As enticing as the saying is, “If you build it, they will come,” we all know that just because we build a social media presence, people don’t magically start knocking down our door.

Instead, we need to encourage people to come to our social pages and once they’re there, we have to create enough value for them to hang around. And through these repeated exchanges, casual users can become regular visitors as well as valuable leads.

In previous posts, I’ve written A-Z guides to help create the absolute best presence on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and blogs. Now let’s turn our attention to harnessing the power of those efforts for lead generation.

#1: Assets

As part of your social media marketing plan, Michelle deHaaff suggests that companies examine social media and online assets to see what they can leverage for full social media engagement. She identifies seven key assets: location, people, stories, images, video, audio and words to help us think about engaging more fully.

#2: Brand Message

Ethan Lyon suggests that users want to identify with a brand. He offers Nike’s identity as an example, “Customers buy Nike because the brand gives them the confidence to succeed—much like an effective coach.” What is your brand message? What should users know about you? Can they tell that from what you’re posting?

#3: Compelling Messages

Use compelling messages throughout your communications. Craft messages that users can relate to and won’t be able to resist. These are generally the messages that speak like real people and not marketing spin. Below is an example from Pogue’s Post.

David Pogue uses a conversational tone and a bit of humor to drive home a point from Pogue's Post.

#4: Differentiations

Because there’s a tremendous amount of competition vying for consumers’ attention in the social media arena, businesses that can differentiate themselves will stand out and get noticed. Zappos Service Twitter page shows how to make it friendly and feel like you’re hanging out with a good friend. Create remarkable content.

http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/wp-admin/post.php?action=edit&post=8364&message=1

Zappos employees tell you when they're signing off and when they're leaving for the night.

#5: Etiquette

Michelle Golden recommends in her book Social Media Strategies for Professionals and Their Firms to practice good etiquette. “Definitely don’t write about and link only to your stuff. Instead, go out of your way to promote others liberally.”

#6: Feedback

Users who write comments and ask questions appreciate receiving feedback. Make it a regular practice to take time to respond.

A fan poses a question on Social Media Examiner's Facebook page and Cindy King responds with a timely answer and directs the fan to a link.

#7: Google

Remember that the social media updates you post via your blog, Facebook page, tweets and YouTube channel appear in search results, too. The person searching is an active user looking for information, and bringing the user to your pages is an excellent way to get in front of potential customers.

A person looking for sources for how to choose a paint color would find blog posts and videos. This person is looking for help and the companies have provided advice and solutions. The companies have found ways to get in front of potential customers.

#8: Help a Reporter Out

Companies are often looking for ways to share experiences that might be referenced in blog posts and articles. You don’t have to be a big company to get picked up for a story.

Sign up for Help a Reporter Out and when you have a story to share on a topic, offer the information to the reporter. HARO is one good way to spread information and get high-quality, free publicity for your business. Keep your eyes open for other ways to distribute information about your business with social media press releases.

HARO serves as a vital social networking resource for sources, reporters and advertisers.

#9: Icons

Social media icons help users share your content and offer ways for people to like your content. Likes are valuable votes of confidence and go a long way with users who may have come to your site for the first time. Make your content easy to share.

#10: Joy

In Guy Kawasaki’s new book Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds and Actions, he tells us that achieving trustworthiness will go a long way for a business. People want to do business with companies and people they can trust. And sometimes it means that we may end up giving our time or some kind of service that we’re not compensated for. Guy suggests that we give with joy.

#11: Knowledge-sharing

Share your knowledge freely in blog posts and white papers. Some businesses are afraid they’ll give away all of their secrets. Your knowledge is a valuable asset; don’t be afraid to share what you know.

HubSpot's inbound Internet marketing blog regularly shares the blogger's personal experiences in marketing and is very generous about sharing tips.

#12: Leverage Content Products

Jeff Bullas recommends using 7 content products for marketing: social media, e-newsletters, blogs, white papers, article marketing, case studies and online videos.

Use a good mix of content, because not all users will read a case study or watch an online video. You’ll increase your odds of being seen by more people by using a mix of content products.

#13: Monitor Conversations

Monitor conversations about your brand and competitors. There are many social media listening tools that will help you keep a pulse on what’s being talked about. The more you know, the more responsive you can be.

#14: Nobodies Are the New Somebodies

One of the most serious mistakes we can make is to pass up a potential lead because we don’t perceive the company or person to be a valuable lead. As Guy Kawasaki says, “Nobodies are the new somebodies in the world of wide-open communications.” Treat everyone with the same attention and respect.

