Twitter Training Seminar - Vorian Agency

Twitter Training Seminar

Thursday 14th August, 2014 10:00am – 12:00pm

Matt Lynch• General Manager of Vorian Agency – Delivering integrated online and offline marketing solutions

to business wrestling with how to market in today’s changing environment.

• With over 22 years Online Marketing & Information Technology experience, Matt’s primary speciality is Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). Matt is a highly experienced senior digital marketing specialist working both within agency and in-house roles. Matt is also a certified Google Adwords and Bing Ads Professional.

• Enjoys keeping up with the 'bleeding edge' of technology advancements and social media evolvement to ensure current knowledge in an ever changing landscape, leading to early adoption and determination of opportunity for marketing enhancement.

• Local, national and international project experience particularly in the field of Travel for over 10 years with companies such as Trafalgar Tours, The Travel Corporation brand and travel properties, Stella Travel and Best Flights. Matt has earned a reputation as an online marketing expert and search evangelist for thoroughness, quality, technical knowledge and success driven results. Matt's previous role was as the Global Online Marketing Manager for Trafalgar, coordinating the online marketing efforts with international teams for this global brand.

Your Presenter: Vorian Agency General Manager

Connect with Matt…Twitter: https://twitter.com/mattrlynch

LinkedIn: http://au.linkedin.com/in/mattlynchseo

Google+: https://plus.google.com/+MattLynchAU

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mattrlynch

About Me: http://about.me/au.mattlynch

SlideShare: http://www.slideshare.net/mattrlynch

Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/mattrlynch

Instagram: http://instagram.com/#mattrlynch

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/aumattlynch

Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/mattrlynch

Vine: https://vine.co/mattlynch

Yelp: http://mattlynch.yelp.com.au FourSquare: https://foursquare.com/mattrlynch

Klout: http://klout.com/#/mattrlynch

Email: [email protected]

Connect to Vorian Agencytwitter.com/VorianAgency

facebook.com/VorianAgency

google.com/+VorianAgencyWestPerth

linkedin.com/company/vorian-agency

pinterest.com/vorianagency

foursquare.com/v/vorian-media-group

yelp.com.au/biz/vorian-agency-west-perth

klout.com/vorianagency

about.me/VorianAgency

slideshare.net/vorianagency

instagram.com/vorianagency

flickr.com/photos/vorianagency

youtube.com/user/VorianAgency

vimeo.com/vorianagency

vine.co/u/VorianAgency

Interactive Questions?During today’s session, you are welcome to tweet

questions to our Vorian Agency Twitter Account @vorianagency using the hashtag #voriantraining

https://twitter.com/vorianagency

HousekeepingBefore we start, please note the following:

• Exits

• Toilets

• Mobile Phones on Silent

• Question & Answer session at end of the Presentation

• A link to the Presentation Slide Notes and Video will be emailed to you

• Vorian Agency info packs are provided to showcase our service offering

• Vorian staff are available to arrange an appointment or answer specific questions

• Please provide your feedback on today’s seminar on the supplied questionnaire

• Please invite others you may know to register for our free seminar series

In today’s session…• What is Twitter?

• Twitter Numbers

• Social Demographics

• Objectives for using Twitter

• Search Marketing Integration

• Creating a Twitter Account

• Brand Consistency

• The Twitter Interfaces

• A Style Guide

• Top Twitter Tips

• DMs - Direct Messages

• Who to Follow

• Increasing your Followers

• A Social Media Policy

• # Hashtags

• The Optimal Tweet

• Embed A Tweet

• Twitter Lists

• Twitter Content Approach

• Post Frequency/Scheduling

• The power of images, videos and links

• Efficient Social Media Management

• Website/Cross Pollination

• Twitter Cards

• Reputation & Reporting

• Analytics

Twitter's 2014 - Q2 Numbers• Total revenue: $312 million, up 124 percent year-over-year

• Ad revenue: $277 million, up 129 percent

• Data, licensing revenue was $35 million, up 90 percent

• Mobile delivered 81 percent of total ad revenue

• International revenue was $102 million or 33 percent of total revenue

• Monthly active users 271 million, up 24 percent

• Mobile active users were 211 million, up 29 percent

• Timeline views were 173 billion, up 15 percent

How Many Users on Twitter?• Be found not just on Google in search… (Bing, Yahoo!, local search,…)

• Go to where the users are, don't ignore them:

• Facebook

• YouTube

• LinkedIn

• Twitter

• Tumblr

• Instagram

• Pinterest

• Flickr

• Google+

Which Demographics are Social?• Number of Australian Retailers currently using Twitter: 46%

• 38% of Internet users now access social media via a mobile device.– If your brand’s account or your social media images aren’t optimised for mobile, you risk losing a significant

portion of your potential audience. Having a mobile-friendly profile is the bare minimum. If you want to increase the number of click-throughs and pageviews, schedule your content to go out at the optimal times for mobile use. A general trend observes people browsing social media on their smartphones before or during their morning commute (8-8:30AM) and at lunch (12:30PM).

