Reasons Why? You Need to Stop Ignoring Twitter:

Why Twitter is Becoming Increasingly Important to Marketers:

There have been many articles written about why to use Twitter, and at IT Bloke we have certainly published well more than our fair share of them.  However, the landscape is constantly changing, at an alarmingly fast rate. New trends, ideas, applications, and features come out, and they further emphasise Twitter's place in said landscape.

As stated above, IT Bloke over the years has published many articles about our favourite little social networking tool, Twitter, http://www.twitter.com and the  Twitterverse.

Following on from this I thought it would actually be slightly more informative to publish actual reasons why it has become increasingly important for marketers, and why it should not be ignored as potentially one of the greatest marketing tools that we now have have in our armoury.

1. Twitter Lists:

Twitter Lists are changing the game. We recently looked at several reasons why, but also consider that with the Lists gadget, your tweets may appear all over the web if you can get onto lists. They will appear on sites and blogs, which are more than likely going to be related to the niche you are in anyway if you have the right audience on Twitter.  Also if done correctly it can be quick and effective way of getting your message out through all the new Social Networking Conduits that are now appearing, (a subject we will be discussing next.)

2. The Openness of Twitter:

The openness of Twitter, social media and the web in general, pretty much means that your messages on Twitter won't be limited to your Twitter audience. Facebook and other social networks will bring tweets in. People will share them, screenshot them, link to them on blogs, etc. Twitter is a means of getting your message out to more people, but it's not necessarily only limited to the people on Twitter that will see those messages, don't buy into the fact that Twitter is limited to Twitter, see our article on: Ignoring Social Media at your Peril: as Toby persistently loves to remind us, "Twitter now has a Twittterverse"

3. Building Valuable Relationships:

Laura Fitton, the author of Twitter for Dummies, chalks up success on Twitter to four basic concepts: listen, learn, care, and serve. Basically, if you listen to the community, you will learn, and if you show that you care, you are more likely to get more out of your efforts. Serving means providing something of use to the community. If you don't know what you're not doing then, you may be setting yourself up to fail.

4. Traffic That Cares:

Twitter can bring you not only random traffic, but traffic from people who are actually passionate about the niche that you are a part of. Retweets are huge in this regard. Guy Kawasaki calls retweeting the sincerest form of flattery. He has a point. He notes that people are willing to risk their reputations by retweeting your content, (or even destroy yours, LOL)

5. Staying Current:

Being found in Twitter searches (not to mention real time search in general, which is starting to become a main area of focus for all of the big search engines, not to mention all of the standalone real-time search sites) provides a lot of opportunity for exposure. We have already discussed this here and gave tips for getting found in real-time searches.

6. Connecting with Local Customers:

There are a variety of ways you can connect with local consumers and customers using Twitter and Twitter-related tools. There are tools like the IT Bloke favourite of  http://journotwit.com/ ), which let you find Twitterers in your area, for example. Another thing to keep an eye on is Google's new Social Search. It's currently just a lab experiment, but could become more. It certainly has potential.

A recent Search Engine Land article made some good points about the potential of local marketing with this tool, which delivers Google search results based on the communities you are a part of. It draws from Google profiles, which include the networks that people are connected to (based on what any person includes in that profile).

7. Going International and Multi-lingual:

Twitter is expanding into more languages. If you thought Twitter was important to marketing already, consider that for most of its existence, it has only been available in a couple of languages. Now it's in Spanish, and many more languages will follow. That's not only going to be huge for international and multi-lingual marketing efforts, it's going to be huge for Twitter's growth, and the more Twitter grows, the more potential customers are out there.

8. It's Still Young:

Consider that Twitter is just getting started in the grand scheme of things. It's still young. There are no doubt going to be a lot more features added in the future. And don't forget about the thousands of Twitter apps that are already out there that can make Twitter useful in different ways to different people and businesses. Take some time and explore them.

