Movie Marketing: Its Own Worst Enemy

With Facebook the Movie: aka The Social Network hitting theaters this weekend it got me thinking about social media and movie marketing. I am not alone in this, as a quick Google search turned up a recent AdAge article that pretty much said what I was thinking, “Why Do Most Movie Websites Suck?”

I’m a huge movie lover, but I’ve hardly ever met an official website I didn’t hate. I always assumed it was because they’re generally full of flash and graphics with very little text. I’m a writer, I like reading. Chris Thilk, the author of the AdAge article agreed with me and he took it one step further. It’s not just that official websites are bad, it’s that the Facebook pages are better.

Facebook pages usually have more links to trailers, more photos but most of all, they have a means of exchanging information. I can ask a question about a film or proclaim my love of the lead actor. Few official movie sites are set up for this kind of interaction. Their idea of interaction is allowing me to type my name in so the site addresses me properly when I play their silly up and down button games.

In order to engage with the movie goer, Thilk suggests that studios do a better job of looping all of their products together. Use the Facebook and Twitter to mention a new trailer that’s on the official site. More importantly, he says studios have to “commit to the conversation.” Why corral a whole page full of fans then ignore them when they ask questions? That’s the problem with both websites and movie FB pages — often they feel like empty theaters. Pretty pictures on the wall but no butts in the seats.

I imagine that one of the reasons movie Facebook pages do have more information is because they are easier to update. It’s easy to slip in an unexpected appearance by the star in his home town, but adding a notation to a finely crafted flash site is near impossible.

Before writing this, I went to the official website for The Social Network. The opening screen (seen above) isn’t inviting and is a little confusing. I clicked the button to enter and got a slowly loading popup window with quotes from critics. None of which I read. Then I had to click another button which took me to the window you see here. At that point I said forget it.

Usability must be a dirty word in Hollywood because it’s obvious they were going for art over substance. I shouldn’t have to click through three sets of windows just to get my first snippet of useful or interesting info. That’s why Facebook works. When I hit the fan page for Secretariat, I see a question I’m likely to answer, photos from the premiere, a video tab with trailers and lots of conversation. That’s how you get people excited about a movie, or for that matter, any product, service or person.

Do you know of a movie website that engages? Point it out to us. We’d like to know.

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Capturing [the Attention of] the Elusive Millennial

Tips for Reaching & Engaging the Elusive Millennial may sound like an Animal Planet special, but it’s actually a very informative webinar from Geoff Ramsey of eMarketer. Millennials are those that came of age in the 2000′s, but for the purpose of the study, they’re defined as the 18 – 34 year-old group.

The biggest factor that differentiates this group from those that went before it, is that these people were born techies. They came into adulthood with cell phones in hand, laptops in their backpacks and an almost innate disdain for print mediums. They are 72 million strong and they have 200 billion dollars to spend. This is an audience you want to please and eMarketer’s presentation has some tips in that regard.

You should take the time to flip through the whole deck, because there’s a lot of great info here, but I’ll hit a couple of the highlights for those short on time.

The presentation has a quote from Carol Phillips of MillennialMarketing.com that really puts the whole group into perspective.

“They want to believe that they have uniquely discovered the things they like.”

This is key when marketing to this group and I have a teenager at home to prove it. If it’s accepted, popular and everyone is doing it, he has no interest in it. To reach him and his friends, it has to be offbeat, underground and accompanied by a rebel yell.

Social media is a big part of the lives of 82% of all millennials and they see social sites as entertainment. 38% of their internet time is spent on Facebook and though they don’t watch TV as much as other groups, things that happen on TV are a large part of what they talk about online. Magazines and newspapers are of little interest but if you can put it on a cell phone, they’re there.

The good news bad news about marketing to the millennials is that once they grab hold of a trend, the rise in that trend is meteoric. The downslide is just as fast, though, once they’ve found a new idol to worship.

The second biggest hurtle, 84% of millennials don’t notice ads on social sites. So what’s a marketer to do? Video is one of the best ways in. A humorous ad goes viral and you’re in like Lady Gaga at a Glee party. Mobile is another effective tool. Try creating an iPhone app that combines your product with a game that entertains.

Above all, be honest. These guys have x-ray vision and they’ll see right through that phony attempt to be their friend. Ask their opinion and really listen to what they have to say. The millennial is indeed an illusive creature, but once you get hold of one, you’ll find the reward was worth the effort.

Click here to see the full webinar: Tips for Reaching & Engaging the Elusive Millennial

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5 Useful Features Included in the #NewTwitter Design

Whether you use Twitter a little or a lot, I’m sure you’ve heard about the #NewTwitter design that has been slowly rolling out to all users. I have three Twitter accounts and currently only have it on the one account I use the least (go figure). Nevertheless, even though I rarely use that account there are still some pretty useful features that might have me using it even more now. Many people are still anxiously awaiting the arrival of #NewTwitter on their account. For those waiting, hopefully this short list will hold you over until you can try out the real thing.

View Images

One of the most annoying things about Twitter has been that you have to click on a link and go to an outside site in order to view images. Well now, you can simply click on the little arrow button (as seen below) to open up a picture in the new details panel (right hand column). You can still click on the link to go to the actual source if you prefer, but being able to view the image in the details panel is much more convenient. By the way, underneath the image you’ll be able to see a few recent tweets from the user who tweeted the image.

View Videos

Just like with images (above) you can also view videos in the same way, and yes the videos do actually play within Twitter. If you’re not sure which links in a tweet actually point to a view or image, just make sure to keep an eye out for the little icon next to the arrow button (as you an see above); there’s one for videos and one for images.

Conversation View & More

That little arrow button is really important and is the key to all of the good stuff that will appear in the the new details panel (the right hand column). When viewing your regular timeline, clicking on it will show you replies, the bio of the person (or people) mentioned in a tweet, tweets mentioning the user replying and tweets near your location. That a lot of info but yet all very helpful. It’s really great for finding more people to connect with and see what other things are being said on Twitter.