• Interestingly 23% of Twitter users make less than $30,000 per year– Lower annual income for a large portion of your audience means you should engage the audience on your

Twitter feed with giveaways and discount codes. They can take the form of a trivia quiz about the product, a themed photo competition, or a retweet contest—all forms favored by Twitter, as long as you abide by the rules. This provides easy advertisement for your product, and encourages conversation between you and your customers.

Objectives for using Twitter• Increase PR, brand awareness, and saturation of Brand across Twitter platform

• Increase conversations on brand topic

• Increase appearance on Twitter lists, Favorites, Retweets

• Opportunity to have a faster response to consumer queries

• Increase customer retention

• Sourcing new customers and converting sales

• Supporting other marketing activities (cross pollination) and providing brand sentiment signals to Search Engines

• Monitoring the competition and their activities

• Twitter at its best is conversation, not broadcasting, not spectating

Search Marketing Integration• Changes in Google algorithms have rendered many traditional SEO (Search Engine

Optimisation) practices less effective.

• 'Social' is something that should be integrated and embraced at every level of the organisation, and this especially includes sales.

• Social presents many unique opportunities to build relationships, gain insights, and make sales.

• Optimising your social media strategy for SMI (Search Marketing Integration) means creating content that's designed to fit in with how customers search for you, then socialise that content across all your company's social media channels.

• Content marketing is fundamental to the success of any organisation that wants to generate business online.

• Have your staff, management and sales team retweet company announcements, promoting content, engaging with their community.

• As the sales rep's social presence grows, so should the brand's, bringing in new followers and widening your social reach.

Webmaster Tools• The Search Engines are incorporating Social Signals - BWT (Bing Webmaster Tools)

continues to evolve to include information on the social media accounts associated to the business website. Have you linked your Twitter account yet? Do you have both Google and Bing Webmaster Tools set up for your business? Ask us how!

Create a Twitter Account• Sign-up at https://twitter.com/

Brand Consistency• Before we delve into preparing to do business online… research and do the due

diligence, to determine a consistent brand approach (name and logo) to avoid confusion and conflict to the brand.

• NameChk: http://namechk.com/

• Knowem: http://knowem.com/

Secure Your Name• Proverb: Failing to plan is planning to fail

• You may not use them today, but secure them for tomorrow!

Create a Twitter Account• Sign-up at https://twitter.com/

• The maximum length for a username is 15 characters

• Avoid numbers, special characters, or anything unpronounceable for your username!

Logged in to Twitter• A walk through the interface, the ‘Home’ screen:

Logged in to Twitter• A look at the ‘Notifications’ screen:

Logged in to Twitter• A look at the ‘# Discover’ screen:

Logged in to Twitter• A look at ‘Me’:

Style Guide• Generate a ‘Style Guide’ for your online business

• Research your target demographic to develop your ideal ‘persona’

• Determine your ‘Tone of Voice’, type of language used and how you will come across

• Consistent naming convention for account creation

• Consistent brand approach for use of logo, hero images, fonts and colours

• Prepare business descriptors for use in ‘About’ biographies

• Look to incorporate target keyword strategy throughout

Logged in to Twitter• Editing Your Profile:

Sizes:– Header Image (also known as the cover photo, or 'hero' image) up to 5Mb 1500 x 500px

– Profile Picture up to 2Mb 500 x 500px

– You can’t be an egg forever. Personalize your pic!

– Bio up to 160 characters

Twitter on SmartPhones • The free Twitter APP is available on iOS, Android, Windows Phone and BlackBerry

• Be aware of the reduced size of cover image (hero image) display, and profile picture

Twitter on Tablets • The free Twitter APP is available on iOS, Android and many other popular platforms.

• Be aware of the reduced size of cover image (hero image) display, and profile picture

Top Twitter Tips• Does account match business name (matching brand)?

• Do they have a Hero (Header) image (1500 x 500px 5Mb max size)?

• Have they included Location Information “Perth, Western Australia“?

• Have they included their Website URL?

• Do they have a suitable 'About Us' Bio description?

Logged in to Twitter• A look at ‘Direct Messages’:

Top Twitter Tips…• Do they have a custom background design?

