Interactive Insights Group

How Smart Marketers Think Like Media Companies

HOW-TO: Write Effectively for Twitter and the Social Web

HOW-TO Build & Manage Your Brand Identify with Social Media

Social Media Metrics Superlist – Measurement, ROI & More

HOW-TO Sell Social Media to Cynics, Skeptics and Luddites

HOW TO: Respond to Rants & Other Criticism on the Social Web

Robin Broitman — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 12:44:14 +0000

If your organization is participating in social media through blogs, Twitter and other social networks –and even if you’re not — it’s only a matter of time before someone rants, makes a negative comment or expresses criticism about some aspect of what you’ve said or done or stand for.

Sometimes the comments demand a response. Other times, it’s better to ignore them. Determining when and how to respond to these negative comments is something that every organization wrestles with on a regular basis.

We’ve pulled together this collection of articles that address various aspects of how to react to negative comments and reactions on the social web. Let us know if there are any we’ve missed.

HOW TO: Deal With Negative Feedback in Social Media
From Mashable: Quick guide with advice on how to handle feedback on social media – from identifying the type of feedback (constructive, trolling, etc.) to deciding how to react.
How Do You Handle Feedback?
From Econsultancy: Patricio Robles reviews a list of considerations in determining how to handle feedback you get online – from “who the source is” to “the tone in which the feedback is provided” and more.
How to Deal with the Crazy, Nutso Bloggers
From SmartBlog On Social Media: Short good post from Andy Sernovitz on what to do when you enter not reasonable complaints online but unfounded defamation from professional hater and crazies.
Moldy Tweets: Takea Deep breath Before Responding to Negativity
From E-Consultancy: A cautionary tale about thinking (and taking a deep breath) before you respond to negative comments online.
Online Reputation Management: How to Handle Negative Publicity
From Sitepoint: Alyssa Gregory offers up advice on how to gauge the risk of negative publicity you might get online and determine how best to handle it.
8 Tips for Responding to Negative Comments Online
From Social Trending: Very good rundown of advice for responding to negative attacks online from “respecting their right to have their own opinion” to “attacking the issue not the person” to “not getting lost in trivialities” and more.
How Companies Should Respond To Negative Reviews
From Outspoken Media: A guide to determining when to respond to bad reviews on sites like Yelp (do respond when you genuinely need to make amends or if someone is mistaking the facts for example) – as well as tips on how to communicate for those times when you do respond.
Why You Should Embrace Negative Press
From Shoemoney: Here Jeremy Shoemaker argues and provides reasons for why you should embrace and not fear negative reactions online.
Help for the Yelped
From Money Magazine: The Do’s and Don’ts of responding to negative consumer comments on Yelp.
6 Ways to Cope with Negative Comments
From iLibrarian: Suggestions for dealing with the negative reactions you might find online from “moderating with discretion” to “keeping you cool” to “being yourself” and more.
How to Deal with Negative Comments On Your Blog
From Problogger: Guest blogger Gala Darling from iCiNG adeptly tackles the question of how to handle negative emails on your blog – from not feeding the trolls to responding with compassion to reader’s legitimate concerns.
Should You Respond to Comments via Email or in Comments?
From Problogger: Advice on how to best respond to comments on your blog.
Ignore it and it’ll Go Away? – Responding to Criticism Part 2
From Problogger: Discussion of the merits of ignoring the criticism of others online.
What to Do when Your Blog is Attacked
From Problogger: Advice on how to handle attacks from others in social media. Excellent advice from “thickening your skin” to “establishing boundaries” to “stepping away from the computer for a moment” to “not getting personal” and more.
Responding to Online Criticism
From Social Signal: Here provides a model case study example of how to respond to negative criticism from TripIt – with an analysis of what they did right.
Responding to criticism
SmartBlog On Social Media: Advice from Andy Sernovitz about responding to negative work of mouth.
Why Is Your Business Afraid of Negative Blog Posts?
Search Engine Guide Blog: How you can use commenting to respond to negative comments about you in a blog post.
How To Deal With Negative Comments About You On Twitter
From John Haydon: Solid advice on how to deal with negative comments others make about you or your organization on Twitter.
How To Deal With Negative Comments
From Successful Blog: Great tips from Liz Strauss on how to handle negative comments.
Mean Spirited Comments and Blogging
From Lorelle on WordPress: Tips on how to respond to a commenter who is not just negative but mean-spirited.
Handling Negative Comments On Your Blog Post
From Chris Brogan’s Blog: Guest poster Jason Alba on five things to consider when you get a negative comment on your blog.
When to Respond to Negative Buzz
From eMarketer: Interview with Denise Zimmerman President of NetPlus Marketing on considerations and options for retailers in responding to negative buzz and reviews on social media sites.
Defeating the Dark Side of Social Networking
From Business Week: Outlines 6 sets of actions brands should take to respond to conversations on the web.
Greenpeace vs. Nestle: How to Make Sure Your Facebook Page Doesn’t Become a PR trojan horse
From The BrandBuilder Blog: Oliver Blanchard does a great job gleaning lessons from the recent Nestle/Greenpeace social media confrontation.
How To Handle Negative Blog Comments
From Ignite Social Media: Olivia Hayes provides good advice for handling negative blog comments- from “don’t delete” to “be honest” to “be humble” and more.

Other Interactive Insights Group Resources You May Find Helpful

How Smart Marketers Think Like Media Companies

HOW-TO: Write Effectively for Twitter and the Social Web

HOW-TO Build & Manage Your Brand Identify with Social Media

Social Media Metrics Superlist – Measurement, ROI & More

HOW-TO Sell Social Media to Cynics, Skeptics and Luddites

How Smart Marketers Think Like Media Companies

Robin Broitman — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 13:00:33 +0000

In case you missed it, something remarkable has happened over the past several years. Smart marketers using Social Media have been connecting directly with customers in extraordinary ways.

But, while all the attention has focused on Social Media itself and its darling Superstar offspring like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, there’s an unassuming but just as important Superstar that hasn’t gotten its due attention.

Of course, Social Media is a big part of the story. But if you look at things with a slightly different lens, you’ll see an even more fundamental change has been taking place. You’ll see Social Media in a supporting role and discover that the real “leading lady” is the Message, not the Medium.

Smart Marketers Get the Message!

The smartest and successful marketers using social media haven’t been finding success by annoying or interrupting people or by talking incessantly about themselves, their brands or even their products. Rather they’re reinventing the way they think of their role as marketers and in doing so are reshaping the very essence of marketing. They’re realizing — as Digital Media thought leader Brian Solis describes so brilliantly in his recent article — that The Future of Marketing Begins with Publishing.

Indeed these smart marketers are harnessing the social web to grow their businesses but they’re doing so in a radically different way – they’re marketing, not with traditional sales-like pitches or slick brand slogans. Rather they’re sharing different types of “messages” entirely. They’re marketing with content – content that is valuable, informative and engaging — in its own right. They’re doing what has become know as Content Marketing – and they’re starting to turn conventional media models upside down.