Trending Topics

You can now see a little more details when it comes to trending topics. For instance, you may see a yellow “Promoted” badge next to topics that are being promoted by a company. I’m thinking this is kind of like official Twitter accounts; it lets you know which topics are due to an official company or product rather than actual Twitter users. Also, clicking on a tweet within a trending topic shows useful info in the details panel. You can see how many people have retweeted the specific tweet, and you can even see who they are. You can also see the bio of anyone mentioned in the tweet and a link to follow them if you aren’t already, replies to the tweet and tweets from the user (or in some case tweets from the person mentioned in the tweet).

Tweet From Any Page

Lastly, now you don’t have to navigate back to the homepage whenever you want to post a new tweet. There is a convenient little icon above the timeline and next to your username that, when clicked, brings up a tweet box.This box can also be moved around wherever you’d like on the screen, and can include your current location if you allow it.

So now that you see what the #NewTwitter design has to offer, what is your favorite feature?

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Why Getting Attention Won’t Make You Rich

Be remarkable. Be the purple cow. Get yourself noticed. Just be your own beautiful and unique snowflake self, and your allotment of raving fans will come find you and buy everything you make.

Ever heard that advice?

It’s a social media truism that as long as you’re authentic, you can’t go wrong. Fame, fortune, and the latest Apple products will all be yours.

Let’s face it — authenticity can be a great way to draw a crowd. Especially if you have an over-the-top personality. And because we live in the age of attention scarcity, many people think that getting attention is the hard part.

If only I could get noticed. If only I could get someone to read my stuff.

But attention isn’t actually the rarest commodity in the 21st century.

Trust is.

It’s true that the first letter in every sales formula is “A”

All marketing has to start with attention.

If you can’t attract attention in the first place, nothing else you do has a chance to work. This is why headlines matter more than anything else you do.

And that’s been the case as long as selling has existed. If you’ve ever been to a Renaissance Faire, think about the way the food vendors let you know what they’ve got to offer.

When the pretty girl in the tight bodice shouts Hot Turkey Legs! and Cold Beer Here!, those are headlines. They attract your attention and let you know the most important details of the offer.

But you need to remember that the work of the headline is not only to attract attention.

The true job of the headline is to get the first line of your copy (whether it’s a blog post, email message, sales letter, video, or podcast) read, watched, or listened to.

In other words, if you gaze happily at the pretty girl but you never approach her for a beer, the headline (and the bodice) have failed.

Copywriting formulas have more than one letter

(If the whole idea of copywriting formulas is new to you, you can find 15 of them here.)

Conversion is the copywriting term for all the stuff that happens between that initial “A” and the sale.

• You craft an offer that people will actually want to buy.
• You build trust.
• You answer questions and counter objections.
• You describe appealing benefits to spark interest and fan it into desire.
• You make it easy for the prospect to see herself as a customer.
• You increase desire with appealing bonuses.
• You deliver a clear, compelling call to action.
• You build in urgency elements to get the prospect to act today.
• You state your call to action again.

Being a jerk is bad for business

Lots of us will reward a jerk with attention. But not many will reward a jerk with business.

Jerks can’t be depended on. They play head games. They don’t respect their audience. They amuse themselves at the expense of other people.

Prospects are already fearful enough. If your prospects don’t trust you, they’re not likely to spend any money with you.

You don’t have to be a wimp

You’ll notice that some very successful businesspeople have strong, tough personas.

They may well make themselves unlikeable to most of the population. That’s ok – they’re filtering out the customers who aren’t right for their business.

The message they send to their right customers, though, is always that they can be trusted. That they’ll tell the truth, even when it’s not pretty. That they’re consistent, whether you like them or not.

The dad from Sh*t My Dad Says would make a good marketer. Let’s face it, if you bought a car from that guy, you know that you’d have a completely accurate picture of what was good and bad about the car. He may be offensive at times, but he’s trustworthy.

(At least, the real dad and not the one who will be played by William Shatner.)

The dad from “Family Guy” would make a lousy marketer. He’s capricious, he goes for the cheap laugh every time, and he has no integrity. There are no customers gullible enough to buy a car from that guy. You may find him hilarious, but no sane person would find him trustworthy.

It takes more than being remarkable

Hey, I’m a big fan of remarkable. I built a blog and a lovely business around it.

But “remarkable” doesn’t mean “remarkably annoying,” “remarkably mean,” or “remarkably useless.”

You have my permission to swear on your blog, to fearlessly embrace controversy, or just to make yourself a likeable jackass.

But never, ever do it at the expense of the trust of your readers.

There is no effective copywriting formula that leads directly from getting Attention to creating a Scandal to making a Sale.

That’s just a formula for making an A-S-S of yourself.

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Social Media Creators and Brands: Distortion or Reality?

According to Reed Hastings, Netflix CEO, we here in the US are so self –absorbed that we do whatever we want and really don’t pay attention anyway to the details like pricing of products etc. Unfortunately, his remarks weren’t too far from the truth. The remarks were also an incredibly stupid thing for a CEO to say but that’s for another post.

Another apparent habit of us here in the US is embellishment. Really?!?!? In a larger sense we tend to distort things especially when we pass them on to others. Ever play that silly kid game of ‘telephone’ with adults? Start a message at one end of a line of 25 folks and see what it has morphed into when it is passed along one person at a time. Embellish? Distort? Nah, not us. Not in the land of ‘experts’, ‘mavens’, ‘ninjas’ and other distorted reality self proclaimed titles? Really?!?!?!?

Check out the chart below from eMarketer and Burston-Marstellar. You can see why this propensity to distort reality can be a real problem for marketers.

The brief article then says

PR and communications firm Burson-Marsteller analyzed more than 150 messages sent out by companies in the Financial Times Global 100 list of firms and discovered a large gap between the messages that went out and how they were covered on blogs.

