itsnever2l8: June 2012

Right now, everywhere you look, people are engaging in social media. From what I have personally observed on my own Twitter timeline I think it’s safe to say that men and women are using this social media tool in a very different manner. In fact, a recent study at the University of Hertfordshire, United Kingdom shines a light onto this very subject. The results are illuminating to say the least.

Did you know that the way men and women entrepreneurs interact using Twitter is very different? Men ‘tweet’ about business 46 per cent more than women, showing even their more casual conversations involve business.

The study analyzed nearly 5,000 tweets from twelve influential entrepreneurs over a month and found that male users sent 61% more self-promotional tweets than their female counterparts.

Professor Karen Pine of the University of Hertfordshire, said: “It’s been interesting to see how men are using social media as an extension of the board room or playing field where they typically have to lead the competition and dominate.

She also observes: “Women use social media far less aggressively, and they tend to use it more socially to build contacts and network with people, as is often the case in the ‘real world’.”

This report focuses on how female entrepreneurs are using Twitter as a means of spreading brand awareness, establishing credibility, generating new business, increasing website traffic and engage with customers on both an intimate and mass level. Twitter has been incorporated into their company’s overall marketing strategy, and the vast majority of female entrepreneurs are reaping the benefits through increased direct sales, online sales, brand exposure and reputation management.

One key characteristic of all successful female entrepreneurs is that they have laser vision. They find a ‘niche’ in a particular market and find a way to fill it. They give life to their vision/business on a personal level or are finding a way to make it happen. This ‘vision’ keeps them focused and able to bring visibility of their product or service to the market.

Brand Awareness
Spreading brand awareness involves using the right social media strategy whereby you can communicate directly with your customers, create engaging discussion topics, and help your marketing go viral at breakneck speed. Twitter can boost the prominence of your online brand-awareness and organically propel your business to the top of local search results on Google.

The social media landscape has become complicated for many marketers. The good news is that there is a solution and it’s not complex at all. What we do recognize is that Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Groupon, Flickr and Foursquare, and Facebook Deals have joined in the ever-increasing competition for local businesses marketing dollars.

For many, interactive marketing options have become unduly complex and so has their criteria requirements for search engine optimization. With all the recent changes in Google algorithms, search engine optimization is now aimed at delivering more relevant and personalized information to its searchers.

With all the social media tools currently available many marketers and business owners don’t know where to focus their online efforts. In order to achieve the maximum Return On Investment (ROI) they must keep up with the rapidly changing social media landscape. In the past some marketers have used a combination of trial and error strategies and tactics. Some have been wildly successful for certain brands, yet it has not worked well for other brands.
Companies marketing a national brand understand all too well the importance of having your locations rank prominently in geo-specific searches. The goal for those who have multi-location businesses such as restaurants, retail locations and hotel chains is to make your business prominent across the web. Prominence is one of the primary factors used by Google in local search rankings.

An active social media program includes a combination of utilizing Facebook, Twitter, Yelp, Youtube, and Group-Buying sites such as Groupon or LivingSocial.

Facebook: Building a Facebook fan base is an incredible place to begin. Many start by showcasing their product or service as research has shown that 40% of Facebook users also follow a brand. What’s even better is that more than half users will purchase that brand. Facebook ‘likes’ have been proven to be a speed-marketing tool that spreads brand awareness virally. This is accomplished by delivering information to the news feeds of everyone who has befriended your loyal customer base of brand fans.

Twitter: Many know that Twitter is the tool to keep in touch with customers. Statistics reveal that 1 in 4 Twitter users follows a brand, and 67% of those brand-followers will end up purchasing that specific brand. Tweets that engage consumers are the ones that provide them with helpful information about your business and services. Many tweet about special offers, and this is a great way to grab the attention of your Twitter followers.

