Social Media Strategy | Social Media Marketing Plan For Business | Social Media Marketing Training At DonCrowther.com

How to track Twitter links to any site

Have you ever wished there was an easy way to see and track all Twitter links that point to your (or to any other) site? You could go to search.twitter.com, but the only links that would appear there are ones that don’t use a URL shortener (as you know, the vast majority of links do.) So you’re getting a very incomplete picture.

There’s a solution to that, and it’s free!

It’s called backtweets.com.

Simply input the URL for your site, hit search, and you immediately get back tweets that have linked to your site. Scroll to the bottom, and you’ll see the total number of links recorded.

Try it right now. How’s your company doing?

That’s great, but now let’s take this to another level.

1. Besides searching on your site overall, you can also search for specific pages on your site by putting in the URL of that particular page.
Play around with your results for a minute, searching on the pages that appear most frequently in your overall site’s result. You’ll probably find that a few pages represent the vast majority of all of your links (Pareto was a genius.) All kinds of analysis flows from that – what’s the commonality between those successful pages? What’s the commonality between those that aren’t getting the links? What plan can you implement to build the linking on pages that aren’t doing well.

2. Using the Advanced Search function, you can focus the search on certain dates.
That can be helpful when looking at the result from specific posts.

3. Create an RSS feed of your results
Use it to track your results on a regular basis through your favorite feed reader

4. Pull the RSS feed you created into your blog, to let visitors know that others are linking to your blog posts

5. Benchmark yourself against other key sites in your marketplace
Do a generic search for your site and your competitors and track the results on a spreadsheet. You probably will want to do a date-limited advance search for this, to compare apples to apples.

6. Try clicking on the Conversations link to see all conversations relating to your search happening on blogs and other social media.
This doesn’t work with every category I’ve tested, but in some categories it can be very valuable.

7. Sign up for email alerts to get a daily or weekly record of how you’re doing.
You can receive alerts as they occur, I wouldn’t recommend that unless you’re rarely tweeted (shame on you if you are!.)

In short, backtweets can be a quick and easy way to track your exposure in the Twittersphere. I recommend it!

What other uses did I miss? What tools do you use to track your social media exposure? Tell us about them by posting a comment below!

Filed Under: Business, Posts, Social Media How-To, Social Media Strategy | Social Media Marketing Plan for Business | Social Media Marketing Training at DonCrowther.com, Twitter Tagged With: backlinks, backtweets.com, retweet, RT, twitter links

The odd relationship between hunting night crawlers and social media

You haven’t lived yet until you’ve hunted night crawlers.

Never hunted night crawlers? Here’s how to do it:

Requirements:
1 Warm summer evening
1 lawn (owned, rented or borrowed)
1 or more 8-12 year old kids eager to catch some crawlers tonight and some huge trout tomorrow
Firm plans to actually go fishing tomorrow (never disappoint a young fisherman!)
1 flashlight for each hunter
Several buckets to put the crawlers into once caught
A spirit of laughter and adventure

Step 1: Water your lawn
Correction, soak your lawn.You can’t just water it. You have to drown it, for several hours. You’re trying to flood the little night crawler tunnels so they’ll come to the surface.

Step 2: Wait until nightfall.
Not dusk, real nightfall. Think dark.

Step 3: Turn off your sprinklers
This step seems to make for happier hunters

Step 4: Do some serious hunting
This is where you get stealthy. Night crawlers can feel vibrations in the ground and can hear noises (at least that’s what I was taught.) So you’ve got to be sneaky to succeed.

Shine your flashlights across the lawn. Look for little brown nightcrawlerish-looking bodies lying on the ground. Be aware, however, that by light of flashlight, many things, like small sticks, toys, and doggy dodos take on the appearance of night crawlers, so be careful what you grab.

When you see one, carefully creep up on it. Bend over really slowly, then grab it fast.

Yes, you have to be fast, because the favorite position of a night crawler whose home is temporarily flooded out is halfway out of its hole, keeping its tail (you do know that night crawlers have tails, right?) in its hole in case someone successfully sneaks up on it and tries to grab it. And not only is its tail in the hole, but it expands the end of its tail to anchor it in the hole and stretches its body out extra far to allow for…

When it senses danger, the night crawler uses its tail anchor as leverage and sucks its body back into the hole, in a fraction of a second. So you’ve got to be fast, really fast.

