First, a video of Seth Godin talking about standing out. Some of you might remember a previous newsletter on this topic. Well, I don’t think I ever included this video. It’s worth watching just to find out how Silk brand soy milk tripled its sales. Running time: 17 minutes Seth Godin on Sliced Bread & Soy Milk

This next one is a bit off topic. It’s an interview with Richard Stallman. Never heard of him? I’m not surprised. He’s sort of an underground hero. You see, when he was a student at Harvard and working in the MIT artificial intelligence lab, he started creating free software so that academics could freely modify it to suit their needs. What he started back then, in 1983, was called the GNU project. You’re probably familiar with it. Most people just call it Linux. The correct title is GNU/Linux, as it’s a combination of Stallman’s work and a kernel by Linus Torvalds. Anyhow, Stallman recently gave an interview to Mashable that I think should be required viewing. Running time 3 minutes Stallman on Software Freedom

Finally, for you copywriting geeks out there, here’s a video presentation by Drayton Bird, who, according to David Ogilvy, “knows more about direct marketing than anyone in the world.” In it he breaks down and analyses four advertisements — two by him, one by David Ogilvy and one by Claude Hopkins. If you’re a student of the persuasive power of language then you’ll love this one. The link is to a summary, just click through to watch the video. They won’t try to sell you anything. Running time 50 minutes Drayton Bird’s Ad Crunch

Sorry, I can’t embed this last one, and I don’t think it will be available forever. It seems kind of hypocritical to post this non-free video after Richard Stallman, but hey – I’m not perfect.

Think about it.  When you pick up a newspaper you glance at 80% of the headlines and read about 20% of the articles.  Why?  All those unread stories weren’t what you were looking for, and you decided that in a few seconds.  So, in the newspaper business headlines are vital… actually in every business.

Websites have a lot more going on than just the headlines.  So does a brochure or a full-color mailing.  There are colors, photos, graphics, and even video (on websites, not on brochures yet.)  All of it can contribute to a prospect’s decision to stay or leave.  All of it, but I’m just going to talk about colors for now.

Colors can convey information, along with being pleasant or not.  Have you ever seen a red pickle jar?  No, they’re green.  So, when you want pickles you look for the green jar.

Is there a fast food chain that doesn’t use red in its logo?  I can think of only one: Subway.  Even their colors tell us that they’re totally different from those greasy burger/pizza/chicken joints, which all use red in their logo.

Beyond the information in colors there is color preference.  Everyone has a favorite color or two.    What’s interesting is our choice in colors might not be totally random.   USA Today gave a color test to its panel of 877 CEOs.  The results were that the CEOs “were three times more likely to favor magenta than the public at large.”  They were also less likely to opt for yellow or red.

Am I saying that if you use magenta and not yellow or red on your website you’ll convert more CEOs?  No, but I’m thinking it pretty loudly.  Who knows.  There doesn’t seem to be enough published research to say whether there’s anything to this notion that color preference and personality are linked.  If you’re getting enough traffic to your site, you could test it for yourself.

Now, I took this color test too and was surprised by the results.  It’s a personality test, where all you do is click on colors.  It decided my personality type was The Creative, with a secondary type of The Persuader.  Yes, it suggested I pursue a career in advertising, marketing, writing, or web design.  That’s what I do all right, weird.

You can take the test too, it doesn’t take long.  At the bottom of your results page you can click to see a list of 50 careers that suit you.  Ignore it, it’ll cost you ten bucks to see the top 25.  Let me know what you thought of your results.

One last thing about color.  Color combinations can be harmonious or not.  If you’re looking to pick out a color scheme then it’s worth using a tool to be sure you get colors that work with each other.  The tool I’ve used for years is ColorSchemeDesigner.com.  Adobe also now has one that’s integrated into all their design software at kuler.adobe.com.

Got any interesting ideas about color? Share them below!

Twitter’s weird.  It’s a bit hard to wrap your head around it.  My best advice is to worry about that later.  Whatever Twitter is and whatever it does, it’s evolving.  So, don’t worry about understanding it before you use it.  Through using it you’ll come to understand it, and maybe you’ll even figure out new ways to put it to use.

That said, there are some things that are helpful to know.

