DigitalEYE had a chance to interview Zaibastu (Reg Saddler), a heavily influential social media expert who has over 100,000 followers on Twitter and has made a huge impact user news submitted sites such as Digg.  We discussed the new Digg redesign, user revolts and the future of Social Media concerning Digg and Twitter.

This is the transcript from an audio interview that took place August 31, 2010.

What is Digg to you?

Digg is always in my eyes. I’ve always enjoyed Digg as a news aggregator. At first that was my appeal. I came to it as a website where I could see content and breaking news stories; it was a little daily newspaper for me. The whole thing, after I got banned and even more changes, I didn’t want to contribute to the site and I was moving around millions of pages views per month. I thought “Why try to get back on and give them the good press?” Maybe it’s a little arrogant, but I really did feel that I was giving them some free love, so why try to get my account back on? I didn’t have the same kind of passion as before. That’s why I moved to Mixx and ultimately  Twitter looking for a site—not only for great news but somewhere that’s fun and has a different dynamic and different social media feel. Because social media is fun for me.

How do you view Twitter in regards to Digg?

The news breaks faster on Twitter than anywhere else. You’ll see correspondents from CNN to any Blogger for any company out there looking toward Twitter to find out what’s happening in the world. You’ll have someone posting a car bombing that recently happened and you’ll see it instantly on Twitter, then it’s broadcast and amplified and, then the big media sources are right on it saying “breaking from Twitter.” That’s why I say Twitter is actually breaking news faster.

Do you think Twitter could overtake Digg or will they remain coexisting?

Digg is your daily newspaper and its goal is to pick the best stories. Breaking news that is 4 hours old isn’t considered “breaking” anymore on Digg. Sites like Facebook and Twitter try to incorporate real time feedback; that has been going on for a while now. They’re two different animals and Digg is trying to incorporate the best features just like Facebook is from Twitter.

What do you think of the new Digg redesign and the user revolt? We’ve seen it happen with every major revision of the site, but what makes it different than previous Digg redesigns and user revolts?

I haven’t been on Digg. I wasn’t visiting it everyday looking for top news stories or even looking for a feel of the front page. What I would go there for is the upcoming stories; and the majority of that was coming up from friends. That was really enjoyable because I would see Andy Sorcini (MrBabyMan), Muhammad Saleem and other people and I knew. It’s in upcoming and it’s only been popular for 8 hours, it’s still breaking news and that’s where I find a lot of the Digg breaking news. Even if those stories don’t make it to the front page, I know they picked some good content. What happened with the new Digg redesign is they let in the big fire hose—CNN and Mashable, specifically. I love Mashable and I love their content but they were able to push Digg to pull in every single story that they’re throwing out there. It’s like a zillion followers here and a zillion followers there; they’re pulling that content in and people are voting that up rather than going to Andy with his 20,000 followers because Mashable is a big brand name and they’re being pushed on to the front page. I think that was the complaint many of old time and new users (like top Diggers and non-top Diggers) had. Now all these big guys are able to force feed and push their content to the front page of Digg. At least before it was fair up to a point with the Digg algorithm picking and choosing the content that is coming from not only top submitters but then lowly, normal submitters.

New Digg

Old Digg

With the “big fire hoses” overtaking Digg, do you think it is redundant to see a story from Mashable and then go to the Mashable website?

It doesn’t really make it redundant, but here is where the problem lies and I think I have a better handle on it. If you talk to Muhammad Saleem and J.D. Rucker, they might have a better feel and better answer. If you’re a normal user on Digg and you see that Apple is having a special event September 1st, you’re more apt to click that than little Johnnie who submitted the story that came out an hour or even a day earlier. To address your question, again will it just make Digg a placeholder for these larger firms? In fact, that was the problem. Mashable got on the front page. 4 or 5 posts were Mashable stories just a few days early on in the redesign. Just recently, Digg users revolted and so they hopped on board Reddit’s news feed and started promoting Reddit’s stories so every single top Reddit story was now on the front page of Digg. I guess users were trying to show Digg and the populace of users out there just how silly the redesign is, where you can actually force content from a competitor onto the front page because of the way they’re aggregating news.

Since users are revolting and promoting top Reddit stories on to the Reddit front page, do you think Digg is going to notice this and make changes?

Yes. Kevin is on top of it. I’ll tell you why: he doesn’t know I’m not a regular on my old show called “The Drill Down” where we could talk about Digg specifically and talk about Social Media in general. So when I told Kevin and other people “Hey I’m back on Digg” but I have a little fake account with my name, Kevin Rose welcomed me back. He also talked to J.D. Rucker and a few other people who mentioned him specifically about the new Digg redesign so he knows we’re influencers in Social Media. I think he was trying to nip some of the bad press. He’s being proactive. I don’t think he knows where all the fires are at right now, I don’t know if he’s not getting good feedback from his users or if he’s not listening to the end users. I think he is now—initially he wasn’t. I think they’re going to bring back a lot of the popular features that Digg had tossed out in the redesign, I just don’t know if they know how to properly address the problems that have arisen and have forced them down Alexa wise by a third when it comes to traffic volume.

