Today my Twitter account was suspended. I believe it was from being stupid enough to try the free “TwitterOnlineSystem.com”. It’s supposed to help you get more followers, which I’ve decided is not worth trying to do with a system. If I only have 200 followers instead of 5,000 then it’s ok with me.

To be fair I’m not entirely sure it was TwitterOnlineSystem.com but it is the most suspicious thing that’s happened to my account. My friend Jenny from Cheeky & Swank also had a similar experience and she’s still not back on Twitter. It’s been several weeks. It seems that any program that tries to increase your followers could put your account at risk.

This is the worst year I’ve ever seen for spammers. I’ve been online starting in 1996 (for hours a day) and I have done everything online and I’ve never had it this bad. Is it the bad economy? Is it that they suddenly figured out how to spam even the most secure sites? Are they getting smarter? It makes me want to quit my profession. I deal with it every day in my inbox. I’ve spent time and money getting it off this blog and my client’s blogs. It comes back again.

Whatever has happened, Twitter has posted something about how if your account was just suspended they are working on it. I would post the exact comment but Twitter is down.

Here’s my wish for Twitter: I wish Twitter would stop making us go to other sites to find Twitter tools to manage groups, keywords, scheduling tweets, managing multiple accounts and other features we want. Just charge us for it. And have a service that lets you backup your account. And maybe get priority customer service.

So many of us depend on Twitter and we’re practically powerless when it comes to managing our accounts. Here’s hoping it won’t be a long wait.

If this is ever a problem again I’m switching to www.twitter.com/NewspaperGIRL - with an I in GIRL.

UPDATE: My account is back up! It’s not totally normal though. It re-added people I’ve followed for months. I get DMs from different people telling me that TwitterOnlineSystem has gotten me 20 more followers. I’d rather just have my account be stable.

There’s a lot of talk about disclosing about paid links and  getting payment for blogging, tweeting, or otherwise making cash from social media. First, there is no way to disclose all of this.

This issue gets really messy (read this post about conflicts of interest by Penelope Trunk, warning: the post has some overshare that can be offensive to some readers, but otherwise does a good job at illustrating the point).

For example: how do you disclose that your link on twitter is an affiliate link - in 140 characters or less? Does it really matter? Do I care if someone makes money recommending someone if it’s a recommendation from someone I trust? NO. If they’re like me they won’t recommend something just to make money or their reputation will be shot.

However, there are some accounts that the only purpose is to make money and they use affiliate links to do that. I’m surprised again and again just how much MLMers are using Twitter and how much they advertise but people still subscribe.

Same with Guy Kawasaki who I recently called out for marketing a car on his blog. Do you really think he would’ve taken the time to write a post this involved on his own? And how exactly does it change the world? Thankfully he has Prius ads on his blog to redeem himself to environmentalists. He’s quite open about marketing and we still follow him (Alltop is a great resource I recommend to find places to guest post or find bloggers to involve in your social marketing strategy). He just markets well.

I just talked to a group of affiliate marketers yesterday about techniques affiliates are using to make sales from Twitter.

I’m already promoting PRWeb and now that I’m an affiliate I can make money doing it. That’s fair. It motivates me to find time to seek out and answer questions people have about PRWeb which I would do anyway. (disclosure: the PRWeb link is an affiliate link, so is this one for my most coveted gift: an Amazon Kindle - and if you buy one using this link I’ll make $35).

Here’s an excerpt from Jeremiah Owyang who has been posting on this topic.

How to make affiliate links work on Twitter

• Make sure it lines up editorially with your personal brand, promoting a product that people don’t associate you with will raise eyebrows.
• Disclose it’s an affiliate link, perhaps with a hashtag #affilliatelink.
• Be sincere about your recommendation. If you truly love that product you’re promoting, perhaps write a review on a blog first, explaining why.
• Be fully transparent before people follow you: Create a link from your Twitter profile page that is up front about how you use Twitter, and explain your intentions when it comes to product recommendations and affiliate links.

What if you send links directly to the merchant and don’t have room for a long hashtag like #affiliatelink? What if you have no personal brand (like most affiliates I know)?

Twitter is a blog post so it shouldn’t be any different when it comes to disclosure. When I’m flat out paid for a sponsored post - I state that. I obviously got some swag for blogging about a local jeweler. I have affiliate links on my blog and they are the same as my ads.

