Follows Launch of ExactTarget Interactive Marketing Hub(TM), CoTweet 3.0 Enterprise Edition with Facebook, Salesforce.com Integrations

Twitter Chief Operations Officer Dick Costolo told attendees at Connections ’10, ExactTarget’s annual user conference, the new Twitter makes it easier for users to see information about the authors of Twitter posts, engage in conversations and more easily link to photos and videos.

“The new Twitter provides a richer, more compelling environment for businesses and customers to engage in conversation,” said Costolo.

Costolo’s comments follow the Tuesday launch of the ExactTarget Interactive Marketing Hub(TM)and CoTweet 3.0 Enterprise Edition.

The ExactTarget Interactive Marketing Hub(TM) provides marketers the first solution to power all forms of interactive marketing in real time across email, mobile, social and sites. The Interactive Marketing Hub(TM) enables marketers to plan, monitor and track real-time interactive marketing programs from a single dashboard by aggregating all customer interaction data as it happens, allowing marketers to instantly take action on the data across all online channels.

CoTweet’s 3.0 Enterprise Edition enables marketers on Twitter and Facebook to link Facebook Fan pages to existing CoTweet workgroups, export tweets and Facebook posts to Salesforce and manage social media interactions alongside other interactive marketing channels through the ExactTarget Interactive Marketing Hub(TM).

“Consumers are talking about and engaging with brands on email, Twitter and Facebook, but marketers have struggled to connect the channels and engage in the real-time conversation,” said Scott Dorsey, ExactTarget co-founder and chief executive officer. “The innovations announced this week break down the silos between channels and allow marketers to drive deeper engagement and more effective interactive marketing.”

Connections ’10 concluded today. Marketers from eight countries and 38 states attended the three-day even that included keynote addresses by Sir Richard Branson, Virgin America’s Porter Gale and Word of Mouth Marketing author Andy Sernovitz. The event also provided attendees hands-on product training, more than 35 focused breakout sessions and featured entertainment by Grammy-award winning band Train.

About ExactTarget

ExactTarget is a leading global provider of on-demand email marketing and interactive marketing solutions. The company’s Interactive Marketing Hub(TM) technology provides organizations a single solution to connect with customers via email, integrated text messaging, landing pages and social media. Supported by collaborative global services teams, ExactTarget’s technology integrates with more sales and marketing information systems than any other in the industry, including Salesforce.com, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Omniture and Webtrends among many others. ExactTarget powers permission-based multichannel communications for thousands of organizations around the world including Expedia.com, Best Buy, Aurora Fashions, Papa John’s, CareerBuilder.com, Gannett Co., Inc., The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, The Home Depot and Wellpoint, Inc.

SOURCE: ExactTarget

Tweeting is an amazing way to talk about your business, novel ideas, and interesting facts at Twitter platform, which takes your prospects and customers directly to your web page or blog. So Tweets have to be interesting enough to grab readers’ attention and let them have an urge to read more about it. There are people who will keep telling you how to better you tweets style, but I am going to tell you the top 7 not-so-interesting Tweets that surely will turn your followers off and you better avoid them.

Let’s check them out together.

Tweets like I am so busy today are plain dumb

I am so busy today, and you still pulled sometime out for tweeting? What a crap.

Spelling errors

Be short (as you have to be) but be correct please. This is where you have to show your smartness in 140 characters. It literally irritates when you see full of spelling mistakes tweets. It is not worth-reading yet looks idiotic.

Retweet is good, but excessiveness is shameful

Try not post one tweet in a bulk manner. God, they look so frustrating to read and once you succeeded in pissing someone off. Believe me he or she will unfollow and block you, right away the feel strikes in their minds.

Retweeting is good if is being done in a consistent manner. Do not post 10 tweets at a time, do that in breaks.

Self-Obsessed people, you get a side Please

Social media networks are all about building burly relationships, but when you talk about you and you only, it surely will kill your business. You need to keep two way process with your followers and try not focusing on me, my and mine philosophy.