#15: Offline Skills

Online skills don’t have to be inherently different than the way we act offline. Erica Swallow suggests that we use our offline skills and go out there and “Meet people, communicate and build relationships… Be genuine, track conversations and respond to inquiries promptly and thoroughly.”

#16: Produce Content

Not only do we have to produce content, we also have to produce enough of it. HubSpot provides some interesting recommendations: “Businesses must produce enough content for their blog to kick off growth in leads, which starts with about 24 to 51 posts.” HubSpot found that more indexed pages on Google also translate to more leads. They suggest that every 50 to 100 incremental indexed pages can mean double-digit lead growth.

#17: Questions

Lisa Barone recommends that social media marketers should “answer questions because they’re a good way to establish your authority, but also for people to ‘test’ you out.”

#18: Relationships

Lisa Barone also suggests that “social media is an emerging lead generation tool because it lowers the barrier to the sale by building relationships, displaying expertise and through networking you’re able to bring in more people than cold calling ever could.”

#19: Showcase Your Experience

According to Erica Swallow, “The first step to engaging a community of potential customers is sharing content that showcases your expertise. A simple social media update usually isn’t enough to convey a full analysis on a topic. Include links with your updates that expand on key ideas. Keep in mind that your goal is to create value for your followers. Learn what your fans respond to and what they don’t, and then adjust your updates based on that information.”

#20: Target Personas

Buyer personas have been around long before social media hit our radar screens, but marketers have found that having a good picture in mind of the target customer is beneficial in terms of how we write our content.

A blog, for example, can have multiple categories of topics and so you may find that certain categories speak more to certain personas than others. And certain Facebook and Twitter updates may appeal to certain users.

Regardless of how you segment these groups, it’s incredibly beneficial to share target persona information with whoever is developing content for your social media channels.

Before writing, review your persona list to remind yourself whom you're conversing with.

#21: Useful Content

Kristina Halvorson, author of Content Strategy for the Web, says that if our content isn’t supporting the successful fulfillment of our business objectives or our users’ top goals, then it’s a waste of pixels. She suggests adding two columns to a content inventory: value to user and value to business.

#22: Value

Guy Kawasaki says there are three types of value: 1) pointers to useful, inspiring or entertaining content, 2) personal insights, observations or content, 3) advice and assistance. Guy’s recommendation is to pass along these gems to friends and followers to help them derive more value from online resources.

#23: Word of Mouth

The Marqui Web Marketing Blog’s post 6 Ways Social Media Marketing Helps B2B Lead Generation says, “Word of mouth has been, and continues to be, one of the best ways to generate more leads for your business. Buyers tend to trust peer referrals more than any other source of information and since social media allows people to share their experiences (both good and bad) with a wide range of people, this can help increase trust in your company’s products and services.”

#24: Excellence

The Network Singularity blog says “there are 5 C’s to social media excellence: coordination of social media activities, commitment means engaging with your environment and deliberately pursuing social interactions, confidence in your social media activities, comprehension of social media, and cultivation of worthwhile and friendly relationships.”

#25: Yes

Being likable on social media enhances our potential for lead generation. Guy Kawasaki says one way to become likable is to “adopt a yes attitude. This means your default response to people’s requests is yes… By contrast, a no response stops everything… To make a default yes work, you must assume people are reasonable, honest and grateful.”

#26: Zeal

Enthusiasm is contagious. By showing the fervor you have for your business, products and services, and through the content you share on your social media channels, users will be inclined to want to stick around, engage and build a relationship. Reach out and show your enthusiasm.

What ways have you generated leads with social media? What would you add to this list? Leave your comments in the box below.

Understanding the concept of social graphs will not only enhance your proficiency with social media marketing today, it will also help you foresee emerging trends. This will significantly help you be fully prepared when new web technologies are launched.

The term social graph was first used a few years ago by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, specifically in reference to the Facebook platform. Your social graph is a digital map of your personal identity, your primary Facebook friends and everything you share with them.

That definition has since been expanded to include other platforms, such as Twitter, Flickr and even Google. So, to be clear, you have many overlapping social graphs. This social data is of great interest to businesses that are trying to connect with you, and should be of equal interest to you for reaching your future customers.

The social graph is a contextual matrix of relationships.

Facebook and the Open Graph

When Facebook launched sweeping changes to their platform on April 21, 2010, social graphs were suddenly thrust into the spotlight. That’s when Mark Zuckerberg coined a new term—Open Graph.