The “Gift” of Content Marketing

Meaningful content is the linchpin of this new type of marketing on the social web. As digital media expert Chris Brogan in his article How Content Marketing Will Shake the Tree describes content marketing as “the ability to produce useful and entertaining information that is worthwhile on its own, but that might also be useful towards a sale or subsequent action.” Chris makes an important point here – that the information has value and meaning to its intended audience (your potential customers) on its own – independent of its usefulness to you as a marketer in selling your product. But ironically, it does a better job at selling your products in the end!

Think about it. Your company knows not only the products and services that you sell but also knows a lot about the topics your customers are interested in that relate to your business. Take Clorox as an example. In researching and developing their cleaning products, one wouldn’t be surprised if they learned a lot about people’s concerns related to germs and cleaning. By creating content to help parents learn about how to keep their children away from germs as they do here in 5 Fun Ideas for Keeping Kids Clean they take what they know about a topic of importance to their customers and turn it into useful appealing content. Not all that much different from the type of article a reader might find in magazines like Family Circle or Health. Which would you rather read? An article with fun ideas for getting your kids clean or one entitled “How Clorox Cleans Bathrooms Better Than Other Brands”?

This new marketing trend is what Bob Gilbreath in his recently released book The Next Evolution of Marketing: Connect with Your Customers by Marketing with Meaning calls “Marketing with Meaning” where the focus is on improving customers’ lives through the marketing itself. It’s also what Seth Godin is talking about in his bestselling book Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? when he encourages sharing talents and knowledge freely- by giving gifts.

Godin suggests giving these gifts will make you indispensable. And not surprisingly, content marketing is the very type of marketing that customers actually seek out – and even more importantly in today’s social media environment- share and discuss with others.

Whole Foods: Supermarket or Nature Foods Media Company?

I’ve long been a passionate fan of Whole Foods Supermarket. In Whole Foods’ early days, what I remember most vividly were the attractive, educational brochures they made available for free to customers (this was before the Internet). On my first visit, I went in to simply buy soy milk and each time I went back I bought more & more new products – inspired by what I learned about natural foods in their informational brochures. This learning changed my life and today I not only buy many (many!) Whole Foods products – but the presence of a Whole Foods is a criteria for my living in a town.

When I told my husband back then that my dream job would be to work in marketing for Whole Foods, he looked at me like I was nuts and said “You work in the media business, they’re a grocery store.” But to me, I always saw Whole Foods’ potential as much more- as a potential content provider and “media company”.

And indeed, Whole Foods today – due to its early and enthusiastic adoption of social media- is no longer just a grocery store but a dynamic provider of healthy lifestyle media content. On its blog, via its Facebook fan page and on its 150 different Twitter accounts, Whole Foods provides a wide range of useful content- from tips on eating healthy while traveling to advice on the health benefits of Adzuki beans to lots of delicious recipes posted on Twitter to how-to videos including How to Carve A Turkey – they are a fantastic resource for healthy eating!

Of course, this content is relevant to the products Whole Foods sells. But the content doesn’t just sell products, it also has an independent value to me as natural foods enthusiast. In Seth Godin’s terms, it is the “gift” that Whole Foods offers me. And by providing me with this valuable information, this “gift”, Whole Foods makes it much more likely that I will buy their products — and tell my friends to buy from them too.

Every Company is A Media Company

This is a revolutionary change for marketing. By embracing content marketing and leveraging social media, organizations like Clorox and Whole Foods in essence have become the media – leveraging the power of social networks and applications — from Facebook to Blogs to Twitter and a multitude of other emerging options — to connect directly with audiences to share the type of useful and compelling content once the domain of media companies.

They have created vertical content niches (think niche magazines and cable networks) by creating their own consumer-facing content. This content is useful, meaningful and offers real value to potential customers – value that is relevant but often independent of the products and services they are selling. It is this remarkable content that actually draws in potential customers and sets these companies up as thought leaders and resources in consumers’ minds.

In doing this, smart marketers move their companies from simply appearing adjacent to content as advertisers (increasingly likely to be ignored by readers in favor of the real content that drove them to the site in the first place) to actually being the content. Being the content or the media company provides marketers with a unique opportunity to engage and inspire their customers – in ways not possible with a more conventional marketing and advertising. It is what Tom Foremski encourages companies to do on his insightful website Every Company is a Media Company (EC=MC).

8 Ways to Think (And Act) More Like A Media Company

So, where do you start if you want to help transform your company into a media company? It begins with thinking and acting like a media company. Here are some suggestions for how you can think (and act) more like a media company:

Think Audience

Media companies spend time thinking about their audience and what their audience wants. Ask yourself who your potential audience is? What problems do they have that you can help solve? What are they curious about? What are their aspirations? What scares them? What motivates them? What do they want to learn more about?

Chances are you know this from your consumer insights research. But don’t just assess this research from a consumer lens or use the research solely for conventional marketing uses such as product development, positioning and messaging. Use it also to brainstorm the type of content you can offer to enhance your audience’s lives — even if they never buy from you or become your consumer (but they will if you do this right!). When thinking about creating content forget about selling- focus on informing, inspiring, entertaining, and helping your audience.

Cherish Your Content

Recognize your content as a valuable asset. Media companies value, nourish and protect their content. As a marketer, you make serious investments in marketing – tag lines, marketing campaigns, branding and visual identity, and other marketing assets, etc. If you’re going to be a successful media company, you need to invest in content and believe that this content has real value. Acknowledge the value of your content. Quantify it. Start thinking of you content, as Social Media strategist Jay Baer suggests, as an information annuity.

Start by getting a handle on your current content assets by conducting of an audit of the content you already have. Do you have content you can repackage, update, spruce up? Do you need to invest $ and money in building new high caliber content. Remarkable content isn’t free or cheap to create — even though today it sometimes seems that way. Recognize that building compelling content audiences will respond to requires an investment of energy, time, creative talent and money. Don’t take content for granted.

Put It In Your Marketing Plan

Make your content strategy an official part of your marketing plan. You wouldn’t dream of having a marketing plan without a messaging strategy, pricing strategy or distribution strategy, would you? To become a media company, you need to expand this to include a content strategy that you can apply across multiple platforms (or channels). Put it in writing and make sure everyone on your marketing team knows it is a key element of your plan.

Commit to Your Content

Once you have an overall content strategy, you need to nurture and maintain it. One way to do this is to develop an editorial calendar. You can’t just put a few terrific articles out there and stop if you want to be a successful media company. The best media companies plan out their content on a calendar schedule and make reporting or writing assignments based on this schedule. This is what helps them turn their content strategies into reality.

You must sustain the creation of remarkable content if you want to sustain traffic and an editorial calendar is your tool to do this. Add your editorial calendar to your list of key marketing tactics. Take it as seriously as any media company would. Maintain it, manage it, and treat it with the same respect you treat any of your other marketing calendars.

Don’t just put content out there and forget about it – monitor how your audience is responding to your content, ask them for feedback and ideas, and adjust your content strategies and editorial plans accordingly.

Rethink Your Marketing Team

To be a media company, you’ll need content creators on your team. You may need to rethink the who’s and how’s of your marketing team. You need people who spend their time (or at least a part of their time) thinking about marketing from a content marketing perspective. You need people who have the talents and skills to create truly remarkable content. Does anyone on your current team show promise of being a content creator? Do you need a Chief Content Officer – someone who can own your organization’s content marketing strategy?

