So you’ve done everything right. You’ve created your perfect Twitter profile, found an awesome picture to represent who you are, and are engaging with people like crazy. Now you you’re beginning to have a following, but are they seeing your tweets? Not everyone is as interactive and engaging as you, or lives on the internet.


How can you maximize the potential reach of your tweets? The answer: proper timing of tweets. You’ve heard it in the business world your whole life, “timing is everything,” and it applies to your tweets as well. While it may seem like most Twitter activity is going on all day during business hours, that’s just the activity of who you follow, not who is following you. In order to get your tweets seen, you need to tweet when your followers are on, otherwise they’ll just get lost in the massive Twitter feed on your followers page.


Here are a few tips on how to accomplish the perfectly timed Tweet:

1. Research your audience. Is your following a bunch of computer engineers writing code until 4am? If so, it’s probably not best to tweet in the morning when they’re sleeping. Or is your following a typical business person doing the nine to five grind every day? In this case, your best time to tweet may be before nine, and after five.




2. Use available social media tools. There are hundreds of tools out there to help you find out who your audience is. For timing, there’s one in particular that helps you optimize the timing of your tweets named Timely. This application grabs data from your last tweets, and from your following, to calculate the best times for you to tweet so they have the highest impact. You can sign up for the application (it’s free) or you can simply type in your twitter name on their website for a quick list of higher impact tweets. Signing up for the service gives Timely more data to calculate more effective times for you to tweet.




3. Scheduling tweets. Now that you’ve researched your audience, and have the science of Timely backing your tweets, it’s time to schedule some tweets. If a high impact time for you to be tweeting is at 3am, you’re not going to want to wake up every night at 3am to send out a tweet. You can schedule your tweets in the Timely app mentioned above, or you can use many other services such as Tweetdeck or Hootsuite to schedule your tweets. Scheduling your tweets will let you write out all your tweets at the beginning of the day, save you time, and ensure they’ll be sent with maximum impact.

Of course you should always keep engaging and contributing valuable content to the Twitterverse on a regular basis. Using these tips are just a few more marketing weapons for you to optimize your efforts of having your message seen across Twitter, which will in turn generate a larger following.


- Spencer Tucci

In 2010, the Boston Marathon had 26,790 entrants and 22,721 finishers.  In 2011, registration closed in a record 8 hours, 3 minutes.  And those were people who ran fast enough to qualify for Boston (BQ)!  For every person who crosses the finish line, there will be hundreds who don’t.  (If you’re interested in reading more about the marathon, The Boston Globe has an entire section dedicated to it: http://www.boston.com/sports/marathon/)

What do you think: does not crossing the finish line a matter of failure?  Not running a personal best?  Not hitting ‘submit’ fast enough?  Not getting that qualifying time?  Injury, weather, unforeseen circumstances:  does the reason the goal wasn’t reached matter?  How about at which step it occurred: training, registering, racing?

Everyone’s heard the speech about how failure makes us stronger.  But how many of us really, truly, actually believe it?  It’s probably people who, at one point or another, didn’t cross the finish line.  (Me! How about you?) For some reason, failure’s this month's hot topic.

When "Failure is not an option" neither is innovation.  - @BreneBrown

Here are some recent articles worth reading:

1. The Failure Issue, Harvard Business Review, April 2011 (splurge for a copy, check it out from your library, borrow it from a friend.)




2. 9 Business Icons Who Faced Utter Failure And Came Back To Kick Ass, Entrepreneur Kelly K. Spors




3. Fail often, fail well: Companies have a great deal to learn from failure—provided they manage it successfully. The Economist,  Schumpeter, Apr 14th 2011




4. Anatomy of a Business Failure, BNET.com,  Mary Goodman and Rich Russakoff, April 14, 2011

Obviously, no one sets out to fail. Hey, we’re addicted to winning!

Knowing when you’ve missed the mark is relatively easy.  The data (clock, grade, bank account, termination notice) tell you.  Processing what went wrong is the tough part.  It’s much easier to fuggedaboutit and move on.  But it’s the deconstruction and evaluation that really will make you, your company, your goals stronger.  Trust me – I’ve learned this both the hard and easy ways.  You tried and didn't succeed. Do you understand what went wrong?  What did you learn from it?  What are your next steps?  How will you move ahead?