Where do you see Digg going in the future? Whether it’s a revamp of V4 or a whole new system for version 5, and in the next few years in terms of redesigns and content distribution.

My comment to Kevin Rose: You want to listen to your popular users, the people that make your site what it is. I don’t care if you think a small percent of the top Digg users control the front page. I specifically said this to Kevin: “You don’t want to be a Blockbuster, you want to be a Netflix.” That means listening to your people.

With that said, the only way I think Digg can stay relevant is to push in or embrace the people they pushed out before. Top Diggers: these are people who are passionate about content; they have a great feel for it. Just like Twitter isn’t kicking out Lady Gaga because people like her, I really think Digg should do the same thing and give Andy some love and everyone else out there who has been passionate about their content. Obviously the users have spoken and made him number one on Digg and everyone who’s 2 all the way down to 2,000 should be getting some love because these are unpaid content/social media experts trying to submit the best content that they can find to Digg.com. If it’s spammy, other users will call them out. If you work for Time magazine, or you’re doing a social media promotion and say you’re a top Digger promoting it, the users will call you out. The Digg community forces you rise beyond mediocrity. But now with the revamp, they came in and said “Hey Mashable, Time, Newsweek, all you guys: we’ve got some good news! We’re going to get your content on the front page every day. We’re going to make it front and center, we’re going use your influence.”

They’re going to have to go back to their old business model to get breaking news on to the front page. At best they will have a 3-4 hour lag time. They have to move that up to 15 minutes to half an hour, which they haven’t been able to do. They just don’t know how to do that with the new Digg and they haven’t been able to do so.

So that’s the new Digg, all that matters is timeliness, control people and timing. News is dead. If you go to CNN.com and you already heard about a story on Digg, people are going to stop going back.

I previously wrote about how bands were kicking ass at using social media and how your brand or business could take note of it—but what if you’re not an influential rock band and need to find your own social media strategy?

All of us strive for something when it comes to music, whether it’s performing for hundreds of thousands of fans at the year’s biggest festival or playing your heart out to a couple hundred die-hard fans in a small, overheated club in downtown L.A. For now, you’ve got your first album recorded, have your bandmates ready and a ton of gear to play your hearts out in your first gig to a few hundred people. First live performance. Nervous? You should be: you don’t even have a Twitter account yet!

1. Get Social And Interact

Engaging fans using social media is critical for any band; it’s the new MTV. Gone are the days when your band hopes to get play on the local music channel because YouTube is your new video outlet. Radio playback? Last.FM, Pandora, Facebook and word-of-mouth are all your promoters. That doesn’t mean the old school channels are obsolete; they’re just not as effective as they were a decade ago. Getting social will help promote your band through local channels as well as the national (or international) scene. The basics will be needed: Facebook music page, Myspace page (if you’re in to retro social networking), official band Twitter account, YouTube/Vimeo channel, SoundCloud/bandcamp profile, Flickr profile, iTunes/Amazon/Tune Core account (to distribute music) and of course, your very own official website. Sound daunting? Social media may come off as a huge undertaking but it’s more than worth it in the long run. To have a massive social presence, it would be wise to hire an ad agency or independent just to manage it all.

The more social media outlets your band connects to, the easier it is to engage fans and promote new work. It also creates a more intimate experience knowing anyone can send an @reply to get some sort of feedback. In the era of Prince, KISS and Van Halen, such a concept would seem ludicrous and would tear down the veil of mystery that enhanced their image. Today, social media outlets are tearing down the curtains and bringing artists off to the stage right in to the crowd. John Mayer, Pearl Jam, Cold Play, Taylor Swift and even Snoop Dogg have all taken up Twitter and often Tweet about random musings, concert info and music releases.

2. Interact With Your Community

So your band is on every social media outlet known to man and actively engaging fans. You can’t just stop at the occasional fan who leaves a comment on Facebook saying how great your latest single is. Bring them into your band’s community. Social Media should be the tool you use to bring in fans and potential fans to your band’s website. If you’re not sending out that .com or, worse, you don’t have one, this leaves fans sprawling for info across all these outlets you don’t own. If you’re lacking a site for your band, invest in a good website design company to code up something great. Twitter is awesome for sending out updates, Flickr for posting live shots, YouTube for hosting your next video but when your next release drops, are you going to inform everyone through a Facebook status? All of these social networks should tie in to your band’s main website and work together. Create a gallery of live concert shots that streams appropriately tagged content from Flickr; catalog music videos through embedded YouTube and Vimeo videos; add a media player courtesy of Sound Cloud or create a flash equivalent. These networks will bring in fans, allow them to interact with your content and spread it by word of mouth when they leave.

