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Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Twitter Promoted Tweets - Advertising With or Without Them
Chris Crum | Staff Writer
Twitter Launches Long-Awaited Ad Platform - Promoted Tweets
Twitter has finally unveiled its business model in the form of "Promoted Tweets". The company refers to this as a "non-traditional" and "easy" strategy that "makes a ton of sense for Twitter." Promoted Tweets are described as ordinary tweets that businesses and organizations want to highlight to a wider group of users.
Would you pay to promote a tweet?
Promoted tweets are clearly labeled as "promoted" when they are paid for by advertisers. However, in many cases, they will simply begin as regular tweets that are organically sent to the timelines of those who follow the account. When a tweet is promoted, it will still have the functionality of any other tweet, such as replying, retweeting, etc. This sounds similar to status promotion tests we've seen from Facebook.
To start out, Promoted tweets are appearing in Twitter search results. Twitter Co-founder Biz Stone says the company wants to make sure they're useful to users so they'll attempt to measure whether they "resonate" with users. Indications of resonation include engagement activities like replying, retweeting, and favoriting. If a promoted tweet doesn't resonate, they'll stop showing it.
Stone calls the launch the "first phase" of the Promoted Tweets platform, indicating that there will be improvements made as time goes on (and more partners added). So far, Best Buy, Bravo, Red Bull, Sony Pictures, Starbucks, and Virgin America are using Promoted Tweets.
"Before we roll out more phases, we want to get a better understanding of the resonance of Promoted Tweets, user experience and advertiser value," says Stone. "Once this is done, we plan to allow Promoted Tweets to be shown by Twitter clients and other ecosystem partners and to expand beyond Twitter search, including displaying relevant Promoted Tweets in your timelines in a way that is useful to you."
"Since all Promoted Tweets are organic Tweets, there is not a single "ad" in our Promoted Tweets platform that isn't already an organic part of Twitter," says Stone. "This is distinct from both traditional search advertising and more recent social advertising. Promoted Tweets will also be timely. Like any other Tweet, the connection between you and a Promoted Tweet in real-time provides a powerful means of delivering information relevant to you at the moment."
"There is one big difference between a Promoted Tweet and a regular Tweet, he adds. "Promoted Tweets must meet a higher bar--they must resonate with users." This sounds kind of like Digg's ad strategy.
If Twitter's own promoted tweets don't strike a chord with you, there are other options for advertising on Twitter. Sponsored tweets, for example, has been around for quite a while. Earlier this week, TweetUp was launched as an AdWords-like concept for Twitter. These are just a couple examples.
Of course Twitter also offers businesses plenty of ways to reach and interact with their audiences just by using Twitter in general. Here are a few tips:
1. Get in front of journalists. More of them are using Twitter and Facebook according to a recent study.
2. Use things like Twitter share buttons on content to promote sharing of content (once it's been tweeted, it may get retweeted repeatedly).
3. Remember that brands on Facebook and Twitter are favored by consumers.
4. You can learn some things about audience engagement from Justin Bieber. Seriously.
5. Get found in real-time search (here are some tips for that).
More details about Promoted Tweets are expected to be shared by the company this week at an AdAge conference, and at Twitter's own developer conference, Chirp.
Twitter Launches Long-Awaited Ad Platform - Promoted Tweets
Twitter has finally unveiled its business model in the form of "Promoted Tweets". The company refers to this as a "non-traditional" and "easy" strategy that "makes a ton of sense for Twitter." Promoted Tweets are described as ordinary tweets that businesses and organizations want to highlight to a wider group of users.
Would you pay to promote a tweet?
Promoted tweets are clearly labeled as "promoted" when they are paid for by advertisers. However, in many cases, they will simply begin as regular tweets that are organically sent to the timelines of those who follow the account. When a tweet is promoted, it will still have the functionality of any other tweet, such as replying, retweeting, etc. This sounds similar to status promotion tests we've seen from Facebook.
