I’m sitting here at the “140 | The Twitter Conference” in Seattle, WA and Jason Preston of Parnassaus Group mentioned these two tips for growing your followers on Twitter:
Contests
“Contests work” — Offer a prize. Ask people to follow you and retweet the contest.
The cost to acquire a Twitter follower has averaged about $7 per 100 followers in Preston’s experience.
Twitter Contest Examples
Jason said Parnassus Group used a contest for what the t-shirt for a Twitter conference should say (with the winner being offered a free conference pass and t-shirt).
As part of the contest, you had to tweet your submission and follow the conference the twitter account (@tweethouse).
Parnassus got a couple of hundred followers as a result of the contest (which again he says worked out to about $7 cost to acquire each Twitter follower
Another example: Someone offered a MacBook Air and got 2,500 followers (that cost to acquire a Twitter follower was closer to $1 per follower)
Follow People Using Tools Such As TweepSearch
Searching for people who are relevant to you or your business (based on location or products) and follow them. Reason: There are a lot of people who have their accounts set up to automatically follow you back.
If you’re targeted on your outreach you will land on the inbox of people interested in your business. He recommends TweepSearch (in beta).
With TweepSearch you can type in search term and easily find people to follow (and then hopefully they follow you back). If you’re looking for followers from a certain location, type in the search term followed by the location (e.g. “Jewerlry: San Francisco”)
I’ll keep posting other info from this event.
It’s amazing how much momentum Facebook is generating these days. The press is certainly going wild.
Earlier this week, InsideFacebook shared some revenue estimates.
Based on their estimates, as well as one mentioned in the Wall Street Journal today and past ones from Starup Review and Don Dodge, here’s a very rough estimate of Facebook’s revenues since its founding in 2005:
Facebook Revenues for 2005 to 2010 (Estimated & Projected)
Today’s Wall Street Journal cover story had these highlights about Facebook:
CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s Management Style
- He is short on praise and believes that getting the product right should be its own reward
- He is clear and purposeful on vision: believing that Facebook’s promise has to do with facilitating people’s ability to share almost any and everything with anyone at any time via Web sites, mobile phones and even videogames
- He is a micromanager
- In Facebook’s earlier years, Zuckerberg ended meetings by pumping his fist in the air and leading employees in a chant of “domination.”
- Zuckerberg believes he has a special capacity for delaying gratification (and that will be helpful in holding out on an IPO)
- Good listener: He’s met with Intel CEO Paul Otellini and Oracle President Charles Philips and keeps a long list of advice on his Blackberry
- Zuckerberg controls votes for three of the five board seats
Facebook passed up on two acquisition offers:
- Yahoo’s $1 billion offer in 2006 and
- Microsoft’s offer of $8 billion or more sometime later
Facebook Financials and an IPO
- Facebook’s revenue could hit $1.2 billion to $2 billion this year (2010)
- It has been cash-flow positive (enough to pay its 1,200 employees and overhead) since 2009
- Timing of an IPO: Board member Jim Breyer told a German audience last month that an IPO would not happen in 2010
Zuckerberg is clearly in control of the business
- Zuckerberg owns more than a quarter of Facebook’s stock
- Zuckerberg has control over 3 of the 5 board seats
I expect Facebook’s press to escalate further leading up to a likely IPO this year or in 2011; in what would likely be the largest Internet IPO since Google.
I’m very interested in any data to help businesses maximize their return on investment with social media.
So I was happy to see ForeSee Results publish some simple findings recenty in their Key to Driving Retail Success with Social Media: Focus on Facebook (note: this is a PDF file that you download).
They surveyed 10,000 visitors to the top 40 online retail Web sites.
Some highlights I found in this brief report are:
- 69% of online shoppers use social media sites (social media users)
Of online shoppers who frequent social media sites:
- 61% friend or follow 1 to 5 retailers or brands
- 21% friend or follow 6 to 10 retailers or brands
- 10% friend or follow 11 to 20 retailers or brands
- 8% friend or follow more than 20 retailers
Note: “Friend” and “Follow” refer to customers agreeing to have an online connection with a retailer/brand.
The report asserts that:
“Site visitors who also interact with a company on a social media site are more satisfied,more committed to the brand, and more likely to make future purchases from that company.”
Facebook is the dominant social network for People Visiting Online Retail Sites
The table below indicates how dominant Facebook has become — it’s more than twice as popular as #2 YouTube and more than 3X as popular as MySpace.
Source: Foresee Results
While Facebook is clearly dominant, the report points out that 25 of the top 100 online retailers do not have any formal Facebook presence.
And finally, here’s some insight into why consumers interact with businesses through social media.
The Top Three Reasons Customers Interact With a Business’s Social Media Site:
- To Learn About Sales or Special Offers (49%)
- To Learn About Products (45%)
- To Get Customer Support (5%)
I’ll continue to share whatever I find on improving your ROI through social media.
You’ve likely heard of Twitter by now…seeing as 50 million+ people have signed up to try this service that let’s you type in 140 character messages (tweets).
I signed up for Twitter almost a year ago but have only recently started to get the swing of it (you can see my profile at RobDunsonKelly).
Here are some answers to basic questions you might have as you get started on Twitter:
Twitter Tips for Beginners
Who Sees Your Twitter Posts?
Anyone can — whatever you type into the “What’s Happening?” field can be seen by anyone who is “following” you (see below) or even a stranger who finds your posting by browsing and searching Twitter (unless you send a “direct message” (see below).
