The new Twitter is more than just a new look and layout. Embedding tweets is now much easier. Borrowing a page from the YouTube playbook, Twitter is offering code so you can share an interactive tweeting experience with visitors to your website. Using it increases the visibility and lifespan of special tweets.

The process is simple. Please note that it only works if you have enabled the new Twitter.

Go directly to your Twitter page or the user’s profile for the tweet you want to embed. Do not use a third party access.

Choose the tweet you want to share.

Position your mouse pointer on the tweet. Some selection criteria will appear on the tweet.

Click open.

Click Details. It opens the tweet with the option to embed this tweet:

Click Embed this tweet. A pop-up appears with the code already highlighted.

If you don’t want to alter the code, use Ctrl-C (press ctrl and the letter “c” simultaneously) to copy it. Or, you can position your mouse pointer on the highlighted code, right click and select copy. Go to the place you want to embed the tweet and use Ctrl-V (yep, it’s just like Ctrl-C using the letter “v”) or right-click paste and “Voila!”, you’ve embedded a tweet!

If you want to control the position of the tweet (left, right, or center), simple click the appropriate alignment button and the code automatically changes. How cool is that? You can create HTML code without having to actually know how it works! The highlighting goes away but you can fix that easily by clicking on the code.

Here is the embedded tweet:

How to Enable the New Twitter Design goo.gl/fb/bg6ZG-Multichannel Magic

— Debra Ellis (@DebraWEllis) December9, 2011

Your readers can reply, retweet, and favorite the tweet from within your website. There is also the option to follow the person who created the tweet.

Happy Tweeting!

PSS: If you don’t have the new version of Twitter, read “How to Enable the New Twitter” post.

PS: If you want to kickstart your social media strategy, check out “Social Media 4 Direct Marketers”. It is an ebook with 90 Pages of proven tactics to move your social media marketing to the next level. ]]> http://www.wilsonellisconsulting.com/blog/06/new-twitter-embed-tweet/feed/ 7 http://www.wilsonellisconsulting.com/blog/10/enable-new-twitter-design/ http://www.wilsonellisconsulting.com/blog/10/enable-new-twitter-design/#comments Fri, 09 Dec 2011 14:02:29 +0000 Debra Ellis http://www.wilsonellisconsulting.com/blog/?p=3589

Twitter has had a makeover. They have redesigned the site with a new look, brand pages, and improved functionality. Whether or not this effort to remain relevant in the social media world will work remains to be seen, but the new design is worth a look.

According to their announcement, they will slowly roll out the new version. If you can’t wait, you can get it now if you have access to an iPhone, iPod (with Internet access), iPad, or Droid. The directions Twitter provides are simple, but they didn’t work for me as easily as implied.

Direct from Twitter:

“Download the latest version of Twitter for iPhone or Twitter for Android to get access to the redesigned Twitter on your computer.”

It sounded so easy that I expected to invest a couple of minutes in transitioning from the old Twitter to the new one. I upgraded the Twitter app on my iPod, signed in, tweeted a couple of times, and then checked it out on my computer. My excitement turned to disappointment when I saw the old version:

Confident that it was the cookies or cache, I deleted all of my browsing history on my PC, removed my account on the iPod, added the account back, tweeted a couple of times, and returned to my desktop. It was still the old version.

Could it be the browser? I closed Firefox, deleted browsing history from Explorer, and opened Twitter. It was still the old version. UGH! This was not turning into a fun experience.

Maybe it would work with Chrome? Nope.

Opera? Nope.

Safari? Nope.

When all else fails, start over. Thinking it could be an iPod issue, I uninstalled the Twitter app from the Droid, downloaded the new version, logged in and tweeted a bit before returning to the desktop.

After clearing out the cache and cookies for all of my browsers and rebooting my computer, I tried again. And, again, there wasn’t a new version of Twitter. My punching bag started calling my name. Loudly. A few rounds later, I felt better but there still wasn’t access to the new Twitter. I walked away for a few hours. When I returned, lo and behold, I had access to the redesigned platform.