I hope that has now given you a few reason why you should not be ignoring Twitter in you upcoming marketing Campaign, here at IT Bloke we have a great deal of hard fought for knowledge on the subject of doing just that, so if you would like any further assistance in using the power of Twitter to enhance you brand our company please do not hesitate to give us a call and start a conversation on the subject, Regards….. Ashe, IT Bloke – London.

How To Work Effectively With Influencers.....

Hi and Welcome back, in this post we will be looking at how to effectively work with influencers.  When we deal with clients it is often quite difficult to aid out clients into understanding the difference in using influencers to develop a deeper market penetration.

What you have to understand is that Influencer marketing is about a change from marketing “at” consumers to actually marketing “with” people. It’s about initiating a relationship based on both give and take, two-way conversations, and showing appreciation. Once you have identified appropriate influencers, it is necessary to establish a productive, two-way relationship. Key hallmarks of such a relationship include giving thanks and creating true engagement. 

Let me differentiate an influencer program from a loyalty program as a key assumption. Loyalty programs serve an important role and can be a subset of a well-designed influencer program, but are by definition less comprehensive in their approach. Put simply, loyalty programs provide incentives (points, punch cards, miles, status) for frequent product/service use/affiliation, but typically lack comprehensive connection and feedback efforts. A loyalty program can be a good filter for influencer identification, but doesn’t account for the connectedness of the user or their level of activity in influence behaviors. In order to maximize the influence effect, it’s necessary for a brand to commit to a set of bi-directional relationships with influencers.

Given this prerequisite assumption, let’s look a bit further at thanking influencers and engaging and enabling them.

Thanking Your Influencers:

Identification and segmentation of your influencers is just the first step in a three-step process recommended for influencer marketing. Step two is an opportunity for you and your brand to reach out and thank the influentials. As a starting point, “thanking” is about acknowledgement of their passion, contribution, and/or usage of your products/services and is designed to establish communication with the influencer and begin to develop a bi-directional connection between the influencer and the brand. 

The following are recommended guidelines and suggestions based on a combination on our experiences: 

• Influencers aren’t doing what they do to help your brand; they are doing it to help other users. Thank them for helping other users instead of just for helping your brand. 

• Respect privacy prerogatives. Whatever thanks you are providing, they should have the right to opt out. If they opt in, this is a good time to gather contact and sharing rights (share my recognition info with no one, share my contact info with the brand only, ok to share public, etc.). 

• Be cautious about rewards and gifts. While modest gifts are great to share, a t-shirt or novelty balloon, will not build brand affinity and is no substitute for an ongoing, committed connection with the user (more on this in the engage section). More generous gifts may be construed in the wrong way.  However if it is about product testing and initial brand focusing then don't be scared to actually allow certain qualified influencers to have samples to use in long term living with reviews, these in our experience have always proved to to be one of the most effective, but greatly underused conversation builder.


• Surprises work. Don’t underestimate the power of doing something dramatic and/or unexpected. Creating legendary stories can be very powerful ways to both generate conversation and affinity. 

• Similar to surprises, moments of truth about product failures are important. If there is a recall, or you cancel flights - it's how your customer service responses in these moments that create "sticky memories" for you brand. Listening to your influencers and responding aggressively is key. The call to action here: ensure you’ve tuned your listening system to be especially alert to this audience. 

• Your best influencers may not always be positive about your product, company and/or services. In fact, your biggest fans may at times be your harshest critics. The fact they are sometimes negative will make them far more credible to their networks.

Engaging Your Influencers:

Now you’ve found them, and you’ve thanked them. It’s time to engage them. Just knowing who your influencers are is a step ahead of most organizations today, but to maximize the value of their role in the network, you need to commit to an engagement model with them. This is the third, and perhaps the most critical, aspect of differentiating influencer programs from other loyalty efforts. Engagement can take a number of different forms depending on your industry, audience, and business objectives. Here are some methods we use to get started with engagement. 