Your website should prominently display concert information and be the “go to” place for ticket info and other offers. When a band announces their new tour, misinformation can spread across blogs and other news outlets, rumored ticket prices often confuse customers. You’ll need to take control of how ticket information is disseminated before other outlets do. Same goes for media distribution. If you don’t have information on your newest release and Amazon is already showing a track listing complete with description while Pitchfork has a scathing review in the works, you’re stuck between a rock and a hard place. Even if it’s leaked out piece by piece from any of your channels, your website needs to be the go to place for ANY information concerning media distribution. In short, if you created it and I can buy it, it needs to be acknowledged by you in some form. Amazon shouldn’t be the one giving me the only details.

Maintaining a blog adds additional content that goes far beyond what Facebook and Twitter can do. By having a central location that transcends the 140-500 character limit of Twitter and Facebook, you can get in to more details about any aspect of your music or band. Sending out a Tweet saying “New release – September 15th!” then linking it to a blog post with a full track list, release information, retail specials, digital download opportunities and recording information is the icing on your social media strategy. It is key for your website and social media outlets to interact hand-in-hand to bring in fans, engage with them and give them a reference for ANY information on your band. If you’re leaving discography info and a bio to Wikipedia or Facebook and not your website, this will create fragmentation of your band’s image. How Facebook sees you, how Twitter sees you, how Myspace sees you and how your website portrays you should be uniform.

3. Document And Archive Your Content

If your band has been around for a decade or is looking to stick it out in the long run, all of your content—whether it be photos, music, live shows, anything—needs to documented in some way. You can loosen the reigns and let fans have some control of this. This might sound contradictory to the hardline stance of taking command of every social media account you can get but this approach has worked. I mentioned in my previous post how Nine Inch Nails is innovating in the social media space and that they’ve been one to let fans have a significant place in their online presence, one of them being a fan run wiki dedicated to archiving the band’s concert dates, live recordings and information hard core fans would be interested in. The reason this works is that it’s maintained by truly passionate fans. The casual fan may not care about finding an obscure live recording or information on an ultra-rare release that only had 400 copies put out but there are people who do. These people will be dedicated to maintaining wikis and live recording catalogs online, they should be embraced as they are an essential part of shaping your band’s community. Other fan run sites should be credited in some way on your band’s website and receive some interaction on your end.

Bands such as The Grateful Dead (or simply “The Dead”) have garnered a massive following of fans that actively tape and distribute their live recordings online. While others have taken stricter stances on concert recordings, it’s still an area that needs to be acknowledged whether it’s shunned or embraced. Even if you ignore the taping community and try to instate restrictions, fans will always find a way to circumvent these bonds and sites that embrace the tradition of taping will flourish. While I can’t say which approach you should take in regards to this, you should at least do something about it. If you’re not willing to host or extensively catalog live material, at least let the fans take over in this area and assist when you can. Bands such as Metallica and Dave Matthews Band not only embrace live recordings, but monetize them through officially run websites that allow you to download any recorded performance in lossless form for the cost of an average CD.

4. Interact With Your Channels

You have your social media accounts set up, your website running and eager fans listening to your latest release. The next thing is to utilize your social channels. Fans are always looking for the latest information on their favorite bands; they’ll search through social channels and it’s very important to keep these organized and give them a definitive purpose. Keep all video content contained to one channel on YouTube/Vimeo and create playlists for music videos, interviews, fan interactions, teasers and trailers etc. Your Flickr account should be organized the same way; sets for live shots, album artwork, promotional images, original artwork, etc. When using Twitter you have more wiggle room. You will need an official account for your band to send out updates such as ticket info or other important tidbits. Individual members could have their own Twitter account but that is an optional decision. If you decide to go down that road, make sure each account is properly identified and differentiated from the official band feed. The same goes for Facebook: ensure each member’s profile (fan page or personal) is differentiated from the band’s page.

5. Use Tune Core

If you’re looking to expand how your music is consumed, you’ll want to set up an account at Tune Core, a company that handles online distribution of music through a variety of outlets. Tune Core does the one thing every band needs a record label to do: getting music out to the masses. Tune Core deals with the most popular online services such as iTunes, Amazon MP3, Myspace music, Zune Network, Emusic and a bevy of other online retailers. The upside to using Tune Core is its ease of use and affordable rates, something the modern day record label giant can no longer claim. While mainly used by smaller independent artists, Tune Core’s repertoire includes notables such as Zack Gross, Aretha Franklin and Trent Reznor (see the social media pattern?).

