10 Essential Digital Marketing Strategies for Success in 2024

The realm of digital marketing continues to evolve at a rapid pace, with new technologies, platforms, and consumer behaviours shaping the landscape. As we look ahead to 2024, it becomes crucial for businesses to stay ahead of the curve by implementing effective digital marketing strategies. Let’s explore ten essential strategies that will pave the way for digital marketing success in the upcoming year.

1. Embrace Omnichannel Marketing:

In 2024, reaching customers through multiple touchpoints will be more critical than ever. Embrace an omnichannel marketing approach that seamlessly integrates various platforms and channels. By providing a consistent and personalized brand experience across websites, social media, email, mobile apps, and offline channels, you can enhance engagement and drive conversions.

2. Leverage Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML):

Harness the power of AI and ML to gain valuable insights into consumer behaviour, automate processes, and deliver personalized experiences. Utilize AI-driven tools for data analysis, chatbots for customer support, and predictive analytics for smarter decision-making. By leveraging AI and ML, you can enhance efficiency, optimize campaigns, and improve overall marketing performance.

3. Prioritize Content Marketing:

Content will remain the cornerstone of digital marketing in 2024. Develop a robust content marketing strategy that focuses on delivering valuable, informative, and engaging content to your target audience. Invest in creating high-quality blog articles, videos, podcasts, and visual assets that resonate with your customers' interests and pain points. Emphasize storytelling to connect emotionally with your audience.

4. Optimize for Voice Search:

With the increasing popularity of voice-enabled devices, voice search will continue to gain prominence. Optimize your digital presence to cater to voice queries by using natural language keywords and structured data. Consider the conversational tone in your content and ensure your website is mobile-friendly for voice search optimization.

5. Embrace Video Marketing:

Video content consumption is on the rise, making it a crucial element of any digital marketing strategy. Create compelling videos that educate, entertain, or inspire your target audience. Utilize live streaming, video tutorials, product demonstrations, and user-generated content to engage with your customers and build brand loyalty.

6. Enhance Personalization:

In an era where customers expect personalized experiences, leveraging data and automation is vital. Utilize customer data to deliver tailored messages, product recommendations, and offers based on individual preferences and behaviours. Personalization helps build stronger connections, increases customer satisfaction, and drives higher conversion rates.

7. Focus on Social Media Engagement:

Social media will continue to play a pivotal role in digital marketing. Develop a social media strategy that emphasizes genuine engagement, community building, and user-generated content. Leverage social media platforms to connect directly with your audience, address their concerns, and build brand advocacy through interactive and meaningful conversations.

8. Invest in Influencer Marketing:

Influencer marketing will remain a powerful strategy in 2024. Identify influencers relevant to your industry and collaborate with them to reach and engage your target audience. Partnering with influencers can help you amplify your brand's reach, build credibility, and drive conversions.

9. Emphasize Customer Experience:

Customer experience will be a key differentiator in 2024. Ensure a seamless and delightful user experience across all touchpoints, from website navigation to checkout processes. Invest in user-friendly interfaces, responsive design, fast-loading pages, and personalized interactions to enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty.

10. Stay Agile and Data-Driven:

In the rapidly changing digital landscape, agility and data-driven decision-making are crucial. Continuously monitor and analyse your marketing efforts, measure key performance indicators, and adapt your strategies accordingly. Utilize data analytics to gain insights into customer preferences, campaign performance, and market trends, enabling you to optimize your marketing initiatives effectively.

As we approach 2024, digital marketing continues to offer vast opportunities for businesses to connect with their target audience, drive growth, and stay competitive. Adapt, innovate, and engage with your audience to thrive in the ever-evolving digital landscape.

Also, discover captivating and informative articles on my blog for a rewarding reading experience.

 

Turning Cold Traffic into Hot Leads: 10 Strategies That Work

 

In the ever-evolving landscape of digital marketing, one of the most critical challenges businesses face is converting cold traffic into hot leads. While attracting visitors to the website is essential, the real magic happens when you can turn those anonymous visitors into engaged prospects who are eager to hear from you. Let’s explore effective strategies to transform cold traffic into hot leads that can fuel your business growth.

Understanding the Cold Traffic 

Cold traffic refers to visitors who are unfamiliar with your brand, products, or services. They may have found their way to your website through various channels like search engines, social media, or online advertisements. These individuals are often at the top of your sales funnel and need some nurturing to become valuable leads.

The journey from cold traffic to hot leads is not a straightforward one, but with the right strategies, you can make it happen. Here are some proven techniques to help you convert those cold visitors into warm and eager prospects.

 

1. Create Captivating Landing Pages

Your website's landing pages play a pivotal role in converting cold traffic. When a visitor arrives on your page, they should immediately understand what you offer and why it matters to them. Make sure your landing pages are visually appealing, mobile-friendly and include a clear call-to-action (CTA) that encourages visitors to take the next step.

2. Offer Value Through Content Marketing

Content is king in the digital marketing world. Create high-quality, informative, and relevant content that addresses the pain points and interests of your target audience. Blog posts, videos, ebooks, and webinars are all excellent ways to provide value to your visitors and entice them to learn more about your offerings.

3. Implement Lead Magnets

Lead magnets are valuable resources or offers that you provide to visitors in exchange for their contact information. This could be a free ebook, a downloadable template, a webinar, or a newsletter subscription. By offering something valuable, you can entice visitors to share their email addresses and move them one step closer to becoming hot leads.

4. Optimize for Search Engines (SEO)

To attract and convert cold traffic effectively, your website needs to be discoverable. Invest in SEO strategies to ensure your content ranks well on search engines for relevant keywords. When people find your site while searching for answers to their questions, they are more likely to engage with your content and consider your offerings.

5. Engage Through Email Marketing

Once you have captured a visitor's email address, use email marketing to nurture the relationship. Send personalized and relevant content, offers, and updates to keep your audience engaged. Automation tools can help you segment your email list and deliver tailored messages to different segments of your audience.

