The Importance of Being Retweeted

1) If users deem your tweets funny, informative, or useful, other users will be more inclined to follow you (and retweet you!). The more followers you have, the more powerful your network becomes, the more likely someone will retweet you!

2) Traffic! The more often you get that rascally retweet, the more times your product, service, blog or website are placed in front of potential visitors with no additional by you!

3) The Retweet is a factor in determining Social Influence standings with sites such as Klout (See:Higher Klout Scores Mean More Successful Websites by Dan Zarella)

But if you think that increasing your following/network, driving traffic to your website or blog and working to increase your Social Media influence aren’t an amazing investment into your business, just pack up shop numbskull, because you are doing it wrong!

The Most Effective Ways to get Retweeted!

1) Retweet other users! Many of the best ways to increase your network and visibility using Twitter are derived from reciprocation: I’ll follow you if you follow me, I’ll mention you if you mention me, I’ll retweet you if you retweet me, etc.

2) Using the psychology and science of effective headlines, as outlined by Tim Ferriss:

Never tell the whole story in the headline if you want optimal click-through. “Home Prices Drop 47%, Largest Single-Quarter Drop in 50 Years” isn’t nearly as good as “Largest Drop in Home Prices Since 1960: The Reasons, Numbers, and What You Can Do.” There’s another element in the latter that makes it superior: it’s prescriptive instead of merely descriptive. People don’t want more information about their problems; they want solutions to their problems.

Piquing curiosity can be done with questions instead of statements, and my question-based post titles are some of the best performing (such as “Why Are You Single? Perhaps It’s The Choice Effect“), unless used more than 20% of the time, at which point, it appears that readers suffer “question burnout” and click-through plummets. This is a common problem with (over)use of lists (“17 Things You Can Do For…” etc.).

Would “Why Are You Single?” have worked well by itself? I don’t think so. But what the hell is “The Choice Effect”? Once again, this is exactly the point. I want that question to bother you enough that you click on the link and, most important, read the piece.

3) Use the most popular retweet words or phrases (duh!)! The Top 20 Most Retweetable Words or Phrases according to Social Media Scientist Dan Zarella are:

• You
• Twitter
• Please
• Retweet
• Post
• Blog
• Social
• Free
• Media
• Help
• Please Retweet
• Great
• Social Media
• 10
• Follow
• How to
• Top
• Blog post
• Check out
• New Blog Post

Zarella goes on to say:

The word “you” while very common, seems to occur especially often in ReTweets, indicating that if you’re talking to “me” I’m more likely to ReTweet it.

Its really not surprising that “Twitter” ranks high, but this is a good reminder that self-reference is always good for buzz in social media.

Again we see “please” and “please ReTweet” (“please rt” also ranked highly). I’ve written about this a few times, but its hard to overstate how important it is to ask for the ReTweet when you want it, calls to action work.

The word “free” seems to remind is to provide value, especially value at no cost to our readers, as does the word help.

The occurrence of the word “help” could indicate either a tweet that promises to help you or a request for help. Whichever it is, it reinforces both providing value and calls to action.

“Social Media” as a phrase ranks high, so again, don’t be afraid to tweet about tweeting, blogging, networking, digging, etc.

The number “10” made a surprise appearance high on the list. Top 10s are popular, always have been and always will be, don’t forget it. The word “top” also made an appearance on the list.

“New Blog Post” is the common prefix used when a person tweets about, well, a new blog post to their site. That this ranks so highly tells us that tweeting your posts is a very smart thing to do.

 

4) Choose your tweeting time and method wisely in order to increase the chances for a retweet! Ana at the Traffic Generation Cafe urges those seeking a retweet to consider the following:

1. Hours of the day: Peak tweet hours – business hours (between 9am-5pm; I guess that’s one of the very few advantages of having a J.O.B. – you get paid for tweeting). Peak retweet hours – 3pm to midnight.

Moral: if you want to be read, tweet in the morning; if you want to be retweeted, tweet at night.

2. Days of the week: The worst day for RT is Sunday; it picks up from there and peak RT day of the week is Friday, going back down from there.

3. Use links: Tweets with links are retweeted much more often – meaning: send your social media generated traffic to good content.

4. Use Bit.ly: Bit.ly URL shorteners are retweeted the most (tinyurl is retweeted the least – don’t ask me why).

5. Length: forget 140 characters, the shorter the better. 120 characters is the new maximum if you have any chance to be retweeted.

6. Use hashtags: using existing hashtags greatly increases your findability by Twitter users and Twitter bots alike.

7. Short profile names help. This one is optional, but very helpful for obvious reasons. The shorter your name is the more space you leave for retweeting.