The objective of Facebook Open Graph is to integrate all of your social graphs—on Facebook, of course. This is accomplished through the Facebook API, which is a digital handshake that connects your Facebook identity, connections and content with Facebook pages and outside websites and blogs. You probably know it best in its most popular form as the Facebook Like button.

Facebook Like creates communities of like-minded people.

When you Like a Facebook page or site that has embedded the Facebook Like feature, you’re instantly connected with everyone else who has Liked that site. You have effectively joined a new community, and now you have the benefit of many new associations.

Unfortunately, the positive side of connecting businesses with consumers in this way was overshadowed by the privacy uproar associated with Open Graph. That has since been remedied by allowing you to control what you share, if anything, with your new community.

If you can integrate millions of social graphs that are rich with personal data, you have a Frankenstein’s monster of a database that is infused with social context, and therefore, human-like qualities.

Similar to Frankenstein, the Open Graph is not really human, but it has the possibility to come awfully close as more social data is stitched together. The power of a database that truly emulates human behavior is undeniable. Whatever happens in the future, one thing we’re sure of is that day in April was a game-changer for social marketers.

How Social Graphs Tell a Story

Searchable content has always been the foundation of the Internet. Bill Gates is credited with stating that “content is king”—and at the time he said that (he wrote it first), he was right. However, that was before social networking changed the game of search to what it is today; one where context is king.

As your messaging or content on the social web is shared, it gathers context and builds nodal relationships that tell a story. By understanding this, you can more effectively enhance your social graph by creating useful content that favorably represents who you are and what you do best with your expertise.

Context—Social networks are all about context. Whom you associate with tells a great deal about you. Context not only tells us who you are, but by associations and comparisons, who you are not. You may be very similar to colleagues you associate with, but there is enough data to discern a difference. That association may be what helps you to be discovered, but it is the distinction that will get you hired.

Nodes—When you map out your social connections, you’re essentially connecting the dots. Think of these dots as nodes on a complex matrix. The more nodes there are on your social graph, the more readily you can be defined, and therefore located. Nodes are landmarks or junction points on a map that helps users navigate the unknown and find exactly what they need or want, which ideally is your business.

Sharing—Sharing on the social web is what creates nodes. If you share content that someone finds useful, they’re likely to share it with their community, thereby connecting you with their friends—which creates even more nodes.

Why Social Search Is a Game-Changer

When Facebook introduced its Open Graph, Mark Zuckerberg made the statement that if we can take the social graphs of a multitude of social networking or sharing sites, we could “create a web that’s smarter, more social, more personalized, and more semantically aware.”

A semantically aware web takes advantage of relationships and associations. You’ve already experienced how social semantic search works if you’ve made multiple purchases on Amazon. They understand your preferences and they cross-link them with the preferences of people whose social graphs are similar to yours.

As new technologies are integrated with this growing body of social data, you can expect search capabilities to rise to breathtaking levels, giving more accurate, more personal and timelier search results.

Here are some steps you can take to create a representative social graph:

Create Social Objects—In addition to relationships with people, you also have relationships with objects that further define your social graph. Social objects are anything that is searchable on the web. This obviously includes people, but also images, videos and music clips. All of these objects interact to tell a story.

Fill in the Gaps—As social graphs are merged, they become mutually more descriptive and complete. Yet for most of us, our social graphs are largely empty space. This is why it’s important to be actively engaged and share on the social networks, both on a personal and professional level. When you do this, you’re managing your destiny by building your social graph, which is always best accomplished with your direct involvement.

Consider Location and Time—Social graphs are digital maps that lead us to places. As social graphing is accomplished more frequently in real time and location, better decisions become possible. While there may a number of businesses like yours that are suited to someone doing a search, the person is more likely to choose you if you’ve recently engaged in conversations that keep your social graph fresh and relevant.

What This Means for Business

At the recent Web 2.0 Summit, Mark Zuckerberg said, “Over the next five years every industry will have to redesign itself around social.” This is a statement that I believe holds a great deal of merit. Businesses need to realize that social is not just changing how you should market, but even how you’ll be doing business in the future if you expect to prosper.

It remains to be seen whether Open Graph will become a reality. While the technology is available, there are political and economic boundaries that prevent it from readily happening. Nevertheless, what’s trending is typically going to happen at some point in the future.

Here are some likely possibilities:

The Future Web Is More Personal

Let’s face it, people are interested in people. Human interactions of all kinds add context that illuminates, clarifies and cuts through the clutter. There is no question that semantic search will transform our roles as both consumers and business professionals.

The Future Web Is More Intelligent

Every piece of data that gets added to every social graph makes the entire system more intelligent. The more the system knows, the more discerning it will be. It becomes a better decision-maker. What is Microsoft’s Bing, which also happens to power Facebook search? A decision engine.

