TweetBurner, a Multi-Tasking Marketer’s Best Friend

Monday, September 15th, 2008

I came across a fabulous new tool today called TweetBurner that does two things at once for you. It is a url shortner and a tracking system.

Given I discovered this through another site, you can read the post – which also has a short video tutorial on how to get started on The Black Tech Report. I want to talk about the benefit of TweetBurner.

The beauty of this tool is that it now adds in a measurement function to this thing called Twitter. Sure Analytics systems can tell you that people arrived on your site from Twitter, but to really be able to analyze which links in which tweets are the most popular? This is a marketer’s dream come true. It’s also the quantifiable reason that you can use to tell your boss or cient they should be on Twitter.

It can even be positioned as a test – and once you know what people are clicking on (or if they are not) you can make a decision on how to proceed with Twitter usage and/or have a better understanding of what is engaging your customers (or potential customers).

Sure the number of followers is a great metric, but besides a popularity contest, what does it really tell you? Just because I follow you, doesn’t mean I read all your updates. With Tweetburner you can easily combine the task of shortening those way-too-long-for-Twitter urls and tracking user engagement at the same time.

I can’t wait to give it a try.

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15.09.2008 Twitter, Web analytics, social media, tracking 4 Comments

Blogger’s Choice – I Want to Hear from You

Monday, May 26th, 2008

Yes you. I want to know what you think!

May has been an incredibly busy month for me both personally and professionally, so I admit I have not spent as much time as I’d like to have staying in touch with the blogosphere.

Given the end of May is fast approaching and I need to start putting together my May must read posts on Web Marketing topics, I’m going to do something a little different this month and ask for reader input.

What was your favourite post you’ve read this month? Drop me a comment, or send me an email at rebecca dot muller at rogers dot come and I’ll compile them together and post for June 2.

NOTE: shameless self promotion not encouraged unless this is truly the best blog post you’ve ever written

All entries should be in by June 1.

Happy blogging and… Thanks a bunch for your help.

Photo Credit: Rebecca Muller with a guest appearance by Maddie, a.k.a Twitter Kitty

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26.05.2008 Twitter No Comments

The Marketing Blogosphere – Must Reads from March

Friday, March 28th, 2008

March came in like a lion and out like a lamb while everyone was preparing for April Fool’s it seems. Here’s my favourite March posts from the blogosphere.
1. Chris Brown, author of Branding and Marketing reviewed an interesting tool that helps you to get the most out of your headlines. It assigns scores to your headline based on its emotional, intellectual and spiritual appeal. Here’s how to Improve your Readership by Measuring your Headlines

2. Considering a mobile marketing strategy? Then, Phil Barrett’s post on the CMA blog – 7 Things you Should Know about the Mobile Web is a must read.

3. With new tools and trends today that are going tomorrow – do you wonder,
What will be the next Twitter by Ian Muir over on Media Bulls Eye It’s a good review of several tools including Friend Feed as marketers are already trying to figure out the “What’s next?”

4. Sharon Hurley Hall’s Adding Glue to Online Relationships is an excellent discussion for those with virtual clients.

5. Brian Tenehouse on the CMA blog again (two months in a row!). This one has nothing to do with web marketing, but deserves to be here because it’s fun and a great reality check. I have to admit I couldn’t “Name that Spot”

What I love about some of these posts – is that I first found out about them on Twitter, so thanks to my fellow Tweeters who keep posting these, and please keep sharing great finds.

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28.03.2008 Branding and Marketing, Twitter No Comments

Ask Your Customers if You Should be in the Social Media Space

Wednesday, March 19th, 2008

Ever wonder how you know if your company should be taking part in the latest and greatest Internet Marketing trends like Facebook, Twitter and other social media/networking sites and tools?

Well, there are a couple approaches you could take. First, you could just try it and see if it works. The only problem with that is getting into these ventures can be costly and very time consuming so it’s not exactly the recommended approach.

Research is your friend. Sure, there are lots of sites/companies out there that give market research (like Emarketer) and facts and figures on these trends and tools, as well your general target audience. These can be great indicators that you should be looking more heavily into these types of things.

Your best bet? Just ask your customers. The people you want to reach likely have similar likes and dislikes to those of your current customers, so why not mine those customers for information?

The general market research you’re bound to find online is going to give you basic information — for example, the number of people who have Facebook accounts. But just because they have an account, doesn’t mean they use the site to its full potential or that this is a viable place for you to be advertising.

Create a survey that could be put on your site, or included in your e-newsletters that asks your customers about their habits.

* Do they spend time on social networking sites like Facebook?
* If so, what do they do there? Do they play games, participate in groups?
* Do they actively follow people on Twitter?
* If so, how many people do they follow and how many followers do they have?

Asking deeper questions allows you to understand exactly how they use these sites and tools, which gives you the answers you need when you’re deciding whether or not to partake in these types of advertising and marketing opportunities. This information will lend itself to marketing strategies that provide the proof you need to get that elusive sign-off on marketing budgets to get your company in this space.

The more information you have, the better informed your marketing decisions will be, which should ultimately lead to better marketing plans, and better ROI.

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19.03.2008 Facebook, Twitter, social media 4 Comments

Get Cracking at Adding Tools for Sharing to your Campaigns

Tuesday, March 18th, 2008

I saw this great TV commercial the other day that reminded me of a Twitter conversation taking place about mismatched socks spawned from blog posts by so you wannabe a Domestik Goddess and Bargainista.