This concludes part 1 of the 10-point strategy your band should be using to promote themselves online. Part 2 will be coming shortly but in the mean time, tell us YOUR experience in using social media with your band.

Bands have always been one to push new ideas whether it comes to music or other art forms but over the years, they’ve constantly pushed the envelope on the adoption and execution of social media. Any business or brand should take note on what these groups are doing in the online space, they’d be jealous.

Early 2007 saw Radiohead start what would become a growing wave of bands embracing some form of social media and breaking away from the traditional structure of using a record label to promote themselves. “In Rainbows” by English alternative band Radiohead, was released shortly after breaking away from their label EMI too much fanfare. What made the release significant besides it being the first in over 4 years from the band was the release method; a digital download that fans could get at any price, officially from the band itself. This meant that you could pay nothing, $5.23 or even $645 if you felt so inclined. What this would do for the music industry is jumpstart a process that would turn the traditional record label on its head, kick it down then slap it across the face with some Facebook, Twitter and Myspace updates along with a good helping of original band content on YouTube. What followed next was a massive jump to social media by smaller underground bands but major acts as well.

Interacting With Fans And Knocking Down The Record Labels With Social Media: Nine Inch Nails

Nine Inch Nail’s frontman, Trent Reznor, has been very vocal for his disdain of record labels since starting the industrial rock band in the late 80′s. 2005 saw his return to the music scene with a new release and a new crusade in regaining some of the control over material he lost to his label. The band’s first release in 5 year, With Teeth was accompanied by source files for a few tracks from the album. Trent encouraged fans to download the source tracks and create their own remixes of his songs then release it under any medium they saw fit. No royalties, no red tape, nothing that would inconvenience anyone from the average underground DJ to veteran sound producers. Remixers were free to do as they pleased which led to an ever increasing connection with fans that transcended interviews and other traditional promotions.

In 2007 the bands newest release, Year Zero, started a trend of artists, especially Nine Inch Nails embracing piracy. The album, which foretold of an Orwellian future painted with industrial overtones and electronic soundscapes was given away free to fans through a means any record label would do a double take over; torrenting it. Touring in support of the newest album, Reznor encouraged fans to download the album free of cost from wherever they could just to spite his label.

At a concert during late 2007 in Australia, Trent urged fans to pirate his album to circumvent the high CD prices his label had set. On the surface it may seem like a marketing attempt that would’ve jumpstarted any failing band but the difference between Nine Inch Nails and any act looking to cop out for cash was passion. Reznor was looking to truly connect with fans and felt the chains placed on him by management and labels was far too constricting. This is the ideal mythology of Social Media but Nine Inch Nails took it many steps forward by giving fans and potential listeners something to line; free.

Year Zero and subsequent releases would have some sort of option to listen to the album for free whether it was embracing piracy, a freemium-like model or even just giving it away. This meant that anyone slightly interested in the band had absolutely nothing to lose when listening to Nine Inch Nails’ material but the band’s connection with its fan base was also strengthened. Over the course of the next two years, NIN put out two new albums that continued this trend. The follow up to Year Zero, Ghosts Vol. 1-4 saw a tiered model of release which would delight the casual music listener all the way up to the perfectionist. The first 9 songs from the album’s 36 song setlist were available for free with absolutely no obligation. Piracy of the album itself was often encouraged but contrasted with elaborate and intricate physical releases containing artwork and packaging that added a whole other dimension to the release. The band ensured everyone had an option in digesting ‘Ghosts’, the best thing to take away from this is the tiered release model.

When one thinks of a tiered business model in today’s digital world, there is rarely an option available for free and if so, it’s limited in scope. Trent was able to build interest in NIN’s back catalog as well as current releases by letting listeners try out the material without any loss. If they didn’t like it, nothing lost, if they did, that meant a potential album download, a few dollars donated for a higher quality version or even a ticket purchase for forthcoming tours. As a thank you to fans, another album, “The Slip” was released almost a year later in 2008 that contained 10 songs in lossless quality and available totally free. No copyright infringement or legal action scares from a label but pure, wholeseome, free content that was complimented with an extensive tour weeks later.

Trent won a Webby Award in 2009 for his free, online release of “The Slip”

Embracing The Social Aspects Of YouTube: Weezer and Ok, Go!

The internet has given us access to a bevy of information but one of its most prevalent aspects has been memes. They’ve cropped up in various forms, touching upon different aspects of society yet they’re an avenue of inspiration for bands Weezer and Ok, Go.