Jeremiah’s post goes into the legal issues and you should read all of it.

Oh, and the next time you talk to me and I recommend that you attend Smart Media 2009 - remind me to disclose that I have a financial stake in the conference. I’ll be there. I’ll present with my friend Nate Moller about how to use Twitter for marketing. I hope you’ll be there.

My Twitter Questions

I used to be afraid to admit that I had questions. Now I realize that almost everyone does because social media is so dynamic (which is part of the fun). I remember the first time I asked about retweeting at a tweetup. I got some looks. But who cares. If you don’t ask, you don’t learn. I can guarantee that I’m smarter today than yesterday…partly because of Twitter which I read all the time.

1. How do you find the most popular hash tags relating to your industry or specialty? guess? I know there are trending terms, but…
2. Much like blogging it’s better to focus on a niche and not get too spread out. That leads me to want a few different accounts for the various things I want to write about. One could be for Utah, one for affiliate marketing, another for social media, etc. Right now with the tools I have that would be too much. I already have several accounts including a new one for my online PR book. What have you found to manage them without mixing them up or getting overwhelmed?
3. What is the easiest way to learn about group chats that are going on?

I didn’t build my followers on Twitter on purpose. Twitter wasn’t as crowded almost two years ago when I started. Now if you don’t try and don’t have a strong brand already, you’ll probably get lost in the mix. So my point is if you’re new to Twitter then you will need to put time and effort into it. It’s not going to magically happen that people will find and follow you if you’re unknown.

Don’t go to Twitter and start taking, advertising or promoting yourself. Some people like that but it turns most people off. Share information that is helpful. Answer questions. Respond to people. Be social and interact. Put things in regular terms so a layperson will understand.

My last piece of advice is this: give to the community. They will follow and reward you for it.

Here are my 4 tips for getting followers on Twitter.

Not that I always follow them, but that I’ve noted.

1. Participate in group chats. Tuesday nights are “girls night out” or #GNO. You can go to tweetchat.com and sign in with your Twitter username & password then go to the #GNO room and join in. Participate. This exposes you to new people that you otherwise wouldn’t know. I recently participated in SmallBizTrends group chat about Twitter and it was a lot of fun.
2. Use directories like Twellow or Twitterholic to find people - by keyword or location.
3. Go to search.twitter.com and put in a hash tag relating to what you do. For me it would be #onlinePR or related terms. See who is writing about it. Follow them if you find them useful.
4. Reply to people and retweet about the interesting things you learn. So as not to overwhelm people I have another tab opened in Firefox and I use TweetLater (or you can use SocialToo) to space them out a little.

Problogger recently gave 5 tips to grow your Twitter Presence and it’s a question that has come up a lot this week. I agree with his tip:

Everytime you reply to someone and have them reply to you your Twitter ID appears in the feeds of others which exposes you to potentially thousands upon thousands of other Twitter users.

I also like this point which I’ve also found true and which is why you need to schedule out your tweets (see #4 below).

Warning: Tweet too regularly and about nothing worthwhile and you run the risk of loosing followers. What I’ve found is that on days that I’m more talkative than others that there can come points where I’m talking so much that my followers don’t have room to respond.

I asked my Twitter followers for advice. I got these responses (I typically don’t get a lot but usually they are high quality):

@rickgalan @NewspaperGrl be interesting. (re: how to get new followers) also - engage the followers you already have

@Matt_Siltala @NewspaperGrl #1 be yourself #2 provide something of value (content, resources, help) #3 participate in the conversation/community

What has worked for you? When I was beginning on Twitter coming up on 2 years ago, you didn’t really have to try as hard to get followers. Now you do need to be proactive because like anything else that works, it’s more crowded.

My warning: Don’t go to Twitter and start taking, advertising or promoting yourself. It’s NOT all about you. It turns most people off. Share information that is helpful. Answer questions. Respond to people. Be social and interact. Put things in regular terms so a layperson will understand.

My last piece of advice is this: give to the community. They will follow and reward you for it. What’s Yours?

A Bountiful, Utah steak restaurant called Mo’ Bettah Steaks has a simple web page but it has a lot of personality. Their web site is not fancy and it’s not search engine optimized. But front and center they invite you to become their friend on Facebook. And they encourage it at the restaurant too. This has paid off at a time when a lot of restaurants are hurting. They attribute 20-30% of their business to their Facebook presence. They’re planning to expand soon.

