Twitter Traffic Goes “Hockey Stick”…Why?

I read a great deal about Twitter in the specialist online media, yet when two weeks ago I asked my class of undergraduates, studying Advertising ,what they knew of Twitter, barely one third even knew what I was talking about. (I felt my spider marketing senses tingle !)

Worldwide visitors to Twitter approached 10 million in February according to comScore, seven times greater than this time last year. So the question remains who is Twittering, What about and Why?

As can be seen in the graph below there is impressive growth in the USA but even more dramatic growth on a worldwide basis.

 

Visitors to Twitter

Recently Alexei Oreskovic a Blogger for Reuters published a Blog entry called Twitter Older Than It Looks which started to explore the demographics of Twitter users. “In the U.S, 10 percent of Twitter users were between 55 and 64, nearly the same amount of users as those between 18 and 24, which accounted for 10.6 percent of the total who Twittered in February.” Blogged Alex.
More specifically, 45-54 year olds are 36 percent more likely than average to visit Twitter, making them the highest indexing age group, followed by 25-34 year olds, who are 30 percent more likely.
What’s going on?
I suspect a combination of factors are at play here:
Perhaps with so many enterprises now using Twitter ,business usage is in fact driving adoption. People are Twittering either because it’s relevant to their work or because they have to in order to perform their duties and responsibilities.
The younger baby boomers never used SMS text in the way that generation X and generation Y have taken it to it. Maybe Twitter has unleashed an untapped PC enabled ”SMS” demand?
Perhaps the limited message size also forces brief communications, that are possible with email but seen as abrupt. QED perhaps Twitter is giving busy time constrained professionals “permission” to be abrupt in on line conversations.

What I want to know now is who is Twittering and who is reading? Is anyone reading? Might it be true that 90% of Tweets go unread?
Well I guess my post raises more questions and theories than it answers about Tweet.

E-Commerce web site check list

Thinking of starting up an e-commerce site? Lie down for 30 minutes play some soft music and see if the feeling goes away….

If it doesn’t then you have the E-commerce bug. Assuming that either E-bay doesn’t work for you or you have outgrown their products and now want your own place …read on.

 There are many things to take into account when setting up an online store front. Below is a list of some of the major items courtesy of my hosting buddies at West Host. You will want to thoughtfully consider and research each of these options before beginning the actual work of getting your site built and running.

 Domain Name Registration
A Domain name is one of those must haves for any site. Without it you cannot have a site. When you are deciding on a domain name for your site consider the following.

How easy is it to remember?

Is it easy to misspell?

Does it adequately portray your store?

Is it too long?

You can search for available domain names using this handy tool available here.

 Web Hosting Solution
Again, this is a must have in order to get your site online. The basic rule here is to make sure that the plan offers what you need.

Does it include a ready to install shopping cart solution that meets your needs?

How is the hosting company? What type of reviews do they get from existing clients?

(If you select a hosting company and plan simply based on the cheapest price more often than not you will get what you pay for when something goes wrong and you need the hosting company to assist you.)

My buddies at WestHost offer three standard e-commerce oriented hosting plans (Business Value, Business Pro, and usually the current special). You can compare their features and pricing at the link here.

 Shopping Cart Solution
The best way to approach this is to start with a list of the features that you would like your shopping cart to have (coupons, product options, etc.). Once you have this list you will know what to look for in the shopping cart software. As you look for a shopping cart solution you will also want to look into what level of support you can expect from the shopping cart company, your hosting company, or your Web designer/developer in regards to the shopping cart.

Another important thing to consider is how flexible your shopping cart is. Can features be added in the future as you grow and need to offer new functionality?

 SSL Certificate
If you are taking credit card payments online through your site then this is a must have. Even if you are not, it is most definitely a very strong ’should have’. An SSL certificate is what secures the personal data of your customers as it is transferred from their computer to your server. Customers will look for your site being secure when you ask them for their personal information. They want to know that you are watching out for their best interest and security. 

 Merchant Account/Payment Gateway
The merchant account gives you the ability to take and process credit card payments. Your payment gateway is what connects your merchant account to your Web site. As you shop around for a merchant account and payment gateway you will find that each company’s fees and charges will vary. WestHost has partnered with two different payment processing services to help offer you the best service for your money. You can review these payment processing options here.