Do you need to hire new people? Or perhaps bring on some freelance writers (turmoil in the publishing industry has created a tsunami of true independent talent in this area – perhaps you can bring on an embedded journalist)? Maybe you need a new type of agency beyond your current agency roster – one that can help you plan and manage your content strategy? Junta42 an industry expert in content marketing can also help you find a content marketing vendor through their free matching program.

Make It Easy for Your Content to be Discovered and Shared

Media companies distribute their content via multiple platforms- trying to reach as many potential “eyeballs” as possible. They make sure their content is easy for people to find. As a media company, you need a plan to be sure your content “shows up” where your audience is. Today this means putting your content where audiences are increasingly likely to be – on social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube in addition to hosting your content on your own hub site or blog. You should have an editorial calendar (see above) for publishing your content to these different social outposts.

You need to optimize your content for social media if you want it to be discovered and shared by audiences. Optimizing your content for traditional search engines like Google is no longer enough- as people become more likely to discover content via their social networks than they are to find it via traditional searches. You need to be sure your content uses not only the right keywords but also the right headlines, descriptions, tags and other socially relevant metadata. This is where you need to integrate content marketing into your overall marketing strategy very strategically.

Expand Your Calls to Action

You probably work hard on making sure your marketing landing pages includes strong Calls to Action. You should still focus on Calls to Action, but you may be asking people to take some additional actions. Media companies want to grow and engage their audiences, so they ask people to share their content with others, to comment on their content, and also sometimes to bookmark their content.

Remember to explicitly ask for these things in addition to integrating share buttons on your blog or website. It’s remarkable how simply asking someone to Tweet about your article or Share the article on Facebook (given the content is appealing) will boost the number of people who spread the word. I’m not suggesting you remove more conventional Calls to Action. But if you’re serious about thinking like a media company, you’ll focus too on getting people to interact with and share you content. Here’s a great example on one of my favorite blogs MakeUseOf.com of asking directly for people to share your content.

Broaden Your View of Key Metrics

For traditional marketers, conversion, cost-per-click, and purchase performance metrics are paramount. Through the lens of the content marketer, conversion of course is critical ultimately but other metrics count too. Focus on engagement metrics too!

What counts for engagement? Measurements like return visits, time spent on site, shares, likes, comments, and bookmarks to name a few. Understand how people demonstrate engagement with your content and make sure you measure and track these measures too. Don’t exclusively focus on these metrics for your hub (blog or website) but also measure engagement for your social media outposts (Facebook Pages, Twitter accounts and YouTube Channels).

So, what do you think? Are you ready to turn your company into a media company? Have any other ideas on how to use content for marketing? Leave your thoughts, ideas, insights here in the comments section.

Photo Credits: Photoshopping by Leezie5, Magazine Superhigway by Laudu, Writing in the Sand by Armin Hanisch, Gift by Robson Talaveiras

Social Media Policies Superlist

Robin Broitman — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 13:30:41 +0000

Feel like it’s time for your company to put together some social media guidelines but not sure where to start?

Want to see what other companies are doing in this area? Need some tips on what should be covered?

Establishing clear principles and guidelines for how your employees will conduct themselves in the world of social media is critical. There’s too much at stake – both on the upside and the downside – to ignore this.

We’ve assembled a comprehensive list of resources below to help you get started in developing a social media policy. We’ve organized them into a couple of sections – Advice and Resources, Nonprofits and Associations, and Examples of Social Media Policies.

Let us know if there’s something valuable we’ve left out and we’ll add it to our list.

Please Take Our Poll

We’re also curious how many of you work for organizations that have social media policies in place so please take our poll. And please share this poll with others as we’d love to get as diverse and broad a response as possible to better see what the trend is.

Helpful Advice & Resources:

10 Things You Should Cover in Your Social Networking Policy
From TechRepublic.com: Deb Shinder looks at 10 key considerations that such guidelines should address including “defining a clear company philosophy upfront” to “defining what is meant by social media or social networking” to “identifying oneself as an employee of the company” and more.
Disclosure Best Practices Toolkit
From the Social Media Business Council (formerly the Blog Council) : Draft series of checklists to help companies, their employees, and their agencies learn the appropriate and transparent ways to interact with blogs, bloggers, and the people who interact with them.
Corporate Social Media Policy: Top 10 Guidelines
From PR2 Squared: Free template for a social media policy based on a policy the agency helped one of their clients develop. Useful starting point for a social media policy of your own.
10 Steps to Creating a Social Media Policy for your Company
From ClicktoClient: 10 solid things to consider when creating your company’s social media policy.
Do you need a Corporate Social Media Policy?
From Janet Fouts: Here Janet provides 3 solid reasons that your organization should implement a social media policy – from “setting branding standards for communications” to “educating your team” to “setting expectations for behavior.”
Should Your Company Have a Social Media Policy?
From Mashable: Sharlyn Lauby provides advice on why your company should have a social media policy, who it should apply to, when to implement your policy and more.
When Does a Social Media Policy Go Too Far? Ask the Associated Press
From Mashable: Benn Parr’s discusses a controversial element of AP’s social media policy that requires employees to control not only what they say, but also what their friends say on their Facebook page.
10 Must-Haves for Your Social Media Policy
From Mashable: Whether you’re writing your social media policy from the get-go, or letting it develop organically in reaction to situations as they arise, Sharlyn Lauby offers up 10 things you should definitely consider.
Social Media Usage Guidelines: Don’t moon people with cameras (or at least hide your face when you do)
From Beth’s Blog: In this post, Beth Kanter provides helpful insights on social media usage guidelines. Key according to Beth is to create guidelines that are simple, flexible, common sense and encouraging – and are also accompanied by education where you discuss potential situations and discuss what to do.
B.L. Ochman’s blog: Everything You Need to Know About Corporate Social Media Policies
B.L. Ochman’s blog: A different take on social media policies that sums it up in two words: RESPECTING CUSTOMERS.
Drafting Trouble-Free Social Media Policies
From Law.com’s Legal Technology: Review of legal risks of unfettered communications on social networks and advice on developing social media policies in light of these risks.
Social Media Policies For Your Company: Internal Policies `
From Dave Fleet: Dave outline three internal policies that organizations should consider when getting started in social media: a blogging policy, an outbound commenting policy, & employee guidelines.
Social Media Policies For Your Company: External Policies
From Dave Fleet: Suggests social media policies that organizations might consider posting publicly, for everyone to see. There are two: 1. Comment moderation policy 2. Interaction policy
Twitter Tips: How to Write a Twitter Policy for Your Employees
From CIO.com: Advice on giving your employees some rules of the road regarding Twitter from “updating your surely outdated code of business conduct” to “identifying who has a Twitter account within your company” to “encouraging disclaimers.”
Corporate Social Media Policies and Guidelines
From Christy Web: Ideas about what companies should consider when developing social media guidelines and policies. Also includes links to other resources on social media policies.
30 Tips to Manage Employees Online
From AriWriter: Ari Herzog offers up a nice list of 30 suggested guidelines to provide to your employees for how they should handle themselves online.
Social Media for Business: The Dos & Don’ts of Sharing
From Mashable: It doesn’t matter if you’re on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr; your online personality is not only part of your overall brand, it becomes an interactive experience for you and your business. So, who is the face or voice of your brand and what do they share? It’s a very important decision in and of itself. Just as you create branding guidelines and key messaging guides, so too should you dedicate time to creating your social media personality.
Elements of Web 2.0 Communication Guidelines
From Altitude Branding: Amber Naslund does a great job capturing 7 key elements of consideration when developing web 2.0 guidelines.
PolicyTool for Social Media
PolicyTool is a policy generator that has you answer a brief questionnaire and provides you with a complete Social Media Policy customized to your company.