Do not try to be the smarter champ, most of them hate it

Everytime you throw some indirect and prejudice post on someone’s tweet, every time the feel of dis-likeness will be strong enough to unfollow and block you. Mind you, they are not your friends and family, who understand your mysterious expressions of writing; they might take it in negative sense. So precautions are always better than cure.

Stressing on the Miracles of Twitter

Your followers are already here, and they need not to be convinced by knowing about the fact ‘why Twitter is being rising’. It looks like advertising about ‘The lord of ring, in a movie theater’

It is not that bad, but boring.

Leaving an incomplete comment

Leaving something incomplete is always frustrating for readers, so one should completely convey the message else it is
It did irritate you right? I was not writing anything, was just trying to communicate the exact feelings.

Author: Omer Saleem

Or maybe it’s because Twitter takes five minutes to set up and doesn’t cost a dime. That’s OK, too.

The thing is, many brands forget that Twitter is more than having a “who’s bigger” follower list or having the ability to Tweet pithy sales pitches. Twitter is two-way communication, people. Not a one-sided soliloquy where you’re Tweeting solely for corporate self-gratification.

So let’s talk about two major brands that “get it” and use Twitter to its fullest potential. And then zero in on one company’s massive Twitter #fail.

Alaska Airlines and Starbucks give really good Tweets. When you read them, you get a sense that there is a person behind the computer—rather than a faceless corporate PR entity. In fact, Alaska Airlines even names the person handling the Tweets that day. And yes, their Tweets are more than just what these folks had for breakfast. For instance, Alaska Airlines promoted gift certificates and Starbucks previewed an upcoming sale on Cyber Monday.

But here’s what makes both companies decidedly different: These brands engage with their customers. Starbucks and Alaska Airlines chat with their Twitter followers, answer questions and provide real-time customer service.

Pretty cool, eh? And that’s why many people follow Alaska Airlines and Starbucks. The content is good, you know you’ll get a response and you’ll learn something. Maybe it’s early notification of a sale. Maybe it’s when in-flight wi-fi will be back. It’s useful information.

Let’s compare this to Citibank’s Twitter stream.

To say that Citibank has had reputation management issues in 2009 is putting it mildly. From taking bailout money to hiking credit card rates on some customers to 29.99 percent, the bank’s latest missteps have caused many good customers to cut up their cards. If there ever was a time for a robust social media campaign so people could “meet” the friendly customer service team members behind the scenes (that is, humanizing the corporation), now would be that time.

The good news is that Citibank has a Twitter account. The bad news is that it’s running it all wrong. Rather than using Twitter as a way to engage customers, the firm’s locking its customers out.

For instance, check out some Tweets mentioning @citibank in the media player, above, followed by a screen capture of Citibank’s Twitter page.

So, OK, let’s give Citibank the benefit of the doubt. Maybe it signed up for a Twitter handle to protect its brand identity—but doesn’t plan to leverage this account for some reason. You could almost forgive the bank … except for the Twitter account promoting the Citi Forward credit card (see the media player again, please).

Here are three problems:

1. Although it will re-tweet, Citibank doesn’t answer Tweets (I tried)—so there’s no real interaction
2. Saying that Citi Forward is “the card that rewards you for good behavior” seems a bit disingenuous considering that other Citibank customers with good credit histories have had their interest rates hiked to almost 30 percent.
3. There’s no customer service component.

In short, Citibank is basically telling its Twitter followers to “talk to the hand” (or perhaps, its middle finger.) Rather than dealing with its reputation management issue head-on—communicating with folks and showing the human side behind the financial institution—Citibank is sending out Tweets that provide useful tips, yes … but talks AT its followers rather than WITH them.

If you’re planning a Twitter account (or currently maintaining one,) remember that Twitter is a real conversation (in 140 characters or less.) You wouldn’t keep a friend who constantly talked about herself, seemed oblivious to how other people perceived her and never listened to you.

It’s no different in the online world.