 The biggest thing when choosing your payment processing solution is to make sure that it is compatible with your chosen shopping cart. Find out what payment gateways your merchant account supports and make sure that the shopping cart you select supports the same gateway.

 Shipping Options
This item, along with what tax rates you need to charge, is often overlooked until the last minute.

First of all, are your products shippable? Second, how will they be shipped and how do you want your shipping charges determined in the shopping cart. Determining the best shipping is often a balancing act between not losing money on shipping and not charging so much that your customers go elsewhere.

Most shopping cart solutions will offer multiple options for determining shipping charges. They will range from a simple table based shipping (based on either total order price or weight) to live rates from the major shipping vendors. If you leave this decision until the cart is ready to go live you might find yourself in a corner with no desirable solution. You want to make sure your chosen shopping cart will support or can be modified to support (usually through the use of modules) the type of shipping setup that you need.

 Tax Rates
Most states have their own rules as to who needs to charge tax to whom. You will want to become familiar with these rules so that you do not get into trouble. The other reason for taking this into consideration is to make sure that your shopping cart solution will accommodate the way you need to have your taxes set up to meet your local law requirements.

I hope that gives you a feel for the basics. If you need more detail or want specific advice and guidance you know where I am. If you have thoughts of your own please dadd them into the comments section.

Great stars shine brightest when the sky is darkest.

Since the economy stopped growing, I hear of more and more companies focusing their efforts on pricing and discounts. This is a huge mistake, there is no country in the world where the low price /budget segment is greater than 10% of the market. Most of the big name low price players have at best market shares of between 1% and 5%.

Can you think of a single sector that focused heavily on price? That talked about discounts? That advertised manufacturer rebates and employee pricing?  Well yes, come to think of it we can…it is the US auto industry and apart from having high manufacturing costs relative to their competitors they also had low selling prices thanks to an unhealthy obsession with low prices and discounts. An obsession which has led them to the brink of oblivion.

I know Price is such a tempting part of the marketing mix to play with, its so easy to reduce. Instead put your time and energy into market segmentation 85% of companies haven’t got a clue about market segmentation truly they haven’t. According to the Harvard Business Review (Dec 2008)  30,000 new products failed in the USA during 2006 because of poor segmentation.

Look for a company that never trades on price and I will show you a company that has correctly segmented its market. You cannot segment your market using an intern and the broad brush data that comes out of the US census from time to time. It takes effort and brain power but it is not impossible.

I can already hear some of you saying ”we did okay before the recession arrived so the problem is external and beyond our management control”. I don’t buy it, when the market is going up its so easy to make money even Donald Trump looks talented. But now we look back the more honest of you are probably starting to realise you weren’t actually managing during the recent bubble you were just along for the ride.

The good news is that its not too late to start. Read your monthly management accounts by all means but also start to get “fresh” marketing data from your web site and customers then start to figure out whats hapening. Start asking yourself and/or your fellow directors some hard questions about exactly what your key target markets are in order of priority. Define your companies source of differential advantage in each of these key target markets.

Avoid if at all possible the temptaion to start firing from the hip and slashing budgets in order to become what you think is leaner and meaner but in reality is leaner and weaker.

G20 Summit Goes Social

Members of the City of London Police, are preparing themselves for conflict on the streets of London as the G20 Summit gets underway tomorrow. However, there is also a battle forming in the social networks as the various protest groups use the latest Internet tools to organise themselves and the British government and other groups retaliate.

Facebook, Twitter and other social networks have  been used to gather political protesters before. What’s different at the G20 Summit is that it is not just opponents and critics of capitalism who are using these tools – it is also the Establishment. A number of Facebook groups are organising events around the G20 summit too. G20 meltdown has  more than 3,000 members.  

Of greater interest I believe is the social media activity sponsored, or encouraged by the government.

 One such project is Yoosk London Summit, which attempts to provide a debating forum where the public can engage with politicians. Anyone can put questions direct to the impressive line-up of ministers, business and civil society leaders about the financial crisis.

Curiously Yoosk is an independent business, but this project clearly benefits from government funding – so how independent is it?

Tim Hood of Yoosk told the BBC, “We’re walking a fine line – we have a level of access that we wouldn’t get otherwise. It’s not as independent as we’d like – but we’re getting there.”