Message distortion was highest for companies in Latin America and the US, with a global average of 69% of blog postings not reflecting the message companies were trying to send. According to the report, bloggers tended to include “opinions, personal experience, knowledge of competitors and products, and speculation.”

Whoa wait a minute? How are we defining ‘brand distortion’ here? If it means that people (in particular, bloggers) don’t send the exact message that a company is trying to push out to the buying public but rather includes opinions and personal experience then I say “Distort away!” I also say to this research “No s$#%, Sherlock”. That’s one of the major plusses of social media which is learning about actual experience of a brand rather than the Fantasyland version that marketers produce. It’s about the truth and if truth is a distortion of a brand message then maybe you better check the message.

Firms like Burson-Marstellar are actually masters of distortion (read: PR) so this kind of research is a bit ironic coming from them. I say that if opinions, personal experience and competitive knowledge are bad things then we should ignore this research and just going about our business. That’s the whole point of all of this! If we blindly trust every marketing message that has ever been shoved down our throat we’d all be driving Yugos while smoking cigarettes and eating a stick of butter because the makers of those things think it is in our best interest to buy them.

This is why I am extremely cautious about research in this space. When you see any infographic (which is all the rage) don’t get sucked in by the chart or the pretty picture and just take it as the truth. Dig a little and see what is really being said. You may find that what was being marketed by that research could be embellishment right out of the gate. When that’s the case, you have to put on your caveat emptor caps and use some discretion.

After that, if you want to distort and embellish some more go right ahead because apparently it is the American way.

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Courts Disagree on Expectation of Privacy Regarding Social Media

If you want to know anything about privacy laws, Kashmir Hill from Forbes is your gal. She writes a whole column on it and earlier this week she wrote an interesting piece about two Facebook privacy cases with two very different results.

Both cases involved a person with a Facebook account who was suing a company for something totally unrelated to social media. In California, an artist sued an apparel company for putting his designs on items they hadn’t agreed on, like maybe condoms. Lawyers for the company asked for access to all of the artist’s Facebook and MySpace updates, obviously hoping to catch him saying he was thrilled about being featured on a condom, or something like that.

A federal judge said that request violated the 1986 (?!?) electronic communications law and as long as the artist’s wall page was sent to friends only, then those posts were private and couldn’t be used by the defendant to make their case.

Then we go to New York, where a judge used the same law to back up his decision to force a women to turn over all of her social media posts, including those marked private. The woman claimed she was injured when falling from a defective chair, but the chair manufacturer said, but look at how happy she is on Facebook!

Remember that story that went around last year or so about the woman on medical leave for depression who had her insurance cut off because of party photos on her Facebook?

Looks like we still have a ways to go for the laws to catch up to technology, but what’s to be done in the meantime? I know we’re always preaching that an effective social media strategy involves becoming “friends” with your customers, but sharing stories about a drunken binge or a gambling spree in Vegas, might not be the best way to rack up sales, even if you do work for a liquor company.

The lesson here is that a little paranoia is a good thing. Look at your own personal Facebook account – would it be detrimental to your company if what you posted there was made public? Friends only box checked or not, nothing is private on the internet. Just keep that in mind the next time you’re thinking of mixing social media business with pleasure.

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ShopLocal Adds Wish List Component

Have you made your holiday gift list yet? Not the list of things you need to buy for others, the list of things you want other people to buy for you. ShopLocal is making it easier with a new gizmo they’re adding that connects their Smart Circulars to Facebook, natch.

I couldn’t find a picture of the “Gift Me This” widget in action, but it’s likely just a rebranded version of the graphic you see right here. When a consumer flips through the online version of a ShopLocal circular, they have the ability to choose items and send them to Facebook. It’s perfect for anyone who wants to spread the word about a bonus offer on a DVD from Best Buy or a cool deal on recyclable paper at Staples.

At the heart of it, this is just a version of the famed Amazon wish list, but it takes it one step further by adding a social aspect. Because you can add a comment before posting, “Gift Me This” invites conversation about a product and that’s important when it comes to social media marketing.

On the marketing side, those comments are added to the store’s Smart Circular acting as mini reviews when someone else clicks that product. They can also be integrated into a Local Deals tab on the company’s Facebook page.

As the race for the consumer’s holiday dollars heats up, this small widget could have a big effect on sales. Visit ShopLocal.com to see their consumer site in action, or visit
the ShopLocal blog to learn more about the new “Gift Me This” widget.

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Facebook Revenue Estimates Continue to Rise

As if we needed more evidence that Facebook is not only making money but it appears to be making very real money, the estimates for this year’s revenue keep going up.

paidContent reports

It was only last month that eMarketer said Facebook’s ad sales for the year would likely total $1.2 billion. In a report today on the state of the overall ad market, Cowen & Co. analyst Jim Friedland says he expects that number to actually total more than $1.6 billion and non-ad revenue to bring Facebook’s overall sales to nearly $1.75 billion for the year.

Not bad for a company whose beginnings are the stuff of Silicon Valley lore that will this weekend show up in the theaters as entertainment.

So why the increase in estimates? First of all, they are just that …. estimates. Facebook is a privately held company and even after the year is over we will only be left guessing at just how much the social media behemoth was able to make in 2010.

Why is it important? It’s important for us as marketers to get a true sense of the real impact of Facebook. How Facebook impacts a business through advertising and exposure are all being discovered anew every day. If there is evidence, however, that people are seeing it as a viable advertising alternative then that merits more attention by the business community at large.

One caution is that while advertisers keep flocking to Facebook it will be important to watch to see who stays. Right now Facebook will enjoy the ride as more people experiment with the site with their ad dollars. With 500 million users there are a lot of reasons for a lot of companies to at least give the option a shot. As a result, Facebook will see revenue rise just on companies experimenting. It’s the return that these companies receive that will determine just how high in the sky this star can rise.

The real story will be told when there is enough data and evidence as to how effective that advertising is. Also, Facebook will need to continue to innovate and find more ways to monetize their unprecedented popularity.