You’re going to miss the first 5 or so you try, but once you get your hands around your first night crawler, the real battle begins. The crawler’s tail anchor is tenacious, and he’s not about to release it just so the he can become trout-bait. Basically what happens is a tug of war – you pull, he pulls back, and it keeps going like that until he either slips out of your hand, you pull him out of the hole, or he breaks in half. That’s why it’s such a great adventure, and why its almost a must to have a few 8-12 year olds around just to watch their faces the first time they actually win the battle and place a whole crawler into the bucket! They won, it was a hard-fought, slimy battle, but they won, and their faces will show it! (Remember they can’t shout, or you’ll lose your entire night of hunting!)

Continue until you’ve got enough to catch a full creel of trout the next day, plus a couple of buckets more for the kids to sell to other anglers on the banks – which makes for great (and essential) sales training for a 10-year old!

Why this exhaustive write up about night crawlers? Because the process of hunting crawlers is a great example of what not to do when hunting customers.

Many people pursue online marketing in a way that reminds me a great deal of night crawler hunting. They carefully flood the environment where their customers hang out, basically drowning them into revealing themselves. They they sneak up on them, grab them and start a tug of war, basically brow-beating their customers into buying.

Yes, a few do end up in the proverbial bucket. But why would you ever want to create a marketing plan based on cajoling unwilling customers into buying? Wouldn’t you rather have a situation where they willingly come, practically begging you to sell them something?

That’s part of what social media does. When properly done, it helps you create a relationship of trust and familiarity with your customers. At that point they’re less like night crawlers, dug into their lairs and holding on (and holding onto their wallets) for dear life, and more like a puppy, eager to learn a trick so he can be rewarded with another dog biscuit and an enthusiastic pat on the head.

What kind of seller are you? What kind do you want to be?

Social media’s your answer!

Like this analogy? Hate it? Know a trick to crawler hunting that I don’t know about? Share it by making a comment below.

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/peculiarmomma/508391174/

Filed Under: Business, Posts, Social Media How-To, Social Media Strategy | Social Media Marketing Plan for Business | Social Media Marketing Training at DonCrowther.com Tagged With: customers, fishing, Marketing, night crawlers, nightcrawlers, sales, selling, Social Media Strategy | Social Media Marketing Plan for Business | Social Media Marketing Training at DonCrowther.com

Social Media and the Final Four

What can NCAA’s Final Four, The Superbowl, the World Series and the Stanley Cup teach us about social media?

1. There is no such thing as an instant win – wins always come as a result of long term effort
While last minute comebacks and nail biters always generate buzz and press, in truth, that success didn’t come through a short-term. It took months of working as a team and years of individual skill training to play in the big leagues and the big games.

Likewise, asking for instant, earthshaking results from any social media campaign is simply impractical. Luck does happen, but it’s rare to make it to the tourney on your first campaign. It simply takes time and work to generate the results you need.

2. Momentum is real
Just as teams want to hit the tournament time on the basis of a series of key, fan-energizing wins, social media does the same.

After observing results and clickthrough numbers on a series of successful and unsuccessful social media campaigns, things just work better if you’ve got something that’s driving buzz and activity with your audience. Also, be careful not to waste your best campaign in a time when momentum has turned against you. Get the momentum going again, then put your best campaign into play.

3. Even in the worldwide spotlight, fundamentals are what wins, and loses
We watch the stars and see them do amazing things at tourney time, but when it comes right down to it, the game wasn’t won on the last-second shot. It was won by protecting the ball, boxing out, clean passes, defending the lane, and getting your hand in the face of the shooter on every single shot.

Fundamentals are also key in social media: identifying and delivering the needs of your target audience, conversation, transparency, appropriate frequency, proper usage of tools, careful nuturing of your followers, choosing the right sites, etc. Without the fundamentals, you will lose.