To start out, Promoted tweets are appearing in Twitter search results. Twitter Co-founder Biz Stone says the company wants to make sure they're useful to users so they'll attempt to measure whether they "resonate" with users. Indications of resonation include engagement activities like replying, retweeting, and favoriting. If a promoted tweet doesn't resonate, they'll stop showing it.
Stone calls the launch the "first phase" of the Promoted Tweets platform, indicating that there will be improvements made as time goes on (and more partners added). So far, Best Buy, Bravo, Red Bull, Sony Pictures, Starbucks, and Virgin America are using Promoted Tweets.
"Before we roll out more phases, we want to get a better understanding of the resonance of Promoted Tweets, user experience and advertiser value," says Stone. "Once this is done, we plan to allow Promoted Tweets to be shown by Twitter clients and other ecosystem partners and to expand beyond Twitter search, including displaying relevant Promoted Tweets in your timelines in a way that is useful to you."
"Since all Promoted Tweets are organic Tweets, there is not a single "ad" in our Promoted Tweets platform that isn't already an organic part of Twitter," says Stone. "This is distinct from both traditional search advertising and more recent social advertising. Promoted Tweets will also be timely. Like any other Tweet, the connection between you and a Promoted Tweet in real-time provides a powerful means of delivering information relevant to you at the moment."
"There is one big difference between a Promoted Tweet and a regular Tweet, he adds. "Promoted Tweets must meet a higher bar--they must resonate with users." This sounds kind of like Digg's ad strategy.
If Twitter's own promoted tweets don't strike a chord with you, there are other options for advertising on Twitter. Sponsored tweets, for example, has been around for quite a while. Earlier this week, TweetUp was launched as an AdWords-like concept for Twitter. These are just a couple examples.
Of course Twitter also offers businesses plenty of ways to reach and interact with their audiences just by using Twitter in general. Here are a few tips:
1. Get in front of journalists. More of them are using Twitter and Facebook according to a recent study.
2. Use things like Twitter share buttons on content to promote sharing of content (once it's been tweeted, it may get retweeted repeatedly).
3. Remember that brands on Facebook and Twitter are favored by consumers.
4. You can learn some things about audience engagement from Justin Bieber. Seriously.
5. Get found in real-time search (here are some tips for that).
More details about Promoted Tweets are expected to be shared by the company this week at an AdAge conference, and at Twitter's own developer conference, Chirp.
Facebook "Likes" Mean More to Businesses Than Just Traffic
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
It's been nearly a week since Facebook rocked the world with its Open Graph announcements, and many of us are still wrapping our heads around all of the implications they have. I don't think there's any dispute that it's a huge move, and that it's important to pay attention to from a business perspective, but just what it means for businesses is still up in the air in some regards. Like Facebook itself, or even social media in general, we're going to see more benefits (and possibly negatives) as time goes on, and more sites and applications harness the power of said Open Graph.
As those wheels turn in our heads, there is plenty of discussion already happening around the subject - not just the Open Graph and the issues related to it (open web ramifications, privacy, etc), but how we can indeed take advantage of it.
Traffic
In a recent article we talked about why Facebook's Open Graph and particularly its social plug-ins will be good to drive traffic. It's pretty straightforward. The like and recommendation buttons are essentially different versions of the share buttons that people have been using to drive traffic for quite some time. The main difference is that instead of only showing up in the news feed only disappear shortly thereafter, they will remain on the user's profile page for people to see in the future - a fixed link to your content.
Have you seen more traffic from Facebook's buttons since they've launched?
Search/SEO
Search Engine Land contributing editor Greg Sterling makes some interesting points about the search implications of the whole thing:
However, the vision here is a network of discovery tools and information that operate higher up in the funnel than search: what are my friends doing, where are they eating, what do they recommend? This clearly doesn’t eliminate the need for search. But it does represent an alternative way in many cases to discover information.
