How to Measure Your Twitter Impact with FREE Twitalyzer

 If you are taking advantage of social media marketing, wouldn’t it help to know how well you’re doing on Twitter?

Twitalyzer can give you the lowdown on how you’re doing on Twitter!

What is Twitalyzer?

In their own words, from the website:

“Twitalyzer is a unique tool to evaluate the activity of any Twitter user and report on relative influence, signal-to-noise ratio, generosity, velocity, clout, and other useful measures of success in social media.”

As of February 22, 2010, Twitalyzer LLC is part of Tweetmeme’s new Follow Button. ”Twitalyzer was the only solution we considered to provide Twitter user behavioural data,” says Nick Halstead, CEO of TweetMeme. “While primarily a business application, Twitalyzer gives a unique and fascinating view into how millions of people use Twitter, which makes them a perfect integration partner for our Twitter Follow Button.”

Wow! Shouldn’t you be using this to measure your impact on Twitter?

Impact, as defined by Twitalyzer, is a combination of these factors:

• The number of followers a user has
  
• The number of unique references and citations of the user in Twitter
  
• The frequency at which the user is uniquely retweeted
  
• The frequency at which the user is uniquely retweeting other people
  
• The relative frequency at which the user posts updates
  

 The Twitalyzer dashboard has nine completely unique reports not to be found anywhere else, such as:

Integrated Click Tracking: For those businesses and organizations using bit.ly and j.mp for URL shortening, Twitalyzer provides click counts for those links as part of the Twitalyzer dashboard.

Set and Work Towards Goals: Twitalyzer is unique in allowing users to establish goals for their use of Twitter and presenting those goals both in the Twitalyzer Dashboard and also the Trends report. 

Integration with Google Analytics: Twitter is a means to an end, which is generating revenue, gathering leads, or driving visitor engagement on your web site. Twitalyzer is integrated with Google Analytics to bridge the gap between Social Media and your investment in the online channel.

Add Notes and Annotation: Twitter is a fast-paced medium and it's easy to forget what changed. The notes and annotation feature allows Twitalyzer Dashboard users to add context to their trend reports and evaluate their success against changes in strategy, plan, or execution.

Rich Sentiment Analysis: Businesses and brands spend a lot of time monitoring the conversation for detractors and negative commentary. The Twitalyzer Dashboard Sentiment report makes this job a whole lot easier by highlighting positive and negative sentiment Tweets in a fully configurable model.

Easy to Read Summary Metrics: Twitalyzer was built by a team of web analytics professionals with nearly a decade of experience in data presentation and visualization.

Powerful Interactive Charts and Graphs: Twitalyzer users spend a lot of time evaluating their success in Social Media, and to make them more successful there is powerful charting and graphing tools designed to accelerate time to insight.

There are even more features, but you can learn more about Twitalyzer from this video:

 

 

Believe it or not, Twitalyzer  is 100% completely FREE! This can be an invaluable tool for enterprising entrepreneurs who want to track their social media marketing efforts with Twitter!

Twitter Made Easy: A Social Media Marketing Guide for Newbies

Do you want to try social media marketing with Twitter but are unsure where and how to start?

Here are some basic steps to getting started that may help you get on in there and at least get your feet wet in the Twitter stream:

• First, create a Twitter account. Heads up: Choose a username that incorporates the name of your ecommerce business if at all possible. For example, if your website is named happycamper.com, then try to get “happy camper” as your Twitter user name. This is using good SEO and also helps to build your brand!

• Spend some time writing a killer profile bio. You are limited to 160 characters, so you’ll have to choose your words wisely! Again, use good SEO practices and work in as many of your major keywords as you possibly can.

• Get a free Twitter custom background. Choose one that reflects your business; add your business logo, name, and everything else you can. This also works to build your brand even though the search engines won’t pick up content on backgrounds. Other Twitter users will see your custom background so it helps to make it memorable.

