There used to be a time on Twitter a few years back when I could ask a question and instantly get feedback and responses. Lately, at least for me, my Twitter engagement has been lagging and harder to get responses from my followers.
I don’t know what has changed. I’m not sure if it’s the timing of my tweet on Twitter, or if it’s the fact that there are currently over 500 million users on Twitter and they are just being over inundated with so much information coming through that the tweet itself gets lost in the mass of data or if they are just not there when my tweet goes out.
I know for one that it’s hard to manage who I follow on Twitter and because of this I do miss some great opportunities to engages with them. I usually rely on a core group of people to keep me up-to-date with what is currently happening and trending.
Now over on Facebook, I’m starting to find that engagement is increasing. If I ask the same question over on Facebook I’m instantly engaged and responded to. Granted it could just be that it’s a smaller ratio of following happening on Facebook, but it’s interesting as I always thought I had more engagement on Twitter.
I’d be interested to hear how you are finding Twitter engagement lately? Do you feel brands themselves are also suffering from this information overload? I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Last week I gave a talk to the Canadian Public Relations Society Vancouver’s (CPRS Vancouver) chapter on how to identify online influencers and how to engage them. With social media playing a greater role than ever with communicators it becomes increasingly important for PR professionals to be able to identify these influencers for their client’s digital strategies.
These simple steps will help you start creating your list of influencers.
Create Keyword Search
Keywords are your first step. These can be your company name or brand, your competitors name. They can also be any words or phrases that describe your industry as well as any important issue that matters to you.
Understand What is Important to You Know where you want to start your search. Are you going to concentrate only on influencers on Twitter, Facebook or Blogs? Are the number of followers they have important to you (even though I will argue this point)? Do the number of retweets one gets important? What about likes on a post, are they important? Do the number of blog posts matter and do the comments and who comments matter?
Understanding what to look first will help you out in the long run. Focus on a few of the above to help you determine who on you should include on your list.
Search Twitter, Facebook, Blogs, Forums and Multimedia Sites
Create simple searches on Twitter and use free third party tools like Hootsuite to create columns of those searches. Use simple Google Blog Searches as well Technorati to find relevant blogs based on your search keywords. You can also use Social Mention or IceRocket to help search all networks.
Most people will forget to search multimedia sites like YouTube or other video sites like Viddler or Vimeo. Also don’t forget to search photo sharing sites like Flickr or Picaso to complete the picture.
Create Lists on Twitter
Create your own lists on Twitter and make them private. Bundle like minded people to make it easier to follow your influencers
View a Blogger’s Blogroll Bloggers create their list of other bloggers they read or find interesting to them. Looking at these lists can help identify other influencers you might not have thought of before.
Create Your List
Create your lists and add to them regularly. Create RSS feeds of the blogs you want to monitor and create Twitter lists to combine the influencers.
Engage
Lastly engage with them. Share what they post on Twitter if it’s relevant to you. Favourite a post (we all love it when someone favourites a tweet of ours, it makes us feel special). Comment on blog posts or even link back to them on your own blog. By engaging you are also putting yourself under their radar and helps create a relationship with them.
Of course working for Marketwire, we offer Sysomos, our realtime online media monitoring and engagement tool, the above steps are quickly compiled for you and presented to you in a easy to use format.
Any tool you use should be used as a guideline only. It really will depend on you specifically to engage in who you think should be on your own influencer list.
You can view my full presentation via SlideShare below:
So it’s now official, on February 8th, 2012 at 5:30pm I’ll be giving a talk for CPRS Vancouver on Identifying Online Influencers and How to Engage Them. This isn’t my first every “speaking” gig, but this is the first time I’ll be doing this on my own and not part of a panel.
The synopsis of my talk is as follows:
Social Media has significantly grown over the past few years. With a growing number of social media tools and networks there are also a growing number of people who will express their opinions and have conversations with others via these new channels. As a result, there will be some individuals whose voices will resonate louder than others and whose opinions will be heard by a larger group of people. Identifying these core people, or influencers, has become more crucial for brands and/or causes.
Gus Fosarolli, Senior Client Relations Manager at Marketwire, will offer practical tips to help you identify influencers and learn how to leverage them in support of your cause or brand.
What makes me an authority at speaking on this topic? I’ve been using social media for several years now. I’ve seen social tools grow over the past 4 years and I’ve seen some tools fall on the waste side. I work with many PR and Marketing professionals and I understand how important it is for them to understand the power of the online influencer.
I hope you will be able to attend and listen to me speak. I’m very excited about presenting and hope I will give everyone very valuable information that they can use.
In social media, we are always told to be transparent and authentic, but are we truly that? This question has been on my back of my mind for sometime now and I thought it was time to write down some of my thoughts on the matter.
Working for a company that deals with Public Relations, Investor Relations, communicators and marketers that work at some big brand named companies, I usually have to think twice about what I comment when it comes to their brands. Some of my clients follow me on Twitter, some are friends on Facebook, some even are on Google+. Do I post my dislike on social networks for a bad experience I’ve had without hurting my relationship with my client? Am I not being transparent or authentic if I say nothing online?
Also a last year I had to rush back to Toronto as my mother had suffered a stroke. I didn’t really say much publically about the matter and had fought long and hard to even write a blog post about it. Should I have kept it to myself and not said anything? Though some of my closest friends from online knew what was going on I struggled to get a post out, but I thought it would have been good for my own healing after that stressful time.
