Is your goal to increase awareness of your website?  To signup for a newsletter?  Figure out what you want to ask people to do to enter the giveaway.  Most Twitter giveaways just have people follow and then retweet about the contest – meaning their goal is to increase followers, which is fine, just keep that goal in mind if you have something else you’d like to do.

Don’t Anger Twitter

Make sure you follow Twitter’s Guidelines for Running a Contest on Twitter.  Don’t have the same thing tweeted over and over again (duplicate tweets from the same person is a no-no) – let people enter only once.  Don’t encourage the creation of multiple accounts – make a statement that using multiple accounts will cause disqualification.  It’ll probably easier to track entries if your username is included in the tweet (have them include @yourname).

Work on Your Tweets First

Your profile needs to already have interesting tweets if you want people to continue to follow you after the giveaway (if you’re having them follow as part of the contest).  This is where the 80-20 rule comes into play: 80% of your tweets should be informative and interesting to your audience (and not be about you), then 20% can be about your blog posts and promotions (and what you had for lunch, although that’s not interesting to most people, except maybe your mom).

Don’t Be Annoying

Set guidelines that limit the annoyance of the giveaway to your audience (and to the followers of people who will be playing).  Don’t run contests very often.  And keep the contest short. 1-3 days is about the limit of people’s attention.

Worthwhile Giveaway

In order for people to be willing to enter the giveaway, it has to be something worthwhile.  It looks like at least $50-$100 for smaller businesses – and probably something tangible instead of a discount on your products.

Use Your Network

In order for contests to be successful, they need to be seen by those who have active followers.  This means you’ll probably want to reach out to some key influencers in your network and ask them to retweet your contest tweets.

Conclusion

I’ve seen some fairly successful Twitter contests by both larger and smaller companies.  The key seems to be running the contest in a responsible way with a giveaway that is valuable to the audience.

If you’ve run a successful Twitter contest or giveaway, we’d love to hear how it went for you – what tips do you have?

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Technorati tags: twitter, web strategy, strategy, marketing, twitter contests, business

First, you’ll need to give HootSuite access to your Twitter account.  Login to HootSuite. Click Settings at the bottom of the page, then click on the  Social Networks tab. Click on Add Social Network towards the upper right. Click Twitter and enter your Twitter username & password (I suggest selecting the checkbox to automatically creating a new tab for the profile as well). Click Submit.

Next, click on the RSS/Atom tab, then on Add New Feed towards the upper right.  You’ll need the actual URL for your feed – paste that into the Feed URL field.  Set how often you want HootSuite to check your feed – I have it check mine every hour since I post a couple times a day.  Set how many posts you want it to tweet at a time (you can set HootSuite to check only once per day, but to tweet multiple posts, for example).  If you’d like it to automatically add some text to the beginning of your tweet, add that into the field “Prepend the following to each feed tweet (20 chars max):” – I have it add “Sazbean.com:” since I have other links in my Twitter.  Select your twitter feed for “Profiles to tweet from” (you can select multiple, although sending the same thing to multiple Twitter feeds is against Twitter’s terms of service – you could, however, send it to your Facebook profile, Facebook fan page or LinkedIn feed).  Click Save Feed.

That’s it!  Now HootSuite will automatically tweet your blog posts for you (plus send them to the other social networks you selected).

Do you have a question you’d like us to answer?  Email us at asksazbean at sazbean.com.

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Technorati tags: social media, content strategy, content, marketing, sharing, social networking, business

The plugin I happen to use is called ShareThis, which you can find and install either by going to their site and clicking on “Get the button on your site” or by searching for ShareThis under “Add New” under Plugins in your WordPress admin.  I like the ShareThis plugin because the provide some nice reports and analytics on how many times the button is viewed and how my content is shared (and it’s free).

AddThis offers similar features and functionality (for free) and you can get their button without having to register (although you don’t get any stats).  I’ve liked ShareThis better because I could control what social networks and sharing sites showed up (and in what order).  AddThis may have added this feature as well since I last checked, but it’s not obvious from their site.

I also use TweetMeme Retweet button plugin which adds the ability to tweet about an article right from that page (search for Tweetmeme in “Add New” in plugins section of WordPress admin).  And for my rss feeds, I use FeedBurner, which allows me to add links to various social networks right into my feed.

How do you make it easier for readers to share your content? If you have a question you’d like an answer to, please email me at saz [at] sazbean [dot] com.

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Technorati tags: social media, content strategy, content, marketing, sharing, social networking, business

So What’s Creative Commons?

Creative Commons is a non-profit organization that was started to help people share their work legally.  Creative commons licenses work alongside traditional copyright to allow you to share your works the way you want to.  It was started because traditional copyright does not allow any sharing or repurposing of content without explicit permission.  Creative commons licensing allows content creators to decide how each work is shared, used and repurposed.

So I Can Use Content for Free?

Sort of.  Each creative commons license lets you know how you can use each work.  Some authors will allow you to use their content for free (with attribution).  Some will let only non-commercial uses.  Some will let you take their work and add to it or change it.  It all depends on the particular license the author has chosen.  At the very minimum, some sort of attribution is usually required.

How do I find creative commons content?

Creative Commons has a search.  So does Flickr.  You can also look for the creative commons license logo:

More about Creative Commons:

• CreativeCommons.org
• Awesome Free Pics for Your Blog or Website (Sazbean)
• Creative Commons (Wikipedia)
• Creative Commons Network
• Creative Commons Wiki
• Lawrence Lessig’s Blog

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Technorati tags: images, flickr, business, photos, creative commons, content

What is Twitter, Exactly?

Twitter is a website and service that allows you to send 140 character messages to your Twitter page and to people who are following you.  The 140 character limit is due to Twitter originally being used via SMS messaging on cell phones (which have a character limit).

