Tag Archives: Inbound Marketing

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5 Insights from HubSpot’s The State of Inbound Marketing 2010 Webinar

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Number 5 

HubSpot conducted a webinar on February 18th titled: The State of Inbound Marketing 2010. The webinar focused on key trends in inbound and outbound marketing uncovered from a survey HubSpot conducted in early 2010.  Hubspot's analysis reveals many insights on how businesses are using inbound marketing to reinvent and improve their marketing strategies. This is great content so I've posted the slides in case you didn't have the opportunity to attend the webinar.

The State of Inbound Marketing 2010

Mike Volpe (VP Marketing @HubSpot) and Adam Blake (MIT-Sloan MBA Student) presented many thoughtful insights.  Here are some golden nuggets that really hit home:

Insight 1 – Cost Per Lead for Inbound Marketing Channels is Significantly Lower Versus Outbound Marketing Channels
(Slide 5) Inbound marketing channels (i.e., social media, blogs, SEO – organic / natural search, PPC – paid search / Adwords) cost per lead averaged around $134.  Outbound marketing channels (i.e., telemarketing, trade shows, direct mail) cost per lead averaged around $332 per lead.  Thus, inbound marketing lowered costs per lead by 60%.

Insight 2 – Almost All Inbound Marketing Channels Generate Lower Costs Compared to Any Outbound Channel
(Slides 6, 7) 63% rated social media and blogs as "below average cost" for generating leads.  43% rated SEO as "below average cost."  In addition, these three inbound marketing channels performed better than all outbound marketing channels.  In slide 7, Mike observed that the outbound channel 2010 results for "below average cost" were better than 2009 for all categories.  He noted customers are probably negotiating better terms due to current economic conditions (e.g., a short-term benefit).

Insight 3 - Social Media is One Component of a Healthy Inbound Marketing Mix
(Slide 8) The lesson here: Don't put all your eggs in one basket.  Although respondents rated social media as their most important source of leads, SEO and blogs rated second and third respectively.  In fact, SEO was rated only 1% lower than social media (i.e., 59% to 60%). 

Successful Google results via organic search will continue to be important.  The eMarketer article, Organic Search Still Reigns, reinforces why landing on the first page results of Google, Yahoo!, and Bing is huge.  The rationale: 95% of search-referred traffic comes from first-page results.  Less than 2% of search-referred traffic comes from visitors willing to keep looking after the second page of results.

Insight 4 - Blog Post Frequency Significantly Impacts Customer Acquisition
(Slides 16, 17) Most respondents said they blog primarily once per week.  However, the firms most successful at customer acquisition were those who blogged more (i.e., two to three times per week, daily, multiple times per day). 
Mike and Adam think this is a result of gaining more experience in blogging.  When a firm blogs more frequently, it gets better at writing.  This yields better content which attracts more site traffic (and firms begin investing more time in their company blog).  When HubSpot was a smaller firm, Mike noted it blogged once per week.  When the firm started growing, their blogging frequency increased and they now create blog posts on a daily basis.

Insight 5 - Smaller Companies Implement Inbound Marketing (Larger Firms Not So Much)
(Slide 13) 44% of smaller firms utilize inbound marketing (versus 32% for larger firms).  Mike and Adam cited how smaller firms have more limited marketing budgets (i.e., many are start-ups).  In addition, the larger firms are more established, and they probably achieved their status through outbound marketing.
Insight #5 doesn't surprise me.  It makes sense why smaller firms would look to blogging, social media, and organic search as natural marketing vehicles.  The biggest expense is the investment and prioritization of time to inbound activities.  For the larger firms, I think they look at inbound marketing as additional channels to augment traditional marketing activity.
Check out this blog post: The Fortune 500 and Social Media by Dr. Leslie Gaines-Ross from reputationXchange.com.  It provides some great statistics and data on social media adoption (or lack therof) by the largest US corporations.
What do you think of these findings?  Do these results surprise you?  Please comment and let me know what you think.

Photo Credit: By psd via Flickr

 

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Inbound Marketing by Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah Levels the Marketing Playing Field

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J0105220[1] I am a huge fan of HubSpot and its founders, Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah.  Their team members, Mike Volpe and Rebecca Corliss, generously share outstanding content and services (i.e., Inbound Marketing University) to help all marketing professionals continuously improve and reinvent their marketing skills.  This organization is the epitome of a social media core value: “It is always better to give than to receive.”