Weezer released their single “Pork And Beans” via digital distribution in April 2008 with an accompanying music video. What set the video apart from other elaborate musical montages is its embrace of popular memes and celebrities on YouTube. The video pays homage to the Coke and Mentos guys doing experiments in the background while creating massive fountains of Mentos powered coke showers. Pianist and singerTay Zonday imitating the video style of his single “Chocolate Rain” while weaving in and out of Weezer’s own song. Star Wars Kid’s crazy lightsaber antics and Ms. South Carolina appearance are all referenced as YouTube pop-cult icons. Weezer instantly appealed to an audience of millions that regarded these memes as pop culture corner stones and as inspiration to create new content. The video went on to win a Grammy for Best Short Form Music Video.

Rock band Ok, gained significant popularity in 2005 after a choreographed video of their first single “A Million Ways” was first uploaded to YouTube. A year later in August 2006, the video had become the most downloaded music video at the time reaching 9 million downloads giving the band recognition for their odd choreographed videos. The band continued to gain significant notoriety for filming another choreographed video of them dancing on treadmills to an upbeat song they release, “Here We Go Again” which soon became a YouTube sensation. Within six days, over 1 million people had watched the video and eventually reached 50 million views of the original upload by April 2010.

Both of these bands appealed to a culture that thrived on the latest meme, the latest happening. Ok, Go and Weezer knew which spots to hit and created music videos around icons, concepts and ideas that were already well recognized by millions of YouTube users. By uploading their content directly to YouTube, they had an opportunity to tap in to those millions of people to promote their music.

Free Is Good, Free Is Social

If you have a product that can be released via digital means, promote it by giving it away to build interest. It’s not simply enough to give away the product and let others judge it; build hype and then release it for free or through a freemium like model to support a free version of your product in contrast to its paid equivalent.

These bands also experimented with a new and untested distribution model: digital. Your business and brand may have already experienced digital outlets but its important to stress that a lot of connections are being made online. The print industry is starting to embrace the digital world to supplement its losses from print media, your business can learn an important lesson if it’s still avoiding going online.

An aspect of this is the freemium model that offers basic services or product for free and charging more for more advanced versions of that product. Finding balance between free and paid is crucial to maintaing a freemium model for your business. Nine Inch Nails continues to experiment with this in some form but they’ve always maintained a balance. They’ve released an album in some form for free that will attract casual listeners and those interested in the band while selling a product that audiophiles will appreciate and pay for. Lacking balance with a freemium product will only distance potential consumers. If they don’t have a gateway product that doesn’t cost them anything and won’t take up too much of their time, they have no real way of gauging your services or products. The point of a freemium model is attracting potential consumers with a free version and selling them something they’re truly interested in.

Music And Social Media? How Can I Use That With My Business?

All of these bands innovated by connecting directly with their fans/consumers, they cut out the middle men, got off the stage and said “hey, let’s make it interesting to sell our music to you and have fun doing it.” The first and most important thing to take away from this is to connect DIRECTLY with your consumers, fans and friends. These bands embraced the very ideals of social media by creating Twitter accounts to announce ticket pre-sales, Facebook pages to gauge interest in releases, YouTube channels to release original content and personalized websites to let the community interact directly with the band. If you’re not taking mental notes on this, I don’t know what to tell you. All of these outlets were critical for keeping fans interested in the band and attracting new followers, simply setting up these channels, maintaining them and populating them with worthwhile content can have the same effect on your brand.

You also need to measure the effectiveness of these channels on a regular basis. Guessing what works instead of having hard numbers in front of you will be the downfall of your online presence. Bands have had these tools at their disposal for years. What once started as radio plays has morphed in to number tracking services such as RockDex and Band Metrics. Your version? Retweets, YouTube channel views, Facebook Likes, Klout Score and Google Analytics. Not checking these numbers and ignoring them when they’re not bringing in enough unique visitors is fatal.

These bands also stuck to their genres but carved out new niches for themselves. Maintaing your brand’s identity is critical but it’s just as important to test new waters and explore them diligently. Don’t go overboard and totally depart from what made your company or brand what it is but adding something interesting in to the mix will help maintain interest.

When looking to expand your business, looking for new perspectives is important. Music has always been an inspiration for artists and writers, there isn’t any reason musicians shouldn’t be a role model for your business or brand. What we’d like to know is what you can do with this strategy for YOUR business. Let us know in the comments.

Twitter is quickly shaping up to be a powerful force in the social media world. Today, its building up its core service by absorbing a commonly used Tool; The Tweet Button. Often left to third party services and some clever HTML, it’s being officially ‘introduced’ by Twitter making it easier for websites to get visitors to Tweet and Retweet links.

