I’ve pulled together a few best practices that I’ve learned from using the service. Some help with your follower count, some help with SEO, some are just pet peeves. Note that these just best practices, there are exceptions to each rule.

#1: You have 140 characters, use 120 of them.
Why do I say to not use 20 of your precious characters? This is for retweeting purposes. If you want someone to retweet your post without having to go through the hassle of shortening your tweet (i.e. changing ‘with’ to ‘w/’), give them some room to work with. Sometimes people want to add their own commentary to your tweet as well.

Exception: Sometimes, you need all 140 characters. That’s fine. They’re yours, use them to your heart’s content, just know that this means if people want to add anything to your tweet when they retweet, it will be more difficult for them.

#2: There’s a time and a place for automated tweets.
In general, Twitter is meant to be a real-time news distributor. This means you should try to steer clear of automated tweets. Most people can tell when they’re automated and, that can lead to less interaction and annoyance (i.e when someone sets automated tweets that send out 15 tweets in a matter of 30 seconds – that’s a very legitimate reason for unfollowing in my book).

Exception: Automated tweeting is ok in moderation. It’s unrealistic for some companies that do business globally to be up 24/7 posting to their social accounts. Different time zones means when you sent that tweet out at 8am EST, there’s a good chance a lot of people on the West Coast were still sleeping. In these cases, I’m all for automated tweeting, but just make sure you use a service like Buffer and that you craft your tweets to make them your own (Buffer allows you to send out automatic tweets that they have in their queue – like inspirational quotes – I would avoid this and use it to send out your own, handcrafted tweets).

#3: Connecting accounts – Think before you send to all
Connecting all your social accounts is great. No wait, actually it’s not. Yes, many people are on more than one platform and they are connected to different people on those different platforms (i.e. friends on Facebook, colleagues on LinkedIn). People join these different platforms for different reasons which is why it’s important to remember that just because you tweet something that may be seen as ‘funny’ by your Twitter followers does not mean that your LinkedIn connections will feel the same.

This is something that brands need to be aware of as well. There’s a good chance if I’m really interested in your brand, I’m following you on more than just Twitter. That being said, I don’t want to see your tweet show up on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+. That’s another legitimate reason for an unfollow from me.

Exception: Twitter has plugins that allow you to decide when you want a tweet to show up in more than just your Twitter account. Selective tweets allows you to put certain hashtags at the end of tweets to post them to Facebook (#fb) or LinkedIn (#in). I use these mostly for my personal account because I feel it is more important to brand community managers to take the time to tailor their messages to each individual platform.

#4: Stop the Twitter stereotype, no one cares what you ate for dinner.
When I talk to people who aren’t on Twitter about how much I love it, they often give me a perplexed look and say “Well, I’m just not interested in what people have for dinner.” I then have to explain that Twitter is so much more than that! It’s a news service that gives you real-time updates of global events. However, there are still those who feel the need to tell us every aspect of their lives. I’m all about personal tweets about things happening in your life, but when all you tweet about is what you’re wearing to work or how long you brushed your teeth this morning, you’re perpetuating the stereotype of Twitter to those who don’t use it. Please stop.

Exception: Sometimes, funny things happen with regards to how long it took you to get to work or maybe that meatball sub you had at lunch inspired an amazing business idea. Those types of tweets are ok, just make sure there’s some purpose to them (i.e. they’re entertaining, insightful, etc.)

#5: Your Profile. COMPLETE IT!
One of my biggest pet peeves on Twitter is an incomplete profile. Are you too good to fill it out? For me, an incomplete profile means that there’s a slim chance I’ll follow you unless you’re some super famous person who everyone already knows, and, let’s face it, you’re probably not super famous. Just a sentence or two about who you are, what you do, what you like, etc. can let people know if they might find your tweets interesting without having to pull up your profile and weed through all of your tweets. Also, besides filling out the profile (and adding a link to your company or personal profile!) you NEED to have a picture. There are no exceptions to this best practice. Accounts with an egg as an image automatically register as spam to me. Even if you don’t want people to know who you are, put a picture up of something. Leaving it as the default egg does not look good and will not get you many followers.