• Consider engagement as a balance sheet. The relative benefits to you, the brand, and the influencers needs to be in balance with one another. If the balance is too much in your favor, your influencers will feel used and you’ll ultimately alienate passionate users. If the balance is too much in the favor of your influencers, you’ll lose interest over time, and your program will be a campaign instead of a multi-year, long-term commitment. 

• Influencer programs are, by definition, long-term, multi-year commitments designed to build a relationship; they are not marketing campaigns. Campaigns can augment influencer efforts to help find, activate, or engage influencers in particular activities (like a product launch), but influencer programs need to level out the roller coaster of connections provided by campaigns. 

• Private access is an excellent way to engage your influencers. If they are passionate about your product or service, you can be reasonably sure they would be passionate about opportunities to connect behind-the-scenes in your company with the people who make the product or service. Private access can also be seen as a form of social currency within the influencer community; it gives them a sense of pride and connection to your brand or company. 

• Likewise, influencers generally love to connect to one another. You can provide opportunities for private interaction amongst your influencers. 

• Consider both online and offline connection opportunities. Online scales and connects more broadly, but offline creates more powerful and trusting relationships. Similarly, consider different connection modes: Meetings, conferences, online chats, webcast, concalls, etc. No one solution fits all or scales equally. 

• Influencers are a great source of product feedback. Ideally, design your influencer marketing program such that you can close the loop back with your influencers on what you’re doing with their feedback and suggestions. Falling short of closing the loop substantially diminishes the value of listening in the first place. 

• Transparency. With the possible exception of analysts and partners, this is the audience you should be most transparent with. They can be your early warning system for both good ideas and bad ideas. Time and time again, they have reinforced most predictions I give, and nine out of ten time, we are right.

• Depending on your program and goals, consider a non-disclosure agreement as part of your process. Bringing influencers closer to your inner circle on longer-range product plans is key to building loyalty and affinity. It’s reasonable, depending on your business, to consider a non-disclosure for some of those private discussions.

I hope this has given you some further idea's about how to initiate and use influencers programs for your brand or business. Many Clients come to us totally underestimating the power they can wield or simply don't want to believe in them because it makes them feel dis-empowered, however in this brave new world of Social Media Marketing, like with many other things we have discussed you ignore or even worse malign them at your own peril, why not give using them a try, I assure you, you will be pleasantly surprised with the outcome. Regards….. Ashe, IT Bloke – London.

CELEBRITIES, TWITTER IN HASTE REPENT AT YOUR LEISURE........

OR ~ AK A THE END OF THE ROAD FOR THE TRUE ROCK AND ROLL LIFESTYLE.

Hi all, following on from my recent post, ( Ignore Social Media at your own Peril: http://www.itbloke.net/?p=522 ) , I have finally come to the conclusion that although I personally think that the rise of Social Media Marketing and real Citizen Journalism is a brilliant thing, I think it really will be the end of  the true rock and roll lifestyle for many, Rock, Rap and Country super stars and to be fair all celebs in general, LOL.

Personally I can't wait until the first allegedly squeaky clean and god fearing country singer in total disgrace, as he gets caught on Camera Phone snorting some illicit Drug or propositioning a much older shady lady of the night, would you not simply love to be a fly on the wall and watch the expression on his face as he suddenly realises that the media of the event went viral all over the worlds social networks in less than ten minutes of it being made.

Yet another angle we have to consider is, the ever growing mass of famous people who are now making real gaffs using Twitter, and to be honest they are making these gaffs with good reason, Twitter to the un-educated seems, to be fair, well,  really quite  innocuous, I mean 140 characters what harm could that possibly do.

New Tool Brings New Mistakes

Most would argue that the micro-blogging site that has attracted millions of users, including celebrities and politicians, is a powerful tool for communication. But it's amazing how much trouble that 140 characters can cause in reality and I predict we have worse to come.

