Feb
1
5 Top List Building Destinations
Filed Under Blogging, Facebook, List Building, Networking and Marketing Strategy, Ning Sites, Public Relations, Social Media and Social Networking Sites, Twitter, Web Marketing | 12 Comments
I’ve written about list building extensively in connection with social media.
It’s time to revisit social media list building once again. In this article, however, I focus more on where to build lists than how to build them. In other words, I focus on social media list building destinations.
A few remarks are in order before I address the where-to of list building.
Importance of List Building
In List Building Using Twitter, I discuss the importance of list building in marketing. List building is equally important in PR, CRM and other types of communication.
Reach is the quantity of people your message reaches, while frequency is the average number of times each person is reached.
Frequency builds trust and drives your message home. Advertising without frequency is rarely effective. Marketers rely on list building to repeatedly reach their audience and achieve their target frequency levels.
New List Building Paradigm
In List Building Paradigm Shift, I discard the stereotype of list building as “a well-written lead capture page linked by a web form to an auto- responder” and redefine it as the process of acquiring and nurturing followers.
More precisely:
List building is the process of subscribing members of your target audience, in order to engage and nurture them and brand yourself and that which you represent.
This definition leaves plenty of room for creativity and customization of the list building process, yet it defines our objectives: engaging, nurturing and branding. Prescribing our objectives enables you to gauge the relative merits of each list building venue at your disposal.
List Building Destinations
These are my five favorite venues for list building. They are just as useful to owners of static websites as they are to bloggers.
I use all of them and let people choose for themselves which they prefer.
- Autoresponders - Reports of the death of email have been greatly exaggerated. Everybody receives email and knows how email works. Every website should provide email subscription. Emails sent to opt-in subscribers will have an open rate of about 30% and a click through rate of approximately 10%, which is excellent. The downside of email subscription in general is anonymity, lack of interactivity and changes of address. I use an autoresponder service to maintain my database and deliver my email. My service has a high delivery rate, many important features, good customer service, and it integrates with Google’s FeedBurner RSS if you have a blog.
- Ning Social Networks - You can connect with members of a Ning network, interact with them and broadcast messages to them as the site creator, as an administrator, as a group creator and as a friend. They all work. However, only as the site creator do you actually own their data. My primary Ning sites are Beyond Business Coaching and Let’s Follow Each Other. Subscription through Ning can be powerful, but it takes much more work to join a Ning site than to opt into an email list. A big problem with Ning is that if somebody joins more than one site or group of yours, they can receive duplicate mail from you. If you’re already established on Ning, incorporate it in your list building strategy. If not, to Ning or not to Ning will not be an easy question to answer.
- Facebook - A Facebook fan page widget lets Facebook members register for your page with one click. Based on my experience, response to posts runs at around 5%, about half the rate of email, which is good. The quality of traffic is superb with high average time spent on site. Your posts on Facebook can promote interaction and draw comments themselves from the members of your page, which helps you brand yourself. The potential also exists with Facebook pages to benefit from viral effects.
- Twitter - Posts on Twitter, or tweets as they’re called, can easily be retweeted and spread virally throughout the site. In a future post, I might list the reasons why, not withstanding the viral effect, I like Twitter much less than I like Facebook for list building. Nevertheless, I’m very happy to make Twitter subscription available, and I love all the traffic it brings me. (I’m @larrybrauner.)
- Google Friend Connect - This is Google’s attempt to add a social element to every website. I doubt that it’s very successful from a social perspective, but it’s from Google, so I’m in. If Google uses or will use GFC membership to assess the relevance of websites, I’m covered. One nice feature of GFC is its newsletters. Make sure you enable them and use them to email your GFC subscribers.
I also use RSS subscription for my blog, but it doesn’t support interaction, and I believe that the response rate from RSS is very low.
If you’re not yet a subscriber, please choose a destination and subscribe.
Your comments about list building or social media list building destinations are welcome. 
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Jan
25
My Top 10+ Blog Traffic Sources
Filed Under Blogging, Facebook, LinkedIn, Networking and Marketing Strategy, Ning Sites, Search Engines, Social Media and Social Networking Sites, Targeting, Twitter | 38 Comments
In 8 Simple Ways to Penetrate Social Media Clutter, I recommended that you leverage multiple traffic sources. In Looking for Traffic in All the Wrong Places, I gave you a partial list of the places I look to get more web site traffic.