As I said, I’m a huge fan of Twitter and I use it everyday. These best practices are what I’ve found to be helpful in getting the most out of this awesome platform.

First, they failed miserably with brand pages. Brands wanted to get out there and promote the network, what did they do? They shut down those accounts and told brands to wait. Really? People are really anxious to try your product and promote it for you and you’re going to tell them no? Really?!

Then, they finally came out with brand pages and I was disappointed big time. Not only did they not deliver what they promised (something different than a normal G+ profile), they launched a product so lacking in features that I wondered why they launched it at all.

And now, they’ve launched “Search plus Your World” which basically force-feeds you their own social network and, in a way, punishes those who are not on Google+. Maybe this was their plan all along. A way to grow membership by making people join in order to keep their SEO. If so, shame on you Google. You should be impartial to products/brands (even your own) and show users the most relevant results. If this was not their plan, hopefully they quickly realize the error of their ways.

I wrote a post about how I thought Google+ would be good for Facebook and I was right. Just not how I thought. Through their recent faux pas, they’re making Facebook look like the good guy. Quite a feat Google, quite a feat.

Yes, Facebook contest can and have been very successful for some companies; however, unless you’re a large brand, this may not be the best idea for you. Here’s why:

You’re a local business with only one location

• Recently, a friend of mine was trying to win a jewelry design contest. He needed the most amount of people to like the jeweler’s page and then like his ring design. To do this, he reached out to as many friends as possible to have them vote. Of course, I voted for his design and encouraged my network to do the same; however, after the contest was over (and he won by a landslide) I unliked the jeweler’s page. They were a small business jewelry store that was in a different state than me, why would I want to continue to see their updates?

• This is why Facebook contests for local-only businesses may not be the best idea. Yes, you may be reaching a huge audience, but there’s a good chance that almost none of them will ever actual visit your store.

This doesn’t mean that small businesses should stay away from Facebook contests. If you’re a local business, it’s perfectly fine to have a contest, but be sure to tailor it to your local audience. Make the prize something that they need to visit your store to physically pick up. There’s a local pizza store in my hometown that has a huge local following. Something like offering a free pizza for a contest would be a great way for them to engage with local customers who are willing (and they will be willing for this pizza) to come to the store to claim their prize.

People like you and then hide/unlike you when contest is over

Like my jeweler example above, people will either hide your updates or unlike you after the contest is over. If you’re going to have a Facebook contest, it’s important to make sure that people have an incentive to keep following your business.

• Keep in mind: People follow brands to get free stuff. Yes, they might want to know about your company and what you’re up to if they’re really invested in you, but face it, for the most part, people want free stuff.

Having more fans doesn’t really mean anything

• Yes, having a lot of fans is important. Not only does it expand your network, but it makes you look more established and legitimate as a business; however, if your fan page has 10,000 fans and you spend time marketing to all of them when only 3% are your actual target audience, you’re wasting a lot of time.
• A small follower count is ok, as long as those are the people who are actually going to buy (take my pizza example from above – they’ll never have 10,000 fans, but the couple hundred that they do have will actually buy from them on a regular basis).

Though having a contest on Facebook can initially increase hype and fans of your page, after the contest is over, what are you left with? Did it really increase sales or just follower counts? Focus your contests to something that can pay off for you in the end and you’ll find that, used correctly, Facebook contests can work for you.

First, the roll out was pretty weak.  The announcement seemed a bit haphazard and with all the buzz (no pun intended) about Google+ when it first came out, I expected a bit more for the business pages. Next, these pages seemed to launch with several issues. I’m not talking just ‘bugs’, I’m talking usability. Google+ should have taken a look at their competitors and noted what people like about them (i.e. multiple admin logins, vanity URLs, etc.)

From what I’ve read, and experienced myself, Goolge+ pages are confusing to create, look just like profiles and seem cumbersome. I’m sure Google+ will iron out all these issues within the next few weeks, but I’m still pretty disappointed in Google.

