One of the most important factors to measure your social performance is to monitor user engagement level.

The new Engagement Analytics report allows users to see:

-          Which tweets have been retweeted and mentioned

-          Where your retweeted users come from

-          Who has retweeted your tweets or mentioned you

-          When you get most of the engagement(retweets and mentions)

SocialMotus Engagement Analytic Report for Twitter and Facebook

See which tweets have been retweeted or mentioned and by who

Who has retweeted your tweets or mentioned you

Take your free trial now at http://www.socialmotus.com/signup

As you can see from AllTwitter’s Twitter infographic (and your competitors), there’s no denying how important Twitter is for businesses.

But as each month passes, there seem to be more and more Twitter tools flooding the already crowded market. Each with their own unique features to help your businesses effectively market your brand.

Today, I’ll detail 4 little known Twitter tools for business (or gems as I like to call them) packed with awesome features to help you get the upper hand on your competitors and build stronger ties with your target audience.

Create Interactive Images

We’ve all heard the adage ‘A picture is worth a thousand words’. It’s amazing how much is conveyed in a single still image.

Not surprisingly images images have become effective content for Twitter marketing with several studies reporting images as the content most shared and engaged with. In fact, a recent BuddyMedia report found images increase engagement rates up to two times more than tweets without images.

Now Twitter images just got a whole lot better with the introduction of interactive images powered by ThingLink.

Interactive images have small icons strategically placed throughout the image. Hover over these to see videos, audio player, links to webpages, additional words and more.

As you can imagine, it provides a rich experience for your target audience as it offers multiple points of engagement between you and your followers.

Take this Good as Gold image for example. Instead of simply displaying an image, users can hover over to view pricing information and get links to the specific product they’re interested in.

On the other hand CNBC encourages users to follow them on other social sites.

The marketing and promotion possibilities from a simple image has taken on a whole new level with Interactive images.

To get started head over the the Thinglink website.

1. Login with your Twitter account.
2. Click on ‘Create’ on the top right hand corner.
3. Click on ‘Choose images or drag-and-drop here’ to upload an image from your computer.
4. Now simply click on any part of the image you want to provide more details of, then add a link and description and click ‘Save’.

Now just use the sharing buttons to share it to your Twitter account.

Share Screencasts on Twitter

Another great way to perk up your Twitter stream, and save it from the monotony of tweets that look the same is to take advantage of Twitter’s multimedia features and post a screencast.

Let’s be honest. Most of us don’t have the budget or equipment to create pretty videos with high production value.

But a screencast simply requires a webcam (built into most laptops) and a decent inbuilt or external speaker.

Screenr is a free app that lets you to create screencasts quickly and easily, including the option to add an audio commentary.

1. On the homepage, you just need to sign in with your Twitter account.
2. While still on the homepage, click ‘Record’ or ‘Launch screen recorder now’.

1. Click ‘Run’ on the pop up to run the Screenr app and a frame will appear.
2. Now just open the webpage you want to record in another Browser tab or open the program or file you want to record (the frame will stay on your screen regardless of what’s showing on your computer screen).

1. Often you’ll only want to record part of your computer screen. Screenr lets you move the frame by clicking on the edges and dragging it, or adjust the size of the frame by clicking on the corners of the frame and dragging it in and out. When you are happy with the part of your computer it will record, click on the red circle underneath the frame.

1. When you’re finished, click ‘Done’.

This screencast can then be shared straight to Twitter and YouTube and embedded onto your blog posts!

It’s great for sharing new products and services, website redesigns, creating video demos of product features and anything else you like.

It’s also likely to engage your followers a bit more as they might not be used to seeing this kind of content within Twitter.

RJ Jacquez did just this, and even got a retweet out of it!

A Twitter Search Tip for making sure you never miss a mention or RT, especially from newcomers. screenr.com/E63s

— RJ Jacquez (@rjacquez) January 10, 2012

Schedule messages at optimal times’

I’m always surprised with the lack of people using a Twitter scheduler tool. There are dozens on the market, each with its unique algorithm to determine the best time to schedule tweets.

While I can’t say which is the best I do recommend you try the new SocialMotus Optimal Scheduler tool. As you might expect it queues and delivers content from its users at optimal times throughout the day the user specifies.

The existing part is Optimal Scheduler is the first of its kind to let you choose the day of the week you want it delivered!

Other scheduler tools limit the number of queued messages delivered each day and rollover messages to the next day once this limit is reached.

You can access this anywhere where you could previously schedule posts including the Engagement and Monitor sections at optimal times and days.

To schedule a post at optimal times, simply:

1. Click the ‘Schedule’ icon when editing a new post.

1. Select ‘Auto Schedule’ from the drop down.

1. By default SocialMotus will choose an optimal time for the current day. To change this simply click on another day.

1. Click ‘Publish’

Your message is now scheduled for an optimal time.

Make Tweetups better

Tweetups as its name suggests was created to help Twitter users create invitations to offline meetings between Twitter users. However, its usefulness extends beyond this initial function. You can use the platform to invite participants and promote all types of events  on Twitter including product launches, seminars, shows and so on.

By using Tweetup you gain additional free promotion. For example, tweetvite allows you to assign a hashtag for your event so if your attendee posts in the comment section, it can easily be copied to Twitter with a link and hashtag to your event.

