Retailers: 5+ Easy Ways to Leverage Twitter

5+ Ways Local Retailers Can Leverage Twitter Creatively
Due to the real-time nature of Twitter, the key to effectively leveraging it is to provide frequent updates. Aim for at least one per day. You may also consider one in the morning, one at lunch and one in the evening. Think about what makes sense for your business and your customers. And don't get overwhelmed, here are some ideas to make this simple.

In Rich Nadworny's recent post at Digital Strategy, he recommends companies utilize their employees (not just the marketing team) to listen to the conversations happening, and respond accordingly. This is great advice, and fortunately for retailers, you can leverage your customers too!

Once you've signed up for an account on Twitter, added some basic info to your profile, and began following people and other retailers in order to listen and understand the rhythms of the conversations, here are a few ideas on how retailers (clothing stores, coffee shops, food stores, laundromats, dry cleaners, etc.) can leverage Twitter to encourage repeat sales, increase loyalty, expand awareness and grow their customer base.

1. First, Listen to Your Customers.
Ask your customers if they are on Twitter and then follow them (don't worry, it's ok - that's what Twitter is meant for.) Similar to how you've collected email addresses in the past, you could put a registration sheet by the register and ask people to write down their Twitter profile names. Or you could put a sign by the register announcing your Twitter profile name and asking; "Do you tweet? Follow us on Twitter for news, sales announcements and events."

Before actually posting to your Twitter profile, it's important to listen first, so that you get a feel for what people are talking about, how they feel about things, and so that you're not coming in "from left field." After listening for a while, the next step is to actually post tweets of your own...

2. Announce New Products, Menu Specials, Sales, Events
After you've signed up, began following a few people and listened to the conversations, the next step is to actually begin posting tweets of your own. One way retailers can provide valuable, relevant content is to provide new product announcements. Think about the customer; think seasonality. Think time of day. CityMarket, my favorite natural foods co-op in Burlington, Vermont, does this well. Follow them http://twitter.com/CityMarket

Here's a list of many retailers (mostly large national chains) that are already on Twitter.

3. Be Creative: Add Tweets to Your Menu Pricing
This doesn't have to break the bank. For example, how about adding a menu item like "Cranberry Sauce: 1 Tweet"

Again, due to the real-time nature of Twitter, the key to having a strong presence is by being part of the conversation on a regular basis (at least daily). By providing incentives to your customers to tweet about you, you'll be enlisting the help of a team of loyal customers, which you'll need.

4. Spark Conversations and Create a Customer Community
To make this easy, you could post a question each day on Twitter, and then ask customers to post their reply via Twitter. For example, coffee shops could use their Twitter profile to spark conversations among customers by asking "What are you reading today?" or "What's on your iPod today?"

Encourage customers to reply @yourprofilename or use YourStoreName #hashtags.

5. Finding/Hiring New Employees
Finding qualified employees can be difficult, and by posting job openings on Twitter, you can leverage the power of your customer base to quickly spread the word for you - even if they haven't been to your physical location.

6. Lost and Found
Most local retailers have lost and founds, so why not use Twitter to help your customers re-connect with their items? For example post a tweet like "Found: Briefcase @Espresso77. Free muffins for local retweets."

Recommended Further Reading:
Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh's Beginner's Guide and Tutorial to Using Twitter

If you're a local business owner, be sure to check out Pat Kitano's excellent Slideshare presentation "The Local Business Owner's Guide to Twitter", where he shares excellent examples for a range of local business owners like massage therapists, attornies, and restaurants.

What do you think?

3+ Ways to Measure the Impact of Social Media on Search

(How to Measure the Impact of Social Content (blog posts, Tweets, etc.) on Search Within Social Media and Social Networking Sites)

In this post, we'll focus on how to measure the impact of Twitter, which reached about 22 million people in May.

1. #Hashtag research = keyword research

Just as people had to learn how to search using traditional search engines like Google and Yahoo, people are learning how to better search social media sites like Twitter. Increasingly, they are using hashtags. A hashtag is simply including the # symbol in front of a keyword. For example #diabetes . People can subscribe to follow hashtags or they can search for them, allowing them to stay current on specific topics, and recently Twitter began hyperlinking hashtags within tweets allowing people to go diretly the search results for that hashtag instantly.

You can find out which hashtags are most popular or trending by reviewing http://hashtags.org/trends/now

Here we can see that tweets tagged with the #diabetes hashtag are on the rise:

By researching which keywords are popular at the moment, you craft messages that are relevent and timely, and by including the hashtag in your post, you expand the reach of your tweet beyond your follower list, which leads us to...

2. # of followers you have

The more followers you have, the more likely the content you post will be seen (found).

Your number of followers measures your immediate audience on Twitter. It's a way to measure the opportunity each of your tweets has to reach and engage your audience.

TwitterCounter allows you to measure and compare your profile against competitors (or friends :) Here we can see that Bing has more followers than Yahoo; and it's growing it's follower count faster than Yahoo.

Additionally, Twitter directories like Social Brand Index or Technobabble, list Twitter profiles and usually rank by number of followers. Since we're focusing on measurement, we will not discuss why focusing purely on your follower count ignores some of the core principles of social media (e.g. listening, engaging in conversation, adding value, etc.)

