Tag: Twitter

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Interesting Nuggets on Social Media You May Not Have Known

You’ll want to read this full article as it has some excellent tidbits many of which I didn’t even know about. It is titled “Lesser Known Secrets for Better Social Media Results” at the Search Engine Journal.

Here are a few of the secrets that I liked best from the article and some of my own.

1. Start a tweet with .@somename and the update will appear publicly in all your streams and your friend’s you are talking to not just in the feed of your followers and in the feed of the other person’s followers as well. Who knew! .@ you will be my next update.

2. Try to use only one or two hashtags in a tweet. Too many starts to look like spam. We tell our writers try to stick with one.

3. On Facebook have your images for your wall be at least 403 pixels wide by 403 pixels tall. If you are using your smartphone, check your image size settings so you aren’t sending a small photo. Not only will they look better, but when you feature the photo on your page it will not be blurry.

4. Did you know that Pinterst allows the use of hashtags in the description box? Use them wisely and to your benefit.

5. Spend your time in Google+ Communities. Your updates there will be posted to your personal profile and you’ll have more interaction and fun. Personally I have really built up my circle numbers by creating a community and moderating it.

6. In Google+ don’t use the @personname use +personname. Although Google may understand the @ you’ll see that others are using the +.

Make sure to read the article as there may be more great tips you can glean for your own use.

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Never Buy Facebook Likes or Twitter Followers

Don't buy Facebook Likes or Twitter followers.
Don’t buy Facebook Likes or Twitter followers.

You’ll do more damage to your brand and reputation that you can realize when you buy Facebook Like or Twitter followers! It seems like a no-brainer really that there are some things that you just shouldn’t do, but I get asked over and over as to why a business should NOT buy likes.Here’s Why You Should Not Buy Followers:

1. The quality of likes and followers you will buy are poor. In some cases you are buying just number and not accounts owned by real people.

2. You may be buying spammers – likes and followers who are really spammers are of no value to you. They will want to @ message you to get exposure on YOUR wall or news feed to spew out their own service and products. They have no interest in connecting to you.

3. Many of these purchased likes and followers may be involved with pornography. You do not want to take a black eye for having followers and comments from those in a “bad neighborhood”. Take a look at the profile photos of some of these people who were bought as a like or follower. Many will be dressed in sexy or revealing outfits. Do you really want these icons appearing on your family-friendly newsfeed or wall?

Don’t be tempted with easy results, when you try to take a short cut to build your followers or fan base, you don’t want your brand to be damaged in the process. It is by far better to take it slow, build a thoughtful strategy, and work your own plan.

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New Cover Image Coming to Your Twitter Page

Coming in November 2012 to each and every Twitter profile is a new Twitter cover, but a nice big image is not all you’ll get.

First Twitter recommends a cover image of 1200×600  with a maximum file size of 5MB. To add your new cover follow these easy steps.

  1. Login to your Twitter account at Twitter.com.
  2. Click the drop down menu for settings at the top right. Look for the gear icon.
  3. On the left sidebar click design.
  4. Under header in the body of the page click to add your own photos. You can add anything from your camera or phone.
  5. Size the photo the way you like once loaded by moving the zoom in icon.
  6. It may take several tries to get your header image to load. I am not sure what but I had to try three to four times.
  7. Update your bio and check your web url.

The best thing about the new cover is that your bio will appear overlayed on the cover image AND your now CLICKABLE website URL appears on the cover as well.

There is simply no more need for a special background image if you don’t want one and the ability to have the clickable URL is worth all the effort to get your header image to load.

You can visit our Twitter page @mccordweb to see our cover shot and how the new cover works on your Twitter profile. Keep in mind that Twitter will make every site have a cover in November and if you don’t add an image you will have a big gray block at the top.

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Twitter May Be Better Than Facebook for Your Business

It used to be that I felt that every business should have a Facebook page. With the changes that Facebook has made this past year, I am starting to rethink Facebook’s importance and consider that businesses may be better served by a strong presence on Twitter instead.

Although Facebook still owns the social marketplace and is the place that consumers spend a measurable amount of time, Facebook has made it very difficult for a business to establish a vibrant presence easily on their platform. I am finding that new business pages without additional marketing will simply not grow a “like” or fan base quickly or easily.

On Twitter, additional follower numbers can be grown fairly quickly with good updates AND follower interaction. I have seen that updates alone are not the key to growth on Twitter. It is the combination of the manual addition of new followers, creation of lists, and interaction with followers that helps an account to grow and for messages to go viral.

When a follower retweets your status update (that may potentially link back to your blog or your services), your link exposure and potential to reach new customers is tremendous. With regular interaction on Twitter you will find that there are certain people you can really connect with that you can use to reciprocally push out each other’s content. If these Tweeps (Twitter friends) have “klout” (measurable Twitter or social impact) or a larger follower base, the result of clicks in to your content can result in increased traffic and potentially a better SocialRank score.

Both Google and Bing are watching SocialRank and have stated that they will be using this metric in their organic search algorithm. To what degree is SocialRank important to organic placement, that we simply don’t know. What I do know is that with the changes on Facebook, it is by far easier to grow, connect with others, and funnel traffic to your website by Twitter than by Facebook.

If you are looking for help to establish or grow your Twitter presence, I invite you to review our affordable Twitter services.