Establishing Credibility, Generate New Business and Increase Website Traffic (through Customer Reviews): When you encourage your customers to rate and review your business you get massive exposure. A Mashable report by Ben Parr dated Feb 11, 2001 discussed this very issue: Yelp’s Growth is Accelerating, Despite Increasing Competition from Groupon and Google. Customers or potential customers are hungry for knowledge. They love online reviews because they can see what others are really thinking about a product or service before they make the decision to buy. Additionally, reviews on socially interactive sites such as Yelp improve your search engine rankings and drive free web traffic.

As of late 2010, Yelp.com boasted more than 39 million monthly unique visitors. The site combines local review and social networking to create a local online community. The user reviews create a reputation system. Each visitors can see which contributing users are the most popular, respected, and prolific, how long each has been a member, and which user has interests similar to theirs. In addition Yelp has a forum for online socialization and to discuss local businesses and events.

YouTube: Who wouldn’t want to leverage the power of YouTube in local search results? Embedded videos in Google Place Pages, websites, and social profile pages are the key components to showcase your products and services while you put a face and emotional connection to your business.

Group Buying Sites: Groupon or LivingSocial are just two examples of subscription based coupon sites. Customers are encouraged to try your product and are notified about it via email marketing. The idea of promotional deals is not a new one. Its benefits are that it’s a fast and easy way to create buzz and spread the word about your business or service without spending money on costly advertising. Both Groupon and LivingSocial have huge subscriber bases that encourage your customers to try your product and service for the first time. The marketing and engagement goal is to create repeat customers that visit your site and will try other products that you have to offer, and recommend your product or service to others.

When you are able to create an engaging social media program, it makes it easy for your customers to find your local business and talk about it online. This will result in an incredible ROI that will amplify your web marketing, generate calls and appointments and boost brand awareness over the long-term.

Did you know Twitter is the fastest growing social network: and its traffic has grown over 600% in the past 12 months? An estimated 10,000+ new accounts are opened every day. According to Mashable, “Women have firmly established their presence on the social web, and account for the majority of users on many popular social media sites.”

Engage With Customers On Both an Intimate and Mass Level
What strikes me about Twitter is how women now have the “opportunity” to not just be heard, but to make a change, make a difference, and make an impact.

Social Media Marketing has brought about a massive change in marketing strategy. Now that we are armed with the facts let’s get back to how to use Twitter as a business connector for female entrepreneurs. Over the years many of us have been invited to join Twitter, add others as friends and are now aware of the limitless applications for using this very powerful tool.

Top 12 Marketing Applications of Twitter
1. Instant Focus Group: Poll your followers to find out what they think about your product or service. This can be accomplished by posting a question, it could include something about your new website’s design, or what they think about the latest guest author to your website’s blog.

2. Giveaways: Some businesses ask or pay a top twitterer to giveaway some of their products for free. Could include an eBook, 15 minute consultation, invitation to an online seminar, the possibilities are endless. The benefits are endless. Invite people to get to know you and what you have to offer.

3. Spread a Message: It’s no wonder that Twitter has been called the ultimate catalyst for ‘word of mouth.’ Twitter is the global chat room where news and ideas can go viral within minutes. Many companies who are offering great deal spread like wildfire on Twitter. These deals are accelerated especially to those who have mobile access to Twitter via SMS. Interesting news spreads quickly and easily.

4. Marketing Research: By entering the word ‘track’ plus the keyword of your choice you can gain immediate updates whenever someone mentions your name, product or service. An example of this is the giant shoe retailer Nike who uses this to monitor what people are saying about their brand (e.g. track Nike).

5. Endorsements: Brittany Spears and Paris Hilton started using Twitter and their followers total in the millions globally. Brittany boasts 7.9 million and Paris boasts 4.0 million. High profile individuals with a devout following love other people’s brands as well, and have the ability to influence people to favor your brand.

6. Provide Valuable Content: When women and businesses provide valuable and useful content people will give you their attention. Both useful information and updates builds goodwill for the brand. When you build passionate followers everyone wins.