Sounds like Facebook status updates…

Twitter messages (or tweets) are similar to Facebook status updates in that they are displayed on your Twitter page, as well as on the Twitter pages of people who follow you.  In this way, Tweets are similar to updating your wall on Facebook.

So, how is Twitter Different?

Unlike Facebook, Tweets are also available (and searchable) on the Internet (unless you’ve made your updates private), which means you have a much wider audience on Twitter than Facebook.  People who are following you on Twitter get your updates, but people who aren’t following you can also see your updates if they happen to do a search or look at your Twitter page.  Because Twitter is much more open, it’s easier to have conversations with lots of participants, as well as connecting with new people.  Also, Twitter, unlike Facebook, allows you to put your Twitter content just about anywhere (including Facebook), whereas Facebook wants all the content to stay there (and for you to put outside content there too).

Using Twitter as part of a social media plan

Like any social media, Twitter has its limitations and its uses, and is best used as part of an overall social media strategy.  Twitter is great for connecting with a wider audience and for offering up useful information in order to build your brand and reputation.  Some of what you do on Twitter can also be promoting your own stuff and sending people back to your home base (blog, website, where ever you want people to eventually end up).  Although, as with any social media, the best use is mostly for giving, connecting, and having conversations, as opposed to broadcasting and advertising.

How do you use Twitter for your business?

Technorati tags: twitter, marketing, sales, social networking, business, reputation, branding, brand, brand strategy, brand management

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Sazbean & Sandi – Using Flip Video from Sazbean on Vimeo.

Sandi from Insights Group and I are putting together a series of videos (to hopefully become a video podcast) with tips on various marketing, social media, and internet topics. You can subscribe to our Vimeo channel, Sazbean & Sandi, to get all the updates as they happen.

Sandy and I are going to cover video and video podcasts, so if you have a question about how to get video on your website, now’s a great time to get some answers…

Get Your Internet, Website and Social Media questions answered….

If you’re in the Detroit area, and have questions about:

• How to use Internet for your business
• How to improve your business website to get more traffic, sales or leads
• How to use social media for your business

I’ll be in Brighton (MI) this Thursday, July 2nd (and every Thursday in July)  to answer these types of questions in person at the Insights Group from 2-4:30pm. Normally, consulting costs $125/hour for consulting, but I’m offering this session at only $20.

Here are the types of questions I can answer in this setting (not a full list):

• Tips on how to improve your website
• How to use social networks (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.) for your business.
• What the numbers mean in Google Analytics and how to use them to improve your online strategies & marketing (or want to know what Google Analytics is).
• Specific suggestions on how to measure return on investment (ROI) for your internet marketing or advertising (including Google AdWords).

These are not the only questions I can answer, just a few to give you some ideas.  Unfortunately, I won’t be able to offer more in depth analysis in such a short time period, but I’ll answer as many questions as I can (no questions about broken computers please).  I love talking about business websites, the Internet and social networks, so I’d love to talk to you about what you can do to use the Internet for your business.

Details:

When: Thursday, July 2, 2009
Time: 2-4:30pm
Where: Insights Group, 7187 Grand River, Brighton, MI 48116 (Map)
Cost: Only $20 (regular consulting at $125/hour)

I hope to see you there! Bring Your Questions!

Technically, hits refers to how many files have been downloaded from your website.  Every page on your site is made up of many different types of files that get put together by your web browser into one “page”.  A page is a file (or several), as are each of the images, videos, podcasts, and stylesheets that are referenced by that page.  So for every page on your website you’ll probably have at least 10 files or “hits”.  Larger sites can have as many as 100 files or “hits” per page.

Most of us are concerned with how many people are visiting our website, and we equate that with traffic.  In that case it makes more sense to use visits or unique visits (unique visits being a measure of how many uniquely different people visited your site, as far as can be determined).

Sometimes people get a bit confused with the terminology regarding website statistics.  Sometimes when people say “hits” they really mean visits, or pageviews, or unique visitors…. With so many things associated with the word “hits” it’s not hard to understand how people can be confused by the term. So when talking about your website statistics, it’s important to understand what number you’re talking about, since the meaning behind that number varies quite a bit.

Statistics can be a bit confusing… I think I’ll try to cover them again in a more detailed post….

For more information:

• B2B Analytics Basics (good for all businesses)

Technorati tags: analytics, statistics, marketing, strategy, business

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If you’re in the Detroit area, and have questions about:

• How to use Internet for your business
• How to improve your business website to get more traffic, sales or leads
• How to use social media for your business

I’ll be in Brighton (MI) this Thursday, June 25th  to answer these types of questions in person at the Insights Group from 2-4:30pm. Normally, consulting costs $125/hour for consulting, but I’m offering this session at only $20.

Here are the types of questions I can answer in this setting (not a full list):

• Tips on how to improve your website
• How to use social networks (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.) for your business.
• What the numbers mean in Google Analytics and how to use them to improve your online strategies & marketing (or want to know what Google Analytics is).
• Specific suggestions on how to measure return on investment (ROI) for your internet marketing or advertising (including Google AdWords).

These are not the only questions I can answer, just a few to give you some ideas.  Unfortunately, I won’t be able to offer more in depth analysis in such a short time period, but I’ll answer as many questions as I can (no questions about broken computers please).  I love talking about business websites, the Internet and social networks, so I’d love to talk to you about what you can do to use the Internet for your business.

Details:

When: Thursday, June 25, 2009
Time: 2-4:30pm
Where: Insights Group, 7187 Grand River, Brighton, MI 48116
Cost: Only $20 (regular consulting at $125/hour)
Directions, Map & More Details

Register in Advance, or Just Show Up and Pay at the Door

I hope to see you there! Bring Your Questions!