G20 Voice – is a group of 50 bloggers who have access to the summit,  organised by the charity Oxfam but sponsored by the United Kingdom Foreign Office. G20 voice members range from Daniel Kaufman, a writer on  financial crises to Rui Chenggang, a blogger and financial news presenter for Chinese TV.

The G20 Voice bloggers have been given security clearance to  attend the G20 press conferences, where they can hopefully provide an alternative view of events from that provided by the usual suspects.

Yesterday, I heard Mick Fleetwood of Fleetwood Mac fame interviewed about their upcoming 2009 tour…and Mick had never heard of Twitter and that made me wonder if I am just too close to this to see the wood for the trees . Perhaps Twittering, Blogging and Facebooking about the G20 Summit could turn out to be a minority interest. I think we are we’re about to discover just how interested  social networkers are in world events ?

Mobile Money

The power of the mobile phone (smart or otherwise) to raise money for worthy causes has clearly been demonstrated in a recent charity appeal.

United Kingdom Comic Relief supporters donated more than £7.8 million ($11.3 million) via text message, potentially setting a new record. Organisers believe the amount donated by text could be a new record and have asked for verification from Guinness World Records.

Donation lines for the annual charity appeal, which close at midnight on Monday, have so far received 4.75 million messages that gave either £1 ($1.45) or £5 ($7.25) to the charity. For the first time all mobile operators waived their fees and the Government Treasury did not take VAT (sales tax) from the donations. During the television coverage of the appeal, and a TV documentary covering a group of celebrities climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, the public were invited to give £5 by sending ‘yes’ to 66609.

What an amazingly powerful way to engage with your audience using simple SMS messaging combined with a powerful celebrity endorsed call (also known as not for profit) and political parties the cell clearly has legs left in it yet.

Social Faux Pas -”the paid brand ambassador”.

My Blog the other day re Social Networking must have appeared obvious to some. However I know there are agencies out their claiming that they can offer to manage social networks to your advantage. I would counsel that you use caution before engaging with any company that makes such claims. On the Azure site you will see that our approach  is always to be open and honest when dealing with social networks or word of mouth campaigns.

Perhaps to best illustrate the pitfalls of assuming you can manipulate, lets take a look look at some recent mistakes in this area.

Wal-Mart were exposed when it turned out that PR agency Edelman was behind a fake blog (aka flog) that followed the progress of an allegedly real couple driving their motor-home to Wal-Mart parking lots across the USA.

Sony hired a PR agency to create a fake site called “All I want for Christmas is a PSP”  Once exposed the negative coverage on genuine gaming sites and blogs was overwhelmingly negative. People react very badly when a previously trusted brand is found to be playing fast and loose with their loyalty.

John Mackey the CEO of Whole Foods spent over ten years praising his company on Yahoo message boards under a pseudonym, until he was eventually exposed. Whoops!

What can we learn from these examples ?

 If you give in to temptation (astrosurfing) the chances are that you will eventually be exposed and the consequences will not be positive. Reputation is a fragile thing built over extended periods of time, yet shattered in a moment. The very speed and passion of the medium you are looking to exploit will work against you.

Keep social in perspective. Remember 90% of the conversations people have about your brand will take place off line and be between friends and family depending on the brand. The attraction of social is that you can eaves drop on the brand conversations. So start there use it simply as a way to listen and understand before engaging directly. I guarantee you will gain insights that influence the way you do then engage.

Mulberry Health

Mulberry Health is an ecommerce start up selling herbal remedies from a single web site. Over the coming weeks and months we will be working to grow the business. Through this column you will be able to follow the work we do on template design, site architecture, product pricing, email campaigns, SEO, blogging, social, linking, coupons, comparative shopping sites and more. You can even participate by sending in suggestions or perhaps buying products and linking to the site!

Email Still King of the Hill

There is much talk these days of social media and web advertising triggered by behavior. And these are very exciting developments full of promise for marketing professionals.  However the state of the union right now is quite clear, email remains king. At the end of 2008 the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) reported that the return on email marketing was $45.06 for every $1 spent! Which compares with $19.94 for every dollar spent when you look at non -email Internet marketing initiatives. In 2009 the DMA predicts that email will generate $32.6 billion in sales.