Yet the mountains of data that Facebook will gain could improve Facebook search results and potentially the coming, new and improved Bing integration. At a simple level, if Facebook knows the most Liked sushi restaurants in New York and those liked by my social network it can show me that information in search results. That hypothetically makes Facebook search much more social and more of a recommendations engine than Google at this point.
Nobody's saying Facebook is poised to replace Google, but the whole thing falls inline with the diversification of search we've been talking about a lot lately. Search is getting more diversified, meaning that people are using more and more applications to find the information they're looking for. Facebook obviously plays a huge role in this. Also consider that Facebook's search market share has been on the rise, and it stands to reason that will continue as more and more data becomes available as this Open Graph expands.
Do you see Facebook's own search becoming more of a go-to place for finding information? Comment here.
Local
Assuming that every business rushes to get like/recommend buttons from Facebook in the way that they would rush to claim a listing in Google's Local Business Center (Now named Google Places), Facebook may become a very valuable place to find out the best businesses to go to for any given category.
As Sterling says on his Screenwerk blog, "It could do nothing in particular or it could build the single most effective local directory and search site that exists. This data will be more valuable than anything Google has or any individual local publisher-partner possesses. That includes Yelp, YPG or anyone else that joins the Open Graph and implements these new Facebook platform tools."
This is mostly forward thinking, and we don't know what Facebook is going to do. It's definitely something to keep eye on. Either way, local businesses are likely to attract fans from their areas with more friends from that area, who may in turn pass it to their friends in the area. Facebook has already been a great marketing tool for local businesses, and the Open Graph will only help in that regard.
Do you think Facebook is going to become increasingly important for local businesses? Share your thoughts.
Reputation
Facebook's latest changes have plenty of implications for reputation management. Likes and recommendations are potentially great for building a good reputation, but even while there is no dislike button (at least yet), a lack of likes/recommendations may reflect poorly on your brand, particularly when your competition is getting all kinds of love from Facebook users.
On the other side of things, you may want to be careful what you like and recommend yourself. Wording of likes and recommendations can come off as inappropriate, but the bigger issue may be liking and recommending stuff that that paints you in a non-professional light. Depending on what you do and the image you are trying to portray, this may or many not be a problem, but for those who wish to be careful about how others perceive them, this is something to think about.
Should you be concerned about likes/recommendations from a reputation standpoint?
Another thing worth mentioning about all of this is that Facebook is showing suggestions for things to like and recommend to new users. Facebook has posted something of an FAQ for the new features that aims to clarify how it all works for users.
It's been nearly a week since Facebook rocked the world with its Open Graph announcements, and many of us are still wrapping our heads around all of the implications they have. I don't think there's any dispute that it's a huge move, and that it's important to pay attention to from a business perspective, but just what it means for businesses is still up in the air in some regards. Like Facebook itself, or even social media in general, we're going to see more benefits (and possibly negatives) as time goes on, and more sites and applications harness the power of said Open Graph.
As those wheels turn in our heads, there is plenty of discussion already happening around the subject - not just the Open Graph and the issues related to it (open web ramifications, privacy, etc), but how we can indeed take advantage of it.
Traffic
In a recent article we talked about why Facebook's Open Graph and particularly its social plug-ins will be good to drive traffic. It's pretty straightforward. The like and recommendation buttons are essentially different versions of the share buttons that people have been using to drive traffic for quite some time. The main difference is that instead of only showing up in the news feed only disappear shortly thereafter, they will remain on the user's profile page for people to see in the future - a fixed link to your content.
Have you seen more traffic from Facebook's buttons since they've launched?
Search/SEO
Search Engine Land contributing editor Greg Sterling makes some interesting points about the search implications of the whole thing:
However, the vision here is a network of discovery tools and information that operate higher up in the funnel than search: what are my friends doing, where are they eating, what do they recommend? This clearly doesn’t eliminate the need for search. But it does represent an alternative way in many cases to discover information.
