Top 10 Reasons Nobody Follows You On Twitter

June 1, 2009 36 Comments

I try to follow all the real people I can on Twitter. If I see you mentioned from one of my friends, I’m going to check you out. If you send a tweet to @philgerb, I’m going to check you out. If I do a search for something and you come up, I’m going to check you out.

I will not follow you. And I thought I better let you know why.

top 10 Top 10 Reasons Nobody Follows You On Twitter

1) You don’t have a real avatar – PLEASE upload a picture before you follow anyone. The default looks spammy and fake…and that’s NOT who you are if you’re a real person. I won’t follow you if you don’t have a real avatar.

2) You have more than 4 consonants or vowels in a row in your handle – Are you a real person if you create a handle like @jklsafjlk35 or @3523434kjklsa ? NOPE. I’m not going to follow you.

3) You have nothing in your profile, or worse, you have “Make money online” or “Buy Acai Berries” or “Want to buy Amway/Avon/Mary Kay/insert MLM here” in your profile – If you can’t make time to personalize your 160 characters in your profile, I’m not going to follow you. If you can only talk about these impersonal things in your profile, I’m not going to follow you!

4) You last 4 tweets are repeat tweets or are nothing but affiliate links – No RT (re-tweets) but repeat tweets. A tweet that says “Check out http://tr.im/mRuj” 5 times is NOT doing anyone any good and I’m not going to follow you! And if all your links point to affiliate marketing sites, I’m not going to follow you.

5) You follow 600 people but only 3 people follow you – If you are this out of whack, unless you JUST STARTED on Twitter, I’m not going to follow you!

6) 600 people follow you, but you only follow 3 people – You might be the world’s smartest person, but if you’re not listening to what other people say (even if you’re following me), you’re not as smart as you think. If your balance is this far out of whack, I’m not going to follow you!

7) I can’t see any @anyone messages on your page (and I may even scroll a few pages to see them). If you’re not into conversation, you and I probably can’t be friends. I LOVE CONVERSATION AND CONNECTION and so do most humans. If you don’t like conversation and connection, I’m not going to follow you.

8 ) You hashtag spam – If I click on the trends on the right side of Twitter and I see you are writing tweets with #spam #spam #spam #spam, I’m not going to follow you.

9) Someone I trust said not to follow you – If someone I already am following calls you a bad name, I’m probably not going to follow you. I may keep my eye on you, but I won’t follow you, at least not until I’ve built up some trust with you.

10) Your follow message got lost in my inbox – I get a lot of e-mails and sometimes, I lose the automatic Twitter messages I get when folks follow me. If that has happened to you, just send me an @philgerb, and I’ll be following you in a giffy.

Why don’t YOU follow more people?

Inspired by some recent Tweets by @rockintherobin

5 Things To Do When Twitter Fails

May 31, 2009 12 Comments

Last night, Twitter was down for about an hour. They said it was down due to some “fatal software error.” Honestly, I don’t care why it was down. I just know it was down, and I use Twitter for a lot of my research and for a lot of my contact with the rest of the world.

I’d consider it a primary source of my business, and I spend about 60 minutes or so a day on Twitter, sometimes even more. If your business relies on Twitter as a primary source of advertising specials, or if your services relies on Twitter to communicate to your customers, or worse, if your business relies on Twitter for ALL it’s business, you’re probably not very happy when Twitter service fails.

It’s a free service. It’s GOING to fail sometimes. I wish that weren’t true, but it is.

twitter fail whale 300x198 5 Things To Do When Twitter FailsWhat do you do with your business when Twitter fails?

5 things you can do when Twitter fails

Pick up the phone – If your phone line is working, call the customers you know were waiting to hear from you. You have the element of surprise on your side, and you might just get voicemail, or you might get an opportunity to deepen your relationship with someone and solidify in their mind why YOUR BUSINESS is the right choice for their needs.

Hand write thank you notes – Take some time to thank a few new customers, a few existing customers, or someone who referred business to you. Bonus points if you have cards pre-stamped and hand return addressed.

Email a personal note – Instead of blasting out a message that folks may or may not read, why not pick 5 people out to contact with a longer personal e-mail, asking them how you can help them, sharing an article that might help their business, or a celebratory birthday or anniversary greeting.

Write an article – Take some time to think about your favorite customers or your favorite customer’sproduct/service. Is there anyone who might benefit from that product or service that doesn’t know about it already? Do a quick case study of how they are successful and send it to your contact at the company, asking for permission to share it with others.

Create your newsletter – You are doing a periodic newsletter, right? Why not take a few minutes to set up the next one. Write the introduction, set the theme, find some images, and maybe even write the articles. It all depends how long you’re going to be without your beloved Twitter service, so work until it’s done, and use the time later in the week for more Twitter action.

All of these things can be done whether Twitter fails or not.

I’d encourage you to not put all your eggs in one basket and do these as part of your integrated marketing plan. And if you need help creating that plan, I’d love to work with you to create and implement a strategy that can help you make it great!

What do YOU do when Twitter fails?

Hooked on Twitter for Business

May 29, 2009 5 Comments

If you read my article about hooked on Twitter for personal reasons, you’ll see there are at least 5 reasons I love it for me.

You’re probably also wondering, “Can I really use this for business?”

In a word: ABSOLUTELY!

Here are 5 of my favorite ways to use Twitter for business.

Show off your best – One of my favorite new Twitter friends is @blatzliquor. Joe does a GREAT job of talking about his specials, reminding folks when it’s 30 minutes before you can’t buy beer anymore in Milwaukee, when he has a party, and all sorts of fun stuff. Joe shows off what he does and is (a liquor store) and does so in a VERY human way.