The Future Web Is More Open

Social graphs overlap and extend across the globe.

Imagine a web that has perfect access to information—a social web that is a digital copy of our physical world.

While this may sound like science fiction to some, could you have imagined 10 years ago that you would someday be carrying a handheld device that would help you find a business, navigate your travel there in real time, let you know which of your friends has recently visited and what recommendations they left for you?

What do you think? Is science fiction now becoming science? What challenges and possibilities do you see? Let us know your comments in the box below.

All images from Shutterstock

Could your web browser replace the need to visit Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn on a regular basis? To find out the answer, keep reading…

Web browsers have changed considerably over the past 15 years. From Internet Explorer to the upstart Mozilla stealing their thunder and most recently Google rearing its head with an ultra-fast browser, Chrome, the field of play is starting to get crowded.

Obviously, that means it’s time for a new name to join the fray—and with a social twist.

Enter RockMelt.

The RockMelt browser window.

RockMelt is a different breed of browser altogether.

While IE, Firefox and Chrome are all talking about how fast they are; RockMelt makes a big splash by showing how social it is.

RockMelt is one of the first browsers to fully integrate the social experience into the browser itself. Claiming to evolve browsers the same way the web has evolved, there’s a lot of promise in these new features. For starters, here’s a walkthrough I made for you… because I love you all so much J.

Elijah’s Video Review

Watch the above video tutorial: Caution: Watch for a surprise at the end!

How RockMelt WINS!

RockMelt has a number of innovations.

Real-Time RSS

OK, I’ll admit it. I hate RSS feeds. I don’t feel like going to an RSS reader to get updates to a website. I wish there was a little button that just pinged when there was new content and I didn’t have to stop what I’m doing to go see what it is.

RockMelt does that.

RockMelt lets you add any RSS feeds directly into the browser, and they immediately send you a visual signal when there’s new content for you to digest. The best part is that you can read a synopsis of the content without leaving the page you’re on. Evaluate content without disrupting your current browsing session, and open in a new window if you want to read more.

People-Centric Sharing

Sharing with your entire community is a great thing, but I’ve found that sharing an article to add value to one specific person builds more of a relationship.

RockMelt makes that happen easily.

If you populate your “friends bar” with people you’d like to network with, you can shoot great content their way with a couple of button clicks. It may take a while to get your list perfected, but stick with it.

Installing on a new computer? Don’t worry. RockMelt will update all of your preferences as soon as you sign in!

Dual Search Boxes

Sometimes you need to search for something, and you don’t want to leave the page you’re on, right? What do you do? Open a new tab and search there. That works fine, but what if you could type a search term in the search bar, and browse all of the listings in a drop-down menu, automatically opening only the results that you want in separate tabs?

RockMelt does that.

When one search box job won't do…

The convenience of queuing your browsing so that it doesn’t become a disruption—but a natural progression—of your journey through content is an excellent win for the browser.

That being said, it isn’t all candy corn and rainbows over here…

RockMelt #Fail

Here are the browser’s shortcomings.

Can’t schedule updates

No scheduling now, but I see room for an extra button...

This is a big negative for social industry professionals. While I love and applaud the real-time functionality of RockMelt, I don’t want to be bound to it 100% of the time. Sometimes I’ll have meetings or be connecting with my social media contacts in real life, and won’t be able to tweet for a number of hours.

I need to be able to queue content for distribution later and unfortunately, that’s not in the bag yet.

Redundant alerts

So you’ve just finished a great tweet, and you send it off to the world. One second later, RockMelt sends you an alert: “You have a new Tweet!” Excitedly, you hurry to open your Twitter panel to see… that you’ve just tweeted.

Really?

If you’re going to condition me to respond to your sidebar alerts, they’d better be valuable alerts. As soon as those alerts become white noise, the entire browser starts to lose value.

Gotta clean that up.

Still Buggy

I can’t really fault RockMelt for this one; these are the growing pains of any software. This is more of a warning to those who will be helping with the beta testing.

This is new, so sometimes it won’t work perfectly, sometimes it won’t log in, and sometimes screens will be blank for no reason whatsoever. It’s the cost of having the shiny new thing. Ask people who bought the first generation of the i-anything (sorry Apple).

The plus side is that these guys fix things quickly and their customer service is right where it needs to be.

The RockMelt team understands that this time is crucial for the survival of their browser; it feels good to be appreciated.