How Do People “Follow” You on Twitter?
People may follow you simply because they saw your Twitter address in your auto-signature, on your LinkedIn or on your blog or you told them about it by phone or in person.
But most important is that people will follow you on Twitter through the valuable tweets you contribute.
As mentioned above, strangers will follow you as they find your tweets — so Twitter is a great way to meet new people.
Here’s a good Top-10 list of Ways To Increase Your Twitter Followers
How Do You Follow Other People on Twitter?
You can follow anyone on Twitter you want as long as you can find their Twitter name (which you can do by clicking “Find People” from the upper right hand of the Twitter home page and searching them by name (even if their Twitter name is not their actual name).
When you first sign up for Twitter, it will ask you if you’d like to import your email addresses into Twitter and see who of your contacts is on Twitter (and then you can automatically follow them all or just select ones).
You can also follow people you don’t know whether it be a celebrity like Britney Spears or Bill Gates – go to TwitterHolics to find the most popular Tweeters — or a random stranger you find browsing through some of the Twitter lists.
Is All This Following Mutual — Can I Unfollow Someone Any Time?
Unlike LinkedIn or Facebook, Twitter does not require that two people follow each other. In other words, you can follow a celebrity like Bill Gates and he does not have to follow you.
How Do You Send a Private Twitter Message (also called a Direct Message)?
If you want to type a message to someone on Twitter (and have only them see it), you type the letter “d” (for “direct”) immediately before their Twitter name (note: you can only do this to someone who is following you).
Check out here for more on How You Send a Private Message.
How Does ReTweeting Work?
If you see a tweet that you think your followers will find valuable, then you can retweet it by clicking the Retweet icon next to the tweet (that Tweet will now show up on the list of tweets that your followers will see).
Check out this link for more on How ReTweeting Works.
Hash-Tagging Your Tweets (or How To Get Your Tweets Grouped With Other Like-Tweets)
The Twitter community came up with its own way to categorize Tweets called “hash-tagging.”
So, if you want your Tweet to be grouped with other like Tweets (so that they can be found by Twitter’s search engine or by other sites such as HashTags.org, you simply add a “#” symbol before a word in your Tweet.
For example, if you were going to an industry conference called the “Awesome Summit,” you could do a tweet that says: “I’m headed over to the #AwesomeSummit” and then your tweet will be grouped with anyone else’s tweet that also tagged “AwesomeSummit.”
That way, you and the other folks who have that hash-tag in common can more easily find each other.
Twitter provides lists of popular hash-tagged terms.
Here’s a list of tweets about the subject Warren Buffett.
The Main Things I Use Twitter For in Business:
To Mention or Praise Someone Else on Twitter
To mention someone, you simple type the @ sign before their Twitter name into the “What’s Happening?” field on Twitter
So, for example, if you wanted to refer to me in your Twitter post, you would say something like: “Congrats to @RobDunsonKelly on his useful blog.” 
If one of your followers clicks on the “@RobDunsonKelly” then they will see my Twitter page with all my most recent posts
note: the person you mention can see that you mentioned them through the right-hand side of their Twitter home page (or by using one of a number of tools such as TweetDeck).
To Share Links to Web Pages
Twitter can be a more efficient way to reference a Web page than the traditional method of email since it’s faster for you to do (you don’t have to type in the recipients names into Twitter) and it is then searchable by the Twitter community (your email isn’t searchable by others).
To reference a page on the Web using Twitter, you can: A) Paste in the URL into the “What’s Happening?” field on Twitter (e.g. @RobDunsonKelly wrote an interesting article on Twitter Tips at http://www.purchase.com/blog/social-media/twitter-tips-for-beginners).
This is a fine approach but since Twitter allows you only 140 characters (including spaces), you won’t be able to fit some URls in (my previous example is 134 characters so it just made it).
How to Shorten a URL
To shorten a URL, you can use a URL shortening service such as bit.ly or tinyurl.com. I prefer bit.ly since its URLs are shorter and it also provides analytics (so you can see how many people click on the URL you put up on Twitter).
To shorten a URL on bit.ly, for example, just go to http://bit.ly and type the URL you want shortened into the field at the top and then bit.ly will provide you with a shorter URL (which will forever point to the original URL you wanted to share (unless bit.ly were to go out of business and screw the people who have shortened hundreds of millions of link).
There are also services such as TweetDeck which will automatically shorten a URL for you (you just type in the original URL and TweetDeck will shorten for you using bit.ly, TinyURL or another URL shortening service you choose).
I Post Links to Jobs Using Twitter & bit.ly
I’ve found it super-useful to refer to job postings I know about using Twitter/bit.ly — it’s quick and I can then see how many people clicked on the URL and where they came from (Twitter versus LinkedIn or Facebook (assuming I posted the job there too which I often do).
Cool Way To Read (or Post) All Your Status Updates/Streams From One Place
Finally, if you use more than one of the following social networks: Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook or MySpace, you may want to try one a tool such as TweetDeck or HootSuite or Seesmic.
These tools can allow you to both read and post through multiple social networks at once!
I use TweetDeck which requires you to download software to your hard drive. HootSuite is a competing tool that offers a little less functionality than TweetDeck but it is Web-based so it can be used by you on any computer that has Web access.
Check out this video that gives you a quick demo of TweetDeck, HootSuite as well as two other related tools called NetVibes and Ping.fm…Seesmic is another player in this space though they’re not in the video.
And if you want to follow me on Twitter, just go to RobDunsonKelly and click “follow.”