7. Direct Leads to Your Website: Many use Twitter to get the word out about products and services on their website. By directing to your site you have the ability to then convert them to customers. A link to your site gives you some added Search Engine Optimization value.

8. Customer Communication: Through Twitter your company can speak to a customer on an intimate level. When you show the depth of your company’s heart and soul and the issues that are relevant you win! A winning strategy shows that companies that monitor Twitter carefully and respond to customer complaints immediately win big points with customers. Dell responds to complaints immediately and posts a resolution on Twitter in the shortest amount of time possible. They can’t afford to lose customers, who can? Many companies who aren’t aware of their customers needs have felt the repercussions of bad press, and a poor online reputation.

9. Have a Conversation: Engage with your audience. Twitter is not a one-sided conversation. When you reply to what someone says you can essentially have a conversation about anything from the lives of consumers to issues that society faces on a daily basis. The possibilities are endless.

10. Companies waste money interrupting strangers: Solution? Take the strangers and turn them into friends by building a permission asset. There are thousands of people out there who are willing to hear your message. Start by attraction, rather than promotion.

11. Spare time, attention and trust are scarce: Therefore, the way your audience allocates their time and resources has changed, also. To attract more customers your company needs to change the way you think. Now, more than ever, you need to compete for their time and attention and earn their trust.

12. Ideas can spread so far and so fast: People are talking about you, and your business. If your thinking is outdated, step aside, because you are going to get run over! The old marketing system gave companies the advantage for manufacturing and distribution for decades. Today, your market power and reputation is what sets you apart.

Twitter has been used as a business connector whereby women are able to communicate to a larger community, promote their blog, and build relationships with short bursts of information. It’s proven to be perfect for on-the-fly updates. Twitter allows you to get into your network of followers and see just who your network is networked into. Many women are finding people who they want to ‘network’ their way into. But it does stop there! Once you have made the connection it’s so important to nurture the relationship. Don’t ask for the connection and then never go back and communicate with them.

We all know women who use Twitter. The women that use Twitter successfully have discovered that their success rested on the following factors:
1. How engaged you are with your network?
2. How engaging are YOU?
3. What value you offer them – Put yourself in their shoes and ask “What’s in it for me?”
Finding followers and engaging in valuable conversations online is key. Example: I loved your comment on XYZ, our backgrounds are similar and I’d love to connect with you further. This puts the relationship in context. Who you are and what you have in common is the best way to start building a relationship.

Communication should be genuine and authentic. No one wants to hear your PR tweet or someone wanting to sell something to you. We want to know who the real person is behind the product, or service. You want to know that, too.

Business should be casual, and your followers want you to understand their needs. Listening is the most important factor when establishing a business connection. The advertiser/consumer relationship needs to be put into perspective. It is no longer a ‘one size fits all’ world any more.

Consumer Usage of Twitter
A U.S. consumer survey conducted in April 2010, where comScore asked men and women how they use Twitter proved interesting enough. Women responded to the question by saying they use Twitter more for finding deals, following celebrities and their own self-defined purposes than to post tweets or read tweets from the people they follow.

Extrapolating data from this chart paints a unique pattern regarding the way men and women shop.
The share of category dollars is very different.

Both men and women visit retail sites in equal amounts. What’s interesting to note is that women spend 20% more time on those sites. As marketers are aware more time spent equates to more money spent in most retail categories. The reason being is that women buy more frequently than men do.

Women’s spending habits are significantly different. They spend more money on apparel and accessories, with their dollars accounting for 71% of all dollars spent in that category in the U.S. for February, 2010. Additional money is spent on books and music, toys, and video games and consoles.

The comScore study concludes that women are also driving growth on group-buying sites. They make up the majority of the U.S. audiences on both Groupon (62%) and LivingSocial (67%).