One of the great things about the rise in social networking is how easy it can make starting the evaluation process. There are countless resources available with just a connection, tweet or post.  (SocialGrow makes it even easier to build those networks!)  The possibilities and examples are endless – and almost clichéd.  A programmer found a job on LinkedIn.  A novice athlete joined a training group to prepare for her first triathlon.  An entrepreneur found investors.   And when things didn’t go right?  They had the resources and contacts to develop a new plan of attack.  At the end of the day, it’s not whether you succeed or fail, it’s how you proceed.

I hope your training goes well, that you get that qualifying time and finish with a personal record in whatever arena it may be.  And hey – if it doesn’t go as you’d planned?  Take a minute. Understand, learn, and recover. Now, what’s next?

Recently, a lawyer friend of mine shared that his firm withdrew a job offer after finding “inappropriate” content on a candidate’s (let’s call him “Bob”) Facebook page.




Social networks provide an incredibly effective way to create and maintain our different personal and professional connections. The challenge, however, is how best to manage social networks’ inherent transparency when our historically private, separate communities and activities mix together online.




When Bob started using Facebook in 2004, his parents, professors, and potential employers weren’t on Facebook, so he had no reason to think about who could see his content. Bob friended people from all parts of his life, including his aunt, his History professor, and a recruiter he spoke to at his school’s career fair. Occasionally he would worry about who could see his posts, but Facebook’s privacy settings were confusing and constantly changing. Moreover, not sharing personal content freely made Bob feel cut off from his friends, and his social life trumped the few concerns he had about privacy.




Bob failed to understand the importance of mastering and keeping up with Facebook’s privacy settings. Doing so would have enabled him to more effectively balance his personal use of social networks with his increasingly important professional use of them.




Here are my recommendations for controlling your personal and professional online presence, both for my fellow students and for all the other “Bobs” out there who have not yet begun to proactively manage their identities online:




• Use different social media sites to manage the different aspects of your life. You might, for example, decide to keep your Facebook page strictly personal and restrict all of its content to “Friends Only.” You can then use LinkedIn and Twitter to create and share your “public” content for your professional networks and search engines Google and Bing.




• Master Facebook’s privacy settings so you can organize and control your connections and your sharing. For example, you might want to pick a default setting for each Facebook sharing category and make “lists” of your friends. You could make lists for family, close friends, college friends, co-workers, and a “restricted” list of people from whom you wish to hide your most personal content. Then, each time you share something, you can customize who sees your content by clicking on the “lock” icon and choosing “Customize”. If you’re sharing a video of your uncle at his 50th birthday party that you know his family will love, but that he would not want passed around his office, choose “Specific People” and then type in “Family” to share only with your family list. A few extra seconds is all it takes to control who can access everything you post online.




Yes, keeping track of all of your connections on multiple social networks can be overwhelming. Use tools such as SocialGrow’s web application to help you organize and manage your connections. You might realize that you are connected to a close friend on LinkedIn and want to stay in touch with him through Facebook. Or you might see that you’re Facebook friends with your boss, but would rather communicate with her online through LinkedIn and Twitter. SocialGrow makes it easy to invite the people you know to connect with you on your chosen social networks.




While in many cases our personal and professional lives blend together to our benefit — you might find your next job through your son’s soccer coach’s husband — managing your social networks is about purposely controlling who has access to the different kinds of content you post. It’s important to take the time to learn, and keep learning, how each site’s settings work so *you* can control your personal brand online.





JULIE’S EZ TWEET: Share this blog post now with your Twitter followers by clicking here.




No matter your business or your goals, Facebook can help you to: connect with influencers, generate sales leads, communicate with customers, network with experts, manage your contacts, and target your communications.  In honor of March Madness, I want to share with you 16 of the strategies I personally use on SocialGrow’s Facebook page which can help you to win your brand, company, or organization’s game on Facebook!