6. Retargeting Ad Campaigns

Don't let cold traffic slip away after one visit. Implement retargeting ad campaigns to bring them back to your website. By showing targeted ads to people who have previously visited your site, you can remind them of your offerings and encourage them to take action.

7. A/B Testing and Optimization

Continuously test and optimize your landing pages, CTAs, and content to improve conversion rates. A/B testing allows you to compare different variations and identify what works best for your audience. Small tweaks can lead to significant improvements in conversion rates over time.

8. Social Proof and Trust Signals

Build trust with your cold traffic by showcasing social proof, such as customer reviews, testimonials, and case studies. Trust signals like secure payment options and privacy policies can also reassure visitors that their information is safe with you.

9. Personalization

Tailor your content and offers to match the specific interests and behaviours of your cold traffic. Personalization can significantly increase engagement and conversion rates by making visitors feel like you understand their unique needs.

10. Analytics and Data Analysis

Regularly monitor the website traffic, user behaviour, and conversion rates using analytics tools. Analyzing the data will help you identify what's working and where you need to make improvements in your cold traffic conversion strategy.

Converting cold traffic into hot leads is an ongoing process that requires a combination of compelling content, effective lead generation tactics, and constant optimization. By implementing these strategies, one can nurture the audience and turn them into valuable leads that contribute to the increase in sales. Remember that building relationships with your audience takes time, but the results are well worth the effort in the long run.

Social Networking – 10 Good Quotations

1. The word "follower" is a misnomer on twitter. They are people who gift you their attention. Be thankful. – Gautam Ghosh, Consultant, 2020 Social


2. What matters more is whom you follow than who follows you. – Gautam Ghosh, Consultant, 2020 Social

3. Organizations jumping into social media should get ready internally first. – Gautam Ghosh, Consultant, 2020 Social

4. Social Media is a tool and a tactic. Not a strategy. - Laura Ries, from Ries & Ries, a consulting firm

5. The value of a social network is defined not only by who's on it, but by who's excluded. - Paul Saffo, Silicon Valley Forecaster

6. It isn't just what you know, and it isn't just who you know. It's actually who you know, who knows you, and what you do for a living. - Bob Burg, Author and Speaker

7. Promoting your business must not be the overriding message you communicate to your online social networks. - Helen Leggat, British Freelance Writer

8. Social media should improve your life, not become your life! - Patrick Driessen, Consultant and Executive Coach

9. This isn’t a direct marketing tool, this is human communication. - Rob Key, CEO of Converseon, a social marketing firm

10. Human beings are far more likely to communicate ideas and information with others when they are emotionally engaged. Find the key issues that concern your audience and then inculcate them within your marketing plan to get an emotional response. - Maki from DoshDosh.com

The Social Media Bible: Tactics, Tools, and Strategies for Business Success

9 Tips to Guide Your Conversations on Facebook

If you are an online marketer, then you will surely not miss in promoting your brand on Facebook. Facebook has become one of the top referrer to websites like Google. BUT, you need to have a proper strategy for Facebook. Facebook requires a different approach from other forms of marketing messaging and engagement. Here are few recommendations to guide your interactions and conversations on Facebook.

1. You need to act as if you are a real person from your organization and you are also taking to a real person. People like speaking to a real person as they feel confident that they will be attended to.
2. Read carefully through all the comments before joining the conversation. And chip in when you feel it is the perfect situation or required situation.
3. Have patience when you want to comment. Do not go on commenting on each and every discussion. Give others a chance to talk about your products and services. It is always good if other customers respond to questions about your products and services.
4. Do not talk about yourself always. I really do not like a firm which always comments on their business.
5. Focus on conversations with your fans which are of interest to them. Give fans a topic which can ignite a healthy conversation. Discuss about the topics and do not try to sell the product here.
6. Have contents, quizzes, coupons… so keep the audience engage. This can also initiate a viral and can attract more fans. But, ensure you are not doing too much of selling here.
7. Do not forget to promote your Facebook fan page on other promotional materials and collaterals. Example: your website, email signatures, business cards, other ads, events…
8. Make sure the content on your website can be easily shared on Facebook using the ‘like’ icon. This helps in expanding the reach and prospect base through your friends and their friends as well.
9. Try to measure the impact of being on Facebook – no. of fans, no. of comments, no. of engagements, no. of new prospects, traffic referred to your website…

You need to know that Social Media has turned into a powerful marketing medium – it needs a perfect planning and strategy to make the campaign successful.

Facebook For Dummies

3 Most Important Social Media Strategies

To be successful in social media is it important

• To increase your network in social space - have more and more followers in Twitter?
• To have presence in all the forms – blogs, forums, Twitter, Facebook…?
• To keep talking about your own business?

If you feel so, then you are wrong. Social media is about others talking about your business. It is about sharing knowledge. It is not a place to do sales. Your network should talk about it and spread the word.

The most important steps for a social media campaign to be successful are

1. Identifying the evangelists who will talk about your business and get them into your social network.
2. Make the evangelists to talk about you and your business.
3. Allow the evangelists to spread the word among their network

Who can be these evangelists? They can be your customers, prospects, analysts and/or your partners. Try to convert them into evangelists. Discuss a topic among them so that it can ignite a healthy discussion. Share knowledge so that these evangelists can get more dope to discuss. Let them review your product or service. Let them discuss about your customer support. If at all there are few negative conversations or feedback in the social media space, inspire these evangelists to have more positive conversations apart from you immediately responding to the same.

Also read below articles to know more about social media and networking:

The Four Important Steps to Start Social Networking for Business
6 Tips To Be Successful In Social Media Marketing
5 Important Approaches for Social Networking for Companies

The Four Important Steps to Start Social Networking for Business

We have seen over the past few years the “buzz” was and is all about social networking say it on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn or…. the list goes on. Many other brands, retailers and corporate have also boarded the bandwagon to listen and respond to their consumers with the intent to increase the interaction and communication with them.

But, what are the main things the social networking depends on?

I have just tried to summarize the vast thing in under these four steps. This is just to provide the reader a hang of the buzz word.

