Twitter Lists

Twitter has rolled out Twitter Lists for organizing the people you follow into manageable lists.  Announced a few weeks ago and still in beta, the feature enables Tweeters to create both public and private lists of people they are following.

Twitter Lists: A Welcome New Feature

As we wrote a while back, as you follow more and more people on Twitter, it can be difficult to keep up with your friends and favorite tweeters.  The Twitter List feature allows users to create both public and private lists from their followers list.

While @DallasMarketing is not included in the beta, we have tried out the new feature on an account that did receive the invite and anxiously await the arrival of the new feature for the Twitter masses.

How do Twitter Lists Work?

If you were invited to participate in the Twitter Lists beta, upon logging in to your Twitter account, you will see a banner announcing the new feature.

Twitter Lists are created simply by clicking on the “Create A New List” button, naming the list and then designating it as public or private.

Next, you add some tweeps to the list.  For us, we envision a buddy list that is private for friends and family and then some public lists on our favorite topics – marketing and social media, of course.

Other Twitter List Features

Under Search, a list of your Twitter lists has been added.

Next to the “following” and “followers” numbers a new “listed” count has been added to display how many Twitter lists you have been added to.

When viewing someone else’s Twitter page, clicking on the Listed link displays tabs showing the (public) Twitter Lists following that user and another tab showing which Twitter Lists that user is following.

Another Twitter popularity contest?  Noted.  But, overall, Twitter Lists will enhance the tweeting process and make engaging with like-minded others a much simpler task.

In a 2005 MIT study, “Zero as a Special Price: The True Value of Free Products,” the power of free was demonstrated by offering Lindt® Truffles &  Hershey’s Kisses® , first at 15 cents for the Truffle & 1 cent for the Kiss, then at 14 cents for the Truffle & the Kiss offered for free.  The participants could only choose one.

The Results:

• When the Kiss was a penny & the Truffle was 15 cents – the selections:
  The Kiss = 14%, The Truffle = 36%, None = 50%
• When the Kiss was free & the Truffle was 14 cents – the selections:
  The Kiss = 42%, The Truffle = 19%, None = 39%
• In a 3rd round, the Kiss was still free & the price of the Truffle was reduced to 10 cents – the selections:
  The Kiss = 40%, The Truffle = 12%, None = 48%

What We Learn

As marketers, there are many take-aways from this study, including:

• With regard to promotional pricing: while the actual dollars and cents may be the same, the BOGO promotion (buy one, get one free) may perform far better than 50% off.
• Free is powerful – but it still may not influence the audience if the perceived value is not there.  39% of the participants didn’t want the free Kiss.
• Price reductions may influence the cost-benefit perception with other associated products (test 3).

The Research

The study was conducted by Kristina Shampanier, Nina Mazar and Dan Ariely in 2005 and contains additional tests, examples and data that sheds light on the power of free products and their influence on purchasing decisions. I highly recommend downloading and reading it – a truly interesting read.

Additionally, Dan Ariely has recently released a book, Predictably Irrational, and should you want to further explore how the world often works according to principles of irrationality in the places where we least expect it, give it a try.

(And, keeping true to our last post, New FTC Guidelines Affect Bloggers & Social Media Marketing,  - Seven Aspens, the publisher of Dallas Marketing Services, is an authorized affiliate of Amazon, should you feel so inclined to click on the book and buy it.)

Seven Aspens is a trademark of Seven Aspens Consulting, LLC.
All other company and product names are the trademarks of their respective owners.

Under new FTC guidelines released this week, bloggers and other “word of mouth” marketers who make an endorsement must disclose if there are material connections with the seller of the product or service.   A material connection can include payments or free products received by the endorsers.

According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) press release (5 Oct 2009):

“The post of a blogger who receives cash or in-kind payment to review a product is considered an endorsement. Thus, bloggers who make an endorsement must disclose the material connections they share with the seller of the product or service. Likewise, if a company refers in an advertisement to the findings of a research organization that conducted research sponsored by the company, the advertisement must disclose the connection between the advertiser and the research organization. And a paid endorsement – like any other advertisement – is deceptive if it makes false or misleading claims.”

Given the core of social media is transparency and honest discussion, most bloggers and word of mouth marketers agree with this policy.   We have a published disclosure policy on this blog and have encouraged other bloggers and social media marketers to do the same in the past.  However, for social media marketing, the method for disclosure is not as straight forward.   We occasionally send tweets about our  (Seven Aspens’) clients and/or their products. How do you disclose in a 140 character Twitter message?

With potential hefty fines looming for violators, this is a good time to review your policies, ensure compliance and learn the best practices.  To assist in the education process, the Word of Mouth Marketers Association (WOMMA) is hosting a free webinar Thursday, October 8, to help explain what the new FTC regulations mean for marketers, advertisers and bloggers. Additionally, the Social Media Business Council provides a great Disclosure Best Practices Toolkit.

What is a Twestival?

A Twestival or Twitter-Festival is a global series of events organized by volunteers around the world under short timescales via Twitter, which brings people offline for a great cause. The first Twestival Global happened on 12 February 2009 with 202 cities around the world hosting events and rallying fundraising efforts around one cause, charity: water. $250k+ was raised on one day through these events and online donations which resulted in 55 wells with 17,000 people impacted in Uganda, Ethiopia, and India.