4. Great performances require great coaches
Great coaches regularly turn also-rans into stars and a group of stars without a great coach may shine for a short time, but will eventually fall out of star status. That’s because there’s a difference between coaching and doing. It’s literally a different skill set. Coaches watch the bigger picture, test to figure out what works and doesn’t (usually in a less-critical circumstance than in the championship game), drill their players to refine muscle and mental memory to automatically perform perfectly at the right moments.

The same applies with social media. There are a few great social media coaches, who are spending time and energy watching the big picture, devising and testing strategies and tactics to discover what works and doesn’t, and providing information to people on how to raise their performance to significantly higher levels. I recommend that you find and follow at least one social media coach, so that you too can kick your performance to a higher level.

By the way – I’m cheering for Duke!

Can you see things I’ve missed? Disagree with any of my statements? Let me know by posting a comment below!

Photo credits:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/somewhatfrank/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

http://www.flickr.com/photos/balakov/ / CC BY-NC 2.0

Filed Under: Posts, Social Media How-To, Social Media Strategy | Social Media Marketing Plan for Business | Social Media Marketing Training at DonCrowther.com Tagged With: basketball, butler, duke, final four, ncaa, Social Media Strategy | Social Media Marketing Plan for Business | Social Media Marketing Training at DonCrowther.com

Social media works for small businesses!

A recent survey (sponsored by Network Solutions, so presumably it’s not too biased) revealed that social media is rapidly becoming a powerful business-building tool for small businesses.

This study revealed that:

Just 18% of small businesses actively use social media to build their businesses

Of those who do use it:

70% indicated that their social media presence met or exceeded their expectations, with only 26% indicating that it fell short of expectations
61% stated that social media brought them new customers
52% found it developed a higher awareness for their organization with their target market
46% stated that it helped them stay engaged with current customers
Only 6% reported that negative comments by dissatisfied customers hurt the image of their company more than social media helped it
50% found that it takes up more time than they expected
75% reported that they broke even or made money using social media, in spite of the time required to actively participate
84% believe that they anticipate that they will either break even or make money with social media within the next year
It takes some time to initially set up social media systems and learn how to use them effectively. Once that time has been spent, future efforts become much more profitable.

What can we learn from these results?

Social media is worthwhile – there’s a high probability that you’ll at least break even or make a profit through your social media efforts (and, my belief – if you do it correctly, avoiding key mistakes, you’re much more likely to make money!)
Social media brings in new customers, builds your image, and helps you stay engaged with customers
It does take time – but the results are worthwhile!
If you’re not using social media to build your business, you need to start, NOW!

Study data for those who are curious: This study was sponsored by Network Solutions, and conducted by the Robert H. Smith School Of Business at the University of Maryland. The data cited here comes from the third wave of the study, interviewing 500 small-business owners in the U.S. in December 2009. Small businesses were defined as having less than 100 employees, were not publicly traded, were for-profit, and had payroll or contributed at least 50% of the owner’s household income. Results were weighted to ensure representativeness to the entire small-business population of the U.S.

How can I help you build your business? What’s your experience with social media? Let me know in the comments below!

Filed Under: Business, Posts, Social Media How-To, Social Media Strategy | Social Media Marketing Plan for Business | Social Media Marketing Training at DonCrowther.com

Social networking sites as evidence: Like it or not, your government IS spying on you

The right to privacy really isn’t a right, especially online, and even more especially if you’re expecting it to be true on social networks.

While we’ve known this, it has now been confirmed through a Freedom of Information Act request by the Electronic Frontier Foundation

In response to that request, the Department of Justice has just released a document that indicates (either directly or indirectly through looking at the markups in the document and imagining where they could take this) that:

The U.S. government is very aware of and actively using social media to
- Track personal communications
- Establish motives and personal relationships
- Identify where you were at the moment of posting
- Prove and disprove alibis
- Gain evidence of criminal activities both from people claiming to have committed crimes and showing off the proceeds from that crime
Facebook is much more co-operative with law enforcement than MySpace or Twitter
Social network-posted pictures are being used to create image profiles for people (probably databased to enable easy identification of people from crime-scene and surveillance photos. Think about it, if you wanted to create a database of pictures of people, tying it to their names, and potentially getting multiple pictures of each person to show different profiles, maybe even height and weight indicators, what better place to get it than to grab the entire Facebook photo file? Supplement that with Flickr and MySpace, and you’ve just saved the taxpayers billions! And the pictures are lots better than passport and driver’s license photos!))
MySpace has a long history of “child safety concerns”
Law enforcement is actively using fake identities to go undercover, friending people so they can see and participate in conversations
Ironically, one of the ways they convict criminals is on charges of using fake identities, so they are doing the very thing they are convicting people for doing
The U.S. Government is questioning whether social networking is equivalent to publicly broadcasting information, determining the rights to use that information in court. Also, they’re questioning whether violation of a site’s terms of service is “otherwise illegal activity” and whether it is appropriate for prosecutors to friend judges
Government is actively investigating witnesses using social media telling prosecutors to “research all witnesses on social-networking sites”

Given all of the above, what ramifications does this have for us as users of social media?

If you do the crime, shut yer trap
I realize that if you’re smart enough to read this you’re smart enough not to do the crime, but, I still had to say it.

Actually, as a law-abiding citizen who really wants criminals to be locked up, I’m going to say exactly the opposite:

If you do the crime, please tell us all about it, and make sure you post pictures taken at the crime scene, and while you’re at it, be sure you post pictures of yourself holding the stolen property before you fence it off to others. And, make sure you list your occupation as “drug kingpin” while you’re at it. Please!
Even if it’s not criminal, if it’s stupid, it doesn’t belong on social media, as it can affect you for years
Whether or not you end up as the star witness for a national trial or just want to change a piece of the world by running for school board in 20 years, pictures of you doing shots in compromising situations, blogs titled “the drunken ramblings of ____,”and joking comments about illegal/immoral activities will eventually hurt you. Don’t put them up yourself and don’t allow your friends to post them about you. Better yet, be boring, and stay safe by not doing them in the first place!
Don’t ever cover anything up – the data’s too easy to obtain
Don’t violate any site’s Terms Of Service
Doing so may actually turn into a criminal offense someday and you may be convicted for something that seemed like no big deal back when you originally set up your profile, then forgot about it later on.

In other words, this goes back to one of Don’s Laws

Don’t be stupid

Enough said?

Want to see the actual PDF from the government?

Agree, disagree? Want to fight for your right to brag about doing stupid things? Tell me about it in the comments section below.

Filed Under: Facebook, MySpace, Posts, Social Media Strategy | Social Media Marketing Plan for Business | Social Media Marketing Training at DonCrowther.com, Twitter

12 signs that Facebook is ruining your life

It’s my daughter’s birthday today. So this morning I jumped on Facebook to leave her a witty birthday greeting before calling her, only to remember…

She killed her Facebook account several months ago.

After watching the negative effect that Facebook and other social media properties has had on some people, I’ve come to believe that there are many others who should do the same thing.

Don’t get me wrong – I love Facebook, I teach how to use Facebook, and spend time on Facebook. I just don’t believe it’s for everyone.

And unfortunately, it’s those who are saying to themselves right now “I’m certainly not one of those” who are right at the top of the list of the people who probably should kill their account (or at least alter their behavior to get a real life.)

Here are some signs that Facebook is ruining your life:

You have more communications with people in your tight circle of local friends on Facebook than you do in real life.
You spend more than 20 minutes a day on Facebook.
Facebook’s the first thing you do in the morning, then you’re back midday, then again in the evening, just to keep track of the lives of everyone in your friends group.
You’ve ever found yourself saying “not right now, I’m on Facebook” to your child, spouse, significant other, parent or friend
You’ve ever announced some important change in your life on Facebook before you picked up the phone or met in person with your closest friends and told them in advance (I’m pregnant, I’m engaged…)
You’ve cut short a real-world conversation with someone you’ve just met (and liked) so you could stalk them on Facebook
You’ve ever heard some variation on the words “I wish you would stop chatting on Facebook and spend time with me.”
You’ve ever revealed something deeply personal on Facebook that you’ve regretted later
You regularly find yourself together with friends, all accessing your own Facebook accounts instead of actually talking with each other
Your wall has more applications that your friends are playing than real communications with those you like.
You go on Facebook mostly to do applications
You regularly choose to chat rather than to pick up the phone and actually talk with someone (or, gulp, actually visit them!)