Better yet, when they accept your Tweevite invitation using their Twitter accounts with this RSVP being shown publicly for their followers to see as you can see from this Conkers tweetup below. It also encourages interaction among attendees as they can see others who will be attending on the Tweetvite invitation.

You might also think about using Tweetvite as the admin page for your regular Twitter chats like #qrchat does.

As you can see, it’s just a great way to create a community around your project.

To get started, head over to Tweetvite.

1. From the top right hand corner of the homepage, click “Login” and then log in with your Twitter account.
2. Click the dark blue button called “Create A Tweetup.”
3. Now fill in all the details. Tip: If you want to create a hashtag for your event, make it the same as your event name. This makes it easier for people to find tweets about your event when they search for it in Twitter.
4. Scroll to the bottom of the page to “Public URL” field. Here you should customize the link so your event name is in the link that is shared. This helps with branding.
5. Now you just need to promote it!

Know any other great, underutilised Twitter tools? Let us know in the comments below!

Siv Rauv

Siv Rauv is a Marketing Executive at SocialMotus. Her expensive Marketing degree taught her nothing about online marketing, but through extensive self-learning and trial and error she’s successfully implemented several social media marketing strategies. She happily shares her experiences through her articles.

If you aren’t a crazed Justin Bieber or One Direction fan, she would be happy to connect with you on Twitter and Google +.

   

Related articles

• How To Use Social Media As A Customer Service Tool (socialmotus.com)
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It seems the world has gone social and businesses are struggling to keep up.

The image above comes from the 2011 Customer Experience Impact Report from RightNow Technologies, and paints a disappointing portrait of the current customer service landscape.

Thanks to its instantaneous nature, more consumers are turning to social media sites to quickly resolve their issues. So with little more than a 140 character tweet or short Facebook post, consumers have the power to publicly praise or criticise your brand for everyone to see.

It is clear businesses can no longer afford to ignore social media as a customer service platform.

Ignore it and you might miss out on building solid relationships with customers, lose a customer, or worse, fuel the wrath of an already angry customer. Respond and receive real consumer feedback, improved brand image and loyal customers.

Okay so you’re on board. Now where should you start?

Today I present to you a guide to using social media as a customer service tool.

Take Advantage Of Direct Messages

More often than not, consumers will contact you through a public @mention tweet or post on your Facebook wall. Logically you respond with a public tweet or Facebook comment.

But in certain cases (almost all cases for Twitter), it is best to continue through private direct messages (DM).

First, they might need to provide you with their personal email address or other sensitive information.

Second, if you have a single Twitter account used to promote the product, tweet interesting content and provide support, you don’t want followers to see a flood of support messages only. At the same time, you want users to publicly @mention issues to you so you can show potential customers you are happy to help anyone needing assistance.

The key is finding a good balance.

Here is the best way to handle a customer service/support tweet:

1. Send 1 or 2 public @mentions apologizing for the inconvenience, acknowledging the situation and/or providing a brief explanation if needed. Then request they send you more information such as their order number through a DM.

@christinewilla_ Sorry for the confusion our print & website subscriptions are separate. Please DM me your email & I can forward the recipe!

— America’sTestKitchen (@TestKitchen) November 20, 2012

2. Continue responding through DM. If the user responds through a public tweet again, reply through @mention and let them know you’ll respond through DM to encourage them to DM you only.

3. Once the issue is resolved, you can turn to public @mentions again if the consumer is only asking general questions that other users might want the answer to. You can also acknowledge publicly the issue was resolved to increase positive perceptions of your brand. Or even better, the customer publicly thanks you for helping them.

@jpaaige35 @hyattconcierge just sent Gene another email he could have responded to email as this is not good customer service.

— Paige (@jpaaige35) November 24, 2012

@hyattconcierge -cannot thank you enough someone did get back to me with a full refund and an invite to lunch or dinner.

— Paige (@jpaaige35) November 25, 2012

Keep in mind some issues require lengthy responses through email. In this case, you simply need to acknowledge the issue. Then prioritize their email if it is an urgent issue or if they are particularly upset.

But when possible, DMs are also extremely useful for customer service, instead of simply directing them to contact you via email (which lets be honest, can take much longer to respond to).

Create a separate support account

If you receive a lot of support messages, moving Twitter conversations to a separate secondary Twitter account is a good option.

This way you can focus your main account solely on creating brand awareness, sharing general information and building relationships with Twitter users.

It is up to you what name you want to use. Most brands have some variation of their brand name and the word support or customer service.

1. If a user directs a support message at your main account, first reply from the main account acknowledging the issue and informing them they’ll receive a response from the Twitter support account shortly.

2. The support account needs to respond within the shortest amount of time possible. It’s is still a good idea to utilise DMs to avoid cluttering up your Twitter page, as well as for sensitive or private information.

If you do set up 2 Twitter profiles, use a social management platform to quickly respond.

For example, with SocialMotus you can quickly switch between different accounts by simply clicking on the ‘+’ sign on the top left hand corner. A list of your social sites will appear so you can view engagements for each social site.

Humanize your brand

Humanize the experience by letting the customer know he or she is speaking with a real person and not an autobot.

