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Twitter – The Most Effective Social Network?

conversationdragunskThere’s been a lot of news lately about companies using Twitter successfully.  Sure, you can micro-target an audience which has already told you they’re interested just by following you.  But is Twitter really an effective social networking tool?

We’ve been using Twitter since late 2007. I think it’s constantly been evolving as people find new and different uses for 140 character conversations.  At first, people would just talk about what they were doing – which could be pretty boring.  Then people expanded that to share what was going on and their opinions of it – Twitter is often the first to report large events.  Now people are using Twitter to have conversations and connect with new people.

Our use of Twitter has been similar in terms of evolution.  We’ve connected with some really great new people – even people locally and even gotten some business from it.  Best of all, we’ve had some really great conversations on Twitter.  In some ways, networking on Twitter has been more effective than other social networks because of the conversations.  The number of readers via Twitter, RSS and our blog continues to rise – in no small part from our Twitter connections.  I like to think of it as a giant instant messenger (IM) for the world.

What have your experiences been with Twitter?  Please share in the comments below.

(photo by Dragunsk @ Flickr CC)

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Take the Time to Connect with Your Customers

dotserixAfter dropping my daughter off at school this morning, I stopped by the local bagel shop.

“Sausage, egg and cheese on wheat.  Salt bagel, double toasted, extra cream cheese. Coffee refill, please.”

“Do you have a daughter who goes to school?”

“Yes, she’s seven.”

“And your husband has a beard?”

“Yup.”

“Tell him I said hi.  I recognized this bagel must be for him from the extra toasting, extra cream cheese.”

The bagel shop owner took an extra few seconds to connect with me on a more personal level than just saying hi.  Not only did I mention this exchange to my husband, but it also struck me as important enough to blog about.  In this tight economic times, spending a few extra seconds connecting with your customers, remembering an extra little personal detail, can go along way to providing you with good referrals and future business.  All it takes are a few extra seconds and bit of effort to connect the dots.

(photo by erix! @ Flickr CC)

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Are You Measuring the Right Metrics?

measureaussiegallAvinash Kaushik had a great post this morning about the different types of keywords visitors use to reach your site, what their intentions are, and how to measure keyword effectiveness based on where customers are in the sales funnel.  This got me thinking about metrics in general.  I often hear people complain that they are not getting enough hits to their website (which is a very outdated metric in any case).  But when you ask them what goal/objective they are trying to measure, they usually cannot tie the two together.

From both a business and sanity point of view, it is imperative that you use metrics that will give you the information you need.  For example, if you are trying to measure whether or not your website is giving you leads, the number of hits isn’t the right number.  You need a way to collect leads from your website, or some way to tell if people were there (an offer unique to the website) to measure lead generation from your website.

So before you start pouring over your web and advertising statistics, take a moment to figure out exactly what it is that you’re trying to find out.  Then decide what metric will help you answer that question.  Matching up metrics and goals/questions/objectives will give you much more reliable informaton – saving time and resources and allowing you to focus on efforts that are actually working for your business.

(photo by aussiegall @ Flickr CC)

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