8. Punctuation matters: Overwhelming 93% of all retweets contain proper punctuation in them, particularly colons and periods. So pay attention to those small details.

 

So there it is folks! Tips from some of the greatest social media minds of our day (and me!) on how to increase your retweets!

Please follow me @CommandCS

LinkedIn is a Social Networking Site which specializes in connecting business professionals. It’s estimated that LinkedIn has nearly 100 million users from around the world, which makes it an extremely powerful marketing tool.

This chart from Quantcast shows that ~4.4 million people visit LinkedIn each day to view approximately 41 million pages; the average salary of LinkedIn users is over $100k.

What this means: if you are a business which is not currently “Linked In”, then you are simply throwing money away.

It’s easy to get started with LinkedIn, just head to www.linkedin.com and create your account. Once that has been completed, it is time to make your profile!

**IMPORTANT**: You need to fill out your profile as thoroughly as possible, especially the picture. Skimping on any of the details is going to make you less visible to people who might be searching for someone like yourself to do business with (or hire!).

It is extremely important that you fill out your Summary, Experience, and choose your skills. The Skills you select are extremely valuable for getting hits on your profile. In your Summary, you should link your Twitter, Facebook and/or Website, and desire to connect so people can easily find and connect with you.

Twitter Integration

(**IMPORTANT**: Twitter is currently one of the most potent marketing tools available. If you are looking to grow your Twitter followers FAST, please follow this link to my blog on how to do so!)

To connect your Twitter account to your LinkedIn account, click on “Edit Profile” then select “Add Twitter” next to the Twitter field. Make sure your Twitter account is set to “Public”.

This will link your Tweets to LinkedIn for your connections to see. For me this is important because every time I publish a blog, I can Tweet it to my Twitter and LinkedIn audiences in one fell swoop.

How do I connect?

After getting your account created and your profile polished, it’s time to connect! The first question you need to ask yourself is: “Am I looking for a small targetted audience (quality), or am I looking for mass connections (quantity)?”. There really is no wrong answer, it just comes down to your business needs.

The easiest way to connect is through “Groups”. LinkedIn discourages people from connecting with members which they have no direct contact with, so joining groups relevant to your interests provide you an informal way to introduce yourself.

In the upper right hand corner of the LinkedIn site, you will see a search bar. Change the dropdown box from “People” to “Groups” and search for relevant interests. Example: If you are interested in engaging people in “Social Media”, then search for Social Media, and so on.

LinkedIn will allow you to participate in up to 50 groups. If you are looking to mass connect, then you should attempt to join as many groups as possible. Some groups are “Open”, meaning you can join freely; others you need to apply for membership to join.

Once you have joined a few groups, you should follow their discussions. If you see someone asking or responding to questions and you feel you share similar interests, you should connect with them! To do so, click on their profile and select the “Add to Network” link next to their picture, put in their email address, select how you know them (there will be a “Group” dropdown box you can select your mutual group from) and click send.

**IMPORTANT**: LinkedIn will automatically generate a canned greeting and request to connect to be sent to the reciever, but it’s more likely someone will connect if you personalize the message.

I generally use something like:

Mary,

My name is Dan, and I am an Assistant Store Manager with a large retail chain. With each of us being a veteran of retail and sharing a group, I sincerely hope you will accept my invitation to connect!

With kind regards,

Daniel J. Cassidy

www.commandcs.com

http://twitter.com/CommandCS

Tip: Draft up a personalized greeting and save it to Microsoft Word so you can easily access it to copy & paste when needed – just make sure you change the name on the greeting before you send the invitation to connect!

Tip: Add your Twitter and/or Facebook information to the greeting for extra exposure.

Mass Connecting

The fastest way to boost your connections is through Open Netorking Groups such as LION (LinkedIn Open Networkers), or using websites such as OpenNetworker.com or TopLinked.Com.

TopLinked.com allows you to add yourself to, and access massive LinkedIn Open Network user lists which you can download into excel. From there, you can copy and paste the emails into the “invite” field in LinkedIn’s “Add Connections” tab and send 500 invites at a time. This Link gives you about 1800 free Open Networkers with instructions to get you started.

Within many groups you will find discussions such as “Add yourself to this list if you are open to connecting”. This gives you free connections, with the minimal work of adding everyone manually.

LinkedIn & Other Social Media

You will also find Open Networking discussions from people looking to network on other social media platforms such as Twitter, Google+ and Facebook. This means that your investent into LinkedIn will also pay off in many different types of social media exposure.