Tough words? Possibly. Do they apply to you? Probably.

Just wanted to make you think.

Now, what are you going to do about it?

(Remember I love Facebook, and think most people should too – I just think it’s not right for some people!)

I can’t wait to see your reaction to this one! Lay into me by leaving a comment below.

Filed Under: Facebook, Life, Posts, Social Media Strategy | Social Media Marketing Plan for Business | Social Media Marketing Training at DonCrowther.com

What should you do when you get bad reviews?

You already know how essential an online personality is to your business’ success. Being able to research and find information online is something we all do, whether to find the menu for a new restaurant, or to check out which local dry cleaner will do the best job. All that free information from knowing sources is one of the reasons we love the internet. But what do you do if you find less than positive reviews of your own business? Worse, what if those reviews are not only negative, but contain misleading lies?

First, try to discern what this person is trying to accomplish by publishing this review. Are they simply disappointed, and trying to honestly describe their experience for the sake of others? Or are they blowing off steam, closer to furious, trying to stick-it-to-ya and take others down with them?

This is an important distinction for you to make. No matter who you are, there are going to be less than positive reviews, and even slightly negative reviews out there. It’s honest, and frankly useful for customers to see a balanced description of you and your services. Things start to seem fishy when there are only five out of five stars given. It makes people wonder where all the three and four star givers disappeared to. If the review is less than positive, yet truthful, let it be.

Now, it’s entirely possible that you found a review that was inflammatory, harsh, or contained downright lies about you and your company. You’re likely to be embarrassed at their words, shocked at their rudeness, or mad at them yourself. It’s a rough but real situation.

If this is the case, get the facts straight. Identify if and where you might be at fault. Can you recognize the customer from their review? Go back and review your files on that job or order. Did you actually do (or not do) the things that are mentioned in the review? Even if you handled the customer well, did one of your employees act in a less reputable manner? Were there miscommunications, or even problems that you may have dismissed?

It’s critical to recognize where you are at fault so that you can adequately apologize and make amends to the customer. You may not gain them back as a loyal customer, but your conscience can be clear, and you will be able to avoid that mistake in the future. Many reviews point out actual problems like workflow issues, contact time lags or pricing hikes. These comments provide valuable feedback about the way your company works and you should recognize that other less-vocal customers may be bothered by the same things. Make it top priority to fix those things and you’ll keep current and future customers.

If the reviewer flat out lied, and you can prove that what they wrote is incorrect, contact the reviewing site and plead your case. Good business practices like keeping excellent records will come in handy here. Go to the review site and explain yourself, show the receipts, original order forms, case files, whatever you have that proves your side. Ask them to remove the faulty reviews, and it’s likely they will.

If the complaint came through an official Business-accreditation company like Better Business Bureau, make timely contact to get the issue resolved. You’ll likely have to do a little jumping through hoops, but go through their resolution or arbitration process and clear your record with them. Many people give real credit to these sites and their stamp of approval, and it will only be to your benefit to make the effort.

If the review is just inflammatory, it will be harder to have it removed. People do have a right to their opinion, which admittedly sometimes hurts small businesses. Make your best effort to contact the reviewer and work things out, eventually encouraging them to amend their original review if they feel you’ve made it up to them.

Finally, make the effort to treat all your customers well, even and especially the ones that are harder to please. They may not recognize how hard you’ve worked, but they will remember being treated with respect and consideration.

Encourage happy customers to relate their experiences online by posting a positive review. Many positive reviews will be to your benefit, and hopefully will outweigh the effect of a few less than positive ones. You may not be able to fix all negative reviews out there, but a few are good for the skeptic in all of us.

What do you do when you get a bad review? How successful have you been in resolving bad reviews? Share your thoughts by posting a comment below!

Filed Under: Business, Posts, Social Media How-To, Social Media Strategy | Social Media Marketing Plan for Business | Social Media Marketing Training at DonCrowther.com

How to find free (and legal) pictures online

Need a quick picture for a blog post, web page or anything else? If you’re like most people, you jump into Google Images and grab a great shot from there.