Wondering which parts worked, I tried it with other accounts. Here is what worked:

1. Download the latest version of the Twitter app to your iPhone, iPad, iPod, or Android.
2. Log in to Twitter and use it for a minute or two.
3. Clear out your browsing history on your PC (sorry Mac users, I didn’t test it on a Mac. Presumably, it works the same way.)
4. Wait. Using the punching bag to release your frustrations is optional. The wait varied from a few minutes to a couple of hours.
5. Login to Twitter on your computer while holding your mouth just right.

If you try this, please share your experience so it will help others. Happy Tweeting!

PS: If you want to kickstart your social media strategy, check out “Social Media 4 Direct Marketers”. It is an ebook with 90 Pages of proven tactics to move your social media marketing to the next level. Click here for more information.

Is the time your marketing team spends creating killer content a good investment? Or, is it a huge waste of resources? Calculating the return on investment from social media activity isn’t simple cause and effect. Influencing people to use their money to buy your products and services is a process that includes establishing trust, generating good will, and motivating action. If marketing was a box of crayons, social media requires all of the colors to create a masterpiece.

There are so many nuances to social marketing and service that it can overwhelm seasoned marketers. The winners either get lucky or have a social media plan that provides measurable results. Luck is for amateurs. It’s nice to have but should be a bonus not an objective. Creating a strategy with clear objectives is better.

The strategy that works best for your business fits your corporate culture. Objectives, tools, and presence will vary but every activity needs to move people to action. When people are actively participating in your community, they are more open and responsive to marketing. Calls to action include clicking links, commenting, and sharing but choose the content wisely. Everything needs to move people closer to a quality shopping experience and positive buying decision.

If you aren’t seeing a return from your social marketing investment, look for these red flags:

1. A focus on customer acquisition

   Acquiring new customers is a byproduct of a successful social marketing strategy. The best plans start with your company’s customer base and builds from there. In reality, if you can use the social platforms to entice customers to increase their lifetime value and lifespan, then you are winning the game. A community of 1,000 customers is 100 times more valuable than one with 100,000 prospects. Focus on your customers and they will introduce your company to their friends.

2. No formal social media plan

   If you don’t know where you want to be, how will you know when you’ve arrived? Creating a plan of action requires your marketing team to assess opportunities and risks before jumping in. The process is important because it helps why you are participating and the best way to do it.

3. Conversations with peers instead of customers and prospects

   Chatting with peers can provide insight and information but it doesn’t drive sales or service. If the majority of the conversations are about the state of your industry, customers and prospects won’t join in. Use personal accounts to talk shop with your peers.

4. Idle chitchat

   Small talk is for cocktail parties and water coolers. Chatting about the weather, pop culture, and social media drama attracts comments but does little for increasing revenue or reducing service costs. Active communities that aren’t talking about your products, service, or company 50-90% of the time are a waste of corporate resources.

5. Failure to measure

   People that say social media can’t be measured are testing your knowledge or showing their ignorance. Measuring results from the social channel requires solid benchmarks and a willingness to dig deep into the data. It isn’t easy but it can be done. Successful strategies include measurement guidelines.

Context is everything. Yesterday this point was driven home to me by a comment on my blog that suggested that I was better suited for government work. My first thought when I read the comment was “what is he thinking?” Fortunately before responding I realized that we were talking about two different things and both of us were right.

When I wrote “5 Things to do when Business is Slow“, I was thinking about the normal lulls in a cyclical business. They are predictable and can be used to improve the corporate environment when management plans well. The tips are solid and can be used for positive growth in employee skills, morale, and productivity.

The comment called my points “absurd” and questioned my qualifications. Since the tips includes things I’ve successfully implemented with incredible results, I knew they weren’t “absurd” and wondered why he was being hostile. After kicking my ego out of the way, I realized that the post was absurd if you were looking for tips to save a failing business. In today’s economic climate, companies are dying and people are hurting. Someone coming from that perspective would naturally find the tips disappointing.

There are two type of business slow periods. One is the normal cycle where products or services are out of season. Finding ways to maximize the benefits during a temporary sales decline is good management. The other is a death spiral possibly caused by events out of your control. When a company is in this stage, following the tips in my post is absurd.