Just like hitting "reply all" instead of sticking with the simple "reply," one errant Twitter message available for all with an Internet connection to see, can send its author ducking for cover.

"While Twitter is a new tool that brings with it some new possible ways to make mistakes, people make mistakes in all of the different communications we already have," said Sarah Milstein, author of "The Twitter Book" and social media consultant (she was the 21st user of Twitter). "What makes Twitter different is that the messages are public so that anyone can see them."

Like a blog, Twitter is public but, unlike a blog, the messages, photos and links can easily be re-tweeted or passed along virally to other users, she said. That combination means that regrettable postings can be sent far and wide and then, to make matters worse, easily searched for on Google.

"Be thoughtful about your posting, be interesting, because Twitter is a medium where people choose to get your message," Milstein said. "If you're thoughtful about your individual messages, it also helps to take a step back when you're doing something potentially inflammatory or that you may regret later."

The question I have to ask here is; how long before someone really famous, like http://www.bbc.co.uk/strictlycomedancing/ ) drops a real gaff, (lets not forget Cheryl Coles Racist attack in Guildford) or are they now at least intelligent enough to leave twittering and tweeting in the twitterverse to either  a social media conscious PR Agent or WOM promotion companies, obviously.

Also with the rise of the Citizen Journalist and Social Media Connected, Camera, Smartphones, ( See my article on: Smartphones & Social Networks are making the classic Web and intranet obsolete http://www.itbloke.net/?p=486 ) I predict that within a year or so,  celebs will really have to watch what there doing as there whole life will then truly be  under constant scrutiny, and the slightest mistake they make, verbally, visually or otherwise will be broadcast around the world in seconds possibly ending there career.

So from here on in muscicians and celebrities alike will now have to think oh so very carefully about everything that they say, do and of course post, (in fact every single aspect of there lives), and never ever again know who they can really trust, in fact this will in theory force them to live a very sterile lifestyle and isolated existence even more that they already do,  and well to be fair, "THAT'S NOT VERY ROCK & ROLL IS IT NOW!" but hell the old saying go's "there is a high price for fame" and now is the time the next generation of future celebs start paying "WITH THERE CONSERVATIVENESS", or they will be repenting at their own leisure, LOL, Regards….. Ashe, IT Bloke – London.

TWEETING IN TWITTER'S TWITTERVERSE

Well we have all heard of the BlogoSphere, well now we have the Twitterverse, {obviously, or so I am told}.

I found this rather interesting graphic of the twitterverse and being as though Twitter has really proved it's metal in the past few days in Iran, I thought that I would share it with you.

It  ‘visually charts the important tools to help communications, service, marketing, and community professionals more effectively navigate, engage, analyze and measure participation on Twitter’You can find the full size version here. ~ Regards..... Toby: IT Bloke... London.

Influencers & Marketing Guidelines:

Using Influencers as a powerful marketing tool for your brand or Company is very much in vogue at the moment,  however they can all to easily be misinterpreted or worse still cause real offence if not carefully managed from the outset, so when you decide to use them to publicise your brand or product you should always very carefully and strategically plan out there implementation first.

The following is a set of best practice guidelines for word of mouth programs that target or include influencers.  Although totally optional, I assure your trying to work to them will really help to ensure your programs continuity, as well as positive results for both your brand/company and most importantly for your customers.

1. Always abide by a personal code of honesty that you draw up before you get started and always try to stick to it whilst engaging influencers to participate in brand marketing activities, honesty from the outset will always make things easier down the line, IE "don't ever build your campaign on Pillars of salt"

2. Make an effort to listen to and understand an influencer's point of view about your brand before and during their engagement in a brand program or marketing activity or simply, in their role as a customer of my brand. 

3. Understand the savvy nature of influencers and commit to personalizing your invitations for brand participation. Make a pledge to respect the rights of influencers as individuals and agree to maintain a level of personalized or individualized interaction with them separate from automated or mass-customized communications. Furthermore,  understand that if an influencer does not reply to your request for participation, you will respect that individual's privacy and cease to solicit them. Finally, agree and make it strict policy not to share their personal information without their express permission. 

