"I love chicken, I love liver, kittens online please deliver!" Mashable takes an investigative look into why everyone online loves cats. If you love your cat, you’ll give them the juiciest bites of the Digital Influence Meow…er, Weekly. Now let’s get to it!
Newspapers clearly take Twitter seriously. We know this because they’ve been utilizing their Twitter accounts to promote their content. It makes sense. People use Twitter to get the news as quickly as possible. It’s used as a news aggregator. So why not include your paper’s news feed in the global Twitter stream? Check out
this list to see the top 25 papers in the country using Twitter ranked by followers.
@HoustonChron is #14, but is amazingly effective at integrating news from all over Houston. They retweet important news items from other news sources and citizen journalists (that’s pretty much anyone with anything newsworthy).
@Dallas_news is #9 probably due to their interaction with their followers by responding and talking to them.
Something that struck me as odd was seeing that @nytimes was #1 with 2,668,948 followers and that @wsj is #2 with only 464,591 followers. Why is there such a huge difference in followers for two prestigious papers? They both follow less than 200 people. The Wall Street Journal even responds to their followers and includes the Twitter handles of people and groups in their tweets. I think it has to do with the access to the information they tweet about. The New York Times offers most of their content for free as opposed to the Wall Street Journal where much of their content is for subscribers. It’s a shame because if more of their valuable articles were open to non-subscribers, they could bring in more followers.
Think about this for your clients. Why do your competitors have more followers when you utilize all the right tools of the Twitter trade? Is your Twitter strategy leading people to anything worthwhile or accessible? Is something wrong with the product or service causing a low follow count?
Election time is here! Early voting has been underway so you’ve most likely noticed more posts in your streams about issues and candidates for the Governors' race.
If you haven't voted yet, go to the sites of each gubernatorial candidate to help make your decision on November 2nd.
While discussing politics online, follow these steps for a successful and peaceful discussion:
- When you see someone talk about a candidate or position they support, ask them why. Make others be clear and concise about their position to more effectively get their point across.
- Back up your position with facts and link to the source.
- If you see something you agree with, repost it. But don’t just randomly repost everything from your candidate of choice.
- Do not flood the news stream. Selectively choose the best time to put out information. No one wants to log in to Facebook and see 10 posts all from you about the same thing.
- Be civil, patient and understanding. If you have to start yelling at someone online, use the direct message features on Facebook or Twitter.
Posted:
10/29/2010 11:40:17 AM by
Digital Influencer | with
0 comments
by Troy Elmore – Managing Partner, Sandler Training
Too often sales people put their focus on being liked. "If the prospect likes me, he or she will buy" becomes the motto.
Instead of focusing on the real added value they can bring to the table, salespeople often put their effort into being friends. In this day and age, being liked is just the ante to get into the game. The world is filled with well-liked sales people that can't close a deal.
A salesperson's goal is to make money and help solve people’s problems, but not make friends. While being likable is a huge advantage, it rarely closes the deal all by itself.
I know that some salespeople who read this will automatically turn me off and say that they are great friends with their clients. I am not saying that you can’t form relationships with your long term clients.
However, many prospects (not long term clients) will not buy anything from a salesperson simply because they like them. Every person in the world has people they like. However, they wouldn't necessarily buy a product or service from those people.
Parents like and love their children. However, most parents wouldn't put a lot of credibility into what their child suggests they buy. This is because they lack expertise and credibility to support their suggestion.
We teach three rules: People buy from people, people buy from people they like, and people buy from people like themselves. While this is true, there has never been more of a press to commoditize what we sell. So we must continue to work past simple friendship to include return on investment, differentiation and real value.
In fact, sometimes when we try to get our prospects to like us we avoid asking the tough questions, which in the long run have the opposite effect of our initial goal. One example might be if we don’t ask the tough questions (possibly regarding existing contracts, service issues, inventories, etc.) then we might not do as good of job on the service side of the business. We may miss certain details pertinent to the client’s overall success.
We have to sell to our prospect's pain. Pain and action are linked. Pain brings about commitment to change. Show the product or service in a light that shows how it solves a problem or benefits the prospect. Don't just strive to be liked. Strive to discover why your product is the best fit.
A prospect will buy if they see a solution to their problem, but won't necessarily buy if he or she simply likes us. In an ideal world, we will be able to get the prospect to like us. However, that is only leverage to find the right reasons for the prospect to buy.
People will buy from people they like, but only if the salesperson positions the solution the right way and builds the credibility needed for the prospect to trust not only the company delivering the product and/or service but the salesperson as well.