Here are some suggestions:

Personalize your Twitter bio

Provide your personal Twitter handles in your company’s Twitter bio to help build trust with your brand.Your customers, if they have very urgent questions, can also turn to their personal accounts instead if appropriate. This will help build the credibility of your employees and/or colleagues as well.

End tweets with team members names

If someone different from the usual person publishes on your company account tweets, make sure they end it with their first name. This helps your employees or colleagues connect with customers on a more personal level, rather than dealing with a mystery person. Remember, several studies including the 2011 Customer Experience Impact Report found consumers develop loyalty to brands through friendly and helpful front end employees.

@Hoptoad4 Please follow and DM me if you have any questions, or concerns about placing an order. I’d be happy to assist. – Stacey

— 1-800-FLOWERS.COM (@1800flowers) August 24, 2012

Reply in a helpful manner and follow up

From the first response you send, regardless of whether it is in response to a happy or irate customer, you need to show that you genuinely care about solving the problem at hand.

Users will often send public messages so ignoring a message or replying in a rude or dismissive manner, not only negatively affects the person you’re directly dealing with but damages your reputation in the eyes of everyone else who sees the message.

While you can create a template for responses, don’t always respond with the same message, and try to reference the message you’re responding to.

For example, Cara Pring, author of the popular blog The Social Skinny, details her experience with Commonwealth Bank and turned it into a great social media customer service case study. She received a call from a bank employee trying to upsell her life insurance. The woman was quite rude so she took to Twitter to notify Commonwealth Bank of the experience. What she received was 3 quite different responses that present good case studies of how to respond to complaints.

The first (generic and dismissive) response you should not use:

The second (good) response a few hours later that is acceptable:

The third (great) response the next day that will help you turn an angry customer into a happy one:

All 3 responses were sent within 24 hours. The first one left her feeling frustrated and was completely unnecessary if they were going to follow up with the next 2 tweets. In this situation, it would have been best to simply send the last tweet which Cara describes as being,

‘the sort of tweet I would expect – personal, proactive and efficient. So, after receiving this tweet I did respond. I sent them a DM with my phone number and a note that it wasn’t a big deal but they could call me to get more details.’

This leads me onto my next point.

Don’t over promise what you can’t deliver

After stating they would call in the tweet, Cara never received a phone call.

Big no no.

This left her more disappointed than when she sent her original tweet. Worse still, she wrote a blog post about her experience for all her readers to see.

While it would be wonderful to have the resources to satisfy every customer and turn every customer complaint into a great customer service story, reality isn’t that simple. Sometimes, the best you can do is let the customer know how sorry you are to reduce their frustration and show others that you at least acknowledge the situation, rather than avoid negative messages (Just make sure you response as quickly as possible).

This is always better than giving them false hopes or not delivering on your promises.

Quick responses for priority messages

Some brands respond within minutes, others respond within a day. There is no one rule, but remember Twitter and Facebook are instantaneous communication channels so the faster the better.

As we have just launched our social tool, we do not receive a large amount of support queries through Twitter or Facebook, most are still sent via email. Currently, we check for support messages when we get into the office, mid day and the end of the day.

Side note: Sorry for the delay in responses to non-Australian users. Due to the time difference we can’t get answer your messages as quickly as we’re tucked in bed during your work hours!

We do, however, receive several @mentions for shares of our blog posts and tweets, so getting to the support issues can be a bit of a pain.

Try SocialMotus’s priority messaging system which filters through large volumes of conversations to bring the most urgent messages to your attention.

You simply need to go to ‘Settings’>‘Rules’> ‘Priority message’. Then click on ‘Add Rules’.

Enter a name to categorize this list of keywords. Sample names include ‘Support messages’, ‘Junk Messages’, ‘Positive messages’, ‘Profanities’. SocialMotus lets you create different sets of priority lists.

Enter the important keywords under this category. For example, if you use Twitter or Facebook as a support channel, you could add the words below:

• Help
• Support
• Issue

Then click on the ‘Manage’> ‘pencil’ icon next to the social account you want to enable the priority keywords for. It will expand.

You can actually set different priority keywords for different accounts depending on your needs, or the same set of keywords for different accounts.

Now, when Twitter and Facebook messages directed at your account contain these keywords (help, support, issue etc), the message will be flagged with a red ‘!’ to indicate they are priority messages and the keyword highlighted in yellow.

You can respond, share the post, assign to a team member, archive or simply leave a note about the message. If you need more information on the user or want to follow them, hover over their username.

Do you have any customer service tips or experiences you want to share? Let us know in the comments below.

Siv Rauv

Siv Rauv is a Marketing Executive at SocialMotus. Her expensive Marketing degree taught her nothing about online marketing, but through extensive self-learning and trial and error she’s successfully implemented several social media marketing strategies. She happily shares her experiences through her articles.

If you aren’t a crazed Justin Bieber or One Direction fan, she would be happy to connect with you on Twitter and Google +.

   

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Two weeks after our official SocialMotus launch, we’re pleased to announce a new addition to our list of awesome features: Optimal Scheduler.

Optimal Scheduler automatically queues and delivers content from its users at optimal times throughout the day the user specifies. Our algorithm looks at a number of behavioral insights from users and their social communities to determine optimal exposure and social engagement times.

