Twitter Part II: Marketing Yourself
Part II: Marketing Yourself
Since the launch of Twitter in 2006, social media has come a long way - brands are reaching out to social media as a means of becoming much more sociable in their approach to marketing. Customer relationship management has become the fore of everyone’s mind and even private individuals are understanding the impact of public presence on one of the worlds biggest social media platforms. Information is becoming more transparent and the now economy couldn’t be any more prevalent.
This blog series is targeted towards businesses and individuals who are looking to increase their presence and influence on Twitter and will include some key tried and tested methods that grew my private account to over 10,000 followers in a matter of months.
The principle behind increasing your reach and influence on Twitter is largely based on common sense and does at first sound overly simple - however, it is important to remain committed and consistent with an engagement and attraction strategy.
You need to step outside of the box and look at yourself (or your product/brand) from an outsider view; consider yourself as you would a product. What are your main selling points? Which areas are you more influential than others? What skills do you have that could bring value to other people? Good. Now you should consider ways in which you can bring them to market. For example, my main markets are:
- Gay lifestyle/culture
- Marketing and Business Development
- Fashion and Beauty
- Technology
- Young 21-29 emergent graduate and professional culture
Now that I have identified areas in which I am influential and interested in, I can now build my entire Twitter strategy around these main posts which basically works on 3 main principles:
1.) Understand your market: how old are they? are they predominantly male or female? what do they do? what other things may they be interested in?
2.) Develop content that provides value and interest to your market: nobody really cares too much about what you ate for breakfast - people want to laugh, to cry, to learn and to capture value in some way. Provide your commentary, link to interesting things and create dialogue with other Twitter users. Also consider the virility of your content - does it have a high RT potential? If so, this can dramatically increase your impressions and reach
3.) Be consistent and test market different types of posts - be daring and innovative. Create and share content that is open ended and that people are likely to respond to!
This was Part II of my guide to increasing your Twitter presence and influence. Check back next Sunday for Part III where I will be discussing more tried and tested methods that you can use for your personal or business Twitter feed to develop your feed.
Twitter Part I: Qualitative Vs. Quantitative
Part I: Qualitative Vs. Quantitative
Since the launch of Twitter in 2006, social media has come a long way - brands are reaching out to social media as a means of becoming much more sociable in their approach to marketing. Customer relationship management has become the fore of everyone’s mind and even private individuals are understanding the impact of public presence on one of the worlds biggest social media platforms. Information is becoming more transparent and the now economy couldn’t be any more prevalent.
This blog series is targeted towards businesses and individuals who are looking to increase their presence and influence on Twitter and will include some key tried and tested methods that grew my private account to over 10,000 followers in a matter of months.
It is important to point out that not everybody is willing to play by the rules of the game. Some companies and private individuals opt for the quantity over quality method using dedicated websites used to accumulate followers in return for money. The accounts with little activity and ridiculous amounts of followers tend to be quantity accounts with little or no influence on the users following them.
It’s really easy to spot the fakes, simply goto a follower statistic website (I use http://twittercounter.com/) type in their username and compare their follower count for the past 3 months or so. If the graph indicates a solid, linear line with a fixed amount of follower increases per day then they use the Quantitive Method and pay for followers. For example:
Above: an example of the Quantitive Method
You can see from the graph of my Twitter follower activity that it is very much in relation to the activity on my account - some days I gain followers and some days I lose followers all on the basis of the Qualitative Method.
Above: an example of the Qualitative Method
This was Part I of my guide to increasing your Twitter presence and influence. Check back next Sunday for Part II where I will be discussing some tried and tested methods that you can use for your personal or business Twitter feed to develop your feed.
Hi, we’re Ditch the Label. Who the f*ck are you?
Sometimes life throws you lemons. Make lemonade.
Dissertation
Hi Tumblr,
Please take a quick moment to complete a survey about premium clothing. This survey is open to UK residents aged 17+ only.
You can access the survey and find out more at: http://research.ditchthelabel.com/index.php?sid=63395
Thanks,
Liam x
2012
Hi all,
Sorry I haven’t blogged much in a while. I will only ever post something when my inspiration strikes and what better opportunity than the turn of the new year.
For those of you that follow me on Twitter, you will have noticed that my posts have been a little crazed at the minute. That’s because 2012 is set to be the biggest year of my life so far and to be totally honest, I’m absolutely terrified… but excited at the same time.
This year I graduate from University, after which I will need to move to London and find an amazing graduate job that is right for me. I know that I have had some amazing opportunities of experience and met some amazing people and clients who have become some great friends - however, I am not naive to it all. I know how competitive the graduate job market is right now which is why I can’t sit back and relax.
For those of you who are about to graduate, you will understand how scary/exciting/terrifying/ecstatic the whole process is… but hey, everything happens for a reason and I am more than confident that I will reach my potential regardless of the pathway I go down.
Not only will 2012 be a huge year for my career, but also it holds my 21st birthday (in a few weeks, in fact) and also the ambitious plans for Ditch the Label (which, recently after a rebranding exercise hit 31,000 registrations) and also… I’ll be moving to a new city, with new people and those that I am already close with to share it all with me.
It’s all so overwhelming, yet so exciting and I can’t wait to keep you all updated on my progress!
Have an amazing 2012 - make it your best year yet, I know I will.
PS. Don’t bank too much on the world ending in December!
To the Next Generation
- Don’t let anybody or anything stand in your way.
- Ignore photoshopped versions of how you are ‘supposed’ to look.
- Never hold back from something you truly believe in because others around you don’t agree.
- Beauty isn’t everything, it diminishes quickly so don’t rely on it.