1. Content




On social networks and in social media marketing, content reigns supreme, and Facebook is no exception.  To paraphrase Seth Godin, remarkable — which I am defining here as original, unique, and thought-provoking — content is the “meat” on your Facebook page’s bones.  This meat consists of everything you post, including articles, status updates, links, pictures, and videos.




Timely, brand-appropriate content generates traffic because it engages your target audience. How do you create and curate great content? Try starting with what your people are already passionately talking about. You have a specific expertise, freely share it with your audience. Finally, take the time to rigorously analyze what’s happening in your specific industry niche. The angle that works well for me is focusing on actionable information that helps my audience to achieve their goals with social media, including, of course, SocialGrow’s own software application.




Here are two recent examples from SocialGrow’s Facebook page:




On Sunday February 6th 2011 at 6:30pm ET, the Green Bay Packers and Pittsburgh Steelers will not be the only teams playing for the title.  Audi USA and Mercedes-Benz will be battling for the title of “King of the Social Media Ad Campaign”.

The Super Bowl used to be a football game, but advertisers are turning the upcoming gridiron event into a high-stakes social media game. Super Bowl ads play the social-media game (Source: usatoday.com)




2. Frequency



How often do you post to your Facebook page?  Hourly? Daily? Weekly?




The rule of thumb is consistency, without communicating so often that your content inadvertently becomes spam.  I post every other day, 3-5 times a day.




I want to reach people when they check Facebook when they wake up (not that I do that myself…), on their way to work, while they’re on their lunch break, on their coffee/smoke breaks during the day, and in the evening when they’re online after dinner. My goal is for my posts to hit their news feeds when they have the greatest chance of being read.




3. Media




Are you boring people?




No, not you personally, your Facebook posts. Think for a minute, when was the last time you posted something on your company or brand’s Facebook page other than plain text?




Photos and videos not only engage and excite people more than text, but also keep them on your page longer. Compelling photos and videos are also more likely to be shared. That “sharing” is your real-time feedback that you are creating content that is connecting with your audience.




I am always looking for opportunities to add both YouTube videos and Flickr photos to SocialGrow’s Facebook page. After all, part of the joy of being a marketer is that we NEVER have to be boring!




4. Metrics




I’m going to ask you the question your parents never did — do you know if anyone is visiting your Facebook page?




Continually publishing remarkable content is important, but you still have to know who is visiting your page, how often they’re visiting, where they are coming from, their demographics, and which posts they like best. With this information, you will better understand the audience you are reaching so you can give them what they want.




Analytics give you the insight you need to make decisions, decisions on what specific content best engages your target audience. Some of the analytic tools I use to manage SocialGrow’s Facebook page, include:




1. Radian6 – Watch the story on Radian6, and learn from CEO Marcel LeBrun himself.




2. Virhalheat- See what Viralheat Co-founder and CEO Raj Kadam has to say.




3. RavenTools – Note that They have a free 30-day trial.




4. SocialBakers – Learn more about SocialBakers.




5. Trackur.com -  Learn how to use Trackur.




6. Google Analytics – Don’t know how to use Goolge Analytics for Facebook?  Don’t know Facebook Markup Language?  Learn how here.




7. Facebook Insights – Automatically built into your page, free and basic. Allows you to track your page’s users and interactions including the number of visits.




8. Exportly – Free and easy to export into Microsoft Excel.

You can see our 10,557% increase in post feedback over the past four months in this example from SocialGrow’s Facebook Insights page.




5. News




Whether you sell baubles or trinkets or nobbins, you may not realize that you can [and should!] be THE source for your customers on what’s going on in your industry.




By definition, you are an expert in your industry (and if you’re not, you need a different blog post) that both your existing and target customers can turn to for news, information, and analysis on what’s happening in your niche, and the impact it has on them.




Your Facebook page is the *ideal* destination for your customers to learn from you by asking questions.




Be the media, post with confidence, and demonstrate your expertise!




6. Links




Have you ever read a really great post on a particular topic, and wanted more information — a deeper dive, or even the opposite point of view?