That’s right. Optimal Scheduler is the first of its kind to let you choose the day of the week you want it delivered!

We’ve listened to your suggestions and took note of the many people who complained about other scheduler tools that limited the number of queued messages delivered each day and rollover messages to the next day once this limit is reached.

From promoting the end of a sale to the release of a product, there are so many instances where messages need to be delivered not only at optimal times but optimal days to maximize impact.

The best part is this isn’t limited to new posts you publish, you can access this anywhere where you could previously schedule posts. Now you can schedule everything from retweets at optimal times within the Engagement section to responses to conversations discovered within the Monitor section, at optimal times and days.

How To Schedule New Messages At An Optimal Time

1. Click the ‘Schedule’ icon when editing a new post.

2. Select ‘Auto Schedule’ from the drop down.

3. By default SocialMotus will choose an optimal time for the current day. To change this simply click on another day.

4. Click ‘Publish’

Your message is now scheduled for an optimal time.

How To Schedule Replies or Retweets Using Optimal Scheduler

1. When you click on ‘Reply’ or ‘Retweet’, the message box will appear. Simply select the ‘Optimal Schedule’ option, select the day of the week you want it sent.

How To view or edit your optimal scheduled messages

1. Go to ‘Publish’>’Schedule’. All optimal scheduled messages will have a clock icon next to the publish date.

2. Click on the ‘pencil’ icon to edit the scheduled message.

For more details, see the demo video below:

We are excited to announce the official release of SocialMotus, our social media management tool for businesses and agencies.

After several months, we’ve finally emerged from beta mode to unveil in-depth team management and analytics at a fraction of the cost of similar competitors such as Argyle and Wildfire. SocialMotus provides comprehensive multi-user support, conversion tracking, integration with Google Analytics and dozens of features to help businesses create real value from social media.

Businesses are struggling to see positive business outcomes from social media due to restrained company resources. Prior to SocialMotus, no social management tool offered the ability to track ROI conversions from customized campaigns and individual posts while providing multi-user support without costing businesses several hundred dollars.

SocialMotus merges affordability with high level management and tracking, allowing businesses to gather intelligence on their social marketing performance across all Facebook and Twitter accounts. SMBs now have access to real, measureable business value from their social media initiatives without the hefty price tag.

“Twitter and Facebook are now champions of brand engagement and relationship management, providing a cost effective means for promotions, growth and improved sales. Sadly, the biggest struggle confronting mid-size businesses was the inability to accurately measure the value of their social media according to the SMB Group’s latest annual social business study. The same struggle ranks second among small businesses,” explained David Lin, SocialMotus founder and CEO.

SocialMotus consolidates social media monitoring, engagement, leads discovery and analyticsinto a manageable interface, with emphasis on social media ROI metrics. Capabilities include intelligent priority messaging system, targeted monitoring grouped by topic, access to targeted Twitter followers and customizable engagement dashboard. Clients can also expect high level social analytics tools with its Facebook and Google Analytics integration, publishing statistics and conversation tracking campaigns.

“We want companies to truly understand how they’re performing and improve on that performance. Nobody has put this kind of information into a simple, easily understood console for the affordable price we’re offering. It’s about time smaller companies have access to the same level of tools offered to bigger brands”, Mr Lin explains.

After its official launch, users can expect SocialMotus to leverage cross-platform functionality that will integrate across Facebook and twitter, with LinkedIn coming shortly. Mr Lin further explains, “It’s exciting to bring social media and conversion analytics together to enable our customers to take the next step in improving the customer experience using social networks.” Businesses will have the knowledge to create meaningful connections with clients, measure the success of social efforts and understand exactly where spend to their limited time.

SocialMotus will launch with an affordable introductory pricing structure starting from $9.99 per month for single users and $59.99 for up to 5 users, with a 30 day trial.

To start using SocialMotus to fast track your social media efforts, click here.

About SocialMotus

SocialMotus is a new startup based in Sydney Australia, and has now launched the first Australian developed social management, monitoring, engagement and measurement platform. It is designed to help companies and agencies fast track their social media efforts, while accurately measuring its impact on business outcomes. SocialMotus offers a free version and paid versions supporting multi-users and conversion tracking at a fraction of the cost of similar competitors, turning social data into real, actionable engagement intelligence for more effective campaigns. More info at http://www.socialmotus.com.

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“If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”

Sometimes I think brands carry this philosophy into the social media realm. Several case studies have pointed to brands ignoring their customers on social media, believing their small, individual voices won’t be heard by others.

But I’m here to tell you that yes, yes it does make a sound. A really loud sound.

Social media has forced brands to relinquish control over to consumers who can influence how others perceive them.

Social monitoring helps you tap into these conversations to capitalize on positive sentiment and mitigate negative sentiment, while understandinghow competitors are perceived and industry trends are changing. Ignore it at your own peril.

I know how overwhelming trackingthis vast and never-ending stream of information can be when you have never-ending lists of tasks to perform (All the late nights I’ve worked overtime are testament to this!).

To help make it easier for you to stay on top of this information overload, here are the social monitoring tools I use to quickly connect with the information I need to effectively manage SocialMotus.

Track News and Blogs Through Feeds

Meet your new best friends: feeds.

Save yourself time by having your important search queries and blog content brought to you in one dashboard.

