“Follow the latest buzz.” “Get into the Conversation.” “Make sure your Twitter personality and company voice sound the same.” “Follow who your friends follow.” “Tweet to attract and retain customers.”

Blah blah blah. Twitter is the marketing strategy du jour, and there a ton of blog posts providing managment-speaky advice like the quotes above. But do any companies actually make money using micro-blogs? Do any companies gain another real value from this medium?

A quick Google search for “Twitter Tips” returns more than 775,000 results. How many of these tips actually show companies a way to use micro-blogging that is worthwhile? There are thousands of strategies that will attract followers and make your profile appealing; however, it is difficult to actually generate income.

Here at Bozell, we want to simplify things. Out of the thousands of Twitter tips and strategies, we have identified three ways that companies are effectively using a micro-blog service today that have resulted in real benefits:

1. Micro Customer Service:
These companies give customers a way to receive help on a real-time basis.
Benefit: Better customer service ranking.
Check them out: @Comcastcares, @Firefox, and @Pandora_Radio

2. Microburst Sales:
These companies offer real-time, short-term sales as well as deep-discount product offerings.
Benefit: Increased sales.
Check them out: @PunchPizza, @NameCheap and @DellOutlet

3. Crowd-Sourced Research:
This includes polling of information as well as finding the correct contacts.
Benefit: Finding information.
Check them out: @skydiver (HARO) and @Threadless (Twitter Tees)

If your company cannot benefit from one of these three tools, it is probably not essential to have a micro-blog or Twitter presence. Typically, a good micro-blog account requires constant updates and time, especially to get them up and running. If the time investment doesn’t create profit worth more than the cost of time to build and manage a micro-blog, it isn’t worthwhile. Instead, think about what your business is passionate about. What can your customers contribute? Answer your social media needs with these answers and research other opportunities to make an impact.

It seems as if Twitter has created a monopoly in the micro-blog world; however, there is no guarantee it will be around forever. The site has yet to make money, despite its popularity. Other seemingly popular sites have already been shut down. (Example: Pownce) However, micro-blogging itself will stick around. Micro-blogging as a service is already a popular feature of the largest social networks: Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, etc. The micro-blog feature takes the form of a status update at the top of a profile page, often featuring links connecting to other sources.

Other sites have found useful ways to use micro-blogs. Check out this list of other micro-blogging sites with diverse and impressive features.

Tumblr
Yammer
Jaiku
Identi.ca
Bloggino
Kwippy
Microblogr
Plerb
Secondbrain
Yonkly
Beemood
Brightkite
Onhandblog.com

So, before you venture into the world of microbloggin, stop and think about a few things. What do you have to say? What do your customers need to hear from you? And where does your passion lie?

This post is my latest article from Bozell’s Thinking magazine.

Here is a hilarious video on Twitter and Twitter users. Check it out here.

Hey Everybody,

Haven’t posted for a while, but I just wanted to share a set of guidelines for starting a new corporate blog. Blogging can be an amazing marketing tool. If you are thinking of starting a blog to help interact with your customers/ shareholders. Check out this plan and advice sheet. Hope you enjoy.

OVERVIEW

Listed below are guidelines that will help the you make the most of your new blog. These guidelines will help you to grow your blog into a powerful conversation tool. The guidelines are separated into five easy steps:

Step 1: Listen

The best advice anyone can follow before entering into a new method of communication is to become familiar with the tools and voices within that medium. Before a blog launch:

1. Take a month and read relevant blogs in the blog’s category.

2. Check out competitors’ blogs.

3. Subscribe to podcasts related to the blog’s industry.

4. Find groups on the social networking sites (SNS) that pertain to that industry.

This process can be as easy as visiting directories for each of these mediums and searching relevant keywords or industry stories. You can then follow trending stories and learn who the most popular influencers are in this category. You should join these relevant conversations and subscribe to receive updates from influential content producers. The following tools are suggested as a means to locate relevant discussions in different categories online:

Blogs:
Technorati (blog search engine):
Google Blogsearch (blog search engine):

Podcasts:
iTunes:
Podcast Directory (podcast search engine):

Groups:
Facebook:
Yahoo! Groups:

Once part of a group, your bloggers shouldn’t just sit back and watch. They should take a side on a relevant issue affecting their category. They should put their opinions out there for others to read. Before they begin their own publishing, they should let people know who they are and start building their reputation online. This will help the blog develop a relevant audience when they start to post.

Step 2: Plan

To please both the search engines and readers, it is important to regularly post relevant content. Plan ahead and post often. Make a schedule of who is going to be posting about what topic and when. Stick to that schedule. Try to post two to three times a week. Feel free to post more often if there are many product developments or a lot of news. It will be helpful to identify which blogger is exceptionally passionate early on and make them the default writer.

Ideas on Good Posting Content: Good content consists of breaking news, product innovations, money saving ideas, internal visual content such as photos or videos, humorous anecdotes and personal stands on trending stories in your industry. The best content is original, injected with personality and demonstrates authority.

