Internet Marketing - Matt Bailey [221]
Twitter is a powerful communication tool at conferences, seminars, and social gatherings. It allows real-time conversations about information that is breaking or being shared. People can share in the events of a conference by simply monitoring the hashtag for that event. A hashtag is a method of tagging in Twitter and is accomplished by using a hash mark and a keyword for the topic. For example, if I want to tweet or follow tweets about the NFL, I would simply use a hashtag in my comment, “I am watching the #NFL” (see Figure 18-7). Any tweet that carries that hashtag can then be followed by anyone searching for that subject. This also makes the term searchable, because Twitter followers can search by the hashtag and add it as a permanent update stream.
Twitter is one of the fastest-breaking news mediums ever created (the next section talks about news in social media in more detail). Within moments, up-to-date news on earthquakes, revolutions, political movements, and weather is shared. Twitter has changed the news industry, because the ability to have tens of thousands of reporters around the globe and broadcasting news and updates creates limitless access to news.
One of the primary abilities of Twitter is the ability to get your announcement in front of thousands of users outside your immediate network of followers. This is done through the retweet. The retweet is when a user finds your Twitter update to be of significant importance and they want to share it with their network. They simply republish your update with the code RT (for “ReTweet”), and your message is now broadcast to that user’s network of followers. By publishing valuable and informative tweets, you increase chances of being exposed to tens of thousands of Twitter users, because the more your message is “retweeted,” the more exposure and visibility you receive. If Twitter makes sense for your business and you would like to explore this medium even further, then I recommend another book in the An Hour a Day series, Twitter Marketing: An Hour a Day (Wiley, 2010).
Figure 18-7: The hashtag in Twitter is the primary means of tagging and tracking topics, this one for the #NFL.
FourSquare is another type of this media, but it is focused as location-based microblogging. Users can update their status based on where they are, usually by checking into a business, building, or public area. Users in your network can see where you checked in, which is especially helpful if you are trying to find your friends around town. FourSquare encourages users to leave tips and recommendations for other users specific to a location. For example, a tip can be left at a restaurant to order or avoid a specific dish.
Social News/Linking/Bookmarking
Social-news sites arose as a method of sharing interesting articles with a network of other users. In addition, by setting up an account at these news sites, someone can view all the articles that you have bookmarked and created links to. Besides simply linking to the articles, users can also place comments and commentary on the cited or linked article to share with other users.
Sites such as Digg.com, StumbleUpon.com, and Reddit rely upon users to link to, or bookmark, articles. As articles receive more links, they are considered “votes” and are promoted in the structure of the website. The more votes an article receives, the more visibility it is awarded within the system, which results in additional visitors to the article and additional links (votes).
In its heyday, around 2007 to 2009, Digg could boast sending tens of thousands of visitors to articles that made the home page of Digg.com, an ever-changing list of popular articles based on user votes. This could also result in gaining links to an article from some of the thousands of visitors to a website. If those visitors had a website or a blog, then they would link to the article from their blog, in addition to voting up the article in Digg.com. Digg.com can still send a substantial amount of visits