1. Listening: The first and the foremost thing is to know where your prospects or customers come together to share knowledge and interact. It hardly makes sense if you try to build your social networking setup at a place where you do not have your prospects. So, one needs to do extensive research and study to identify such platform as to where they are getting together. If this is not possible, then identify where is the communication relevant to your business is going on. In fact you want to be among with your peer group. You need to know the answers to these basic questions
   - Where do they live?
   - What do they do?
   - How are they currently using social media?
2. Interaction: This is the ability of users to engage with each other and the business owner. The most important thing is a social network mainly depends most upon the quality of the interaction features and interaction between the peer groups. Without them, a social network’s growth becomes difficult, its membership becomes disengaged and its purpose is missed. Moreover, the quality of content that is being shared should be of interest and related to your business. Try to identify thought leaders in your business or organization that can submit good content regularly and can interact with the community. Do not try to talk more of sales here or more of me. You can build successful network if you share knowledge and this platform is not to advertise your business. Create distinctive content that fits with the organization’s identity and mission. The owner should make this as a part of the routine – create content, respond to members and engaging them.
3. Relationship: The third important step is to build relationships with your prospects and customers. With proper interaction (step #2) one reaches to build on this step. This relationship should be such that it should trigger offline relationship and get-togethers. Here the member is more matured in the networking space and would like to increase his/her network may or may not be in the peer.
4. Measurement: So your question now is “What is the ROI?” Lot of sharing content, exchange of opinions, reviews…etc is going on. So, would you like to see the no. of page views, referrals or sales conversions? I would suggest you to develop a set of objective-oriented measurement standards, tied to existing business objectives, to assess the effectiveness of the social networking initiatives. For any social media community, there is an unlimited scope of activity to measure: interactions, contributions and connections across time location and topic. You need to focus on relationships and not selling.

Building a good social networking for business is not that easy as mentioned here in four steps. It needs lots of thinking, detailed plan, strategies, identifying the peer group, getting hold of the contributors that can ignite interaction and engagements and the list goes on. But, these four steps will really help you in understanding what ground word is required. So, good luck.

Also read:
6 Tips To Be Successful In Social Media Marketing
5 Important Approaches for Social Networking for Companies

Seven Social Media Trends for 2010

We have seen what difference Social Media has done to the online world in 2009. The users have increased enormously on Facebook, Twitter… More and more people are using it. Organizations have also moved over to this channel to provide customer service or just to create brand awareness here as well. So, what 2010 has for us in Social Media –

1. Social Media will be more filtered: People do not like unnecessary updates to be seen in Facebook or Twitter. They want to read updates which they are interested in. People would now like to connect with only like-minded people. They just do want to increase their social network – they will now choose in which niche network they want to be a part of. This will give rise to increase in “exclusive” social networks concentrating on niche areas where like-minded people can ignite more in discussions.
2. More Organizations will join this wagon: More corporate and organizations will try to use this medium to provide customer service. This is the most economical way to solve the customers’ issues and it is also quick. Even the customers will feel it is comfortable to reach through this channel. Wells Fargo, Best Buy’s are already using Twitter help out their customers to answer their queries.
3. Organizations will look out for numbers: Organizations will try to leverage this medium and at the same time they would like to know as to whom all are talking about their brand and products on other social channels. They would be keen to analyze the plus and minus feedbacks. They may also want to know about the presence of their competitors here and how they are leveraging this platform. More tools and filters will come into play to help the organizations in getting these stats and analysis.
4. Social Media on Mobile: Organizations will have polices on using networking sites by employees and may even block most of the sites within the office network. Employees will be forced to use mobile phones to help them with the social media. This will increase the usage of mobiles with good apps to help them in satisfying them with the social media addiction.
5. Social Business: More games and apps will be focused on generating revenues. The apps will try to create competition with friends. FourSquare, Rummble will try to concentrate more into this business.
6. Usage of Emails will come down: Social media helps in distributing and sharing of content with large audience much easily than emails. People will try to use less and less of emails and more of social sites. Read more about this - Email Vs Social Networking Sites
7. Leveraging Offline meets with Online Connections: People will tend to meet offline with the like-minded people whom they met online. Networking groups will lead to such meet-ups. More and more websites and people will come-up to have such meet-ups.

Let me know if you anticipate more or do you defer with my thoughts. I would like to hear from you.

Related read: Top 10 Probable Trends in 2010 for Online World

Top 10 Probable Trends in 2010 for Online World

Here is my early guess work of the trends that can be expected in the online and internet world during the year 2010. All may not be true and damn sure to happen… but, we can just expect it. So, here are the predictions:

1. Social Media may replace email to a certain extent: Social media may reduce the usage of communication through emails. Facebook, Twitter… are providing access to your friends and like-minded people much easier and faster than email. The usage of email communication can reduce a lot among friends and personal communication. More about this has been discussed in my earlier post Email Vs Social Networking Sites.
2. Facebook you friend: People will not be searching for personal details of their friends on Google first. They will try to find it on social sites like Facebook, Twitter… So, the new verb will be Facebook your friend and try to find his/her personal details. “Hey Bob, can I have your phone number?” “Dude, Facebook me and you will get it”. Yes, this is the way it goes. Social search will be important in the coming year.
3. Branchless Banking: The trend of online shops is matured. Now, banks will not boast of the number of branches they have and the footprints they have all over the country or the world. Online banking will be the trend. They will assure of high security and will stick to the regulations and will have customers who will operate their accounts only online. You do not need to have to go to the bank at all.
4. mCommerce: eCommerce is on internet. mCommerce is through mobile phones. Mobile phones are being used for money transfers and bill payments. They have been hardly used for retail payments. The trend will be that users will use only their mobile phone to make payments instead of entering their credit card number in it. This may work for downloads, apps or other upgrades.
5. Draw money from POS machines: You just need not use your card at POS machines to pay for your purchases. You can as well as the retailer to give you cash after swiping the card. For this you do not have to go to the ATM machine again to draw the money. I am sure if this comes, then there will be certain strings attached to it by the bank.
6. Outsourcing will lead to Crowd Sourcing: Business will try focusing on crowd sourcing as it is an open call to a group of like-minded people and they expect to get better ideas. Business will look out to develop new technology or would like the community to test it out. This is already being used by Google and will extend to other business as well. Not only this, political parties will try to use this for canvassing; Ad agencies will find this very lucrative. This will be the best way to collect donations from the masses as well.
7. Social Media Analysis and Stats: Organizations will jump in this social media to keep the brand buzz alive here as well. But, they will also like to get the analysis and stats for the same. The same way as we have for the website. Agency will provide these services and more tools like radian6, buzzgain, Filtrbox will come up to help the organizations to get more filtered and useful data to help them analyze and plan the strategy.
8. Video driven communities: We have seen YouTube. Now, we will have communities driven by the videos which will lead to conversations. Momversation, sponsored by Target, is driving conversation and community around the issues of moms.
9. Leveraging Offline meets with Online Connections: People will tend to meet offline with the like-minded people whom they met online. Networking groups will lead to such meet-ups. More and more websites and people will come-up to have such meet-ups. Businesses will also have to plan a strategy as to how to leverage offline to online connection. Something needs to be done to get it reversed.
10. Semantic Web: This buzz was earlier as well and will continue in 2010. It will offer a wide range of possibilities to build more applications with deadly features, which can enable users to use it.

Email Vs Social Networking Sites

I remember a decade ago, I was frequently visiting the internet café near my home to check emails and reply to them. Also, I used instant messengers to find like-minded friends or chat with friends. Now, the days have changed. Many folks, especially the teenagers use internet not to send and receive emails, but to log on to sites like Twitter and Facebook to know what their friends are doing and post a tweet or write something on their wall.

Earlier, I used to keep my calendar update to remind me of the birthdays of my friends. I used to send them a e-greeting or send an email wishing them. Now, I use Orkut or Facebook directly and wish them. I do not have to wait for the calendar to remind me. The networking site will remind me of their birthdays.

Earlier, to be in touch with my college class mates, alumnus or ex-colleagues, we used to have a group in Yahoo or Google. And we used to exchange emails. Now, I do not have to. I have these sites and they are in my network always, and I can access it where ever I am moving.

Will all this is phasing out the life of emails?

If the social sites are being used for personal use and friends, then yes. Friends are using less of emails and more of social sites to contact. They feel this media very comfortable as they can blast out one tweet to many. This media provides them the instant information. This media not only provides posting of messages but, at the same time allows them to chat, share photos and videos without using another website or app. This one social platform does it all. So why will they go and upload the video or photos somewhere and provide the link in the email after selecting the friends’ email addresses from the address book?

But, how far this social media communication will be successful for within the corporate if they stop using emails? Will the corporate allow such communication in their organizations to build healthy network among the employees? Yes, organizations need to open up. Organizations can build the networking sites accessible only to the employees and they will have all the stuff here. Zappos is extensively using the Twitter now. Organizations can use such media on intranet for better knowledge sharing and transparency among the levels. One-to-one communication can also be provided in the platform to maintain confidential communication. You will not need, a sharing folder to exchange files, need not need to use the intercom to contact the other person, do not have to check calendar to see if your boss is free, you do not have to switch windows or install other apps to communicate… A separate interface for customer communication can be provided. Customers can also log in to see the status and the discussion happening about their project. Customers can chip in-time to update the developers or the folks working on the project.

Yes, a day may come when email will be extinct.

Channel [V] Uses Twitter to Promote Re-launch Of Website

After Advani it is Channel [V].

Channel [V] used this novel way to announce and promote its new website on Twitter. The deal was – Members can opt to replace their profile picture to Channel [V] logo. And the logo is displayed on the registered member’s profile on Twitter for 50% of the time. Rest of the 50% the member’s picture is shown.

What do the members get in return? If members stay registered for 5days continuously, then they will be given a neat Channel [V] T-shirt (again branding). If they continue having the logo as their profile pic, they may be lucky to win an iPod.

The good thinking which Channel [V] has done is it did not hijack the profile pic completely. No one likes their pic to be hijacked completely. This helped many people to participate.

What still makes me think is why have they not used MySpace for this? They would have got more participation and target audience. Twitter and Facebook need to get smarter to cash on such things. They need to build good apps and features to build such brand communities and promotion which can attract advertisers. Cheers!!

Source: Medianama

More Than 100 Free Twitter Tools For You

A list of more than 100 Twitter tools which can be used for an easy tweeting around and keep you updated of the tweets. I have been spending lot of time to keep it updated. You may find some dead links, errors or typos which are unintentional. Please check the tools for credibility before using them. Also let me know if I have missed anything so that the same can be added or updated here.
1. Alex King Twitter Tool – Takes your tweets and posts them to your Wordpress blog
2. BiggerTwitter – Allows you to post longer messages, but uses a link in the tweet
3. BigTweet – Add it as a favorite and IE and send a tweet from any webpage. You can send the url or use the in-built url shortening service
4. Blackbird – It is a Twitter client for Blackberry smart phones
5. Blogo – A blog editor which also helps in search in Twitter. It also updates the status whenever you post a new article
6. CheckYesOrNo – Frame Yes/No poll questions and share it with your friends on Twitter to answer the question
7. Cullect – Helps you find and share. It is a collaborative feed reader that can be used for various accounts. You just need to sign in with your credentials say – your blog, Friendfeed or Twitter
8. Feedalizr – A desktop application that allows to share photos/videos, interact with Facebook and Twitter friends and be updated with the status messages of friends
9. FeedTwit - Get your Twitter @replies as text messages and read your RSS feeds as direct messages in your Twitter account.
10. Flotzam – A desktop application to share photos, tweets, Diggs, pokes and feeds
11. Foodfeed – Share your eating habits. Just point your tweets @having and share with other like minders
12. FreeTweets – Collection of good Twitter backgrounds
13. FriendorFollow – Know who you are following and know those folks that are not following you and vice versa
14. FuelFrog – Keep a log of your fuel and mileage. Compare your mileage with others in your area, or with the same car
15. Green Tweets - Uses semantic language analysis to identify tweets pertaining to green and environmental topics from the public Twitter stream
16. gTwitter – Is a Linux client for reading and posting to Twitter.com web service
17. iTweet – iPhone interface for Twitter
18. Jargong – Is a client application for most of the social networking, instant messaging and feeds. You can also update the tweets from this application
19. jTwitter – A mobile tool to enter updates through your mobile phone
20. KipFolio Widget – Twitter widget for KipFolio
21. LoudTwitter – Helps you to transfer your tweets directly to your blog
22. MoniTwitter – Receive updates of website via Twitter
23. PingTwitter – Add new posts of your blog as status update in Twitter
24. PocketTweets – A web-based Twitter client for Apple iPhone
25. Pwytter – Python Twitter client which can support Asian characters
26. Quotably – Nice tool. Follow the Tweets of a particular account in threaded style
27. SayTweet – Dynamic mashup to have your own pic as a badge with your status update
28. Shareaholic – Firefox plugin to share the webpage via Twitter
29. SnapTweet – Share Flickr photos on Twitter too
30. Spaz – A Twitter client for Palm Pre, Windows, Mac and Linux
31. Snitter – A desktop Twitter client built on Adobe AIR
32. StrawPoll – Tool to create polls in 140 characters
33. TeleTwitter – Open source Twitter client for Windows
34. Terraminds – Search tool to search for users and tweets
35. TopNewsTrends – Combines Google trends data with Twitter search
36. TrackThis – Track your UPS, FedEx, DHL, USPS via Twitter or Facebook
37. TreoTwit – Check and update your Twitter right from your Treo
38. Triqqr – A windows tool to submit tweets and to view profiles
39. Twappi – Provides the Twitter mood
40. Tw-autocomplete – Simple add-on for Firefox that adds auto-complete support for @-messages and DMs
41. TweetBar – Use Twitter to Firebox browser
42. TweetBurner – An url shortening service, which also provides the clicks and referrals details
43. TweetCloud – Know what is buzzing around in the twitter world
44. Tweetdeck - Adobe Air desktop application enables you to split the main feed into group specific columns allowing a broader overview of tweets
45. Tweeter – A java desktop client for Twitter
46. Tweetfeed – As name suggests. Helps in customizing the tweets online so that you can track the ones which are important to you
47. Tweetlater – Sends automated DMs to your followers
48. TweetMyPC – to connect your PC remotely to lock or shutdown, using a mobile device or another internet connected PC just by sending a tweet
49. Tweetr – A cross platform tool to submits tweets
50. TweetScan – Search tool. Search as per keyword or user name
51. TweetWhatYouEat – A food diary online and track your weight. (Hey… should help in burning your calories as well)
52. TweetWhatYouSpend – Cash tracking made simple through Twitter. Built cash journal and export to excel or csv
53. Twellow – A directory of Twitter users
54. TwerpScan – Keep an eye on growing list of friends and followers
55. Twessenger – Updates Live Messenger status as per the latest tweet
56. Twhirl – A desktop client connects you to multiple accounts – Twitter, FriendFeed, seismic and Iaconi.ca
57. Twidget – A dashboard widget that allows to update status
58. Twidroid – Twitter client for android mobile phones
59. Twiggit – Is an automated service that lets your friends on Twitter know what articles you Digg
60. Twinja – A desktop Twitter client (AIR) application that provides all the features of Twitter
61. Twinfluence - a simple tool using the Twitter API to to measure the combined influence of twitterers and their followers, with a few social network statistics thrown in as bonus
62. Twinkle – Location-aware network for iPhone and iTouch
63. Twippera – Opera browser plug-in that can update and view tweets
64. Twit4Live – Sets Live Messenger status as latest tweet
65. Twitbar – Post tweets from the GNOME deskbar
66. TwitBin – Firefox browser add-on to send and view tweets
67. TwitBox – Desktop client to view and submit tweets, supports multiple accounts
68. TwitDir – Allows user to search for users by name, location, or username
69. Twitgit – Submit and view tweets using the dashboard
70. Twitkit – A Twitter sidebar for Firefox. It has a 6-section interface, using tabs to separate content
71. Twitpic – Lets you share photos on Twitter
72. Twitr – Claims to be the #1 Twitter directory
73. Twitscoop – Twitter interface to send tweets, find friends, search and follow what is buzzing around in the twitter world. You can also save searches for future reference
74. TwitSeeker – search engine to find Twitter users as per their tweets and not as per their profile
75. Twitter100 – This app creates a collage of all your friends you are following, so that you do not miss tweets of your special friends you are following
76. Twitter For Busy People – Same as Twitter100. But, if you are following too many friends then this is better
77. Twitt(url)y – A tool to track the URLs people are talking about on Twitter
78. Twittelator – Complete iPhone Twitter client
79. TweetAhead – Schedule tweets to be posted ahead of time with a simple dashboard widget
80. Twitter CLI – A windows tool to post tweets using the command line
81. Twitter for Vim – A Linux tool to publish tweets right within Vim
82. Twitter.el – A Linux tool to publish tweets while in Emacs
83. Twitter100 – Use it to view 100 tweets at a time
84. TwitterBar – Post to Twitter from you Firefox address bar
85. TwitterBerry –Twitter for various BlackBerry devices
86. TwitterBuzz – Find out what URLs are being most linked to on Twitter
87. TwitterCard - Create a 125(w) x 125(h) pixel banner ad to put on your blog or website and display the current status
88. Twit.el – A linux tool that allows publishing of tweets in Emacs
89. twitterfeed.com – A tool which uses the latest blog feed as tweet
90. TwitterFox – Firefox extension that can publish and view tweets
91. Twittergrader – Provides you a grade based on the power of your Twitter profile
92. Twitterholic – Shows the top users and accounts on Twitter
93. Twitterless - Notifies you when somebody stops following you and lets you know who it is and the follower history is graphed out over time
94. Twitterlex – Mac OS X dashboard widget that shows the last 30 tweets which refreshes periodically
95. Twitterlicious – Update Twitter status, check replies and direct messages
96. TwitterLinkr – Collects the links posted trough Twitter
97. Twitterlocal - A tool to filter tweets based upon users’ location. It also provides the searches in RSS or XML file
98. Twittermaps – A mashup technology that allows Twitter users find each other using Google maps
99. Twitteroo – A windows tool to update and view the status
100. Twitter.PollDaddy.com - Create Polldaddy polls and post them directly to your Twitter stream
101. TwitterPost – A Mac client that submits tweets, shows your current iTunes track in your feed and more
102. Twitterrific – Mobile and desktop tool to post and view tweets
103. Twittersearch – Search Twitter and tweets using keywords
104. Twitter SPY - Displays the Twitter public timeline
105. TwitterSync for Yahoo – Syncs Twitter status with Yahoo Messenger status
106. Twittertise - Allows you to schedule your tweets in advance and track the clicks on URLs you tweet
107. Twittervision – See where in the world people are submitting tweets from in real-time
108. TwitterYM – Updates the Yahoo Messenger status taking the latest tweet
109. TwitThis – Allows your website/blog visitors easily share a page or post via Twitter
110. TwittyTunes – A FoxyTunes (Firefox extension) add-on that posts what you are currently listening to
111. Twitux – A Twitter client for the GNOME desktop
112. Twitwall - When it’s too long to tweet, but too short to blog, just TwitWall it! TwitWall is the easy-to-use, quick-to-blast-out blog companion for Twitter
113. Twitxr – Share pictures from your mobile phone. Automatically publish them on social networks and photosharing sites
114. Twonvert – Easily converts your tweets into SMS shorthand language and allows you to say more with the 140 characters
115. Twonvo – Threads your tweets
116. Twuzzer – Twitter / GoogleMaps mashup.
117. Useqwitter – e-mails when a twitter stops following you after a certain post
118. What’s Up? – Gadget that allows you to see latest tweets from your friends
119. WildSets –Twitter app for mobile phones
120. yammer – A similar mico-blogging software to Twitter. Can be used by enterprise companies and can be used as an intranet solution
121. Yoono – Receive alerts, update your status or message your friends in your browser sidebar. No need to switch from one site to another or from your browser to a desktop app. Also integrates other services: Facebook, flickr, friendfeed, major IM services
122. ZenTwitter – A GUI frontend for Twitter using zenity and curl

I thank Shannon. Most of the list is from his page. All credit goes to Shannon.

Men, Women Use Facebook Differently

Researchers at the Queensland University of Technology have found that while woman prefer applications which they can express themselves through, men chose ones they can compete against others with. So, your gender determines which Facebook application you would rather prefer.

According to the lead researcher Russell-Bennett, applications were also considered cool when they allowed self-categorization such as discovering which movie star you are applications which change daily, applications which allows high level of interactivity like scrabble or bowling and lastly applications which are special and novel. Facebook users use the applications and share them only to enhance their standings in their network of friends.

This study is important from a commercial point of view. This will help the organizations developing these applications as they can now identify which features encourage people to recommend the game to others. The more they recommend to others, the more people use it and this will attract a substitute to the traditional and/or viral advertising.

Social Media – Is It the Online Revolution?

Iranians both inside and outside the country are using social media networking sites to spread, to organize, and to make their voice heard. Iranians have shared online images, video, emails and tweets about the protests and spreading violence thus overtaking the local media. Efforts to control the populace of using internet is visible – limited internet bandwidth, blocking of networking sites, interrupted cell phone service and blocking SMSs and more.

And THAT is signal! This is what I guess. All these groupie networking sites Twitter, YouTube, Facebook – are heading the populace towards a new revolution - the online revolution? Is this just infatuation of the internet or the new technology? The revolution has just started in the gathering and sharing of information, of intention, of expression, of opinion and of connection.

The hierarchy is slowly reversing. Many people will control the few. Social media is a great weapon in the hands of the people. This isn't just an Iranian revolution - this is a bottom-up revolution impacting everything. Is it a boon or a bane?

5 Important Approaches for Social Networking for Companies

Many corporate are trying to jump the social networking band wagon. The social networking websites’ links, icons and/or logos are being shown on most of the corporate websites as they want to increase their reach to and want to easily communicate with the folks in their network – customers, prospects or anyone.

Here are the 5 important approaches that they need to be confident of performing prior to jumping in the networking band wagon.

1. Define Objectives: Companies first need to define the objectives and goals as to what they want to achieve by social networking. Defining them before will help the contribution and participation more interesting and productive.
2. Channel of Communication: Companies need to keep in mind that networking in this media is not to increase the sales. It is a channel to make your customers and prospects to communicate with the company in a simpler way. And the other way round, may be customers do not want to receive a phone call or an e-mail but, wants to read the corporate blog or tweet. And the customer may feel comfortable to respond back or ask questions through the same channel.
3. Listen to Customers: This is the most important thing that corporate companies need to be keeping in mind. The jump in social networking makes it easily accessible to their customers and prospects. Listen to them first. The more the knowledge is shared with the customers and prospects to solve the issues the more satisfied the customer gets. Thus, building a good reputation in the market.
4. Track Customers Talking: Search the online media frequently to find out what people are talking about the company. And companies need to immediately attend, communicate the updates to them immediately. This networking channel is to build the brand and not to start the sales cycle. There are tools available which can help to keep track of this - TweetScan, RSS feeds. Companies can also try Andy Beal’s trackur tool.
5. Be Real and Own: People like communicating through this channel as they feel they are talking to a responsible person from a corporate who listens to them. So, one who communicates from the company side needs to be a real person who can own the issue or problem being talked about and respond back with a solution to them.

Also read related posts -
The Four Important Steps to Start Social Networking for Business
6 Tips To Be Successful In Social Media Marketing

Twitter Makes You Immoral?

Brian Hartzer, CEO of ANZ's Australian operations has just announced his resignation - on Twitter – ANZozCEO.

Brain has become the first major bank CEO in Australia to use Twitter. The main intention of Brian to be on Twitter was to listen to customers and provide better customer service, providing a channel for easy and fast communication. And now, Twitter has become a good channel to submit resignations as well. So, an executive using corporate handle will not only have to resign from the organization, but also has to convey the same to his fellow friends and followers in the social media. During the course of the building the network with customers or followers in the social media sites, one builds an emotional bond that makes the person to do so and share their opinions, thoughts or decisions.

And in UK, something else happened. A magistrate had to resign after posting messages about the cases on Twitter. This person intends that he just wanted to make the judiciary more transparent.

But, scientists claim that twitter can make a person immoral. This study says that the speed with which the news updates and interactions are happening, are too fast for the brain to process. The danger is that regular users of Twitter and Facebook may become indifferent to human sufferings because they never get time to reflect and fully experience the emotions of other people feelings. The impact can be more dangerous for young generations whose brains are still developing. I was unable to read anywhere in this article about the news websites or news channels which update the news every hour. I guess these channels should also have the same impact. You need to note that this was the study of just 13 users.

My opinion is that Twitter, Facebook or any other social media should be used in a certain way to get the benefits out of this. It all depends the way you use it and take the full advantage of these tools. You do not have to become addicted or spend whole time on these and make your life depended on this. There are other social things also important in life that you need to attend. Is it necessary to read every tweet posted by a celebrity? Is it necessary to post every action of yours – say every minute or hour on such channels? You don’t have to make your whole life public on these sites? Or want to read about the whole life of others?

What Can Be The Search Algorithm for Twitter Search?

I was searching for a post using Twitter search and it just came to my mind, what algorithm the search can use to give quality results. As of now, Twitter finds keywords in the text of the most recent Tweet. Often, the search results are repetitive or duplicate and not much relevant to the keywords. Jayaram, VP, Operations for Twitter (an ex-Googler) hopes to change all that by taking Twitter search beyond this, by looking at the pages people are linking to within their Tweets. A Twitter crawler will visit the links, index the page and then correlate that 3rd-party content with the Tweet itself. This should help make for more relevant Twitter search results.

This also made me think of more ways the algorithm can be set and I started comparing the organic search engine algorithms with Twitter search, and I have come up with these few assumptions.

1. Follower counts: I guess follower counts do not really matter as an important factor to be considered in the search algorithm. It really does not prove, if you have thousands of followers, you contribute quality tweets. And, if I have very few followers, it is not that my tweets are quality tweets.
2. Synergy of Tweets: I think the synergy of your tweets and that of your followers and that of your followers’ followers, should be considered as a factor. (In organic SEO - To have links on websites which have similar content and the link building strategy).
3. Groupies: Say, most of the employees of a corporate are on Tweeter and they follow one another, then this really forms a closed group with known people together exchange good, informative and quality tweets.
4. Tweet and URL Synergy: The synergy between the tweet and the web page that is linked in the tweet should matter. Just the case in PPC ads – the text ad and the landing page should talk the same thing.
5. Frequency of Tweets: You already know the more you tweet, the lower the tweet goes on your follower’s account and the lesser the visibility it gets. And the tweet gets diluted in the number of tweets you have.
6. Age of Tweet: The latest the tweet, the important is the update. But, how the tweet-bot will identify the spammy tweet to the original tweet is a big question.
7. Tweet Favorite: It will really add value to the tweet, if the tweet has been marked as favorite by other folks. Bookmarking?
8. Subscribing RSS: Yes, your tweets will be really important if you people subscribe them through RSS. People really will like you to know your updates instantaneously.
9. Keyword Density: The density of the keyword among all the tweets over a period of time can be considered as a factor. You may know a lot of information about the keyword and are tweeting about the same and the updates can be informative. Or should it consider the density of the keyword in that particular tweet?
10. Age of Tweet account: It does not matter when you created an account in twitter and when you have started tweeting. There can be many accounts which have been created and yet no tweets but, the handle can have followers. Tweets from such handles can’t be quality ones.
11. Re-tweets: Just to spam and get more clicks, there will be people who just re-tweet the same thing again and again. So, this has to be take care of and should not be considered for ranking. Rather it should be considered as spam. Also, linking the same url to different tweets should be spamming.
12. IP Address: It should note the no. of handles or IDs being logged in from the same IP address. People may have multiple IDs and would be using to promote their website using them. Such IDs need to be penalized.
13. Geo-targeted: Track the IPs of the users they are tweeting from or logging from. And show the results to the members who are searching from that geo areas. This way the results are geo-targeted.
14. Demographic profile: Twitter can have an advantage here over Google. They can target the ads or websites as per the demographic profile – age, gender, place, income etc.

These are just my assumptions and thinking. And I would like you to come up with your points and opinion as well to make this post very informative.

But one thing that is most important is, Twitter can be an enormous source of traffic to a website if it is handled well in the social media more so in Twitter.

Forrester Predicts Huge Growth for Social Media Marketing

Forrester in its Marketing Forum revealed that online marketing spend will continue to grow with more focus on social media marketing and mobile marketing.

The main reason for the regular increase in online marketing spends is that it provides clear metrics and the marketer can spend as per the ROI. But, in social media marketing it is bit difficult to get the metrics measured and it should be learnt that social media marketing is more for branding and awareness and less for sales and conversions.

Some more predictions for social media for the year 2009 from few of the thought leaders are below –

"Although it is now cheaper to launch an initiative leveraging Web 2.0 technology - it requires qualified and passionate people to make them successful." - David Armano

"You may not always start the year as a leader, but you can certainly finish it that way." - Rohit Bhargava

"Intimacy touches emotion; emotion powers conversation." - Pete Blackshaw

"Doors are going to close all over the social web. Why? Because the money didn't come the way people thought it would." - Chris Brogan

"The tipping point has not only *not* been reached, but could still tilt *away* from Social Media." - Todd Defren

"There's a lot of fixing that needs to be done." - Jason Falls

"Dwindling budgets suddenly make low-cost social media look like the pretty girl at the ball." - Ann Handley

"We're going to develop a set of better metrics to help guide, direct and validate 'commitment'." - Joseph Jaffe

"The movement is rooted in a desire to have quality, not quantity, as people cocoon in the face of the economic crisis." - Charlene Li

"These will be cumulative events and interactions that will build brand loyalty for the companies that pay attention to them." - Scott Monty

"The recession will force revenue results out of social technologies." - Jeremiah Owyang

"Companies that focus on earning love will thrive during hard times, and kick ass when good times return." - Andy Sernovitz

"Suddenly, being Facebook friends with your mom will seem less ridiculous than following 4,000 strangers on Twitter." - Greg Verdino

Let us see how far the predictions will be true and let me know if you defer with anybody…Here is the full paper through Scribd – Social Media 2009

6 Tips To Be Successful In Social Media Marketing

Social media is being vastly used to promote products and services. Moreover, many corporates are using such community sites to keep better customer relationship and cross-sell the products or services to the existing customers in addition to find new ones.