• Do upload a photo. Remember, this isn’t about who is the fairest in the land, it’s about making yourself more personable and humanizing yourself. You may consider yourself so ugly you could hire out to haunt houses, but never mind. Post a photo of yourself anyway!

• Now that you’ve gotten registered, composed your profile bio, gotten a great background and posted a photo---start getting a feel for Twitter. Basically, you should just lurk for a few days until you have a pretty good idea of how things are done. Observe the social niceties and mind your manners!

• Start participating. You can do a Twitter search to find others whose interests correlate with your industry. Once you find them, follow them & when there is a good opening for you to comment---go ahead. Don’t follow every Tom, Dick & Harriet on Twitter or try to amass thousands of followers yourself just to have them. Twitter isn’t a numbers game. It’s better to have 500 qualified followers whose interests correspond to your business than 5,000 of any and everybody.

• Establish yourself as a trustworthy, interesting Twitter user who shares entertaining, informative or other valuable info with others, and you will soon garner plenty of good followers!

• Be consistent and plan to spend a certain amount of time on Twitter every day.

Think of social media marketing as a garden---you prepare the ground, sow the seeds, cultivate and tend the crop, and ultimately enjoy a rich harvest.

10 Tips on How to Build and Manage Your Identity with Social Media

Are you doing everything you can do to build and manage your ecommerce identity with social media marketing?

Your personal business brand is who you are and what you are about. Your brand equals your reputation, so it is vital to your online success to build your brand the right way from the ground up.

Here are some tips for building and managing your personal ecommerce brand:

1. If you don’t have a blog, start one! This will give people a chance to connect and interact with you.

2. Let people get to know about you…your business, what you’re all about. Invest some thought and time into your “About” page and write it so that readers will get a good feel for what your brand stands for.

3. Find a new way to say what your business is about, or barring that---put a new spin on an old tried and true expression. Whichever it may be, make it uniquely your own.

4. Find people on social sites that are relevant to your business, or who have interests that correlate with your industry, and follow them. Don’t feel as though you have to be a Yes man or woman with these folks. If you disagree, or have an opinion that doesn’t exactly coincide with one of theirs, don’t be timid about airing your own views, in a very polite and respectful way, or course.

5. Be real. It doesn’t pay to be a phony on the internet. Rest assured that others will pick up on it really quick if you are not sincere and honest about what you say and how you represent yourself and your brand.

6. Stay up to date on your knowledge of the online world. The World Wide Web is in a constant state of flux, always changing and evolving. Make sure that you keep up with things so that you don’t come across as old hat or dated.

7. Keep your brand fresh and updated by continually adding new content. For example, your blog posts should reflect what is new and fresh on the internet or within your industry.

8. Generate some buzz about your business by getting on the good side of the Influencers on the social sites you are using. Remember, these people can be of immeasurable value to you because they influence many, many others! If they say something good about you, or Retweet you on Twitter, for instance---it will carry a lot of weight.

9. When you post on a social site, make it a contribution that will be of value to others. You might share a funny joke, anecdote or cartoon…..or an informative, educational message…but whatever message you put out there, make it something worth sharing.

10. If at all possible, choose a username on social sites that mentions your business/brand name. This will come in very handy when it comes to being remembered!

Build your identity online to grow your ecommerce business!

Are You Committing Social Media Marketing Suicide?

Is your social media marketing campaign working for you, or is it more in the nature of a kamikaze mission?

Social media marketing on sites such as Twitter and Facebook can do wonders for your online business IF you use them correctly.

However, if you are making major mistakes in your social media campaigns, you might be on the fast track to the ecommerce graveyard!

Here are some common mistakes that you don’t want to make in social media marketing:

• Too Many Advertisements. This is a huge no-no! Internet users in general and social site members in particular find pop-up and flashing ads extremely annoying. Ditto for too many ads of any kind! If you have any sly thoughts about disguising your ads as regular content---forget it! Web folks are savvy to that sort of subterfuge and you will find yourself a social site pariah in nothing flat by using those tricky techniques.