• Do they have suitable branding logo (company) or photo (individual)?

• How many Tweets (how active are they?)

• How many Following (who are they connecting to?)

• How many Followers (how many people are connecting to them?)

• Do they use LISTS, if so how many and what about?

• Do they use Favorites?

• Do they use Photos and Videos?

• Do they advertise (in the design, about us, posts) to their other SM accounts (Facebook, Pinterest etc to cross promote.)?

• Frequency of Tweets (posts)?

• Types of posts (text, photo, video, links)?

• Do they Retweet other users?

• Do they DM (Direct Message) other users? (won't be visible to public)

• Do they use #hashtags within posts?

• Do they use a specific URL shortener?

• Topics of posts?

• Engagement with posts (from users and to others)?

Who to Follow• A discussion on choosing who to follow, and why:

• Follow the people you want to hear from, have a correct bio and a display picture

• Follower thresholds: note that Twitter has imposed limits that try to balance out the number of followers to following. Your first threshold will be at 2,000

• Determine whether to continue following those that don't follow you back.

Don’t Buy Followers!• GIGO – Garbage In is Garbage Out

• Quality not Quantity

Increasing your Followers• A discussion on how to get Followers:

Twitter’s Fail Whale• A network under load

Your Social Media Policy• To maintain our company's open, honest and transparent approach, and our genuine

personality, we’ve set out a few Guidelines and Policies to follow. They should be read and followed by all staff, and especially anyone who updates a Social Media profile for our company.

• Our Social Media objectives– Have fun. If you enjoy what you do, they will too!

– Respect the audience. Even if their opinions differ.

– Be timely. Social Media is about NOW.

– Know when and what to post. Right message, right time. Be mindful of situations where you need approval signoff before responding or posting.

– Leave competitors to it. They may talk about us, but the best response is no response.

– Act responsibly. Do us proud and keep it honest. Don’t post negative comments, avoid inflating feedback with other profiles and importantly never leak confidential business information

• Remember to follow these policies– Keep it quiet – never discuss company or customer details. This includes subjects like sales figures, customer

details, internal policies, complaints, staff members or incidents.

– Keep it nice – Never refer to our company or others in a way that is defamatory, harassing or indecent.

– Keep it private – Never reference any clients, customers or trade partners without obtaining their permission to do so.

– Keep it real – Never post online on behalf of the company or competitors (under your own name or anonymously) unless it’s part of your job role or you’ve been given permission to do so.

– Keep it calm – if you’re in a bad mood, or someone riles you, take a step back and come back to it later.

– And finally, remember to keep it cool – We know you love social media as much as we do, but remember your social media usage shouldn’t interfere with your job. Usage may be reviewed and monitored by your Manager.

Hashtags #• Use hashtags (#) to focus tweets on topical keywords, or brand name.

• Regularly post with hashtags.

• Don’t over do the amount of hashtags implemented within a post. (no more than 3)

• Keep an eye on trending topics and particular #tags, and blend these into your RT/posts. Trending topics can be seen on Twitter.

• http://www.hashtags.org/trending-on-twitter/

• Hashtags can be used as keyword links within Twitter, Facebook and Google+

• But please, #stop #hashtagging #every #word. #It #looks #terrible #and #does #nothing #for #your #social #presence (except you may start losing followers). #stopit.

Tweet Length• Twitter limits Tweet length to 140 characters.

• To encourage Retweeting studies show that the “ideal” character count for a RT is in the range 70-100 characters.

• To illustrate this, count the characters:

• don_crowther is 12 characters long. Add one for the @ sign. Then add 3 more for RT and the space which follows it and you have 12+1+3=16.

• So the longest tweet I would ever want to tweet is 140-16=124 characters

• I would suggest that you have a rule of thumb where your character count including spaces, hashtags and shortened url all adds up to 120 characters maximum.

• The easiest way to manage this is by using a spreadsheet and format a cell to perform a character count for each post which has the formula =LEN(C3).

Embed a Tweet in a Tweet• A feature that recently became available on Twitter’s mobile apps is now available on

the desktop as well, which is the ability to embed a tweet within a tweet.

• Embedding a tweet within a tweet is really easy. Just type out your tweet, include a link to the tweet you want to embed, and then publish it. The tweet you link to gets automatically embedded into your tweet.

• This feature is another way to retweet something, but you have much more room to add your own comment. The embedded tweet only takes up as many characters as a shortened link would, which means you have over 100 extra characters to add your own message.