Nonprofits and Associations

Does Your Organization Need A Social Media Policy?
From Beth’s Blog: Fantastic overview and guide to social media policies – targeted at non-profits but good stuff for everyone.
Social media policies
From Association Marketing Springboard: Lindy Dreyer provides a very comprehensive four-part series on social media policies for associations.
Where’s Your Org’s Social Media Policy?
From Getting Attention Blog: Nancy E. Schwartz addresses the benefits of having a social media policy along with core issues to cover – targeted at non-profits.
Creating a Social Media Policy for Your Nonprofit
From Wild Apricot Blog: Advice for nonprofits on working out a social media policy for your staff and volunteers who blog and chat and comment online, where the personal and professional lines often blur.

Examples of Social Media Policies:

List of 40 Social Media Staff Guidelines
From Laurel Papworth: List and links to range of organization’s social media staff guidelines including GM Blogging Policies, Cisco’s Internet Posting Policies and more.
3 Great Social Media Policies to Steal From
From Mashable: Jennifer Van Grove highlights the social media policies of Kodak, Intel and IBM.
16 social media guidelines used by real companies
From E-Consultancy: Nice rundown of specific social media guidelines from 16 real companies from IBM (Don’t Pick Fights) to Intel (Perception is reality) to Zappos (Be Real and Use Your Best Judgment).
Online Database of Social Media Policies
Database of 80+ organization’s social media policies allows you to search and filter by industry. Provided by Chris Boudreaux, author of the upcoming book “Social Media Governance.”
Blogging Policies
From NewPR Wiki: Links to Blogging policies from wide range of organizations including the US Navy, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Harvard law School and many others.
Social Media Policy Examples
From 123socialmedia: Links to some 30+ different organization’s social media policies
Wal-Mart Blows It With Twitter Terms of Service
From CIO: Critique of Walmart’s Twitter Terms of Service
A Twitter-Like Twitter Policy
From Beth’s Blog: Beth Kanter highlights a social media policy in 140 characters.
Selection of specific social media policy examples:

Other Interactive Insights Group Resources You May Find Helpful

HOW-TO: Write Effectively for Twitter and the Social Web

HOW-TO Build & Manage Your Brand Identify with Social Media

Social Media Metrics Superlist – Measurement, ROI & More

HOW-TO Sell Social Media to Cynics, Skeptics and Luddites

Secrets of Twitter Hashtags (For Those Still Unsure)

Robin Broitman — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 12:00:19 +0000

Still feeling confused by Twitter Hashtags- those words that start with a # symbol that you keep seeing on Twitter?

Wondering how to start or use a hashtag for your own purposes? Want to find out what a particular hashtag means?

Trying to figure out how to use hashtags for a particular purpose – to share information, to unite around an event perhaps?

Twitter hashtags are a great tool for finding, following and participating in topical discussions relevant to you. Here I’ve put together a collection of articles with information and advice on using Twitter Hashtags.

There are three sections – How-To Use Hashtags, Tools to help you use them, and examples of ways to use Hashtags.

Hashtag Tutorials & How-To’s

Ultimate Guide to Twitter Hashtags
From Search Engine Journal: Here Ann Smarty provides a thorough guide to hashtags including solid tips and resources for making the most of them.
An Introduction to Twitter Hashtags
From Wild Apricot Blog: Nice step-by-step tutorial on hashtags- what they are and how to use them.
Tweet Your Message to a Larger Audience with Hashtags
From Twitips: Sherice Jacob (follow her at @sherice) from iElectrify explains what hashtags are and how to use them.
How to start a Twitter hashtag
From Contentious: Amy Gahran provides helpful advice on using hashtags including a discussion of the types of situations where she has used hashtags (breaking news, events) along with tips on choosing a hashtag and promoting it.
HOW TO: Use Twitter Hashtags for Business
From Mashable: Josh Caltone provides advice on how to utilize existing hashtags and how to start your own.
Where To Find A List Of Twitter Hashtags
From Twitter Tips Central: Where and how to find to find a list of Twitter Hashtags using Hashtags.org.
HOW TO: Get the Most Out of Twitter #Hashtags
From Mashable: Short guide from Benn Parr details how to identify, track, use, and organize hashtags in an efficient and useful way.
Twitter Hashtags – What Are They, How To Create Your Own
YouTube Video from Internet marketing and Facebook specialist Mari Smith that explains hashtags – for those who prefer video explanation to text.
Twitter Tips: How And Why To Use Hashtags (#)
From CIO: Nice overview to help you understand the hows and why of using hashtags.

Hashtag Tools and Resources

Tools for Monitoring Conversations in Twitter
From Bub.blicio.us: Discussion of how to use Hashtags.org and Twemes to find relevant topics and join productive conversations on Twitter. Especially important if you are a representative for a company and/or brand seeking solutions for effectively listening to the community in order to help them answer questions or provide them with useful information.
#hashtags.org
All Twitter updates that include a valid hashtag are indexed at Hashtags.org. Here you can search and see trends for that hashtag as well as a list of recent tweets with that hashtag. This means that you don’t have to be a Twitter user to follow the conversation — it’s visible to anyone. Hint: you can also see all the tweets for a hashtag by adding the hashtag name at the end of the site’s URL: http://hashtags.org/tag/ for example: http://hashtags.org/tag/followfriday for the #followfriday hashtag.
What the Hashtag?!
A wiki-based user-editable encyclopedia for hashtags found on Twitter. They have a bot that actively monitors Twitter for trending hashtags and creates new pages as they grow in popularity. Then it’s up to the users to fill in the details. They offer a bot service that allows you to ask them what a hashtag stands for. Then they send you back a short description plus a link back to the page they’re hosting for the specific hashtag. There are also some Firefox and Greasemonkey tools for use.
Tagalus
Ever find yourself looking at Twitter and wondering what all this talk about #motrinmoms means? Searching Flickr and not understanding why someone would tag their photo #ip4? A real-time dictionary for hashtags, Tagalus lets users define tags so that others can understand what they’re talking about. Other users can vote on definitions and decide which best describes the given tag. You don’t need to log in to browse the tags and definitions, but if you would like to contribute a tag, vote on a definition’s authority, comment, etc. you have to use an OpenID to log in. You can also use Tagulus on Twitter (@tagulus) to get and set definitions by sending one of two commands that @tagalus understands. You can also get a bookmarklet for your browser. For a nice review of Tagulus see this post from ReadWriteWeb: What Does that Hashtag Mean? New Service Tells You.
TweetChat
TweetChat is a tool that helps you monitor and chat about one topic. Each tweet you make automatically gets a hashtag added for the room you are in – no need to worry about hashtag typos..The room auto-updates with new posts using the hashtag you are following – no need to reload…Good tool for anyone wanting to create or contribute viaTwitter around a specific tagged topic.
HashTweeps
Find Twitter users by hash terms
Twitag
Twitag is a #tag finder for twitter that helps facilitate and organize the most recent content tagged by users.
What the Trend