All in all, my decision to use RockMelt has two splits. First of all, on its own, I think RockMelt is one of the most valuable browsers for social media professionals to use for their own brand/community management. I can’t say the same for social media managers because each browser is tied to a single Facebook account. But when you get your hands on it, you’ll see how it makes everything a bit easier, especially if you’re a big Facebook chatterer, which I’m not.

On the other hand, I’ve grown so close to some of my Chrome extensions that I can’t realistically think about switching over until there’s an alternative. So for now, RockMelt, you’ll have to share my desktop with Chrome, at least until Wisestamp makes a RockMelt extension…

Are you considering switching to RockMelt? Have you used any of the other social browsers? Let us know your experience in the comments box below.

This represents a big opportunity for your business.

A Little Context

In the early days of the Internet, websites were static creatures. Once a site was published, that’s pretty much how it stayed. Websites were built by programmers and even minor changes required contacting the designer or a specialized web manager.

Then came the blog.

Blogging turned the once-boring website into an ever-changing, dynamic creature. With the advent of the blog came blogging software and the ability to quickly publish content.

With more than 9.5 million downloads of its latest version (as of this writing), WordPress on a self-hosted server is one of the most popular blogging platforms available. But WordPress is no longer just for blogging.

Ease of use combined with open-source development has turned WordPress into a powerful tool for building full-service websites. At this point it’s safe to say that WordPress is changing the way we use the web.  In fact, Social Media Examiner is driven by WordPress.

Here are six ways WordPress is changing the web:

#1: The Power of Publishing for Anyone

When Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press in 1440 he forever changed the way we communicate. What took days or even weeks to produce could now be quickly mass-produced at a fraction of the cost.

And while history has yet to determine the impact of blogging platforms such as WordPress, there’s no question they’ve changed the way we publish information. It’s now possible for anyone to quickly reach a global audience for only pennies.

With a blog, anyone can publish information, voice an opinion and potentially reach a global audience.

Now, armed with little more than a cell phone, a high-school journalist can attend the same function as a Washington Post reporter, publish her version of the event and if she can attract the audience, compete on the same playing field as the Washington Post.

This puts the average citizen in a very powerful position. Along with the ability to quickly reach a global audience, incorrect information or an angry consumer can quickly do damage to large corporations.

#2: Anyone Can Build and Manage a Website—Today

WordPress is democratizing the web. Thanks to its ease of use and low cost (free), almost anyone can launch a website. Although hiring a designer has its advantages, it’s possible for an individual with little programming knowledge to launch a very nice-looking site for the cost of a hosting package.

Most web hosts offer programs such as Simple Scripts or Fantastico, which will install WordPress with the click of a button. WordPress’s “Famous Five-Minute Install” is now about a five-second install. Even better, it doesn’t require FTP uploads or messing about in the server database.

Once installed, WordPress plugins, themes and upgrades can all be installed from within the WordPress control panel with the click of a button.

Some themes come with extra widget options allowing for advanced design with minimal programming.

Publishing and changing content is just as easy. If you can manage a word processor, you can publish content in WordPress.

WordPress content management system makes it easy to edit and publish content.

#3: Blogs Can Power Entire Websites

In the old days, a blog was a place where somebody wrote about his cat. Not anymore. Businesses are finding that blogging software makes it easy to quickly change and publish web content. While many businesses are working to incorporate blogs into their websites, many more are using WordPress to build their entire website.

And it’s not just small businesses using WordPress to build their sites. Companies like UPS and The Wall Street Journal Magazine are building high trafficked, advanced websites using WordPress. Take a stroll around the WordPress Showcase and tell me if you can see the difference between a website and a blog.

UPS Racing is a WordPress site.

#4: Sharing and Commenting Aren’t Just Encouraged, They’re Expected

Blogs by their very nature are designed to be shared and comments are encouraged. As the separation between websites and blogs blurs, so has the way businesses are expected to communicate with their customers. It is no longer safe to hide behind the corporate walls. The discussion will go on with or without input from the company. Dynamic websites give businesses the ability to influence where their customers go for information, manage the discussion and quickly respond when the need arises.

#5: Professional Websites Without a Web Designer

Thanks to the fact that WordPress is an open-source program, there are thousands of plugins (modifications) and themes (templates) available that can make WordPress do almost anything you need it to do. Photo sliders, contact forms, podcasts and more can all be added using plugins.

Premium themes such as StudioPress allow users to install professional-looking websites with minimal or no programming knowledge. The Headway theme even uses a visual editor that allows users to drag and drop content and design pages without the need for CSS or PHP programming.

While professional design has its advantages, for small businesses or the budget-conscious, it’s possible to build very powerful websites at a very low cost.