4. Make an effort to build a respectful and open relationship with your brand’s influencers, where collaboration (instead of expectation) is the guiding nature of communication. Additionally, you should communicate with influencers in a timely manner. 

5. Ask influencers to transparently represent the source of their information when communicating about or representing your brand to others, whether on or offline. Also proactively provide influencers with guidelines for transparency and actively support this transparency within your company, the media, and the marketplace.

6. Invite and respect the opinion of participating influencers, even if this is contrary to your brand's position. Fully agree to share or make available these opinions throughout your organization as is appropriate. Furthermore, allow influencers to evolve or remix messaging so as to be relevant to how they communicate with their community. 

7. Never ask influencers to falsify or "hype" any product claims, make usage claims without direct experience, or back claims that neither they nor your brand can substantiate. Never request an influencer to undertake on your behalf a task that they are uncomfortable with or do not believe in. 

8. Provide incentives for participation in brand programs, Fully disclose the nature of the program so as not to give the appearance of a conflict of interest or shilling. Fully understand that your not establishing rewards as a payoff for opinions and am ensuring transparency of any marketing efforts.

9. Don’t manipulate advertising or affiliate programs to impact influencer involvement or income derived by your brand from influencer programs. Do not falsely manipulate program findings or influencer opinions in any way, nor manipulate or falsely communicate a program’s progress or result to any party internal or external. 

10. Thank influencers who have participated in brand-initiated programs.

If you try to use this set of guidelines you should be able to initiate an influencer program for your brand or company and maintain and ethical outlook at the same time.  I hope that this has helped you get a better idea of how to ethically and productivly use influencers within your company.   Next week I will be dealing with how to actually initiate influencer programs in more specific ways, Regards….. Ashe, IT Bloke – London.

Ignoring Social Media at your own Peril:

As I am continuously trying to tell people and companies, we are now living in a very brave new world of Social Media and Word of Mouth viral marketing, which we ignore at our own peril, transport for London have just been involved in a Classic Case/Example of this, which I really do feel needs highlighting.

A London Underground worker who was seen yelling at an elderly passenger in a video was forced to resigned from his job because of a have a go citizen journalist and his very slick use of Social Media and word of mouth marketing, it is a very real story the we all should be now taking notice of ,  just in case our companies fall foul of the same set of circumstances, do you know what your staff are Facebooking or Twittering let alone what they are posting on YouTube.

Transport for London said Ian Morbin, a customer service assistant, handed in his resignation over the incident at Holborn station on 15 October.

Mr Morbin has apologised but TfL said the behaviour was "unacceptable".

The video shows him calling the man "a jumped up little git" and "little girl" before apparently threatening to "sling him under the train".

The statement said: "Mr Ian Morbin, a Customer Service Assistant at Holborn Tube station, has advised London Underground that he wished resign because of the incident.

Arm stuck

The incident was captured on video by businessman Jonathan McDonald, a fellow commuter at the central London station.

Describing his version of events leading up to the scene, Mr McDonald said the elderly man had got his arm stuck in the door of the train.

When the victim told the Tube worker what had happened, he was sworn at three times in an attempt to make him stand behind the yellow line, he said.

Mr Morbin can be heard threatening to call the police to deal with the passenger, who is understood to have done nothing wrong.

Mr. McDonald posted the video on YouTube and then put up a Tweet about it and the rest is history as they say, 203,421 views later and god only knows how many Re-Tweets and the game is up so to speak.  I can see this type of thing, happening again and again from now on,  after all we have already seen the damage when  a pop star or country and western singer from Nashville gets caught doing cocaine, once that goes viral in this day and age that is his career effectively finished before it even gets started.  Well now it can happen in the general world of employment.

