Optimizing Your Digital Presence Through Twitter

Over the past month, I have been spending an enormous amount of time on Twitter. Through this experience, I have observed several tips and tricks to optimize a person or digital business presence on Twitter.

1. It's You Scratch My Back; I'll Scratch Your Back Kind Of World:

In the world that we live in, nothing comes for free. In other words, to gain a following you must be willing to engage in a two-way communication process.  As a business or persona, one must be willing to engage with others content on Twitter. Doing so follows the principals of reciprocity, and while it may not always work, it is worth a shot. In the perfect world, by engaging with a persona or business’ content, they might, in turn, retweet or like your content, which can go a long way. However, while any brand exposure one can get is positive, there are ways in which a persona/ business can get more out of retweeting or liking content, through strategic engagement.

2. Executing A Strategic Engagement Plan :

No matter the industry, there is always people and or organization within it that have a prominent voice in social media. These thought leaders can lend a helpful hand in spreading your message. The question is how do we find these people or organizations?

Start by making a list of all the keywords that are important to the message you are trying to communicate. For example, say you are a car dealership. Some important words related to your industry include automotive, dealership, fuel economy, car safety. Once you list down these words, put them into hashtags, and begin to take note of not only the conversations that are taking place but who is leading them. 

One might be tempted to go on to assume that the person or organization that have the most engagements on their posts is the brand to follow. While this might be the case, you’ll need to do some research first. Through research, you may discover that even though this person might be popular, doesn’t mean that they know the right people. How then do you determine the quality of a potential thought leader?

Look at who is following that brand. If it is a business are the key trade journals or publications following them? If not, what about other people who are partaking in the conversations on a regular basis, are they  following that business? If neither of these is the case, this business might not be the most useful in the long run. However, don’t count them out entirely. The same mindset goes for personas.

Now that you have gained a general understanding of the background of your respective industry it is time to start setting up your account to widen your audience. 

3. Gaining Exposure Through Your Account: 

Remember how earlier when you listed down the keywords that were related to your industry? Narrow that list down to your top 5-7 keywords and include these keywords in the form of hashtags in your profile description. Why is this?

When searching for hashtags, Twitter acts much like any search engine and pulls up results that contain keywords.  One of the tabs you can choose says, people, click on this tab and you will find people who either have these hashtags in their profile description or have the keyword(s) within their Twitter handle. 

If I were to take an educated guess, I’d say that the order and or ranking of these results work like the Google search engine, in that based on how many times that profile was viewed, the keyword frequency within that page, and how often they post determines ones ranking. The ultimate goal would be to move up on that list.

As of now, you have accomplished three main components that go into optimizing your Twitter account. First, you started by recognizing that engagement with other content on Twitter can be valuable for both parties involved. Secondly, you complied research identifying keywords, conversations, and thought leaders. Thirdly, you set up your profile to be searchable through keywords that you utilize within your description. The final step is putting it all together. 

4. Success Is Around The Corner:

Now that you have compiled all this research and other background info you can start tweeting out content. The type of content that you post should be reflective of what you have learned from your research. At the same time, there needs to be a twist to the content. A unique quality that’ll make you stand out from all the others who are discussing the topical areas in your industry. Not sure where to start?

Start by joining in the conversation in your industry. Share what you are most passionate about, and what you want others to know about your brand. Converse and engage with thought leaders within the industry, and in time you will begin to understand where you can fit into the mix.

What strategies have you implemented in optimizing your Twitter presence? What advice do you have for others looking to grow? Comment below.

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My Evergreen Snowflake

She twinkles like a snowflake, falling from the heavens above.
Every time I see her, I try and catch her eye, yet she drifts away with the coming breeze.
In time she melts away as the seasons pass.
If only time could mend, then I could show her my true colors.
I stand true and stiff, as the evergreen that I am.
Hoping that someday she will return from the heavens above.... 

