your Own Community

@jessicaknows suggests that you pick 3 social media tools & be consistent use them everyday. She uses three social networks: Twitter (obviously), Facebook and LinkedIn. She also uses StumbleUpon for bookmarking regularly. She uses LinkedIn to connect with lots of PR folks, and mom owned business she can partner and work with in the future. On Facebook she prefers to “friend” people she knows in real-life and friends she has met on other social networks (Twitter for example). For users concerned with privacy and sharing with virtual friends she had a great idea to have a user profile for personal use and a Fan Page for your business/blog/website. While the Fan Page will show you as an author, “fans” will have to request to be a friend in order to see your Facebook profile.

My two cents: I post all blog posts to Twitter and Facebook. I try to avoid using the robot when I have the time by personally summarizing the newest post in my status/tweet.  Twitter is also a great place to promote DIY or How To Posts to people who are looking for specific help. I use Tweetburner to track click-through, which can give me an idea of how successful the tweet/status was. Note – don’t just do self-promotion, make sure you tweet other content outside of your own that you think your followers will find value in.

I have just started using StumbleUpon but I have definitely seen some traffic to my site through my profile. StumbleUpon allows you to find “friends” that have similar interests to you which is a great way to find new and interesting websites. Stumble others and perhaps they will Stumble you. All about Karma!

Couple other thoughts on Social Media:
- Use Video to promote your site by placing your URL in videos posted to YouTube
- Participate in Forums and Discussion groups in your topic area
- There are niche Social Networks that you can be involved in TwitterMoms, ClassyCloset and more…Create a profile and participate in the community
- Comment, comment, comment on other blogs. This is an easy way to promote your blog on other similar sites, and show some love to other bloggers.
- Try to link to other bloggers in your blog posts when possible. Give credit where credit is due, and share great information with your community.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

There was a great discussion around SEO last night during the #GNO.  There were folks on all ends of the spectrum – from questions such as “What is SEO?” to helpful tips from experts. @jessicaknows suggests that this is an important part of driving traffic to your website. For Wordpress bloggers she recommends the SEO Plug-in, and she has signed up for SEOBook training to get up to speed on SEO.

My two cents: Having attended SES Toronto last year, I am a believer in SEO for building traffic to your site. I use All-in-One SEO Plug-in for my WordPress blog. I use H1, H2, H3 headers where possible in my blog posts, and try to include Keywords without sounding “canned”.  SEO is great, but you also must use Analytics to compliment your SEO work.  If you aren’t following your stats you won’t be able to measure your success, see what is working and what isn’t, and see where you might have holes. Your Analytics program can also tell you before you start SEO efforts what Keywords are driving traffic to your site, and later on you should follow data for trends in keywords and content that you may not have noticed otherwise.

My SEO for Marketers post is a good SEO 101 for new comers, and watch next week for my Google Analytics Series for Bloggers. Also, take a peak at my “learnings” from my analytics a little while ago

Blogger Relations and Onsite Details

A lot of blogger etiquette and on-site promotional ideas were brought up during the discussion, here are some of the points:

• It is all about helping others: @jessicaknows says “I establish relationships by learning about other ppl’s goals & what they’re all about & then introduce to each other”. This includes helping to promote blogs she believe in the most through her sites. I love this quote from her “it’s so easy…the key word is SOCIAL…use the “have a friend, be a friend” mantra in business and you can’t go wrong”
• Write often, and be consistent. She tries to write daily if she can. Obviously that isn’t feasible for everyone – but I know if I blog 2-3 times a week my traffic remains higher than if I blog 1 time a week. Perhaps that is just a no-brainer.
• Encourage conversation and open up channels for two way conversation.
  
• Show personality in your posts
  
• Offer Blog giveaways (check out @jessicaknows 15 days of Marketing Post on Giveaways)
• Attend offline events (Tweetups, Conferences)
  

For those of you who were at Girl’s Night Out – did I miss anything? Any other hints and tips to encourage traffic?

Popularity: 36% [?]

Tags: #gno, blogging, girls night out, jessicaknows, marketing & communication, promotion, seo, traffic, twitter, Web Analytics, web traffic

Best MEGO Posts from 2008: A Retrospective

Jan 1, 2009 Blogs, Digital Marketing & Metrics, Microblogging, Social Media, social networks

I wanted to highlight the best posts of the year. I based the choice on a combination of number comments, traffic, and quantity of in-bound links.

January

How We Make Decisions To Purchase Products

February

I was watching Lost and not blogging…

March

Making Concerts More Social

April

Facebook Advertising

May

The Hyperconnected Minority

June

Event Planning: Birthday Fun

July

YouTube Star

August

Baby! Baby!

September

The Canon Advantage?

October

Obama’s Loss Traced to [insert name here]: Personalized Video at its Best

November

5 Tips to Organization in Google Reader, Or How to Avoid Information Overload

December

Toronto Twitterers Top Twittersphere

Popularity: 12% [?]

Tags: canon, events, facebook, google reader, organization, social media, social networks, twitter, word of mouth, youtube

Twitter Press Conference on Gaza Violence

Dec 30, 2008 Digital Marketing & Metrics, Microblogging, PR, Politics, Random Thoughts

I have just been following the @IsraelConsulate on Twitter. This reflects a whole new use of Twitter. Amazing discussion! The “press conference” using the #hashtag #AskIsrael allowed Twitterers to ask questions directly to the Israeli Consulate. As could be expected of course there were more questions than Consulate could answer! They will be posting answers within in 24 hours at http://www.israelpolitik.org/.