What the Trend helps you find out what’s trending on Twitter and why

Different Ways to Use Hashtags

The different uses of #hashtag
From Fresco 2.0: Rundown of the multitude of ways that Twitter hashtags are being used from Events to products to services.
Use Twitter HashTags To Increase Your WebSite Traffic
From Internet Home Business Help: Some tips for getting the best use out of your Twitter hashtags to help boost traffic to your website or blog – including keeping your hashtags, memorable, short, and unique.
Using Hashtags and Twitter to Build Website Traffic
From SEO, Web Development, Internet Marketing, and Product Reviews: Advice on how to use Twitter hashtags to build traffic and backlinks to your site.
Hashtag Happy Hours: How Moms Party Down on Twitter
From Mashable: Jessica Smith fills up in on how some moms online are using Twitter hashtags to convene virtual parties.
How To Selectively Integrate Your Personal And Corporate Twitter Accounts Using RSS And A Hashtag
From Corporate Dollar: Nice How To instructions for organization that want to copy selective tweets from many personal Twitter accounts to a single corporate Twitter account.
Use Hashtags To Grow Your Community
From FeverBee: Creating a hashtag for your community and creating a community from a hashtag.
Beyond #FollowFriday: 24 Daily Twitter Memes
From Mashable: Brian Wallace offers a rundown of 24 daily Twitter memes to help you meet new Twitterers and discuss common interests from the wildly popular #followfriday to #musicmonday to #thankfulthursday and more
What Are the Most Effective Ways Nonprofits/Foundations Can Use Twitter #Hashtags?
From Beth’s Blog: Beth Kanter reviews three good ways nonprofits can use hashtags – events and conferences, knowledge sharing, and for advocacy.
Twitter Hashtags and Groups « American Pai
From American Pai: How to use Twitter Hashtags and channels to filter all the information on Twitter.
How To Create Successful Chats on Twitter with Hashtags (Video)
From John Haydon: In this video, John outline the basics of managing a hashtag chat on Twitter.
Quick Ways to Plant Some Roses in a Hashtag Potty
From Twitip: Joi Murugavell provides advice on how to use hashtags effectively.

2009 Social Media Superlist of Superlists

Robin Broitman — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 15:19:33 +0000

Here’s a list of our most popular posts in 2009, most of them Superlists – so in essence this is our Superlist of Superlists!

From tips on influencing bloggers….to advice on searching the social web…. to how-to use Delicious, Facebook and LinkedIn….to a guide for building your social media network…to our ultra popular Social Media Case Studies and Social Media Metrics Superlists….here they are…in one handy place….Happy New Year!

Superlist of What NOT To Do In Social Media
Superlist collection of articles/blog posts on what not to do with social media. Mistakes, failure, bloopers to avoid.
Social Media Case Studies SUPERLIST- 23 Extensive Lists of Organizations Using Social Media
Comprehensive collection of 22 lists, databases and resources of social media/web 2.0 case studies and examples.
How-To: Influence Influencers- Bloggers, Tweeters & Others
Collection of resources, tips and advice that can help you identify influential bloggers and other social media users and develop strategies to engage your targeted influencers in ways that will help you achieve your objectives.
HOW-TO: Write Effectively for Twitter and the Social Web
Collection of articles with advice on writing for Twitter and the social web. Organized into the following topics – general online writing principles, writing strong headlines, writing for Twitter, and writing for search engines.
Facebook for Business SuperGuide
Comprehensive collection of resources, tips and advice on how to use Facebook for business purposes including topics such as Facebook groups, pages, events, causes, Facebook for non-profits, tools, and statistics.
Ultimate Guide to Delicious Social Bookmarking
Comprehensive collection of tutorials, advice, resources, tips and tools to help you use Delicious to enhance your marketing, research and other business objectives. There’s a special section just for marketers.
LinkedIn SuperGuide -Tutorials, Tips and Tools
Comprehensive guide to a range of tutorials/how-to’s, tips, advice and tools to help you become a LinkedIn power user.
How-To: Build & Manage Your Brand Identity with Social Media
Comprehensive collection of tools, resources, and advice for building and managing your personal or company brand identity.
How-To: Search the Social Web – Ultimate Toolkit
Comprehensive guide to a wide range of resources, websites, services and advice that will help you find, filter, and monitor the information you need more effectively.
How-To: Create a Unique Twitter Background
Collection of how-to articles, advice, resources and tools to help you create a unique background for your Twitter Profile.
How To Boost Your Social Media Productivity – A Guide For Busy People
Comprehensive list of articles with great advice, tips and tools to help you be more productive and efficient when using social media. Also some posts that offer up general online productivity insights.
Ultimate How-To: Grow Your Social Media Network
Extensive roundup of tools, resources and great advice to help you grow your network.
Social Media Metrics Superlist: Measurement, ROI, & Key Statistics Resources
Collection of valuable resources, tools, & advice specifically on the topics of social media measurement, monitoring and ROI. You’ll also find a handful of key social media statistics resources to put in your toolkit.
HOW TO Sell Social Media to Cynics, Skeptics & Luddites – Tips, Resources & Advice
Arsenal of articles with solid advice, data, and tips to help you make the case for social media in your organization or with a client.

How-To: Influence Influencers- Bloggers, Tweeters & Others

Robin Broitman — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 14:00:40 +0000

Want to get the right people talking about you and your business in a flattering light?

Word of mouth marketing has always been an important vehicle for getting the word out about your business. Social media opens up a range of opportunities for leveraging the power of word-of-mouth.

In every social media circle there are people who have more influence than others. Whatever niche your business is in, it’s likely there are a handful of bloggers that are highly popular and influential. There are also people who have large numbers of followers on Twitter whose tweets are retweeted with high frequency.

When one of these bloggers or Tweeters mentions your company or links to your website, the impact can be tremendous (positive or negative). Understanding and identifying who the influential people are in your niche is important. And it’s equally important to understand how to reach out them to build relationships that will benefit your business. It’s also important to understand what NOT to do.

In this article, I’ve pulled together resources, tips and advice that can help you identify influential bloggers and other social media users and develop strategies to engage your targeted influencers in ways that will help you achieve your objectives. I’ve included a special section on Blogger outreach and relations as well. Finally, there’s a section on tools and lists to help you in your efforts.