 Inbound Marketing Book Cover Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media, and Blogs is an outstanding and practical marketing strategy guide targeted to small and startup businesses.  Halligan and Shah have written this book with small and startup businesses in mind because their book shares numerous insights from their own experiences as entrepreneurs (i.e., Tips from the Trenches).

The Value of This Book.  Inbound Marketing makes a convincing case that marketing success is not limited by the size of our respective marketing budgets.  Instead, these limits are now a function of our own creativity and investment of time.  Inbound Marketing practically explains how small or startup businesses can practically and effectively compete with larger competitors by executing:

* Social media strategy via channels such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.
* A lead nurturing and conversion process
* A sales marketing funnel process to measure campaign ROI


Inbound Marketing Versus Outbound Marketing

What’s Inbound Marketing?   Halligan explains the differences between Inbound Marketing and Outbound Marketing in this blog post: Inbound Marketing vs. Outbound Marketing.

Outbound Marketing = Traditional, “Push / Interruption-Based” Marketing.  The marketer pushes the message out far and wide hoping that it resonates far and wide with the target consumer.

Outbound Marketing tactics include:

  • Trade shows
  • Seminar series
  • Email blasts to purchased lists
  • Internal cold calling
  • Outsourced telemarketing
  • Advertising

Inbound Marketing = “Pull” Marketing Leveraging the Internet.  Any marketing tactic that relies on earning people’s interest instead of buying it.  Inbound marketing focuses on helping yourself “get found” by people already learning about and shopping in your industry. 

Inbound Marketing tactics include: 

  • Search engines
  • Blogs
  • Social media sites

The Inbound Marketing Process Transformation.  Three (3) business activities provide foundation for marketing transformation:

  1. Getting found online
  2. Converting visitors and leads
  3. Analyzing and improving

 

The 6 Practical Benefits of Studying Inbound Marketing

1. Understanding how/why Google plays a signifcant role in your marketing success.  Here, Inbound Marketing explains in non-technical terms why inbound links (e.g., links from other websites that connect to your site or blog) play a vital role in your website’s  “Google Juice” or Google Authority (e.g., the number of inbound links to your web pages and the authority of those pages linking to your site).

2. Executing practical and actionable “to-do” lists at the end of every chapter.  The suggestions are hardly rocket science but they require personal commitment, preseverance, and time.

3. Learning social media marketing tactics for use across all major social media channels.  Halligan and Shah ably provide specific examples on how to effectively deploy blogs, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Digg, StumbleUpon, and YouTube.

4. Measuring the effectiveness of your social media marketing initiatives by channel.  For example, the book guides you on how to compare the effectiveness of a Twitter campaign versus a YouTube campaign.

5. Implementing a lead nurturing process in all marketing campaigns.  Why is this important?  Every prospect is at a different place in the buying cycle for your particular product or service.  Therefore, you want this prospect to have your organization at the “top-of-mind” even when they’re not ready to buy from you (because one day they will be).

6. Informing marketing decisions (e.g., ROI) by creating a sales marketing funnel process.  This process will enable your organization to measure and evaluate campaign yield along with ROI.

 

The 3 Audiences Who Will Benefit from Studying Inbound Marketing 

1. Amateur Bloggers.  You will learn how to build Google Authority for your blog by understanding why you don’t want your blog’s URL address to include the name of your blogging platform.  For example, if your blog’s URL address is www.myblogname.typepad.com or www.myblogname.wordpress.com that’s not good.  Make sure to address this problem — I did and my search engine results are all the better for it.

2. Marketing Professionals (especially CMOs).  You will make better marketing decisions by creating a sales marketing funnel so you can measure campaign effectiveness per channel using campaign yield and ROI measurement techniques.

3. CEOs.  You will learn how to monitor your competitor’s activity and progress by tracking seven (7) attributes.  These attributes can be tracked using free tools on the Internet.  These attributes or tools are:

* Website Grade via WebsiteGrader.com
* Number of Delicious.com bookmarks
* Number of inbound links
* Number of Facebook fans
* Website traffic via Compete.com
* Google Buzz of your brand name relative to a competitor’s brand name

If you’ve read Inbound Marketing, please leave me a comment and let me know what you thought of the book.  I’m curious to know what you found helpful or valuable.