As for the future? It depends on whose guesstimate you want to pay attention to

Friedland expects Facebook’s U.S. ad sales to total $1.05 billion and international ad sales to come in at roughly $500 million. eMarketer put U.S. ad revenue at $835 million and worldwide sales at $450 million. Next year, Friedland expects Facebook’s ad sales to total $3.2 billion, nearly double what eMarketer is expecting.

So the future looks bright for Facebook which comes as no surprise.

Now for the real question. Do you plan to spend your entertainment dollars on seeing “The Social Network” in the theaters? For me personally there has never been a more “wait for the DVD then maybe watch it later” movie but that’s just me. How about you?

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Twitter Says No to Political Promoted Tweets

There’s a story on ClickZ today that states that Twitter is not going to allow politicians to buy promoted tweets. An internet consultant working on a campaign inquired and was told that Twitter wasn’t accepting this type of ad at this time.

At first, it seems like this was big news. A company turning away business? And turning away a topic that is trending at that moment? Why? Is it because Twitter is afraid of looking politically biased? But what about promoted tweets from alcohol companies or cigarette companies or bad movies. Couldn’t a promoted tweet be seen as an endorsement from Twitter?

My years of watching West Wing had me thinking constitutional rights and freedom of speech and bipartisan tweeting! Then I read the rest of the article and realized that maybe it’s not Twitter but the consultant who got it wrong.

Unless you’re talking about the Presidential elections, politics is very area specific. Look at California’s current race for governor.  People all over the US may have a passing interest in what’s happening, but it doesn’t make sense to pay for an ad that tells Texans to vote for one or the other. Twitter simply isn’t equipped to handle geo-targeting on even a national level, let alone by state, city or neighborhood. Because of that, is it really the best tool for political advertising?

This whole situation seems to be a case of jumping on the social media bandwagon just because it’s the trendy thing to do.

What do you think? Is there something to this story?

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95% of Companies Have Tried Social Media; 40% Didn’t Inhale!

There are so many great findings in Econsultancy and bigmouthmedia’s Social Media and Online PR Report 2010 I barely know where to start!

This will probably be one of the few reports you’ll want to spend dollars on this year, although I will add one caveat: the data is skewed towards the UK. That aside, here’s a sample of some of the insights:

1. While 95% of companies have added social media to their marketing mix, 45% have either only “experimented” or not done anything in social media. Really? Do these companies also turn away 45% of all customers? They may as well!

2. If you think that’s hard to believe, take a look at this chart! With the exception of corporate blogs, there’s a decline in the use of every social media tactic under the sun! Maybe if these companies focused on more than “experimenting” with social media they’d find that it offers a long-term benefit to their business. Perhaps they focused too much on the immediate ROI and, when that instant gratification failed to materialize, became disillusioned.

3. And what about their PR campaigns? I am astounded that there has been a decline in the proportion of PR activity taking place online! What, was it too difficult to figure out? Was it just too hard to actually interact with journalists, bloggers, and other influentials? Was it easier to go back to blasting out press releases? Does someone need a hug?

Want more? Wait til you see the astonishing findings on companies’ use of online reputation monitoring!

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Cause Marketing Creates Consumer Loyalty

Ford announced yesterday, that it’s teaming up with Web radio station Pandora for a new cause marketing campaign involving Jewel and John Legend. The program surrounds Ford’s new Sync system that allows you to stream audio from a mobile device through the car’s speakers. When consumers visit Pandora they’ll be asked to share songs from either of the two artists and for each song shared, Ford and Pandora will make a donation to charity.

According to a survey by Cone LLC, as reported on by Adweek, this move will help endear Ford to car buying consumers. 41% of the people surveyed this past July said that they’ve purchased a product or service because it was associated with a cause. 85% went so far as to say “When a product or company supports a cause I care about, I have a more positive image of the product or company.” More than half the people said a donation to a cause would make them willing to “try a new brand or one they’ve never heard of.” That’s a huge kick to brand loyalty.

But where cause marketing used to be a nice thing companies did now and then, it’s becoming more and more expected, even in this tough economy. 31% of the people surveyed said it was even more important for companies to support a cause while doing business. Those surveyed also made it clear that the full amount of the donation should be part of the cost of doing that business, not something that is passed on to consumers.

When it comes to choosing a charity, 46% of those surveyed wanted companies to focus their energy on local efforts, then national efforts before going abroad. Economic development, hunger, education, disaster relief, homelessness and the environment all ranked high on the list of causes consumers wanted to see addressed.

Though all efforts were appreciated, more than half the respondents said they prefer a company to make a “long-term commitment on its own to a focused issue it will support over time.” Programs such as Box Tops for Education, McDonalds and Ronald McDonald House Charities and Yoplait SaveLids to Save Lives all fall into this category.

Overall, consumers thought that companies were doing a good job at sharing the wealth with those in need. Alison DaSilva of Cone says;

“We know that even as some companies were in a tailspin, other leaders quickly stepped up to address societal and environmental needs as they unfolded, namely hunger, poverty and disaster response. . . . And certainly, the number of cause-marketing promotions and communications exploded. It was a time that allowed companies to show their true colors, and consumers were paying attention.”

For a more detailed look at the report by Cone, read the article from Adweek.

Has cause marketing influenced your decisions to purchase a product? Do you use cause marketing in your business? Tell us about it in the comments below.

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Bring The World To Your WordPress Dashboard And Save Time!

As bloggers, our most valuable asset is time. We can spend it on writing useful content, promoting our blogs, networking and so on.

Yet we also need to check stats, moderate comments, use social media and so on, and these tasks tend to suck a large part of our time. For example, if I want to check my earnings, I will have to go to 3 or 4 different sites. And then, if I decide to tweet, I have to go to Twitter!

It would save a lot of time if we could do those maintenance tasks from within the WordPress dashboard right?