#6: Websites Can Now Do More

As it gets easier and less expensive to create websites, they are expected to do more. Internet users expect a certain level of professionalism and often pass judgment based on a quick read of a company website. Sites that are not up to par reflect on the company as a whole.

However, this does create an opportunity for small businesses. As costs come down and ease of creating professional-looking websites increases, small businesses can create websites that compete with much larger corporations.

What do you think?

Are blogging platforms such as WordPress changing the way we use the web? Have you used blogging software to build your website? In today’s world of the Internet, is there a clear separation between “blogs” and “websites”?  Let us know your thoughts and ideas below.

As my recent poll shows, generating incoming traffic is the number-one need that people have right now, and for good reason. Traffic translates into:

• Attention, engagement, conversation and recognition
• Spreading your message far and wide
• Prospects and subscriber opt-ins
• Customers, increased sales and leads
• Media and interviews, which lead to more attention

… and last but not least, an ego boost.

In a previous article here I mentioned the many benefits of Twitter for your business. Now here are seven key points you need to know if you want to get more targeted traffic from Twitter:

#1: Know your audience

Growing your traffic always starts with your audience if you want to do it right. Untargeted, uninterested “hits” are a waste of time and resources at worst, and at best just pure vanity.

• What does your audience want and need?
• How do they like it delivered?
• Which topics are on their minds right now?
• Are there trends that are growing in popularity?
• How do these folks speak? What words and phrases do they use?

This means that driving traffic starts with listening and observing. Get to know your target so you can most efficiently engage them.

Twitter has a tool for this. Use search.twitter.com to find what people in your niche are talking about and follow some of their conversations.

Once you get an idea of what people are interested in, join in those conversations and talk to people.

#2: Get the “right” followers

So much rubbish is thrown around about how to grow your follower count that it makes it seem that the number is all that matters. Wrong!

You need people to want to hear what you have to say. This means you do NOT want people who auto-follow because they are either:

1. Robots and not real human beings (e.g., spam software, people trying to inflate their follower count, scrapers)
2. Not actually reading your tweets and just following to allow you to DM them

The followers you most want are those who follow you because they are interested and think they will get value from your tweets. These people are most likely to find you via:

• People retweeting your stuff, either within Twitter or using a TweetMeme button
• Referrals from other Twitter users
• Your blog; for example, your articles that say “Follow me on Twitter at @chrisgarrett and tell me what you think,” or your sidebar Follow Me button
• Other people’s blogs, when you guest post or comment
• Clicking your forum signature when you participate in discussions, or your email signature

Unfortunately Twitter closed off a really nice way that people used to get targeted Twitter followers. It used to be that we could “listen in” to conversations that people we followed were having, but now you have to be following both parties. This means we can’t discover new people that way. If someone puts something before they mention your @name it can still work, and I still occasionally get followers through that.

Essentially the advice is, put your Twitter name where it will be seen and encourage people to share it!

#3: Build engagement

Talk to people.

Engage your followers. Don’t just see them as a passive list of eyeballs! Treat folks as human beings and you will do much better at this stuff. It is called social media for a reason.

• Ask questions
• Hold conversations
• Dip into others’ conversations
• Encourage feedback

#4: Get clicks

So now your followers are seeing you as an interesting person and not a robotic “feed,” which means they are more likely to take notice when you tweet out a link.

Tweet Valuable Links

Whatever you do, don’t just tweet your own stuff. That is both selfish and boring!

Get into the habit of sharing anything cool, regardless of who created it. Retweet good stuff and other people are going to be more willing to retweet yours. Tweet out fun and useful links your friends send you in email or from the news. Be known as a person who tweets good stuff.

Timing

Not everyone is online at the same time. There is a whole world outside of your timezone, plus people have a different schedule than you. You know the feeling of confusion when you land in a foreign country. Not only have you got to adjust to local time, but also people seem to have their meals at a different time of day, shops open and close at strange hours, and business meetings seem to be held randomly. Twitter is like that, you can’t just look at a time zone converter and think people will be at their desk at a certain time.

1. Tweet the same thing a few times, a few hours apart, to give your message several chances to be seen.
2. Vary the times of day you tweet and monitor response.
3. Watch for the peaks and troughs of activity in YOUR stream (not just what works for others).

I tend to aim to catch the peak times for Aussies, the EU/Brits, East Coast USA, and West Coast USA, but it is far from an exact science!

Headlines

There are two main driving factors that affect your chances of getting a click:

1. Your reputation
2. The headline

Hopefully at this point #1 is taken care of, but #2 takes some work.

