Twitter Lists has been available to some lucky users in Beta for a while, but last week saw its full roll out to the rest of the Twitter universe.
What is Twitter Lists?
Twitter Lists is a feature in Twitter that allows you to categorize the people you follow. Right now, you can create up to 20 lists, and each list can have up to 500 users. You can make the lists public (for everyone to access) or private. Here’s an example of what it looks like:
1. Better Organization
Twitter Lists allow for better organization of your followers, particularly if you follow a lot of people. It also makes it easier to filter tweets from different groups of people which is helpful if you follow a bunch of Twitter addicts who like to tweet every minute, of every day!
For example, if you just want to see what is going on amongst your friends in “real life”, you can create a list that just includes the people you personally know. You could also organize a list of people who tweet about social media and a list of people focused on search marketing, and then easily see what information is being talked about for each of these different areas.
2. Provide Recommendations
If you have taken the time to create a list and add people to it, then that often implies a recommendation for those people, for the field you have categorized them into. Public-viewable lists also allow an easy way for users to find and follow people in lists that have been created.
There has been speculation that Twitter Lists could be the death of #FollowFriday. Personally, I think Follow Friday will continue to live on, since list creation is not something everyone will take the time to do. Rather, Twitter Lists and Follow Friday have the potential to complement each other. For example, rather than listing individual people in a Follow Friday, users can now just link to a Twitter List.
3. Identify Influencers
When a person has been added to many lists (and there is a similar categorization across those lists), you can start to gain an idea as to who the big players or influencers are in that field. This provides another way of judging big Twitter influencers, in addition to just looking at the number of followers a person has (particularly since there are ways to cheat the system where follower volume is concerned).
4. Positioning By Others
Twitter Lists provide interesting insight into how followers view you. This can be particularly eye-opening for companies on Twitter. How is your company’s brand, positioning and values defined by your customers? And how does this differ to your corporate definition? As an example, @comcastcares is currently on 330 lists, ranging from various technology and service-related descriptions (such as tech and customersupport), to more emotional categorizations ranging from brandsirespect to punkassesandidiots.
Additional Twitter List Tools
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Listorious provides a directory of public Twitter Lists
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Listiti provides Twitter List Email Alerts
Last week was an eventful week for search and social marketing. First there was the announcement that Twitter had signed deals with both Bing and Google to give them access to its full feed of public tweets. How exactly the search engines intend to use this real-time information from Twitter remains a little fuzzy, though Bing does already utilize some of this in Bing Tweets.
On the same day Google announced a separate “Social Search” experiment in Google Labs. Google’s Social Search displays links and updates based upon the searcher’s own social network. The idea is to show personally relevant search results based upon your social connections. Why? Because people trust information more from people they know or are connected to.
The results (currently appearing at the bottom of the standard search results page) are based on various information sources, such as:
- Gmail contacts
- Google reader subscriptions
- Social networking profiles on your Google profile
- Friends on other services, including Flickr, FriendFeed, Digg, YouTube…
These search results also tell you how you are connected to that person; a nice touch.
There has been much talk about the growing convergence of search and social as well as predictions of their marriage in the future. But these are promising signs of the major engines taking serious steps forward where social media is concerned.
Learn More
To check out Google Social Search yourself, go to Google Labs and join the Social Search Experiment.
To understand How Google Social Search Works, watch the YouTube video by Matt Cutts.
I’m doing the dreaded apartment move at the end of this month. But the move this time around has been a slightly different experience from the last. This time, I was more aware of how search and social could help make things easier, and I gained some key takeaways about how my own experience can help me to become a better search and social marketer.
Boxes
The main problem when moving is trying to figure out how many boxes you need. I did a general search on “moving boxes” and although it wasn’t the top organic result, U-Haul (the only brand I recognized in the top three organic positions) appeared, which was a bit of a surprise since I only know them for their vans, and not for boxes.
I clicked on the U-Haul link and got taken directly to a page with customized moving kits. Once on their site, U-Haul help you choose box types and quantities depending upon the size of your home (ranging from a dorm room up to a 2-bed house). So easy. They also allow you to customize the kit you choose. For example, if you didn’t want a tape gun then you could just take it out and add another medium-sized box instead. Furthermore, if you overestimate on the box front, then no problem, as U-Haul buys back any unused boxes from you!