That is why I decided to write this post with some plugins you can use to carry out these tasks without leaving WordPress. Enjoy.

1. Analytics 360 Plugin

Analytics 360 is an awesome WordPress plugin that can pull your Google Analytics and MailChimp data and display it in your WordPress dashboard.

You will need a MailChimp API key(optional) and Google Analytics account for it to work. Once installed, go to Settings → Analytics 360 and enter your API key and authenticate it with Google Analytics to start pulling data.

Once that is done, you can view stats your Analytics and MailChimp stats anytime by simple going to Dashboard → Analytics 360°.

2. My GMail

My GMail plugin simply displays your unread mails on WordPress dashboard. However, make sure to check “Always Use HTTPS” in your GMail options because it works over HTTPS only!

For more GMail productivity and time saving tips, check out this long post by me: How To Turn GMail Into Productivity Powerhouse.

3. Google Adsense Summary

Google AdSense Summary lets you check AdSense earnings for Today, Yesterday, This Month, Last Month and All Time. After installing, go to Settings page and enter your username and password. After that, you can see earnings for your account from dashboard anytime!

4. Full Comments On Dashboard

Do you reply to your comments? No!

Oh my god!

That can’t be true.

If you do not reply to comments, the sky will fall down and you will lose all your visitors!

OK, OK, nothing like that will happen, but replying to comments can help you a lot. Here are 5 Good Reasons Why You Should respond To Every Comment.

Now, WordPress dashboard has a pretty widget called “Recent Comments”. The only problem with it is that it displays comment excerpt. So, you have to go to recent posts or comments to reply. This takes another 1 or more clicks. How about replygin straight from WP dashboard?

Full Comments On Dashboard is a simple plugin that will show full comments instead of excerpt on your dashboard. This allows you to easily reply to comments. The widget can show up to 30 comments(hover mouse over it’s title bar to see a “Configure” link and set number of comments to show from there). And there’s no mumbo-jumbo associated with it, just install and forget!

5. Twitter Tools

Twitter Tools is another excellent plugin that can reduce lot of work. Using it, you can:

1. Tweet from WordPress Dashboard (See Posts → Tweet)
2. Tweet from any page on your blog where twitter tools widget is present.
3. Automatically tweet about new posts.
4. Create a “digest” of your tweets and publish on your blog.
5. Add a list of recent tweets to sidebar and filter @ replies from it!

After installing plugin, just enter your Twitter account details in Settings → Twitter Tools and optionally, bit.ly username and API key. Now, you can tweet right from your blog anytime!

Note: Do not expect a complete Twitter client though! Plugin is very simple in terms of tweeting and is best for 1 or 2 odd tweets you want to write quickly!

6. Feed Stats

Feed Stats will, as the name suggests, allows you to view FeedBurner stats.

Install it, go to Settings → Feed Stats and enter your feed URL. Click save and now, you are ready to view all you feed data easily by going to Dashboard → Feed Stats. You can view feed stats for last 10 days. Stats you can view are Subscribers, Hits and Reach.

You can find more about some interesting features of FeedBurner here: .

7. Plugin Central

Plugin Central will help you manage and upgrade your plugins easily.

When upgrades are available for any of your plugins, it will add the plugin name along with changelog and “Update” link to your WordPress Dashboard “Right Now” widget. And yes, there is “upgrade all” option too!

And at last, you can install multiple plugins by entering URL or just typing in name of plugin!

Note: I have checked all these plugins on my blog running WordPress 3.0 and they work fine. However, I’d advice to take a backup of your database before installing any plugin! And if you have any questions, feel free to ask in comments, I will be replying to all of them!

About Author: Hi, my name is Ishan Sharma and I am a teen entrepreneur. I love blogging and I blog at Blogging With Success about Blogging Tips and Resources. If you liked this post, consider subscribing to Blogging With Success via RSS or email!

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Face Time Meets Social Media Marketing

We love our Twitter, Facebook and email for marketing, but nothing beats face time with a potential consumer – just ask the Fuller Brush Man. But before you start knocking on doors, download this new, free ebook from GoToMeeting. It’s called ‘The Best of Both Worlds: How to Effectively Leverage Social Media Relationships with Real-Time Collaboration Tools” and though the title is way too long, it’s packed with practical suggestions and inspiration to help you get face-to-face with your customers.

The ebook outlines ways for marketers to ramp up their social media marketing efforts through the use of Webinars and online conferences. If you’re like me, you probably associates those words with corporate training sessions but after reading the report, I saw the possibilities for creative marketing. Let’s start with the basics of any campaign.

To be successful with social media marketing, you have to follow the words in order. That is, “social” has to come before “marketing” if you want people to stay with you. Probably the best piece of advice in the report is “don’t join everything and anything that is available.” It’s one thing for a pet food company to join a big animal rights forum, but I wouldn’t try it if you’re selling fur coats.

The second part of the report looks at a variety of popular social media tools then gives you a case study on how to make the leap to an online conference. For Twitter, it’s the case of an author who agreed to answer students’ questions on Twitter for a week then capped it with a live class via a Webinar where he taught them how to use the advice he’d already imparted.

I was really inspired by a case study involving Delicious. A health food distributor bookmarks a site related to ginseng, this gives her a list of everyone else who has bookmarked this link and from there she builds a network of interested parties. Then, she shares her desktop via a Webinar for a look at some of the best sites she’s linked on Delicious.

It brilliant in its simplicity. The downside is that this type of marketing takes time. You need to build up an audience and even if 100 people say they’ll come to your Webinar, you’ll be lucky if half the number actually shows up. But those that do come are your best potential customers because they’ve already shown not only an interest, but they’ve gone out of their way to get more information.

Information and entertainment, are the keys, says Tom Bunzel, author of the ebook. No one comes to a Webinar hoping for a sales pitch, but if you give them something they can use, they’ll remember you when it’s time to make a purchase.

