Today we hit a huge, I mean big, social media milestone. It took us 3 years, 3 months, 2 weeks, 1 hour and 14 minutes to reach 1,000 Tweets. We clearly only Tweet when there is something worth Tweeting. Our Tweets don’t suck and if they do you’ll only see a Tweet every 2 days. We are a great follow. Why are we so great? Here are the Top 10 (Recent) Tweets by VLG.
First, do you have a Twitter account? If the answer is ‘yes’ here is some food for thought. If your answer is ‘no’ maybe it’s time to consider dipping your toe in the water for at least a month. Okay, I thought I’d pass along VLGs very simple strategy for following and being followed.
Rules about those that follow VLG:
Following rules:
That’s all.
Social media, or Twitter specifically, has a way of getting away from you. We recommend you keep your approach as simple as possible so you don’t lose control. Keep you Tweets relevant. Keep your followers relevant. Be a resource your own followers to deliver at least one nugget of useful information a month.
Here’s a list of people and companies we follow. Or, you can just follow @wefightboredom and you’ll likely see retweets of the best content from this group of talented marketing professionals. We curate content for you so you’re not awash in random Tweets. The best part? It’s free.
Want to know why we’re following these folks on Twitter? Quick blurb on each giving you a real reason to open the link and click follow:
Tyler is defining what it means to be a social entrepreneur. His Project 7 brand makes every day consumer goods, like bio-bottled water, gum, mints and coffee. For every purchase of a Project 7 product, proceeds are distributed to non-profits working to solve these seven areas of need – hunger, illness, peace, homelessness, clean water, education and environmental stewardshop. The brand just got picked up by Wal-Mart. He’s worth a follow.
I’d say this is self-serving if I didn’t believe every sales and marketing organization, especially companies under $50 million in revenue, needs to do three things: Change its perceptions about content marketing, Organize digital content, and empower employees, channel partners, constituents or colleagues to share this mass of digital content that exists today. In short, for $25 a month you’ll embark on a game changing move to increase brand reach and sales. Follow them today.
I’ve never met Kim. I’m guessing her last name isn’t Makescash and I’m not even sure that profile picture is really Kim. None of that matters, because if you want a steady stream of lead generation content to skim through on any given day she has you covered. She’s pretty good about reciprocal follows so if you’re into that kind of thing she has you covered there, too.
Recently came across these folks. We believe these folks are onto something. Analogy: digital cameras allow us to take 1,000 pictures while on vacation. Maybe 50 are keepers, but you don’t know which 50. Now, think about all your digital collateral. It’s the same thing. You probably use fewer than 150 pieces of collateral, more of less. Can you identify those? Better still can you affix a dollar amount to that collateral? They tweet about that type of challenge and more. @jumpspark was built to wrangling content, which is then next challenge. I can share online via social media. Share what? I don’t know…content.
For over a month we’ve been fine tuning our sales and marketing tool, delivering on our promise to make JumpSpark available to the masses. JumpSpark, a digital marketing library, is a software application built by VLG for its customers and now anyone in the world. Here’s what you do.
Sign up. No credit card needed. 30-days free.
Build your library. Pick 10 pieces of marketing collateral and create assets in your library.
Share content. Use posts links to Facebook and Twitter, or use JumpSpark’s email builder to send effective one-to-one emails. These emails are juiced up, giving you real-time alerts when assets in the email are clicked. (Hello, sales!)
Sit back and watch as your team leverages JumpSpark to spread the word at a fraction of the price you’d pay to advertise on Facebook. It’s like crowd sourcing the dissemination of your marketing collateral, interesting articles, earned media, website and more.
Finally, if you’re in sales listen up. Do you want to know if the meeting went well? Want to know if they are blowing you off? That’s where JumpSpark comes in. Send email follow-ups and get real-time alerts when users click assets in the email.
It started during the fourth quarter and continued after the game tonight. Fans hungry for a Miami Heat loss felt justice was done. Call it negative karma or just rewards, for the manner in which the Heat claimed dynasty before the 2010-2011 even tipped. The Tweets weren’t all negative, however, as many give credit where credit is due–to the Dallas Mavericks.
Here’s some of the reaction via Twitter:
“Congrats to Mark (Cuban) & entire Mavs org,” Gilbert said on his Twitter account. “Mavs NEVER stopped & now entire franchise gets rings. Old Lesson for all: There are NO SHORTCUTS. NONE.”
“Heat fans heading for the exits,” says ESPN NBA Writer John Hollinger, “Will conduct search for LeBron in parking lot.”