Search for customers – go to http://search.twitter.com and put what you’re interested in finding more information about, or find out who’s asking what for services you provide. You don’t have to be a freelancer to leverage it, but you DO have to be fast. If someone asks a question you can answer, use the @handle of the person asking the question, and quickly answer it. Better still, if you’ve been writing solution oriented articles, you can include a quick link to your article with your answer to make yourself even more relevant.

Search for thought leaders to learn from them – Unless you’re in a completely unique niche that nobody else is doing, chances are there are folks that do what you do. Use http://search.twitter.com and find who’s in your niche, and with one click, just follow them.

Follow and contribute to trending topics – On the Twitter homepage, you can see what trends are being talked about the most, and you can see where you can contribute.

Track the conversation about your idea or event – If you’re hosting an event or raising money or you have a new idea that you’d like folks to contribute to, think about seeing up a has tag. It’s simple, just use # and the name of the event. We did this VERY effectively for Business School for Bloggers conference I just went to (we used #sobcon) and everyone who was there used the hashtag and we were able to get near the top of the Twitter Trends list. Even today, weeks after the conference is over, folks are still using this tag. It keeps the conversation going AND makes folks wonder what all the buzz is about.

What are YOUR favorite ways to use Twitter for business?

7 Ways to Get Your Twitter On!

May 27, 2009 5 Comments

Twitter is quickly becoming the hottest new media tool on the planet. Oprah and Askton Kutcher have over 1 million followers, and even I have over 1500. It’s cool, it’s fun, and it’s not that hard.

You get 140 characters to say what’s on your mind, but before you get started Twittering, you need to set yourself up for success.

7 Ways to Get Your Twitter On!

Here are 7 easy way to get your Twitter on!

Sign up using something close to your name as a login. I use @philgerb because few can spell Gerbyshak. Don’t be too cutesy, as just like an e-mail address, folks will judge you if you’re hotsweetie57, folks will think you are a spammer or just as bad, they’ll judge you as a goof and not take you seriously.

Customize your avatar – An avatar is the first thing folks see when you follow them, so take some time to make your avatar your own. Upload the same picture of you you’re using on LinkedIn, Facebook and anywhere else your profile exists online. If you haven’t customized your avatar, it’s hard to see if it’s really you…or someone who hijacked your login/brand to pretend to be you.

Add a link in your profile – If you have a blog or a website, here’s where you’ll link to it. If you don’t, link to your LinkedIn profile, Squidoo lens, or something else that gives folks a little MORE information about you.

Include something FUN in your one-line bio – You only get 160 characters to talk about yourself, so make it FUN and interesting! Mine is “Red wine lover in the Brew City, enjoys new/social media, sports, and a good biz book. Milwaukee-baby!”

Customize your Twitter background – You could do just a simple background, as long as you change it from the default. Or you can make it really pop, and create something completely custom. For a very simple tutorial on how to do this, check out how to do a custom twitter background at http://www.twitip.com/custom-twitter-backgrounds/ or hire my favorite designer Jesse Petersen for $100 or less.

Use search to follow conversations – to search for mentions of your Twitter handle, your last name, and any topics you’re interested in. Just go to http://search.twitter.com and search for what you want.

Use @ username when responding to someone, or talking about someone (example: use @philgerb whenever talking about me)

NEVER check protect my updates – If you want folks to follow you, you can’t protect your updates or folks can’t sample what you’re saying.

What are YOUR best tips to get your Twitter on?

Intro Social Media Course – What To Include

May 18, 2009 20 Comments

I’m working on a new series of live workshops I’m calling “Social Media Saturdays” because they’ll be held on Saturdays and will be all about social media. I’ll be holding them all in Milwaukee, and I’ll also be recording them and uploading the files for folks to learn more about social media.

Each class will be 90 minutes, with 30 minutes for me doing an overview, 30 minutes for me answering questions, and 30 minutes of folks actually DOING what we talked about (if they bring along their laptop).

Does that sound like something you’d pay $35 a session for if you knew little/nothing about social media?

Here’s a tentative listing of courses:

  • Social Media Basics: The basics of social and a little bit more to get you started. High level overview of blogs and blogging, LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.
  • Listen First, Sell Last: Finding who already is doing what you want to be doing in your niche and learning from the experts’ successes and failures.
  • Blogging: Explaininging the various platforms and getting your blog started.
  • Twitter: Can you really say anything in 140 characters? How to find folks who want to hear what you say, and how to use Tweetdeck.
  • LinkedIn: Setting up your profile, finding folks to connect to, and using LinkedIn Groups and Answers
  • Facebook: Not just for students anymore. Setting up a profile, basic search, updating your status, and customizing to fit your personality.
  • Google basics: Search basics, setting up a Gmail account, adding Google Alerts, Google Reader, Google Documents, take a tour of the labs for new stuff.
  • Online video basics: Review a few videos, discuss what to include in your video (and what to leave out), what sites are available for upload and a basic overview of searching for other videos.
  • Online photos and graphics: How to batch upload your photos, how to tag them so you and others can find them, a little bit about Creative Commons (and why you might want to let other people use your pictures) and how to buy photos you can use for your online and offline marketing campaigns.
  • Newsletters are NOT dead: Showing folks how to create a newsletter using content they’ve already created in other places, and so they don’t get sued for sending spam.
  • Contact Management: From Outlook to Plaxo to BatchBlue and beyond. What you need to know about your contacts and how to keep it in your mailbox.

Here’s where you come in, and where I need your help:

What am I missing? 

I’m doing these sessions starting in late June, so I’d love to know what your thoughts are on this. I’m booking the room I’ll be using this week (down to 2 very cool places in Milwaukee), so please share your feedback with me soon.

Thanks in advance!