Social Media

7 Ways To Tell Whether Someone Is A Newbie On Twitter

May 31, 2014 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

There are obvious signs of a new driver. If the car in front of you makes a left turn with the right blinker on, stops and starts often, and is making bad turns, then you know the person behind the wheel is new to driving (I start the entire process this summer). There are also obvious signs that someone just started to use Twitter. These are seven of them:

The person does not have a lot of tweets. If someone has less than 1,000 tweets, then that person is definitely a newbie on Twitter. People with over 1,000 tweets, are not newbies.
The egg avatar. Some people have thousands of followers but still have the egg avatar. Those accounts are the exceptions, not the rule. If someone has the egg avatar, that person is probably new to Twitter. If someone has the egg avatar and has thousands of followers, then that account may be a spam account (this does not always happen, but it is common).
Statuses that do not flow. If you feel awkward reading most of someone’s statuses (awkward in the way that reading them sounds), then that person probably just joined Twitter. In the beginning, people experiment with tweets and have no idea what creates the perfect tweet.
A really bad follower to following ratio. An obvious sign of a new account is one with 100 followers that is following 1,987 people because that account currently cannot follow over 2,000 people. The people behind these accounts heard that following a lot of people to get follow backs is a great idea, but these people took it a bit too far.
These people only talk to celebrities. Celebrities almost never respond to other people’s tweets. If you sent a tweet to your favorite celebrity, then you know that I mean. Some people go on Twitter just to follow celebrities and hope that one day, their favorite celebrity will respond to one of their tweets. The people who are thriving on Twitter decided to go from talking to celebrities to talking with their own followers.
Asking for the shout out. With over 50 million followers on Twitter, Katy Perry will not be asking for a shout out anytime soon. If you are a part of the large majority, you don’t have 50 million followers. In fact, the majority of Twitter users have under 1,000 followers. These people ask for shout outs because they think that if someone with 100,000 followers gave them a shout out and they only gained 1% of those followers, that person would gain 1,000 followers. The problem is that it never happens that way. Less than 10% of those 100,000 followers will see the tweet. Then, less than 10% of those people will read the entire tweet. Then, less than 5% of the people will follow the account. Mathematically, that would still be 50 followers, but that won’t happen. Asking for and getting shout outs is the most overrated way to get more followers. Twitter users who have been tweeting for a while know that this is true.
Two tweets to relay 1 message. Some newbies will need more than 140 characters to relay their message. Instead of using less characters to relay the message, some newbies will send out the first tweet and then send out a second tweet which is a continuation for the first tweet. While continuations work very effectively in reality TV shows, they do not work well with tweets.

Those are the seven ways to tell whether someone is a newbie on Twitter or not. What are your thoughts on the list? Is there another method you use to tell whether someone is a newbie or not? Please share your thoughts and methods below.

The 5 Things That Matter The Most On Your Social Networks

May 30, 2014 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

There are many components that decide whether someone will follow you or not on a social network. All of these components come to play in less than 10 seconds. That’s how long it takes for someone to decide whether someone is worth following or not. The reason people are quick with their decision is because they do not have enough time to dwell upon the decision. If it takes 5 minutes to decide whether someone is worth following, that will drain away too much productivity.

In order to save a lot of time, people look at certain components of your Twitter account. These are the 5 things that matter the most on your social networks.

Your avatar. Your avatar will be the decisive factor of whether someone takes the next step (reading your bio) or not. If you have a good avatar, you will get enough attention to get the person to read your bio. If you have a bad avatar (the egg picture or something inappropriate), many people will not bother reading your bio. The best avatar for you (depending on the account) is either a picture of you or your company’s logo.
Your bio. On many social networks, you have a certain number of characters to write a good bio. As a result, your bio needs to be a summarized version of what you do. By writing an effective bio, you will make someone seriously consider following you. These are some ways to write an effective bio.
What you post about. After reading your bio, potential followers will look at the most recent things that you posted. If you post things that a potential follower is interested in, then that person will be very likely to click the follow button. The things you post about may discourage people from following you just because they are not a part of your target audience. When people follow you because of what you post about, you will be gaining targeted followers (which are the best kinds of followers to have).
Your follow ratio. Some people will follow you just so they get a follow back. If you are following 10,000 people and have 12,000 followers, some people will follow you expecting a follow back. If you are one of those people with 100,000 followers while following 100 people, some people will follow you because you are “too cool to follow back.” Chances are you will fit better in the first category because going from unknown to finding yourself in the second category (with real followers…of course) is much harder.
How much you interact with your followers. Some people use media while others use social media. Just because you are on Twitter or Facebook does not mean you are using social media. Too many people use Twitter and Facebook like media to spread their message. Although there’s nothing like face to face conversation in the real world, social media is still very useful. If you are interacting with your followers, you will encourage others to join in on conversations, ask you questions, and reply to your tweets. If you interact with your followers often, potential followers will want to be a part of that.

