Dear Hootsuite,

We love Twitter, professionally and personally. It is a fun way to stay connected, an effective way to share good news and to connect with others, and it can be part of a cross-medium SEO and relationship-building strategy.

We have used Hootsuite to manage multiple-user access to shared or enterprise accounts for a while now, and we wrote in 2009 how TweetDeck and Hootsuite are better together. Well, here’s the reason we’re writing you, dear Hootsuite. In the body of that post, we of course shared our passion for TweetDeck and then in comments section of that post, we expressed a preference for a competitor, CoTweet. And, we’re sorry about that, we really are.

You see, when we flirted with TweetDeck it was because of its ability to create lists and segment the Twitter streams we’re following into thematic groups. You do that now. And when we expressed our admiration for CoTweet, it was because we needed to be able to manage multiple users on multiple accounts, and Hootsuite, we think you would admit this yourself, that wasn’t your strength at that point. Yet, in the time since, you’ve really grown, and you’ve made that part simple and added other features that make you the Twitter client we recommend to our clients.

The source of our Ardor: Google Analytics Parameter Presets

Beyond those “keep up with the Joneses” type updates, you’ve really set yourself apart with your Google Analytics integration. We also love Google Analytics, it helps us measure the work we do for our clients, and it gives us lots of web data to dive into and extract value for our clients. And it makes us so happy that you and Google Analytics get along so well!

We often recommend the Google Analytics URL builder to help clients tag URLs used in campaigns for tracking. Well, in the excitement of sharing or scheduling a tweet, it can be hard to remember to paste in all of those parameters at the end. And so, we were thrilled to see the ability to set the parameters as a campaign default when any URL is shortened within your dashboard.

Request – Multiple Presets Please..?!

So, assuming you accept our apology, dear Hootsuite, would you be willing to listen to one pretty-please request?

We love the custom URL parameters so much that we want to use them ALL THE TIME, so we have a request for an extension or tweak to this functionality. You see, we would like to get more specific with our campaign names, well, because we’re hyper about analytics parameters. So, ideally the analytics custom presets would to be configurable at the level of of the account rather than the level of the entire Hootsuite dashboard. You see, if we’re tweeting for ourselves, tweeting for a client, or tweeting personally, we want to be able to use different campaigns to comply with their or our best practices. And, we would prefer not have to remember to reset them every time. We love the “set and forget” pleasure of having the preset there in the first place.

Anyway, Hootsuite, thanks for listening. We sure do appreciate the wise and helpful owl you’re turning out to be.

This week, Twitter unveiled its new revenue model of ‘Promoted Tweets‘. I wondered, what do Twitters 105 million registered users, who make up 600 million searches per day, think of this sponsored advertising that will start to appear in their previously advertisement free space?

To answer this question, I went to our social media ‘listening tool’, Radian6, to take a deeper look into Twitter users reaction to this news since it broke. For this, I’ve hidden the neutral sentiment, which accounts for ~90 of all posts and are generally just links to articles describing the changes, and focus this post solely on the positive and negative sentiment.

It seems most twitter users (78%) that share their opinions on the subject have a positive reaction to it, while only 22% expressed a negative response. Let’s take a look at what some of the good and bad comments have to say:

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Positive Comments

“Thinking of ways that OCHA (and the humanitarian community) could use Promoted Tweets to aid in the coordination of emergency response”

“Would prefer a promoted tweet in which i search for starbucks and kara thrace brings me a coffee. get to it, twitter”

“I think that Promoted Tweets have great potential to *improve* #marketing relevance: http://bit.ly/cLIbR6″

“Bravo will use Promoted Tweets to engage users on shows and will show some user tweets live on TV #aadigital”

“I really like @johnbattelle’s take on Promoted Tweets and resonance http://bit.ly/aCbuNI”

“Favs are dead. The new barometer of success will be Promoted Tweets. It’s like writing movie reviews and aiming for the box every time.”