I say this because they should have had their act together before they launched the business pages. Perhaps I’m being too harsh. In the technology world, it is well known that a new product will have its fair share of bugs and improvements that need to be made. However, I feel that Google+ really blew it on this one. Granted, I’m a huge Facebook fan and I usually cut them a lot of slack, but that’s because I feel that they were really the first to bring social media to the masses. They were the first to create business pages so if they messed up, well, who did we have to compare them to? Google+ is not the first to create business pages so when they released them, they should have made sure they were top-of-the-line, show car quality.  I expected more from Google+ business pages and I hope that the developers at Google are taking this feedback to heart and improving their services and that the next product they launch will be as close to perfection as possible.

Until then, all I can say is, weak sauce Google+, weak sauce.

Update: It looks like Google is taking this feedback into consideration and hopefully we’ll be seeing some substantial changes to the Google+ business pages soon!

Courtesy of AllPosters.com

I’m really not that old, but a lot of my friends will tell you I have an ‘old soul’ – mostly because I like to watch 70’s westerns and go to bed early. But that’s beside the point. My point is that I’m not that old. I graduated college 3 (almost 4) years ago. My degree is in PR and I feel like almost everything I learned in my PR classes is so out of date it’s like I learned it all 25 years ago.

While writing a press release the other day, it hit me that I still make my releases fit the rules that were drilled into my head every class, even though they’re not really necessary anymore. Now that social media is such a huge news source for many, you’d think most of the ‘rules’ I learned would be out of date. However, I’ve come to find that these rules are still relevant today, just for different reasons.

Rule 1: Make your release fit on one page
The reason my teachers pushed this was because, of course, you’d be faxing your releases into XYZ newspaper and you wouldn’t want them to lose one of the pages of your release with the hundreds of releases they would be getting throughout the day.

Why it still makes sense
Though there is no longer a need to fax your release, it is still a good practice to keep your releases short.  It is so easy to distribute information these days and many people are on an information overload. They don’t have time to read lengthy news articles and want their information to be short and skimmable.

Rule 2: Follow the AP Stylebook
The AP Stylebook is put out by the Associated Press. It is a list of guidelines regarding grammar, spelling, and punctuation. It’s basically a guide book for almost any question you have about an article. Is that word hyphenated? When listing the president of the company, do I capitalize the word ‘president’?

We were told to follow this guideline like our lives depended on it. Journalist pull their news from the Associated Press. It’s their language and since you’re pitching to journalists, you better speak their language.

Why it still makes sense
Now when you distribute news releases, you’re not just writing for journalists, you’re writing for the average reader, and it’s ALWAYS a good rule of thumb to follow guidelines to be sure you stay consistent in your writing. Remember though, there are some things in the AP Stylebook that may be correct, but they look odd to the average reader. For example, the AP Stylebook used to say you should write it “Web site”. I never liked that and happily for me, they changed that rule so we can all just write “website”.

Rule 3: Use an inverted pyramid for your release
If you’ve never heard of it, the inverted pyramid means you put you most information at the top of your article followed by second most important, third most important, and so on (basically, flip a pyramid upside). We used this because this is how news articles are written. Next time you read a news article, notice that the who, what, where, when, why, and how will be in the first few paragraphs of the article. This goes along with keeping your release short, people like to skim and they usually only read the first few paragraphs (or even sentences) and then move to the next story.

Why it still makes sense
This answer also goes along with keeping it to one page: People like to skim. It also helps you focus your story. People want to know the meat of the story so they can quickly move to the next news piece. Those of you who are big Twitter fans are probably already pretty good at focusing your story to 140 characters or less.

These are just a few of the rules I learned in my PR classes that I still use today, just in very different ways. Being a semi-English snob, I must say that I think following the AP Stylebook is the most important. I hate reading articles that have improper grammar or punctuation. So if you ever see me do it, let me know.

Also, I’ll try not to let several months pass between posts next time.

People tend to get a little over excited (and upset) when Facebook makes changes to their interface but, in the end we all realize that they know what they’re doing. Take, for example, the Newsfeed; when this first came out, I remember seeing groups popping up all over protesting the Newsfeed. They said it was an invasion of privacy and made Facebook more “stalkerish”. Does anyone complain about the Newsfeed anymore? No. Granted Facebook has made several changes, making it easier for you to decide what shows in your feed, but really, how many of you go to a friend’s profile without initially seeing something from that person in your feed first? Not many.