The perils of non-engagement in the Twitter universe are real—and the rewards for an excellent, interactive campaign are also real.

After all, what would you rather do? Tell people to talk to your Twitter hand or, instead, engage with your prospects and customers in a new, interactive (and profitable) way?

Seems to me, the choice is easy.

By Heather Lloyd-Martin

Incoming search terms:

• blog twitter followers post a comment
• blogs twitter followers post a comment

Almost everyone is trying out and using it for different things. For instance some are using it for expanding their business while the others are using it for making friends. Businessmen also have started using this social networking site for marketing products and targeting their target customers. This site as part of social media strategy can be a highly valuable tool for making connection. Harness the full potential of the site by some applications.

Following are some of the applications discussed which might help you harness the potential:

•    Use the Twitter page to its full potential to let people know you. For this you need to provide key information about yourself that too within 400 characters. You can also use the option for displaying the custom background. This will highlight your contact details and the key information.
•    The Twitoria application will help you to sort out the followers who are not active anymore. You can delete the inactive users from your list and can update your network.
•    Business that are into stocks and shares can use of the StockTwits application. You can follow the real-time market and get into a conversation with the investors and traders.
•    If you face problems in managing your followers then seek help of the Tweepler application. It will enable you to sort your incoming requests. It saves the confusion of visiting each user’s page.
•    Future Tweets is one another application where you can make recurring tweets that can be posted daily, monthly or yearly. If you are not able to log in tomorrow due to some reasons then you can pre-schedule a tweet to be released at a certain point of time.
•    If you are a pre-approved user of a certain company then you can access updates with the help of group tweet.
•    You can personalize your account in Twitter. Most people create their account in Twitter in order to converse with other people. Corporate people can also create a Twitter account by an appointed advocate conforming to a consistent brand voice.
•    Enhance your customer service. Twitter offers the nearest social media strategy. It excels and boasts in high-end customer service.
•    For marketing your product on Twitter you can use the TwitterHawk application.
•    For improving the productivity you must use TweetLater. With this you can monitor replies, keywords, mentions, and future date tweets and reply to followers.
•    You can get easy access to Twitter and its tools very easily with the help of Twitter toolbar. This also helps you to view your friends’ updates and post yours as well.

With all such advanced tips everyone seems to be ‘twitter’-ing. Some corporate individuals are yet to make full use of these tips. If used properly, they can prove to be immensely valuable for business expansion. Harness the full potential by making use of these tips in order to lift it to a valuable tool for making business and personal connection. Unleash the power of social media for your business and reach out to prospects and customers like never before.

A new study by Smith School of Business at The University of Maryland on the relationship between small business and social media has concluded that Social Media rates in the U.S. have reached 24%, primarily through Facebook and LinkedIn, an increase of 8% from 2008.

The December 2009 report surveyed 500 small business owners and found that one in five small businesses are have integrated social media into their marketing mix. In fact, 45% of surveyed respondents even believe their social media initiatives will pay off financially in 12 months or less.

As the graphic below details, the small business owners who are using social media are primarily engaging in social media through company pages (75%) and status updates (69%) on Facebook or LinkedIn. However only 16% of the business owners surveyed admitted to using Twitter as a customer service channel.

The report also shows that small business owners now believe social media can help them generate leads. While half of surveyed respondents found the time it takes to use social media sites more daunting than expected, 61% are still putting in the hours and making active efforts to identify new customers.

Despite there still being a need for traditional advertising and press releases, social sites such as Twitter and Facebook allow a whole new type of communication to take place that has previously been unknown to most businesses. Because of this it is even more important for business to not only get a large number of fans or followers, but also follow through on the opportunity to make more genuine and direct connections with customers.

We are now in the age of open communication, engaged dialogue, and transparency and business success may now have less to do with the size of ad budgets, but on the quality of interactions with customers – especially before these customers forge relationships with your competitors.