 

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5 Tactics for Optimizing Your Online Visibility in Google Search Results

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Thinking Digital According to the Bloomberg article, Microsoft has Herculean Task in Taking on Google, Americans conducted 65% of their online searches using Google in May 2009. Bing, Microsoft's latest competitive offering, is making some headway and apparently caught the eye of Google co-founder, Sergey Brin (click here for the June 14, 2009 Mashable article). Bing's potential competitive threat benefits all online users because Google will continue improving its core business. This August 10, 2009 Mashable article discusses how Google's engineering team is upgrading the speed, accuracy, size, and comprehensiveness of Google Search. The project is still in beta mode and is code named, Caffeine. In the foreseeable future, Google's online search dominance will continue so understanding its influence and impact on your online visibility is critically important.

Various reputable news sources report signs of an improving U.S. economy, but I'll believe the economic turnaround when I see it. Unfortunately, Corporate America is still conducting layoffs. Therefore, high online visibility to potential networking connections, corporate recruiters, or employers is vitally important. Whenever any of these three contact points researches "your name" on Google, you want to dominate the first and second page search results. If you don't own the majority of the Top 20 Google results, you may as well be invisible.

To boost your online visibility, I suggest the following five tactics. Each tactic is worth your time and effort. Remember that perfection and technical expertise are not a requirement — Just Get Started! The most important critical success factors are your commitment and persistence.

  • Start a Blog
  • Create a Google Profile
  • Participate in the Big Three Social Networking Sites: Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn
  • Post Comments on Other Blogs
  • Register with Frequently Updated Profile Sites (i.e., MyBlogLog, FriendFeed)

Tactic #1: Start a Blog
Blogs rank high in Google search results so this tactic cannot be emphasized enough. The Google algorithm rewards websites with frequently updated content. High ranking blogs are routinely updated on an hourly and daily basis. As a result, blogs garner a distinct advantage in the search engine results pages game (e.g., SERPs). This advantage is exactly why businesses and individuals should implement blogging as the foundation of an online marketing strategy.

For an easy-to-understand primer on how to create and maintain a blog, I highly recommend Dan Schawbel's eBook, Blogging Your Brand: A Complete Guide to Your Success. This well-structured reference literally walks you through a step-by-step process that's accessible to both Beginner and Expert bloggers.

Tactic #2: Create a Google Profile
One of the quickest and easiest ways to achieve a front-page Google search engine result is by creating a Google Profile. Google introduced this service in Spring 2009. For individuals completing a Google Profile, their name and profile is shown as Google search engine result #10 (in a search for that person's name). The Google Profile launch received a lot of press during this time which triggered a "land grab" for individual names. Still, this shouldn't discourage you from filling out an individual profile.

Another important reason for completing a Google Profile is you can use the customized URL created for your Google Profile as a "virtual business card" when posting your comments on other blogs. When you post a blog comment, you want the blog author and other respective commenters to "see who you are." Until I got my blog up and running, I relied on my Google Profile for posting blog comments or other instances when I required a personal web site URL.

If you need more information about Google Profiles, here are some helpful online resources:

Tactic #3: Participate in the Big Three Social Networking Sites: Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn
On June 18, 2009, eMarketer published the article, Facebook Overtakes MySpace. The statistics confirmed Facebook's supremacy as the top social networking site. Additional data I found interesting included how Twitter experienced explosive growth of ~2,700% and LinkedIn grew by 90%. MySpace still ranks as the second largest social networking site, but its traffic and membership are steadily declining. Profiles from these sites rank high in Google Search, but I recommend focusing on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn (especially if you're a social networking newbie). To maximize your online visibility, make sure you consistently employ your real name as your profile username (i.e., www.twitter.com/yourfirstnameyourlastname or www.twitter.com/tonyfaustino or www.facebook.com/tonyfaustino).

Tactic #4: Post Comments on Other Blogs
Commenting on other blogs provides an opportunity to demonstrate your knowledge in a particular subject or industry. In the online world, commenting on another person's blog is the equivalent of attending a face-to-face networking event. Take advantage of this opportunity to make a great impression! Your comments also give Google another means of indexing your name. By consistently posting blog comments, you'll compile a critical mass over time. As a result, Google will display these comments in future search results related to your name.