First of all, use my free download 102 Proven Headline Formulas as a starting point. There are 102 fill-in-the-blank templates which ought to give you a head start on writing a compelling caption.

If you use an interesting title and it matches your audience’s wants and needs, then you are going to get clicks.

Split test

You might not get it right the first time, so try another variation:

• Phrase it as a question
• Make it into a “How To” headline
• Use curiosity versus just the facts

A lot of this is about learning what your audience reacts to best.

#5: Measure performance

When you use a link-shortener with a built-in click-tracker such as bit.ly, you can see how well any of your links perform. This is useful for improving over time and to see which links get picked up virally.  As they say, what you measure you get more of!

With Twitter it’s not just the link clicks that YOU get, but the retweets and shares that really drive the real traffic. TweetMeme and bit.ly can give you vital reporting about how well you do, as well as your Google Analytics.

#6: Do more of what works, but test, test, test

When you find what works for you, do more of that. Keep in mind though that if you only do the same things you will either get the same results and not improve, or you will wear out that technique. Experiment, learn and mix it up.

Trends change, techniques improve, fads go out of fashion. Do not get stuck on rails, move and flow with your audience.

#7: Encourage sharing

Once you have your initial click, your job is not done!

Make sure your article has a TweetMeme button so that anyone who likes what you shared can easily share it too.

If you want to get really fancy, give people an incentive to share, such as a random prize drawing for anyone who tweets your message. Of course, the message will contain a link back to you …

Once in a while it doesn’t hurt to actually ask for retweets. Just don’t overdo it, as you will only annoy your followers. This will make them less responsive, rather than more.

Does it really work?

Here is a case study for you. For the last Social Media Success Summit in 2009, Mike Stelzner and I ran a competition on chrisg.com using all the advice mentioned here in this article.

The competition post was retweeted over 1,000 times

Using TweetMeme we can see that the competition post was retweeted over 1,000 times before it stopped tracking.

Social Media Success Summit 2009 Competition Clicks

Just the cli.gs link alone was clicked 12,753 times.

So yes, it does work.

Bottom line:

• Gather the correct audience
• Be awesome
• Share cool stuff
• Encourage other people to share it too

Does Twitter work to generate traffic for your stuff? Got any tips to share? Anything people do that annoys you? Please share—go ahead and comment below right now!

In 2004, Steven Cox sat down with a fellow musician after a gig. Cox’s friend and his wife were expecting their first baby and hoping to buy a house. But as a musician and private instructor, he struggled with making ends meet.

“Playing music doesn’t necessarily pay all the bills, unless you have a really big contract or gig,” Cox says. “My friend was hanging flyers in drugstores and music stores but still not finding enough students.”

Cox, once a full-time musician, worked a day job in IT and management consulting at the time. When he suggested his friend go online to connect with aspiring musicians, the friend confessed, “I’m a musician. I don’t know anything about that.”

With that, Cox began orchestrating TakeLessons.com.

Today, TakeLessons is America’s leading music and voice lessons company—a position reached largely through social media marketing.

He Built It, They Came

TakeLessons.com provides singing and music lessons in over 2,800 U.S. cities. Students register online for local, private, face-to-face lessons with a TakeLessons Certified Instructor™ after finding each other via a Match.com-style approach.

And like a dating website, TakeLessons.com takes some of the risk out of those in-person meetings.

“It can be difficult in music services to find reputable, trustworthy teachers, especially when you’re inviting someone into your home to spend time with your kids,” says Cox, CEO and founder. “Our customers turn to TakeLessons.com for our rigorous teacher hiring standards, and our online tools are second to none.”

To that end, TakeLessons.com only hires the best out there—just 4 to 5 percent of all teacher applicants.

TakeLessons.com must build awareness among two audiences: potential students (and their parents in some cases) and prospective teachers. With a background in fostering online communities—Cox formerly worked in strategy for a college social networking site—the CEO recognized the value of “getting people together to yak about stuff.”

In 2005, TakeLessons.com gave its audience just that, an online forum. The site not only allowed students and teachers to communicate with TakeLessons.com, but also each other—showing the power of online community.

“Teachers were sharing lesson plans and ideas,” Cox said. “Through the forum, they got quality guidance from each other.”

“So You Wanna Learn How to Play Guitar”

Since then, TakeLessons.com’s social media marketing has taken off. The company’s tightly integrated strategy now includes blogging, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

“We want people to consume the content and ideas in the form they want, when they want it,” Cox said.