Based upon Google Analytics data pertaining to my recent blog visits, bounce rates and average time on site, I present my top 10 blog traffic sources along with some notes on each:
- Search engines such as Google, Yahoo! and Bing - They account for 35% of my traffic. When my blog was new, I didn’t get any search engine traffic at all. Now, however, I get 5,000 visits from searches per month — including business people seeking precisely the types of services I offer. The credit goes to search engine optimization and to a growing reservoir of content.
- Entrecard, a traffic exchange for bloggers - Admittedly, Entrecard provides me with lots of worthless traffic. Fortunately, however, the site provides me with some great traffic too and an opportunity to build key relationships with other bloggers. One of my favorites at Entrecard is Gera from Uruguay, owner of the Sweets Foods blog. He and I are now also connected by email, Facebook and Twitter. As with all other traffic sources, to benefit from Entrecard you’ll need to make a long-term commitment to developing it.
- Twitter - I’ve written at length about Twitter. Read Twitter Stats Defy Measurement. I’m happy to have started with Twitter in 2008 when Twitter’s rules didn’t get in the way of building a large following. Today, different tactics are necessary to connect with your target audience. Start by encouraging your website visitors and friends on social networking sites to follow you on Twitter. Then gradually introduce new Twitter tools into your mix.
- Facebook - I turned my attention to Facebook in June 2009 and experimented with the NetworkedBlogs application, which may have introduced new readers to my blog, but proved to be a poor source of ongoing traffic. On the other hand, profiles, fan pages and events showed themselves to be excellent traffic sources. It seems to me, so far, that Facebook fan pages are very effective as a form of web site subscription.
- Ning social network - I’m sorry to report that Ning has morphed into a host of unrelated niche sites. If you have your own Ning site, or a group or lots of friends on someone else’s Ning site, you can use that site to move traffic. As with Twitter, getting started with Ning is harder than it used to be, and the marketing benefits are fewer. I belong to many Ning sites and have several of my own. My primary Ning site is Beyond Business Coaching.
- Business Exchange - Discovered this social bookmarking site recently and wrote about it in 12 Tips for Using Business Week’s Social Bookmarking Site. I’m hoping that Business Exchange will help me generate a lot of high quality traffic in the year to come.
- Blog Catalog - If you have a blog and decide to use BlogCatalog, start your own group there; make many friends on the site and invite them to join your group. Those who join are interested in you and your group’s theme.
- StumbleUpon - Planning to learn much more about StumbleUpon and use it much more this year. I’ll keep you posted.
- LinkedIn - While well connected on LinkedIn, I’m not using it much at present. Most of my LinkedIn traffic is coming as a result of the Twitter LinkedIn integration.
- Ryze - Here I first encountered online social networking back in 2003. I find Ryze very underwhelming in 2010. The traffic I get from Ryze comes from posting in groups, which are really forums.
I believe that Blogger is sending me visitors because of Google Friend Connect. Also, I heard a rumor that Yahoo! is dumping MyBlogLog. Will let you know about both of them.
You made it all the way down here. Why not scroll down a drop more and leave a comment? 
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Jan
20
Critique of Social Media and Online Social Networking on Commercial Radio
Filed Under Announcements, Facebook, Social Media and Social Networking Sites | 3 Comments
I spoke on December 9 with Rohn Robbins, Vail, Colorado attorney and the host of Community Focus on The Zephyr, True Local Radio, KZYR 97.7FM.
During the hour-long radio show, Rohn and I discussed social media, online social networking and the most popular social networking sites from social, cultural, political, security and privacy perspectives.
While I continue to analyze the sites posted on my Facebook page during our website promotion event and social media party, pour yourself a drink and listen to the podcast online or download it to your iPod or MP3 player for offline listening.
You can find additional interviews and press coverage on my Media Buzz page.
Please share your thoughts about the world of social media and social networking sites, using the handy comment space provided below for your convenience.
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Jan
18
8 Reasons Why You Might NOT Be Promoting Yourself Enough
Filed Under Announcements, Facebook, Networking and Marketing Strategy, Promoting Yourself, Public Relations | 27 Comments
Our website promotion event and social media party was an enormous success. Hundreds actively participated, introducing their web sites, engaging in dialog and making new connections.
Fortunately, the time frame for the networking phase of the event is open-ended, so drop by my Facebook page any time to meet some new people and check out what they’re up to. I’ll be busy working on the page for a few more days, reviewing web sites I haven’t yet visited.
Our four-day event was in part an experiment, as Tom Woolf pointed out. A key takeaway for me is that many people are promoting their products, services, companies interests and causes but not sufficiently promoting them- selves.
