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2 posts tagged Rowfeeder

30+ Twitter essential tools

Here is a list of my 30+ Twitter essential tools. Some tools that I would have liked to include have long since gone, and some were just not good enough to share so I trimmed by 40+ list to just the good ones … the Social media Jedi 30+ essentials!

Tweetdeck dashboard

My top 2 Twitter tools

•Hootsuite
Hootsuite also has the best mobile app for Twitter in my opinion.
I also use Hootsuite to schedule tweets, and it is great for working in teams, but then you need to sign up for the Pro plan as well. It remains as my preferred
tool for corporate use.

•Tweetdeck
Tweetdeck was the first Twitter tool I used, and it still holds a special
place in my heart. I use it now for replies and especially for tracking
new followers and adding accounts to my many Twitter lists.

Get organized! Both of these tools are recommended so that you can avoid creating bad tweets.

My top Twitter Reporting tools

•Twitalyzer
My number one for reporting. I have loaded all the main accounts
from my company into this. I schedule reports to go to each account
manager. I can do comparisons and can make downloads. Wonderful!
•SocialBro
New and very good, It also gives some real-time statistics.
It also integrates with Bufferapp.

Followerwonk statistics

•Followerwonk
Nice graphics
•Rowfeeder

Here are the best of the rest

•Tweepi
Great for cleaning up and sorting out your Twitter account.
•Bufferapp
If you have not tried this one, you are missing out.

•Twittercounter

I get weekly statistics from this one, and I have always advertised one of my Twitter accounts here, @Tamzina_avril
•Topsy
Topsy and Social Mention are my top tools for investigation tasks.
•TwitSprout
This is very new. I will be writing about this one very soon on this blog.
•Seesmic
Could have been my main Twitter tool, but I had too much love for
Hootsuite and Tweetdeck to really spend quality time with Seesmic.
•CoTweet
Very nice tool. I used it more than Seesmic. It remains my
number two choice for corporate teams with Twitter.
•Tweetpsych
I love this, so much fun! Give it a go!
•Social Mention
I have spent many hours late in the night on this one! One of the
tools I use to analyse competitor action in Twitter. Topsy is the
other tool I use with Social Mention for these tasks.
•Bit.ly
Remains as my shortener of choice.
•Tagdef
I use this to provide definitions of campaign tags that I create.
•Whatthetrend
What the Trend helps you find out what’s trending on Twitter.

Twitalyzer graph
Twitalyzer statistics

•Twibs
A Twitter business portal. I do not use this as much as I used to.
•Tweetchat
I have spent hours in webinars and conferences on this tool.
•Tweet.grader
I had to mention a tool from Hubspot. I love those guys!
•Listorious
I used this a lot in the past. I am listed at
http://listorious.com/jedi_roach
•Twitterfeed
Always handy for those special tasks!
•Trendistic
Great for tracking tag performance. Find them at
http://trendistic.indextank.com/

And lastly, the other Twitter tools I have used in the past

•Twuffer
•Friend or Follow
•TweetWhen
•TweetStats
•SocialOomph
•Echofon
•Sproutsocial

So that is my list of Twitter essentials.

Maybe you might find some new tools to try from this list. Having great tools is one thing, but make sure that you set up your Twitter processes in a good way as well. Were there any essential tools that that I missed that you did not see in my list?

You can also find the list of 30+ Twitter
essentials tools on Slideshare:

Influencers vs. Advocates.. but what should brands do to have success?

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Influencers vs. Advocates

Let me first deal with that question which some of us have asked ourselves for a while now. What is the difference between an influencer and an advocate? Here are two posts which tried to answer this question;

- A blog post from Sparksheet

- A blog post from Customer Rocks

As you can see from the comments, there were some disagreements with both posts as to what the difference was. I do not have the magic answer either; however, I will share my opinion after first looking at some definitions.

A definition of influencers

Individuals who have the power to affect purchase decisions of others because of their (real or perceived) authority, knowledge, position, or relationship. Alternatively, Brown and Hayes[*] defined an influencer as “a third party who significantly shapes the customer’s purchasing decision, but may never be accountable for it.

A definition of advocates

A person who supports a cause and exercises his right to be heard, or represents a party before a court or tribunal to defend it or plead on behalf of it.