They have over 1,300 friends on Facebook which for a local business is great. They held a photo contest and gave away free food to the winners. That gave them a lot of photos to post. They also have two videos.

Another local restaurant Blue Lemon in Alpine made a group (don’t like the look as much) that has over 100 members. Local restaurants are natural fits for social media. Guru’s Cafe is on Twitter and Facebook but they don’t promote either on the home page of their web site. I haven’t been in for a while but it wasn’t mentioned at their restaurant that I could see.

When you do social media you need to integrate it into all of your marketing - and inside your store. The most successful marketing often is blending of many online and offline resources. There are so many tools (email, Twitter, Facebook, web site, blog, events, press releases, etc) to get the word out.

If you want to learn more about this, I’m part of Smart Media 2009 conference June 18-19 in Lindon, Utah. We’re looking for a Utah restaurant who wants to sponsor lunch for about 100 people. In return we’ll weave your restaurant into the training. That means we’ll create a Facebook Page for you (or a Twitter account) and show you how to market it. Contact me at grocerybike@gmail.com or the contact form on this blog if you’re interested.

I haven’t written about Twitter for a long time. I’ve put together a few things to help people new to Twitter, but there are things for you even if you’ve been tweeting for a while.

First Steps to Twitter

1. Set up a profile, add a link to your web site, add a photo, then a bio. Be sure to use keyword phrases you want to rank for in your bio. If you’re tweeting for business, at some point (I still need to do this) you should customize your background to match your branding.
2. Set up alerts and the autofollow & autofollow messages on TweetLater or SocialToo. Autofollow or autounfollow is not for everyone — be sure not to make it to marketing intensive (welcome new followers).
3. Find people or businesses to follow on Twitter (link goes to video about how to find people in a specific geographic location, but there’s more below). Follow them and hopefully they will follow you back. I also like Twitterholic for this. Here’s a list of small businesses on Twitter.
4. Brainstorm and come up with possible tweets and schedule them using TweetLater. Do this especially for events or promotions. Schedule pre-tweets in the days building up to the event. Then a few hours before, then an hour before. Tweet live at the event then wrap it up with more tweets.

You can tweet on the web site, by IM, or by text message. I prefer using the web or Tweetdeck to write new posts. For most, I recommend that you schedule tweets and then check Twitter 2-3 times a day (morning when you get in, before lunch, before you leave). Answer any direct messages or replies. Respond to people who ask about your industry or business (using tracked keywords). Ask people questions or give tips.

Twitter tracking site (track keywords or mentions): http://tweetbeep.com
www.tweetdeck.com is a standalone application that you can write tweets from and more easily track & manage your Twitter account
www.tweetlater.com lets you schedule out tweets, auto follow people, and auto reply to new followers
search.twitter.com lets you find new people to follow & search for phrases

This page is a great summary of ways to use Twitter for business & what to write about: http://www.chrisbrogan.com/50-ideas-on-using-twitter-for-business/

Here’s a URL shortener (I believe it gives stats so you can see how many people clicked on a URL you sent): http://bit.ly or there is one on TweetDeck. I downloaded TinyURL that is a Firefox plugin.

I recently participated in a social media campaign as a blogger and learned a lot from it. It took place in Utah but it has principles that could apply to your business. My friend Jyl did a great job working with the bloggers on this campaign and consulting with the client on what goes into a successful event.

Who: Goldsmith Jewelers in Provo, Utah
Goal: increase foot traffic to store (1 location)
How:

• Invite local bloggers to a special event commpelling enough to draw them in. You must provide a lot of value because they aren’t paid, they’re busy and they have lots of offers from brands. Make it worth their time (read: you’re going to need to spend some cash - but do it right and it will be more than worth it).
• Communicate with us regularly before and after the event.

Online Presence (Before): they don’t have a great web site, no blog, and before now had never done social media and had no presence on social networks.

Results (After): Facebook profile, many blog posts on popular blogs (example, example), Flickr feed, lots of foot traffic to the store. Google “Goldsmith Jewelers, Utah” and one of the blog posts is already #2 and this just happened last week. Since I’m a little competitive I’m hoping this post will show up on the first page As I love to suggest for events like this, use PitchEngine for a social media press release (could be updated with video and photos though).