Make it easy for visitors to your Facebook page to learn more about what you’re posting. Share useful links that provide background, context, and even different perspectives so your audience can learn more about each topic.




Here’s an example of how I used links on SocialGrow’s Facebook page:


FINALLY!!! Facebook has updated its Insights analytics Tool. But does it still come short of Radian6, WebTrends, Exportly and others. To learn more, check out: Facebook Insights Gets Real-Time Analytics (Mashable)




7. Tweets




You tweet, but are you fully leveraging Twitter to invite your followers to engage with you on your Facebook page?




Give your tweeps on Facebook reasons to visit your page. Don’t forget to use brand-appropriate keywords and hashtags, and your favorite URL-shortener to make it easy for them to check out your Facebook posts.




8. Questions




If there is a silver bullet to engaging your online audience it’s questions. Rather than simply telling them what YOU think, ask them what THEY think.




Encourage your Facebook community to share their opinions with you (and with each other) by asking them relevant, brand-appropriate questions, and by allowing them to freely post comments on your page. This not only makes for a much more interesting page, but gives you real-time feedback to improve both your communications and your business. Enabling your visitors to discuss issues with each other also gives them one more reason to visit your page.




Remember to use open-ended questions, and to schedule time in your daily calendar to write prompt and personable responses to ALL comments and questions.




9. Tools




Do you know your Tweetdeck from your Hootsuite?




Tweetdeck and Hootsuite are not just for Twitter. They make managing your Facebook page easier, AND help you to stay organized as your traffic grows.




Also check out monitoring tools SocialMention and Booshaka to help you give more attention to your customers and fans.




10. Relevancy




Lady Gaga. Revolutions in the Middle East. Radiation in Japan.




Think VERY carefully before using trending topics in your Facebook posts. Ask yourself what they have to do with your company, your brand, and its value.




If your audience on Facebook view you as an expert in your industry, they are NOT looking to you to keep tabs on Justin and Selena.




11. Optimization




Are you just throwing up content on your Facebook page, or are you optimizing it?




As an inbound content marketer, Search Engine Optimization or SEO is a critical part of enabling your marketing voice to be “heard” by search engines Google and Bing.




Know, and use the most relevant, brand-appropriate keywords to help the greatest number of people to “discover” the remarkable content you are creating and sharing on your Facebook page.




12. Competition




Remember the proverb, “keep your friends close, and your competitors closer”?




Ask yourself. You know who your competitors are, but when is the last time you really looked at their Facebook pages? What can you learn from how your competitors are effectively (and ineffectively…) using Facebook to engage with YOUR target audience. Adapt what you like about your competitors to further improve your own page.




A good rule of thumb is that if your customers are checking out your competitors’ pages on Facebook, you should be too!




13. Friends


All of us have large personal and professional networks of friends, family members, colleagues, co-workers [former and present], vendors, and customers. Have you stopped for a moment to invite all of them to connect with you on your Facebook page? This audience wants to see you succeed, so take the time to ask them to connect with your page on Facebook.




14. Advertising


While it’s long been a given for entrepreneurs, more organizations are operating today on a near-zero budget for their marketing efforts. Even if you are marketing with very few pennies, consider using investing some of them for ads to promote your page and expand your audience.



Example:  Screen shot of how to setup your first Facebook Ad.




15. Likes


Think of “Likes” as personal recommendations. The more recommendations you have, the higher up your page will be in search engine rankings.




Photo Credit: Zedia.net




16. Tagging




When is the last time you received a shout out for talking about someone else on your Facebook page? When you publish your posts, be sure to tag (e.g., @SocialGrow) other people’s Facebook pages.  The Facebook tag will post your content to their Facebook page. This not only increases the number of people who view your post, but recognizes the Facebook pages of the people you tag. Think of it as the friendly hello that says hello back.

Photo Credit: http://shegeeks.net/facebook-tagging-update-mentions-now-live/




Now that you have all of SocialGrow’s tips for your Facebook page, it’s time to lace up your Facebook sneakers and get in the game.  Try our tips, grow your page, and share YOUR Facebook tips with us in the comments section below. And be sure to check out SocialGrow’s page on Facebook!