Those are the 5 components that go into someone’s decision of whether to follow you or not. While some people focus in on certain components, having these 5 components will allow your account to look appealing to a majority of the people who visit.

What are your thoughts on the list? Do you have any additional tips? Please share your thoughts and advice below.

The Social Media Grade Book

April 7, 2014 by Marc Guberti 10 Comments

The ways to be successful on social media are not written out. This results in many people not knowing how well they are doing on their social networks. My version of the social media grade book, provides some information into this problem. Here are some factors that go into consideration for how good your grade is.

Real or fake followers. Having fake followers guarantees a low grade for this social media grade book. Being able to get real followers will prove that people are listening to your message. If you can get people to listen to your message, that is the starting point for success for any social network.
Targeted followers. Having targeted followers is like the extra credit. Targeted followers are people who are interested in what you tweet about before they followed you while not every real follower will be interested in what you tweet about.
Engagement with your followers. If you are able to talk with your followers and get them to share your posts, you are doing a good job with getting engagement. Having a targeted following really helps out towards getting more engagement.
What you share. What are the rewards of someone clicking on the link to one of your tweets. Are they sent to a random article on the web, or are they sent to your blog where they can subscribe or buy one of your products? Does it generate a lot of retweets? The things that you share need to have an impact on your business, not someone else’s. It is okay to share other people’s content, but you should primarily share your content. In addition, your blog posts need to be stellar because that is the only way people will keep on reading your blog posts and your posts on social networks.
How consistently and frequently you post on your social networks. There’s always that person who sends out 5 updates in 1 minute and then does not update their social media profile for the rest of the day. If you want to make it on the map, you need to be scheduling posts to appear on a consistent, frequent basis. I tweet every 30 minutes which is consistent and frequent.
Your ability to have conversations with your followers via email. Once you start a conversation via email, that conversation can last for a long time. The first thing most people do when they get on their computers is check their inbox for new messages. Bringing the conversation to the inbox will allow you to have longer conversations which will result in future clients.
The number of social networks that you use. It is better to have 100 people following you on one social network than it is to have 10 followers for 10 social network accounts. However, as one of your social networks picks up in speed, the others will gradually pick up in speed as well. Each time you get 1,000 followers on a social network, create another social network, and when that social network reaches 1,000 followers, repeat the process. If you have 10 social networks with over 1,000 followers each, some of your followers will decide to follow you on your other social networks. Then, all of your social networks grow and your overall presence on the web grows.

That is my version of the social media grade book. What are your thoughts on the social media grade book and do you think there anything else that I should add to it?

How To Keep The Momentum Going On Your Social Networks

March 26, 2014 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

The growth of a social network is a slow process. However, when a social network starts to see a big pick-up in growth, you want that growth to either last as long as possible or for that growth to not stop at all. I remember when I went from gaining 50 followers every day to gaining 300 followers every day, I wanted that growth to last.

I ended up implementing the same tactics that resulted in me gaining 300 followers on a consistent basis. As a result, I was consistently gaining 300 followers every day. My following count rose dramatically.

After you get a momentum, you want to keep that momentum going. In fact, you want to get better results as well. Ever since I decided to tweet every 30 minutes, I have been getting more engagement for my tweets. My retweets, favorites, and Klout score have all gone up ever since I decided to tweet every 30 minutes.

In order to get better results after you master keeping the momentum, you need to dig deep into the facts, statistics, and articles on the web. The method I used to get 300 followers every day was following a highly regarded person’s followers in my niche. This person was also gaining 300 followers a day. However, my results became dependent on that person. When this person gained 150 followers for the day, I usually gained something close to that (this does not apply for famous people who gain thousands of followers every day). This 300 followers a day increase suddenly went down to a 150-200 follower increase every day.

I did some research and found the #1 most influential social media expert. This person gains over 500 followers every day. I decided to follow this person’s followers instead. Now, I am gaining over 500 followers every day as well. Now I have a stronger momentum which will most likely catapult me onto Forbes’ next Top 50 Social Media Power Users List.

How could I keep the momentum going? I could tweet every 15 minutes. Although that would require a colossal amount of time, I am considering pursuing the task. In addition, I am deeply considering buying access to HootSuite Pro to make scheduling tweets much faster. I could send out more tweets at the moment with pictures to get more retweets and favorites. Building strong presences on Vine and Pinterest will allow me to get even more followers on Twitter.

In order to keep the momentum going, you need to have a big goal in mind. For me, that goal is to be gaining 1,000 followers on Twitter every day before 2014 comes to a close.