I recommend you sign up for Google Reader.

It’s not only a great content curator but content manager as well.You can ‘star’ results you want to read later and add results to customized tags to group them around a category to read when you need it.All within one simple to use interface.

For example, you’ll notice I created a tag called ‘Resource for press release’ and added the following article below. We’ll be launching our official SocialMotus product soon, which means I’ll need to start writing press releases soon. This article is perfect for emphasizing the need for a tool like SocialMotus that facilitates social media marketing without the hefty price tag. Now when I need to write our new press release, I simply go to reader and click on the tag ‘Resources for press releases’ under ‘Subscriptions’ and I’ll have all the data I need for my press release sources.

You can create tags for anything from great articles on Twitter under ‘Twitter Tips’ to competitor analysis under ‘Competitors’.

So here’s how you set up Google Reader & tags.

1. After you sign up, go to Google Blog Search under the ‘More’ section or Google News on the top of the screen in the black bar. It will open up in a new page.

2. Enter your keyword phrase into the search box. Personally I make sure to always click on the downward facing arrow to open up the advanced search to specify I only want exact match search results to appear for more targeted results.

3. If you like the results from the search, go to the bottom of the page and click on ‘RSS’.

4. It will now show you the RSS feed of your search results in a similar page as the image below. Simply copy the URL of this page.

5. Go back to Google Reader and click the orange “Subscribe” button in the upper left corner and paste the URL into the form field that appears.

6. Now when an article is indexed for your query, it will be added to your Google Reader. Create as many subscriptions as you like to monitor keywords important to your brand and industry.

Add blogs you’re currently reading

Is there a particular blog you like to read? You can add that to your reader too.

Simply paste their URL into the pop up that appears when you click the orange ‘Subscribe’ button in reader.

And voila!

Add tags to group articles

Now to add tags, simply go to the bottom of the article and click on ‘Add Tags’. Then type in the name of the tag you want to save it under. If it is a new tag, it will appear under ‘Subscriptions’.

Monitor the web through Google Alerts and Evernote

While I still prefer to use Google Reader as you can keep track of everything within one interface, I know some of you prefer to receive information through emails.

If you want results with your keyword emailed to you when Google indexes them, you can’t go past Google Alerts.

Unlike Google Reader, you can’t star or save the results in Google Alerts. This is where Evernote comes in handy. Evernote lets you store your online data and group them under tags (similar to how to you group articles under tags in blogs).

Use it to store links and record information under different tags. The best part is Evernote is cloud-based, so it syncs your notes between computers, tablets and smartphones.

I use it to collect information around my future blog posts. For example, I’ve created tags called ‘Blog Post Ideas’. These are all the articles I wanted to use as inspiration for my future articles.

Twitter and Facebook

Endless information is shared on Facebook and Twitter making them gold mines for monitoring important conversations around your brand, industry and competitors.

The best part is you don’t have to be logged into Facebook to search for relevant resources. Social monitoring tools like SocialMotus pull the results from Facebook’s public timeline.

What I like (and yes I am incredibly biased, but it is nonetheless true) is the ability to group keywords. Most tools will list the keywords you monitor separately, SocialMotus lets you group them according to a topic.

This is how it works.

1. First you set up keywords you want to monitor using the ‘Keyword Settings’, then ‘Add Keywords’. You have a broad topic, and within each topic you have keywords you want to monitor.

For example, I could use:

• Topic: Competitors, Keywords: [List competitor names]
• Topic: Products, Keywords: [Product Names]
• Topic: Marketing Campaigns, Keywords: [Campaign Names]

Once you save your keywords, it will look like this:

2. Then when you go to ‘Keyword Results’, you can select a keyword you set up. Any tweets that contain this keyword will appear in the results.

You’ll notice there are no results on Facebook as no one is posting public updates about SocialMotus (*hint hint).

If you want to narrow down the type of messages that appear, you can click on the ‘Advanced’ option. You can exclude any keywords straight from this page by clicking on “Advance” and entering the keywords in “Add Additional Excluded Keywords”.

Need more information on the user before you engage with them? We’ve got you covered.

Simply place your mouse over their username and a pop up will appear with all the details you need to more effectively engage with and follow the user using the ‘follow’ button.

Using SociaMotus, you can reply, retweet, archive, add a note to the message or simply assign it to another team member by clicking the ‘Assign’ option within each message. When your team member logs into SocialMotus, they will be able to view the tweet you assigned under the ‘Monitor’ tab and ’Assigned’ side tab.

Best practice

Track ALL the possible keywords that are related to your brand, your company name, products and/or services, key features, marketing campaigns, nicknames, competitors and industry terms.

Regularly monitor keywords and engage with users to mitigate negative remarks and thank users for positive remarks. When appropriate offer users a reward for their feedback such as a discount.

Optional Tracking

With the tools above, you’ll be able to effectively monitor your brand, industry and competitors. Though, you may need some additional information depending on your type of business.

In this competitive landscape, it may be beneficial to monitor prices of consumer goods on eBay, Amazon and Craiglist. The prices users are willing to pay may influence the prices you choose in order to remain competitive.

The easiest way to track these figures is to simply add the RSS of a search query to your Google Reader. You would perform the same actions as you did above for news and blog search results.