What is a Tweet?

Let’s get this out of the way:

A tweet is a piece of text no longer than 140 characters. Spaces and punctuation count. Think of it as a blog entry, a bitesized blog entry.

For reference, that definition is 140 characters long.

Timelines

A timeline on Twitter is a collection of tweets in chronological order.  The Public Timeline consists of every public tweet made.  When you tweet, you create your own timeline that people will see when they visit your profile page.  You can see your own timeline by clicking the Profile link in the top menu.

Every user also has their own unique timeline that consists of the tweets from everyone they follow.  This is what you see when you click the Home link in the top menu.  It’s like your own personal news ticker.  You can follow bunches of different people and all their tweets, except messages to other people, will show up here.

Your Twitter Profile

Click the Settings link in the top menu to edit your Twitter profile. One thing to keep in mind is everything in the Account section is publicly visible.  You can put whatever you like as your name if you don’t want your real name to be public.  Using a head shot as your picture is the norm.  It’s also helpful in convincing people to follow you because it shows off your humanity.  If you aren’t comfortable putting your picture out there try for something eye-catching instead.

Further into your profile options you can upload a background image and change your color scheme.  I think it’s good to stand out a bit here, but it’s also easy to look tacky.  Best to leave the color scheme alone at first.

Following & Followers

Following is Twitter’s word for Subscribing or Friending.  Whenever you visit someone’s profile page you’ll see a little Follow button below their picture.  Click on that button and their tweets will show up on your home timeline.  Following is a one-way action on Twitter.  Unless someone has made their updates private, they don’t have to approve your request to follow.  If they haven’t turned the feature off, they will get an e-mail telling them that you are now following them.  They may well check out your tweets, and follow you back if it looks like you put interesting stuff out there.

Some people will automatically follow anyone who follows them.  In fact you can find websites with huge lists of people who will auto-follow you back.  I strongly advise against this tactic for gaining followers.  Quality is definitely better than quantity when it comes to followers.  I’d much rather have 100 followers who actually read what I tweet than 10,000 who could care less.

As you tweet you’ll start getting those e-mails to let you know that someone is following you.  Your first question will probably be, “Why are they following me?”  Often people will discover you and follow after finding a tweet of yours in a search.  Something you posted might also get ReTweeted by one of your followers, leading their followers to check you out.  People might discover you through a link on a website, or some random e-mail newsletter.

Here’s what I do when I get a new follower:

• I click the link in the e-mail to look at their profile.
• I look at their ratio of Following to Followers.  People who follow many, but are followed by few are often a bit spammy in their tweeting.
• I read their little bio, and inspect their tweets.  I ignore any tweet that starts with @somebody because those won’t end up in my timeline unless they’re directed at me or someone else I follow.
• I look at how often they tweet.  If someone’s tweeting 20+ times a day then their tweets have to be pretty good for me to follow back.
• If there’s more than one or two shamelessly self promotional tweets I won’t follow them.
• If they seem to be advertising ways to make money on twitter or gain thousands of followers, I’m gone.
• If they seem genuine, remotely interesting, and I have some interest in common I’ll follow back.

Remember that people will look at your Profile this way before following you.

Conversation

Direct Messages are private.  Only the sender and recipient can see them.  You can only send them to people following you.  In my experience, Direct Messages are not a good way of communicating.  They are often ignored and often used to spam.  You’re much better off with e-mail or Google Wave for private conversation.

You can see tweets mentioning you by clicking the @YourName link on the right side of the Twitter page.  To direct a tweet at someone specific begin it with @ followed by their username.  For instance, after reading this you might want to tweet:

@PGrandstaff Wow, that newsletter was great! I’m going to tell all my friends about it.

Or, maybe you’ll want to tell me where to shove this tutorial.  Either way, you can be sure I’ll get the message because you directed it at me.  The rest of your followers won’t see that tweet, but it would be publicly visible on your Profile page.

To let your followers get the tweet in their timeline, and direct it at someone just include the @username someplace other than the beginning.  For instance:

I just finished learning all kinds of stuff from @PGrandstaff’s newsletter. You should check it out!

I bet I’d even ReTweet that one.