Also, register with BackType.com so you can maintain an online record of all of your blog comments. You never know when those comments might come in handy for a future blog post.

Tactic #5: Register with Frequently Updated Profile Sites (i.e., MyBlogLog, FriendFeed)
Member profiles in social networks like MyBlogLog.com and FriendFeed rank high in Google Searches because their content is frequently updated. These sites aggregate your activity or updates in other social networking sites such as Twitter or Delicious.com. Therefore, every time you send out a tweet or bookmark an article or website, the activity is automatically recorded as "an information stream." These "information streams" are searchable, indexed, and provide a great opportunity displaying your name in the Top 20 Google Search results.

Photo Credit: By Karl Schneider via Flickr

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LinkedIn Lessons Part 1: Monitoring Your Personal Brand with the Popular Profile Section

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It’s hard to believe I graduated from Washington University twenty-plus years ago.  Since that time, I’ve made many important professional relationships.  “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know” is more than a clever cliché.  Relationships and access to key individuals is vitally important to succeeding in any organization, conducting a job search, executing a strategic plan, or selling a solution.

I started using LinkedIn more than a year ago to build, centralize, and maintain my professional relationships.  LinkedIn is a social networking site targeted to business professionals.  According to its website, LinkedIn counts 43 million+ members in over 200 countries.  In many ways, it’s the business audience version of Facebook.  Similar to growing and keeping in touch with Facebook “friends,” your primary purpose is to grow and maintain your LinkedIn “connections.”

Participation in LinkedIn is Important for Personal Branding and Online Visibility
When I started documenting ideas for The Social Media Reinvention Blog, I naturally thought of writing a LinkedIn-related article, and its importance in personal branding.  Here are some helpful online resources describing the importance of participating in LinkedIn:

·     HOW TO: Build Your Personal Brand on LinkedIn by Dan Schawbel

·     4 Minutes to Optimize a LinkedIn Profile for SEO by HubSpot

·     10 Ways to Use LinkedIn to Find a Job by Guy Kawasaki

Your individual, LinkedIn Profile is a personal branding opportunity that promotes your skills, capabilities, and connections to:

·     Your current employer

·     A prospective employer

·     A prospective connection

Even more importantly, LinkedIn public profiles rank very high in Google Searches which significantly increases your online visibility.  My public LinkedIn profile consistently ranks as my highest Google Search Engine Result when searching for “Tony Faustino.” 

The Popular Profiles Section Measures Your Personal Branding Efforts Within LinkedIn 
LinkedIn Popular Profile Cropped Many LinkedIn features are highly useful in personal branding.  For this post, I will focus on the “Popular Profiles” feature found in the LinkedIn Company Profile Page of a respective company. 

In a LinkedIn Company Profile Page, the top five Popular Profiles are displayed for that respective organization.  According to LinkedIn’s Frequently Asked Questions: Origin of Data for Company Profiles, a Popular Profile is defined as: “These are LinkedIn users who have the most Profile views for the Company Profile page you are viewing.”

Therefore, the Popular Profiles Section measures your LinkedIn Profile’s “findability” or “searchability” to other LinkedIn members.  This is extremely important so I monitor my profile’s popularity on a weekly basis.  This monitoring activity helps me gauge how well I’ve optimized my profile with important keywords and the effectiveness of my comments in various LinkedIn Discussion Group forums.

Note: I checked with LinkedIn Customer Service if the Popular Profile algorithm also factors in the number of views of one’s public profile – it does not (e.g., LinkedIn profiles views resulting from Google Searches).

I’ve Maintained a Popular Profile on my Firm’s LinkedIn Company Page for 22 Consecutive Weeks
Maintaining a Popular Profile on LinkedIn takes significant time and commitment.  When I discovered the Popular Profiles feature, I made it a personal goal to get my profile listed in this section.  Here are the four tactics I employ to continue achieving this result:

·     Optimize Your Profile for Important Keywords (Particularly The Specialties Section)

·     Thoroughly Describe Your Work Experience

·     Frequently Update Your Status with Useful Content

·     Actively Comment in LinkedIn Discussion Group Forums

In LinkedIn Lessons Part 2, I will describe in further detail how I specifically employ these four tactics.