Twitter Lists• Lists are organizational categories that help you to filter your following so that you

can listen to focused conversations

• When you 'open' the list you see all the timeline posts from that group so you can read all the important and helpful tweets in between the “noise”

• Create lists based around topics, eg: trafalgar team members, travel agencies, airlines, hotels, travel bloggers, travel media, travel news etc

• Lists make it easy for others to follow your recommendations, and a great place for you to find additional focused followers

• When you list someone, it shows that you care about their tweets and would like to read all of them. It’s a form of appreciation on twitter, a gesture of gratitude. You might get listed back too

Location Search• Within Twitter you can keyword search by location ‘near’

• Websites like twitterfall.com/ provides access to geo located tweets

Marketing, starts with Content• Content Marketing, Social Media and SEO works together for great results…

• Blog posts

• Videos and Podcasts

• Images and Infographics

• Whitepapers

• Webinars

• Slideshows

• Reviews

• Website copy and Product descriptions

• Ebooks

• Digital magazines

• Research reports

• Case studies

• Enewsletters

• ... then syndicate all of this content through your social channels.

Twitter Content Approach• The content strategy is a balance of:

• Text, image, video and link posts (tweets with links get way more retweets—86% more)

• RT or Retweets; (repeating other users posts)

• DM or Direct Messaging; (private messages to specific users)

• Mentions; (posts that include user(s) in the tweet content)

• Special Day Twitter Events:

• #FF or #FollowFriday; (share lists of user accounts on a theme each Friday)

• #TT or #TravelTuesday; (share travel insights each Tuesday)

• Your Communications:

• Be yourself

• Be respectful

• Talk to people with similar interests

• Listen as well as talk. Keep a 50% balance, and don't dominate the conversation

• Information about your brand (staying on brand)

• Limit self-promotional tweets to approximately 10% of your content posts

• Specials, Launches, Events, Promotions

• Interesting general news, industry news, quotes, weather, International news

• Posting links to websites, photos, videos

Ask… and you may get• People are understandably shy about asking for retweets. In fact, less than

1% of brands have asked for a retweet. This is a huge missed opportunity.

• When you clearly ask your followers for a retweet, you have a good chance of getting one. Salesforce reports that asking results in 12 times more retweets.

• Here’s a tip: Make sure to spell out the word retweet in its entirety, rather than using the abbreviation RT. The retweet rate for “retweet” requests is 23 times higher than the engagement rate for “RT” requests.

Posting Frequency• Constant and regular ongoing commitment to

Twitter obtains results

• Don't post in a single burst, but spread throughout a day

• Key times for interactions are when people are able to be more social, particularly in evenings

• Day of week:

• Match day and time when EDMs or Blog Posts are scheduled

• Match day and time before, during and after events

• Weekends starting from Friday evening into Sat and Sun will have more conversation

• How often:

• Flooding tweets will simply get you known as a spammer

• Posting infrequently, does not build a voice, or a reputation

• Aim to start with two or three Tweet periods spread through the day; morning, lunch and noon

Do Not Make Misleading Claims• ACCC – Advertising & Promoting Your Business – Social Media:

– There are no specific or different consumer laws or rules in place for social media. Consumer protection laws which prohibit businesses from making false, misleading or deceptive claims about their products or services have been in place for decades. These laws apply to social media in the same way they apply to any other marketing or sales channel.

The power of an image• One Picture is Worth a Thousand Words.

• Dozens of studies and experiments prove that users are more attracted by amateur pictures that look true-to-life, though they can miss a polished glamorous look.

• As James Chudley put in his guide on using photos to sell:

• Show off your product’s benefits

• Make visitors laugh

• Tell a story and show how to do something (step-by-step guides with pictures simply rock!)

• Be consistent and professional.

• You can get a 150% increase in retweets just by including images.

Amplify the power… with VideoTwitter Video Marketing tips

• Twitter is not a video hosting platform, but it lets users link to posted videos which then appear as embedded videos, playable within a tweet. Twitter will embed videos from YouTube, Vimeo, Vine and most professional video platforms.

• Create purposed custom videos for Twitter. One common Twitter mistake is when companies take a small clip from a longer existing video and incorporate that into a tweet, which simply doesn't normally work.

• Think small - When videos are embedded in tweets, viewers see them on a tiny 435 x 244px player. Be sure that those tweeted videos are easy to see and understand on a small scale.

• Real Time Reaction - Tweets that gain the most search traffic are when they’re centered around real-time news and live events.

• Short duration - Twitter is used for quick updates, therefore tweeted videos should be 30-seconds or less.

