Twitter Posts from the Internet Marketing Blog
Buying Twitter Followers: The (Cheap) Price of Friendship
We all know social media is a hugely valuable element of online marketing when it comes to building a customer base, search engine rankings, and brand recognition. As a major player, Twitter is one of the most important and popular social media networks frequented by users around the globe.Obtaining a high number of followers is a landmark goal of many Twitter users.
Getting those followers isn’t always easy though, which leads some innocent businesses to wander down the shady path towards the ominous castle black-hat, wherein lies the dark tactic of buying Twitter followers.With a simple swipe of a credit card, you can obtain legions of your own mindless Twitter drones! To buy or not to buy? Let’s review the reasons for and against buying Twitter followers.In this post, we'll be looki... > Read more
Twitter Paid Advertising for Small Businesses: How to Get the Most Out of the Promoted Tweets Platform
Twitter’s pay-per-click advertising platform, now in beta, has opened up to offer access to some small businesses in addition to the larger advertisers who have been able to advertise via Twitter ads for some time. Getting access to the promoted tweets platform and understanding the different types of advertising available to you via Twitter could be a point of confusion for small businesses, so let’s outline the different means of advertising on Twitter.
Available Forms of Twitter AdvertisingThere are a few different ways you can advertise on Twitter:Promote Tweets to Twitter Search – You can pin a promoted Tweet to a specific search (you could choose some of your core keywords or advertise on a competitor’s brand name).Promote Tweets to Your Followers – You can also promote spec... > Read more
Twitter Gobbles Up Shutterbugs: Photo Sharing Now Available For All Users
Twitter started as just a little bird with a big idea. Since its arrival, the social networking site has become a venue for everything from (overly) personal status updates, the world’s latest news, to virtual celebrity stalking.Some might dramatically claim that Twitter has ruined humanity forever, or at least as altered our brains.
Maybe Twitter does share blame for messing with our gray matter. But people really love that feathery blue fellow, and as Twitter continues to grow and transform, so does the manner in which we advertise, learn, and communicate.Twitter Releases Photo Sharing to All UsersIn an ever-growing quest to encourage our insatiable need for instant gratification, Twitter released the photo sharing feature to all Twitter users yesterday. Up till now, this feature has b... > Read more
The Benefits of Online 'Office Hours': Why You Should Consider Live-Tweet Sessions
Last week the White House launched a new “Office Hours” Twitter program, in which U.S. citizens are invited to tweet their questions and concerns over the nation’s deficit reduction and debt ceiling negotiations. Using Twitter to encourage healthy dialogue between individuals and large corporate entities is nothing new, but establishing predetermined times for concentrated discussion is a trend still growing in the Twitterverse.
The White House office hours grew out of last month’s Twitter “townhall”; people were encouraged to #AskObama questions concerning the economy, healthcare, and the like. The president answered in true Twitter fashion, making him the first president to live-tweet to the nation. The Doctor Is In: The Marketing Advantages o... > Read more
Casey Anthony and the 'Social Media Trial of the Century'
With the Casey Anthony trial and its shocking verdict a couple days behind us, it’s interesting to take a look at how social media interacts with real world news. The Social Media Trial Time called it the “social media trial of the century,” and truly social media venues have been overrun with opinions on the trial’s verdict, mostly disapproving.
With enough tragedy, mystery, and deceit to match a prime-time TV drama, it’s understandable why this trial captured the nation’s attention. Many compare the Casey Anthony trial to the OJ trial that had Americans glued to their television sets in 1995. But there wasn’t much social media in 1995, and this time around social media made it easier than ever for people to get the latest updates on the trial pro... > Read more
Google Realtime Search Disappears As Contract With Twitter Ends
Google Realtime Search is on hiatus since the company's contract with Twitter, enabling access to the full feed of public updates, expired on July 2, 2011.While the unique Twitter feed has been suspended, Google notes that the publicly available information on Twitter is still available and searchable on the Google search engine.
Google plans on relaunching its real-time search with access to content from various sources including Google+ information, although the date for this relaunch has not yet been set.Hopefully it will come soon, because with the suspension on Google Realtime, there is no way to find tweets further back than a few days, as Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land notes:Twitter has largely outsourced the service of Twitter search longer than a few days to Google, a deliber... > Read more
Sometimes Even the Weiners Are Losers: Learning the Pitfalls of Social Media the Hard Way
After a week of denial, yesterday Representative Anthony Weiner finally admitted to posting a lewd photo of his manly parts on Twitter. Following the commotion on May 27 when the photo in question was first discovered, Weiner made a loser mistake: he lied. Not entirely surprising, since realizing you’ve accidentally sent a photo of your personal bits into cyberspace while holding a spot in Congress would be enough to have anyone gathering up excuses.
The Tweet Not Meant to Be Seen Weiner, meaning to tweet the photo directly to a friendly follower, accidentally broadcasted the pic live—a reply-all disaster of gargantuan proportions. Weiner, realizing his error, tried to remove the post, but of course it was already too late and the drama spread like Nutella on toast. Desperately... > Read more
Button Battles: Google & Twitter Release New Social Buttons
Get ready for your site to have more buttons than an 80’s denim jacket.In the ongoing battle over social media, buttons seem to be a popular ammunition tool, attracting users like, well, a shiny button.It may be no coincidence then that today both Google and Twitter are releasing updated or new buttons that can be embedded in websites.
Google +1 Button Now Available for WebsitesWhen Google +1 was first released, the +1 button was designated solely for the search results page. In case you need a quick reminder, the +1 button allows users to recommend certain search results. +1 is Google’s next step in an attempt to beef up their social media influence (especially after Buzz’s relative flop).You can check out our post when +1 was first released for more info, and our review of Goog... > Read more
Osama Bin Laden's Death as Told by Social Media and Search Engines
While Twitter, Facebook, and media outlets around the world were ablaze with news of Osama Bin Laden’s death on the night of May 1st, I was fast asleep in bed. It seems I’m always sleeping through important events, having snoozed through the Royal Wedding as well. I don’t wake up at 5 am for anything, and while old ladies in fancy hats are always good for a laugh, I’ve gotten more of my share of darling William and Catherine through the continuous stream of replay coverage.
So naturally it wasn’t until I groggily sat down at the computer with my coffee the next morning that I had any idea of the massive NYC partying I had missed out on. And like many others, I got the startling news via Facebook.Twitter Sets Aflame With an Abbotta-BANG!Osama Bin Laden’s death has once again exem... > Read more
How to Find People on Twitter
This is a guest post by Eric Almquist, Affiliate Program Manager at InfoPay Affiliate Network, an information-centric affiliate network and merchant processing environment. Twitter is everywhere, and that means your marketing efforts can be everywhere as well. We all follow our favorite celebrities, friends, and coworkers.
But what do you do when you don't know how to get relevant followers for marketing purposes? There are many different ways you can get this information. Now there are Twitter lists, directories, recommendation engines, search engines, and local searches. Any one of these can help you find potential customers for your affiliate marketing offers. In early 2009, Twitter started a list of “suggested users,” which was similar to recommended reads in a bookstore. N... > Read more