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LinkedIn Lessons Part 2: Four Tactics for Creating a “Popular Profile” on Your Company’s Profile Page

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Note: This blog post is Part 2 of a two-part series on LinkedIn Lessons.  The first blog post is titled, LinkedIn Lessons Part 1: Monitoring Your Personal Brand on LinkedIn with the Popular Profile Section.

For 22 consecutive weeks, I’ve maintained a LinkedIn Profile that’s listed on the Popular Profiles Section of my firm’s Company Profile Page.

Here are the four tactics I employ to continue achieving this result:

·     Optimize Your Profile with Important Keywords

·     Thoroughly Describe Your Work Experience

·     Frequently Update Your Status With Useful Content

·     Actively Comment in LinkedIn Discussion Group Forums

Optimize Your Profile with Important Keywords
LinkedIn Specialties It’s important to include keywords in your profile so a prospective employer, recruiter, or connection can easily find you.  In particular, the Specialties Section provides an outstanding opportunity to highlight your skills and capabilities.  Make sure this section fully lists and describes the knowledge you’ve acquired throughout your entire professional career.  Too often, people make the mistake of not fully elaborating on the many skills they’ve implemented in different jobs.  In the leaner world of Corporate America, you’ve probably developed additional skills that weren’t part of the original job description by frequently multi-tasking.  Make sure you describe those skills in the Specialties Section!

LinkedIn Who Viewed My Profile p1 A leading indicator of your profile optimization is the “Who’s Viewed My Profile” Section.  This section is located on the right side bar of your LinkedIn Home Page.  “Who’s Viewed My Profile” measures how many people recently viewed your profile, and the number of times it appeared in search results.   


Thoroughly Describe Your Work Experience
LinkedIn allows you to host and exhibit your entire resume online.  Take full advantage of this opportunity!  I recommend copying and pasting every bullet point from your resume into the LinkedIn template.  A full explanation of your work experience ensures your profile contains several keywords.  In addition, LinkedIn provides the option to make your public profile available with a customized URL that includes your name.  A customized URL with your name provides another search engine opportunity for Google or Bing to identify and display “your name” in search results.  Remember, LinkedIn Profiles rank very high in the Google Search algorithm so take advantage of the customized URL option.  Doing so will maximize your online visibility to prospective connections or employers.

Frequently Update Your Status with Useful Content
I view the Status Section as channel for sharing content that other connections will find personally or professionally beneficial.  This philosophy is similar to my strategy for crafting a tweet on Twitter.  Whenever possible, I link an article or online reference to my status update.  Using a URL shortening service like bit.ly makes it easier to accomplish this task because you’re limited by character spaces.

Here’s an example of a LinkedIn status update that connections favorably commented on: “A permanent job is a temporary one disguised with benefits.” Reinvent Your Job-Forbes http://bit.ly/EuuO8; One connection even tweeted this article to his Twitter followers and referenced me.

I wrote this updated linked to a New York Times article on the recent Yahoo-Microsoft deal: Why Carol Bartz Sold Yahoo Search: Matching Google & Microsoft's investment level is unsustainable strategy; NYTimes http://bit.ly/g5G8D.

Here’s the status update I provided this Friday morning: Is Universal Care & Cost Containment Viable? France's universal healthcare experiencing challenges|WSJ http://bit.ly/1U412E

Actively Comment in LinkedIn Discussion Group Forums
Joining and actively commenting in LinkedIn Discussion Groups allows you to demonstrate your knowledge in particular topics or industries.  It’s important to write thoughtful and helpful comments because this is how other LinkedIn members will primarily interact with you. Essentially, these discussion forums are the online equivalent of a 24/7 networking event.  After all, it’s called social networking for a reason!

Starting or posting a Discussion Topic is one of my favorite ways to establish a presence on LinkedIn.  In my own experience, trial and error determines what types of posts other members will favorably respond to and provide comments.  When a particular post strikes a favorable chord, the results are absolutely rewarding.  Four months ago, I posted a provocative article in my graduate business school’s LinkedIn group.  The article, RIP MBA: The Economic Crisis has Exposed the Myth of Business-School Expertise, and the ensuing discussion generated 33 comments.  I acted as the discussion moderator and let commenting activity take a life of its own.  More importantly, it gave me a credible entrée in connecting with other business school alumni that I otherwise would never personally meet.  And ultimately, isn’t that what we all would like to achieve through LinkedIn …

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Why Studying Me 2.0 Can Reinvent the Career of a 40-Something Working Professional

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Me 20 Book CoverI purchased Dan Schawbel’s book, Me 2.0, in Spring 2009.  Since that time, I’ve diligently studied and implemented Dan’s advice particularly in creating and promoting a personal blog.  Dan is the lead author and founder of the Personal Branding Blog and Personal Branding Magazine.  He’s a nationally recognized expert, and I avidly read his blog for helpful insights relating to online personal brand management.  Dan also has a number of talented, contributing authors to the Personal Branding Blog such as Chad Levitt and Jun Loayza whose articles I regularly study.