Keeping a low profile may occasionally be appropriate. However, in general, self-promotion is integral to social media marketing and public relations.
These are eight reasons why self-promotion and injecting yourself into your content are very important:
- You transcend your interests. No interest or group of interests, no matter how passionate you are about them, can fully define you as a person. Admittedly, this point is too existential, so…
- Your subject matter might lose relevance. For example, your product can be discontinued or your company can go out of business. Your content will become irrelevant with no residual benefit from the effort you put into creating and promoting it. However…
- You’re always relevant as a person. You have inherent value, and you’re completely portable from one venue to another.
- You and I are unique. People aren’t interchangeable, but products, services and organizations tend to be.
- You and I are memorable. People will come to remember us and our faces once they see us a few times.
- People prefer to do business with people they know, like and trust. It has always been that way, even before Al Gore allegedly invented the Internet. You and I can relate to people and build solid social capital.
- Synergy. Our diverse interests and content work to build a bigger and more insightful picture of us.
- Social media is uhh, social. You and I are social. Our jewelry and weight loss products merely facilitate social interaction. People relate to people, and their relationships are ongoing.
More about promoting yourself and personal branding in upcoming articles.
At this time, you can probably suggest additional reasons for keeping it social, and I expect that you will.
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Jan
10
Facebook Fan Page Event Going Viral and Attracting Hundreds Already
Filed Under Facebook, Networking and Marketing Strategy, News, Outside the Box, Public Relations, Social Media and Social Networking Sites | 17 Comments
A few days into 2010, I launched a major publicity event in connection with my upcoming 58th birthday. The event will take place right on my Facebook fan page.
This event’s premise is that each guest will post a link on my Facebook fan page, visible for all to see. They may link to a blog, a website or even a profile on one of the major social networking sites. I agreed to follow their link with the intention of commenting, sharing the link, or submitting it to social bookmarking sites.
When I undertook this unusual event, I was aware that I would be busy with it for weeks. I planned it very carefully with seven key objectives in mind:
- Win Win - I wanted each event participant to benefit, not only me.
- Interaction - I wanted to interact with each participant and start or nurture relationships. Community engagement is always a challenge.
- Meeting People - I wanted to expand my network and connect with new people.
- Collaboration - I wanted to share my expertise and influence. I believed that a good number of participants would want to do the same. Collaboration is a primary theme for me in 2010.
- Branding - I wanted to demonstrate that I could conceptualize and implement a creative and meaningful social media event as part of my overall walking the walk strategy.
- Leverage - In 2009 I reached out to many people. I wanted to do something that would include them and permit them to support me.
- Momentum - After a slow 2009 holiday season, I wanted to build new momentum. Last year’s momentum was sustained by the articles I wrote and the growth of my network. This year’s momentum will be sustained by community-oriented projects as well.
The initial reaction to my event on Facebook, Twitter and blogs has been very encouraging.
- Tom Woolf, author of The PRagmatist, was enthusiastic: “I want to give Larry Brauner a nod for trying a different kind of social media experiment.”
- W. James Wright in Tweet it Toronto lamented “This is one for the ‘Wish I Woulda Thoughta That File.’”
- Rachel McAlpine in Contented Blog said “How quickly the shiny- new Facebook became boring-boring same-old same-old. I’m happy to say that Larry’s virtual party has already seeded my brain with other social marketing ideas.”
As I prepare to publish this article, 260 people have indicated that they’re “Attending” and 165 that they’re “Maybe Attending.” Entries will be accepted until the end of the event on January 14. I cover the details in 4+ Day Blog and Website Promotion Event and Social Media Party. It would help greatly if you could tweet that article (using this pre-formatted link).
If you could Digg this article and share it with acquaintances in the media, you’d be doing me an enormous favor.
Before I go, I must not forget to mention that there will be door prizes. The prizes and the winners will be announced some time after the completion of the event. Also, in case you’re new here and wondering, subscribing and commenting are the accepted norms.
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Jan
6
4+ Day Blog and Website Promotion Event and Social Media Party
Filed Under Announcements, Facebook | 41 Comments
To start off a year of greater collaboration and celebrate my 58th birthday, I’m hosting a unique four-day blog and web site promotion event and social media party on my Facebook fan page.
What’s truly unique about this event is that I plan to check out every link posted on my page and comment, share the link, and submit it to social bookmarking sites, as I deem appropriate.
Over a hundred people have registered so far, and many more are expected to sign up for this free event.