What was the commercial? It was an ad for the Egg Farmers of Ontario. You can view it here. I loved the ad, even though I’m not the target market (moms). I immediately wanted to share it with my Twitter pals having the sock discussion but realized that the ad didn’t have a url, which meant I could only share it, if I could find it.

I was quickly able to guess that it was probably from the Get Cracking website, which is some good branding by the way — don’t change your url.

Once I arrived at the site, I was able to see that the ad was there and learned that they were trying to engage mothers by asking them to share their thoughts: “As a mom, what does ‘it’s okay to be real’ mean to you?” and to provide their favourite “real” moments.

What a great campaign with legs for a fabulous viral aspect. Unfortunately, it hasn’t been set up for success.

Sure there are some boxes where you can forward the pages to friends. But where was the url in the TV ad? Relying on people’s memories is not the best thing to do. Why didn’t the TV ad engage and excite viewers to visit the website and share their stories? That’s such a great drive to get traffic to the site — and continue the momentum of a great commercial. Talk about a missed opportunity.

The other major things lacking from this campaign are social media tools. The video should have links right in it to embed into popular applications like Facebook YouTube and even book-marking sites like Digg. You should be able to forward the video from the video player/page itself rather than from a link further down the page once you’ve answered the other questions.

You can’t make something viral (as many of my industry peers and I say over and over again). But it makes it a lot easier for something to passed along if you provide the tools that make the sharing experience seamless and integrated.

Oh, and my favourite line from the commercial? “Mom, you don’t have to fold the napkin fancy; I just roll it into a ball.”

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18.03.2008 Bargainista, Facebook, Integrated marketing, Twitter, viral marketing No Comments

I Twitter a Confession

Wednesday, January 23rd, 2008

Back in November, I wrote a post about Twitter and was having a very hard time wrapping my head around it’s usefulness.

I must confess, I’ve been spending some time with it and think that I might be turning into a convert. Sure there are a lot of social tools out there, and Facebook allows you to share items and status updates with your friends pretty easily; but what I’ve found is that while Twitter seems to do the same thing, it does it in a different fashion. With only 150 characters (including spaces) to update what you’re doing, it’s a very convenient way of sending quick updates to friends and colleagues on various things you’re doing in your day.

I liken it to the new grapevine for the technological age. I hear about new blog posts people have enjoyed and/ or posted. I also find it’s been helping me prioritize which articles from the numerous industry newsletters I should read first. It’s also been great at keeping me in the loop with other happenings within the industry and across the globe.

In general, I have to say I feel, well, more connected.

I struggled in my previous post understanding how this could be considered a great marketing tool. And I think I finally figured it out. Like anything, Twitter is not a tool that should be used on its own, but if used as part of an overall marketing strategy to the right audience, I actually think it could really work. Now in terms of specific ideas I have – I won’t give that away, afterall, being in the business myself I think I might have to save those gems for my clients. :)

Here’s a few quick tips on how to make the most of your Twitter experience (keeping in mind I’ve only been a Twitterer for a short while).

- Explore the Twitter tools and applications available and incorporate Twitter into your daily life, such as your blog or Facebook.
- Use a different update program. Rather than simply staying logged into Twitter’s website, download one of the many add ons that allow you to update on the fly (like Messenger). I currently use Twitterfox for Mozilla.
- Import your address books to allow you to easily find friends and colleagues who use the service.
- Once you start following people, look to see who they are following (not in a creepy, stalkerish way) to look for those you might want to network with.
- And Lastly, don’t be afraid to update your status often and/ or begin conversations with others – about things that might be relevant to all of you.

Happy Twittering…. Oh and and if you want to, go ahead and Follow Me.

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23.01.2008 Twitter, online marketing, viral marketing, web applications, web marketing 2 Comments

TwitterDee and TwitterDum

Friday, November 16th, 2007

I must confess – I have yet to really spend a lot of time with Twitter, but I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about it and trying to wrap my head around it.

I get what it is supposed to be, that’s not the hard part, what I can’t really understand though – and maybe because I have yet to “see” – is the marketing opportunities it holds.

I’ve spent the last few days asking opinions of several people I know about Twitter (which describes itself as: a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?) and their opinion of it.

It seems most people I know have joined because they were curious – not because they think it is the next best thing. And to be honest, most people I know have given up on it after a short period of time and I have to say I’m coming to that same conclusion.

In this day and age of social media clutter and overload, another service to tell my friends what I am up to seems more trouble than it is worth. After all – isn’t that what Facebook is for now? Perhaps Twitter was great before the land of FB – who knows, I can’t really say one way or another since I hadn’t brought myself to get an account until just recently.

What is somewhat interesting though is that according to Alexa, it’s traffic spiked dramatically in April and has been up and down in spikes since then. Perhaps last night’s mention CSI will give it yet another spike. Who are the people on Twitter? I’m not sure, but I do know it seems a lot of marketing folk are on it which begs the question of whether or not there’s more marketing people communicating with one another than with potential consumers or customers…

I do know that you can incorporate the best of both worlds so to speak and add Twitter into your FB account, but I also know people who have had many issues with compatibility once having integrated the two. Again though, it just seems kind of like a bit of overkill to me.

In my conversations about Twitter this week, I think someone hit the nail on the head with a great comment.

“The big thing is, if no one’s “following” you on Twitter, you might as well be talking to the wind.”

Well said and I think the perfect answer to why I am having such a hard time wrapping my head around yet another social media application.

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16.11.2007 Twitter, social media 2 Comments