We’ve also heard about people being fired from their jobs for posting comments about their dislike about their job conditions or fellow co-workers. I for one keep those comments private and I don’t personally think they should every be shared publicaly. I also make it know who I work for and never hide that fact.
At the end of the day I think it’s important to know yourself and know how much you want to share publically. Once you established these boundaries for yourself I think you can truly say you are being transparent and authentic to the level you are most comfortable with online.
Do you think you are transparent and authentic? Do you think that there is a boundary as to how much you should actually make public?
I first started Tweeting on April 5, 2007 after attending a CPRS event where Darren Barefoot spoke about it.
Twitter has grown over those past 3 years. I remember seeing the community come together and really push Twitter’s boundaries. I remember the beginning of the @ replies, I remember the first use of # hashtags, and I remember the wonderful fail whale. I saw the community unite strongly to common causes through Haiti relief, Twestival and many others. But last and not least I thank all the friends I have created from Twitter. You have been the warmest and accepting community out there!
Our good friends over on Twitter last night changed the way you and I receive notifications when we have new followers or have a new direct message (DM).
This morning over on Twitter, people didn’t seem to be too pleased with the change. Granted I’m only seeing this coming from the Vancouver tweeps and not really anyone else. I for one actually like the new enhanced notification emails. The HTML emails include the person’s avatar photo, plus show you how many followers, how many they are following and how many tweets they have sent out. I like that everything is there for me to see if I should actually click the new follower and see their stream. I see it often that many will just try to follow as many people as they can and yet have nothing posted on their stream (this of course is a whole other story).
What surprised me was to see who many people are not liking it. We who use social media tools, and strive to get others to use them and taut the benefits, are always quick to jump in and complain when something is changed. We’ve seen this when Facebook changed their layout (I for one like the newer layout as well).
Social Media tools are so new still and they are always evolving and changing. If they don’t evolve, we will venture into something else that does. We should be encouraging change, and change that enhances the experience.
Looking over Twitter today, a new player popped up on the search stream (Magpie). What is Magpie you ask? Well Magpie uses your Twitter account to allow advertisers to send out tweets based on keyword searches you create when setting up your account with Magpie. The advertiser then can send out their advertisement to all those who have signed up and match a specific keyword. As they state on their website “convert your tweets into bling-bling”
Now Twitter is there to engage your followers and not necessarily to advertise products from companies you might not care about or even know who they are. Yes you can argue what is the difference between having Google Ads on your blog or ads on your RSS Feeds with Twitter advertising through Magpie? Are you still in control as to which advertisement you can pick for Magpie? That doesn’t look like the case. I for one don’t even have Google Ads on my blog.
Some folks on Twitter have stated that if they get a Magpie related tweet from someone, they will automatically unfollow them. I’m inclined to have to agree with them. I don’t wish to have 1 Magpie tweet for every 5 of my tweets out there. Yes Magpie says I could make a hefty amount (almost 870 Euro a month), but I think that will quickly drop as some of my followers would stop following me.
Last night was a fairly informal Third Tuesday, as it was held on a Wednesday night and we had no speaker, yet as always it managed to bring out a lot of people. Since it was held at Steamworks in Gastown, we had a cap of 35 people. I’m sure if we didn’t have a cap, more would have attended.
It was great to see the usual faces, Tanya, Monica, Colleen, Arieanna & Ianvi, Tris, John & his wife, David to name a few, a few faces were missing, Raul, Rebecca. I also got to meet some new people and chat with people face to face that I’ve only chatted with online. I also got to meet Joesph Thornley who started Third Tuesday and was in town for the meet up.
I have to say the change of format was refreshing. It allowed for more interaction and networking than the usual events. Granted the set up of the tables prevented from seeing others in the group as I had my back to 2/3 of the group. All in all, hats off to Tanya on organizing a great event as usual. I’m looking forward to more in the coming months and proud to be a part of such a great group of people!
I’ll be attending VinoCamp this weekend and I’m starting to get excited about it. Granted I’m not a big wine person, but I thought that since Russ’ birthday is coming up I’d treat him to this as he is a lover of wine.
VinoCamp is not a wine festival that some might be used to, nor is it a traditional conference.
In a more unstructured form than a standard conference, VinoCampVancouver brings wine, people and technology together in one place, making wine accessible, educational and fun.
Join us! Whether you’re a speaker, sponsor, or a wine-drinker, our aim is to make this day memorable, fun, and interesting. You will learn more about wine and viticulture, meet interesting people, and enjoy yourself in one of Vancouver’s loveliest gardens.
Of course there will be several bloggers that I know attending this event and since it combines both wine and technology, Russ and I will be happy . I’m not sure if there are tickets still available, but if there are, grab yourself some and come join the fun.
The schedule looks great and you can get a taste of it here.
I might have a problem getting someone to look after Junior, but I’m sure he will be fine if we don’t.
bring together journalists, publishers, communications professionals, artists, amateur media creators, citizen journalists, teachers, students, tool makers, and other interested collaborators. Essentially the people who create and consume media who have an interest in seeing the ‘media industry’ evolve for everyone’s benefit. We are more than just USERS, we are the reason the tools exist – we are the people who communicate our thoughts and ideas near and far.
I look forward to seeing this club grow. We have some great people in the Social Media scene in Canada and I hope to bring them all together and grow as a community with your support.
There used to be a time on Twitter a few years back when I could ask a question and instantly get feedback and responses. Lately, at least for me, my Twitter engagement has been lagging and harder to get responses from my followers.
. I’m not sure if there are tickets still available, but if there are, grab yourself some and come join the fun.