“So now which firm will be first to claim paid tweet placement services for campaigns?: http://bit.ly/cdbPtt #twitterGetsRevenueModel”

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Negative Comments

“Twitter unveils promoted tweets. Great, I start twittering and twitter starts advertising ”

“So far my impression of Twitter’s forthcoming ‘promoted tweets’ – one big pop up ad.”

“I hope twitters new ‘promoted tweets’ monetization scheme doesn’t cut into my earnings for plugging MORT’S DELI IN TARZANA.”

“I’m all for monetization but fail to see how paid tweets can be the answer. willing to look at it in action, but have serious doubts”

“I’d pay twitter for filters. Tonight I’d block Glee, Promoted Tweets, the # symbol, the letters RT, Lost and LOL.”

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The way Twitter has decided to serve their ads seems very unintrusive, and if they’re actually targeted very well (unlike my experience with Facebook ads so far, which seem to think I’m in extreme need of registering for an online dating site and I should switch my career choice to being on the SWAT team), could actually be very helpful. A Starbucks sponsored tweet telling me which days I can get a venti chai for cheap? I’d love that!

In many ways, Twitter has been an advertising medium this whole time! A platform so well targeted, that it requires the user to sign up, and then seek out each advertiser they wish to follow. Hah, and you thought it was for micro-blogging…

@Moosejaw  consistently writes funny posts, but also push products and promotions.
@MichiganTheater advertises which new movies they’ll be showing this week.
@JoeNBC or @KeithOlbermann give me news updates, but they also promote their TV & radio shows every day
@NewScientist and @PitchforkMedia link me to their website with new and interesting articles, where they make money from ads
@RealTracyMorgan and @JennaMaroneyTGS promote the tv show 30Rock in their tweets

While many of the positive posts were a quick opinion of the idea of paid tweets, followed by a link to an article, it will be interesting to see how sentiment changes over time, and if people continue to complain over the course of the next few months as people become acclimated with Twitters new look. Buzz about this news seems to be dying down already, with the expected initial spike when it was first released, followed by a huge drop off only 24 hours later.

So, what are your initial reactions to the promoted tweets? Do you think it will succeed??

Last night, Twitter announced their much-anticipated advertising model: Promoted Tweets.

Twitter: The Start-up Darling

Most of our readers are already familiar with Twitter, the social networking and microblogging service that people and businesses use to broadcast updates (“tweets”) in 140 characters or less. Twitter launched in 2006, hit its stride in 2007, and became the darling of the start-up world in 2009 when Oprah featured the site on her show, which some analysts suggest resulted in over a million new account sign ups.

Along the way, experts have been speculating about whether Twitter can translate its massive user-base to profit. Up until now, Twitter’s revenue has come primarily from search deals with Google and Microsoft, to allow real-time search integration with their own search engines.

Twitter’s own real-time search engine is a huge part of its draw. Millions of people around the world, including journalists themselves, searched Twitter for live updates about top news events like the Iran Election Protests and Haiti earthquake. Trendwatchers follow Twitter’s “trending topics” closely to determine the “next big thing” (and even try to use it to make NCAA Final Four predictions). The Twitter trend feature, topic feeds, and more are all built on top of its search engine.

Promoted Tweets: A Familiar Song

Now, with Promoted Tweets, they’re leveraging that search function even more and adding a new revenue model to the mix. This service will allow businesses to pay for their tweets to be promoted to the top of the Twitter searches they choose. Sound familiar?

The model is remarkably similar to the paid-search advertising model used by Google, Yahoo, Bing, and many other engines. Advertisers choose the keywords they’re interested in, and bid for placement at the top of the results.

Also similar to traditional paid search, a top bid does not necessarily guarantee top placement (not forever anyway). Like Google’s “Quality Score” factor, which rewards ads that seem to resonate with users, Twitter will only promote those Tweets that meet a threshold “Resonance Score,” based on users interactions with the Tweets. Users can interact with Promoted Tweets just like regular Tweets – by retweeting, favoriting, and replying to the tweet.