Building Upon TweetMeme’s Work

The Tweet Button, responsible for handling story and link promotions through Twitter is most commonly known as the Retweet button created by TweetMeme. This button can be easily integrated in to any website design but TweetMeme expects users to migrate from their solution to Twitter’s official option. Founder Nick Halstead had this to say “We expect people to switch, and we support that.” Whether the two services will coexist remains to be seen, but at 750 million daily Retweet impressions, I don’t think TweetMeme has much to worry about. Halstead is optimistic: “The buttons were never our core business, we make our money from selling filtered data – not from buttons. If buttons made you money we would be very rich.”

TweetMeme’s Alternate Approach

However, Twitter is not totally copying the Tweet button to claim as its own; it worked with TweetMeme to license some of the backend technology. TweetMeme Pro, territory Twitter isn’t looking to get in to, will still be available. But, TweetMeme is starting to shift its business away from Twitter towards analyzing realtime data streams. The company is aiming to bring this to the market under the name DataSift which would help developers analyze data coming in from millions of Tweets.

However, smaller Twitter developers could be worried by Twitter’s move. The impression given is if you develop something popular, Twitter will absorb it. This resolution could crush any small developer house and prevent new ideas from coming to the market. Are you a small time developer that integrates with Twitter? What are YOU’RE thoughts on the issue of Twitter absorbing companies that create Tools to use with the microblogging service?

Via: TechCrunch

A recent study conducted by HP Labs ties in to something I wrote recently; when recruiting followers, quality rules over quantity. This time, it’s applied to Twitter.

HP Labs has performed some research and concluded that the influence a Twitter user has comes down to the quality of their followers versus the quantity of followers they have. While this might seem like common knowledge, it is crucial that followers retweet content to their followers and so on. Without this vital component, followers become nothing more than passive information consumer.

However, the correlation between follower count and popularity may not always be accurate. While someone may have hundreds of thousands of followers, it won’t mean as much when compared to someone who has thousands of followers that constantly retweet content. You may have the eyes of your Twitter followers but do you have their attention? This something Dr. Bernardo Huberman tackled in his video:

“In a world where all information is crowdsourced, how is it that an agenda gets set? There are zillions of messages there, millions of people and somehow, some things end up bubbling all the way to the top and grab the consciousness of a lot of people.”

The full text of the research is available here.

It’s always important to remember that interesting and captivating content will triumph over something that is dull, dreary, or even spam. If you’re not seeing interactivity with your Twitter network, try directly engaging users or creating something worth talking about. If you’re an ad agency, it’s vital to leverage this information because social media is not a numbers game; it’s about captivating and actively engaging your users.

How do YOU actively engage your Twitter followers and how often do they retweet your content?

Via: ReadWriteWeb

A common mindset associated with social media:  ‘the more friends you have, the higher your status.’ Numbers can show how influential you are on the web (klout score) but numbers aren’t everything. Sure, your company page may have thousands of fans—but what if they’re only there for a quick promotion just to jump ship afterwards? This is every brand’s worst nightmare: an uninterested audience. Are they really as interested as they appear? Could they even be spammers, diluting your brand’s Facebook wall with noise? These situations must be taken in to consideration as you amass Facebook Fans and Twitter followers.

If you’re looking to promote your brand on Facebook or Twitter, you probably have the notion of ‘more fans means greater success’ hammered in to your head. This is not always the case as those fans may not stick around for the long run and any tactics you use to pump up your fan count may only be a temporary means of creating interest. The easiest methods to use are giveaways and limited availability offers. As with the case of Einstein Bros.’ free bagel giveaway, it brought their number of Facebook fans from less than 5,000 to an astounding 400,000. Before you run off to put into motion a massive product giveaway, realize this: those 395,000+ fans may like free bagels, but do they like Einstein Bros. enough to pay for their bagels again? While enough of those new fans wholeheartedly enjoyed their free bagel, they may not be interested at all in buying more bagels from Einstein Bros.

Targeted Connections

The best practice is to filter your promotion. Blatantly pushing an offer will reach those who are simply not interested, putting your social network efforts at risk of being discredited as spam. Targeting those who are interested in your industry is a very powerful thing. If you’re reviewing the latest and greatest Apple product, you won’t want to promote to die-hard PC enthusiasts, but consider promoting to people interested in buying a new computer and have yet to decide which company to purchase from in addition to those who are already loyal to your brand.

Influencers

Another tip is to use influencers or those who specialize in your industry. In promoting a product or service, be sure to contact blogs and other consumer product review websites that focus on similar products or services. These influencers can be invaluable. They already have a following of consumers who trust them to provide advice and insight into their industry. Consider a unique spin, such as including benchmark tests others haven’t published or a review from the perspective of the average consumer, a professional, a graphic designer and so on.