3. # of clicks on the links you post on Twitter

Linking to relevant content within your tweets adds value to other users, and by utilizing URL shorteners with tools like Tweetburner you can measure how engaged people are with your tweets by tracking the number of clicks on the links you post.

Sites like Tweetburner rank top URLs within Twitter and post lists of the top-clicked links. Appearing on these lists is similar to getting your content voted up on Digg; though the traffic impact is not as substantial...yet.

Similarly, posting pictures to your tweets adds value, and using a service like TwitPic allows you to measure how many people are viewing the pics you post.

4. Search for People Who Are Sharing Your Site or Blog Post on Twitter

You can now track when other people post links to your content on Twitter using tools like backtweets .

This is similar to Google's Webmaster Tools, but specific to Twitter. It's different from tracking when people click on the links you post. Backtweets actually shows you when people post links to your content organically. Without checking a tool like backtweets, you would only be seeing a portion of how the community is engaging with your content. It's also a great way to find new people who are interested in your content. Follow them, and they'll likely follow you back, if they aren't already.

I encourage you to explore these tools. There are others, so please let me know which you find most useful. You can find me on Twitter @iano1000

Are you already using the tools above or others? Please leave a comment with a link to your blog and I'll be sure to stop by!

Kindle Blogs - The New Blogging Platform

The next big blogging platform is not WordPress,TypePad or Blogger...it's the Amazon Kindle.

Citigroup Analyst Mark Mahaney estimates that Amazon sold over half a million Kindles last year, and over 275,000 books are available, including all 112 New York Times best-sellers, as reported by Fast Company's July/August 2009 issue.

What Fast Company didn't report in that article is that the Kindle is also a platform for journals, newspapers and...blogs.

While WordPress and TypePad offer all sorts of ways to make your blog stand out from a design perspective, the Kindle is a blogging platform where worse is better.

The really cool part is that Amazon is helping the authors and content creators to monetize their content, a continuuing struggle for most online content creators, especially traditional newspapers.

By the way, here's what Search and Social Media looks like formatted as a Kindle Blog:

And if you've got an iPhone, Amazon offers the Kindle iPhone App for FREE! It's pretty awesome. I've got The Alchemist downloaded and ready for my daily rides on the E train from Jackson Heights to Tribeca, and on New Jersey Transit from Penn Station to Hamilton.

Subscribe to Search and Social Media by Email or RSS

And you can find me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/iano1000

New Ingredients to Fix Advertising

Paul Graham, founder of Y Combinator, a start-up that creates start-ups, published a list of start-up ideas his company would like to fund. http://ycombinator.com/ideas.html

Graham's Start-Up Idea #12: Fix advertising.

He writes, "...audiences learn to tune out boring ads, no matter how loud they shout. What we have now is basically print and TV advertising translated to the web. The right answer will probably look very different. It might not even seem like advertising, by current standards.

"So the way to approach this problem is probably to start over from scratch: to think what the goal of advertising is, and ask how to do that using the new ingredients technology gives us.

Probably the new answers exist already, in some early form that will only later be recognized as the replacement for traditional advertising. "

Some of the new answers exist already, indeed; just look at the innovations within mobile search and social media combined with ecommerce. One example is Apple's AppStore which combines mobile search and social media to deliver increasingly relevant solutions to meet our needs at any moment wherever we are.

Another example are e-book readers and Amazon's Kindle platform.

Are you interested in making advertising better? Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/iano1000

Integrating Offline, Paid Search and Video: Geico and HBO - Vampire Insurance

How HBO and Digital Kitchen Utilized Advanced Search Engine Marketing (SEM) Tactics to Support Their Innovative Campaign to Launch True Blood Season 2.

June 28th Update: see an overview of the integrated media plan and case study, including a behind-the-scenes look at how agency Digital Kitchen partnered with HBO, Geico, Gillete and several other brands to make this campaign a success.


















And here's a deeper look at how search engine marketing was incorporated into this innovative online and offline campaign.

Partnering with several brands, HBO and Digital Kitchen leveraged multiple offline tactics, such as outdoor billboards (like the one above) and posters like this one outside Rosetta's NY Office on Hudson Street.

The offline and online tactics created search demand:

And they worked closely with their search marketing team to capture this search demand: for example, when you search for "vampire insurance", they ran targeted paid search (SEM) text ads. And even these were innovative and integrated with the overall campaign, serving both HBO and Geico. Besides providing brand benefits to both HBO and Geico, the ad text ad units themselves leveraged new functionality: an expandable video preview:

Watch the video, then click on the text ad and you're taken to the HBO.com True Blood Site, where the world of Vampires suddenly starts to feel as real as in the show.

We might call this transmedia storytelling at it's best. It's Convergence Culture being leveraged by smart, media-neutral planning teams. HBO's brand and media planning teams nailed this one, but not just because it's cool; not just because each advertisement is relevant to the show's fans; but because they add a deeper level to the show. Each incremental ad actually enriches the show and each advertiser's role within it.