Me 2.0’s target audience is the Generation Y demographic.  The book provides excellent guidance on interview preparation, interviewing skills, and professional networking that I wish someone would have shared with me 20+ years ago.  Young undergraduates and graduates competing in today’s job market should heed Dan’s guidance.  These two Wall Street Journal articles provide sobering evidence: With Jobs Scarce, Age Becomes an Issue: More Young Workers are at Risk of Layoffs as Employers Grow Wary of Letting Older Employees Go and The Curse of the Class of 2009: For College Graduates Lucky Enough to Get Work this Year, Low Wages are Likely to Haunt Them for a Decade or More. 

Furthermore, 40-Something Working Professionals (like me) can tremendously benefit from Me 2.0’s advice on online personal branding.  According to Me 2.0, effectively creating and promoting a blog are foundation principles in successful online personal branding.  Until I started studying Me 2.0 and Dan Schawbel’s free eBook, Blogging Your Brand: A Complete Guide to Your Success, I had no idea about “the basics” and overall commitment required to effectively create, optimize, promote, and maintain a blog.  These two resources educated me on purposefully:

·     Positioning my knowledge about a subject I’m passionate about (e.g., social media and digital marketing strategy)

·     Establishing my personal brand online (as evidenced by Google Search Engine Page Results / SERPs on my name)

·     Optimizing and promoting my blog via search engine marketing and by commenting on other bloggers’ blogs

·     Evaluating and selecting a blog hosting service such as TypePad or WordPress (along with other infrastructure considerations)

·     Claiming my blog on Technorati.com (and other relevant steps to “owning” my online identity)

I’ve been executing Me 2.0’s lessons in professionally branding myself as an inbound marketer and social media / digital marketing advocate.  Writing The Social Media Reinvention Blog and earning the Inbound Marketing Certified Professional Certification are cornerstones of this branding strategy and the reinvention of my professional skills. The online publication of my new blog, catalog of blog comments, and tweets on Twitter will credibly present my personal wherewithal and knowledge in a Web 2.0 world. 

Studying and implementing Me 2.0's lessons provided me the "hands-on guidance" I required to purposefully build and shape that knowledge.

And the journey continues …

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Delivering Value With Twitter: Three Lessons Learned

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Twitter Button I love Twitter, and I’m a proud and devoted user since March 2009.   The 140-character or less micro-blogging service is an important aspect of my online personal branding or online personal reinvention strategy.  I utilize Twitter like it’s a blog and link my tweets to news content relevant to M&A activity in the pharmaceutical and biotech industry, new trends in social media / digital marketing, and important developments in technology.

Looking back, if I only knew then what I know now, here are three pieces of advice I wish I someone would have shared with me before using Twitter for the first time.  These three learnings focus on:

·     Selecting What to Tweet

·     Understanding Twitter Etiquette and Writing a Compelling Twitter Headline

·     Simplifying Tweeting

Lesson 1: “What Are You Doing” Really Isn’t the Question You Should Be Answering
People ask me why don’t I consider Twitter a tremendous waste of time.  After all, who really cares about random strangers sharing what flavor of cream cheese they put on their bagel for breakfast.  I agree that tweets of this sort hold zero interest for me.  To be fair, there’s nothing wrong with using Twitter as a real-time Facebook status update.  This June 2009 USA Today article titled, There's an Art to Writing on Facebook or Twitter – Really, is an excellent example of this phenomenon.

However, if you desire to thoughtfully and consistently demonstrate your knowledge or opinion of a specific industry, industry event, or other business-related content, “what are you doing” is not the question you should be answering.  David Meerman Scott addresses this very topic in his blog post titled: Hey Twitter: What are you doing? Wrong question!  The comments generated on David’s post provide very diverse opinions on this subject (including my own comment) and provide a representative glimpse of how people utilize Twitter.