Yet the mountains of data that Facebook will gain could improve Facebook search results and potentially the coming, new and improved Bing integration. At a simple level, if Facebook knows the most Liked sushi restaurants in New York and those liked by my social network it can show me that information in search results. That hypothetically makes Facebook search much more social and more of a recommendations engine than Google at this point.
Nobody's saying Facebook is poised to replace Google, but the whole thing falls inline with the diversification of search we've been talking about a lot lately. Search is getting more diversified, meaning that people are using more and more applications to find the information they're looking for. Facebook obviously plays a huge role in this. Also consider that Facebook's search market share has been on the rise, and it stands to reason that will continue as more and more data becomes available as this Open Graph expands.
Do you see Facebook's own search becoming more of a go-to place for finding information? Comment here.
Local
Assuming that every business rushes to get like/recommend buttons from Facebook in the way that they would rush to claim a listing in Google's Local Business Center (Now named Google Places), Facebook may become a very valuable place to find out the best businesses to go to for any given category.
As Sterling says on his Screenwerk blog, "It could do nothing in particular or it could build the single most effective local directory and search site that exists. This data will be more valuable than anything Google has or any individual local publisher-partner possesses. That includes Yelp, YPG or anyone else that joins the Open Graph and implements these new Facebook platform tools."
This is mostly forward thinking, and we don't know what Facebook is going to do. It's definitely something to keep eye on. Either way, local businesses are likely to attract fans from their areas with more friends from that area, who may in turn pass it to their friends in the area. Facebook has already been a great marketing tool for local businesses, and the Open Graph will only help in that regard.
Do you think Facebook is going to become increasingly important for local businesses? Share your thoughts.
Reputation
Facebook's latest changes have plenty of implications for reputation management. Likes and recommendations are potentially great for building a good reputation, but even while there is no dislike button (at least yet), a lack of likes/recommendations may reflect poorly on your brand, particularly when your competition is getting all kinds of love from Facebook users.
On the other side of things, you may want to be careful what you like and recommend yourself. Wording of likes and recommendations can come off as inappropriate, but the bigger issue may be liking and recommending stuff that that paints you in a non-professional light. Depending on what you do and the image you are trying to portray, this may or many not be a problem, but for those who wish to be careful about how others perceive them, this is something to think about.
Should you be concerned about likes/recommendations from a reputation standpoint?
Another thing worth mentioning about all of this is that Facebook is showing suggestions for things to like and recommend to new users. Facebook has posted something of an FAQ for the new features that aims to clarify how it all works for users.
LinkedIn Has New Ways to Drive Targeted Traffic to Your Site
Chris Crum | Staff Writer
Some Count LinkedIn as Top 5 Traffic Source
When you think about traffic-driving social networks, LinkedIn may not be the first thing that comes to your mind, and truth be told, there's a good chance it will not drive the kind of traffic Twitter or Facebook will for your site. However, some sites have found it to be a quite valuable traffic tool, and the company seems to want to further cement its status as such.
LinkedIn reportedly has about 65 million members. That may not seem like much compared to Facebooks 400 million (likely well over that by now in reality), but LinkedIn can bring a different brand of relevance to the table.
Has LinkedIn become an integral part to your marketing?
Earlier this year, we talked to entrepreneur Lewis Howes (who claims that LinkedIn is one of the top traffic sources to his blogs) about how powerful LinkedIn can be for driving traffic. He had written on the subject previously at Darren Rowse's ProBlogger. "You need to take into consideration that LinkedIn has the highest average household income per user over any other social networking site (even NYTimes.com and BusinessWeek.com readers)," Howes told us. "That being said, these are business decision makers you are targeting with your traffic from LinkedIn. The network is for real, and it will only continue to grow in time..."
What's New
LinkedIn has announced some changes to its news sharing options, and some of them just may help content spread more like it would on Twitter. Notable changes include:
1. Public vs. Private - Users now get complete control over who sees what they're sharing (everyone, connections, a group, or one person).