Need some inspiration? Download ‘The Best of Both Worlds: How to Effectively Leverage Social Media Relationships with Real-Time Collaboration Tools”

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Web 2.0: A Necessary Evil?

Every day we talk about the large number of people who are using not just social media but other Web 2.0 applications to manage and promote their business. Online project management sites, web mail, Google docs, and online chat are all becoming part of the working norm but not everyone is comfortable with where we’re headed. According to a new report commissioned by McAfee, more than 50% of the over 1,000 decision-makers surveyed said that Web 2.0 was a dark and scary place.

You could put their fear off to technophobic paranoia, but more than 6 out of 10 have already felt the burn of a security breach with losses averaging around $2 million.

Companies’ top four perceived threats from employee use of Web 2.0 are malicious software (35 percent), viruses (15 percent), overexposure of information (11 percent) and spyware (10 percent).

Most of those issues can be dealt with provided a company puts the proper technological safeguards in place (remember, the survey was commissioned by McAfee). The biggest concern is one that even the most robust anti-virus software can’t stop – the loose-lipped employee.

60% of the companies surveyed said they were worried about loss of reputation, clients or confidence due to inappropriate use of Web 2.0 tools. One third said that they had “unplanned investments related to work arounds related to social media in the workplace.” 14% said they were involved in litigation or were dealing with legal threats as a result of an employee disclosing something they shouldn’t.

In order to prevent a problem, 13% of the businesses said they block all Web 2.0 activity. 81% said they restrict usage of at least one tool and 25% said they monitor social media usage in the workplace. As fearful as they are, only one third of the respondents said they have a social media policy in place. This is not surprising, as most companies wouldn’t even know where to begin writing up such a policy given the fast-changing nature of the tools involved.

Even with all of the issues, most of the companies agreed that the use of Web 2.0 technology helped create new revenue streams and 40% said the tools boosted productivity. Thus, the necessary evil.

Instead of blocking and monitoring, companies need to get more proactive about the use of social media and online tools. Policies need to be put in place, not only for security reasons, but so that a consistent message is being delivered across all the channels. That being said, there’s simply no way to stop an angry employee from blasting the company’s business over Twitter or uploading photos of the CEO getting friendly at the Christmas party to Facebook. We have to understand that Web 2.0 tools are just that, tools. And like a hammer or saw, they can be used for good or evil because there’s a human being wielding it and not an emotionless robot. In other words, Twitter doesn’t embarrass people, people embarrass people but you can’t let that stop you from using every tool available to make your company a success.

The McAfee “Web 2.0: A Complex Balancing Act – The First Global Study on Web 2.0 Usage, Risks and Best Practices” report is available for download at: www.mcafee.com

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Survey Says “Twitter Effect” is a Hollywood Myth

Sometimes, Hollywood admen don’t tell the truth. I know, you’re shocked, but that’s not to say they’re lying to us. It’s more a case of believing their own press.

Vincent Bruzzese, president of the worldwide motion picture group told TheWrap;

“In this business we spin ourselves into perceptions that aren’t real. They echo through the hallways of this industry, but the facts don’t support the claims.”

One of the claims in question is whether Twitter is an effective strategy for promoting movies. People in the know have stated that “The Blind Side” and “The Karate Kid” both had big box office numbers because of a positive run on Twitter, aka The Twitter Effect.

However, research by Ipsos OTX MediaCT says otherwise.

Their claim is that Twitter is the least used method of communicating consumer opinions about movies. The survey says that consumers received only 1% of their movie recommendations from Twitter. 46% of the people surveyed said random tweets didn’t influence them at all, and 40% said tweeted approval from a friend wouldn’t influence their decision either.

The most popular means was face-to-face between friends and family (48%). Recommendations from co-workers came in at 16% When it comes to social media, Facebook made the list with only 11% of the vote.

Logically, this makes sense for one big reason which is actually quite small. There’s not enough space in a tweet to deliver a movie review with any gusto. Sure, you can write WOW and OMG but it doesn’t have nearly the same impact as an enthusiastic retelling of the car chase in the action thriller you saw over the weekend.

If you’d like to check out movie reviews on Twitter, FFlick gathers them for you in one place.

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Medical Monday: When Marketing Health Online, Remember the Old Adage, “Location, Location, Location”

With pharma carving out a greater presence online, marketers are seeing the importance of having a social presence to reach their audiences. And with over a third of adults reporting using social media to find health information¹ it’s no wonder why.

As Marshall McLuhan said 46 years ago, “the medium is the message.”  While McLuhan was discussin television and radio, the same holds true with marketing on social media.  Not all social media channels are the same, and with marketers eager to get online, it’s important to consider the right platforms for a product and/or campaign.

For example, while Facebook may have reached over 500 million users, that doesn’t mean a Facebook fan page is the best place for every pharmaceutical product. The key is to finding where thetarget audience is, what channels they use, and where conversations about the category are taking place. People aren’t likely to “fan” a product or condition on Facebook - associating themselves to their entire online network which could include friends, family and coworkers - that has a high “ick-factor” or could be considered embarrassing.

As well, just because a person may not want to associate themselves with a product or disease publically doesn’t mean they aren’t apt to participate in online discussions about it online. The lap-band gastric weight loss surgery is a great example.

A few, scattered “lap-band” Facebook pages exist, with a couple hundred members - not a high number by current standards. However, a deeper dive reveals a very active community regularly using forums and chat rooms to communicate to one another. For anonymity, the groups are often password protected and/or allow their participants to use made-up usernames. Often as users get more comfortable, and develop sub-communities of their own, we see these usernames give way to real names, and even scheduling of in person meet-ups of the community’s members.

The key to making the decision of where and how to market a product online is listening. By researching and evaluating where a target audience is active online, a marketer can develop a targeted campaign that is more likely to succeed and deliver the return on investment the company is looking for in executing such an initiative or campaign.