Everybody may participate. It’s not necessary to have a blog or other website.
If you’d like to donate a door prize such as an info product or a coaching session, please connect with me as quickly as possible.
Here are answers to 19 or 20 infrequently asked questions:
- How do I register for this event? Visit the event page and click on Attending. If you’re not a Facebook member, join Facebook first.
- When does this event take place? From January 11-14 according to the date wherever you are. EXTENDED UNTIL JANUARY 15, NOON EST. NO DEADLINE FOR NETWORKING AND COMMENTING ON POSTS.
- Do I have to be awake and online for 96 hours? Not unless you want to get into the Guinness Book of World Records.
- Can I click on Maybe? You can, but why would you? The party is four days long. Either you’re going to stop by or you’re not.
- In what ways can I participate? You can post a link to your blog or website on my Facebook page along with a brief non-hypey introduction. You can network (see below) with other people and check out their links. You can even be a fly on the wall (no pun intended) and just chill.
- What if I don’t have a blog or other website? Post a link to your Facebook page or profile, to your Twitter profile, LinkedIn profile, etc.
- What am I not permitted to promote? No porn or hate content. No predominantly religious content. (I was careful not to include them all in the same sentence.)
- How many links may I post during the event? One with an exception…
- What if you don’t get to me? If I don’t get to acknowledge your post within seven days, you may post a new link or re-post the old one.
- Can I network with other participants? You are encouraged to network, but please do so in a professional manner to avoid being cast into the snake and scorpion infested dungeon.
- When will you be hosting another event like this one? I don’t know. It depends on how this one goes. If I must hire bouncers, that won’t be a good sign.
- What happens if I don’t attend this one? You’ll have to live with a guilty conscience for all eternity.
- Will dessert be served? Yes. Chocolate cyber cake and virtual vanilla ice cream. Yum!
- This bullet point intentionally left blank.
- Do I need to bring a birthday present? No, but you can help promote this event.
- How can I help promote this event? You can link to this article, share it on FB, tweet it (using this handy link), Stumble it, Digg it, or print copies and mail them to all your friends, family and colleagues.
- Is this some kind of April Fools joke? Only if you’re reading this on April 1st.
- What if I think 58 is old? Keep your opinion to yourself.
- What if I don’t think any of this is very funny? Get a life.
- What if you haven’t answered my question? You can ask your question below in a comment. I’ll answer it, if it makes sense to me.
Note that I reserve the right to modify the rules and conditions of this event arbitrarily and capriciously with or without prior or subsequent notice.
Don’t hesitate to subscribe, leave a comment, or join my Facebook Fan page.
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Dec
6
Social Network Privacy Hampers Marketers
Filed Under Announcements, Facebook, Networking and Marketing Strategy, News, Ning Sites, SPAM, Social Media and Social Networking Sites, Targeting | 13 Comments
A shorter article than the past one.
Privacy and spam concerns continue to induce Facebook and Ning to make changes that hurt marketers. Facebook, for example, will end network affiliations, while Ning has already disabled the sharing of any content across participating sites.
Good-Bye Facebook Networks
Facebook members now use school, city of company network affiliations to control access to their personal content.
Since network affiliation is less relevant than it had been at the network’s conception, and since the display of network affiliation can jeopardize members’ privacy and security, Facebook is replacing affiliation-based permissions with a friendship-based alternative.
This solution better protects Facebook members.
However, it also takes away an important targeting mechanism from honest business users wishing to find people in the regions where they operate. 
Thanks Ning for Duplicate Messages
If you and I are friends at several Ning sites, I probably send you duplicate messages. Since I can no longer share content across sites, I send the same information from several sites, and you receive that information multiple times. I try to minimize duplication but haven’t yet eliminated it.
Ning has made it less convenient for spammers.
However, if a spammer is motivated enough, you’ll now receive their spam several times instead of once.
Good-News Bad-News
The good news is that social networking sites will continue their efforts to safeguard the privacy and security of members and to create an enjoyable networking experience… great when we have on our networking hats.
The bad news is that more safeguards can mean more limited access to members, and when we have on our marketing hats… not so great!
What are your thoughts on this hot topic?
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Nov
22
10 Easy Ways to Improve Your Blog or Website
Filed Under Best Practices, Best of 2009, Blogging, Networking and Marketing Strategy, Search Engines, Social Media and Social Networking Sites, Web Marketing | 30 Comments
Like you, I typically visit many blogs and websites each day.
Some web sites clearly have it together. They have lots of traffic and appeal to visitors.