I think Facebook was feeling a bit of the heat when Google+ came out last week and they felt they had to release their group and video chat in an “awesome” way. Though they may have failed to wow the critics, I think Google+ will only push them to go above and beyond what they had originally planned for this group chatting feature. It will be very interesting to see what both Facebook and Google+ will come out with in the next few months.

Read my post about Google+ here.

VAUQ6UY7S8HC

Long Beach, CA

]]> http://albarce.wordpress.com/2011/06/04/let-the-adventure-begin/feed/ 0 albarce Long Beach - June 2011 http://albarce.wordpress.com/2011/05/11/when-life-gives-you-lemons/ http://albarce.wordpress.com/2011/05/11/when-life-gives-you-lemons/#comments Wed, 11 May 2011 23:15:19 +0000 Alexandra Barcelona http://albarce.wordpress.com/?p=340 Continue reading →]]> I know it’s very cliché, but life wasn’t only giving me lemons, it was throwing them at me. With the stresses of work, family, relationships and all that comes with them, I was definitely feeling the weight of those ‘lemons’. So much so that I was starting to feel like I would never get out from under it all.

So what am I going to do with all these ‘lemons’? You guessed it. I’m making lemonade. So when then the opportunity for me to squeeze those ‘lemons’ and transform their stresses into a refreshing beverage came; I jumped at it. Granted, this lemonade comes with its own share of stresses, worries and fears but it also comes with excitement, growth and unknown possibilities. I cannot wait to share this ‘lemonade’ with my family and friends because without their support and encouragement, none of this would be possible.

Stay tuned…

Unless social media is your job, it shouldn’t take up all of your time. Yes, when you first start it might take you awhile to navigate around some social media platforms, but for the most part, social media platforms have been designed to be easy to use and maintain for the average user.

Along with easy-to-use platforms, developers have come up with many tools to help make social media even easier and quicker. And, remember that many of your social networks can be intertwined so that they can all be updated from one place.

Tweetdeck is one of my favorite tools. From here, you can update Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, MySpace, LinkedIn and Buzz. With simple clicks or hashmarks (i.e. #fb for Facebook) you can choose which sites to update. Tweekdeck also gives you the ability to manage more than one account in the same place. I use it to manage my personal account and my company’s account. Beware: As you may have read about in the news, a couple of people have accidentally posted under their company account name instead of their personal accounts and trouble has resulted. ALWAYS make sure you check what account you’re posting to before you click send!

The ability to post to more than one account and to manage them all in one spot is perfect for saving time. Another way to save time is to have a plan. By this, I don’t mean that you have to plan out every tweet weeks before you tweet it, but you should have a general social media plan in place that you follow. This will help you save time since you won’t be wasting time thinking about what topics to post about.

Last, though I have some mixed feelings about this, there are ways to post while you’re not even there! SocialOomph allows you to schedule tweets and update other social media platforms like Facebook and blogs. Unlike Tweetdeck, you may have to pay for some features on SocialOomph, but it does have a limited free option.

A little planning and use of tools can help you save time and allows everyone, even the busiest person on earth, to participate in social media.

This is good news for businesses just entering the social media world. Yes, it’s true that once something is posted, it’s out there for good, even if you delete it. However, unless you’re a company with hundreds of thousands of followers, you can easily try and fail with social media platforms without many consequences.

This is not to say that you should just go out and try anything without a solid plan, but if you find that one of the social media platforms you’ve decided to pursue is not working for you, you can easily remove yourself and try something else. With social media, you don’t have to worry about putting tons of money into something that might not work. Social media is virtually free which makes it easy to try many different things.

I encourage  companies to put themselves out there and see what happens. If you find that your Twitter account isn’t working for you, try Facebook instead. Just try something. I can’t say it enough, social media is huge, it’s everywhere, it’s a conversation that’s happening whether you’re there or not. Be there.