Twestival Local

Twestival Local events are taking place in cities around the world between 10-13 September 2009.  Twestival is an international movement where people meet offline for one night, have fun and do some good for an important cause in the process. Twestival Local gives cities an opportunity to select a local cause to support.

Dallas Twestival

The Dallas Twestival will be held on September 12 @ 6:00PM @ Mockingbird Station. Proceeds will benefit The Women’s Museum at Fair Park – a home for programs and exhibits where people can honor the past and explore the contributions of women throughout history. Purchase tickets online – hurry quantities are limited.

Hope to see you there!

Follow us on Twitter @DallasMarketing

If you are on Twitter, as you follow more and more people, it can be difficult to keep up with your close friends. There is a really simple solution to keep an eye out for their latest tweets.

Using iGoogle and RSS Feeds to Track Tweets

iGoogle lets you create a personalized homepage that contains a Google search box at the top and your choice of any number of gadgets below.  All iGoogle pages start out with a Home tab on the left side of the page and you can add new tabs to organize your content.   The first step is to add a tab for your Twitter Friends.
Next, with that tab open, click on the “Add Stuff” link in the upper right hand corner.

On the Adding Stuff page, at the bottom of the left column you should see:

Click on the link.

In another tab on your browser, go to the Twitter page of the Twitter user you want to track.

For example, to track Dallas Marketing’s tweets, you would go to http://twitter.com/dallasmarketing

On the bottom of the right sidebar, under the Following images, you should see:

Right click the link and choose “Copy link address.”

Window back to the iGoogle page, click the “Add feed or gadget” link, paste the link and click the Add button.

Click the “Back to iGoogle home” link on the top left and your feed should be on the page.

Simply repeat for all your Twitter friends that you want to track.   Another use for businesses - set up a tab to track your competitors, customers and alliances or partners.   Then just pop over and check on your Twitter tabs a few times throughout the day as you work to check in on everyone.

Follow Dallas Marketing Services on Twitter.
You follow, we follow back.

By now most everyone has heard that more than 60% of US

Twitter users fail to return the following month. But, how about the graying of Twitter?

Twitter Demographics

Citing comScoreMatrix, eMarketer recently published a Twitter Demographic breakdown that shows the largest percentage of tweeters are age 25 – 54.

So, 45-54 year olds are the most likely to visit Twitter.

Guess that means you can forget those Mother’s Day cards for Mom and Grandma – just send them a tweet.

Follow Dallas Marketing Services on Twitter.
You follow, we follow back.
Twitterific.

In February, I was so fortunate to have won a signed print, Outside the Pavilion.

The print arrived a couple of weeks ago and it is absolutely beautiful!

Now this month, I have won a painting, Too Cold To Rest!

I love John’s work and am so fortunate to have two of his pieces!

If you haven’t visited his blogs, I high recommend doing so and adding them to your favorites.   They are perfect spots to visit with a cup of coffee or a glass of wine and just take a few moments out of the day to enjoy the beauty.   Also, be sure to visit his Etsy site,  where his work is available for purchase.

Thank you again John!

Apparently Twitter needed a Wingman to answer to the most common question of the Twitterverse, “How is Twitter going to make money?”

The Twitter Wingman

According to Wired’s Danny Dumas and Steven Leckart, Twitter is introducing the Wingman, a handheld, pager-like device for all things Twitter on the go.   So Tweeps, give it a look and, of course, then tweet about it.

Follow Dallas Marketing Services on Twitter.
You follow, we follow back.
Twitterific.

sezWho, who had aspired to be the universal profile service for social media sites, has called it quits.   Following in the footsteps of other recent social media sites, such as Furl, sezWho sent eMails to users stating:

We wish all those at sezWho the best as they move on to other endeavors.

A new study shows that marketers are slowly making the transition to social media marketing with 63% stating they will increase their social media marketing spend in 2009.

clipped from www.emarketer.com

Let’s talk about budgets.
It took a while.

Even though tens of millions of users were flocking to social media sites every day, most marketers stayed away. They either didn’t understand how to join the conversations—without sounding like shills—or they were frightened away by the prospect of associating their brands with questionable content.

But things are changing.

Companies are learning how to leverage social media and tap into the rising tide of consumers participating in social network sites, blogs, wikis and Twitter.

According to the “The ROI on Social Media Marketing” report by Aberdeen Group, sponsored by Visible Technologies, marketers have developed the tools and methodologies to drive marketing ROI by listening to and learning from customers and prospects.

The money is following the methods.

Aberdeen found that 63% of the companies in their survey (defined as best-in-class) planned to increase their social media marketing budgets this year.

Are you engaging with social media brand evangelists?

“Companies use multiple approaches to identify the individuals who wield the greatest amount of influence in any given topic area and to track changes in their influence over time,” said Jeff Zabin of Aberdeen. “Best-in-class companies engage these top influencers as brand evangelists, and then track the impact of their words and actions in terms of return on marketing investment.”

eMarketer estimates that social network advertising alone will rise over 17% this year to $2.35 billion, up from $2 billion in 2008.