Posted:
10/21/2010 5:34:18 PM by
Guest Blogger | with
0 comments
When I was eight years old at summer camp, my friends and I went on a nature hike. The counselor tried to teach us the survival technique of starting a fire by rubbing two sticks together. A few kids managed to produce a few tufts of smoke, but when it got to my turn, the only change that happened to the wood was that some of it got splintered in my fingers.
Fifteen years later, the same memory can sometimes come to mind when I’m trying to be creative or generate new ideas – all splinters, no sparks. In today’s media saturated world, however, effective business communicators must constantly find new and creative ways to reach their many audiences. Like learning how to make a fire in the woods, being creative is a survival technique for today’s business jungle.
So, to heat up the right side of my brain, I attended a recent IABC/Austin lunch on how to fire up my creativity.
Sam Harrison, author of “IdeaSpotting: How and where to find your next great idea,” stated that “Creativity has been schooled, ruled and tooled right out of us. We are taught what to think but not how to think it.”
Harrison presented this checklist of ways to fire up your personal creativity and in turn become more creative communicators. It’s helped me immensely; how can it help you?
The Creativity Checklist:
1) Stretch yourself – Allow your mind to expand and explore various directions – even those you’re not comfortable with. Ask yourself “How can I do the same thing but with a new direction?”
2) Break out of closed worlds– Get out of your office and venture into new places. Walk outdoors, visit festivals and seek new places to search for inspiration and concepts you can bring into your work. (And no, a bar doesn’t count.)
3) Pay attention to the patterns – Notice how things connect to generate new ideas. Make a list of random items (such as lime, iron, sunglasses, cell phone, boot and car) and find a pattern between the items (such as items you wear versus items you use). In the same way, make connections in the different things you are working on and look for how you can combine them.
4) Look – We tend to focus on only what we see. As an example, look around you for four red items and then close your eyes and recall four green items. Hard, isn’t it? Spark creativity by getting off auto-pilot and observing the world around you for things you haven’t noticed before.
5) Listen – Ironically enough (or maybe not), silent and listen are anagrams. Being quiet allows you to truly listen to different people and (absorb) their ideas.
6) Ask questions – Curiosity leads to creativity. When talking with your coworkers and clients, ask lots of “how come?” and “why?” questions. A great way to ease into this process is to ask someone his or her favorite vacation and then follow up with why. You might be surprised by the answer.
7) Write it down – Carry notebooks and jot down insights you see and hear.
8) Eliminate judgment – Look at the image below. Which did you see first – the rabbit or the duck? We all see things differently and can’t always perceive what others see, so open your mind and environment to a variety of ideas.
9) Take risks – Let go of an old idea and try a new one. You just might leap out of the ordinary to achieve the extraordinary.
10) Have a Cylie Rule – Occasionally bend a rule to favor creativity. There is a young girl names Cylie who enjoys playing basketball but was forced to quit playing after she was diagnosed with bone cancer. Wanting to keep her as an active member of the team, her coaches decided to bend the rules. Now whenever one of her teammates get fouled, Cylie gets to go in and shoot the free throw.
11) Be a team player – Share ideas and freely collaborate with others without the need to keep score. Brainstorming is about the quantity, not the quality of ideas. Quality in brainstorming comes when team members adjust and combine ideas to create the best option.
12) Be childlike – Think like a child again. Get out the crayons and color. Get up and dance around. Continually look for opportunities to fill you life with awe and laughter.
13) Break out of ruts – Review your habits and routines and ask yourself, “Are they tiring or inspiring me?” Stressful schedules and routines are a sure way to douse out your creativity.
14) Check your energy – Look at how you spend your emotional, spiritual and personal energy every day. Things that you don’t like doing use up you, your energy and your creativity. Seek to spend your daily allotment of energy on activities that inspire you and creativity will come.
15) Be persistent – The most successful projects in life have not become successful because of the idea but instead because of a persistent person pushing the idea forward. Don’t give up on good ideas – reevaluate, refine and then reappear! Push your ideas along.
16) Enjoy the process – Start every project saying, “the creative process begins right now.” Realize that each rejection or pushback gives us an opportunity to learn and grow. If you view obstacles as opportunities to learn, you will eventually overcome them and be victorious in your undertaking.
What other techniques do you use to inspire creativity?