Even Shorter Format - VineIntroducing the even shorter duration format of video marketing

• https://vine.co/

• Your video can be 6 seconds long

• Video recorded through your smartphone

• Vine videos loop

Efficient Social Media Management - HootSuite• Did you know you can use HootSuite with many of the popular Social Media channels

to connect with consumers, broadcast, amplify, and monitor conversations?

• Repurpose content across multiple social media channels and coordinate your social media campaign management from HootSuite.

• Schedule your posts in HootSuite in advance (day and time) upload from a spread sheet.

• Great for monitoring and listening

• Google Analytics connection

• Canned responses

• Shortened URL

• Get the App!

Keep Your Site Sticky!And once you have got the user to your website... Stickiness will keep them there!

• Newsletter subscription feature

• Follow on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest...

• Add to Favorites

• Community Section (If suitable)

• Encourage them to engage, and re-engage… give them a reason to do so.

• As with ANY Social Media account and your contact information, you want it to be seen so that others can discover, follow you and connect.

• Also add the Social Media logos and links to your company profile in your email.

• On your website, “Our Staff” section, have profiles for your team members and include links to their LinkedIn accounts and other Social Media.

• In your EDMs (Electronic Distribution Marketing – Emails) include both links to your LinkedIn company/personal page, as well as Social Share options within the content to encourage viral distribution opportunities.

• Add Social Media news feed plugins to your website to share the content.

• Remarketing…

Behind the Page <html>• You can include a reference to your Twitter social media channel from within the

<html> code of your website using Twitter Card metadata markup.

• Twitter Card Validator: https://dev.twitter.com/docs/cards/validation/validator

• Introducing new products: Because a picture can be included on the cards they are a great way to introduce new products and to generate excitement.

• Offering resources: Businesses often offer great resources for their customers on their website. The Twitter card can help direct people to these resources and build brand awareness.

• Using current events: Twitter cards can use popular events to help create a card that is passed along to others. Retweeting of business cards is a great way to spread information for a business.

• Sharing videos: If a business has a video that becomes popular, the Twitter card be shared and brand awareness will grow.

• Lead generation: A great way to capture email addresses.

Reputation Reporting• Measure and Manage your Social Reputation

• Klout - http://klout.com/home

• Kred - http://kred.com/

• Naymz - http://www.naymz.com/

• PeerIndex - http://www.peerindex.com/

• TrustCloud - https://trustcloud.com/

• Trackur - http://www.trackur.com/

• Thinkup - https://www.thinkup.com/

• TweetReach - http://tweetreach.com

• Sumall - https://sumall.com/

• Mentionmapp - http://mentionmapp.com

• Social Mention – http://www.socialmention.com/

• Xefer - http://xefer.com

• Unfollowers - https://unfollowers.com

• Record monthly your growth in followers, following, Tweets, Retweet,engaged users and reach.

Twitter Analytics• https://analytics.twitter.com/about

• If you don’t already have an advertiser account, you can request advertiser status. You will have to set your company up as if you will advertise, including payment information, and set up a Promoted Tweet or Twitter Card campaign with a far future date. This is something you can then cancel when you get access to Analytics — that way you don’t actually have to pay.

Google URL Shortener & Campaign Tracking

• To assist your marketing campaign reporting and tracking of the efforts of links you post and measure the effectiveness of your activities, consider using a consistent URL shortener such as Google’s goo.gl

• Google Analytics Campaign Link Tagging Tool is also very useful to create tagged URLs with campaign and source information that you can then shorten. The results are then measured within Google Analytics to show the effectiveness of different mediums.

Follow-up Questions?After today’s session, you are welcome to tweet questions

to our Vorian Agency Twitter Account @vorianagencyusing the hashtag #voriantraining

https://twitter.com/vorianagency

Keep Connected

After today’s session, please feel free to connect with me if you have additional questions:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/mattrlynch

Don’t forget to follow Vorian Agency on Twitter:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/VorianAgency

All of my other Social Media links are available on About.Me:

About.Me: http://about.me/au.mattlynch

Email: [email protected]

Please… invite othersWe would like to thank you for your attendance

to today’s seminar on Twitter.

• A link to the Presentation Slide Notes and Video will be emailed to you

• Vorian Agency info packs are provided to showcase our key business areas

• Vorian staff are available to arrange an appointment to assist your specific needs:– Set up a Twitter account for your business

– Create a content strategy for Twitter

– Integrate Twitter into your website

– Manage, respond and report on your Twitter account for your business

• Please provide your feedback and hand-in the supplied questionnaire

• Please invite others you may know to register for our free seminar series and forward them a copy of today’s seminar email.