LORENZO’S EZ TWEET: Share this blog post now with your Twitter followers by clicking here.





If you’re a city, how do you build a CRM model?  If, hypothetically speaking, the economy were bad and you wanted to convince people that your town was a great place to live and work, how would you do it?  How do you capitalize on the available talent, businesses, and resources?



The easiest way is to win big on the national stage.  After all, what happens in Boston shouldn’t stay in Boston!  Here are a few notable headlines from this month:  MassChallenge was named as “one of the most promising initiatives in the country for supporting entrepreneurs” and a Startup America partner.  Tom Brady and Ray Allen once again proved themselves head and shoulders (head and arms?) above their competitors.  Esperanza Spalding and Yo-Yo Ma did the Bay State proud at the Grammys (Has Bieber Fever broken?) Then there’s the Presidential Medal of Freedom.  Of the fifteen recipients, three have ties to Boston: Bill Russell, Jean Kennedy Smith, and Yo-Yo Ma.  Later this month, the city will be well represented on the red carpet at the Oscars.



It’s amazing the extent to which hearing and seeing the achievements of a few people can build an entire sector.   The list of examples is long, and potential for omitting a great company or innovative business is huge.  So, I’ll stick with an obvious example.   Local actors including Affleck, Damon, and Wahlberg have been pretty unabashed about their commitment to Boston.   Through their lenses, the city looks like a pretty great place to film.  Their work has led not only to critical acclaim, but also to jobs, tax credits, and new tourist destination (see BostonMovieTours.net for tour info).



What about more business-driven relationships?  @ThinkingBoston (Boston World Partnerships or BWP) is tackling that challenge for Beantown.  BWP’s mantra is to “inform and connect”.   It functions as an alumni network for the city of Boston.  They also have some great stats you may not have seen — Massachusetts has more patents generated by universities than any other state.  MarketWatch Ranked Boston as a “Top 10″ city in which to do business.



Beyond rankings, BWP’s Connectors program aims to help people with ties to Boston connect locally and internationally.   Are you a start-up who needs a PR firm?  You’re in luck!  Want to do business in China?  You can talk with someone who has done just that.  Moved to Boston from Copenhagen?  There’s someone who moved last year.  In social media parlance, the connectors are evangelists and influencers.   As the network grows, so too will the opportunities to attract new businesses and recruit new residents.



As I’ve mentioned in previous blog posts, I’m constantly amazed by the range of innovation and achievement that’s occurring here in Boston.  Talking with members of the BWP community was no exception.  (Particularly given that I got great feedback about SocialGrow and some of my previous posts!) Check out the bios of some of the connectors here. Friend them on Facebook and check out photos from previous events. Or, if you’re in town, the next BWP Mixer is on February 22.  You can also apply to be a connector, applications are due March 1.



Please reach out and let me know if you would like for me to feature your Boston initiative in a future Dia’s Diaries. Happy connecting!




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Hi, my name is Lorenzo Dickerson. I’m a Social Media Marketing Director here at SocialGrow, and the real live person behind SocialGrow’s Facebook page. Have you had a chance to check out SocialGrow’s Facebook Page? Not yet? Well, here are five great reasons to check us out. If you find what we’re doing interesting, please Like our page.



1. The Latest on Social Media and Social Networking



The SocialGrow Facebook Page is chock full of great information for people interested in social media and social networking. Hear about the latest trends, breaking news and funny stories on topics you care about, including building your social networks, how to effectively network online and off, the best social networks, online contact management and technology.



2. Connect with Like-Minded People and the Members of the SocialGrow Team



Social networkers just like you visit the SocialGrow Facebook page to connect and discuss social media and marketing topics. Once you Like our Facebook page, you’ll benefit from meaningful discussions with the SocialGrow Team, as well as with other social media aficionados like yourself. Ask us questions about how to use our web application, the best way to build your social network, how to engage our consulting team or just stop by to read the latest posts. We want to meet you — your ideas and opinions are important to us.