• Spamming. Never, ever spam! Don’t send blanket messages to every one of your followers or people on your Friends list, either, or this can be considered spammy behavior. Only send messages where they are relevant. Every one of your followers may not be interested in the same things, so try to keep your messages pertinent to the recipients.

• No option to share. Make it as easy as possible for your content to be shared. On Twitter, for example, you can ask for your message to be shared by including “Please RT,” which translates to “Please retweet.” The best and fastest way to get your content passed along is to make it easy and painless for readers!

• Being selfish. Don’t just share your own content! Pass along any message or post by other users that is interesting, entertaining and/or informative to others.

• Only using one social site. You don’t want to spread yourself too thin and wind up not doing a good job of marketing at any site, but it doesn’t pay to put all of your eggs into one basket, either. Try several of the most popular social sites, and then narrow it down to two or three that work best for you.

Don’t make mistakes that amount to social media marketing suicide!

How to Write Effectively for Twitter

Since you are limited to 140 characters, it is imperative that you write effectively for Twitter.

Here are some tips to help you make the most of every tweet:

• Write with a clear purpose. Make every tweet count by writing your Twitter messages succinctly and straight to the point. There should be a reason for every tweet! While you don’t want to blatantly hawk your ecommerce wares, you do need to tweet about things that are relevant to your industry, at least most of the time. It is always best if you can tweet about things that are important to you…something that you believe in. Keep it real! Be honest, because other users can spot a phony!

• Write consistently and often. You cannot join a social site such as Twitter; throw out a couple of tweets and then sit back to wait for the benefits to come rolling in. It doesn’t work like that. To enjoy success in social media marketing, you should send messages on a regular, consistent basis. You don’t have to tweet every hour on the hour. In fact, you would undoubtedly end up blocked by many or most users if you did that. But do find out when the most optimal times are to tweet, and make it a part of your daily routine to post messages during those times.

• Make good friends and good enemies, as well. While it’s important to cultivate high quality, relevant friends on Twitter, the fact is that we humans find conflict exciting, and having a couple of good enemies can be quite helpful. This is not the same as becoming that annoying pest of the internet---the troll. You should choose a subject other than politics or religion, hopefully something relevant to your industry, and have a spirited debate about it with another member who has conflicting views. For example, if your online store sells inflatable boats, you might argue the advantages over regular boats made of wood, fiberglass or aluminum. Keep it civil! Don’t let the controversy go on and on, have a stopping point clearly in mind from the get-go.

Effective writing for Twitter can help you maximize the time you spend on social media marketing!

Top 10 Tips for Boosting Social Media Productivity

Even though you are aware of the importance of social media in today’s ecommerce, if you are like most entrepreneurs, you wear a lot of hats and need to optimize the time you spend on social media marketing.

Here are 10 timely tips to help you improve your social media productivity:

1. Take advantage of some of the simple yet effective FREE tools available online to maximize the time you spend on social media marketing. Here is an article with links to some great free tools:

Twitter Management Tools for eCommerce Social Media Marketing

2. Maximize your messages! When it comes to Twitter, especially, with its 140 character limit for tweets---you must choose your words and your messages wisely! So, pack as much of a punch as you possibly can into the messages you send and really make each one count! Think quality rather than quantity!

3. Be choosy about the company you keep. There is no point whatsoever in trying to form close relationships with everybody on every social site you frequent. Instead, focus on the members who offer the most value.

4. Try all of the most popular social sites such as Facebook, Twitter and MySpace, then experiment to see which ones give you the most bang for your buck, so to speak. Once you’ve narrowed it down to two or three---concentrate on those and forget the others.

5. Have a blog. This is probably one of the most important and effective things you can do for your ecommerce business! Blogs are part and parcel of the whole social media scene, and if you do it right, you can build up quite a following of readers. Don’t try to make your blog all about your business!

6. Organize and schedule the time you spend on social media. Otherwise, it can take over your life the way Kudzu vine has swallowed up the entire South if you let it. Allocate X amount of minutes or hours at specified times, and stick to your schedule.