For example, you could go to eBay, enter your keywords, click the RSS button at the bottom of the page, and then paste the link in your Google Reader.

If you want to monitor your competition, or any webpage in particular, subscribe to an RSS feed at WatchThatPage. It will notify you any time a page is changed.

So this is my list of social monitoring tools I use to organize and track information relevant to SocialMotus. Are there any tools you can recommend?

Siv Rauv

Siv Rauv is a Marketing Executive at SocialMotus. Her expensive Marketing degree taught her nothing about online marketing, but through extensive self-learning and trial and error she’s successfully implemented several social media marketing strategies. She happily shares her experiences through her articles.

If you aren’t a crazed Justin Bieber or One Direction fan, she would be happy to connect with you on Twitter and Google +.

   

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• SocialMotus Features Official Review
• Social Media 101 Reference Card (twincreekmedia.com)

We’ve listened to your feedback and we’re closer to becoming the most valuable tool in your social media arsenal thanks to the dedication of our developers.

Here is a quick summary of the following additions and improvements made to SocialMotus.

Social Management Dashboard

Introducing the new SocialMotus management dashboard, providing you with a overview of your social progress at a glance.  Now when you log in, you’ll be greeted by our dashboard showcasing important statistics for each social account you manage.

Want to see individual engagements graphed over time? Simply click inside the box with the engagement you want to see and voilà!

Armed with this information you can watch your progress over time and quickly respond to any unusual changes in your accounts.

Get Twitter Followers by interests

In addition to our powerful Twitter follower tools, you’ll now be able to find Twitter followers by common interest. In other words, you simply need to specify keywords you want their Twitter bio to contain and SocialMotus will generate a list of users for you to quickly follow.

Bookmarklet

If you haven’t used the bookmarklet this week, you’ll find a nice surprise when you do. We’ve re-designed the layout to show a much sleeker and smaller interface.

You’ll also notice the bookmarklet now grabs the title tag and URL of the webpage you are viewing, making it easier for you to share your content to your social networks.

Engagement

Want to find out more information on those who mentioned or retweeted your tweet? Simply hover your  mouse over their username and a pop up detailing their profile will show up.

If you like what you see, you can follow them from within this pop up.

Font size

Recently we decided to reduce the font size in SocialMotus to help those with smaller monitors fit more into their screens. But not long after we received a tweet from a user requesting that we increase it later.

Being at a loss of whether to keep the font size or increase it, we decided why not satisfy everyone?

With our new smart font feature, you simply need to use the “+” or “-“ key to increase or decrease the font size.  You’ll find this on the bottom left hand corner of your screen.

So regardless of what size monitor you use, more information will be packed into one screen to make it easier for you to engage in a range of actions.

Would you like to see any additional improvements or tools? Simply let us know in the comments.

There’s no use hiding it. The secrets out.

I am the new host of American Idol.

Did I fool you? Probably not.

As you might have suspected (you smart cookie), this is my new Twitter cover photo.

In case you haven’t heard, Twitter’s CEO Dick Costolo went on NBC’s Today announcing updates to the Twitter profile layout, a new iPad app and improved iPhone and Android apps.

Twitter is clearly following in the footsteps of Facebook Timeline by introducing cover photos. It’s officially called a header photo, but I prefer to call it as I see it: an imitation of the Facebook cover photo.

Today‘s website explains:

“What’s the biggest change? There’s now a huge header image that runs across the top, sort of like the banner image that Facebook users have on their timelines. The page itself has been reoriented to play up other visuals as well: Your avatar is no longer tucked in the corner, but will display front and center. The photo stream, too, has been moved up, and will now be accessible on the apps”.

Not sure what photo you should use?

To help you along, here are 10 of the best Twitter cover photos I’ve seen so far.

@split_it

@baristabar

@OrganikSEO

@RyanSeacrest

(I think he stole my background).

@WolfgangBuzz

@problogger

@joshfjelstad

@alexmiz

@Jplrosman

@garrettgee (Phone App)

Want to customize your Twitter photo like @garrettgee? He’s created an awesome photoshop template free to download: Custom Twitter Header Photo Photoshop Template.

*Edit: This is a special mention to @myduckydeals for bringing their Twitter profile to our attention.

This is by far one of the most creative uses of the Twitter profile, perfectly showcasing their brand proposition.

If you’re wondering how to add your own photo, simply follow the instructions below.

How to add a cover photo (a.k.a. header photo)

1. Click the gear icon in the top right corner. From the drop-down menu that appears, click ‘Settings.’

2. On the left hand side you’ll see various tabs, click on ‘Design.’

3. Scroll down the page and you’ll see the ‘Customize your own’ section. Click on ‘Change header’. Make sure you photo is within 1200×600 and under 5MB.

4. Now you simply choose the image from your computer you want to upload. You can zoom in and out using the slider, or click and drag the photo in different directions. When you’re happy with the image, click ‘Save’.

And voilà! You now have a cover photo.

It’s as simple as that!

Before you run off and add a cover photo, make sure it is a good reflection of the brand image you want to project.

I choose the photo above because it captures our company culture: Word hard and support your team while having fun along the way.

This was actually the first time our company was involved in the 14km City2Surf race, the biggest running event in Sydney! It was amazing according to my colleagues who braved the winter cold to run at 9am on a Sunday. Note to self: photoshop an image of myself in later.