About the Author

Skye King is an Internet Marketing Adviser, the founder of Grow Success Today, a Lifestyle Marketing Company that spans 160 countries in 40 different languages. She specialized in Social Media, Branding & SEO Strategies. King is the Editor of Home Based Business at BusinessTM.com.

Shortly after the launch of Twitter, businesses started creating accounts to share sales, promotions and general information with their clients. Now, in a new revolutionized way, is the idea that college campuses are now “tweeting” away to the same tune.

UW-Oshkosh joins the many college campuses across the nation on Twitter. Currently, Oshkosh has three main Twitter accounts: one for updating general institutional news and special events, a second for promoting Engage, the University’s alumni magazine and lastly, an account for UW Oshkosh Today, which is used to distribute news tips for each story posted to UW Oshkosh Today, our on-campus news portal.

Despite having multiple Twitter accounts, many students may not be aware of Oshkosh’s Twitter pages, or how to even operate Twitter. Junior Corey Much believes that Twitter is a good tool to use but doesn’t have an account.

“Personally, I do not own a Twitter account, but it could be useful in some cases,” Much said.

Much is one of the many students who have heard of Twitter but still prefers other social networking sites like Facebook.

“Twitter seems too simple, and Facebook has more to offer,” Much said.
Many students, on the other hand, have heard of Twitter and like senior Hilary Simon, use it daily.

“I try to use it every day, but if I don’t have something new to tweet about, I try to do it three times a week,” Simon said. “I will check every day to see who I’m following and what’s new – like the advertising and public relations industries; they are a majority of the people I follow.”

Simon believes Twitter could potentially open doors for her future career.

“I didn’t want to use Twitter at first,” Simon said. “I just saw it as another thing online and thought of it as a new craze, a new thing to do. My advisor encouraged me to use it because of all the networking opportunities it can provide.”

Many employers are on Twitter, “tweeting” about internships, tips to improve resumes and skills, and even scheduling interviews with those that follow them on Twitter.

“What I am trying to get out of it is job searching; there are a lot of postings on there,” Simon said. “I wouldn’t have known about a lot of the opportunities otherwise, and there are also a lot of resources and networking on Twitter. It will also help (me) get ready for graduation.”

Other students have also benefited from Twitter. Junior William Campbell uses Twitter for networking purposes and also to receive news and updates.

“I wanted to follow other Twitter accounts and networks,” Campbell said. “I mostly use it to follow the accounts of politicians, writers or musicians who update their own Twitter.”

In addition to updates, Campbell said he was willing to follow Oshkosh on Twitter, because he thinks it could be helpful.

“It’s useful when schools send out important updates regarding things like weather or class cancellations because I get updates through my phone,” Simon agreed. “It’s a nice way to keep students up-to-date with minute-to-minute updates about information about campus.”

Despite its growing popularity, some students do not feel Twitter is the correct medium to relay important information. Shane Arman, the student communications specialist for the Integrated Marketing and Communication department thinks that though Twitter can be useful, it may not benefit students in emergency situations.

“It would be interesting to find out how many students on this campus have Twitter, but I don’t think enough students have Twitter for it to be used as an emergency notification system,” Arman said. The University currently has a semi-high tech means of alerting students, Titan Alert, which can be sent directly to students’ mobile phones.

Many think that Twitter may be helpful in certain situations over others.

“I think Twitter can be useful for media relations, connecting with leaders and relationship building in high education,” Arman said. “It can also be effective for more efficiently spreading the word about an event or news item.”

Twitter is all about spreading the news. Currently, several specific areas on campus regularly use Twitter to inform students and their readers about upcoming and happening events.

Kate Unger, marketing manager at Reeve, uses Twitter for many functions.

“We use it to communicate programming and event announcements, dining specials, grand openings, job openings, projects we are currently working on and just regular daily status updates,” Unger said.

Unger believes using social media is beneficial to the University.