Sources:

1. iHealthReports. The Wisdom of Patients: Health Care Meets Online Social Media. April 2008

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Promoted Tweets and Trends Doing Well with Big Brands

Twitter is moving from the social media collector of huge numbers of accounts and unique site visits etc to the thing everyone in the business world is waiting for: a real advertising vehicle.

The first foray into this area has been their promoted tweets and trends, which were introduced in April and June of this year respectively. With a few months of data behind them and the announcement that these special items will be showing up in third party apps like TweetDeck and HootSuite, things are starting to gain steam for the Twitter revenue express.

AdAge reports

Even after six months, campaigns with nearly 40 different marketers and repeat customers such as Ford, Virgin America and Verizon, Twitter still views its ads as experimental.

But that’s about to change. Twitter plans in November to take its ads beyond Twitter.com and extend them to the rest of the user base through apps such as TweetDeck and Hootsuite.

For all the campaigns so far, from Coca-Cola to AT&T and all the major film studios, the interaction rate with a promoted tweet — defined as a retweet, a new follower or a click-through — is 5%, significantly higher than a standard web display ad, where click-throughs are well below 1%.

Of those three measurements the click through is the biggie since the others can simply be the result of spam activities or something other than a real prospect for that advertiser. I would love to see the breakdown of that 5% and see how that number holds up against the display ad number.

Twitter is feeling its oats about this offering as evidenced by the following quote

“We now feel pretty confident we are cracking the code on a new kind of advertising, one that is more engaging … but also more participatory,” said Twitter Chief Operating Officer Dick Costolo.

The question going forward is whether Twitter’s two existing ad units — promoted trends and tweets — can scale, and whether interest in Twitter remains concentrated among big brands that see it as a nifty, albeit small, promotional medium, or if, like Google search, it becomes a must-buy for all marketers.

Moving over to the third party app world where many users of Twitter sit unaffected by these ads currently is something that is getting the attention of current advertisers who are in search of scale for their efforts. That scale combined with the conversion rates have some bigger players very excited.

Coke, which has run more than 50 campaigns on Twitter since June, says its campaigns have had much higher interaction rates than Mr. Costolo is reporting.

Since June, Coke’s follower count has grown from about 50,000 to 122,000. Nice, but hardly the kind of scale Coke needs. “My job is not to play around with tens of thousands of people; it’s to play around with millions of people,” said Michael Donnelly, Coke director-worldwide interactive marketing.

If you are an SMB or even just a smaller business than Coke in general (which is most of us) it’s funny to see the virtual dismissal of tens of thousands of people isn’t it? That’s why Twitter is attractive to these large players because of the numbers they can boast like 160 million accounts and 370,000 new sign ups per day.

Not bad. So for all you enjoying the ad free Twitter life, enjoy it while you can. There isn’t much time left and it appears that once that train leaves the station it may not be coming back (unless of course there will be a ‘no-ads’ subscription option. Would you pay for that?)

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Report Says Blogs Still Vital

With all the talk about social media these days, you don’t hear a lot about blogs anymore and the blogosphere has taken a secondary place in some discussions to talk about Twitter and Facebook and other forms of social media.

That doesn’t means that blogs have disappeared or will anytime soon. A new report from the Internet marketing firm eMarketer tells us at least half of all the people that get information on the Web still read blogs and 12% of Internet users in the United States have updated a blog in the last month.

What does all that mean? Well, it’s clear that search engine optimization techniques using blogs as their vehicle will never really go away for several reasons including:

• The fact that social media doesn’t directly affect page ranking. Sure, you can get traffic to your site from places like Twitter and Facebook, but you need the keywords and links that Google searches for page ranking and that doesn’t happen with social media platforms. Losing blogs or some form of longer content restricts the results you’ll get from any Internet marketing campaign.
• Blogs tell the whole story. Remember you’ve only got 140 characters to describe what you need to on Twitter. That means you should point those snippets somewhere if you want your tweets to have some impact. In short, social media works well as a beacon pointing to where you want readers and prospective customers to go. It’s the means not the end. That’s still the domain of the blog and other forms of longer content.

Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose

The report also stresses a very good point you already know if you pay attention to the Internet, namely that blogs will continue to change and by 2014, 60% of Internet users will be reading some kind of blog. Remember that’s some kind of blog because blogging has always meant something different to different people and as they morph, the trend toward more and more people reading them will continue.

Here is another great point. As blogs evolve, people may be reading something they might not even consider a blog in the more traditional sense. That could push the positive numbers higher so even more people are reading and involved with blogs.

It all comes back to content in the end. Always does and more than likely always will. Blogs will be part of the internet landscape for good because blogs, in all their different forms, have consistently been part of what drives the Internet forward. Putting a different kind of fuel in your car doesn’t change the fact you still need wheels to drive it.

Every time some new way of spreading information across the Internet comes out that has the potential to reach more people quickly, the death knoll sounds for blogs. That’s just the people talking who don’t understand content and blogs will constantly be evolving and people will always have more to say and a product or service to sell that demands more than 140 characters to get the point across.

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West Coast More Media Savvy Than East Coast

Business people on the West Coast are much more connected when it comes to Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin use than their counterparts on the other side of the country. NetProspex came to this conclusion when they studied a wide range of contacts for their Fall 2010 Social Business Report.

NetProspex has their own social index (NPSI) which is determined by how contacts rate in the following areas:

Social connectedness: The number of employees with at least one social media profile
Social friendliness and reach: The average number of connections per employee across major social networks
Social activity: The average number of tweets, number of followers, and number of users following

Looking at these factors, San Francisco came out on top with the tech-minded folks in San Jose, California running a close second. Los Angeles (9) and Seattle (6) also made the top ten, while only New York (3) and Boston (5) ranked for the East Coast.

New York got a huge boost thanks to Twitter with only San Francisco ranking as high for number of tweets, number of contacts, frequency and sophistication of tweets. Though how they measured “sophistication” I’ll never know. Looking only at the cities in the top 10, Seattle had the lowest Twitter score.