Other sites aren’t bad. They have good potential. With a few tweaks here and there, they could enjoy much more traffic and appeal much more to their audience.
I promised myself that I’d write up some suggestions for improving blogs and websites. I realize that while much is possible, we can’t hope to do everything. We need to apply the 80/20 rule and focus on strategies and techniques that are easy to implement yet promise substantial benefits:
- Make Your Text Easier to Read - Some months ago, I noticed that my blog’s text wasn’t visually sharp enough. It was difficult to read. Upon examination, I noticed that the font wasn’t quite black, and the background wasn’t totally white. The links were grayish. After a few minor theme changes, the color scheme was improved. Low contrast combinations or light text on a dark background always require extra effort to read.
- Optimize for Human Eyeballs - A site’s title tells search engines and their users what the site is about. The title is the bold headline in search engine results. Using keywords in your site’s title can help you rank higher for those keywords. Recently, I changed the title of my blog hoping to rank higher on more keywords, and my traffic fell. The new title was unfortunately less relevant and less appealing to my potential readers. I changed my title back, and traffic rebounded. The takeaway: Optimize for humans, not just for search engines.
- Use Headings to Break Up Long Articles - Headings break up an article into sections and help make the article easy to scan and read. Limiting paragraph size helps too. Headings, however, like titles, can tell search engines what an article is about and are an excellent place to insert your keywords.
- Link Out - I provided a rationale for linking out to other sites in The Blogger’s Guide to Links and Comments: “Use of outbound links enhances your pages in ways that both search engines and people can easily appreciate.” The advice in that article applies equally to blogs and conventional websites. Unless you’re linking to ads, use only dofollow links.
- Link Internally - This can be huge. Linking internally increases a site’s circulation, and it increases the perceived relevance of both the linking page and the page linked to. Link to another page or article on your site when you have the opportunity. In a blog, you can even link to a tag, as I often do. A blog site map such as the once generated by the Wordpress plugin Really Simple Sitemap makes it easy for visitors to find a blog’s archived content. I use internal links on my blog nearly everywhere, even in places which aren’t obvious.
- Be Social - Adding a social dimension to your web presence makes you real and credible. Join all the major social networking sites, and let visitors know how they can connect with you. Google Friend Connect and Facebook NetworkedBlogs widgets add sociability to your site and enable readers to publicly endorse you. Bloggers can join blog networking sites as well such as Technorati, Entrecard, BlogCatalog and MyBlogLog.
- Make Subscription Simple - Make it as easy as possible for readers to subscribe to your blog or newsletter. Blogs should offer subscription by both email (using a service like Aweber) and RSS (using a service like Feedburner). I’m always amazed when I have to hunt for a way to subscribe to a site.
- Use Social Bookmarking - Make your content easier to find and, as is the case with some social bookmarking sites, create quality links into your blog or website. Some of the social bookmarking sites I use are Digg, Delicious, Propeller, Reddit, diigo, Jumptags, Google Bookmarks and iZeby.
- Encourage Comments - Not only do I generally ask readers to comment, but I comment back as well whenever it’s appropriate.
- Extend Your Domain - If your domain will expire with the next twelve months, you might be signaling to search engines and savvy visitors that your site is only temporary.
I’ve omitted other ways that you can improve your site, because they’re harder to implement, and because they’ll give me something to discuss in a subsequent article.
In any case, we have our work cut out for us.
What do you think?
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Oct
21
Why Aren’t Social Networking Sites Easy to Use?
Filed Under Facebook, Networking and Marketing Strategy, Social Media and Social Networking Sites | 14 Comments
Connecting on social networking sites with family and friends requires little forethought or planning. The most popular social networks are easy enough to figure out, even without instruction manuals.
Most of us would agree that social networking sites are easy to use for casual networking.
On the other hand, reaching out to your target audience on social networking sites requires both planning and an appreciation of the fine points of each site. Social networking sites are not easy to use when it comes to marketing.
Facebook in particular is one social networking site that even experienced marketers struggle with, especially using profiles, pages, groups and apps in an appropriate and effective manner.
She Purged All of Her Friends on Facebook
Recently, I was contacted by a Facebook connection who happens to be some kind of celebrity. She was migrating her thousands of friends from her profile to her fan page, so that she could remove them from her profile.
At first glance, this is the Facebook equivalent of unfollowing all your friends on Twitter. However, you realize that it’s even more extreme once you think about it.