“We use social media and Twitter to enhance social relationships with our students, faculty and staff,” Unger said. “Social media allows for the creation and exchange of user generated content. It’s like having a candidconversation with your customer, or in our case, the student, in a coffee shop, except in this situation the conversation is online, and the coffee shop is a social networking site like Twitter.”

Campbell also thinks Twitter has dual benefits for spreading the word.

“It’s a great advertising tool once you have enough people following your Twitter,” Campbell said.

Along with Reeve, specific departments on campus, such as the journalism department, find it beneficial and somewhat crucial to understand and utilize Twitter.

Sara Hansen, an assistant professor of strategic communication in the journalism department believes Twitter is a positive mode of communication for students, faculty and the University in general.

“This University cares about communicating with different audiences, such as students, employees, alumni and the larger Oshkosh community,” Hansen said. “Twitter appears to fit in as another great way to reach people – quick, short messages can easily be sent and read by students, who can keep up with important University deadlines or get informed about upcoming events.”

The journalism department will soon be launching their very own Twitter.

“(It) is launching a social media initiative, which includes and expanded social media presence through a new blog, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter,” Hansen said.

“Journalism careers center on media, which demands our students to gain familiarity to proficiency with social media so they can compete in the marketplace.”

Students in general are encouraged to use Twitter to become more familiar with the benefits of it, especially within business and daily life.

“I absolutely believe Twitter is beneficial,” Unger said. “It’s real-time data sharing about any topic that you could possibly want to know about, (and) each Twitter account and user is different.”

Along with being beneficial, Hansen thinks Twitter is convenient.

“Microblogging through Twitter connects you to people via short messages that you can send or receive from your computer or mobile phone,” Hansen said.

With this opportunity, more people can become connected, especially when a computer is not available, but a mobile device with Internet access is on-hand.

Much like Twitter, social media is always changing. Alongside Facebook, Twitter is growing in popularity.

“The more students can experience different forms of social media – while always safeguarding personal information – their minds will be open and more prepared to the next phases of social media in our society,” Hansen said.

Like Hansen, Arman agrees that there is room for improvement for Twitter.

“Purpose is the biggest key to social media; knowing when to do what, to whom and for what reason,” Arman said. “Like many universities and companies, UW-Oshkosh’s IMC (Integrated Marketing and Communications) office is still learning how to best utilize social media.”

Oshkosh is moving along the path of social media. Keeping students informed by Twitter is another way to send information throughout this generation’s audience.

“Twitter communication can increase transparency and credibility through direct dialogue with people interested in particular companies or organizations,” Hansen said. “Our advice is to sign up for Twitter and give it a try by connecting to friends, the University, favorite bands, and even favorite stores or brands. The best way to learn about Twitter is to experience it and see how it may impact your life as it currently is impacting many others.”

Jennifer Droese

For Business professionals though, Twitter is all about branding and marketing.  The Business professional should be asking: ‘what’s in it for me?’
If used the right way, Twitter can truly be a most effective tool to reach a global market numbering in the millions.  Get it wrong though, and you’ll just be seen as one of the many spammers out there.
The sad thing is that everyday, I see many businessmen and women making mistakes that I am sure are hurting their businesses.  But because everybody else is doing the same thing, they carry on going down the slippery slope.

Do you want to use Twitter the right way?
I’ll take it you answered ‘YES’ to that question.  It really is not very difficult to use Twitter effectively.  The first thing you have to do is forget how everybody else is using Twitter.  As a business professional, your focus on Twitter should be about branding and marketing. Let’s start with branding.
How do you go about branding your business in the real world?
How do you relate with your customers and clients?
What kind of people are you happy to be associated with.
Are there any particular events and issues that you are passionate about?
Do you have a website and a blog?  Do they provide a consistent message to visitors?
The minute you stop to think of Twitter as an isolated tool you will be in a much better position to see the big picture.  It is the big picture that will give you an edge over your competition.
Lots of business people have benefited from taking a step back and looking at things from a different perspective.  Some are able to do it on their own, while many others appreciate a little guidance along the way.  It is important to get all the help from the right sources.