Senior Year: The Last Hurrah

It is hard to believe that my senior year is nearly halfway done.
It seems like yesterday I was graduating from high school and getting ready to embark on my journey as a college student.
What a journey it truly has been.
From the early days of freshman year, as I navigated and adapted myself to a new lifestyle and mindset.
In my sophomore year, in which I became a more globalized citizen through my study abroad experience.
Then in my junior year, I came to appreciate the camaraderie of brotherhood and friendship I was able to build with my suitemates; a year I hold near and dear to my heart.
Finally, I've come to my senior year which is the ultimate culmination of all my experiences and education.
College was just a stepping stone towards the future, and although it seems daunting, I am excited to embark and see what's waiting for me around the corner. 

Leadership

In the northwest corner of the world, there was a village in a forest.
The village was led by three powerful men, who proved to be fierce warriors and hunters.
One day one of the younger men of the village was tasked with preparing and cooking the freshly caught fish for the village.
One of the village leaders came by to tell the younger man to skewer the fish and roast them over the fire.
The young man began slowly cooking the fish over the fire rotating them every so often.
A few minutes later the second village leader stopped by to check on how cooking the fish was going.
He asked the young man why he was roasting the fish as opposed to baking them in aluminum foil.
The young man told the second village leader that he had been told to cook the fish that way by the first village leader.
The second village leader insisted that his method would be a more efficient way cooking the fish.
So then the young man switched methods of cooking the fish for several minutes.
The third village leader came along to check on the young man.
He asked the young man why he was cooking the fish in aluminum foil when they had frying pans.
Again the young man explained to the third village leader that he had been instructed by the second leader to cook the fish in the foil.
The third leader told the young man to cook the fish in the frying pans.
After the third leader left the young man was left very confused.
While he understands that there are multiple ways he can complete this task he is unsure of who to listen to.
So he decides to cook the fish as the third leader had instructed him too and brought the cooked fished to the village.

What does this teach us about leadership? 

    

The Importance of Employee Brand Advocates Social Media

Over the past decade, social media has become mainstream within society. Each every day millions of users across various platforms such as Facebook and Twitter alike are sharing their thoughts and content. With this trend, it is essential for businesses to have an active social media presence. Companies must not only create content that is relevant to its consumers, but it also must strive to encourage its employees to be brand advocates.

Buffer Social conducted some research on employee usage of social media with some interesting results:

• 33% of employees post messages, videos or pictures about their employer from time to time with no encouragement from their employer
• 39% of employees have praised their company on social media
• 16% have posted something negative about employer

With only 39% of employees posting on social media this leaves  61% of your employees unengaged with your brand. So how do we work to fix this?

David Hassel, the founder of 15Five.com, a web-based employee feedback solution, offers five ways to solve this problem:

(1) Develop A Persona

A persona is a profile identity of your consumer. This profile includes the wants and needs of the customer. It should also include various personality traits that this persona has. By providing this resource to your employees, it'll make it easier for them to create messages that resonate with that persona.

(2) Make it easy for employees to share content

Trello is an incredible asset that any company could benefit from. It allows users to create tasks or lists in an organized fashion easily. In this case, 15Five.com utilized Trello to encourage its employees to use Trello as an open forum for social media content.  Employees could post everything from videos to photos to memes. It encouraged a culture of open communication.

(3) Provide Encouragement:

The last thing you want to do is to make your employees feel as if this is something else that has been added to their workload.  Instead, you tell your employees to not go out of their way to post content.  Rather, whenever they see something of interest, they can post it to Trello.

"Empower employees to be themselves."- David Hassel

How then do most companies encourage their employees to engage on social media?

• 55% offer easily accessible tools for their employees to use in social media
• 50% provide messages about the employer for the employee to use on their social media channels.
• 35% allow employees to use social media at work
• 39% ask employees to stay alerted to social media posting about company
• 35 % provide employees with social media updates so that they can stay current with the tools
• 39 % provide training on how to use social media effectively

Why does this matter?

If you remember from before, only 33% of employees post messages, videos or photos without any encouragement. Brands who do encourage their employees to use social media have better results than those who don't. As they are providing their employees with the resources, they need to be successful brand advocates.

(4) Consistency is key

The person who ultimately, posts the content to social media must make sure that they maintain a consistent voice. Otherwise, you will have trouble maintaining a brand image with your customers on social media.

(5) Share Social Media Statistics with team so they can see their impact

Showing your employees the social media statistic will make them feel like they are making a difference. Everyone wants to be recognized for their great work, so why not praise the team for their efforts?

