Author Archives: Todd Hyten

06.17.10
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One way of measuring Twitter effectiveness

Here’s a great way to measure a Twitter accounts effectiveness: How many followers do you have per tweet? It’s easy to figure out, just divide the number of followers by your tweet count — which is located right there in the upper right hand corner below the “Following/Followers/Lists” menu.

Jay Baer mentions this in his post today on his blog, but I’ve noted this metric while recently working with a client. It’s a good metric. Jay, of course, is an all-star blogger and social media guy and he has a whopping 2.46. You can easily have a much higher number, but I found that for most business purposes, you want to aim for higher than 1.0. Initially, you won’t necessarily get that, but after a couple hundred followers “above 1.0” should be your goal.

If you’re not getting that – take a fresh look at what you’re posting. Is it ephemera (“wow. that was a good salad.”) or is it meaty links to your blog? Are you writing good topic headlines/tweets that link to your blog? Are you behaving badly? See my post on “3 Things That Will Make Me Unfollow You” to see what “behaving badly” on Twitter means.

06.16.10
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2010 online ad spending rebounds big: double-digit growth

The folks over at eMarketer report that 2010 online ad spending is expected to grow 10.8% over last year. Online ad spending is expected to reach $25.1 billion according to eMarketer. This is good news, no doubt about it, but keep in mind that 2009 saw a decline in online ad spending over 2008. Still – we’ll take it.

Businesses are spending more marketing dollars on social media efforts and “microsites” (web sites focused on branding, messaging or leads), according to eMarketer senior analyst David Hallerman.

06.16.10
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Twitter “death sentence” lesson: why redundancy matters

Over on the Scobleizer blog is a great post and video interiview with someone who got the Twitter “death sentence.” They opened up their long-standing Twitter account only to find a note from Twitter their account has been deactivated – by Twitter. Here’s the video interview.

Robert Scoble does a good job raking Twitter over the coal for this, but there’s an important lesson here. Make sure if you’re doing social media for business that you have a “wide” social media presence. Be many places at once. Redundancy is a good thing. For instance, if you have a blog, make sure your Twitter account “rebroadcasts” your blog. And using a tool like Hootsuite, you can link the Twitter messages to Facebook. And for good measure, I like the idea of repeating your week’s top blog posts on LinkedIn.

Yes, Ideally you want your messaging to differ somewhat on each platform. But ultimately – it’s OK to be redundant.