This, along with the past discussion about the Canadian Coalition, and of course previous discussions about the US election show us that Twitter goes beyond “I am eating cereal” and “Guess what I just wrote on my blog…”. I have talked about how brands can use Twitter for marketing and customer service purposes, and now Twitter shows that it has a role as providing breaking news in a way that even the big networks can’t do. Now the public can ask questions, communicate with politicians, representatives of news-makers, and contribute by “breaking news” themselves. This is fascinating! How will this change how we watch the news? How we get our information? How we EXPECT to be able to manipulate and contribute to the news machine?  It could be fascinating to watch if Twitter gets used more for breaking news and emergency notification. Already, many of the news networks are Tweeting…but how else will they be used for further engagement with their followers?

I can imagine that in the future press conferences and interviewers could use Twitter to “crowdsource” questions, news channels could use Twitter for follow-up after a story, or to continue discussions online. Opportunities for polls, testimonials, and personal stories could be pulled from Twitter for news stories. What other uses can you see?

Check out Twitter Search for a full list of tweets from #AskIsrael.  Here however are a few tweets I pulled from the discussion!

As @shelisrael mentions the most difficult part of this kind of conference or discussion is filtering those who have honest questions versus those that simply want to make a biased point. Sadly, there were a lot of people who obviously joined Twitter just to harass and push their agenda…you can of course see some of them a mile away as most never even uploaded an avatar (image) and use the default Twitter image (two circles on brown background) – and they follow no one and have zero followers.

I hope that the situation in Gaza and Israel becomes peaceful and is resolved soon. The civilians, the good people in Gaza and in Israel should not have to live like this because of extremists, and terrorists (on both sides!) who destroy the chance for peace.

For More Info:

This blogger pulled together a list of questions from the conference.
And of course tomorrow check out IsraelPolitik for the full list of Q&A
A wonderful site of videos of people in Sderot and Gaza: Life in Spite of Everything

FYI while writing this blog, and while following Twitter Press conference I watched the news. Surprisingly no mention of #AskIsrael Twitter Conference.  Why not? Especially since one of the CNN news announcer had his Twitter address on the screen!

Popularity: 23% [?]

Tags: hamas, israel, news, Politics, twitter

Lessons in Driving Traffic and Engagement to Blogs

Dec 29, 2008 Blogs, Digital Marketing & Metrics, Microblogging, Search Marketing, Social Media, Web Analytics, social networks

The Lineup: Courtesy Stock.xchng KLatham

Traffic and engagement are not the same thing. Likely you know that. Quality vs Quantity…

Having people visiting my site looking for Chia Pets and Chicken Recipes and Fred Flinstone is ultimately not my goal.  People who visit my site using these search terms don’t tend to stick around very long, but they show up in my ‘traffic’ report nonetheless.

Quite some time ago Avinash Kaushik from Occam’s Razor gave me access to Google’s Custom Reporting and Advanced Segmenting which were at the time in beta. I had played with the new features quite a bit with my work websites, but not with my blog.  I decided it was time to do so, with the goal of figuring out how to grow my community of readers, and engage those of you who are regular visitors – for example getting you to comment, visit regularly etc. Using the extra reporting functions I was able to find out some interesting stuff:

• My most valuable new visitors were referrals (visiting from another website) and most were visiting from blogs I had commented on. These visitors, over visitors from Facebook, Twitter, Technorati or Blog directories; spent more time on my blog and visited a higher number of pages.
  LESSON
  - Commenting on other blogs drives interested and engaged traffic and hopefully subscribers
• Most returning visitors (those who aren’t subscribed via RSS, visiting directly or via a bookmark) visit again from Facebook, Twitter, Google and MichelleKostya.com
  LESSON
  - It is worth promoting blogs on social networks such as Facebook and Twitter by linking new posts.
• The keywords that drove the most valuable search traffic (pages/visit and time spent) to my site over the last few months were to posts on politics.
  LESSON
  - Posts on current events drive traffic.
• Keywords including “mego”, MEGOAgain”, “Mego Michelle”, “Michelle Kostya” etc spend the most amount of time on my site compared to site average. Duh…they were looking for me. Other keywords that engaged my visitors: Facebook advertising, Facebook ignoring friends, jetblue twitter duty, corporate tweet, Loblaws, Sony, Sheridan
  LESSON
  - Optimize site and posts around keywords that engage.
  - Brand names are often searched and can drive traffic although not all engage readers enough for them to stick around.
  - Continue to write posts on social media and Web 2.0!
• Unfortunately, since most return visitors came directly to the main page it is hard to determine what content is driving them back via Google Analytics. However, if you I look at my Feedburner stats and refer back to the articles posted around that time my readers enjoyed these posts over the last 30 days (why does Feedburner only allow me to break data by 1 day, 1 week, 1 month or “all time”?) the most popular posts to my return visitors are:
  - Social Media’s Next Victim
  - Kid’s Say the Funniest Things #2
  - My Top 15 Web 2.0 Sites
  - 5 Tips to Organize Google Reader
  - He Sleeps! A Miracle
  Interesting – a mixed bag of social media posts AND parenting.  However, one thing I do know about these posts is that they were either short or broken up by bullets or subject headings.

  LESSON
  - Short is good
  - Break long posts into sections or use formatting to break the post up into smaller bites!

• I have been racking my brain to find ways to encourage commenting, this is a good sign that readers are enjoying what they are reading on my blog. However, this is not the only way to measure this.
  LESSON
  - Measure depth of visit, number of pages/visit
  - Time spent on site
  - Return Visitors vs. New Visitors

What kind of lessons can you share about building your blog community? Where do your readers come from? How do you measure engagement?

Popularity: 18% [?]

Tags: analytics, avinash kaushik, Blogs, commenting, community, engagement, facebook, feedburner, google advanced segments, google custom reports, keywords, search terms, seo, twitter, web 2.0, web traffic