Key Takeaways:
- Being in a top 3 organic position really is golden (above the fold, page 1, within the “golden triangle”)
- Scent from keyword, to SERP listing (copy), to landing page is key
- Brand recognition plays an important role in click-thru (even if the brand is appearing for an area in which you don’t normally associate that brand with)
- Landing page guarantees help to reinforce trust and move people through the decision cycle
Movers
After my last DIY moving experience, I came to the wise decision of hiring movers to do it for me. However, finding movers is a slightly more complex task than finding boxes. It requires a higher investment, and there is a much bigger trust factor involved. Care is one concern, as is reliability (ie: not having someone drive off with my entire life’s contents in the back of their van!).
Rather than do a standard Google search, I first went to Angie’s List to get an idea of reliable movers in my area. Angie’s List is specifically focused on ratings and reviews of home service providers. Due to the nature of this site, I associated a higher trust factor with the reviews on here, rather than from the web at large.
I also sent a message out on Twitter asking if anyone could provide a recommendation. This is what happened:
[imeldak] Can anyone recommend any good residential moving companies in Portland Oregon?
Call me a push-over, but based on this interaction, along with the helpful information I found on their site, I would now recommend NorthStar Moving Corp (@movingpro) to friends and family I have in California, and anyone else who was looking for a recommendation. I even did a Follow Friday for them.
[movingpro] @imeldak i’m not in ur area but B sure 2 check reputation w/ BBB, yrs in biz, awards 4 service. Reputation saves u $
[imeldak] @movingpro Thanks. It’s a shame I’m not in Cali, otherwise you guys would’ve been perfect
[movingpro] @imeldak I’m sorry to! but check out our site there r lots of helpful tips 4 ur move http://bit.ly/NCPJY
Key Takeaways:
- Sometimes Google is not always the right search engine to use; it really does depend on the task
- I trust recommendations based upon interactions with my Twitter contacts more than recommendations made on sites by complete strangers
- Never underestimate the importance of listening to keywords on Twitter
- Successful engagement on Twitter can earn brand advocates
When it comes to social media, the focus – by nature – should always be on people and relationships, not tools. This means that social media planning does not begin with a Twitter strategy.
If you’ve read any of my previous posts, you will be familiar with my disdain towards that popular question “What’s your Twitter strategy?” *puke*. As we know, Twitter can be used to help achieve certain objectives and strategies, but should not be seen as a strategy in itself; it is a tool to get things done. Just like direct mail is one tactic that can be used to generate demand, Twitter is a tool that can be used to listen and engage with customers.
This is important for people within an organization to understand, and it is more than just about being a terminology snob. Why? As with all planning, if you start deep diving directly into tools and tactics without knowing exactly what it is you are trying to achieve and why, then there is risk of completely missing the point, and wasting time and money on executing the wrong things, for the wrong reasons.
This is why I’ve found it useful to use a matrix-like system to help organize thoughts and avoid the tactical deep dive approach. The headings (objective, strategy, tactics and tools) help provide focus for your ideas. You can then use this as a template to build out the details around your plan (not forgeting metrics, of course).
Here’s an example:
You’ve optimized and optimized and you’ve finally managed to get that coveted SEO top spot. Time to turn off your PPC, right? Not so fast. One thing I’ve learned is that search marketing isn’t always clear-cut.
I often get asked why we continue to sponsor some keywords when we are already ranking high on the SEO side. So here’s a quick summary discussing the benefits of doing SEO-only versus keeping PPC running alongside SEO.
Approach 1: SEO-Only
Once you have gained a top SEO position, then one approach is not to continue sponsoring these keywords in PPC anymore. Why cannibalize your free click stream with clicks that you have to pay for? If your budget is stretched then you can use this money to better support keywords that aren’t showing up organically. Afterall, searchers trust organic results and according to Marketing Sherpa, the Top 5 SEO rankings command 55% of clicks.
Approach 2: Combined PPC and SEO
There is nothing in the SEO-only approach that I don’t agree with. However, I do believe that there is value in keeping PPC running alongside SEO, particularly for those golden keywords that convert well. Here’s a few reasons why:
1. Reassurance to the Searcher
Having a presence in both SEO and PPC helps to reassure a searcher that you are relevant to the search they have carried out, and that you are the right next step to click on. Sure there will be some cannibalization along the way, but often the combined clicks are higher than just having a presence in SEO alone. However, these numbers are worth testing out for yourself.
2. Shelf Space
Searchers may trust SEO results, but almost 20% of them are still clicking on PPC ads (Marketing Sherpa). By appearing in both organic and paid search positions, you increase your visibility and in effect, double your shelf space in the Search Engine Results Page (SERP). One more position that belongs to you, means one less that can be taken up by your competitors.