Posted:
10/20/2010 2:46:08 PM by
Sarah Zomper | with
0 comments
Several weeks ago, communications leaders from around the country gathered together to unveil the latest and greatest wave of corporate advertising campaigns. Audiences heard from representatives at major companies like Coca-Cola and Google, but the presence of one company in particular was quite surprising. Yes, it seems that even Twitter has jumped on the advertising bandwagon.
With the ever-increasing demand for social media, online advertisements on free websites are no longer a thing of the past. Most of us were exposed to this trend after seeing the addition of targeted advertisements to Facebook’s site in 2009 and these days we’re beginning to see similar patterns develop on Twitter.
So, what was first wave of advertising for the site? Promoted tweets. This technique leverages Twitter to help companies target users with similar interests by suggesting that they “follow” a specific Twitter feed. While it may not be a flamboyant example of advertising, Twitter claims that, so far, it’s working. According to executives, an average of 5% of people who come across promoted Tweets are clicking on them, compared to the 1% who click on traditional display ads. Advertisers can also pay to show up on Twitter’s list of trending topics – for a mere $100,000 a day.
Much like Google Ads, these Twitter advertisements work on a “pay-per-click” basis where a company is charged a fixed amount each time a visitor clicks on the ad. Although there are only a handful of advertisers on the site to-date, major companies like Microsoft and Starbucks are willing to try their luck with Twitter. However, because Twitter has already proven to be a revolutionary free marketing tool, many companies are debating whether a paid account is worth the expense. Despite the skepticism, Twitter’s rapid growth over the past year continues to impress audiences. It will be interesting to see how users react to the new online advertising campaigns.
Posted:
10/19/2010 3:28:13 PM by
Emily Bernard | with
0 comments
The 1978 CBS mini-series Dallasdefined my parent’s generation with the infamous tagline “Who shot J.R?” While they did not know J.R personally, the 1991 series finale on a Friday night had my parents, as well as thousands of other American families, glued to their television sets hoping to have closure and answers to any lingering questions.
Fast forward to 2010 and shows like Lost, Mad Men, True Blood, Glee, American Idol (and many others) have the same effect as Dallasdid. They become a social phenomenon-- joining people together for watching parties, office gossip, blogs, forums and much more.
Although these shows have very different plots, purposes and characters, the relationships viewers create with the show’s characters are still the same. I find it interesting how we find ourselves welcoming perfect strangers into our lives and being glued to their story for a set period of time, then moving on to the next show and repeating the process. I can’t tell you what Kelly Clarkson is doing now, but for that first season of American Idol, I could’ve told you where she was from, how she began singing and what her winning song was at the end of the season.
So why is it that we allow ourselves to get wrapped up in someone else’s drama, experiences, trials and tribulations? Are we bored with our lives or do we need a break?
I think it is both. Not to say that anyone’s life is boring, but let’s be honest, not everyone can cart off to Iceland to find their true love. (Who did Ali choose in The Bachelorette anyway? I digress.) Plus, we need a break from our stress-filled jobs to take a peek into someone else’s life. It’s good for our sanity.
What I find most interesting is how we develop a relationship with a character. As I mentioned earlier, we welcome a complete stranger into our lives and witness their defining moments. The times they laugh, we laugh. The times they cry, we cry; somehow we relate it to what is going on in our lives. When Friends aired their final episode on May 6, 2004, 50 million people tuned in to see if Ross and Rachel would end up together. Do you know that is more people than New York’s 2009 population? They all tuned in because they had followed a decade’s worth of ‘Central Perk’. Even today, several years after the show ended, Friends’ famous lines and mannerisms continue to be quoted.
It’s not limited to getting a laugh, either. The Sopranos is considered the most financially successful series in the history of cable television and it revolves around a New Jersey mobster. A new mobster television show just debuted this season, Boardwalk Empire, After it’s premiere (and after HBO gained its highest ratings for any premiere since 2004) it was renewed for a second season. People love drama; people love other people’s drama and they tune in to see it unfold during primetime.
And then there’s Lost. Admittedly, I’m lost about Lost. I never kept up with the show or even saw an episode, but after witnessing the excitement that came with the series finale (ABC hosted a six hour event for the occasion) and then the confusion afterward (so, what happened?) I’m quite curious about the hype of the show. A few friends have offered to let me borrow their season DVD sets, but am I willing to invest myself in another show? Perhaps.
The list could go on forever. Shows like Sex and the City, Seinfeld, The Office, Grey’s Anatomy and so on have one thing in common-- they offer an escape. An escape from our everyday lives and into someone else’s. Which ones do you escape to?
Posted:
10/14/2010 4:54:50 PM by
Rachael Guia | with
1 comments