TakeLessons.com blogs a few times every week on everything from conquering stage fright to recipes for vocal health to to “So You Wanna Learn How to Play Guitar.”

“So You Wanna Learn How to Play Guitar.”

Yet the team only spends two to three hours per week total creating, posting and responding to comments. Their secret? Guest bloggers.

“We’ve got a whole university’s worth of qualified instructors,” Cox said.

In 2009, TakeLessons.com began turning to its expert pool of teachers for content. At once, the company gives its instructors valuable exposure while saving time for the in-house staff, which simply edits posts and populates them with keywords.

A Blog-Twitter Duet

Quarter-over-quarter, blog traffic continues to increase, largely due to search engine hits and a Twitter snowball effect. TakeLessons.com micro-blogs on Twitter one to two times every day, directing followers to the blog.

Tracking traffic patterns, TakeLessons.com knows that blogging and tweeting continuously increase traffic back to the TakeLessons.com blog. The company’s approximately 650 Twitter followers share with their own followers via retweets.

Yet TakeLessons.com takes a more casual approach to Twitter than many.

“We decided to let Twitter build organically and let true followers become followers, so we don’t follow others to get them to follow us,” Cox said. “We’re trying another way by just writing what’s relevant to people.”

Feel-Good Video

www.youtube.com/watch?v=NS96nQHOW-E

TakeLessons.com lends itself perfectly to YouTube, the web’s third largest search engine. If you search for TakeLessons.com on the site, you’ll find inspiring, feel-good clips of student recitals, mini guitar lessons and teacher introductions.

For just $150 for a high-def Flip camera and a little bit of time, the company has generated tens of thousands of views that include the TakeLessons.com logo or name, generating valuable brand exposure and website traffic.

Most often, the company shoots video of “Show What You Know” recitals, where students of all ages play publicly for the first time. Each clip kicks off with a screen of the TakeLessons.com logo.

The company racked up some of its biggest views—nearly 50,000—with a video response to a current event. When a musician whose guitar was broken on a United Airlines flight spoke out via a music video (“United Breaks Guitars”), Cox responded with a video. He offered to lend his own Taylor guitar to the musician, and indicated the company had switched a recent flight from United to Southwest in solidarity.

Not everyone agreed with Cox, but he chalks it up to the nature of social media.

“You’ve got to learn to let things slide off your back if you’re going to be transparent and use this medium to get your message out,” he said.

Six Months, 1,000 Fans

Last but not least in TakeLessons.com’s four-pronged approach: Facebook, with nearly 1,200 fans. Popularity on Facebook exceeded initial expectations. Instead of reaching 1,000 fans in one year, they did it in just six months.

While staff does post links to its free “Teach the Teacher” web seminars, mostly the company encourages fans to share their own news and interact with each other. Fans post notes about their own upcoming gigs, arrange in-person meet-ups, find concert venues, or connect to play gigs together.

Here, TakeLessons.com gets back to its roots of community building. Teachers interact and encourage each other separate from the company.

Automating Customers’ Status Updates

In a smart move, TakeLessons.com automates Twitter and Facebook updates for its customers. When students sign up on the company’s website, they are asked about their goals. From then, they can keep up with their goals—maybe the five songs they want to learn—on the TakeLessons.com website.

TakeLessons.com then asks whether students want to install the company’s API applications for Facebook and Twitter. If so, they are asked what type of information they want to automatically post on those sites.

They can choose to automatically post each week that they’ve had a lesson, after the scheduled lesson takes place. Or, they might be asked if they want to post that they’ve met a certain percent of their goals.

“We try to talk less about us and more about them,” Cox said. “We’re not out pounding our chests, which we find works better in social media.”

The Payoff

In total, Cox estimates that TakeLessons.com spends no more than about six hours every week on social media marketing activities. From there, the various online communities create a viral effect.

“It’s growing beyond us having to physically manage everything,” Cox said. “We’ve become the conduit.”

For that six hours, and virtually no direct costs, TakeLessons.com sees impressive results:

• 39 percent decrease in cost per acquisition year-over-year
• 30 percent increase in teacher applications since a year ago
• Nearly 10 percent of website traffic from social media
• Sales directly attributed to specific Twitter and Facebook posts
• Speaking invitations
• Connections with several Fortune 100 companies
• Joint venture opportunities with two companies

However, Cox values the intangible benefits just as much, namely fostering trust and relationships with customers.

“We don’t want to hide behind a corporate image,” he said. “We want people to say, ‘Wow, there are people behind this idea and this company.’ This aligns with our core values and everything we do. People are getting to know who we are so they’re comfortable making a decision.”