3. ALL the Popular Kids are Already There


We’ve been adding content like crazy, and our audience is responding. Our Facebook Page now has more than 400 members and more than 40,000 post views. Our page has received an overwhelming 300% increase in new likes, and a 9,000% increase in post feedback in the past four months. Don’t miss out on this valuable mix of the best social media and social networking insight and ideas.



4. Updates on Cutting-Edge SocialGrow Products and Services



Of course, we will keep you up-to-date on SocialGrow’s products and services. We know that managing your social networks can be a drag, so we’ve built our social networking contact management system to be the easiest way to turn your real world relationships into social network connections. Our application automates the process of inviting the people you know to connect with you on your choice of social networks, like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. We want you to spend more time talking with the people in your social networks than you do managing them!



5. Me!


I have big plans for our Facebook page. I want to grow it into the premier meeting place for you to discuss your social networking and social media needs, complementing our blog, Twitter stream and other social media platforms. I will introduce you to our industry’s top thought leaders to share their ideas about contact and customer relationship management trends. You can expect discussions on hot news topics, company updates, and most importantly, to have your questions answered by the global experts in social networking.



Like us on Facebook, and experience everything SocialGrow has to offer for yourself!






LORENZO’S EZ TWEET: Share this blog post now with your Twitter followers by clicking here.




To meet more of my peers in Boston’s start-up community, I attended BostInnovation’s January 27, 2011 2.0 Launch Party at Faneuil Hall’s Ned Devine’s. While there, I got to answer the age-old question of what happens when you combine an 800-person RSVP list with [yet another!] foot of snow in an Irish Pub and the chance to celebrate Boston being the world’s #1 most innovative city. The answer? A really great time, and lots of people shaking hands — and their (Hunter, Duck, and UGG) booties!



But don’t just take my word for it. Read the tweets from the event at: #bein, and check out the photos from the event on Flickr.



So what exatly *is* BostInnovation? For the left-brained, it’s (Bost(-on))+Innovation = BostInnovation; and for the right-brained, just say it fast: “BostInnovation!” As BostInnovation’s Cheryl Morris (@cherylmorris) explained here, their second go-round was the result of a lot of collaboration, brainstorming, and tinkering.



As more news, blogs, photos, videos, social media platforms, people, tweets, status updates, discounts, “action alerts”, and recipes are thrown at us, the more consolidation and filtering we need (or, at least the more *I* need). BostInnovation offers a community resource center of sorts. On the site, you can connect with other members, learn about topics and activities that interest you (thanks Pinnyada!) and check out new companies. (Incidentally, I have no affiliation with BostInno other than as a user who thinks they’re cool!)



In Boston in the winter, you need your party boots, and of course your business cards. SHAMELESS PLUG ALERT! With the help of SocialGrow’s awesome web app, it was a breeze to manage the stack of cards I received during the event! I just went to my Potential Connections dashboard on SocialGrow, selected the social networks on which I wanted to invite the people I met to connect with me, and ta-dah! New friends, connections, and followers.



Congratulations again to the team at BostInnovation. Glad to have you back, and bigger, better, and brighter than before!




DIA’S EZ TWEET: Share this blog post now with your Twitter followers by clicking here.




I admit it, I had visions of a half-dozen people blindly walking into walls (and each other) as they merrily tweeted away. Boy, was I wrong! It was a completely packed event. Hey, even the police came! Yes, real live Cambridge cops were standing at the ready all evening, just in case the trending topics got a little crazy. There were a few formal presentations, but the major focus was on giving everyone plenty of F2F time to meet their fellow tweeters, local startup founders, angel investors, and the event’s sponsors.



Marsh (Marsh Sutherland, SocialGrow’s President) and I were at the TweetUp to represent SocialGrow. We arrived early to stake out a spot to set up the SocialGrow Ultra Lounge. It was actually a conference room, which doubled as our demo room (*and* the coat closet!). Being December in Boston (yes, I know N.E.R.D. is really in Cambridge), *everyone* had a coat. So, yes, we consciously put ourselves between the guests, their coats, and the path to the snacks. That, my friends, is strategy! If I happened to missed you in the Ultra Lounge/coat closet, or if you’d simply like to talk to me about using the SocialGrow app, please drop me a line on dia.black@socialgrow.com and I’ll get you up and running lickety-split.