Summary

Overall, I have been very satisfied with my level of engagement on LinkedIn. In the last two weeks, I have added over 900 connections and have watched the traffic to my fledgling website grow.

Good luck, and I look forward to connecting with you!

Please follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/CommandCS and connect with me on LinkedIn at: djcass77@gmail.com.

-Dan

Here are some tips:

The Followback Method – This method involves following people in hopes they will follow you back (reciprocal tweet building). If you are looking to target followers in a certain industry, you can use the search feature to focus on let’s say “Social Media Marketing”. Once you get the results, simply start following people and watch the followbacks roll in.

Keep in mind, if you are looking to generate traffic to a website, blindly following people is not your best bet since when you post news or updates they will not be as incentivized to follow your link since it is not relevant to their interests. However, if you work hard to narrow your target audience with follows, you will convert more tweets to hits.

A few tips:

Twitter throttles your follows to 1,000 a day, and 2000 maximum followers (until you surpass an undisclosed followers/following ratio). This is important because if you are seeking followbacks and you dump your 2000 follows into unlikely followbacks and end up generating a meager 150 follows, then you are screwed. Now you will have to go back and unfollow non-followbacks and reinvest those follows into people more likely to reciprocate. Invest the time and effort to just do it right the first time and skip the backtracking!

To help manage your unfollowing, visit JustUnfollow.

Target people with close following/followers ratios. If you are looking to get people to followback, following someone like @SethGodin who follows ZERO people is not a good investment. For best results, follow Tweeters with close to 1:1 ratios (e.g. 31,532 following  33,374 followers), they are more likely to reciprocate the follow.

**IMPORTANT**: If you are using the followback method, be sure to check your followers tab everyday and follow people who have followed you or else they may unfollow.

Twitter has a rule against “aggressive following”, so I recommend that if you are using the followback method you follow just a few hundred people a day as to avoid account suspension or deactivation.

Twiends.com – Twiends is a website design to give incentive for people to follow each other on Twitter. After signing up for Twiends you are encouraged to give and recieve a virtual currency called “seeds”. By following someone you recieve seeds from them, and when people follow you they recieve your seeds. The trick here is to follow people to accrue seeds in order to offer an attractive number of seeds as a reward for people following you.

Twitclub.com – Twitclub is a website dedicated to gaining you followbacks. When you sign up, you agree to allow Twitclub to automatically followback anyone who follows you through Twitclub. This means you can visit the website and get a 100% followback on every person you choose to follow.

LinkeIn.com – LinkedIn is a social networking website where you can find “groups” dedicated to growing Twitter, Facebook, Google+ followers and likes. You can find discussions where thousands of people post their ID’s so you can easily identify others looking to build their network. Once accepted to these groups (some of them are “open”, meaning anyone can join), you can post your own ID’s for people to add or “like” you. Just be sure to reciprocate!

Some of these groups are:

1. Facebook & Twitter For Business

2. twitter innovators Innovation & Creativity Network of Tweeters

3. Twitter Strategies

4. Twitter

5. Twitter, Google-Plus, and Facebook for Sourcing and Recruiting

Tribes – Tribes are groups of people who promote and/or follow people within similar niches. This means if I run a website dedicated to photography, I can join a Tribe dedicated to photography so we all can follow/”like” each other, link exchange, and otherwise help promote one another.

If you are interested in checking out how Tribes work, visit: Twibes.

Tweet – Tweeting is a great way to gain followers. The more you tweet, the more visible you are, the more likely people will follow you (or retweet you!). Personally, I enjoy opening up the Twitter timeline and scrolling through to find tweets relevant to my interests and replying to, or retweeting them. Take as little as 15 minutes a day to engage your followers and other tweeters to build your exposure and gain followers.

**IMPORTANT**: Use https://bitly.com/ to shorten any links you tweet to save valuable space for the message you would like to accompany your link!.

Retweeting is another way to gain followers. If you like a tweet, you can retweet – this is generally regarded as one of the greatest compliments you can give another tweeter, and often times they will repay your kindness with a follow.

For those of us strapped for time, you can use Buffer to increase your Twitter visibility. Buffer allows you to preload tweets to be tweeted at peak times of the day without you being present (you can tweak when the tweets fire, if you desire different timing).

Buy Follows – Buying followers or Twitter accounts is strictly against Twitter terms of use (not to mention being unethical, shady and disrespectful to every legitimate tweeter out there), so I highly discourage it.

Twitter Adder – Twitter Adder is a program you can purchase which will automate searching, following, followbacks and unfollowing. I don’t use it, but it seems to be extremely popular.

