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Interesting to note MySpace is still at #7 even though the network is pretty much dead (Nielsen ranks them at #5 of social networks & blogs, before Google+ and tumblr) , and, RIM even makes it into the top 15. The data in this series was collected by WhatTheTrend from over 500,000 trends which appeared on twitter.com

The list was based on an algorithm that awarded points based on the rank and duration spent on the top 10. Similar to the first infographic, the data used in this series were compiled by What the Trend from over 500,000 trends which appeared on Twitter.com. In addition to the 15 brands, the top trending topics, hashtags, memorials, and holidays of 2011 were also included.

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• Interruption Marketing aka Twitter Spam

Basically these spammers either use Twitter Search or use some paid twitter spammer tools and target specific keywords. Since my update had “affiliate marketing” keywords, they automatically reply me with their spam message and link.
Kirtok.com

Interesting to note: spam hasn’t gotten much into social networks like Facebook (except maybe for posts on external blogs using their comment system), or, at a little higher rate on LinkedIn but still…nothing compared to twitter, tumblr or blog spam.

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Twitter on Thursday introduced a new look for Twitter.com and TweetDeck that it hopes will simplify the user experience. One major difference on the homepage is that tweets appear on the right side and take up less real estate than they used to.

What you can see from the video the redesign looks really nice, especially the media integration and instant interaction with tweets. You can read up more and see some screenshots here. It doesn’t seem to be active for my account yet, for yours?

[via Mashable]

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1. Follow and be Followed

Give and ye shall receive; follow and ye shall be followed.  Search Twitter for people whom you want to become your Twitter followers – people who fit the profile of your target followers.  Instead of waiting for these people to follow you, follow them first.  You’ll find out that a certain percentage of the people you follow will follow you in return.

This is rather tedious work, however.  You will have to spend hours and hours searching and following people one by one.  You can use auto-follow tools (check the second part of this article), but manual and selective following is still best if you have time.

Basically, the following are a couple of things you must consider when choosing people to follow:

• he is or may be interested in your product or service.
  Actual interest can be assessed through a person’s updates. Potential interest can be assessed through his profile – say, someone fits your target demographics.  Ideally, choose someone who fits your target demographics and has indicated interest.

• the number of his followers and the number of people he follows are almost the same.
  When someone’s “following” and “follower” stats are comparable, chances are high that he follows back those who follow him.

Remember that Twitter sets a cap on the number of people that you can follow.  This limit is variable and changes with your level of usage and stats.  Twitter will tell you you’ve reached your limit only when you have.  To avoid hitting your limit, a pretty good rule of thumb is to keep the number of your followers and the number of people you follow about the same.

Final tip: Don’t forget to take advantage of Follow Fridays.  It’s when people recommend people to follow to their followers.

2. Tweet Smartly about Topics Relevant to Your Niche

Notice that Twitter also has that search capability that scans all Tweets and display search results based on a given set of keywords?  This means that your Twitter activity and how you interact with your Twitter network also goes a long way into increasing your following.

To get targeted followers, you should tweet about your specialization.  Your updates will come out in related keyword searches.  People who are looking for people in your field of specialization will then be able to find and follow you.

Do not go overboard, though.  Tweet too often and like a spammer and you’ll find yourself being dropped from follow lists faster than a full bucket of turd.  Connect with people, listen AND respond.  People like to follow people who sound like people rather than automated marketing machines.

3. Use Twitter as Customer Support or Help Desk Mechanism

Ask your existing customers to follow you on Twitter, and watch your targeted Twitter following swell.  Use Twitter as your customer support platform.  Use it to interact with your existing customers, gain feedback, resolve issues, and build relationships.

Eventually, your Twitter following should include not only existing customers but also prospective ones.  Those who have questions about your services or products and those who merely want to observe how you handle customer concerns will probably follow you on Twitter.  Your existing customers may also refer you to fellow Twitter users.

4. Organize Contests, Debates or Games

Just like in the real world, nothing draws spectators and human interest like contests, debates and games.  Sponsor or start any one or all of these and watch your Twitter following snowball.  Those who want to participate will naturally follow you.  They could also tell other Twitter users about all the interesting activity in your account, and these others could follow you and refer you to others, too.

5. Include Your Twitter Account Link in Your Email and Forum Signature

Whenever you send emails to prospective and existing customers, do not forget to include the link to your Twitter account.  Whenever you join forum discussions, do not forget to add your Twitter account link as your signature.

Do not become a spammer, however.  Remember that the effectiveness of your email and forum signatures depends on how good your brand is perceived by your target audience.

6. Integrate Twitter in your Blog or Website

Do not forget to add a link to your Twitter account in your blog or website.  Be creative.  Use a Twitter badge rather than a single line of text.  At a prominent area in your blog or site, include the “Follow Me on Twitter” badge.  With every post, include a “Twit This” button.

7. Generate Followers from Other Social Networks

Create a profile in Facebook, MySpace, Friendster, Digg, StumbleUpon, YouTube, Plurk, and all other social networks that you can think of.  In your profile, prominently display your Twitter link.

Scour these social networks for your target audience and cultivate their online friendship; leave them comments, chat with them, interact with them in as many ways as possible.  When you have proved your credibility and have earned their trust, invite them to follow you on Twitter.