Unfortunately, that puts you at huge risk of lawsuit, because, unless someone specifically grants rights to you to use a given image, every picture taken in the United States (and in most other countries) is considered to be copyrighted, and the property of the person who took that picture. (By the way, this includes pictures taken in photo studios, so that class picture of you isn’t yours – I know, something’s really wrong there, but that’s the law!)

Let me stress something here – this is serious, you really can get sued, and if the person has taken the right steps in copyrighting their picture, you could have to not only pay them a huge amount for stealing their image, you could also be charged damages, which could be serious amounts of money!

How do you get around this? You could:

Laboriously negotiate payment for rights with the photographer
Go to sites that sell rights for pictures and pay them for the images that you use (like stock photography sites)
Use creative commons-licensed content and follow the restrictions specifically placed on each particular image.

Of these three options, the cheapest is using creative-commons licensed images. Creative Commons is a non-profit system that offers an alternative to full copyright. Basically, it’s a special licensing system that allows people to use content without the hassles of negotiation, licensing and fees. It’s worth spending a few minutes studying the different options available through Creative Commons at http://www.creativecommons.org

One of my favorite places to find Creative Commons-licensed (CC) images is www.flickr.com because Flickr has tons of CC images and they make it easy to find images that carry those licenses.

Here’s how to find those images:

1. Start by going to Flickr’s advanced search function

2. Fill in your search terms at the top then drop down on the page to the creative commons section and indicate what you plan to do with the image. You’ll see three options there:

Checking the first box restricts your search to show only pictures that are creative-commons licensed. That’s important, because you don’t want to waste your time falling in love with images that you can’t use because they aren’t licensed.

The other two boxes are optional. If your blog earns you any money at all (whether through advertising, selling something, or even if it is just part of a money-making operation,) you should check the second box “find content to use commercially.” Otherwise, you’re still at risk of someone claiming your usage of their image was commercial, and you get caught in an argument that can get expensive.

If you plan to alter the image, by using it as a part of another image, putting a stripe across it with your url inside, changing the colors, etc., you should also check the second box to “find content to modify, adapt, or build upon.”

Boxes checked? Let’s go to step 3, assuming that I’m looking for images of puppies. Cool! 29,780 results.

3. Find an image that you love and click on it to find out more about that image
Here’s a delightful little Maltese Shihtzu puppy that reaches out and grabs your heart. Let’s check it out

4. Once you get to the page, you ignore everything else that it says about the image, and immediately drop down to the bottom right corner to the Additional Information section and check on the Some rights reserved link. Again, you want to know the facts before you fall in love with the picture.

In this case, the license is Attribution 2.0 Generic, and dropping down you see that you are free to copy, distribute and transmit the work and to remix (adapt) it, provided that you give the rights owner attribution. That’s good. That means that you can basically do what you want with it, provided you give them credit.

So how do you give them credit? See that line that says Attribute this work? Simply grab the code in that box, put it on the page with the image, and you’re good to go. You can see how I’ve done that in the section at the bottom of this article where I say Photo Attribution:

Just be careful to follow the rules associated with each individual image. By checking the boxes for commerical usage and modification, you’re usually safe, with Flickr only showing you pictures that you can use.

The place where this can bite you is if you, over time, separate the picture from the attribution. So, avoid creating a folder of favorite images to which you turn to grab pictures any time you need them, unless you devise some kind of system of attaching the attribution statement to each image in that folder.

That’s it, simple, easy and quick. Just make sure you’re disciplined, and you’ll find generous people happily providing great images for you to use!

Have other places you like to go to get Creative Commons images? Tell us about them in the comments section below!

Photo attribution:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/psycho-pics/ / CC BY 2.0

Filed Under: Flickr, Internet Marketing Strategies | Internet Marketing Training & Tips | Solutions for Internet Marketing at DonCrowther.com, Posts, Social Media How-To, Social Media Strategy | Social Media Marketing Plan for Business | Social Media Marketing Training at DonCrowther.com