Influencers can also be used to extend your own network, whether they be Facebook fans or Twitter followers. Perusing through your replies or posts on your wall should give you an idea of who will be a good influencer. Are they actively engaged in conversation relevant to your brand? Sending links and offers to these people is a great way to increase your brand’s presence by ensuring everyone receives some kind of benefit for following you. Creating exclusive promotions for influencers to use and spread to their network will bring in new people who would be interested in your brand, at the same time thanking existing fans for their loyalty. This method is most likely to attract the highest number of people interested in your brand. They will remain fans/followers beyond the promotional offer as they share the same interests as the influencer who referred them. Social Media Examiner recommends a digital gift card with a limited amount of uses that can be embedded on a blog or online profile. Ultimately it comes down to ease of use and how well it can be spread. Make sure your promotion is easy to fill out and doesn’t look like spam.

Customer Service, Brand Reputation

A consumer looks for company engagement beyond the occasional email discount or the opportunity to fill out a survey. As more brands compete for attention, the idea of a personalized experience is consistently lost. Social networking provides the opportunity to gauge the overall sentiment around your brand and whether or not people are satisfied with what you’re offering. If and when you find the consumer disappointed, this is the perfect opportunity to regain their loyalty. No one expects a brand or company to be perfect, but the fact that some go out of their way to engage consumers and resolve their issues is appreciated. While that person may be completely dissatisfied with the product, a representative looking to remedy the situation is impressive to the consumer and makes them feel important. The key is to really listen to the customer’s wants and needs. These efforts might regain the consumer’s favorable opinion. They are then likely to share the positive experience with their network.

Have your social media efforts been successful? Tell us your story of how your followers/fans have interacted with your brand and what you’ve done to keep them interested.

Megan Berry is Marketing Manager for Klout, the standard for online influence. She also blogs at The Huffington Post and Brazen Careerist. You can follow her on Twitter at @meganberry.

You know your business can’t just wing it on Twitter, you need a strategy. But how do you get there? A lot of social media advice revolves around confusing, high-concept buzzwords: There are only so many times you can be told to “listen” and “engage.” Concrete advice can be hard to come by, and while this guide won’t tell you what you need to tweet, it will provide you with the real questions you need to ask in order to craft a Twitter strategy for your business.

1. Choose Your Audience

Here is a quick example: Look up at least 10 of your customers on Twitter (a quick name search on Google can turned up their Twitter profiles). Once you’ve found some, look at who they’re following and who they talk to. These people could also become part of your audience. Look at how they describe themselves and what terms they talk about. Use those keywords and terms to find like-minded people.

The goal here is not to find everyone you’d like to interact with (that would probably be next to impossible), but to find people who might fit into your audience. Try to pay attention to who has influence in your audience. For example: who are people talking to, about or retweeting? Who do they seem to ask for advice? Once you have a decent group, move on to step two.

2. Understand How They Speak

• Look up what people are saying about your company. Are they saying good things or bad things? Are they asking for advice about what product or company to choose? Are they giving feedback about their experiences after the fact?
• Do the same for your competitors. Note if your competitors are jumping in or influencing any of these conversations.
• Notice the way your audience talks. Are they generally formal or informal? This will be very different depending on the companies you are tracking and the people you attract. It’s always good to match the tone of your audience.
• Look at what your audience shares and retweets. What kinds of links and articles do they like? What kinds of terms and ideas get them excited or annoyed?
• Note any hashtags or other ways your audience connects. Look up those hashtags to see if they have any real traction (if they’re all spam or if people are really using them to connect).

3. How Much is a Twitter Lead Worth?

This is a bit more theoretical but it’s an important step that many companies forget. The reason you’re involved with Twitter isn’t just to say you’re there, it’s because you’re looking for a good return on investment. So what is it that you’re after? It might be as concrete as sign-ups and sales or as ephemeral as buzz and brand awareness.

Depending on your goal, try to figure out how much each person is “worth.” This almost certainly won’t be an exact number, but you should get a general idea. For example, if you’re doing B2B sales and a sale is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, you’re going to have a very different strategy than a company with millions of users that makes its money from advertising.

4. Set A Goal and Track It

Setting a goal is just the start of your strategy, you also need to track it with metrics. Choosing metrics does not just mean tracking your follower count because the count isn’t always a totally accurate measure of how many people are paying attention to your account.

There are obviously different approaches depending on the size of your fan base. If you have a large audience, you might not be able to put a lot of time into each lead. Your overall goal will likely be about brand awareness and creating buzz for your company. You should consider metrics that capture overall influence such as retweets, blog posts and clicks.

If you have a targeted audience, each lead probably carries more value. You overall goal will likely be to generate new leads. You should consider metrics like sales, email sign-ups, @messages, direct messages and clicks.

