One of the finesse tactics of PR is to know when to shut up. It might seem like a company’s PR team has to always reply to each statement made about them, but that’s not true. Rumors, pretend-news from sources with no credibility, these require no reply whatsoever, as an official company statement would just validate them and point other more relevant sources to the up to then false problem.

Another case just popped out while browsing the TechCrunch feed today. What started like an observation about numbers of Twitter followers of AT&T and Verizon turned into a cat fight of acid remarks from both companies. As the Techcrunch author pointed out, the fact that the two companies responded was quite a surprise. In today’s Twitter exchange, silence was a smarter move for both companies. Now they either look like frustrated old ladies fighting over their picked fences or like small children poking each other, pointing fingers and laughing. Continue reading

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One of the methods of attracting more followers on Twitter is to make a bold and easily noticeable statement that you follow back. It’s that little extra added to the profile description that might seem like a good idea, but really isn’t. Why? Because of how it makes you look!

First, it says you’re in the habit of following spammers. Because there are spammers adding you to their followed list every day and saying you follow everyone back (automatically or not) will just draw more to you. As everyone fears spammers, your embracing them might trigger the spamming flag in some people’s minds when analyzing you as a person they might follow. Continue reading

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Stats Squared is a Twitter analytics tool that was born out of Indianapolis Startup Weekend.  If you are unfamiliar with Startup Weekend, the premise is that you have 56 hours to build a viable business, and if you can – go live with the business/product. Stats Squared won the 4th annual Indianapolis Startup Weekend and 1st ever Indianapolis Startup Weekend Battle. They are now part of 16 cities vying to win the Global Startup Battle — you can vote for them here: http://bit.ly/votestatssquared. This team from Indianapolis has some serious steam built up around an extremely useful product.

The Twitter analytics tool they’ve created focuses plain and simple on Twitter links. Front and center is CTR and link maturation on those links.  The idea was born out of the needs of two of the founders (Ryan Cox and Brandon Corbin) along with the recent article Randfish from SEOmoz entitled:  Calculating and Improving your Twitter Click-Through Rate. “How can personal users, social media marketers, advertising agencies and big business better utilize an analytics tool to get down to the important stuff – traffic,” said one of the founders Ryan Cox.  ”I had to manage some 20 accounts both personal, professional and more my clients — and it was a chore to grab the data for all of the blog links, online marketing initiatives, campaigns, etc..  I needed something that gave me all of that information in one frame, and let me even peak in on my competitors or other digital marketers and see what they were doing and if it was working,” Ryan went on. Continue reading

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Guest post by Lauren Horn

Twitter presents the opportunity for you to connect with leaders in your industry, your peers and your target audience, while generating exposure and making connections. You have not only created your account, updated information, customized the look and feel of your page, but also begun tweeting up a storm. At this point, your following base should be through the roof, but you’re not seeing the results you anticipated, so now what?

So now, it’s important to remember that your page is just another marketing tool which ultimately needs to be promoted. Step back and first reassess your content and your purpose. Are you only tweeting about your product and services? Is your messaging consistent? How involved are you in the community? Are you following your target audience? Do you engage with your current followers? Are you listed? Do you utilize hashtags? These are just some things to consider. However, there are several ways to actually build a following. Below are some tips and tricks of the trade. Continue reading

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When we tweet something, a thought, a piece of information, we expect two things: starting a few conversations and getting retweets. Both are valuable, but while the first goal implies our community, the retweet part implies reaching out to more people and getting more views and opinions on what we have just sent into the Twitterverse.

So saying retweets are important is a bit of an understatement. And while we all try to read tips and tricks and find new strategies to have more retweets, I thought a road back to the basics of it all might help. And I asked myself: why do people retweet? And here’s a list of reasons I found:

• they find the tweet funny
• they’ve been through a similar situation – positive or negative. I should add here that when it’s a negative review, they tend to retweet more, compared to positive reviews of products and services
• they are interested in the topic and their community shares the interest
• they find your take on the matter unique and intriguing
• they are your raving supporters and like to promote your work
• they find it easier to add a quick comment to the retweet than post a longer comment on your blog
• they return favors

And now let’s get the comment-party started! What about you? Why do you retweet? Why do you think your followers retweet your articles and news?

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