It’s true that many female entrepreneurs use Twitter as a business connector to promote their products and services, but there’s a completely different side to Twitter. Many non-profit organizations have used it to bring about awareness to their cause and do some good. Others have used their philanthropy to join women together in empowering communities both online and offline.

A Vanity Fair article that was written in January of 2010 titled “America's Tweethearts” caused a huge uproar, and rightfully so. The spotlight illuminates women who are heavily engaged in using Twitter. Who’s featured? The social strategist Julia Roy, publicist Sarah Evans, travel journalist Stefanie Michaels, actress Felicia Day, lifecaster Sarah Austin and marketer Amy Jo Martin. These women use their social media savvy to promote themselves or the people and causes they believe in; but this article focuses on Twitter as an enormous and hollow popularity contest.
In my opinion, the article couldn’t be further from the truth.

Vanity Fair magazine missed an opportunity to highlight the accomplishments of all of these six high profile entrepreneurial women. Collectively they have more than five million followers, which for anyone currently using Twitter is a difficult thing to do. When you think about it for a moment that number it is huge! At present, President Obama has 8.2 million followers. What’s obvious is that people are clearly interested in what these women have to tweet about. All the women featured have reputations for working hard and really “getting” the power of Twitter marketing and conversation.

For example, did you know one of the women featured wrote, created, acted, and produced in one of the most successful online projects of all time? Her name is Felicia Day. She re-invented and legitimized web television. She’s a breaking down barriers kind of woman who used her brains to create an award winning American Comedy web series called The Guild. She just happened to use Twitter to get her message out to the masses.

When you really think about it on an exponential level, each of those 5 million people also has followers. Each of those people might in turn, comment and spread the word to those who follow them. If you really think about it the possibilities are endless.
Twitter has proven to have legitimate value as a business and marketing vehicle. And, the reality is its power users are using Facebook's Twitter app exclusively for its brand-marketing “fan pages” highlights this. It’s safe to say that print media has drastically changed over the years, whereas an online presence has gone from being “trendy” and a “fad” to something that’s imperative to those doing business both offline and online. Twitter has brought visibility to the masses and has enabled women entrepreneurs to expand their brand.

Clearly the lesson learned for VF’s journalist would have been to write a more optimistic post and portrayal of the six women. When you think about it these women are the ones considered to be influential users. An article could have been written that appeals to Twitter users as well as motivated women entrepreneurs everywhere. Perhaps it could have motivated women who were thinking of becoming an entrepreneur to take action and actually take the first step to becoming one. The six women featured in this article could have reveled in an avalanche of responses from Twitter. The results could have been so much different, a wider audience, not to mention positive media coverage all around.

On the other hand, Forbes wrote a very different article about women on Twitter called “14 Power Women To Follow On Twitter.” This article focuses on women and their online empires, and chronicles why these women are worthy of the countless followers they have amassed over time. When you think about it there’s a new generation of Twitter powerhouses. Move over Oprah, these women tweeters have brands that are soaring. These are the same women who have found their niche and are capitalizing on it. They use their work, their personalities, their skills as writers, and now, their Twitter followers to spread the word virally.

I love the quote that says “These ‘twilebrities’ are constructing digital empires by building brands from the ground up. They are not only experts, but also extraordinarily engaging, hard working, interactive and responsive to their communities. And they are deserving of your follow.”

The Forbes list is respectful of every one of these women on their list.
Twitter has made it easier for women to reach out to real experts in real-time. It’s a personable experience. In all honesty there’s quite the broad spectrum of women featured on Forbes. The partial list ranges anywhere from Jessica Weiner, a self-described “actionist” who focuses on inspiring young women, to Liz Gumbinner, a Brooklyn mother who works hard to maintain solid relationships with the important people in her field. And last but not least author Juliette Powell who wrote 33 Million People in the Room. The book is a crash course in social media. Her network is enviable, not to mention her A-list clientele. Many call her the ultimate connector.