Removing her friends on Facebook, she gave up her access to their profile information and status updates. Either she was desperate for privacy 
or hadn’t adequately considered the consequences or didn’t care much about connecting with the fans who were following her.
Separating Business from Personal on Facebook
Yesterday, a marketing friend informed me that he was trying to separate “business from personal” on Facebook. He had set up a fan page and asked me to send people there rather than to his profile.
He also informed me that he was “trying to get to 100 members, so I could get a vanity URL” and asked if I had any suggestions.
This same friend is working on attracting his target audience to his Ning social networking site which may partially justify his separating business from personal on Facebook. Nevertheless, connecting as Facebook friends offers so many excellent networking opportunities that one can’t fully justify passing it up.
Furthermore, his difficulty reaching 100 fans for his page is a sign to me that perhaps he’d be better off starting by building a base of Facebook friends from which he could later draw members for his page.
In Conclusion
A feature on one of the social networking sites may attract you, such as the ability to have an unlimited number of fan page members on Facebook, but it’s critical to carefully weigh the pros and cons of each strategy and tactic.
With Facebook groups for example, you can only have 5,000 members, but you can send group messages directly to the inboxes of all those members. That capability may be more useful to you that having unlimited members.
A modest investment of time speaking with an online social networking or social marketing expert could dramatically increase the value of the subsequent time you spend marketing on social networking sites.
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Oct
18
Twitter Lists Beta Observations and Tips
Filed Under List Building, Networking and Marketing Strategy, News, Social Media and Social Networking Sites, Targeting, Twitter, Twitter Tools | 14 Comments
Last week, Twitter released a beta version of Twitter Lists, “a great way to organize the people you follow and discover new and interesting accounts.”
“Beta” implies that there are still some rough edges, and tweaks are to be expected. It also implies that you might not yet have access to Twitter Lists.
Undoubtedly this article still has some rough edges as well and revisions are to be expected.
So what are Twitter Lists all about?
Facebook has lists that let you organize your friends. Twitter Lists enable you to do much more than that. This brand new Twitter tool adds an entirely new and exciting dimension to Twitter.
Twitter Lists presents new targeting opportunities, and may also create new online social networking possibilities. We’ll know more once the feature is fully tested and rolled out.
Twitter Lists Observations
Here are five ways in which Twitter Lists and Facebook lists are similar:
- You categorize people and assign them to one or more lists. A person may belong to many lists or to none. The choice is totally yours.
- You create and name your lists, and you can edit its name even after the list has been established.
- You manage your lists and can add and remove people whenever you wish.
- Facebook lists and any Twitter list which you make private are known only to you, the list creator.
- You can view status updates and posts that are limited to the people you assigned to a particular list, making it easier to follow categories of people such as family or business contacts.
Here are five ways in which Twitter Lists and Facebook lists differ:
- All Facebook lists are private. However, on Twitter you can also create public lists to share with other members.
- People can easily tell to which public Twitter lists they’ve been assigned and who assigned them by clicking on the “listed” link on any of their account pages. Here’s my listed link (assuming that you can access it).
- On Facebook you can add only friends (or invited friends) to your lists. On Twitter you can add anybody as long as that person hasn’t protected his or her updates. Consider Twitter Lists to be a new method for following people.
- You can use Facebook lists to limit access to parts of your profile. This doesn’t apply to Twitter lists. Your brief Twitter profile is public and is visible to everybody, even to people who do not belong to Twitter.
- Not only can you view updates limited to the people you assigned to a particular Twitter list, you can do the same with anybody else’s Twitter list which you follow. Once you follow somebody’s list, you can access the updates for that list (as well as any of your own lists) using the lists menu on your Twitter sidebar. By the way, it’s okay to be nosy, so don’t feel guilty about it!
Twitter Lists Tips
Here are nine Twitter tips for maximizing your use of Twitter Lists:
- Look around to see how people are using Twitter Lists and in which lists they’ve been listed. You’ll get a good sense of how Twitter Lists work and a bunch of ideas for lists you can create yourself.
- Experiment. While you run the risk of driving other people crazy, you are free to make as many changes to your Twitter lists as you wish.
- You can add yourself to your own lists which useful for when people follow your lists.
- Instead of following somebody else’s Twitter list, often it will make more sense to select people from that list and assign them to your own list. That gives you some control and flexibility. However, keep in mind that when people are added to that person’s list in the future, your list will not update automatically.