Twitter Buttons – Add a Twitter button to your blog, website or forum to catch the eye of visitors and encourage them to follow you. A few great websites for Twitter Buttons:

1. http://www.twitterflash.net/
2. http://www.twitterbuttons.org/
3. http://twittercounter.com/pages/buttons

In closing, I want to say that while there are many “easy” ways to build Twitter followers, you really need to consider why you want them. If you are just looking to spam people with offers/sales, don’t bother – most users are smart enough to see what you are up to and avoid you. If you are looking to engage other users, then you are on the right track! Good luck!

With kind regards,

Dan

P.S. Please follow me on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/CommandCS

Fact #2: Some of you are about to take great exception with what follows, and for that I am genuinly sorry, but I challenge you to prove me wrong on any point (pistols at dawn!). I put my 30 days up against you and however long you’ve been a denizen of the social media circus – pound for pound.

So let’s dance.

Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Digg, Redit, Google+, Tagged, Yelp, Foursquare, SEO, blah, blah, blah – you name it, I researched it, signed up for it or tried it (with an emphasis on Leadership), and placed forth the herculean effort to become fluent with them (work in progress!).

After being only a month old on the Social Media scene, something became painfully clear to me:

Fact #3: 90% of #Leadership on Twitter is a cesspool of regurgitated leadership quotes so bludgeoned to death that they have become nothing more than lifeless, shapeless, formless, meaningless grease stains on the faux motivation shag carpet of the interwebs.

These quotes are incessantly tweeted and retweeted by people who are so incapable of squeezing a single original thought out of that dollop of gray matter in thier fat melons that they collectively feel the need to share their favorite nugget of wisdom from Dwight Eisenhower or Sun-Tzu (for the bazillionth time).

The #Leadership masses are a horde of undead, feasting on the brains and innards of all that is pure and sacred in the world of genuine, interpersonal, and meaningful inspirational social media communication.

“Excuse me sir, you have some corporate leader-speak running down your chin”

(Note: the above statement may or may not be a double entendre)

I mean, why dream up and tweet original content capable of touching the human spirit when we can just google “leadership quotes”, cut and paste some delicious ear candy and go make a sandwich since we’ve done our part to enrich the social media habitat?

What I can’t seem to wrap my head around is how these empty calorie tweeters rack up such an amazing number of followers who hang around like hungry stray dogs waiting to be thrown a pompous 140 character platitude to gnaw on and bury in the back yard like some prized possession.

I also dread to think that there are people out there who are actually so starved for personal and professional guidance that they need RandomLeadershipTweetGuy to provide them Tweet Sustenance with a side of Copy Pasta.

Dear diary,

I just woke up, still amidst the iron grip of my deep depression. I don’t have the willpower to make it through another dark and sullen day.

So here I am with the belt around my neck, ready to kick the chair out from under me so…wait…what’s this? A new tweet from GenericLeadershipQuoteTweeter?

“The growth and development of people is the highest calling of leadership.” –Harvey S. Firestone

Never-mind diary, I have suddenly found within myself a powerful wellspring of passion for life.

Thank you, Mr. Firestone for saving me!

-Dan

Phew, crisis averted!

And am I the only person on the planet who feels as though these quotes suffer from “Quote Bloat” and inflation: the more abundant they are, the less they are worth?

*Crickets*

Guess so…

Folks, just like being too liberal with praise devalues it, as such it is with quotes.

So let’s take it down a notch? Ok…

Now don’t get me wrong, I think Twitter is an amazing resource, I just think we are all doing it wrong. When was the last time you opened twitter, searched #Leadership and attempted to open up a dialogue with someone? Oh, never?

Isn’t being part of a community about bringing people together?

Or is it just about bullshit quotes and spamming our latest blogs for traffic?

-Dan

Potent Skills

As a leader, the ability to build rapport with your people is the most potent skill you can master.

Creating an environment where your people believe you are truly invested in them personally, professionally, and emotionally, and that they play a significant role in the success of the team must be paramount.

Employees who are engaged, motivated and satisfied with their job are far more likely to convert customers into “advocates” for your business, increasing your teams chance for success (and bottom line).

I believe people respond according to how they are treated: treat them as though they are valuable asset and a valuable asset they will aspire to be.

Yesterday I interviewed a woman who retired from her 25 year career with the same company. When I inquired about what kept her with the company for so long, she replied that she simply loved the people she worked for. This was a testament to the power of strong leadership within the company building rapport with their people to create lasting and memorable relationships.