Advanced tip: PR Specialist Brittany Berger also recommends, ‘To those of you who want to do something with making your avatar fit into your header photo, realize that if it fits on the web, it won’t fit on mobile, and vice versa. Think about what devices your followers are most likely to visit your profile on, and optimize the image for that’.

So keep this in mind.

Seen any great cover photos? Share them in the comments below!

Siv Rauv

Siv Rauv is a Marketing Executive at SocialMotus. Her expensive Marketing degree taught her nothing about online marketing, but through extensive self-learning and trial and error she’s successfully implemented several social media marketing strategies. She happily shares her experiences through her articles.

If you aren’t a crazed Justin Bieber or One Direction fan, she would be happy to connect with you on Twitter and Google +.

   

Related articles

• 45 Awesome Marketing Tips For Business
• 4 Powerful Twitter Tips To Double Your Twitter Mentions
• How To Build Targeted Twitter Followers (And Get Added To Twice As Many Twitter Lists As Competitors)
• SocialMotus Features Official Review

Lately I’ve focused on writing about a few Twitter tips per article. I wanted to pack it full of details and examples to make it as valuable for your business as possible.

But yesterday I came across an infographic I was so impressed with, I would happily stray from my normal writing style.

While Twitter may be a simple micro-blogging social site, it is by no means an easy feat creating a thriving Twitter community.

So today I present to you 45 awesome Twitter tips with step-by-step instructions on how to make Twitter work for your business.

The best part is it’s in the form of a beautifully presented infographic.

You can thank the awesome Cheryl Lawson for this.

Use this infographic as a checklist in your social media arsenal to ensure you have all the different areas of Twitter marketing covered. If you don’t I might get angry (See image above. You don’t want to mess with my angry face).

Here are some of the key questions you’ll learn in the infographic below.

Key Questions Answered

• What is the role of SEO in Twitter?
• What is the best profile pic to use?
• How do you encourage others to follow you?
• Who should manage your Twitter account?
• What is the best content to tweet?
• Who should you be following?
• Would you follow yourself on Twitter?

Sidenote: This is honestly the best Twitter marketing infographic I’ve seen. If you like it, spread the love and share it with your Twitter followers.

Siv Rauv

Siv Rauv is a Marketing Executive at SocialMotus. Her expensive Marketing degree taught her nothing about online marketing, but through extensive self-learning and trial and error she’s successfully implemented several social media marketing strategies. She happily shares her experiences through her articles.

If you aren’t a crazed Justin Bieber or One Direction fan, she would be happy to connect with you on Twitter and Google +.

   

Related articles

• 4 Powerful Twitter Tips To Double Your Twitter Mentions
• How To Build Targeted Twitter Followers (And Get Added To Twice As Many Twitter Lists As Competitors)
• SocialMotus Features Official Review
• My Top Five No-BS Twitter Tips for Beginners
• Why should I be using Twitter in my business?

                                                                                          Image from Madrageek

Is it me or is there never enough time in the day?

Some days (or weeks if I’m to be honest), I feel like I just don’t have time to effectively engage with my Twitter followers. At the same time, there’s always a nagging thought in the back of my mind telling me I need to [be huge on Twitter].

My solution?

Look for quick ways to @mention my followers.

If you’re lucky it’ll become a conversation kick-starter. If not, there’s a good chance you’ll at least receive a thanks in return. And that’s always better than having an empty @mentions tab gathering cobwebs.

So here are my top Twitter tips to triple your Twitter mentions.

#FF/#FollowFriday love (a.k.a. Follow Fridays)

These hashtags are used to recommend Twitter users you find valuable to your followers.

Have you been the recipient of a #ff mention?

Doesn’t it just make you feel warm and fuzzy? Probably not. But it should at least make you feel good being recognised as a worthy user for your followers to recommend.

If you’re short on time, simply glance over the engagements you’ve this week. Pick the users who you’ve found most interesting/valuable and recommend them like so.

#FollowFriday @socialmotus @supercaldy @ Val_Ce1

— Shane Atkins(@ShaneAtkinsBiz) August 31, 2012

You can also use #FF, an acronym for Follow Fridays, or #Follow if you want to recommend users on days other than Friday. Whichever suits you best. I prefer #FF so I can leave room for users to reply with a thanks and still be able to fit all the contents of my original tweet in with my username. Or even better, add a short comment to make the tweet more valuable. 

Happy Monday All! & make sure you #follow these guys! @socialmotus @dreamgrow @sunsetsunrise1 @jvanrijn @parker80 @paulbobnak @thesocialchef — Stephanie Fischbach (@Pay_Per_Visit) September 10, 2012

Use the tweet characters to describe something specific and amazing about the people whose tweets you value the most. For example, if you’ve spent the week throwing @mention love at authors (including the Twitter handle of authors of the articles you’ve shared on your Twitter account), you could tweet:

#FF @missrogue @socialmediadiy @samhosenkamp for writing the best articles I’ve read this week (and I’ve read a lot!). — SocialMotus (@socialmotus) September 13, 2012

Advanced tip: If you have time, send different tweets for each Twitter user you’re recommending. 