I love hearing people’s “strangest connection ever” stories. You know, that invitation to connect that came out of nowhere, from someone you never thought you’d ever meet or hear from again (exes, parents, and grandparents are always on everyone’s list). At the TweetUp, I asked people that if they had the chance to connect with *anyone*, living or dead, who it would be, and on which social network. Michelle Jaeger told me that she’d love to follow Alexander Graham Bell’s tweets (she also had some great stories about rowing at the Head of the Charles with a team from Iraq you’ll want to ask her about!). I’d love to hear YOUR answers in the comments section below!



It was terrific to be able to connect faces, names, and tweets. To see our photos of some of the people we spoke with at the TweetUp, please check out SocialGrow’s MegaTweetUp photostream on Flickr.



It was also the N.E.R.D. Center’s 500th event. That meant cake and cupcakes for everyone! As Kyle Bedard tweeted: “Cupcakes. Awesome!” Marsh may, however, have qualified as the “N.E.R.D.iest guy” in the room as he tweeted that not only was he at 500th event, but he also organized the very first outside event held at N.E.R.D. as the Chair of the Boston JavaScript MeetUp.



It was a fantastic evening, big props out to the MegaTeam! I’m already counting down to Boston’s MegaTweetUp 3!




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No, not your personal resolutions. Although I admit it would be nice to be able to “put down the spoon” when confronted with my favorite flavor of Ben & Jerry’s staring at me from my freezer late at night. The start of the new year is a GREAT time for doing those new things which will help your brand, and your business to grow.



I’m guessing you took full advantage over the holidays to reconnect with all of your family and friends, but are you taking full advantage of all of the opportunities available to you to connect your brand with your existing and target customers as we kick off the new year? What better resolution than committing to yourself to send each and every person you do business with an invitation to connect on your favorite social network(s)! For many of us it’s LinkedIn, but it can also be Facebook or Twitter.



Acknowledging our own bias, we do think that the SocialGrow web app (available at http://socialgrow.com) is a great tool to help you grow your social network(s). Even more exciting, as we speak, we are putting our new dot release through its final tests, and are chomping at the bit to share it with you. We have taken all of our Alpha users’ feedback (they’re not a shy bunch!), and used it to make our app even better.



While we finish up our testing, we invite you to connect with us on Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Flickr, and Twitter.



Here’s wishing you an exciting 2011 filled with the success that comes from having a great network of connections!



Fireworks photo credit: malfet_.




KEN’S EZ TWEET: Share this blog post now with your Twitter followers by clicking here.




This week, I had the pleasure of being interviewed by none other than America’s LinkedIn Lady, Carol McManus, on WGCH Greenwich. We had a lot of fun (full disclosure: Carol and I worked with each other at a previous company), and the half-hour went by in a flash. What really hit me, however, is that even people who are successfully marketing their brands on other social networks, are often completely flummoxed by how best to make use of Twitter.



The bulk of the questions I received contained elements of both confusion (”I don’t know what to do”) and fear (”I don’t want to damage my brand”).



To help both the people who want to start tweeting and have not yet sent their first tweet, and the people who have started tweeting but are not yet seeing the results they know are possible, I pulled together the following Twitter checklist.



Note that you are not going to get 10,000 new Twitter followers overnight by following these 40 guidelines. You will, however, increase your social influence, engage your target audiences, and grow your business!



Ken’s Fast Start 40: The Twitter Checklist



1. Download/Listen to our radio show from this week [30-minute .mp3 podcast].



2. Read my previous post on this blog on how to engage your target audience on Twitter.



3. Use the shortest, brand-appropriate Twitter handle that is available.



4. Use a headshot with you smiling as your Twitter photo/avatar.



5. Use a custom Twitter background [optimized for #newtwitter].



6. Identify your business’ top five keywords, write them down, and pin them up in the place where you normally tweet.



7. Use your business’ keywords in your Twitter bio.



8. Use an actual (i.e., not an URL-shortened) web address in your profile.



9. Make sure your Twitter profile is public.



10. Add Follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/YourTwitterHandle to your e-mail signature line, your business card, your products (including packaging), your LinkedIn and other social network profiles, and ALL of your print, web, and voice (including your voice mail greetings) communications.