It’s not difficult to find interesting people to follow, and they have the option to choose to follow you back. Many have found other Twitter users have been the first to initiate contact by following you, and they like what you have to say. This list includes your real life friends and contacts. Initially, this is how most of us build our own following and when we follow others, we seek out those we know. But the real connection begins when you follow someone back.

Twitter etiquette allows you to follow or to be followed by people who you do not know offline. Twitter is a powerful way of building a social network, making new introductions and accessing interesting and varied content. http://wefollow.com is a site whereby you can enter a tag and discover who’s the ‘Most Influential’ and has the ‘Most Followers.’ The Top Tags are ranked by the following areas: Celebrity, Music, Socialmedia, Entrepreneurs, News, Blogger, Tech, TV, Actor, Comedy… and there’s an ever expanding list of categories. One example of how I have personally found influencial users on Twitter is by entering “entrepreneurship” into the search engine. This term reveals 1052 users, and from this list one can glean exactly who they want to follow and also see how their follower base has recently expanded by looking at the amount of NEW followers. These users are located virtually all over the world. I added the women or groups that I wanted to follow. Seeing who followed the followers was key. Being an entrepreneur means that many entrepreneurs or like-minded people will follow you. You can therefore pick and choose the ones that resonate with you just by doing some simple research by clicking on their site and seeing what they are tweeting about.

What are the Objectives of Twitter and How Can They be Measured?
Objective Measures
Extend reach of existing corporate messages online (e.g. news, speeches, web updates, YouTube videos) by building relationships with relevant audiences including intermediaries, stakeholders, and key influencers such as journalists and other bloggers Number of followers; relevance and type of followers; number of web traffic referrals from Twitter to your website content.

Provide an informal, ‘human’ voice of the organization to promote comprehension of and engagement with your corporate message(s) Feedback from followers (unsolicited and solicited)

Provide thought leadership and credibility, increasing your visibility as the experts tweet within the online space Feedback from followers (unsolicited and solicited); number of re-tweets (Twitter users repeating your updates); clickthroughs from your tweets

Provide an additional, low-barrier method for audiences to
interact with the company to provide feedback, seek help, and suggest ideas Volume and quality of @reply and DM contact (Direct Message) from followers; the impact of this feedback is relevant

Monitors mentions on Twitter of our brand, engaging with your critics and key influencers to resolve problems/dissatisfaction and correct factual inaccuracies, and with satisfied customers to thank them for and amplify their positive comments.

Qualitative assessment of individual cases of turning negatives to positives and positives into brand advocates

Provide live coverage of events (such as conferences, webinars, radio talk show interview or promotions) Number of events covered per year; positive feedback on that coverage

On Twitter you can post updates that are up to 140 characters in length. This can be accomplished using a variety of applications over the web on your computer or mobile phone. The messages usually address one of two questions “What are you doing now?” or “What holds your attention now”?

A tweet may include links to other websites (using link shortening services such as bitly.com). Two useful terms often used to describe this activity are “microblogging” – blogging in miniature by posting short updates throughout the day about thoughts and findings of interest – and “hyper-connectedness” – the idea of being in constant contact with your network and being aware of what holds their attention right now.

Essentially everyone who follows you can read your updates. People can also subscribe to your updates using the RSS feed (Really Simple Syndication) and they can receive your updates via their preferred feed reader software or browser start page, without using Twitter, and can also see them in the Twitter public timeline.

Gather evaluation data using a range of methods:
• Web analytics for and clickthroughs from URLs in our tweets http://bit.ly – to track referrals from Twitter to your web pages

• Twitter surveys – regular surveys on Twitter to ask for feedback http://twtpoll.com

• Twitter data – the follower/following data presented in our Twitter account
http://twitterdata.org

• Third party tools – analytics tools including measures based on re-tweeting
(Retweet Radar; Twist) and online reputation (Monitter, Twitter Grader)

• Free Twitter Alerts by Email! – tweetbeep.com good for tracking conversations that mention you, your products, your company, with hourly updates. You can even keep track of who's tweeting your website or blog, even if they use a shortened URL (like bit.ly or tinyurl.com).