Therefore, the litmus test question I ask before publishing a tweet is: “Will this information personally or professionally benefit another person today?”

This is why I consistently link my tweets with news or online content.  I invest significant time researching and selecting what type of industry or business content I share with my Twitter Followers.  My motivation is to deliver content that mutually benefits a fellow follower.  Marc Meyer’s blog article, Do Twitter Users Have an Obligation to Provide Value, is a great example of this personal motivation.  My comment and Marc’s kind reply are included in his article.  One of the best articles I've read about what makes a Tweet valuable comes from this recent Mashable article titled: Twitter Talkback: What Makes a Quality Tweet.  The author, Soren Gordhamer, provides his analysis of four (4) categories of Tweets.  The examples I provide in this post focus on Mr. Gordhamer's Category #1 called Informative: Help Us Learn … 

The trusted folks I follow on Twitter are often a better source of professional content or personal learning than my own Google Search.  I’ve carefully selected the individuals and organizations I follow on Twitter and 90% of them graciously follow me back.  It’s my hope that they’ve stuck with me for the past 4 months because I’m “giving something valuable back.”    

Okay, time to put my money where my mouth is.  Here are four personal examples of tweets I composed, and I know a trusted follower found useful.  How can I validate or quantify that statement?  The ultimate Twitter Compliment or “Shout Out” — A follower retweeted / RT’d the example tweet (e.g., she/he forwarded the tweet to their Twitter following).    

·     STILL THINK TWITTER'S A FAD-THINK AGAIN; Dell Generates $3M in new revenues via Twitter|Bloomberg http://bit.ly/Po3VE

·     NPR'S 3-PRONGED STRATEGY: Local-Social Media-Ubiquitous Access; Why NPR is Future of Mainstream Media http://bit.ly/13ejaL

·     For Sales Growth, C-Suite Worries Most About Opt Mktg Mix ; C-Level Execs on Mktg Success | eMarketer http://bit.ly/3Hv0a

·     Celebrity Patient's Backing Turns Sour for Drug Company | WSJ http://bit.ly/12xHAL

Lesson 2: Review Trusted Resources on Twitter Etiquette and Writing a Compelling Tweet
There are multitudes of “how-to” blog posts and articles about effectively writing a tweet or Twitter Headline.  Here are two trusted, online resources I still refer to when I need to get back to Twitter basics:

·     The Twitter Book Sneak Preview eBook by Tim O’Reilly and Susan Milstein: My favorite resource in Twitter Etiquette particularly in how to build a loyal and relevant following through the use of the retweet / RT.  Heard about positively influencing co-workers’ egos with the power of the e-mail cc: or forward?  The Twitter RT is Web 2.0’s powerful equivalent of the email cc: or forward, and O’Reilly and Milstein share their advice in an enjoyable and easy-to-understand format.

·     Everything I Need to Know About Twitter I Learned in J School by Ann Handley:  Want to learn how to write compelling Twitter headlines and content – read this article now.  Ann is a journalist, author of the Annarchy blog, and the Editor-in-Chief of MarketingProfs.com.  When it comes to great writing and compelling tweets, Ann knows what she’s talking about.

Lesson 3: Download and Learn How To Use TweetDeck
TweetDeck makes using Twitter so much easier. You can download TweetDeck and it’s a free application.  It’s very intuitive and highly user-friendly.  Key features that make "tweeting" simpler include:

·     One-click “retweeting or RT’ing” that automates forwarding another person’s tweet

·     One-click URL shortening so you can link your tweet to useful online content (i.e., a news article or blog post)

·     Multiple column viewing or an executive dashboard view that allows you to categorize the tweeters you follow (i.e., industry, discussion group, news)

For iPhone users, the TweetDeck app is fantastic.  If you haven’t already downloaded it, go to the App Store today.  I’ve been using this app since its release and highly recommend it.

TweetDeck is just one example of a Twitter application that simplifies tweeting.  For a general overview of helpful Twitter Tools and apps, I also recommend these two articles:

·     Software That Makes Twitter So Much Tweeter by Katherine Boehret of The Wall Street Journal’s All Things Digital

·     Top 5 Twitter Applications by David Meerman Scott of WebInkNow.com