If you are interested, check out this article by Kevin Lee (ClickZ) which explains more about the concept of Search Marketing Shelf Space.
3. Control
Just because you are in a top SEO position today, isn’t to say that you will stay there. SEO is very fluid and you have to constantly monitor and optimize in order to stay on top.
– Position
One benefit of PPC over SEO is that it is a lot more controllable. If having a top SEO and top PPC position is too much overkill, then look to achieve a balance. If you command a top SEO position then you can afford to bid slightly less for a lower PPC position – this way you are still providing reassurance to the searcher, maintaining that double shelf space, whilst not spending as much to achieve it.
– Preferred Landing Page (PLP)
Sometimes your SEO entry doesn’t lead people to the preferred landing page you want people to see when they click through from the SERP. With PPC you can control/tailor both the adcopy and the PLP to better match the intent of the searcher, or guide the searcher towards a particular outcome/conversion of your choosing.
For example, if you do a search on the word “Google”, “Google” appears in both the top SEO and PPC positions. The organic entry leads people to google.com, but the paid ad encourages people to “Make Google Your Homepage” with a direct link to that page.
There are fors and againsts for both approaches, but it is worth not automatically ruling out PPC when your SEO is strong, especially for those high-converting keywords. What is important, is to continually monitor spend and performance to make sure that your PPC is providing enough return.
What the Heck is Google Sidewiki?
On 23rd September, Google unveiled a new toolbar feature for web browsers that allow anyone to add comments and notes about web pages – including your web page – in a sidebar. Users can make comments about the page as a whole, or reference specific content on the page. Here’s what it looks like:
Google Sidewiki: Allows Anyone to Comment on your Webpage
Why, Oh Why?
The social media beast continues to grow. Almost everywhere you look online, people are talking, commenting, interacting and rating companies and their products – be it through forums and blog posts; on Amazon, Twitter and Facebook; and now on your site too.
According to Google, Sidewiki will help people to:
- More easily contribute to any web page and help others
- Learn from others who have visited a page before you
Isn’t that a bit “Pie in the Sky”?
Definitely. Sidewiki works on the basis that people are altruistic, and this is true to a certain extent. We see this all the time in forums – people like to help people and put their knowledge on stage. It makes contributors feel good and valued, despite there being no monetary gain.
However, with the good, also comes the bad. Sidewiki – as with most social media – opens things up to abusers who are not looking to add value, but rather to write insults, spread rumors and post spam. It also means competitors can go in and add comments, which could include tactics that tell visitors to go to their site and buy their products instead.
What Does This Mean?
Whether you like it or not, your web site just went social. Visitors can now voice their feedback on your pages using Sidewiki. Unlike before, feedback is now attached to your site, rather than just through some disparate blog or third-party site. This means that if you’re not already, it’s time to seriously start listening, participating in and embracing feedback and interaction.
So Should Companies be Scared?
This depends on a number of things, including:
1. Audience Uptake
Sidewiki comments are stored on Google’s servers and only visible to those who have actually downloaded the tool and are aware of its function. So if your audience are early adopters of social tools, then they are more likely to be users compared to late adopters and laggards. Of these people, an even fewer amount will actually use the tool to make comments.
2. Brand Promoters
If you’re brand is popular then your promoters will likely stand up against the detractors when it comes to negative comments and insults. If you don’t have a lot of promoters, then it’s time to gain them through listening and addressing concerns.
3. Abuse and Spam Issues
It seems that you get system abusers wherever you go these days. But how do you address this? There’s a couple of options available, but nothing fool proof:
a. Report abuse to Google – Abusers can be “identified” since users have to be logged in as a Google users. However, there is likely to be a time lag between Google addressing any abuse, plus anyone can sign up for an account or fake account.
b. Usefulness Ratings – In Sidewiki, comments can be rated as a thumbs up or thumbs down. From the few sites I’ve found so far (mostly B2C), it looks like Sidewiki puts comments in order of usefulness rating (as opposed to recency), where comments with the highest number of thumbs up appear at the top of the Sidewiki list, thus pushing the not so useful comments (such as spam) to the bottom.
c. Address Issues With Your Own Comments – Monitor the posts and conversations, listen and address issues, encourage brand promoters.
Check it out Yourself
The best way to learn more about Sidewiki, see it in action, and of course keep a check on whether people are adding to your website, is to Download Sidewiki yourself.
Whilst awareness of search marketing is on the increase within organizations, general understanding is still often limited to someone within the organization typing in words or phrases into Google and seeing whether the company is showing up or not.