Identifying, Targeting and Courting Key Influencers

Influencer Handbook
From WOMMA: Guide created by the WOMMA Influencer Council that to provide practitioners with the following information: • Definition of an influencer and influencer marketing • Types of influencers • Methods to engage and thank influencers • Guidelines for influencer self-regulation • Bibliography of influencer communication research and practice.
The Value of Influencers: Why They Are Still Relevant for Marketing Campaigns
From Dosh Dosh: Discussion of how influencers are still critical to your marketing campaigns in helping to develop trust and visibility for brands.
A Poor Man’s Guide to Finding Influencers
From The Buzz Bin: Good article from Mike Nelson on how to identify and engage top influencers within your community of interest online. It starts with finding the right keywords. For more on growing you network see our post Ultimate How To Grow Your Social Media Network.
Courting Online Influencers
From Paul Gillin Communications: After you’ve identified people to engage with, you need to craft an approach and an incentive that’s right for them. Here Paul author of The New Influencers: A Marketer’s Guide to the New Social Media offers some suggestions.
Thoughts On The Influencer Audience
From The Future Buzz: Adam Singer shares why targeting influencers is important and how to be successful in doing so.
What Makes a Great Evangelist
From SmartBlog: Advice from Andy Sernovitz on what to look for when identifying people who can be an evangelist for your message. Also see Andy’s book: Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking, Revised Edition
Making Word of Mouth Marketing Work: Finding the Influencers
From MyCustomer.com: Insights on figuring out where can you find the small group of influential customers that will facilitate word of mouth campaigns – and how you can get them to shout about your business. (Requires free registration).
Where To Find Social Media Power Users
From Search Engine Land: Gregg Finn provides a good resource to find all of those top social users that people continually speak about so you can find related power users on the social site of your choice – including Digg, Reddit, Stumbleupon, etc.
Find Out the Most Influential Users on Twitter with the ReTweetability Index
From Mashable: Jennifer Van Grove reviews Dan Zarrella’s ReTweetability Index. The ReTweetability Index isn’t just a list showing the top Twitterers or the ones with the most retweets, but a formula carefully researched to better get at the most retweetable and influential users.
How-To: Identifying Influencers, Neutralizing Detractors
From MarketingVOX: The attention of influencers is coveted because of their mythological ability to drive others to a given brand, whether by force of personality or strong subject knowledge. But “influencers” are not a single silver-bullet demographic. Depending on the product or service a company hopes to sell, the appropriate circle of influencers can vary. Here are some tips on locating your influencers.
How To Engage Influential Talkers
From SmartBlog On Social Media: Andy Sernovitz’s three simple steps to engaging influential people: 1) Make a list 2) Use multiple channels to contact them and 3) Ask. Also see Andy’s book: Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking, Revised Edition
5 Ways to Use Social Media to Find B2B Influencers
From Hubspot: Advice on finding key influencers on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Bloggers, Niche Social Networks along with tips on using the available tools available for each type of social media vehicle to connect with them.
How to Influence Powerful Social Media Users for Traffic and Attention
From DoshDosh: Advice for targeting and influencing those social media users – the mavens and connectors- who can help grow your traffic and brand.
Getting People to Talk Behind Your Back
From chrisbrogan.com: Guest post by Josh Peter on how to get the influencers in your relevant community to spread the message about your business.
HOW TO: Measure Online Influence
From Mashable: Micah Baldwin takes a look at how someone becomes influential and what are the metrics for measuring their influence.
Finding and Engaging Your Brand Evangels on Facebook – Left The Box
From Left The Box: A technique for easily finding people that are already publicizing your brand to their friends on Facebook.
Your Weakest Links Might Just Become Your Strongest Chain
From Marketing Profs Daily Fix Blog: Beth Harte provides a different take – the benefits of targeting less influential people vs. more influential types and why the “weakest links” may be your strongest chain.
How To Win Facebook Fans And Reach Influencers
From Allfacebook.com: Advice for targeting and reaching out to influencers via Facebook.

Blogger Outreach and Relations

10 Steps to Building a Better Blogger-Relations Program
From Brian Solis: Helpful tips on how to approach blogger relations. Advice ranges from “being knowledgeable, transparent, honest and trustworthy” to “less is more – focus on quality relationships” and much more. For more see Brian’s e-book for Kindle: The Art and Science of Blogger Relations
How to Suck Up to a Blogger
From Guy Kawaski: Guy’s terrific advice on the process of cultivating the most influential bloggers from “creating a great product” to “linking to the blogger’s blog” to “stroking them” to “making connections before you need them” and more.
The Ogilvy PR Blogger Outreach Code of Ethics
From the Ogilvy PR Blog: Some basic tenets of blogger outreach that the Ogilvy PR abides by when contacting bloggers on behalf of their clients.
How To Influence ME
From Chris Brogan: Commonsense advice (which apparently isn’t common enough) from Chris on how to make a good impression with him – from “remembering he’s human” to “being brief” and more. Also see Chris’ book: Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust
BLOGGER RELATIONS CASE STUDIES
From New Communications Review: Winning case studies of Blogger Relations Outreach programs from Molson, Zarafina, Graco, Kona Blue and others.
Comparing Six Ways to Identify Top Blogs in Any Niche
From ReadWriteWeb: How then can you identify the top blogs in a particular niche field? There are paid services you can use to identify influencers online but they are expensive and not appropriate for quick hits in a new topic. Here’s a comparison of the pros and cons of six different options that are fast and free.
Blogger Outreach – How Not To Do It
From Beth Kanter: Solid advice about how to NOT to pitch bloggers to write about your organization, product, service, or events. One tip: Don’t have your office intern send out canned pitches, get to know the bloggers first.
HOW TO Pitch: Mashable
From PR Sarah Evans: First in a series of interviews with top bloggers on the best way for public relations professionals to pitch them and increase chances of story(ies) being picked up. First interview is with Adam Ostrow, Editor in Chief, Mashable.
5 Things You SHOULDN’T Do When Approaching Bloggers
From Daily Blog Tips: Rundown of things that you shouldn’t do when approaching bloggers for your networking efforts – from “asking for a link to your blog, article or service” to “declaring that their audience will be interested in your service” to “proposing a link exchange out of the blue” and more.
Best Practices for Blogger Relations Tip Sheet
From the Society for New Communications Research: A “Best Practices for Blogger Relations” Tip Sheet with tips such as “doing your research to understand the blogger and focus on his/her interests” to “forgetting about the A-list and find your A-list” and more. Complete tip sheet is available to SNCR members free of charge. It is also available to non-members for a $25 donation to the Society.
How You Might View Bloggers
From Chris Brogan: Advice on how to conduct a blogger outreach campaign directed at key influencers. Also see Chris’ book: Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust
Can Companies Engage Independent Bloggers? Ask @RealLifeSarah
From Hubspot: In this video, blogger Sarah Pinnix addresses the question of what marketers can do to get bloggers talking about their products.
So How DO You Pitch a Blogger?
From Search Engine Blog: Blogger Matt Collier provides advice on how and how not to pitch him on your company, product and/or service – from “referring to him by name” to “NOT simply sending a press release” to “actually reading his blog before pitching him” and more.
How to Get a Blogger to Promote Your Product
From Lifehack: Advice on what to do and what not to do when approaching influential bloggers in your niche. From “doing your research first” to “taking bloggers seriously,” this post provides solid tips on how to handle your blogger outreach.
The Very Basics of Blogger Outreach
From Social Mallard: Basic advice on pitching bloggers from “building the right list” to “not forgetting about niche blogs in favor of the big fish” to “researching who the bloggers really are” and more.
11 Things You Need To Know When Pitching to Bloggers
From Blank Canvas: Pat Law outlines 11 things to keep in mind when pitching your company, product, service, ideas, etc. to bloggers- from “finding out who their readers are” to “joining them online (subscribe to their RSS feeds, connect with them on Twitter)” to “joining them offline” and more.
How to Keep Bloggers from Hating You
From IdeasOnIdeas: Nice list of tips on how you can build links with people who blog without practices the bad behaviors that might alienate them from “taking the time to get to know those you contact” to “respecting people’s choices even if they say no” to “thanking people who take the time to write something on your behalf” and more.
10 Tips for a Successful Blogger Outreach Campaign
From The Caffeinated Blog: Advice on what to do to catch the attention of influential bloggers. Includes tips on identifying the right blogs, persuading the blogger that his/her audience is interested in your product/service, to being honest in how you represent yourself, being prepared to deal with negative feedback and more.
Attention PR People: Here’s How To Pitch A Writer
From Six Pixels of Separation: Mitch Joel includes 9 simple rules for pitching a writer from “personalizing your message” to “never sending attachments” to “not following up if you don’t hear back” and more.
20 Tips for Pitching Bloggers
From The Future Buzz: Adam Singer offers up a nice long list of tips for pitching bloggers from “offer a freebie” to “offer exclusivity” to “subscribing to their blog” to “commenting on their blog” and more.
Journalists’ Blogs Offer Valuable Clues About How to Pitch Them
From The Publicity Hound’s Blog: Joan Stewart offers advice on how to mine journalists’ blogs, twitter pages and more to uncover clues on how to target your pitches to them.
How to Launch a Successful Blogger Outreach Program in One Day
From The Viral Garden: Hour-by-hour step-by-step process for putting together a blogger outreach program. Key part of the process is creating a list of at least 20 bloggers who are talking about your company and posting comments on their blogs in response to their posts that reference our company.
For advice on Mommy Bloggers:
- 7 Things Mom Bloggers Want To Say To PR People
  From Influential Marketing Blog: Rohit Bhargava shares the top 7 things he’s gleaned from conversations with mom bloggers that most of them want PR people to know – from “get to know me” to “stop asking for free coverage” to”remember I have kids” to “don’t tell me what to write” and more.
- Some Advice on Reaching Out to Mommy Bloggers
  From Media Bullseye: Susan Getgood talks about who mommy bloggers are and offers up some tips for connecting with them effectively including advice on how to find the ones who will be interested in what you have to offer.