An extra 5 minutes is all it takes to show your followers why that particular user is worthy of following and sets it apart from all the other mentions. More importantly, the time you dedicated to this won’t go unnoticed by the user you’re recommending.

They’ll be much more inclined to retweet and follow you.

Here are the steps according to the brilliant @dayneshuda n his article on Follow Friday success:

“1) Use the entire 120 or so characters to describe something specific and amazing about the people whose tweets you value the most. For my handle (@dayneshuda) I can get away with leaving 15 characters available.

2) Include #ff

3) Include a Website (preferably the actual URL vs. a shortened version…for branding)  

@mention new followers

This doesn’t have to be an incredibly time consuming task. 

Unless you’ve manually changed the settings, by default you receive email notifications from Twitter. Don’t delete these emails, have a quick look at their name, photo and bio.

Is there anything you can quickly think of to @mention them? If you have a little time on your hands, you can quickly view their website to help you figure out what they’re interested in and anything in common you might have.

Here’s one of the first @mentions I ever sent!

Think about how you can you help them or how they might be able to help you. These tweets are more likely to spark conversations and @replys than a simply ‘thanks for following’.

@yourfriendrainy Thanks for the follow. Was interested to know what you mean by organic social media marketer? — SocialMotus (@socialmotus) September 7, 2012

This was a great way for me to increase engagement back in the days when very few people were @mentioning me. Even with my busy schedule, I tried to @mention at least one person a day.

If you don’t have time everyday, you can put all your emails into a special folder, then you can set aside 20-30 minutes a week to go through them.

More recently though I have switched over to using SocialMotus’s New followers feature to engage with users.You may have your own Twitter tool that curates a list of new followers.

With SocialMotus, you simply head over to the engage feature, then ‘New Followers’ dashboard and you’ll find a list of all your new followers.

Hover your mouse over their username to find details information about their Twitter bios, last tweets etc. You can also quickly follow them in return. If you need more information, you can always click on their @username to go to their Twitter page. 

Don’t retweet the traditional way

It’s easy to hit the retweet button when you find an interesting tweet. But a couple of more seconds of your time can really make a difference. Don’t miss out on this opportunity to add a short comment to personalise the tweet. Is there anything that particularly stood out? A response you can give? 

I’d say 5 RT @davegray: If your social business strategy is a wiki and a blog, you are at least three years behind. @ccrummey #sbs2012 — Rachel Happe (@rhappe) September 12, 2012

Rather than tweeting the article title @dallaswillcox tweeted an interesting fact from the article (clearly showing he had read the article). This helped him stand out from the other retweets we received and I ended up retweeting him.

Hashtags: “Tweets with 1 or 2 hashtags had 21% higher engagement than those with more hashtags.”Read more at business2community.com/twitter/6-twit…

— Wording Wizard (@dallaswillcox) September 3, 2012

Even something simple like this tweet below was enough for me to retweet @ImAmandaJulius.

6 Simple Twitter Tips To Explode Your #Twitter Engagement buff.ly/Proyus via @socialmotus — Great tips! #sm

— Mandy Kilinskis (@ImAmandaJulius) September 1, 2012

Throw @mention love to the author

Everyone loves to be praised for their hard work (even though they may brush compliments off, they’re secretly jumping up and down inside).

When you share an article, often it only @mentions the website you’re sharing it from.

Try “via @”mentioning the author as well. Usually you can find locate their Twitter handle in their profile or through a quick twitter search.

All it takes is a few added seconds and you’ll often get a follow and/or thank you out of it, as well as someone else who becomes aware of your brand. If you’re lucky, it opens up the lines for communication.

In my previous article on How To Find Your Best Time To Increase Twitter Engagement @JulieBurstein was the only one who was lovely enough to credit me with an @mention. Not only did she receive a big thanks and a new follower, she is featured in this article and I plan to let her know once it’s published!

Really helpful post from @sivology: How To Find Your Best Time To Increase #Twitter Engagement po.st/x3T4t6 via @b2community #smm

— Julie Burstein (@JulieBurstein) August 21, 2012

If there’s room you can also leave a quick comment to encourage the author to interact with you. A simple tweet to show your appreciation goes a long way!

These are my Twitter tips for tripling your Twitter mentions at times when conversations don’t come so naturally. As always, perfecting the right technique for your account takes trial and error. Try using a combination of the tips above to see what works best.

Are there any tips you recommend to increase your mentions and spark conversation?

If you enjoyed my article, feel free to throw me some @mention and/or #ff love my way.

Or a simple tweet will do. I’ll take what I can get.

Siv Rauv

Siv Rauv is a Marketing Executive at SocialMotus. Her expensive Marketing degree taught her nothing about online marketing, but through extensive self-learning and trial and error she’s successfully implemented several social media marketing strategies. She happily shares her experiences through her articles.

If you aren’t a crazed Justin Bieber or One Direction fan, she would be happy to connect with you on Twitter and Google +.

   

Related articles

• How To Build Targeted Twitter Followers (And Get Added To Twice As Many Twitter Lists As Competitors)
• 6 Twitter Tips To Boost Your Twitter Engagement
• SocialMotus Features Official Review
• How To Find Your Best Time To Increase Twitter Engagement (With Detailed Examples)
• Why Your Blog Is Going Nowhere (and the Truth about Getting Traffic)