I’m grateful for the comment because it gave me a different perspective and the inspiration to write another post with tips on how to grow a business during an economic downturn. It also reminded me to think about other people’s perspective before responding. The seemingly negative comment was reflective of the disappointment felt when the post didn’t offer viable solutions as expected. It was more of a cry for help than an attack on my credibility. In other words, it wasn’t about me.

This experience leaves me wondering how much nicer social networking would be if everyone looked past negative comments for ways we could help make things better for each other?

What if going viral was the beginning of the end for your company instead of a dream come true? Or, spending hours on end tweeting, posting, and conversing was an epic waste of time? What if you could get past the hype and discover the real secret to social media success? Would it change how you use the channel for your business?

Participation in social media is relatively new to most traditional marketers. When you come to the channel from a direct marketing background as I did, it’s natural to look for landmarks and guidance through unfamiliar territory. Landmarks are hard to find because social media is vastly different from every other channel. Guidance is questionable because most of it is based on the experiences of people creating personal brands instead of established businesses.

Being a direct marketer, I’ve spent the last few years doing what direct marketers do. I tested. And, I tested some more. I followed the guidance of the people who preceded me and documented the results. When my results were less than stellar (translation: dismal), I compared what we were told to do with what the guides were actually doing. I found that many of the leaders were buying followers, using bots, and generally speaking, misleading people who wanted to learn about the channel.

There were many times during the process of learning about social media that I was tempted to walk away from it. The ugliness of communities warring over perceived slights was almost too much to handle. Please feel free to call me stubborn for continuing to persist. Some of my best friends do. But, before you do, you should know that there was more to it than an unwillingness to accept defeat. I saw something in all of the chaos and misdirected guidance that can make the difference between a company’s success and failure.

There is a secret to social media success that has nothing to do with viral marketing, very little to do with fan/follower acquisition, and everything to do with customer relations.

Viral campaigns are extremely rare, attract hit-&-run shoppers, require extensive resources to manage, and are impossible to replicate. Social media is much more than a rainbow chasing channel. It is an opportunity to convert transactional relationships into interactive ones.

Social media isn’t an acquisition channel, it is a retention tool. Think about that for a minute. Social networking is better at keeping customers than it is at getting them. If this is true, then most social marketing strategies start at the wrong place. They begin with the platform and creating content designed to attract conversation. A better approach is to begin with your customers and let them guide you.

Coca-Cola figured this out pretty quickly. Well, in fairness, they lucked into it because their fans built their community. The corporate decision to adopt the community instead of dismantling it was a stroke of genius, but the heavy lifting was done by the fans.

Odds are that your company isn’t like Coca-Cola with avid fans that invest their time in creating a community to honor your products or services. You have to do the heavy lifting yourself. It’s possible that you’ll get lucky if you start with the platform and try to attract customers. But why take that chance?

Wouldn’t it be better to start with your customers and let them guide you? After all, improving relationships with your customers should always be your primary objective. Here are some tips to get things started:

• Capture your customers’ social media user information at every touchpoint. Have your IT team add some fields to your database to store the data. If they can’t do it, get a better IT team. Use other tools to store the information until the new team gets everything set up.
• Use the captured information to budget your resources. The platform that has the most customer participation gets the most resources. This is no different from managing your catalog campaigns. Put your money where you get the most return.
• Establish benchmarks so you can see cause and effect even when measurable metrics are hard to capture. It’s possible to measure the unknown if you create a good foundation.
• Measure the value of customers by acquisition and participation source. You may find that the new customers coming in aren’t as valuable as the ones who are cycling out. The sooner you know this, the less money you’ll lose.
• Reach out to your customers via the social channels. They are easier to recognize now that you’ve captured their handles. Talk to them and start something special.

Social media provides a way for direct marketing and catalog companies to get to know their customers. It’s a shame to waste that opportunity on pipe dreams of rainbows, unicorns, and viral campaigns. And, who knows? You might just become the next big thing.