5. Define Your Approach

• How formal or informal do you want to be?
• Should you include buzzwords or hashtags?
• How much effort should you put into reaching out to specific followers or finding new ones?
• What kind of links and content should you share?
• Can you do any special offers or campaigns on your account?
• What’s the style of your company? You have know your company’s message and define its personality. Your followers will appreciate the authenticity.

Any Twitter strategy is a perpetual work in progress. Just deciding that you need a strategy is an important first step that will have you thinking about what and why you tweet. The key is to keep experimenting: Twitter is ever-changing and to succeed on it you need to be flexible, but you also need to know where you’re headed.

For continuous World Cup coverage, check out Mashable’s 2010 World Cup Hub, which will be updated throughout the games.

Who’s winning in the World Cup? There are plenty of scores and stats for that. Which teams and players are winning the hearts and minds of the Twitterverse? That’s another matter entirely.

With 32 national teams, 736 players, and 32 coaches, there are so many mentions to track. Every single national team appeared in Twitter’s Trending Topics this week, as well as the names of 99 individual players.

If that’s not enough Twitter-footy excitement for you, consider that certain goals have triggered surges of nearly 3,000 tweets per second, which is enormous when compared to the average of 750.

Below is the breakdown of the most-tweeted teams and players this week, graciously compiled by Liz Pullen of What The Trend.

Remember, these rankings are not about team and player abilities, but reflect an aggregation of hotly discussed topics related to them.

Most-Tweeted World Cup Teams

Most-Tweeted World Cup Players

Need more social media World Cup coverage? Of course you do! Head on over to Mashable’s World Cup headquarters, where you’ll find real-time data on match scores, social mentions, and links to all our previous news and features.

GMAIL USERS: We hope you’ll join the discussion over on Mashable’s Google Buzz account.

With more than 9 million posts and comments in two days, Google Buzz has stormed the web like a swarm of locusts. An array of strong features, integration with Gmail and lots of press have turned Buzz into an overnight phenomenon.

If you’re like a lot of us, you’ve suddenly found yourself using your Gmail even more than you already were. Spending so much time in Gmail and Buzz, though, inevitably takes away from your Facebook () and Twitter (), and who wants to sacrifice their tweeting and Facebooking?

Luckily if you’re a Gmail user, you don’t have to sacrifice either, even while you’re browsing your e-mail or your buzz.

Gadget Integration Is Your Friend

“The key was using Gmail Labs feature at the bottom of the list called ‘Add any gadget by URL’. This allowed me to add these 3 features to my Gmail sidebar.”

By utilizing third-party gadgets, he transformed his Gmail into a place where he could access his Twitter, Buzz and Facebook straight from his Gmail. Here’s how:

Step By Step: Integrating Your Social Media into Buzz

2. Now go to Settings –> Gadgets. Here you’ll find a place to add Gadget URLs.

3. Add the TwitterGadget App. Any iGoogle gadget will do actually, but the best one in our opinion is TwitterGadget, a fully-functional Twitter service for iGoogle and Gmail. This lets tweet from the sidebar or open up your Twitter with all of your tabs intact. It even supports multiple accounts.

To add it, copy and paste this URL into Gmail’s Gadget settings: “https://twittergadget.appspot.com/gadget-gmail.xml”

4. Add the Facebook Gadget. In the same way you added TwitterGadget, you can add Facebook to your Gmail. While Google has an official Facebook gadget, it doesn’t play nicely with Gmail, so we suggest using the app Ari Milner users: Facebook Gadget by iBruno. It will expand into the rest of your Gmail for easy Facebook management.

To add it, copy and paste this URL into Gmail’s Gadget settings: “http://hosting.gmodules.com/ig/gadgets/file/104971404861070329537/facebook.xml”

5. That’s it! Google Buzz, Facebook, Twitter, and Gmail are now all wrapped up into one. Pretty nifty, no? Let us know about your experience in the comments.

The momentum, was too strong. Real-time search — and Google’s (Google) inability to beatTwitter at it — became a huge trend in 2009. Everyone wanted a piece of it, and Twitter had the goods. When you want to find out what’s happening right now, this very minute, Twitter’s search trumped Google, and Google had no choice but to react. Luckily for Twitter, the reaction came right on time. Both Bing (Bing) and Google signed a deal with Twitter to incorporate real-time results from Twitter into web searches, just as Twitter’s flat traffic figures became impossible to hide. The effect of this deal is still unknown, but when Google sends you traffic, you can bet it’s going to be noticeable.

Twitter’s future is still uncertain. We still don’t know the overall business plan beyond a few hints at at least some current revenue, and we still don’t know if the service’s huge popularity boom in 2009 was just a passing fad. One thing is certain, though: The Google deal was the adrenaline injection Twitter needed. If Twitter is really destined to become the world’s new SMS, 2010 is the time to do it, and we’re happy to be along for the ride.