Here are some key email metrics I have gleaned from a variety of sources. They will help you gauge the effectiveness of your own campaigns and if you are just starting to use email they will give you some pointers as to exactly what you can and should be measuring.

Best Days to send email ~ Generally speaking Sundays and Mondays continue to be good days to send out an email. Judging by open rates and click thrus. I could speculate why this is but it would be speculation.

Personalization ~ Interestingly personalisedmessages get higher click rates , but often get lower open rates. This may be because recipients are becoming cautious about opening such emails suspecting spam. Yet if they do open then they click thru at higher rates. I am not convinced there is cause and effect here. I would bet that people who go to the trouble of personalising anemail also make sure it has a good selection of highly relevant links in the body.

Subject Lines ~ The old maxim of the shorter the better still holds true it would appear. However, as this is one of the easiest elements of an email to change then I recommend that you test and measure and determine what is most effective for your recipients. There appear to be distinct variations between male and female recipients, with females having a strong preference for shorter subject lines.

How Fast ~ Fully 34% of all opens will occur within the first two hours of when an email is received. People are staying on top of email much more than they used to and of course mobile devices including smart phones are making this even easier. 75% will be opened within the first 24 hours of receipt. The half life of an email is getting shorter.

Open Rates ~ rates have been falling as email matures as a marketing channel and recipients become more selective in every way. There is also a significant spread by industry sector. Banking and Finance have the highest open rates at about 28% while Medical and Dental is bottom of the heap at about 6%. If you would like to know what the typical open rate is for your business drop me an e-mail. The biggest influence on open rates is subject line and the ”from address”.

Click Rates ~ click rates have also been falling slightly across the board as recipients become more selective. Again there is a wide spread across industry sectors and Religious and Spiritual  top the tree at almost 7% with Restaurant and Food bringing up the rear at a disheartening 0.8% . Not surprisingly click rates are affected by the number of opportunities to click so aim to have at least 20 links from an email. Again for metrics more specific to your own business send me an email.

The Email Commandments

As part of our dedication to helping our clients become successful in their email campaigns not only do we read the latest research on email but we use our e-commerce sister company Mulberry Health as a proving ground for email design and campaign execution.

Here then are our top ten tips for those of you starting out or just wondering why you aren’t getting the results you deserve.

Relevant and Relative~ Consumers are looking for your email to offer relevant content and  if you want them to keep reading it then it better be superior to your competition. Capture relevant information at sign-up or use surveys to dig deeper after sign-up. Use the data you gather to improve relevance. Your conversion goal, whatever it is, must be tied to value for the targeted recipient.

Frequency and Commitment~ Can you remember what it was you offered when they signed up? You better do and you better deliver more than they are expecting. If you offered a weekly newsletter then make sure it goes out weekly, use the day and time that optimises your open rate/click thru/conversion more of which later. 65% of men and 56% of women define spam as “email from a company I use that simply comes too often.”

Become a Safe Sender ~ In order for your recipients to flag you as a safe sender you have to make this request on the web site at sign up. I am sure you can figure out why.

Read Spam ~That’s right read the spam that ends up in your junk box and notice the subject lines and content. The words and phrases that they use to lure you in. Over time you will get a feel for the language of most spammers . Don’t use it and your chances of being seen and read will increase significantly.

Slice and Dice~ As a professional marketer of many years experience it always surprises me how little segmentation of mailing lists takes place. Segmentation and personalisation are not easy to accomplish. But then most things worth having in life don’t come easily including a successful ecommerce business. If you dont get what I am talking about, buy something from Zappos or Amazon and experience how good it feels. Now re-purpose that experience for your own clients.

Honeymoon ~ Once clients sign up to receive your email it can be all too easy to take them for granted  The first two months or so they will be tolerant and forgiving as you hopefully get to know each other. However, it is critical during this “honeymoon” phase to establish in their mind exactly what they will be receiving, when, how and why…and by why I mean what is the value proposition?

Permission ~ Tempting as it is to avoid the double opt-in approach it is now expected by your clients and by your email service providers. But more importantly it shows your recipients that you have integrity. Doing anything less than double opt-in is simply a false economy.

Measure ~ As the saying goes you can only manage what you can measure. Email is no exception and with email there are no shortage of metrics to measure and track over time, campaign by campaign. The key to success is to determine the most important metrics for your business then seek to optimise those metrics. The choosing is the hard part don’t skimp on group thinking time.