ReTweets (RT)

ReTweeting is when someone repeats someone else’s tweet, so their own followers can see the original message.  This is now a full fledged feature of Twitter, but it started organically.  People wanted to pass on tweets, so they ReTweeted.  Twitter listened, and now tweets in a timeline have a ReTweet button.

The traditional way of ReTweeting follows a formula:

RT @OriginalAuthor Content of original tweet [ReTweeter's comment]

It varies of course, some people credit the author at the end with “via @OriginalAuthor.”  The nice thing about this method is you can add your own thoughts.  However, problems arise with the 140 character limit per tweet.  In order to credit the author or add a comment tweets can be edited for length when ReTweeting.  There is a risk of altering the original meaning, though.

So, the new, official ReTweet feature lets you send someone’s tweet to all your followers with a click.  Your followers will see the tweet as if they were following the original author, with their picture and name.  Your name will appear underneath as the person relaying the tweet.

The Official ReTweet function probably won’t replace the original.  So, for optimal ReTweetability leave room in your tweets for people to add “RT @YourName ” — that’s 5 characters plus the length of your user name.

Hashtags: #hashtag

Hashtags let you add categories or keywords to your tweet.  Using hashtags allows people to aggregate all the tweets on a subject.  They consist of the hash sign, #, and a keyword with no spaces.  This is another feature created by Twitter users that is now official.  Hashtags are now automatically turned into links to Twitter searches.

You’ll see hashtags being used for conferences and events a lot.  You can follow live coverage of all sorts of things by searching for the associated hashtag.  You can track what’s going on in a city or state, or you can tune in to a topic.

A couple of examples for you, #NaNoWriMo #NC #SmallBiz.  It isn’t always easy to tell what a hashtag is about just by looking at it.  A Google search should tell you if clicking on the hashtag doesn’t.

See also, How to Tweet Well.

This post first appeared in my monthly small business newsletter.

• Aweber – No footer ads, ever.
• MailChimp – Footer ads can be disabled easily in your account if you’re a paying customer.
• Vertical Response – You’ll have to contact support to get the ad removed.
• Constant Contact – Same, you’ll have to put in a support request… adding your logo costs extra.
• iContact – Pay 10% extra per month (minimum $4.95) to remove the ad.  In their defense, iContact does have the least intrusive footer ad, plus they’re based right here in Raleigh, NC.

While I’m at it, I have to tell you why I hate Constant Contact.  It’s the name.  Sure, you want to be in constant contact with your list, but I’ll wager you’re readers would rather not hear from you constantly.  Years ago, I actually unsubscribed from a local company’s newsletter because of that Constant Contact logo at the bottom.  “Constant Contact?  I don’t want that.  My in-box if full enough already!”

Got a tip or something I missed? Share it in the comments below!

This post first appeared in my monthly small business newsletter.

image credit

How To Tweet Well

Well, Twitter became even more important this month.  Deals were announced with both Google and Microsoft to include Twitter posts — tweets — in search results.  So, before long, when someone searches for your company they might also see what people are saying about you on Twitter.  In my book, everything in search engine results matters big time, period.  Twitter also matters because it gives you another outlet to stay connected with your clients, donors, peers, etc. as well as to attract new ones.

Tweeting seems really simple.  Twitter seems really simple in general, at first.  It is a simple concept: write little messages no longer than 140 characters.  In theory each tweet should answer the question: What are you doing?  Dead simple.  But, actually doing this well gets complicated.  You’ll need to balance the amount you want to communicate with the amount of room you have, and still write something readable.  You’ll also need to stand out — catch people’s eyes.  You’ll want to elicit a response from the reader as well, e.g. click your link, reply to you, or just empathize with you.  Finally, you have to provide actual value in your tweets.  A few examples should help.

Bad Tweets – I’m making these up, to protect the guilty.

‘Buy our great widgets at http://www.example.com’

This kind of self promotion only works when someone has just said to themselves “Wow, those are some nice widgets, and I do need some new ones.”  On Twitter these types of give-me-your-money tweets are a sure fire way to be ignored — with sort of an exception for non-profits, see below.  If you want to get shoppers through Twitter, you’ll need to talk about benefits and provide useful content.  Really though, traditional selling doesn’t apply here.  Don’t pitch people.  Instead, talk to them, and engage with them.  Join the conversation.