• Real time observation - http://twitterfall.com and similar tools

• Analysis of your followers using http://tweepler.com and similar tools

Interaction on Twitter
The way users interact with you is the same way you interact with them. Here are some examples.

@Reply: You can reply to an update posted by another user in your Twitter stream by clicking the reply button or typing @ and then their username atthe start of the message. Anyone following you will see this reply, irrespective of whether they are already following the recipient. (This is one of the ways in which users find new people to follow, as you are effectively introducing that person to your followers by showing his/her username and engaging them in conversation).

DM: You can send Direct Messages to individual users, provided you are ‘friends’ (i.e., you are both following each other). These are private and can only be seen by the sender and recipient. Direct Messages can be used to say thank you for the follow, but are often used to promote goods or services in a direct way.

Re-tweeting: Because people have different networks of followers, it is common to repeat interesting tweets from your own stream for the benefit of all of your followers, preceding it with “Re-tweet:” or just “RT” for short. You do not need permission to do this – it is considered a compliment to the originator to repeat their content. If your retweet is interesting enough it may persuade someone to add this person as a follower.

Hashtags: You can include keywords in your updates in order to associate those updates with a particular event, movement, current trend or issue by adding a hash sign (#) in front of a word. For example at events Twitter users will often agree a common tag to identify themselves to each other and form a Twitter ‘back channel’ for that event. Tagging tweets enables Twitter users to collaboratively document a cultural event, and aggregate all tweets containing that tag on another medium. For example on a blog, projected on screen at the event, or displayed on a map as a visual representation of what is being said in different places about the same issue.

• The Twitter website itself is not the only (or even the main) way that users access or post updates to their Twitter accounts. The majority of Twitter access is via mobile devices (such as Twitter applications on the iPhone), third party desktop applications (such as TweetDeck or Thwirl), web browser plugins (such as Twitterfox) or widgets on personalized homepages (such as iGoogle, Pageflakes or Netvibes).

• What’s possible (and popular) is to include photos and videos in your messages using third party add-ons, such as TwitPic.

• Your Twitter updates can also be integrated with your other social media profiles – for example you can use Twitter to edit your Facebook status updates and show your Twitter updates on your blog, if you have one.

Why is Twitter important?
• Twitter is a place where news often breaks
• This social media tool has established itself as the main source of live update information
• Trending: As everything being discussed on Twitter is by its nature happening now, it is increasingly being used as a way of monitoring and reporting on trends.
• Top Trends are shown on the right hand side: of every Twitter user’s stream, and tracked by other tools (examples include Retweetist, Twitturly and Twitvision). If your company is trending it appears on a top 10 trending list on Twitter itself and further raises your profile and discussion around the events in real time.
• Search Engine Optimization – because it is updated frequently, Twitter content ranks highly on Google, and is therefore an increasingly important way to generate traffic and disseminate messages online.
• 62% of the audience access Twitter from work only, while only 35% access it only from home. This could suggest a trend towards a professional use rather than a recreational use.
• Twitter receives the largest amount of its traffic from the USA, but its penetration is greater in the UK market

The need to see the value of Twitter, and how best to use it effectively as a business connector is as follows: Use Twitter to enhance your social circle, to expand your social network and to learn from the influencers. Find out what influencers read, and what they are talking about. If you want to stay on Top of the News you can do so on Twitt(urly) – which tracks the current top 100 urls on Twitter in all languages. To find out what is Buzzing Right Now use Qik on your smartphone and it’s brings powerful video capabilities to your mobile phone - video chat, video mail, video share. With Twitter can find your own voice, read and provide some fascinating stories, get up to the minute news updates and watch trends.

Any questions?

itsnever2l8

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