7. Don’t waste time on duplicate effort! There are free tools available that allow you to post across several social sites simultaneously. This saves a lot of time!

8. Use batch processing! If you can set aside even a couple of hours a week to devote to one aspect of social media marketing, it can be a big help in maximizing your efforts. For instance, if you have a business blog, take2-3 hours every week and write blog posts, or just research material for blog posts so that you will have a clear idea of what you’re going to write before you start, which is a huge timesaver. One trick many bloggers use is to take their laptops somewhere nice and comfy---offline---where they can write with no distractions.

9. Use an RSS feeder for reading blogs and articles that help keep you up-to-date on current events and trends, things you need to know about for social media marketing. Trying to plow through them one-by-one is a lengthy and time consuming process.

10. Use a filter such as PostRank to help you weed out the blogs and articles you don’t want to keep up with, and keep the rest in order of importance.

The time you spend on social media marketing will pay you back with dividends, especially if you use that time wisely!

Social Media Marketing Trends for 2010

A recent study conducted by International Data Corporation showed some interesting trends for social media marketing this year!

The study took a look at such things as Web 2.0, social media and more, as regards ecommerce use and “the intersection of Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0 and collaboration.”

"Of the more than 4,700 U.S. workers we surveyed, 57% currently leverage social media for business purposes at least once a week," said Caroline Dangson, IDC research analyst, Enterprise Collaboration and Social Solutions program. "This survey illustrates that social media is becoming mainstream in the business world just as it has in the consumer world."

In fact, one thing that most internet research analysts all agree on is that social media will become progressively more mobile in 2010.

Blackberry, iPhone, smartphones, all of these are currently in use for social media, and it is expected for that usage to steadily increase. This mat be due, in part, to the fact that at present approximately 70% of organizations are banning social networks for employees.

Thus, instead of taking a smoke break, we will probably be seeing more and more workers taking a social media break to tweet or retweet, respond to a comment on their Facebook wall, or something similar.

Another predicted trend is that sharing on the internet no longer refers to forwarding an email.

Instead, we will see more people sharing with networks what they used to share with people in their email address book. Since it is now possible, and even encouraged, to share an article, funny story or comment across a whole network such as Facebook or Twitter, more internet users will use this method of sharing as opposed to via email.

Analysts are also predicting more hard-and-fast company rules about social media policy---everything from how to conduct yourself as an employee to what is considered competition.

Yet another prediction for 2010 is that more companies will look to give better customer service at a cheaper cost through social media. Best Buy’s Twelpforce is a good example of this.

There is no doubt that social media marketing for ecommerce will see expanded growth during 2010!

Building Customer Loyalty: What NOT to Do

Building customer loyalty is something that all good ecommerce entrepreneurs strive for, and while it is important to know what to do in order to build loyalty; it’s probably equally important that you know what not to do.

Here are some No-Nos to bear in mind about building customer loyalty in your ecommerce business:

Too Many Distractions: It’s natural to want to have all the bells and whistles on your website, but please remember that the idea is to have an easy, user friendly experience that leads visitors to the desired destination; which is of course a purchase. Don’t have so many flashing graphics and pop-ups that visitors get distracted and lose sight of why they came to your site in the first place. Too many distractions will actually annoy rather than entertain, so keep these things to a bare minimum!

Yesterday’s News: A sure fire way to antagonize visitors is to have a big blurb on your home page promoting a wonderful sale with free shipping, and then let the shopper discover at checkout that the sale and free shipping ended several days ago. Having outdated information on your website is unprofessional and downright sloppy. Besides having some peeved customers, it will make you look untrustworthy. This also applies to items that are out of stock. Delete those items from your online catalog, or at the very least, prominently display the information that an item is temporarily out of stock and let shoppers know when it will be available again. Offer to notify them when the item is back in stock.