EZ TWEET: Share this Twitter checklist now with your Twitter followers by clicking here.




11. Go to Google Alerts and create a Google alert for your Twitter handle.



12. Go to Klout.com and get your baseline social influence score — note that it may be 0 to start.



13. Go to Twittercounter.com and get your baseline Twitter growth statistics.



14. Tweet at least three times a day (and no more than seven times a day), including weekends, spread evenly throughout the day.



15. Follow at least 20 people (and no more than 100 people) a day.



16. Once a week, use ManageFlitter.com to unfollow the people who have stopped tweeting (i.e., people who have not tweeted in over 30 days).



17. Tweet relevant, brand-appropriate content that shares your expertise.



18. Look for opportunities to tweet relevant, brand-appropriate photos, audio, and videos.



19. Avoid negative tweets, both in terms of the language you use and the emotions you express.



20. Limit your tweets to a maximum of 120 characters.




EZ TWEET: Share this Twitter checklist now with your Twitter followers by clicking here.




21. Use URL shortener j.mp for all of your links (it's the shortest available with full metrics).



22. To maximize the number of clicks for a given link, use the full, non-shortened URL.



23. For your first 30 days, do NOT sell *anything* in your tweets, period. After your first 30 days, no more than one out of every 20 of your tweets can be a *soft* sales pitch for your products/services. Direct selling in your tweets will turn people off from following you, and will result in people already following you to unfollow you.



24. Avoid using tools that automate the management of your tweets or your followers as you can easily (and unknowingly) violate Twitter's terms of service, resulting in a suspended account.



25. Use your business' keywords [from #6 above] in your tweets.



26. Hashtag (#) the most important keyword in every tweet.



27. Create, and start populating at least three Twitter Lists (e.g., your current customers, your target/prospective customers, the experts you follow, your peers, people from your network, your competitors, leaders in your industry, etc.).



28. If you are tweeting as a business, brand, or organization, follow back *everyone* who follows you.



29. Acknowledge EVERY Twitter mention, retweet, and DM you receive.



30. Proactively/Directly engage at least one new person a day in a public [see #31 below] tweet.




EZ TWEET: Share this Twitter checklist now with your Twitter followers by clicking here.




31. When you directly engage or reply to people on Twitter, always use .@TwitterHandle instead of @TwitterHandle at the beginning of your tweet (so that your tweet can be seen by everyone).



32. Credit the original author(s) when you retweet others' content, including the media source/publication if you have space.



33. When crediting someone, use /@TwitterHandle (instead of RT or via) to save characters.



34. Add your own comment when retweeting others' content.



35. Retweet "manually" (also called "traditional retweeting") -- i.e., do not use the Twitter retweet function, as it does not allow you to add your own comment.



36. Be yourself. Use your natural tone and voice, and fully leverage your own unique personality (i.e., if you're naturally a comedian, be funny; if you're naturally a data geek, geek out!).



37. Read each and every tweet out loud to yourself BEFORE you post it.



38. Read each and every tweet AFTER you post it to check that the @'s and links all work. Immediately delete, correct, and repost the tweet if you find a typo.



39. Once a day, set aside a few minutes of quiet time, free of interruptions and distractions, to read through your followers' tweets.



40. JUST DO IT! Start tweeting, not on Monday morning, not tomorrow, not later today, but NOW.



People like to say that there are no rules on Twitter, and I agree. These are my personal guidelines, from what I have found from my own experience to work best over time.



In the comments section below, please share with me YOUR favorite Twitter tips and guidelines. Also please feel free to let me know which of my guidelines you disagree with, and why!




Need more help with your tweeting? Check out SocialGrow's Twitter Marketing and Sales Engagement Training.