Twitter says that for now, advertisers will pay-per-thousand-views (a.k.a. pay-per-impression) of the promoted Tweet, but they’ll introduce other bidding options in the future. A Resonance Score based on user interactions almost certainly spells out a new pay model for the industry- pay-per-interaction. Tweets don’t have to link to anything, so the model can’t exclusively be pay-per-click. Pay-per-impression is not particularly innovative, and would leave room for gaming the Resonance Score model (what’s to stop big companies from getting all their employees to favorite their Promoted Tweet to maintain a high resonance score?). I expect (hope!) it will be some sort of hybrid between pay-per-click and pay-per-interaction.

What’s Next

Right now Promoted Tweets are only being shown on Twitter search itself, but there are plans to allow Promoted Tweets to be shown by Twitter clients and other ecosystem partners soon. On their blog, Twitter indicates this would include displaying relevant Promoted Tweets in a user’s account timeline, which suggests they will show promoted Tweets in the user’s own feed even if they are not following the advertiser directly.

So long as Twitter exercises restraint, and I imagine they will, I don’t think there will be a huge backlash by users seeing these Promoted Tweets in their own feed. That said, I am curious to see how partners like Google and Microsoft will react to promoted Tweets in the API. Will they accept showing Twitter promoted Tweets in their real-time search results for a cut of the revenue? Or will they block these promoted Tweets altogether? Will Twitter provide a revenue share akin to AdSense with those users who embed a Twitter feed on their own site? (I doubt it.) Will they allow sites with embedded Twitter feeds to block Promoted Tweets? (I think site owners will demand the ability to block specific advertisers at least, particularly if Twitter allows political advertising.)

For the time being, the program is only open to specific partners “that include Best Buy, Bravo, Red Bull, Sony Pictures, Starbucks, and Virgin America — with more to come” and there will only be one promoted Tweet per search results page. As Twitter begins to scale its program, I imagine they’ll run into no small number of challenges. Among the things they’ll have to build for a full launch to the public (in no particular order):

• Advertiser interface for creating and managing an account
• Reporting interface and conversion tracking system
• Broad matching algorithm to ensure that their revenue is not severely limited by the specificity of advertiser keyword lists
• Billing & payments system (not to mention fraud protection system)
• Advertiser customer support team, help centers, etc.
• Impression, click, and (now) interaction spam filters and protections

All that work plus scaling what is no doubt an incredibly complex real-time bidding process (especially considering their resonance score calculation), and it looks like there is a long road ahead. Advertisers spending big bucks will not be as patient with the famous Fail Whale as your typical Twitter user.

Twitter can be a powerful tool for corporations. Marketing possibilities through Twitter feeds are endless; Dell and Amazon MP3 use their Tweets to promote special deals not offered anywhere else. The NBA, on the other hand, keeps their followers apprised of breaking score updates, such as tie games with minutes left. Etsy, the craft-dealer, notifies artists of cool new craft stores in their area and has scavenger hunt giveaways. These companies are among The Big Money Twitter 12, a list of twelve companies recognized by Slate magazine as using Twitter most efficiently.

The similarities these corporations share is that their Tweets are all pertinent to their followers. They listen to what is being said about their brand or company. They give value to their followers whether it’s via discounts, news alert or helpful hints. Most importantly, they use their Twitter account as a place for open dialogue with their followers. It is imperative to remember to engage rather than just promote. Do you have a vote for an excellent Twitter feed?

As is often the case, when I fall in love with a product I’m not shy about recommending it! Lately, TweetDeck and Hootsuite are in my bag of commonly recommended tools, much to the puzzlement of Twitter friends who are curious about the advantage of using both. Mystery solved! Here’s why TweetDeck and Hootsuite are better together:

TweetDeck manages my Tweeps
Hootsuite manages my Tweeting

Read More

I am frequently asked by early stage entrepreneurs what software we use, so here’s a quick list of the five online applications I can’t live without.