Examples of Bad Posting Content: Bad content is blatantly self-serving content. Your bloggers shouldn’t spend the whole time talking about their products and services. The posts need to be interesting to everyone. Bad content is also content that meanders without a specific theme. And if the blog lacks focus, it will lack an audience.

Step 3: Socialize

Allow comments on the new blog (it’s not a conversation without comments). Respond to all comments in a timely fashion. Link to other bloggers, outside sources of information, and even competitors. Hopefully, they will link back to the your new blog. By providing a very robust source list, the new blog can become the ultimate source of information for users on this subject. This practice also provides the blog with a lot of valuable links and indexible information, both of which will help increase the new blog’s search engine ranking. If the new blog becomes the best source of information, users will submit the blog to social news-sharing sites, tell their friends and bookmark its stories.

Make social bookmarking and social news-sharing links available. Try to make it as easy as possible for users to share your blog’s content.

The new bloggers should make themselves personally available to their readers. The new blog should provide contact information such as a phone number, email and/or Twitter address to a real person. Once a relationship has begun to flourish online, the bloggers should meet up with their readers in real life. Tweetups, tradeshows, and group lunches offer great outing environments that will help the bloggers further connect with their readers.

Step 4: Customize

Blogs are one of today’s most versatile mediums. In fact, many companies are using blogs as their main Web vehicles. Your bloggers can easily add widgets or applications that do almost anything imaginable to the sidebar of their new blog. Some examples of widgets available today are current weather displays, news readers from major newspapers, games, photo albums and much more. Most of them are free. Visit Widgetbox or Google Gadgets and add them to the side bar of the new blog.

Add RSS feeds from other relevant blogs and online news sources to the blog’s RSS feed blogroll.

Write personal and detailed about-the-author pages. This is an often-overlooked opportunity. Don’t let the descriptive pages sound too corporate or be too short. Many readers will judge the blog’s personality and authority from these pages.

Step 5: Tracking

You should equip your new blog with Google Analytics. This tracking service will allow your bloggers to learn where their visitors come from and how they interact with the new blog. Use this information to research and contact sites that refer traffic to the new blog. Tune the blog to match the most popular keywords available to your industry.

It is also a very smart idea to employ an online reputation management (ORM) tool to follow the most relevant and trending stories within your category. ORM tools can help the your bloggers identify key influencers online and trending stories that the your blog can post on. This will take a lot less time then searching through all the blogs, podcasts and groups manually and is an easy way to inject this new blog into the heat of the most relevant conversations going on today which will help expose the new blog to new readers.

TOP 15 TIPS

1. Read other blogs and follow online conversations.

2. Comment and contribute to online groups and other blogs.

3. Develop a schedule and stick to it.

4. Write about what you know.

5. Write about what you are passionate about.

6. Take a stand on relevant issues.

7. Share photos and videos.

8. Allow comments.

9. Tell a compelling story.

10. Link to many other sites.

11. Go meet people in real life.

12. Customize your blog to fit your readers’ wants.

13. Keep an up-to-date and relevant blogroll.

14. Create a great about page.

15. Track and tune your blog’s messaging.

Obama Facebook Page,
originally uploaded by swept14.

Hey Everybody,

I have been reading a lot online about how the Obama campaign is going to be the new standard for social media campaigns. And well, it was pretty amazing. Just the fact that they could maintain a constant feel and message across so many mediums with so many different user experiences is nothing short of astounding. Who in the corporate world could even pull that off? Nike? McDonalds? That’s probably about it.

Anyway, I wanted to share some stats about the Obama campaign social media presences. So first, here are the numbers:

-5 million supporters on 15 different SNS
-More than 1 billion e-mails sent to supporters
-More than 1 million signed up for text message alerts
-180,000 followers on Twitter

YouTube Stats:
-139,000 Obama related videos
-1,800 official videos
-The Famous “Yes We Can” received 14.2 million views
-15 videos in their channel with more than 1 million views

Like any good viral campaign, the Obama campaign gave people a reason to engage and share content by regularly disseminating interesting information across many networks and mediums. This campaign also gave people something to do, donate, tell a friend, vote. Pushing for active participation is another important element of social media that the Obama campaign

Results:
3 million online donors contributed more than $6.5 million
And 1 presidency

Best Wishes,
Will Flavell

Good Morning Everybody,

I often get asked how to improve an image online. Sometimes, by big brands who are looking for a full-on strategy. But I am often asked by individuals or smaller non-profits. This questions is akin to when people ask dietitians: How can I lose the first ten pounds. So, I wanted to make the post today on how to lose the first ten pounds. These are five simple, easy, cheap strategies to get you (or your business, non-profit, etc.) moving online. Consider them the first steps.