The 5 Simple Techniques

1) Know your people: I take 2-3 minutes every day to chat with my people about non-work topics. I know which employees are interested sports, cooking, politics, crafts, movies, music, or TV. When I see things in the media that might interest them, I make a mental note and bring it up the next time I see them. This opens a dialogue and lets them know I pay attention to them as a person and regard them as more than just an “employee” (which I genuinely do).

2) Give Feedback: We each ask a great deal from our people on a daily basis, so we should be obligated to let them know we appreciate their hard work and effort. Lack of recognition is one of the leading causes of turnover. Most often, this is the result of leaders only providing feedback when an action or behavior negatively affects their business.

3) Be Accessible: Check in with your people regularly, ask questions, and answer questions. Routinely following up with your people during a project will not only allow you to gauge their progress, but will also afford you the opportunity to coach them if they have questions. Coaching strengthens the bond between you and your team members since directly enhancing their skill set proves you are there to support their growth.

4) Say Hello and Goodbye: I know this concept is old as the hills, but I see so many leaders not following through with it. Taking 30 seconds out of your day to welcome your team members to work or wish them a great day when you (or they) leave lets them know you care. It’s a small but meaningful gesture.

5) Remind Them of Their Value: When providing feedback to your team members, frame their contributions in the context of the overall team’s success. Telling them that they have done a great job is good, but illustrating how they have significantly impacted the entire team is great.

1. Did you go to work today intent on building strong relationships with your people?
2. What are different ways we can show our people their value?
3. Can you name the interests and hobbies of those who report to you?

Johnny’s mom is in your line and she needs the latest, greatest, super-fantastic, amazing, mind-blowing mega-widget that’s exploded on the kid’s market this year, and she needs it NOW! NOW! NOW!

Anything less is unacceptable, of course.

(Note: things falling into the “anything less” category include waiting patiently behind the people waiting patiently in front of her)

You know this time of year: where one employee “calling out” can hamstring your organization; one out-of-stock item can be devastating, and at the very end of the day when you want nothing more than to sit down and relax for a moment – you realize you are standing amidst the rubble of the post apocalyptic wasteland which once served as your finely tuned and well cared for store.

Oh, and by the way – it needs to be put back together piece by pillaged piece.

(Note: you do this while knowing the torch and pitchfork carrying masses will ravage it again tomorrow! I think of it as “Groundhog Day” meets “The Road”)

But I’m not here to paint an ugly picture and leave you hanging (yourself)! There are a few things I encourage you to remember:

Your Employees

During this busy time of the year you have the highest number of employees on the floor than any other. Personally, I very much look forward to working with every one of my people, and the more on at any given time the better.

This gives me an opportunity to meet with my team (as a team), check in on them to see how they are doing, and do everything in my power to keep them enthusiastic and in good spirits so we can offer the best customer service experience possible.

I find that motivating a large group of people at once is far easier than doing so one-on-one, so this time of the year is like shooting fish in a barrel. Enthusiam is contagious, so I wear the mantle of “patient zero: the super spreader” (yes, it sounds like a SyFy Original movie, but I assure you that it isn’t – yet…)

Your Customers

Ok, here is the deal: Yes, I get it, some people are just plain grouchy and unreasonable.

They have been fighting the traffic, they are stressed because money is tight, they don’t want to let a loved one down because they failed to get them that perfect gift, or they expect you are going to be another in a long line of customer service failures they have already endured this season, so they preemptively treat you as such.

And yes, I know we get it unfairly dumped straight onto our heads with not so much as a simple Hello, Thank You, or Goodbye.

But here is what I implore you to keep in mind:

1. You are going to have far more friendly and amazing customers than you are going to have unreasonable ones. Take care not to forget that you are offering a special service to these people: you are helping them have a great holiday season with their family and (most times) they greatly appreciate you taking the time to help them whether they say so, or not.
2. The unreasonable ones are the ones you need to engage the hardest and prove to them why you and your business are different, and to remind them that there still are people out there who understand, care, and genuinely want to help (even under duress!). It’s like the scene from “Good Will Hunting” where Robin Williams (you!) hugs the troubled Matt Damon character (angry customer!) and keeps repeating “it’s not your fault” over and over until they cry together and become life-long friends.

(Note: there might be an f-bomb or two in this clip, just saying…)

Your Business

With the holiday season bringing so much traffic into your stores, you need to be building relationships with every customer – good, bad and ugly alike – to keep them coming back all year long. If they see you are willing to take time to show genuine personal care during your busiest, most stressful time of the year, then they know you will surely do so during the slower ones (when you need it most!)

This time of the year grants you the greatest exposure, you would be foolish not to take advantage of every second of it.

Best of luck during this season!

-Dan