Not too long ago, someone (quite possibly in sales) was going through this very exercise, which led to “one of those” questions coming my way. It went along the lines of:
“How come we’re not showing up for our competitors’ product models? If someone does a search on them, we need to be there so we can take away their business”
I’m sure this isn’t the only time that this question has been asked. So if you ever find yourself in this situation, I’ve got your back. Here’s three reasons to help you fight for the greater cause.
1. Volume
Keyword volume on product models and nomenclatures (EG: Z2300), are typically very low, especially when compared to volumes of searches carried out at a higher category level (EG: color inkjet printer). This is even more true for companies operating in the B2B space.
Use the Google AdWords Keyword Tool to show people the volume numbers. In most cases, the nomenclature result will come back as “not enough data” (ie: too small a number for Google to bother counting).
2. Intent
Someone typing in a product model or nomenclature has carried out a very specific search and are on a very specific mission. Chances are they have either:
a. Already gone through a lengthy decision process to purchase that specific product
In which case, how persuasive can 95 characters of adcopy be in changing their minds completely? And how come we (as an organization) didn’t do a better job in persuading them to buy our product earlier on in this process?
b. [Most likely] Looking for some kind of customer service and support for that product
In which case, sending them to a page about a completely different product is not much use to anyone.
3. Relevance
A best practice in search marketing – and marketing as a whole – is to deliver relevance to our audience (ie: our external audience, not our internal staff members). This keeps our customers happy, and provides us with the best path to conversion.
Something that is talked about a lot in search is the concept of “scent”. Having good scent (or connection) that bridges the gap between the keyword, to the adcopy, through to the landing page always deliver the best results. Sponsoring competitors’ model numbers is not an example of a good scent trail, more like a lingering bad smell.
In addition, nomenclatures are not often unique to a company or industry. For example, “Z2300” is not only a printer by Lexmark, but it is also a speaker by Logitech. Similarly, “DM” doesn’t just stand for Dr. Martens shoes, but also Depeche Mode, Diabetes Mellitus and Davis-Monthan Air Force Base. Do your own search and see what else is appearing in the search result. Chances are, not many will be related.
There are times when internal opinion can often cloud good judgement, especially when it comes to product messaging.
Customer focus groups are a good way to help inform companies when it comes to overall messaging and identifying important customer benefits (not just features that “we” think are cool). But this takes a lot of time and resource, and although rich in qualitative data, it is often limited when it comes to the issue of sample size and statistical significance. On top of this it can be very expensive, even more-so during times when there is barely enough budget to cover basic marketing costs.
Although not a substitute for focus groups, keyword testing is a good way to help inform messaging. It can help validate whether the right words are being used to describe or even categorize a type of product/resource in the language that your customers are using (as opposed to internal jargon or opinion).
A few benefits of doing keyword testing, include:
- High reach, with actionable quantitative results
- Simple to set up and quick to perform
- Easy monitoring (and tweaking if needed)
- Quick, reliable results (two weeks of data is often more than adequate)
- Much less investment compared to full blown customer research (tests I’ve done have added zero to little additional cost to the overall search program)
Here are a couple of keyword testing scenarios at work:
Scenario 1: “We should change this product category name from x to y because that is what our competitors are calling it”
1. Sponsor both keyword variations in your PPC program. Even better, throw in some additional variations to test also.
2. Monitor the search volume that is being generated on each variation. This will tell you which variation people search on most when thinking about that product category.
3. Check the click-through rate (CTR) and click volume on each variation. The higher the CTR and volume, the more that keyword is resonating with the voice of the customer.
Scenario 2: “Our customer literature descriptions are all over the place – sometimes we call them reports, sometimes guides, sometimes white papers… but they are all the same thing. I vote for just calling everything reports from now on”
1. This scenario screams A/B copy testing. Try taking a PPC campaign focused in the “Learn” phase to test something like this out. For example, one that already calls out a specific call-to-action in the adcopy.
2. Simply swap out the different variations, whilst keeping the rest of the keywords and adcopy the same. For example, “Download your free report” vs. “Download your free guide” vs. “Download your free white paper”.
3. See which adcopy version Google serves up the most to learn which version resonates with customers, paying attention to impression and CTR numbers.
In a previous post, Why Should Search Care About Social, I talked about search engines needing to better incorporate social and real-time search results as part of their Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs).
Since then, there have been a few developments by both Google and Bing. Here is a very preliminary review of progress so far:
Google
Once the SERP shows in Google, you can expand out a “Show More Options” link to provide you with time-specific results by “Recent Results”, “Past 24 Hours”, Past Week”, “Past Year”, or a “Specific Date”.