2. Images and article excerpt - Facebook-style images/excerpts that can increase clickthrough potential.
3. See and delete your own posts - preview, edit, and delete options for status updates to prevent typos.
4. Easily re-share - LinkedIn's version of the retweet - just click a button and share content with connections, groups or individuals. This could be a huge factor for traffic. Retweets are great for making content go viral.
5. Improved off-site sharing experience - Now content sites will be able to offer a similar sharing process for LinkedIn to its own internal re-share feature.
6. The URL shortener (Lnkd.in) - LinkedIn calls this a companion to its Twitter integration.
7. Attribution - Re-shared articles give "via-style" credit by attributing something you re-share to the person who shared it with you.
8. Shared items on your profile - If a user chooses to make shared items public, they will appear on their profile.
Howes told us that people don't generally associate LinkedIn with driving traffic, and that their perception of it is more like a resume or a way to get a job. "They don't see all of the powerful tools within LinkedIn that allow you to drive traffic back to your site," he said.
LinkedIn has recently launched some new integrations that can only help with a user's traffic strategy - notably, integrations with Twitter and Microsoft Outlook. "The Outlook integration is a way to connect more with your current LinkedIn contacts, and also help you grow you network as well," Howes noted. The Twitter integration obviously lets you tap into the following you already have on Twitter, which has already proven to be a significant traffic-driving tool.
Some Count LinkedIn as Top 5 Traffic Source
When you think about traffic-driving social networks, LinkedIn may not be the first thing that comes to your mind, and truth be told, there's a good chance it will not drive the kind of traffic Twitter or Facebook will for your site. However, some sites have found it to be a quite valuable traffic tool, and the company seems to want to further cement its status as such.
LinkedIn reportedly has about 65 million members. That may not seem like much compared to Facebooks 400 million (likely well over that by now in reality), but LinkedIn can bring a different brand of relevance to the table.
Has LinkedIn become an integral part to your marketing?
Earlier this year, we talked to entrepreneur Lewis Howes (who claims that LinkedIn is one of the top traffic sources to his blogs) about how powerful LinkedIn can be for driving traffic. He had written on the subject previously at Darren Rowse's ProBlogger. "You need to take into consideration that LinkedIn has the highest average household income per user over any other social networking site (even NYTimes.com and BusinessWeek.com readers)," Howes told us. "That being said, these are business decision makers you are targeting with your traffic from LinkedIn. The network is for real, and it will only continue to grow in time..."
What's New
LinkedIn has announced some changes to its news sharing options, and some of them just may help content spread more like it would on Twitter. Notable changes include:
1. Public vs. Private - Users now get complete control over who sees what they're sharing (everyone, connections, a group, or one person).
2. Images and article excerpt - Facebook-style images/excerpts that can increase clickthrough potential.
3. See and delete your own posts - preview, edit, and delete options for status updates to prevent typos.
4. Easily re-share - LinkedIn's version of the retweet - just click a button and share content with connections, groups or individuals. This could be a huge factor for traffic. Retweets are great for making content go viral.
5. Improved off-site sharing experience - Now content sites will be able to offer a similar sharing process for LinkedIn to its own internal re-share feature.
6. The URL shortener (Lnkd.in) - LinkedIn calls this a companion to its Twitter integration.
7. Attribution - Re-shared articles give "via-style" credit by attributing something you re-share to the person who shared it with you.
8. Shared items on your profile - If a user chooses to make shared items public, they will appear on their profile.
Howes told us that people don't generally associate LinkedIn with driving traffic, and that their perception of it is more like a resume or a way to get a job. "They don't see all of the powerful tools within LinkedIn that allow you to drive traffic back to your site," he said.
LinkedIn has recently launched some new integrations that can only help with a user's traffic strategy - notably, integrations with Twitter and Microsoft Outlook. "The Outlook integration is a way to connect more with your current LinkedIn contacts, and also help you grow you network as well," Howes noted. The Twitter integration obviously lets you tap into the following you already have on Twitter, which has already proven to be a significant traffic-driving tool.
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