And in addition to all of this wonderful, difficult-to-quantify brand building; the companies are actually saving media costs through co-branding! Cheers!

For more creative examples: check out Digital Kitchen's Flickr page.

Advanced Analytics for Pharma Search Engine Marketing (SEM and SEO)

Presented by Ian Orekondy and Chris Boggs at EXL Pharma's 3rd Annual Search Engine Marketing Conference in Princeton, NJ in February.

Pharma Search Engine Marketing (SEM and SEO) Strategies

View more presentations from iano1000.

How to Use Advanced Search Functionality Within Meetup.com To Find and Engage Online Evangelists

Hugely popular bloggers like Chris Brogan or Robert Scoble have been prime targets for brands hoping to leverage the social media space to generate positive word of mouth. But these bloggers are most likely not YOUR online evangelists. So where do you find yours?

Mack Collier's recent blog post shows how Tropicana could use social media search tools like Google and Twitter Search to find and engage its online evangelists.

But Meetup.com is a huge opportunity that most marketers are ignoring. Here's how to leverage Meetup.com and utilize some of its slightly hidden, advanced search functionality to find and engage your online evangelists in your backyard, in the U.S. or throughout the world:


1. Go to http://www.meetup.com/; Do NOT log in.

2. Go to Find A Meetup Group, and type in your topic of interest. Below, I'll build on the Tropicana example, and look for people interested in Nutrition.

3. Choose a relevant result: for Tropicana, let's choose Whole Foods Nutrition.



4. Now, do NOT click any of the specific Meetups YET, since this will prevent us from finding the goldmine ahead of us. INSTEAD, click on one of the Meetup Topics UNDERNEATH any one of the specific Meetups.

5. When the next page loads, the left-hand nav changes, producing a new option: Meetup Groups, click to go Meetup Groups.




6. Now you get a MAP showing not only all of the existing Meetup Groups and Members, specific to your chosen topic (Wholefoods Nutrition), but ALSO a map and listing of people who have previously searched for a Meetup on this topic, didn't find one closeby and then indicated that they would like someone to Start one up

For Tropicana, there are over 22,000 people already attending almost 1000 Meetups on Whole Foods Nutrition topic in 7 countries, and there are almost 17,000 people who have indicated that they are INTERESTED in a Meetup on Whole Foods Nutrition!

7. Drill down and you can scoll over individual meetups and see how many members are in each Meetup, so you may decide to focus only on large Meetups to begin, say those with over 100 members. For this example, we go to the Pittsburg Whole Foods Nutrition Meetup.


8. And what do we find? How about old and new members generating posts about exactly what they're interested in? Here we see "Heather" saying that she's interested in learning more about nutrition and being more deliberate in her food choices.

Within Heather's public profile, we can see that she just joined the Whole Foods Meetup today, and that she's a member of 3 other Meetups, including one about Cooking!

In less then 4 minutes, we've found over 39,000 people who are already out in the real-world meeting with like-minded people around Whole Foods Nutrition, and we've quickly begun to build a list of people that have indicated that they want to learn more.



How's that for using social media search tools to find and engage your online evangelists?

Further Reading:
Are Companies Targeting the Wrong "Influencers" with Social Media?


"Finding and Embracing Your Online Evangelists in 5 Minutes" and recommends using Google, Google Blog Search and Twitter Search to quickly find people who are talking about your brand, so that you can target them with your outreach efforts.

Combining Search and Social Media with Offline Radio Campaigns

Now that we're past the Super Bowl, I thought it would be interesting to highlight an example of how a major brand is integrating search, social and CRM with an ongoing offline radio campaign.

The example I bring to you is Pampers' Pullups' "Do the Potty Dance" campaign, which leverages radio to create awareness, search to capture interest and social media to engage online via video, message board forums, e-cards, as well as offline by providing tools and tips to help parents and children learn the actual dance steps to the "Potty Dance" :)

I discovered the radio spot this past Saturday night on 102.7 FM, a 90s station in NYC (note: this was the cab driver's selection, since I usually listen to whatever the cab driver is playing, as a way to break free of my self-created media consumption routine.) The spot may have gotten my attention due to the fact that I currently know at least two families with toddlers undergoing potty training.

After hearing the radio spot while in the cab, the only phrase that stuck in my mind was "potty dance." Curious, I searched for the phrase on Google via my iPhone from the cab, and voila: PullUps was running paid search text ads on the keyword "potty dance":

Great for them because there is almost no competition for this keyword and so are probably paying almost nothing to get the top ad position.

When I click, I'm taken to DoThePottyDance.com:

From here, they provide multiple ways for search visitors to engage socially: learn the dance, send an e-card, even talk to each other via message board forums:

Some message boards, like "Starting Out" have over 26,000 views and almost 1000 posts.
They'll also be launching a contest to further engage both parents and children by encouraging them to learn the dance and submit videos.

Of course, they uploaded the video to their recently created YouTube Channel:

Though they do not appear to be promoting the videos within YouTube yet, Pampers PullUps' PottyDance YouTube Video has already been viewed 347 times in just 3 days.

It will be interesting to watch the latest search trends to see how this campaign ultimately impacts search volume. For now, it's still too early to tell: