Twitter

No question, social media has transformed the telecommunications industry. The days of “Can you hear me now?” are over, and the telecom giants – Sprint, Verizon, Comcast, Bell – know they need to be proactive in cultivating customers via social media. Unsurprisingly, there’s a bit of a love/hate relationship between digital media and telecom. continued… New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Yesterday, I wrote this article about Twitter. Nothing particularly unusual about that, as I’ve been writing about Twitter now on a near-daily basis for more than four years. But this event did represent a benchmark of sorts, as that post was the two thousandth article that I have written and published about Twitter since February 19, 2009. Two thousand is quite a number. I think I’ve probably written more articles about Twitter than anybody else, like, ever. So what have I learned in that time? continued… New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Social sharing drives eCommerce sales, but all shares are not created equally. Email still leads the way, and by some distance, with the average email share especially valuable as it’s almost always a one-to-one forward (from one friend directly to another), and leads to an average dollar conversation rate of eight times that of Facebook, and more than ten times that of Twitter. continued… New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Hold on to your hats, marketers, because we’ve got some exciting news that’s going to transform the way you use Twitter Ads. A little background first: back in June, Twitter rolled out Twitter Cards, their name for the multimedia you sometimes see in expanded tweets on Twitter.com, Android, and iOS applications. Fast forward to today: Twitter released the Lead Generation Card, a new type of Twitter Card that will allow marketers to collect leads directly within the tweet. Users don’t even have to fill out a form -- since their information (Name, email, and username) is already pulled into the card. They literally just have to hit "Submit" on the Card's call-to-action. For now, this is only available as a feature in Promoted Tweets -- a paid feature of Twitter Ads. Here’s what it looks like, courtesy of the Twitter Advertising Blog: So cool, right? We can think of tons of ways you could get the most out of this new feature ... but we're getting ahead of ourselves here. First, let's show you how to get Lead Generation Cards in the first place, then we'll give you some marketing takeaways. How to Create Twitter Lead Generation Cards Want to get set up a Lead Generation Card for one of your Promoted Tweets? Follow these steps: 1) Set up a CRM end point integration. The first time you want to collect information through Twitter Cards, you're going to need to set up an end point integration, which will allow you keep track of your Twitter leads from Lead Generation Cards within your CRM. Twitter has a whole list of CRMs that will work with Lead Generation Cards -- and if you're using HubSpot as a CRM, we count, too. For more information on the end point setup, check out Twitter's support article. Once you have the CRM integration set up, you're ready to start creating your Cards. Unlike creating other types of Twitter Cards, you won't need to make changes to the HTML or CSS on your website for the Lead Generation Card to appear. 2) Create a new Card. To start creating your Lead Generation Cards, you'll need to go to the Twitter Advertising Interface, located in the drop-down menu in the top right corner of your homepage screen. Once you're in the Ads Interface, click "Advertising" in the top left, then select "Cards." Once you're on that page, click the "Create New Card" button in the top right. 3) Create content for the Card. Once you're in the New Card interface, you'll need to select the content to be featured in the Lead Generation Card. Here's what you'll need: Card Image: Make sure to choose a compelling image that Twitter users can't help but click on. Keep in mind it can't be larger than 1 MB, maintains a minimum of a 4:1 aspect ratio, and is at least 600px wide. Short Description: Include a sentence here about why your offer is so great. It's just like your landing page title -- short and punchy, yet descriptive. Remember, this can be no longer than 80 characters. Call-to-Action (CTA): Here, you can specify the text on the CTA button at the bottom of the Lead Generation Card. Make sure the text is action-oriented and tailor the language to the offer. For example, if you were promoting an ebook, you'd make the CTA text: "Download Ebook Here." 4) Set Technical Settings After you've decided what the Lead Generation Card will look like, you've got to make sure it actually works the way it's supposed to in this section. Here's what you need to fill out in the section: POST/GET Dropdown: This is how the information is sent from Twitter to your CRM. Typically, POST sends information to your server, while a GET retrieves it. If you're not sure which to choose, check with your development team or a technology-fluent friend for a little guidance. Submit URL: This is the URL your leads are submitted to -- it should be the endpoint to your CRM system. Fallback URL: If users click through on a Lead Generation Twitter Card on a non-supported platform, they will be taken to this link. It's a good idea to make this a landing

Love tennis? Like to feel like you’re a part of something bigger happening online? Then you’ll probably wish we had told you about this in time for you to participate! But you can still watch someone swing a racket at tennis balls shot at him by a tweet-powered robot! That’s something, right?! Yes, we explain what the hell this means below. continued… New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Celebrities and other Twitterati can reign supreme every other day, but if you have a loved one who has served (or is serving now) in the military, Hashtags4Heroes wants to help your special someone take center stage this Memorial Day. How? All you have to do is tweet a photo of your military hero, past or present, along with the #HT4H hashtag and you’ll see his/her photo and story spotlighted on the Hashtags4Heroes wall. continued… New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Wouldn’t it be great to have a garden that was visible (or not) based on the whim of folks tweeting about it? Possibly not, as Twitter trolls might kill it with ‘unkindness.’ But one optimistic group of folks, with an apparently less-jaded view of Twitter, have put their garden out there and have stunned IRL viewers with the results, bringing home the gold from the Chelsea Flower Show. Its covering responded to live Twitter activity, changing how the garden appeared at any one time. continued… New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

How do you manage your online interactions right now? If you’re like me, the answer is probably “not very well.” I create tags in emails and reminders and lists and all that – or I favorite tweets and sometimes email tweets to myself so folks don’t get lost in the chaos that is Twitter. But along the way, you’ll likely realize (to your horror) that you’ve let various opportunities slip by – and all because “social” isn’t easily organized. Till now. We’re excited to tell you about a service, a social client relationship management (CRM) that will organize all of your Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Foursquare and Google+ contacts in ways you’ve only imagined. This social CRM also integrates with your favorite apps like Hootsuite and Evernote (to name my two favs). And better still? It just released new features – insights, signals and reminders – that will make this site the hub of your digital marketing efforts. AND, they have a special offer for AllTwitter readers (only the fastest will snag it though, so read this quick!). continued… New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

“Two roads diverged in the social media wood, and I, I took the one less traveled,” said 21.7% of salespeople. In a recent survey of 511 predominantly B2B sales reps and executives published on A Sales Guy Consulting, approximately 22% of salespeople claimed they didn’t use social media to close deals, while an overwhelming 78.3% said they had used social media to sell. Are you, or someone you know, part of the 22%? If so, it could be impacting your career, your business, and your paycheck. But there's good news -- there's still time to join the 78%! Allow me to try to make the case for you (and feel free to co-opt any of this if you'd like to make this case for a 22%-er yourself.) Why Social Media’s Value Is on the Upswing We live in a world where open communication and transparency are not just options, but near addictions. When it comes to social media, many people have fallen victim to digital exhibitionism. We post how we feel about our meals, our friends, the services we use, and our views on just about anything. With this kind of unfiltered, raw personal insight flowing constantly through the arteries of social media, now is the time for salespeople to keep their fingers, quite literally, on the pulse of the marketplace through social media platforms like Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook. It wasn’t always like this. In the beginning of the social media era, this kind of personal data simply wasn’t around. There were less people talking, sharing, and establishing relationships over social media. It’s taken some time for the B2B market to join the social media conversation, but there’s no denying that the data overwhelmingly suggests that industries have evolved and adopted these practices. In 2013, 43% of surveyed marketers said they had found a customer through LinkedIn. Similarly, 56% of B2B marketers plan to increase their social media spend in 2013. Now that adoption has ramped up, it’s time to respond. Not just in Marketing, but in Sales, too. Why Should Sales Adopt a Social Media Strategy? Because your future customers are on social media! Remember back when businesses would advertise in the Yellow Pages? Someone might look up “Law Firm,” call for a quote for their services, and the firm would answer when people called. In the digital age, it's not so different. People "call" us in a lot of different ways -- on the phone, via our website, on email, even in search engines. And when they do, we do our best to "call" them back, whether through nurturing materials, an email, or an actual phone call. Now answer me this. If you got a "call" through social media ... would you return it? If your answer is anything other than of course, you might be in the 22%. For some time now, social media has been the voicemail box we just haven’t been checking. With growing adoption of social media, there are more and more messages being sent over social that you should be doing your darndest to pick up on. And if you’re not checking the messages, someone else will. 72.6% of salespeople using social media actually outperformed their colleagues not on social media. Don’t let the salesperson outperforming you be from your competitor. (Tip: The value of social media in the sales process extends beyond just being present where leads are communicating. It has to do with the soft skills many sales professionals have already honed in-person and on the phone. Any sales professional knows it’s extremely important to develop a sense of comfort and trust early on in a relationship. Social media can be the perfect medium for engaging in those conversations that will help you better understand your lead's pain points, interests, and personality. In a world where we text before we call, the domain of sales conversations is expanding from the headset into the Twitter stream.) What Sales Reps Could Be Doing TODAY to Leverage Social Media So how exactly does a salesperson get involved in an effective social media strategy? The first steps are knowing

Facebook delivers much higher conversion rates than Pinterest or Twitter in terms of social commerce sales, but the average order value is highest for Pinterest users, followed by those referred by Facebook and Twitter, according to a new report by customer experience engine Monetate. continued… New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.