- Be careful when assigning people to public Twitter lists. Don’t offend them (unless of course you’re an antisocial type of person). They might retaliate by assigning you to a list of jerks or dorks or even worse. At present, Twitter lists can’t be altered by the people listed. Twitter will have to take action if (when?) behavior problems surface.
- On the other hand, use your Twitter lists to communicate thoughts about people in a constructive way. Assign them to a public Twitter list of cool peeps or to a list of experts in a niche. Do this even (or especially) to people who don’t follow you!
- Do anything you want with private Twitter lists just as you would with Facebook lists. If you want a Twitter list of nerds or spammers, keep it private or face likely retaliation. You probably don’t want to make your “little black book” public either.
- You can start off by making a Twitter list private and later switch it to public and vice versa.
- Have fun, but set limits, as Twitter Lists can be addictive. Don’t let Twitter Lists become an obsession (unless you happen to be looking for a new obsession).
I’m @larrybrauner on Twitter. Assign me to any funky Twitter lists, and you’ll live to regret it.
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Sep
2
List Building Using Facebook
Filed Under Best of 2009, Facebook, List Building, Networking and Marketing Strategy, Social Media and Social Networking Sites | 22 Comments
I have already written List Building Using Ning Social Networks and List Building Using Twitter. I will want to revisit Ning and Twitter in the future. However, in this article I discuss the use of Facebook for building your list.
As explained in List Building Paradigm Shift, list building in today’s social media world is the process of acquiring and nurturing a rich and heterogeneous following across diverse platforms which include Rolodex, autoresponders, social networking sites and RSS feeds.
On Facebook, friends, page fans and NetworkedBlogs followers, all belong to your list, and all receive communications from you in one form or another.
If Facebook would enable you to have an unlimited number of friends, you could probably get along without fans and NetworkedBlogs followers. However, Facebook models itself after the real world and therefore limits you to 5,000 friends, presumably the exact size of CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s personal Rolodex.
Facebook does enable you to have any number of fans and followers. List building on Facebook consists of acquiring and nurturing friends, fans and NetworkedBlogs followers belonging to your target audience.
Acquiring Friends
I covered a technique for targeting and connecting with friends on Facebook in Targeting and Connecting on the Top Business Networking Sites.
You find members of groups, fans of Facebook pages, and blog followers on NetworkedBlogs, all of which you consider relevant to your target audience, and you invite those members people — in a congenial manner, of course — to connect with you.
The more friends you have, the more your content is displayed to their visitors helping you get even more friends and followers.
Acquiring Fans
These are a few of the many ways to acquire fans for your Facebook page:
- Place a Fan Box widget on your website or blog, so that your visitors can become fans with one click.
- Post a message on your website or blog requesting that your visitors become fans.
- Ask your Facebook friends to become fans. There is a “Suggest to Friends” link on your Facebook page.
- Place advertisements, but take care to adhere to the Facebook guidelines for advertising fan pages.
- Post outstanding content on your Facebook page that will spread virally on Facebook and attract new fans.
Acquiring NetworkedBlogs Followers
NetworkedBlogs is a Facebook application to promote your blog and acquire Facebook followers and blog subscribers.
Here are some ways in which I acquire NetworkedBlogs followers for my Online Social Networking blog:
- I have a NetworkedBlogs widget on my blog’s sidebar.
- I ask people on my blog, Facebook and other social networking sites to follow me.
- I try to write useful articles so that friends of my Facebook friends and followers will start following me.
A Special Request
Please subscribe to my blog and follow it on NetworkedBlogs. I’ll do my best to write useful articles that you’ll enjoy, and to reply to your comments promptly and helpfully.
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Aug
2
Targeting and Connecting on the Top Business Networking Sites
Filed Under Best of 2009, Facebook, LinkedIn, Networking and Marketing Strategy, Ning Sites, SPAM, Social Media and Social Networking Sites, Targeting, Twitter, Web Marketing | 24 Comments
I am about to discuss targeting and connecting as they apply to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Ning networks, the most popular social networking sites for business networking.
I could have broken the material into four separate blog posts, but decided instead to deliver it to you as four articles wrapped up into one long one.
For simplicity, I am assuming that your target market uses each of the sites. Since that may not be true in your case, feel free to adapt these business networking techniques to all other social networking sites as needed.
Targeting and connecting on Facebook are pretty straightforward with one caveat. You are limited to 5,000 connections on Facebook, so you can’t afford to cast too wide a net. Be fussy about whom you connect with and remove from your friends anybody who spams you.
To identify people in your target market, search for groups and Facebook networked blogs that would likely interest them. Join the groups and follow the blogs yourself. Then browse the members of those groups and followers of those blogs to find potential connections.