Difficult to Navigate: One of the very worst things you can do NOT to build customer loyalty is to have a clunky, slow, and hard to navigate website. Internet shoppers are notoriously impatient! If you can’t offer them an easy to navigate, streamlined and efficient website---they’ll go somewhere else. It’s just that simple. A surprising number of ecommerce websites are fine right up until the checkout process and then drop the ball by having a confusing, frustrating mess right at the most critical stage. Make sure that your checkout process is fast and smooth as silk to keep customers coming back!

According to a study conducted by WebSideStory, a returning customer is at least eight times more likely to make a purchase from you.

So, do the right things to build customer loyalty and keep those visitors coming back for more!

Twitter Management Tools for eCommerce Social Media Marketing

Although many ecommerce entrepreneurs realize the benefits of social media marketing, the main thing that seems to hold them back is time, and these FREE tools can help you with time management with Twitter.

CoTweet: Designed for businesses that are taking advantage of social media platforms to build their brand and promote their online businesses, CoTweet supports customer support as well as marketing communication. You can monitor keywords and trends, get email notifications when updates are sent to your Twitter accounts, manage up to 5 Twitter accounts through a single CoTweet login, and assign updates to your colleagues for follow-up. Used by such mega corporations as jetBlue, Pepsi, Ford, Sprint, Starbucks, and many more---this FREE service is a proven winner!

CoTweet

Chirpstats: This FREE service is a Twitter based analytics package that was developed to help you track and learn more about your follower base. To use it, you simply follow Chirpstats on Twitter and they will send you your first update within a couple of days. It will tell you who is following you, and who quits following you, which is a useful thing to know. Your follower history is graphed out over time. They have new features on the way: Follower Analytics Package, so stay tuned!

Chirpstats

Mr. Tweet: This one calls itself your “personal networking assistant.” It helps you find Twitter users with interests that are relevant to your business by filtering through millions of users and presenting you with a list of 200 relevant people whom you might be interested in following. You are able to recommend people, also. There is a Firefox plugin available, too.

Mr. Tweet

FriendorFollow: This is a very simple to use web app that tells you who you are following that is not following you back, as well as vice versa. There is also a Twitter growth chart, a top 100 most followed users, plus the top 100 that are following the most users.

FriendorFollow

Remember that apps and useful tools for Twitter are being developed and added almost every day, so you should check for new ones that might be beneficial to you on a regular basis.

4 Must-Have Social Media Marketing Tools for eCommerce

Social media marketing can be enormously effective for building your ecommerce business if it is used correctly, and the following 4 tools can help you do that!

1. Facebook:

Facebook celebrated its 6th birthday last month in February, and had 400 million users worldwide at that time. According to ComScore, Facebook is the leading social networking site based on number of unique monthly visits.

Based on a recent study by Alexa, the fastest growing demographic is users over 35, so if you have gotten the impression that Facebook is mostly populated by a gaggle of giggling teenagers---wrong.

Now that Facebook has added Payvment, a retail storefront page, many internet analysts predict that this social site may well be the next big online shopping mall.

2. YouTube: Video sharing is HOT! YouTube has literally hundreds of millions of videos viewed daily, and if you have an ecommerce business, making a good instructional how-to video that correlates with your industry would be an exceptionally good move!

People all over the world love to watch movies!

3. LinkedIn: With over 50 million users, this is the place to go for business networking. You can link your account to your Twitter tweets, and also show your WordPress blog on your LinkedIn home page.

Sweet!

4. Twitter: A Nielsen report from September 2009 said that Twitter had a growth rate of 343% year over year. Wow! You are only allowed 140 characters in your Twitter posts, or tweets, so you have to become adept at choosing your words wisely.



Dell Computers has used Twitter to grow their sales by leaps and bounds, and this social site is just as effective for small ecommerce businesses as it is for the giants.

ComScore released some very surprising statistics about Twitter last April. It seems that the 45-54 year old age group is the demographic most on the rise on this social site.

Again, if you are laboring under the misapprehension that Twitter is kid stuff---think again!

These four social media tools can help you build your brand and generate some business-boosting buzz that will help to grow your online store!