‘I just posted a new article at http://www.example.com’

Unless you’re famous, and everyone just loves to read everything you write, this kind of tweet will do nothing for you.  If you want someone to read what you’ve just posted online tweet it with a strong headline, call to action, and link: ‘Meaning of Life Discovered – Learn the Truth at http://www….’  Okay, that’s a little over the top, but be sure to give people a reason to click.

‘I’m stuck in a meeting.’ or ‘I’m brushing my teeth.’

Okay, everybody brushes their teeth, and everybody goes to meetings.  This is what’s called life-casting, it very literally answers the question: What are you doing?  You might be thinking this kind of tweet has no place in your marketing plan.  Guess what though, when you do it right it shows off your human side and gets people to relate to you at a more personal level.  Just be sure to add some actual personality to the mix, e.g. ‘I’m brushing my teeth and dancing to my new Righteous Brothers CD!’

Good Tweets – These are actual tweets, with links to their tweeters. (The @ sign denotes Twitter user names.  I’m @PGrandstaff.)

‘Sprig Eco Recycling Truck – An Amazon Exclusive in Frustration Free Packaging http://bit.ly/x2aQg‘
– @amazon

It wasn’t easy to find a good example of a tweet used to sell a product.  Most people doing this don’t do it well, and even this one from Amazon isn’t perfect.  This tweet is promoting a toy recycling truck, made from a composite recycled plastic and sawdust material.  They tie the eco-toy theme in with their new Frustration Free Packaging strategy, and give a link.  What’s really excellent here is the link.  It doesn’t take you to a product page on Amazon, it takes you to a page all about this toy, Amazon’s efforts to save the environment, and an interview with the toy’s creators.  Perfect!  You’re not going to make a sale in 140 characters, but you are able to grab the reader’s attention and build some curiosity.  Satisfy the curiosity on the linked page, and build up desire for what you’re selling.  Then, you can try to make a sale or get their contact information.  Whatever you do, keep these types of tweets to a minimum.

‘The Omid e Mehr Foundation. Doing real good work on the ground in Tehran. Save the girls: http://bit.ly/p14Uh #iranelection’
– @oxfordgirl

This tweet came from an Iranian activist, and provides a good example of how non-profits can pull off blatant ’selling’ on twitter.  It’s totally different to come right out and ask for money when it’s being done selflessly.  This example was also particularly powerful in the context of this person’s other tweets, which have detailed countless human rights violations in Iran.  The call to action, ‘Save the girls,’ is awesome, but I think I would have opened with it since not everyone has heard of this organization.

‘Three Ways to Make Your Competitors Irrelevant – http://bit.ly/3a7oYC‘
– @copyblogger

This tweet yielded over 500 clicks.  It has a compelling headline.  It appeals to our need to beat the competition.  It implies easy to digest information (just Three Ways!) Then it links to an article that’s well written, informative, and delivers on the headline’s promise.  The only thing lacking is a call to action.

“My son, 6y/o, asked me for the first time today how my DAY was . . . I about melted. Told him that I had pizza for lunch. Response? No fair!”
– @BrentDPayne

This is a great example of life-casting done right.  It’s personal, but universal enough for anyone to relate to.  It also tells a complete story in 140 characters, impressive.  Mixing a few tweets like this in with your normal strategy will make your humanity shine.  In turn, you’ll really stand out from the crowds of faceless product pushers.

Okay, obviously there’s a lot more to Twitter than just tweeting well.  However, tweeting well is probably the single most important thing to understand if you want to make this social media outlet work for you.

Stay tuned for next month’s conclusion, where I’ll get into more of the nuts and bolts of Twitter.  For now, get on there and start tweeting.  All the knowledge in the world won’t do you a bit of good if you don’t use it.  Don’t worry about getting lots of followers, or knowing all the ins and outs.  Just try to put some quality tweets out there and let the rest grow organically.

Are there any lessons about tweeting well that you’ve learned the hard way?  Share your experiences below.

This post first appeared in my monthly small business newsletter.  Newsletter subscribers will get the next installment weeks before it appears here, on my blog.  So, sign up today to keep ahead of the curve!