However, “Recent Results” are not very recent, at least for the real-time searcher’s needs. Searches I’ve tested can vary from 3 hours, to 9 hours to 3 days ago, which is a lifetime in the social world (maybe this is the reason why they keep it relatively hidden).
Search Engine Land recently revealed a Hidden Google Feature to find out what’s new in the last minute or second. However, there are still kinks to work out, as revealed the day after the VMA awards:
@adamvonwillis RT @dannysullivan: still how “real time” is google’s search w only 4 matches on kanye west in past min – How pathetic!
We need to cut Google some slack though. Since it’s a hidden feature, it will be work in progress, and I’m sure this will be much improved once it is officially revealed to the public at large.
Bing
Bing have a Beta site called Bing Tweets which claim to “Fuse Twitter Trends with Bing Insights”.
Bing Tweets provide a way to learn more about what trending topics are about on Twitter, by showing Twitter Trend topics side-by-side with Bing search results on those topics. It’s a nice step forward, but mostly comes across as separate Twitter-specific and Bing-specific elements, lumped together on one page. Here’s a breakdown of each element:
Twitter-Specific
The top left of the page displays the trending topics on Twitter, along with an RSS feed showing tweets mentioning a highlighted trending topic down the left side. A nice touch is being able to view topics by either “Popular Now” (all topics), “People”, “Places” and “Products”.
Bing-Specific
The majority of the Bing Tweets page is taken up with the standard Bing Search Results, using the highlighted trending topic as the keyword. The results, or course, include universal results such as video.
Search Bing and Twitter
The “Search Bing and Twitter” function on the top right of the page allows you to conduct your own keyword search so that you are not limited to just the top trending topics. This is nice as you can do searches on your own company and products, for example.
Share This Result
Bing pre-populates a message within “Share This Result”, leading people back to the Bing results page. They also cleverly utilize a #bing hashtag, helping to increase their Twitter exposure.
Probably the nicest part about the “Share this Result” feature is allowing you to easily share the page via Twitter or via other popular social media vehicles (including Digg, StumbleUpon, LinkedIn, and others).
So overall, some nice, positive steps forward, but there is still a long way to go to winning the real-time search war.
I haven’t come across anything that says you should use a Twitter account linked to a company vs. an individual (or vice-versa). There are fors and againsts of using both, which is why I think having both types of account can’t be a bad thing. If resources are low, think about starting up with a company account first, and then individual accounts can always follow.
Regardless of whether you choose to take the company or individual route, make your Tweets human. Use conversational language; language you would use when talking to people face-to-face, as opposed to very formal language you would use in a business report.
Twitter is a great listening tool to see what people are saying about your industry, company and products. As an example, just type your company name into the search box to see the conversations happening. Save this search so you can regularly check in to see what people are saying about you. Look for ways to address anything negative (in a helpful, non-argumentative way), and acknowledge promoters of your brand.
If anything, Twitter is about information sharing and increasing communication. Try to share news that is informative and provide links to interesting, educational content on your website. Don’t be sell, sell, sell all the time. Rather strive to be the expert in your domain, and the sell will follow.
Twitter is a great two-way communications tool (which is how marketing should be). Don’t just push information out, but engage in conversations. There’s nothing worse than a Twitter Account that is being used as an RSS feeder (remember Be Human, Not a Robot) or a user that is “All about me, all of the time”.
When you send out a tweet that includes a link to information, it is good to know if people are clicking on it. Bit.ly is a handy tool that not only shortens URLs (to help keep your tweets within that 140 character limit), but also allows you to track how many people click on these links. This can help provide insight into what kinds of content interests your followers. Twitter is also working on more substantial Twitter measurement tools for business use, but this will come at a price.
Hashtags are a way of tagging your tweets so that people who are interested in specific topics can find and read about them. In a business context it can be used when talking about an industry (EG: #hitech), or company (#AT&T), or product (EG: #iphone).
There are a number of Twitter Directories which you can join to help people find you. Two good directories I recommend are:
There are a number of tools that help you to more effectively manage your Twitter Account. The one I use is TweetDeck which can be accessed directly from your desktop and/or mobile phone.
- You can more easily see mentions, replies, and direct messages so you don’t miss out on any engagement opportunities.
- You can easily add columns to include certain topics, keywords, and hashtags. For example, you can set up a column with mentions of your company and another column for mentions of your competitor.
- You can manage multiple Twitter accounts in one place. For example, if you have a company account and an individual company account.
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