I love how dirk just walked off the court! 13 yrs of going to work everyday perfecting his craft! It was all about the journey for him! Congrats mavs! Amazing to see the hard work they put in pay off!” from Dallas Cowboys tight end Jason Witten.
Comedian George Lopez wrote, “Go Head MAVS !! You earned it .. Enjoy the hardware @jjbareapr “felicidades !!”
” Thanks for letting me off the hook, LeBron — Signed, Kobe in the 2004 NBA Finals,” posted by ESPN writer Jemele Hill.
Uh, oh Cowboys. Miami AP writer Tim Reynolds tweets, “Dallas does it … meet America’s (new) Team.”
What does the recent death of Osama bin Laden mean for social media marketing? It’s clear the news found it’s most powerful tool since the cellular phone. In our case, it’s doubtful the dissemination of this blog post via Twitter will grab 4,000 Tweets per second as was the case yesterday.
For many of my customers the same is true. However, some of our larger customers should take a lesson from yesterday’s events.
Congressional aides and a former US Attorney let the news slip an hour before the president’s address. While no where near comparable, the idea that a company secret, faux pas, or misstep be released unfiltered would tarnish the patina of even the most respected brands. The real challenge and the pot of gold we all strive to attain is the proactive use of a very powerful media that translates into higher share value.
If you fear social media but know it has to be done, we have the answer. By visiting this blog you’re a part of our own VLG.me efforts. Twitter, Facebook, microsites, vlgadvertising.com, and more are all tied into our solution that defines VLG as a thought leader in the interactive lead generation space. We want to do that for our customers, too.
How do you find out if VLG.me is right for you?
1. Visit your corporate website.
2. Count how many clicks it takes a user to reach specific product information.
3. If it’s more than two clicks, you need VLG.me.
Ready to learn more.
We are working feverishly to crack the social media nut for B2B marketers. Clearly, social media is a great vehicle for B2C marketing, but we’ve noticed a bit of confusion, angst and disappointment on this side of the fence. We did it. Now there is a solution that sheds the words “social media” to focus more on those that…
Wow, almost let the cat out of the bag. The point is business marketers do have a play online in the social media space, but it’s probably not what you think. Want to be among the first to get a demo of our new product line? Visit http://vlg.me to sign up. The more people you invite the quicker you’ll get an evaluation of your current online efforts and recommendations for improvement that may, or may not include using VLG.me at your company. Sign up today!
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I read some interesting news about Twitter that seems analogous to trends among online, peer-to-peer, one-to-many marketing platforms available to those of us in the marketing space. (BTW–The term “social media” was recently rated the most annoying term for 2011 according to a recent survey of marketing professionals.)
The amount of time Twitter users in the U.S. spend on Twitter.com on any given day increased by about 30 minutes from 2009 to 2010. The number of adults on Twitter fell 14% during that same period. The per session time decreased about 3 minutes. Forty percent of tweets were done on a mobile device.
Basically, there were fewer people doing more, but shorter sessions. What we can conclude is that a community of younger Twitter devotees are solidifying their commitment to the platform, while growing the number of people that say, “I just don’t get it.”
Ah, but what does it all mean…
*Experian Simmons DataStream survey from Nov. 2009 to Nov. 2010
*Ben Parr, from Mashable on mobile stats
Predictions are funny things. We make lots of them, but rarely wait around to see if they come true. Lots of our readers also read Seth Godin’s blog. (I don’t as often as I probably should.) In 2008 he made this statement about himself and Twitter.
Every once in a while, someone sends me an email saying, “Is this really you?”
Of course, it’s a silly question, since if an admin were secretly responding to my mail, a question like this certainly doesn’t end the subterfuge. You’d need to do something like ask in Navajo or some secret code.
Anyway, I don’t have a staff. It’s just me. (Though having a staff seems to work really well for Tim.)
Which leads to this post. I don’t use Twitter. It’s not really me. [Feb. 2, 2008]
That same day Darren Rowse seemingly confirmed Godin’s stance on Twitter on his blog. (Here) What’s your prediction? In the years gone by did Seth jump on the bandwagon and join the Twitter space, or not?
Judge for yourself. There are several Twitter accounts that bear his name, @sethgodins, @sethgodin, @thisissethsblog, @NotGodinREPOSTs, but none of them are Twitter verified.
Nope, he’s a man of his word. He has no reason to join the fray. His loyal fan base is doing all the heavy lifting.