California and Texas were the only states to have multiple cities in the top 15. California I get, by why Texas?

And before the Texans get too haughty, the study showed the New Yorkers have almost twice the number of social media friends as anyone in Houston. So take that.

What’s to be learned from all of this? Probably nothing. But if you’re a business person on the West Coast you now have something new to talk about when you start Twittering, Facebooking and getting Linkedin, come Monday morning.

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How to Make Everybody Happy

A Guest post by Stanford from Pushing Social. Image by superbomba.

Your blog is like the popular kid at school.

It needs to look great, be funny, smart, and remember everybody’s name. It’s a tough job.

But the hardest part of the job is keeping everyone happy.

You are probably figuring out that your readers are not all cut from the same cloth. Although they may share a common interest, each has his or her own reason for visiting your blog. Some are casual readers, while others are hardcore fanatics that devour every word.

It’s easy to believe that every reader will be satisfied with your 300-700-word post. Not so. In fact, your standard post may only satisfy a fraction of your readers and leave the rest wondering, “Where’s the beef?”

If you want your blog to grow, get passed around, and inspire an engaged community, you’ll need to write content that makes everyone happy.

Wait, you can’t make everybody happy … right?

I know that blog readers — myself included — can be a fickle crowd. There’s a handful of blogs that I read daily and I have impossible standards. They need to write exactly the type of posts I like, publish them regularly, and never, ever, disappoint me. I’m a tyrant and so are your blog’s readers.

The problem is that you can’t write multiple types of posts every day to satisfy every reader.

But can you make all of your readers happy?

Crowd -> community -> core

Yes you can … by being smart about the content you produce and where you place that content.

It’s useful to think about your audience as overlapping circles of readers. At the center are the core readers. A little further out is your community of regular readers. Furthest out is the crowd, who occasionally visit. All together, these folks form the ecosystem for your blog.

Every day, people read your content and naturally settle into one of these circles. Your goal is to move the crowd to the core.

Let’s take a look at each group and some techniques for keeping them happy.

The core

These folks are dedicated to you. They visit your blog every day and are the first to comment, retweet, and mention your posts. You may even know these fans by name. Core readers are the first to sign up for email courses, pre-order products, and join your affiliate program.

Your goal as a “tribal leader” is to find and connect with your core as quickly as possible.

Core readers are disproportionately influential. Don’t be fooled by their small followings — their enthusiasm is infectious and they can rally a crowd through sheer persistence.

How to make core readers happy

Core readers hunger for more than your usual posts. They want to dive deeper into each of your posts and are starving for more detail. These folks have devoured your archive post and relate to you on a visceral level. You need to kick it up a notch to keep them satisfied. Here’s how to do it:

• Go deep: Use email courses, private forums, and ebooks to give the core a deep dive into your content. My own Spectacular Posts email course is designed to give my core readers new information that I haven’t covered in a post. I don’t hold anything back because my core reader has an insatiable appetite for more information. So does yours.
• Keep your eye on them: Create a list of your core readers in Twitter and bookmark their Facebook pages. Friend them, follow them, and regularly visit their blogs. Make sure they know that you are cheerleading for them.

The Community

Community readers are regular visitors to your blog. They are infrequent commenters but frequent retweeters. The community makes up the bulk of your blog’s traffic. They appreciate a consistent message and hate surprises.

How to make the community happy

• Be reliable: Your community wants a steady supply of information that serves their needs. They share your goals and interests and want to hear more from you. Consistent posting encourages them to visit your blog often. Over time, you earn their trust and convince them that you have a resource worth sharing.
• Use “edutainment”: Community readers plow through a lot of blogs every week. Dry, me-too posts are easily drowned out. To raise above the clutter, you need to combine entertaining and interesting viewpoints with your topic. These mashups can combine Lady Gaga and Blogging Tips or Ant Swarm Behavior and Project Management. This is guaranteed way to stand out in the RSS reader, and catch the eye of super-influencers too.
• Be relevant: Community readers have a low tolerance for loosy-goosy, feel-good content that isn’t practical. They were attracted to your blog because you helped them solve a problem. They keep coming back because you are interesting and have a viewpoint that fits them like a glove. Don’t disappoint them. Keep an editorial calendar that continually delivers on-point content.

The Crowd

Outside of the community lies the crowd. Crowd readers are usually referred by another source. They are not regular readers and may only spend a few seconds on your blog. Your topic is likely to be complementary to the crowd reader’s main interest, but not a tight fit.

It’s tempting to dismiss the crowd since they aren’t your bread-and-butter readers. But smart bloggers work to satisfy the crowd because they bring fresh perspectives to the community. Your goal should be to turn the occasional crowd reader into a regular community or core reader.

How to make the crowd happy

• Guest post: As you know, I’m a huge fan of guest posting as a way to reach readers that lurk outside your community. Guest posts allow other more influential blogger to vouch for you, giving you enough credibility to attract a larger audience. It’s not a mistake that many up-and-coming bloggers spend a large chunk of time guest posting to reach the crowd.
• Build outposts: Outposts are social networking sites where you maintain a profile and special content. Youtube, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter are popular outposts that represent online watercoolers for millions of users. Pick one outpost to start with, and invest some time to build a presence there. Link your outpost to your blog and regularly post content there. Over time, your outpost will get on the crowd’s radar screen and start escorting new readers to your blog.
• Be a peacock Don’t be shy. Every once in a while, write a post that grabs attention. Your post can be provocative, epic, or piggy-back on a popular topic in the news. These “peacock posts” get noticed by influencers and passed along to their network. Even though it’s hard to tell if your post will be a barn burner, you can increase your chances by regularly writing them!

What do you think?

Can you make all of your readers happy? Which technique will you try first?

Stanford obsesses about how to get passionate people’s blogs noticed and promoted at Pushing Social — except when he’s fishing with his boys. Follow him to get the latest about his new ebook “Get Noticed.”

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