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• Five Ways Your Twitter Account Can Boost Marketing
• Indie Musician Makes $19,000 In 10 Hours Using Twitter
• Twitter 101 Guide For Business

Networking is always important when it’s real and it’s a useless distraction when it’s fake… It’s worthless to have lots and lots of friends on Facebook ’cause they’re not really your friends. They’re just people who didn’t want to offend you by pressing the ignore button

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If you’re one of the millions of users who have come on board with this free service, you may be wondering how this mini-update application can boost marketing exposure for a business or special interest project. Imagine being able to immediately reach your clients with breaking news at zero cost.

5 Twitter Marketing Tips Working To Your Advantage

1. Increase the visibility of your brand

Twitter boasts millions of active users and is growing each day. Who can resist that potential exposure? Of course, this no more guarantees you millions of viewers any more than a website guarantees everyone on the Internet will visit it. But if you tweet about relative, interesting content regularly and spend time adding followers, people will take notice and follow you in return. Before long your efforts will snowball, and you will potentially find yourself with thousands – even tens or hundreds of thousands – of followers.

Twitter's Rocket Growth

2. Gain valuable contacts in or outside the industry

The main reason to “follow” people on Twitter is not merely to get them to follow you back – nor even to get you noticed by others browsing people’s follower lists (though these are very helpful in aiding item #1 above). The main reason is to find people of interest, people you can  network with as well as those who tweet items of newsworthy interest. These you can “retweet” in your own stream to boost your perceived usefulness to your followers.

3. Improve customer loyalty

Many business users on Twitter make the mistake of focusing on #1 and #2 without thought to the rest of this list. As a result, typical tweets are little more than an endless stream of spam that turns off followers. Spammers get unfollowed in a hurry. A wise marketer uses Twitter not only to gain exposure for their product or purpose, but to improve their value in the eyes of target consumers.

Improve customer loyalty by responding promptly and personally to “@” replies and direct messages and offering relevant, timely content of interest in your stream on a regular basis, not  a string of What I’m Selling Today updates. Include just a small percentage worth of “sales pitch” promo tweets. When you appear approachable, helpful, and interested in your customers, you will draw attention and gain reputation as a valuable asset in the Twitter community. Customers will be more likely to buy from and/or recommend a business perceived this way.

4. Keep up with relevant trends and participate

Twitter is an excellent way to keep a finger on the pulse of your industry and target customers. Follow back everyone who follows you, and take time to read your stream each day. As your followers grow, you won’t be able to read every tweet. That’s fine. Set time to read what you can, and comment, reply, and retweet relevant topics. Use the information tweeted to educate yourself on the mindset and interests of your audience and competitors. This can help you map a tightly focused campaign, as well as to keep abreast of newsworthy developments in your field.

5. Run focus groups and gain feedback.

Get Twitter users to help you determine the effectiveness of a campaign, article, product, or service by tweeting for their opinion, directing them to off site polls, blogs, focus groups, etc. Even better, use related #hashtags (search tags used in Twitter) in your post, and encourage Twitter-based replies to generate buzz for your topic.

By taking time each day to grow the number of people you follow, tweet, reply, and retweet topics of interest to other Twitterers, and using the wealth of information in your stream to gain knowledge to help you in your business and ad campaigns, Twitter can easily become one of your most powerful, free tools for boosting marketing efforts…in as little as a half hour daily. At least if you refrain from checking Twitter the whole time, because then, the other side of the business won’t work: directly generating revenue.

Other ideas on boosting marketing via Twitter ? Feel free to reply in the comments.

More resources on using Twitter as a networking, PR and communications tool:

• Caroline Middlebrook: The Big Juicy Twitter Guide
• Jeremiah Owyang – What The Web Strategist Should Know About Twitter
• PR Squared: Using Twitter To Create & Inform Communities
• WebProNews: Microblogging What’s it Good For?
• Red66 – Using Twitter as a Marketing Tool
• Eleven Marketing- Add Twitter to Your Internet Marketing Toolbox

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The study scores the engagement level of each of the top 100 brands across more than ten social media channels, including blogs, Facebook, Twitter, wikis, and discussion forums. Starbucks scored the highest, with 127 points.

Top 10 Social Media Engaged Brands

1. Starbucks (127)
2. Dell (123)
3. eBay (115)
4. Google (105)
5. Microsoft (103)
6. Thomson Reuters (101)
7. Nike (100)
8. Amazon (88)
9. SAP (86)
10. Tie – Yahoo!/Intel (85)

The report categorizes brands into four types, depending on how many social media channels they participate in. The most engaged are “mavens,” while the least engaged are “wallflowers” (McDonalds and BP are examples). The study claims a correlation between social media engagement and revenue growth. The “mavens” saw revenues grow an average of 18 percent over the past 12 months, while the Wallflowers saw revenues drop 6 percent. I really doubt that their level of social media engagement had anything to do with their revenue growth, it is just that the strongest brands are the most engaged.

The full report is available here or on ENGAGEMENTdb, a new service aiming to collect all information and social media profiles from brands, editable by anybody.

[via Techcrunch]

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