Here are 6 simple tips one really needs to understand to be successful in social media.

1. Change the attitude: One has to approach social media with a different attitude. An attitude which is different from the attitude you have towards other online marketing activities. In social media you have come to share knowledge, issues and solve other members’ problems. You are not here to thrust your products or services. Follow the AIDA principle – Attention, Interest, Desire and Action.
2. Target the right audience: Use the available limited resources and budgets to target the right and niche audience instead of blindly going into social media. Take out some time and think yourself as customer and identify the areas or groups the prospect engages in and talks about the products or services which you sell. Thus, you will know where your target audience is active in the social media sphere and you can start from there. You save lot of time and effort in doing this moreover, you can easily connect with them.
3. Set-up your own success metrics: Set-up your own success metrics for social media marketing as well as you have for organic search, PPC campaigns or email campaigns. Without these metrics you will not be sure if you are heading in the right direction or not. Define the metrics like – no. of comments for my post, no. of views for my videos, no. of stars your post or video has got as a rating from readers, how many have DIGGed your articles and so on. Depending on the numbers you get for these success elements, you can check on your progress in social media marketing.
4. Let people know who you are: Social media is all about building relationships and sharing knowledge. So, let people know who you are. Relationships are only built on trust. Provide your name and contact information and the relationship you have with your company. Your prospects will feel comfortable with communicating with you and, if there is an unsatisfied customer, then that person can vent anger much more easily on you. This gives you a signal to solve the issue immediately before it spreads.
5. What needs to be taken care for: Marketers should note that there is a very thin line between you and your prospects in the social media. One cannot just spam any community. Marketers need to build relationships and share knowledge. You need to take care that you are not ignored and your prospects need not consider you as spam. Be patient and slow and get them involved in conversations and build relationship with them.
6. Quality of content: Last but not the least, success in social media is based on the quality and the creativity of your content you post on these networking sites. Content is King here as well.

Social media is an effective, economical and successful marketing tool. But, time consuming one. And requires more focused effort. Patience and commitment is very important too, to be successful I this media.

6 Tips to Use LinkedIn to Find a Job

Konstantin Guericke, Co-Founder and Vice President of LinkedIn and GuyKawasaki posted these easy tips. I am just summarizing the best and effective ones which I feel will definitely work for you. To be without a job, during such time of recession takes hell out of you. So, it is better to follow all the options available for a job search.

1. Use LinkedIn status updates to let your network and the world know that you are on look-out of a job.
2. Connect with former bosses and co-workers who can help you out in the search or refer to some organization.
3. Get LinkedIn recommendations from former and present bosses. A strong recommendation from you manger will highlight your strengths and shows you are a valued employee. This will specially help you if you were laid-off. Your manger will be happy to pen down a recommendation as he/she has laid you off.
4. Make sure your profile highlights your strengths and not just your regular responsibilities. Also, check the box under your contact settings stating you are open to career opportunities.
5. Search for jobs on LinkedIn. Also, check the second tab called “The Web”. Apply for the jobs which suit your profile.
6. Search in your geo-location for people who work in the industry you are targeting. Under ‘Interested in’ select Hiring Managers and contact them. Also, connect the people who are in second degree and increase the network.

If these tips help you in getting you a job, then do not forget to call me for a drink. Lastly, use the same profile picture on various social networking sites. This will help people who would like to connect you as they can easily identify by just seeing the picture.

3 Easy Tips To Use Social Networking Sites More Efficiently

One obvious reason, why many people do not participate actively on all the social networking sites is the lack of time and participating and following in all or many of them is too tedious. People usually participate with good enthusiasm on couple of them and ignore the rest. Moreover, when you walk through LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, you really do not have that much of patience or time to visit rest of them.

Here are simple tips to handle and keep a track of most of the social networking sites.

1. RSS Feeds makes it really simple. Most of social networking sites do provide RSS feeds and it is easy to keep track in your usual RSS reader, rather than log in and read the updates on the netwroking sites. You just need to subscribe the feeds of people you want to know the updates for say in Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter. In your RSS reader, you can read the status messages and you can choose on which updates you want to respond for. Yes, to respond to conversations, you do have to go to the social networking site and submit. But, in RSS reader you really can choose to what updates or conservations you need to respond and you can keep yourself updated.
2. Setting the email or SMS notifications makes it short. Social media sites do provide email notifications and options to which you can select to receive email for. Set the options for which you want to receive email. You will be periodically updated through the emails. And I guess you really check your emails regularly. Twitter has a very good option to have an SMS sent to your mobile phone. Select the important ones and have the SMS option enabled to receive your important peoples’ tweets on your mobile.
3. Do many at a time in one snap. Update your status on most of the networking sites at a time. There are a number of applications and services available that allows you to update the status of more than one social networking site at one go. Update only once in this application and it is updated at most of the networking sites at the same time. www.ping.fm and www.hellotxt.com are couple of them. In both these websites, you can send status messages via mobile phone, IMs like MSN, AOL, Yahoo or GTalk and any of the networking sites itself. In turn these sites post the status update message on various networking sites (about 30+ sites) in one snap.

I would not suggest having your accounts everywhere and keeping updating them. I would rather suggest use few ones and good ones where you feel your like-minded network is and participate enthusiastically and strategically. As I feel, what ever time you spent on these networking sites should be productive and useful to you and others as well. So, happy networking with these simple tips.