Tools and Lists

Alltop
Fantastic must-have resource for identifying top blogs/bloggers in any niche.
Traackr Helps Marketers Find Influential Voices Online
From Mashable: Review of Traackr’s Online Authority List product that makes it easier for PR folks, brand managers, and marketers to easily identify the top online influential voices — tracking reach, resonance, and relevance — around their specific campaign initiatives.
The Twitalyzer for Tracking Influence and Measuring Success in Twitter
Twitalyzer is a unique tool to evaluate the activity of any Twitter user and report on relative influence, signal-to-noise ratio, generosity, velocity, clout, and other useful measures of success in social media.
TwitterCounter – Top Tweeters
Top 100 most-followered Twitter Users
Twinfluence – Twitter Influence Analyzer
TwInfluence allows you to measure Twitter influencers, not just by followers, but also by reach, velocity, social capital and centralization. It also publicly ranks the top 50 influencers in each category. This is an important tool for identifying the tastemakers that you don’t already know in the Twitterverse.
TopLinked People on LinkedIn
Listing of the top (by numbers of connections) LinkedIn networkers and their number of connections.
Retweetist – Users
Updated list of the Top 50 Most Retweeted Users.
50 Most Influential Powerful Women in Social Media
Form Immediate Influence Blog: List of 50 of the most powerful and influential women in Social Media with links to their websites.
50 Most Powerful and Influential Men in Social Media
From Immediate Influence Blog: A list of the 50 Most Powerful & Influential Men in Social Media:
Social Media Power Users And Influencers: Part 1
From Social Media Buzz: First in a multi-part series on the key influencers in social media on the web along with their Blog info, Twitter info, brief bios and what makes them influencers. For others parts of the series: Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4.

Finally, if you’d like a contrarian opion on this, read this Brand Week interview with Columbia University professor Duncan Watts who argues that influencers aren’t really all that important. Do you agree?

Other Interactive Insights Group Resources You May Find Helpful

Secrets of Twitter Hashtags

HOW-TO Build & Manage Your Brand Identify with Social Media

Social Media Metrics Superlist – Measurement, ROI & More

Ultimate HOW-TO Grow Your Social Media Network

HOW-TO: Write Effectively for Twitter & the Social Web

Robin Broitman — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 10:19:41 +0000

Want your tweets to be more compelling? Want to be a better writer on the social web? Me too!

The advent of social media has opened up a wide range of opportunities for non-professional writers like me — and probably you too — to write online. Most of us writing for websites or blogs or posting on Twitter likely aren’t trained journalists. Even professional writers trained for print must learn to adapt their writing style to an online audience who experiences content differently than a print audience.

And social media itself has changed writing online – making it more informal and personal. In fact, when you’re writing online these days, you’re writing not only for your audience but also for search engines and social media sites. Add Twitter to the equation and the need to communicate with only 140 characters raises writing for the social web to a new art form.

In this post, we’ve pulled together a collection of articles with advice on writing for Twitter and the social web. We’ve organized these articles into the following topics - general online writing principles, writing strong headlines, writing for Twitter, and writing for search engines.

Let me know if you have any ideas or tips that have worked for you.

General Web and Social Media Writing Principles

How Users Read On The Web
From Jakob Nielsen: Advice on how people read on the web compared to how they read print publications. One difference- people don’t read on the web, they scan and this requires a different writing style vs. print.
How to Write for the Web
From Knight Digital Media Center: Blogs, wikis and discussion boards dissolve the barrier between writer and reader, creating a more informal and interactive writing environment. Take advantage of this opportunity and distinguish yourself by writing in a clean, active, conversational style that will make your readers feel as comfortable reading your words as they feel when talking with a close friend. Here’s some advice on how to do this with social media.
From Print to Web: Tips for the Transitioning Writer
From Web Worker Daily: The web, and its readers, demands a different kind of writing, delivered in a different way. Here are some tips and resources to help get a handle on just what kind of change is required.
Writing Style for Print vs. Web
From Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox: Nielsen’s classic advice on writing for the web compared to writing for print.
10 Tips on Writing the Living Web: A List Apart
From A List Apart: Writing for dynamic web sites that are consulting changes (think blogs, wikis, community sites) requires a different approach than writing for static websites. Here are 10 tips that can help with the reality of writing when things are always changing..

5 Rules for Better Web Writing
From Mashable: Josh Catone provides 5 rules to be a better writer on the web from “knowing your objective” to “knowing your audience” to “keeping it short” to “making it scannable” to “embracing constraints.”