After the footage emerged London Mayor Boris Johnson put a response on Twitter saying he was "appalled by the video".

So if your now worried about how this Brave new world of Social Media, and how the rise of the citizen journalist could effect your company, please get in touch with us so we can advise you on how not to fall foul of it, our legal dept is expert and has long term experience of social media policy and contract writing to protect your company from any little incidents like this.  Anyway have a look for yourself and see what you think, the actual video is posted below, Regards….. Ashe, IT Bloke – London.

Smartphones & Social Networks are making the classic Web and intranet obsolete?

As Senior parter here at IT Bloke I get asked all the time two very important questions, (1) actually what is an IT Bloke, this I will address another time and (2) why has IT Bloke London, become the over night Success it is so quickly?,  well the answer is really very simple, but I thought I would take the time to answer it anyway, just to lay the matter to rest for good.

As long as eighteen months ago I realised that there’s was and will be a relatively sudden change taking place  in the way in which we interact with the Web.

It is one that not many of you where aware of but to be fair should have been, as it directly effects the way in which you should market yourselves in the future and will now eventually render most of the conventional forms of marketing and advertising almost totally impotent.

If you do not start to working with Social Network Marketing and WOMMA I assure you one of your competitors will and will leave your business simply standing by the Roadside it is seriously that powerful and not to be ignored.  It is one that relies exclusively on totally honesty, transparency and your ability to fully take on board and publicise any all public chritasism  of your business.

While direct access or search activity has been (and still is) the most common way that we access the content and applications of the Web, new ways have been rapidly growing and competing with how we work online, both at home and at work.

Thus these new models, exemplified by social networking sites like Facebook or mobile apps on platforms like Google's Android, will ultimately herald a new frontier  in the way in which we all work with our IT systems and mark a direct end to the exclusive strangle hold Web Designers have had on the market for so many years now.

The once relatively unified world of the Internet, with a few major top-level types of access directly connected to it (browser, e-mail, IRC client, newsreader, etc.) and a few key sub-apps such as search that virtually everyone online used have been extended — as well as fragmented — into popular new channels into which users are now rapidly moving en masse.

That’s not to say that direct usage of the Internet (loading up and using sites and apps via the traditional Web browser) is going away. It’s still far and away the most common way to interact with the Web today and will likely be that way for quite some time, if not forever.

But real shifts in both online platform alternatives and in the mobile market are beginning to usher in foundational new usage patterns by users. These new channels — of which the latest generation of mobile apps and social networking platforms, which are often tightly integrated with the Web but are not truly one with it, are just the two biggest examples — demonstrate what is probably a generational transformation of the vital border between us and the Internet.

And this is the crux of the point: Where the point of user attention and interaction resides and who controls it is one of the most important conversations between us and our “preferred intermediaries”, a fancy term for who we like to work with to interact with the Web. This in turn has significant implications for enterprise intranets, our often clunky yet essential local “Web” in our organizations.

IT Bloke London did not only immediately recognise this fact but totally and actively fully emraced it without question, debate or argument, this was our strength, as  to debate challenge  it simply hinders and somewhat blurs your WOM marketing message, you cannot stop Word of Mouth Marketing so simply fully embrace it because if you don't, "it could finish you".

The Secret is, don't be afraid to say "I don't understand this new media and way of doing things and need a little help to move forward with my own word of mouth marketing campaign" and do not be afraid to fully admit your ignorence of the subject and ask a Word of Mouth Company for a little support most of us will be glad to talk to you about it F.O.C. (this really is a case of pride coming before a fall, believe me we have seen to many cases of this now, to debate it), after all, starting positive conversations is what we should be all about and to be fair all over.

I hope that this has further served to answer some more of your questions as regards Word of Mouth marketing, should you have any more please do not hesitate to contact me ( ashe@itbloke.net ) I will be delighted to help you and please check back for my next tutorial on Friday, Regards….. Ashe, IT Bloke – London.