So it seems to me that influencers are particular types of advocates, who have an effect on the purchase decisions of others, and not in a political or legal sense.

From now on in this post I shall use the term influencer because I am talking here about advocates who, in various degrees, have an effect on the purchase decisions of others, so they are influencers.

How can I find my brand influencers?

Influencers are everywhere
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You should be able to spot a brand influencer very easily. They pop up regularly and say good things about your brand! When I was a community manager at Philips I had a great relationship with them over a number of years. They would answer many customer questions, and left the more difficult ones to me when they felt it should be responded to by the brand. If you are doing Social media correctly and regularly talking to your followers, subscribers, members, etc, then you will know who your brand influencers are. There are a few other ways to find your brand influencers. I list a few of them;

- Commission a Social listening survey from a competent company like Oxyme. There are many other social media intelligence companies like Radian6, Attentio, Crimson Hexagon, Collective Intellect, Sysomos etc. Radian6 actually has an influencer widget, which gives you the ability to set the factors of influence that are most relevant to you.

- The Adobe Social analytics tool enables you to integrate data from your Facebook, YouTube and Twitter channels with your web analytic data to identify the people who have brought you the most referrals, actions, or revenue.It is a very neat solution and I highly recommend it to existing Omniture users.

These two suggestions can not only find the influencers for your brand, but they can also asses how much influence they have. Here are some very quick cost effective alternatives;

- For Twitter and Facebook, RowFeeder could be used to see who is referencing your brand and how often.

- For Twitter, a simple option is to use the Formulist “Top fans” app, which you can now have added to Hootsuite.

- For Blogs, look to see who regularly comments and refers to your blog. You can do this manually or consult your commenting system if you employ one, like Livefyre or Disqus.

- Communities like Linkedin allow you to see who are your top participants. JIVE communities allow you to add points for commenting and many other actions, and as an administrator, you can run reports to see who your top contributors are. You will need to check what they were doing to earn the points, as not all actions are those of influencers, referring to my quoted definitions earlier in this post.

- Lastly, there are some free tools like Topsy or Socialmention. Just search for one of your brand names and see who is talking about it. I particularly like the list of “top users” shown down the left hand side of the results page of Socialmention. Remove your own usernames and then explore the rest! In Topsy.com, use the “search experts” option.

- Here is a list of influencer identification tools that I love sharing. It is a year old, but I just love it.

In many ways, brand influencers share the same characteristics in B2C and B2B. You will find highly technical influencers in almost all subjects and most of them influence both online and offline, so do not discard the powerful effect of word of mouth. Some can tell you far more about your products than your own marketing departments! Here is one of my past posts on the power of word of mouth.

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Knowing that influencers are out there is one thing, but interacting with them is another.

If handled well, you can multiply the effect that your top brand influencers will have on your earned media results.

Do not approach them using non branded email accounts, and do not blatantly ask them to promote your content.

Influencers love insightful information, either gained by experience or via data sources. So if you can supply that to them, and in advance of others channels, it might be a huge win-win. They also like to have their questions answered in a timely fashion when they come to you as well. Brands can even ask influencers to answer other customer questions, which I have experienced myself from the influencer point of view.

Start carefully, with one or two influencers, then build up to develop a successful program. I suggest looking at the checklist created by Jeremiah Owyang. It is all good stuff, but working with influencers can also be dangerous if you opt to pay them. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has guidelines for disclosure of paid media on blogs and other social media, so it is well worth reading up on this if you choose this pathway and you fall under the scope of the FTC guidance.

One of my favourite authors on the topic of brand influencers was Augie Ray. I enjoyed debating the topic with him while he was at Forrester Research. I suggest having a peak at one of his reports from February 2010, which was titled “Tapping The Entire Online Peer Influence Pyramid”

In summary…

For any brand in this Social media age, identifying your Influencers should be a logical next step after first crafting your Social policies, and venturing on your first phase of Social interaction. Please refer to the above checklist that I referred to plot when you logically move onto engaging with your influencers.

Have you identified your influencers and what benefits did you gain by engaging with yours?

You can watch a video extract from this post;

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Interview with the Social Media Jedi about Influencers and advocates on the Pluggio blog