Reading on the Web (Alertbox)
From Jakob Nielsen: People rarely read Web pages word by word; instead, they scan the page, picking out individual words and sentences. In research on how people read websites we found that 79 percent of our test users always scanned any new page they came across; only 16 percent read word-by-word. (Update: a newer study found that users read email newsletters even more abruptly than they read websites.)
How Web Is Different from Print
From Gerry McGovern: Of all the things that make the Web different from print, linking is the most important. Are we tool-making animals or are we animals made by tools? It’s an old question. How much did the quill shape our minds and worlds? We invented the printing press which then invented a new society, a new way of thinking. Also read Gerry’s Traditional Writing Skills Don’t Work on Web – a discussion of why the type of writing many of us were taught doesn’t translate online and results in content that is overwritten with too much content and context and too little focus on action.
The Ultimate Blogger Writing Guide
From Copyblogger: Eight important writing tips as they apply to blogging
Blog Users Don’t Read, They Scan… Write Accordingly
From Social Media Today: Post by Michael Gass with useful advice on writing for your blog.
5 Simple Ways to Open Your Blog Post With a Bang
From Copyblogger: 5 ways to open your post that will capture the reader’s imagination and pull them deeper into your content.
Webpage Copy Writing – Web Site Resources, Website Tips – WebsiteTips.com
The tutorials below cover how visitors read content on the Web and how to write effectively for the Web. See also below for specific topics: Writing ‘About Us’ Content for the Web and Writing Headlines and Titles for the Web.
Writing Well for the Web – webreference.com
From Web Reference: Quick and easy tips for non-writers who are getting started on the web.
What Bloggers Can Learn From Journalists
From Chrisbrogan.com: Guest post by Anita Bruzzese with advice on web writing for bloggers based on her perspective as a trained journalist.
30 Ways to Increase Readability Online
From Pro Blog Design: Tips for making your blog content more readable.
“Inverted Pyramid”: How to Write for Social News & Blogs
From 97 Floor: Advice on writing for readers of Digg, Stumbleupon, Rss Subscribers and other social media users.
How To Write for Blogs and Social Media: New Media, New Rules!
In this video, Green Industry Speaker, Video Blogger, Internet Marketer, and Consultant Jeff Korhan explains how to write for Blogs and Social Media to accomplish your purpose.
10 Tips for Making Your Blog Posts More del.icio.us
From Vandelay Website Design: Steps to take to encourage users to save and share your articles on the social bookmarking site Delicious in order to drive website traffic – including how you write the content itself.
The 6 Cs of Killer Web Writing
From Gerry McGovern: Rundown of six ‘C’s to keep in mind when you sit down to write: Who Cares? Is it Compelling? Is it Clear? Is it Complete? Is it Concise? Is it Correct?
How to Write Copy for Short Attention Spans
From Copyblogger: Advice from Sherice Jacob on writing in fast-paced world where the majority of people will only read the first few lines of what you write.

Internet-Age Writing Syllabus and Course Overview
McSweeney’s Internet Tendency: Robert Lanham offers a hilarious take on writing in the Internet age.

Writing Strong Headlines and Titles

25 Action Words for Writing a Newsworthy Headline
From PR Leap Blog: A list of 25 action words and 25 sample headlines from the pressrooms of Apple Computers, Yahoo!, Google, IBM and T-Mobile:
How to Craft Post Titles that Draw Readers Into Your Blog
From Problogger: Solid discussion of why blog post titles matter and 8 tips for creating successful blog titles.
How To Write Great Headlines
From Modern Life is Rubbish: Whether you’re a blogger, a journalist or social bookmarker, writing a great headline is a must if you want to capture your reader’s interest. Faced with an ever increasing wave of blogs, RSS subscriptions, and links, the headline is more important now than it ever has been.
Headline writing: How web and print headlines differ
From New Media Bytes: Review of how headlines are different for print vs. the web and a review of best practices for writing headlines for people, search engines and social media.
10 Sure-Fire Headline Formulas That Work
From Copyblogger: Ideas for attention-grabbing headlines you can use with your blog posts
Writing Better Web Page Titles
From Social Patterns: One of the easiest things you can do to optimize a web page is to write a better title for it. Aside from writing great content, learning how to write better titles is the best thing you can do for your web page. Here’s some advice on how to do this.
How to Write Magnetic Headlines
From Copyblogger: Excellent series of posts on writing headlines for your blog or website articles.
10 Blog Post Title Templates That Work Like Gangbusters
From BlogBuildingU: A dozen compelling blog post title templates to get you more clicks and readers.
Write Great Titles For Your Blog Posts
From Master New Media: How to write blog titles that will get you greater visibility and exposure on major search engines.
How To Craft Kick-Ass Title Tags & Headlines
From SEO Book: Advice on strategies for writing headlines that will help you with your search engine optimization.
8 Ways of Creating Compelling Blog Post Titles
From Content Writing and Copywriting Blog: 8 steps you can take to create compelling blog post titles
Writing Killer Web Headings and Links
From Gerry McGovern: Advice on getting the first couple of words exactly right when attempting to write effective web headings and links.

Writing for Twitter

Copywriting for Twitter: 10 ways to make every tweet count
From Econsultancy: With a massive amount of tweets posted every second, here’s some advice for making sure your tweets are heard through all the noise.
Everything I Need to Know About Twitter I Learned in J School
From Mashable: Anne Handley, Editor in Chief of MarketingProfs does a fantastic job of showing how the tenets of good journalism can be applied to writing effectively for Twitter- from “making every word count” to “keeping it simple” to “providing context” and more.
How to Write a Twitter-Worthy Headline
From SmartBlog On Social Media: Andy Sernovitz serves up his tips on writing strong Twitter headlines that will be re-tweeted- from “telling the complete story in the headline” to “using copywriter tricks – compelling terms like ‘how-to’ and ’3 tips’ that will help get your tweets forwarded” and more.
15 Kick-Ass Retweet Tips for Writers
From Econsultancy: Some suggested techniques that writers and bloggers – not to mention traditional journalists – can adopt to improve the retweetability of their articles – from using “awesome adjectives” to “leaving a little extra space for the retweeter to append the tweet with a comment” and more.
An Unofficial Twitter Style Guide
From Grammar Girl: Tips for better Twitter postings.
How to get ReTweeted – The Formula
From Twitips: In this post Louise Doherty (@louisedoherty) shares a formula to help you increase the chances of being ReTweeted.
6 Ways to Maximize the Use of Your 140 Characters
From Twitips: Mark Fulton provides some tips for making the most of those few characters you get to use when using Twitter (140 to be exact).
How to write Twitter-friendly Headlines
From Brian Armsey: A few tips on Twitter-optimized headline writing.
The Art of Writing Great Twitter Headlines
From Copyblogger: Advice from Brian Clark on writing compelling headlines on Twitter from headlines. One piece of advice – craft headlines that promise readers a compelling reward by offering something “useful to the reader” or providing readers with a “sense of urgency.”

Writing for Search Engines

SEO Copywriting 2.0
From Copyblogger: An SEO Copywriting 2.0 tutorial designed to provide a step-by-step strategy for creating content that scores links and ranks well in search engines in five easy lessons.
Google & SEO Friendly Page Titles
From SEO Book: Video and article with tips on creating search friendly page titles for your web pages.
This Boring Headline Is Written for Google
From New York Times: Discussion of writing good web headlines to help with SEO.
Use Old Words When Writing for Findability
From Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox: Advice on why you should use familiar words to increase your odds of people finding your content via search engines.
Working Words: How to Write for SEO
From Econsultancy: Nice post that explores best practices in SEO copywriting.
Writing Killer Web Headings and Links
From Gerry McGovern: Advice on getting the first couple of words exactly right when attempting to write effective web headings and links.
The Top 10 Twitter SEO Tips
From Mashable: How to write your tweets to ensure they rank well in Google search results.

Other Interactive Insights Group Resources You May Find Helpful

Secrets of Twitter Hashtags

HOW-TO Create A Unique Twitter Background