I believe that blog followers as a whole are more active on Facebook than mere group members. However, consider selecting only members with some minimum number of friends such as 100 to weed out people who don’t really engage with the site.
If you’re not sure which groups and blogs to select, try connecting with others in your niche. You’ll be able to see which groups they lead or belong to and which blogs they publish or follow. You can also examine their Facebook walls to find additional potential connections.
Connecting isn’t difficult. When you invite another member, include a short note such as, “You and I are both members of the Social Networking Haters group.”
Please, promise me that you won’t write anything nerdy like, “I’m looking to connect with like minded people.” Don’t use a line like that with anybody anywhere ever. I mean it.
The Twitter learning curve is steep. If you’re not well versed with Twitter, try the advice and resources in my Twitter articles. I’m going to assume that you pretty much know what you’re doing.
Since Twitter is bloated with spammers’ phony profiles, targeting on Twitter is difficult and getting more difficult all the time. It’s going to be a messy job, so be prepared. Don’t say that I didn’t warn you.
Do not connect with anybody who has:
- no profile information or inappropriate profile information
- no picture, avatar or business logo
- a lopsided relationship between following and followers
- almost no tweets or spammy looking tweets
Do follow back anybody else who follows you. Unfollow anybody who spams you.
To identify Twitter members in your target market, start your search by using Find People to look for other people in your niche. Avoid the biggies, since they are magnets for spam, and a large percentage of their followers are spammers.
Look for the ones who have a few hundred to a few thousand followers.
Follow them and follow their followers — unless of course a particular follower looks suspicious based on the criteria I just listed above. A portion of their followers will hopefully belong to your target market.
Unfollow the people who don’t follow back after a few days and repeat the process.
Consider using a tool to manage your account.
On LinkedIn, targeting is fairly straightforward, but connecting can be a challenge.
If you’re a job hunter or a headhunter in the recruiting industry, you should probably connect with as many people as you can. Since the limit is reportedly 30,000, you can afford to cast a very wide net.
In any case you should accept all invitations. Remove any connection who who spams you:
- Click on “Connections” which is on the left side bar.
- Click on “Remove Connections” which is currently near the upper right corner
- Then follow the instructions.
The main difficulty with LinkedIn is that if you invite someone who then indicates that they don’t know you, you get a strike against you. If this happens often, LinkedIn restricts your inviting privileges.
People who are open to invitations and implicitly agree not to indicate that they don’t know you are call LinkedIn Open Networkers, abbreviated LION.
There are at least two groups for LinkedIn Open Networkers:
You can join and browse these groups to find people to link to. They of course have an option to accept you or to archive you, i.e. ignore you. Usually they accept.
If you are not a job hunter or headhunter, you’re probably better off targeting than trying to connect to thousands of people. That’s your judgment call.
You can do both, just as I do. But I admit that I started as a job hunter years ago and built a large base at that time. If I were starting today, I think I would stick to targeting.
To make the best connections, join the groups that people in your target market would join, and participate in the groups’ discussions. You’ll naturally make connections and get some traffic to your blog or website along the way.
Ning Network
Targeting on Ning is a little tricky. Cast a wide net on Ning, since I’m not aware of any upper limit on the number of Ning friends.
Here are the challenges that you face when adding Ning friends:
- You can only have 100 outstanding friend requests. You’ll have to dis-invite people who don’t respond. Do this from the “Friends” tab of your Ning dashboard at Ning.com.
- Most of the people you invite won’t respond. Either they don’t know how or they’ve already abandoned the site.
You improve your results by posting a friendly, non-spammy and non-nerdy comment to their profile at the time you invite them.
You also improve your results by inviting people who have recently joined the site, the ones at the beginning of the member list, or people who are obviously engaging with the site.
Find people in your target market by joining Ning networks and groups that are likely to attract these people. Invite a hundred people, and wait a day. Some will accept, so you can invite more.
When you get stuck, trim your invite list starting from the end. While this can be a slow process, it has worked for me and for others.
Be careful not to spam your friends. Don’t invite them directly to join new Ning sites.
The best way to communicate with your Ning friends is to write informative blog posts on a Ning site about something that would interest people in your target audience. Then use the share feature on Ning to let them know about your post.
Read Introduction to Using Ning Sites and other Ning articles.
Now It’s Your Turn
I don’t have a monopoly on online business networking techniques. Why not share some of your own targeting and connecting ideas?
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