1. Salesforce.com. I started using salesforce back in the demo days when you could get a 3 user license that did everything for $50/month. Ah, those were the days… These days, it’s amazing we don’t scare off new employees with the mantra “it’s in salesforce” as the answer to seemingly every question. Seriously though, salesforce is where I spend my day. Every person who fills out a contact form on this website winds up in there automagically, and every person I’m supposed to call or have ever called is in there. (It’s a founders job to sell, after all.) Essentially, Salesforce.com functions as a much needed extension of my brain as our sales pipeline grows, and it’s pretty darn handy for sharing customer contact info within the company.




2. Basecamp. Yes, salesforce has project management stuff you can tack on, but lets just say it wasn’t a huge hit when we tried it. Not that basecamp is absolutely perfect either, but you know they’re doing something right when you turn it on and people start adding data without any arm twisting. Basecamp also shares something in common with one of my favorite things about salesforce: the “wish for it and it will come” feature. I suppose it helps that we aren’t shy about sharing what features we need , but we’ve happily seen things appear over time such as cross-project search and posting via email that make our lives SO much simpler.




3. Socialtext. I wasn’t exactly sure we needed a wiki as yet-another-place-to-store-data. But once again, it’s hard to argue with a technology that is easily adopted by the organization and has taken on a life of its own. In a way, it’s like a giant shared filing cabinet for everything about anything internal. (Whereas basecamp shares project-specific data, and salesforce captures the sales process. So it’s not as complicated to have 3 systems as it might sound.)




4. blist. I’m adding this to the list a bit early, as it’s still got a ways to go to get through all the bugs. However, I would will it out of beta, if I could. It’s not uncommon to need to compare a list of stuff and figure out which entries match criteria a, b, and c. Blist does this with “lenses” over an online spreadsheet with simple and/or choices; no programming lingo (ie SQL) required. I honestly haven’t seen anything similar, but let me know if you have!




5. twitter. I have been known to say we’re in the business of creating serendipity, and I think that’s what I love most about Twitter. This micro-blogging tool encourages you to share what you’re experiencing or thinking in 140 character bursts. And because people can follow either your persona OR create feeds on any word of interest, you wind up serendipitously meeting people with similar interests. People who often become instant friends, pitching in and answering questions or cheerleading when you have a breakthrough moment at 2 am. Twitter is a truly social network that I’m grateful for as an entrepreneur.

   So that’s my top five web applications – what are yours?

This was an exciting email to get, given that Chris Brogan was one of the first people I wound up following on Twitter. I’m so excited that he’s coming here, I’ll simply repost his email in the interest of getting out the word sooner than later!

I wanted to tell you that I’m coming to Detroit to run ITEC Detroit (an IT event) on the 21st and 22nd, at the Rock Financial Showplace. First, if you’re interested in tech and want to attend, it’s free, so feel free to register, and pass on to others in the area, if it’s of interest.

Second, I’m hosting a social media breakfast on Thursday morning the 22nd, at 8:30AM. You might find that interesting, and I’d love for you to come by for that.

Finally, if you’re a Twitter type and want to put together some kind of Tweetup for Wednesday night, that’d be really fun, too.

So… who’s up for a Tweetup and knows a good place to hang out near the Rock Financial Showplace?!

You have heard Pure Visibility beating the social media networking drum quite a bit lately, especially about Twitter and LinkedIn. But it’s only because we get excited about networking technologies that will ultimately help our clients expand their business.

When one of my colleagues first mentioned that I should join Twitter I was skeptical that it serve any purpose in my life. I have two kids and barely enough time in my life to watch TV let alone Twitter about it. Then it happened, over time (even though I rarely made tweets) I started to see the value in Twitter. I was able to see at a glance interesting things my friends were doing, which led to me actually talking to them about it the next day. I’d say something like, “Hey I saw on Twitter you and the family went to the Chelsea fair, I think I’ll take the kids there tonight.” Now I was connected with friends I only saw every month or so, I was a part of something bigger but on my terms. Pretty cool if you ask me.