1. Listen: Get into the blogosphere and see what people are saying about your business, about your industry. There are more than 133,000,000 blogs indexed by Technorati, go find out which ones pertain to you and your business.
2. Google Yourself: Where do you appear in search results? Wanna be on the first page? With 2 billion searches daily on Google, you really can’t afford to be unfindable.
3. Tell Your Story: Every brand has a story, what’s your story? Can it be told in pictures, video, text, or audio recordings? The Web can help you share your story with millions of interested people; you just have to provide the content.
4. Tweet: Get a Twitter account. It’s fast, it’s easy and it’s where news breaks today. And it’s only 140 characters.
5. Get the News Delivered to You: Set up alerts and a RSS feed aggregator for the Web sites important to your business. This way, you won’t have to go look for your news everyday, it will automatically be delivered to you.

Need a little help getting started? Drop me a comment.

Until then good luck. Oh, and if you have any real advice on losing the first ten pounds, I would love to hear it.

Enjoy,

Will Flavell

Hey Everybody,

I have been using this link for a while, but honestly it is the single greatest warehouse for information and online marketing ideas that I have seen. http://www.iyazam.com/web-based-entrepreneur.html. Just had to share.

It is really a one-stop shop for information and ideas on E-mail Groups, Facebook Marketing, Twitter for Business, How to Get More Inbound Links. It goes on and on, this is definitely worth a look.

Enjoy,

Will Flavell

Good Morning Everyone,

I gave a presentation last week on several social media tools that can be used (for free) to better track a company or theme online. Some of the tools were also used to find people (evangelists). Just to name a few: Wink, BoardTracker, BackType, Technorati, Summize and more. Anyway, I hope that you will check out the embedded slideshow below (thanks slideshare). I conveyed a lot of the presentation’s information through speaking, so if you want more info on anything, just drop me a question or comment.

Hey Everybody,

My friend and coworker Scott Rowe and I have been working on a quick article regarding online reputation management and some of the free tools that exist to monitor it. This is a growing area of interest as the tools for online publication are becoming easier, faster and more wide spread by the day. Upset customers can ruin your brand equity overnight. I thought that I would share it with everybody.  Enjoy:

Consumers and their opinions can make or break your brand. This has always been the case. Historically, companies have had to depend on focus groups, surveys or annual consumer preference studies to understand people’s opinions of their brand and products. Now, the world moves faster. Brand equity can be destroyed overnight. The Internet has dramatically changed the way people interact and discuss brands.
Beyond giving every consumer a near instant voice, the Internet has also provided companies many free tools to monitor, manage and interact with consumers. The knowledge gained from using these tools can dramatically improve your company’s awareness of coming trends and crowning concerns. It can also allow for you to quickly respond to problems.

Here are some free tools that you can start using today to help manage your company’s reputation in the digital space.

Google Alerts is one of the most common tools available. This service allows you to select the search terms you would like tracked as well as the type of content such as new, blogs, web, video and groups. You then select how often you wish to receive alerts and the email address you want them sent to. Then, whenever news on your selected search terms becomes available it is delivered to your e-mail inbox.

Twitter is a rapidly growing social networking site. Unlike blogs Twitterers (Twitter users) post quick entries in their feeds. Users can then choose to follow other Twitterers and comment on their postings. What makes Twitter different is the instant response of a Twitter post. You can get up-to-date information regarding conversations on this service by using the Twitter search tool located at search.twitter.com.

Technorati is a search engine specific to blogs. You can use the standard Technorati search to find blog posts about specific keywords or you can use the “watchlist” service. With a free account you can enter any number of key phrases in the system and see real-time listings of blog posts that contain that key phrases. You can also subscribe to these lists as RSS feeds and pull them into your preferred feed reader.

Search Engines are perhaps the most obvious option. Google, Yahoo and Live make up the vast majority of web searches performed on the Internet, so they should be the focus of your efforts. In all three of these search engines you can search for a variety of content types such as web, images and video. Google also allows you to search blogs as well.

Social Networks such as Facebook, MySpace and Friendster house millions of user profiles. Most of these users list their preferences and interests on their profiles. Services like Wink.com allow you to search across many of the social networks. This search can help you to establish what users enjoy your product and list it as an interest. These users have the potential to become brand ambassadors, spreading the good will of your company and product.

While all of these tools are can get you and your company started, there is a great deal more information that can be attained and managed from the Internet. With the right marketing partner these tools along with a variety of sophisticated solutions can create reports on current trends, help develop a strong marketing plan and help to engage and encourage your existing fan base online.

Thanks and I hope you enjoyed the article. Check out more industry tips and news at Bozell Thinking. Another new and interesting system for staying up to day is Alerts.com. Check it out and tell me what you think.

Will Flavell

Hey Everybody,

I just read another great article by the unshakable Sally Falkow. It is on how many reporters are following twitter for news stories. She sites the recent LA quake as an example. Also some companies are switching to using twitter more to disseminate news. Dell recently used it in a press conference. She also lists a lot of  reporters who are doing this and provides increased usage stats. Read the story here.

Just sharing some cool Web stuff. Enjoy,

Will Flavell