Unsubscribes ~Hopefully you will be using a reputable system like Constant Contact which features SafeUnsubscribe allowing users to opt out with a simple click. This is essential and will capture the majority of those opting out. However some will opt out via email so it is critical you manually remove them asap from your list. An ignored opt-out becomes a spam report in short order. The same for bounces, email addresses change frequently and are much more unstable than snail mail addresses.

Testing Testing ~This takes courage. We are often taught “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” try living with “if it ain’t broke its obsolete”. The easiest thing to test is subject line or the date and time you send emails. Start here find your confidence and keep testing. There is however no perfect solution so testing is not an event it is a process that is integral to your success.

Well that should get you off on the right track or back on track if you have wandered off the beaten track.

How to Win Friends and Perhaps Influence People.

Social encounters have always been bounded by rules and codes of behavior. Why?

Quite simply because it makes for a more efficient way of coexisting harmoniously with other human beings. Of course like all socialisation we have to learn what to do and when. We are all born with the ability to laugh, what we are taught, usually by our family is when it is appropriate to laugh and when not.

If the new social networks are simply an electronic  extension of  what already exists, surely  just by being authentic and true to yourself all will be well?

The answer is yes and no. Because it depends on you and how you view social media. If you are misguided enough to think of social media as a cunning way to lure unsuspecting souls into buying your products then you will be shunned ~ and rightly so.

If  for any reason you are in doubt about how to behave,  then here are some guidelines. I am something of a fan of Paul Chaney, who is deeply involved with blogging and social media marketing. So with aplogies to Paul here is my somewhat extended version of a list he published recently in Marketing Profs. To see the original piece by Paul click here.

 

1. Pull, don’t push

Be polite, don’t respond to new Twitter followers with a “Thanks for following. Visit my Web site for a free….” That’s a dead giveaway that you are new to social media and socially clueless.

2. Win the right to be heard

Social media engagement is a conversation, and participation in the community is required. Just like your bank account you have to make deposits before you can make withdrawals…unless you want to become socially bankrupt.

3. Content is STILL king, but conversation is queen (and conversion is the prince)

Nothing beats well-written, informative and entertaining content in all its  forms: Blog posts, tweets, video, podcasts, images, webinars or whitepapers. Try to place yourself in a position of being a knowledgeable expert (assuming you are, of course). Community is the context. Keep content and commerce separate they are cousins of the non kissing variety!

4. Authenticity and Transparency are social networking cornerstones

 Be real. Be open. Be honest. Admit mistakes when you make them. You might even find it easier on a network than in a face to face situation.If you find this impossible from a standing start, then initially you can fake it till you make it…I promise it will feel good and in no time become natural.

5. You don’t have to be on every social network

It’s impossible to maintain an active presence on every social network and, you know what, you don’t have to. You do have to be where your customers and prospects are, however. They expect you to be there.

Paul recommends a presence on the big three: LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. LinkedIn is your business suit, Facebook is business casual, and Twitter is the 24/7 ongoing cocktail party. Connect with those who connect with you and anyone else where it makes business sense. You can add in Youtube and Flickr if appropriate.

6. Just put yourself out there and see where you go.

Having an attitude of helpfulness goes a long way toward establishing credibility.  “Seek first to understand, then to be understood” , “People don’t care what you know until they know that you care”, “Lose control of your marketing” .

7. Like gravity the rules of marketing still apply

 Email and search are still where most marketers spend their dollars and for good commercial reasons. Social media is still finding its place in the channel mix.

8. Social media is a mindset.

You can’t “do” social media or “roll it out” like an ad campaign. Its social and it has a time of its own. You plant the seeds, you nurture them and if you do all this well then in time you can harvest the fruits. Be patient.

9. Be yourself, whoever that may be

 ”Be Yourself.” No better advice to be given to anyone, regardless of whether they engage in social media or not. One thing is certainly true, you can’t be who you are not. That’s why you should use your photo as your avatar and your name as your handle. It’s a trust economy.

Hopefully this has confirmed what you already knew or given you some valuable pointers about how to win friends and perhaps influence people using social media.

As Mr Keating says in the Dead Poets Society; “That the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?”