- Concentrate at school, don’t worry if you’re picked last in P.E. - you will never need it.
- Don’t diet unless you feel happy about it.
- Stop caring what people think of you, it will only hold you back.
- Don’t try too hard at controlling your own destiny - you will end up there anyway.
- Don’t have unprotected meaningless sex.
- Listen to your parents, even if you act like you don’t care. They are some of the only people on the planet who will love you unconditionally. Take their advice but don’t follow in their footsteps.
- Don’t pick your spots, they will only get worse.
- Work hard but play even harder.
- Look out for old people, always surrender your seat to them - one day it will be you.
- Don’t play music out loud when in public places. It’s gross misconduct.
- Remember where you came from but don’t let it dictate who you are.
- Believe in yourself because self-belief is the main recipe for success.. if other people don’t believe in you, get over it and see them look away when you’ve made it.
- Do things that make you feel uncomfortable and scared.
- It’s okay to cry now and again.
- If you see somebody wearing something nice, ask them where they got it from.
- Accept the fact that people will dislike you - it’s a sign of you becoming somebody.
- Wear nice underwear.
- Take photos and cherish the memories.
- Do not sleep with your friends’ ex.
- When people try to drag you down, remember that they are already below you - don’t retaliate and let them get on with it.
- Hold hands in public - PDA is not a bad thing, we need more of it.
Above all, embrace things as they come: prepare for the best but be ready for the worst - life is a constant cycle of events, both good and bad who will shape the person you are meant to be.
Marketing as a Faculty is Becoming Increasingly Challenging
Hi world,
So summer has treated me kindly. After interning in 2 organisations as their Marketing Executive, both have offered me the position on a more permanent basis. I have been approached by 2 other organisations offering me a Marketing Executive position through recommendation! I am now also consulting to a brewery company with regards to their social media strategy so it has all been very exciting and fast-paced. I am back at University for my third and final year next month so I am going to need major time management!
I wanted to write a blog about my thoughts with regards to the increasing amount of challenge faced by people in the marketing industry with engaging a specified demographic. Whilst the increase in technology and shift in trends towards an online platform has introduced new mediums and tools of segmentation, I believe that we, as humans are becoming decreasingly receptive of communication and more demanding of a marketing free world.
In the more traditional sense, marketing was a faculty involving the basic communication of a commercial product and service through print, radio or occasionally the television. We as consumers were overly trusting and somewhat naive to such communication and thus rendering it as being highly effective with minimal effort needed to push consumers quickly through the AIDA Model (Attention > Interest > Desire > Action)
People were naive to believe that photoshopped images were real, products were a one-stop-shop remedy for a problem they never realised existed and could completely revolutionise their lives as they had oh so clearly done with the celebrity endorsing them.
Today, this kind of economy doesn’t exist and thus representing a power shift from marketers to the consumers. We are of Generation Y; the generation who is tech-savvy and highly sceptical of any outward communication targeted towards us. We have grown to see advertisements as white noise and thus practically rendering the traditional methods as being almost useless. The AIDA Model is becoming increasingly sloped and difficult to usher consumers across it. We are the now economy, the highly demanding and impatient consumer with 10,000 different outlets to choose from within the reach of our fingers.
The increased segmentation of television and radio mediums has meant that markets are becoming much more dispersed and easier to segment. The internet has led to unprecedented levels of targeting but this means that wherever we are, whatever we are doing, we are never too far from an advertisement. It is this frequency that I believe has led to decreasing levels of attention and thus truly highlighting the sheer need remain innovative and fresh with your marketing strategy. The life-cycle of engagement mediums is becoming shorter and shorter with the demand for explicit ROI levels becoming increasingly transparent.
The bottom line? Be innovative. Break the mould and don’t be afraid of being an innovation leader. Sure, it’s risky but as Spencer Johnson so comically taught us (WHO MOVED MY CHEESE?, 1998)… if you don’t change, you wont discover new possibilities and you’ll be left behind.
outlets
Put your hands down your trousers and make sure that you’re wearing something acceptable.
Hi world,
I realise I have had little activity of late but my life has been a rollercoaster of events. I have finally finished my second year at University and am currently interning as the marketing manager of a law firm and for a small chain of restaurants with huge growth ambitions. Needless to say I have had little time to think, never mind blog but today it is raining and I’m too sleepy to work so figured I would write about something totally controversial that has been on my mind for a while. Underwear.
I have always had a mantra about nice underwear and its relation to success. From an early age I developed somewhat of an obsession with Calvin Klein underwear and today my collection is dominated by many of their pieces. I have, over the years replaced all of my boxers with ones that look and feel good because I believe that is a worthwhile investment.
At the start of my collection, I had a lot of underwear from places like TOPMAN and ASOS that were okay but of shoddy quality so when the expensive, higher quality underwear was scarce it was somewhat of a luxury to wear it and in doing so I would feel a lot sexier and comfortable which therefore led to me feeling much more confident and sure of myself.
As the collection grew, luxury underwear became less of a novelty and more of an essential staple to my wardrobe so therefore replicating a slightly diluted version of emotion which has of course had a great impact upon my day-to-day life. It sounds a little stupid when I read this back to myself because underwear is something that just exists and I know personally, I don’t really think about it. Obviously, I will choose a pair of boxers to reflect my mood and the day ahead of me but it kind of stops there; what I’m writing about is a much more subliminal message.
So therefore, wearing nice underwear = increased feeling of sexiness and comfort = increase in confidence and relaxation = higher success and more open to synergy and rationalism. In short, wear nice underwear every day and you are on the path to succeeding.
See you soon,
Liam