 

Does your organization encourage its employees to post on social media? What strategies does your organization use?

 

Why We Should Be Concerned With Virtual Realities Emergence

It is scary to think that virtual reality is becoming a bigger technology in our day to day lives. While it is certainly amazing that we have developed a technology that brings a vast amount of opportunities, it frightens me.

Virtual reality will provide an even greater disconnect in the world around us. It'll discourage us from going out and exploring the world and learning about new cultures. Instead, all we would have to do is put on a pair of VR goggles, and we are walking along the Great Wall of China or swimming in the Great Barrier Reef, without ever leaving the comfort of our home.

On top of that, if Facebook's vision of Facebook Space comes to fruition, we will have an even greater disconnect socially. Already social media has lessened our face to face communication, but this new platform seeks to further that disconnect. With Facebook Space, users will have the ability to meet friends virtually and do things together. While it would certainly be an amazing innovation, it begs to ask what does the future hold for VR?

The technology already exists that allows users by a few clicks of a button to find an encyclopedia of information stored on the internet. What is to say that won't someday become a part of VR?

The need for formal face to face education would disappear. Instead, it would be replaced by an artificial intelligence that would teach us. Valuable life skills that we develop from the classroom would disappear.

Over the next decade or to we need to tread carefully and make sure VR doesn't take over our lives and begin to replace what makes us unique as human beings.

How to Market a Company on Instagram

Here are 6 quick tips that you can use to better market your content on Instagram:

(1) Hashtags:

When considering the type of content you are posting on Instagram, it is important to take into consideration the hashtags that you use. Hashtags will allow your content to reach more viewers than content without.

To find the most effective hashtags, do some research on your industry. Determine what keywords are most important. You can do this simply by typing hashtags into Instagram, and seeing what sort of content is coming up.

Look at what sort of messaging people or organizations are posting about on those related hashtags. Consider how their audience is engaging with that content. What other hashtags are these people or organizations posting? Are these hashtags prevalent to your content?

The most important practice, I learned through HubSpot Inbound Marketing is to include your key focus word or phrase within a hashtag. This keyword or phrase is found within your title of the blog post and will help improve your Search Engine Optimization(SEO).

(2) Call To Actions (CTA):

Call To Actions, are content that entice your prospective viewer or follower to engage with that content. Content that have no CTA from personal experience do not perform very well.

As a professor of mine always emphasized in his lectures, you need to consider the acronym WIFM(What is in it for me?). If audiences have no CTA to interact with within your content why should they bother liking or commenting on your post?

So how can you get more people to interact with your content? Consider asking questions within your content that will get your viewers or followers thinking about an idea or concept. Since you can't include clickable links within your Instagram post, consider making the question or content around a particular blog post or idea on your website that you want to draw attention to. Then simply include the hashtag #linkinbio, and this will indicate to the viewers or followers that they can look in your bio to find the clickable link to your website. In turn, this may result in your followers or viewers into becoming either a Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL) or a Sales Qualified Lead (SQL) somewhere down the line depending upon where they fall on the lifecycle stage.

Another forum of CTA that you may consider aligning with your other content is to include quotes that relate to the blog post or idea you are trying to convey. From my experience, these have generated lots of interest, especially if the person you are quoting from is well known.

(3) Short and Sweet:

You may have the most elaborate idea to draw people into your content, but the reality is most people's attention spans are pretty short. Try and aim for no more than 300 characters.

(4) Personality:

Consider trying a more personal approach to your posts. This can include a wide variety of methods including posts about but not limited to: meeting the team, a day in the office, employees out in the community and etc...

By taking this approach you are far less robotically and will allow you to connect with your viewers and followers on a more intimate level, than some of your other more business type posts.

(5) Images with People:

Images that simply have stagnate visual representation like images of just text, do not perform as well, as opposed to images with action shots, such as a group of people out in a field playing catch.

(6) Instagram Business Analytics Tool:

Instagram's Business Analytics tool allows marketers to analyze key metrics including reach, impressions, engagements and demographics.  

These key pieces of information will help you market your content more effectively.

If you are unfamiliar of how you can set up this useful tool you can click here.

How do you use Instagram to engage with your audience? Are there ways in which you can improve?