Still I hear friends and clients not quite understanding why this Twitter phenomenon is sweeping the web. I can be a cheerleader (not a pretty sight by the way) and share heartfelt networking stories like mine, but Common Craft has video that explains exactly what I’m talking about. Take a peek and enjoy.

If you’re a Michigan resident, see how MLive.com uses Twitter to reach out and stay current with its audience. http://www.mlive.com/twitter

I just got teased today by the astute Bud Gibson of Michigan Innovators that there aren’t any obvious links to find Linda and I on Twitter from the Pure Visibility website. So here they are:

Catherine Juon: http://www.twitter.com/cjuon
Linda Girard: http://www.twitter.com/lgirard
And of course Bud’s group on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/innovators

And since the next logical question is “Why do you use Twitter?”, here goes…

Twitter, like LinkedIn (see my earlier post about Getting LinkedIn), has required effort + patience before anything interesting happened. People tend to give up when nothing happens right away. But you know what? This online stuff isn’t any different from real-world networking.

Have you ever gone to a group/association/networking event full of people you didn’t know and come home from the first one with a million dollar project? (If you have, I’d like to talk to you – email me at cjuon @ purevisibility.com)

Spending time with Twitter is much like going to a networking event.

• There are some people I know there (those are the ones I connected with first),
• some friends I invited to catch up with me there (like Catherine Buerkle in Germany – it has been a great way to feel like we’re not an ocean apart)
• and lots of new friends that I’ve made there because they know someone in one of the first two categories,
• and lots of new friends that found me because I said something that happened to resonate in some way – like talking about Detroit, or Michigan, or the Red Cross or Search Engine Optimization, etc.

And THIS is what I would argue makes Twitter cool. It’s not just that its 140 character limit creates short and digestible messages (tho that REALLY helps). It’s that it adds a whole new dimension to networking. Beyond the traditional way of finding someone through somebody who knows someone (such as in traditional networking or online communities like LinkedIn), you can randomly find people who share an interest in a common topic though tools that allow you to effectively “follow” words (vs. just people).

And for whatever reason, Twitter seems to be a community full of people that are open to this sort of serendipitous networking. People who generally enjoy reading each others stuff, and who seem to enjoy the role of being good samaritans. I could write a book full of examples, but here are a few:

• When my used but well-loved convertible got totaled while sitting in front of the house, I twittered my state of bummed-outedness and got immediate responses from people I barely know to cheer me up. (How cool is that?)
• When a Twitter friend was diagnosed with cancer, the world seemed to swell up around her and offer help in a way that has already been really well documented – just search for Frozen Pea Fund (long story, but you’ll find out why it’s so named eventually).
• When we were looking for websites designed in the Midwest for Create magazine and Twittered out a call for submissions, we got immediate answers… The list goes on.

And the best thing about Twitter is that I can network with my friends there without having to skip dinner with my family, and my friends are always there even if I’m stuck in an airport waiting for a flight. It’s networking when you have time for networking, instead of every third Wednesday night at 6 pm at yet-another-hotel.

Of course, I do both. But now that the kids are older and need help with homework after school it’s nice to have alternatives. Thanks, Twitter!

And now, a word from the Twitterati – why do you use Twitter?

I’m not an early adopter – I just hang around a bunch of them.

By November 17, 2003, enough of these early adopter types (aka friends) had bugged me about LinkedIn that I finally felt compelled to sign up and give it a whirl. For a long, long time it was mostly my techie friends there. And not much happening.

Years later, when facebook took off and I became a Twitter addict, I figured LinkedIn was dead. Unlike these other social media tools, LinkedIn wasn’t “giving back”. You could collect data (ie make connections and add resume items) but beyond that, what was the use? It seemed limited to being a virtual file cabinet for resumes – and I’ve already got enough places to file things, thanks. Read More