Most helpful: Giving bloggers images, sample Twitter posts with a link and Facebook Wall suggestions. Being open about expectations after the evening.

Jyl worked with a PR firm and identified key women who blog or are active on social media (mom blogs).  It’s vital that you work with someone who “gets” the culture and can interface with bloggers and build credibility. You must be compelling enough that they will come and participate. You must frame it well. There’s also a LOT of planning/managing involved.

Bloggers were invited to a red carpet event. We literally walked on red carpet, had our pictures taken and ate great food. We each got gift bags including product information (images, etc), product catalog, and a strand of pearls. They cleaned our wedding rings (mine has not been this sparlkly since I got it). The best part though was to be among other bloggers and get to know some of the local big shots.

The jewelry store was debuting a new line they are carrying called Pandora. We each got a bracelet and a charm and could buy more at a discount. I got one called “happy little bird” in honor of Twitter.

In addition, there were prize drawings and everyone got coupons for a free strand of pearls to give away on their blogs. Others got gift certificates to use as a giveaway.

This was much different than my experience with tech bloggers. We couldn’t wait to see what each other writes and comment on each other’s blogs. We’re very interactive online. We talk a lot in real life but it’s a different tone. It’s more like what we’re doing professionally and new technology we’re using. Then catching up on local goings on with others in the group.

With the mom blog crowd it was more like talking to a group of girlfriends. We talk about everything. We are vocal about what works and what doesn’t. However, the posts are written for the readers and not for each other.

My advice

Goldsmith should have their best rep who really knows the new line preview it in detail for us. Create profiles for everyone (in writing). Take our wrist size and preferences. Show us everything. Helps us assemble a bracelet that we’d like, writing down all of the beads we would need. Then give us a copy and keep one on file (for gifts in the future - we could send our husbands in to pick up if we wanted to). THEN take us to pick out our bracelet and bead.

Don’t market to us overtly but let us know about the discount and make it quick to purchase anything we choose while we were there. This is a balance but I felt they could’ve been more open to some marketing.

I also would’ve put a stipulation on the strand of pearls - either put a minimum purchase on it ($25) or ask people to preview the line and give feedback - a quick 5 mins.)

I’m not a mom blogger and generally speaking I don’t have local reach on my blog. I do have a more local following on Facebook and I write a neighborhood blog (which I keep thinking of expanding to Utah in general).

Next: I hope Goldsmith will invest in a new web site or blog with a gift bag and links to individual products. Great example of PR 2.0!

John Kremer just tweeted about various Twitter services to help you manage multiple Twitter accounts, schedule tweets, and other helpful activities. The post is helpful because it gives just enough information. Not in-depth reviews or just a list but a short summary of useful points.

I’ve used TweetLater (not sure I like the auto-follow so I need to turn it off but it would be great for contests and special timely news). I’m going to probably switch to EasyTweets. I don’t know how any of the programs for a PC help with the SMS side of Twitter. My short experiment was a disaster. I got so many text messages. I need to figure that one out.

I love how the tech community builds around applications to improve them. They do this from Twitter to the iPhone. There’s a generosity and innovation that I appreciate. Apple brilliantly made a marketplace which builds an incentive for people not only to extend the iPhone with custom apps, but an incentive to maintain and improve them. Too bad Wordpress doesn’t have something like that! Free is great but charging a little helps the quality and sustainability go up. It would be cool if Twitter had a marketplace too.

UPDATE: My friend Jesse pointed out that I didn’t include his site SocialToo. It has auto-follow, managing features and you can create surveys not just on Twitter but on Facebook.

I’m usually upbeat but I’m on one today…

I’ve never been a fan of forums. To me they seem to be the most unfriendly communities. Facebook and Twitter are inviting and people are friendly. Places like Wikipedia, most forums I’ve been on, Digg and others aren’t. Which is why I gravitate towards Kirtsy.

People with large egos or power on these site get ruthless. They have something to protect. Maybe they don’t actually like dealing with people in real life or virtually.

Antisocials running social sites.

From what I’ve seen they don’t show a lot of tact - especially to marketers (thanks to the marketers who spam who we all pay penance for). They ban people. They seem to feel everything should be done out of the goodness of your heart - failing to recognize that people who contribute have a reason to. Even if that reason is for fame or the exposure of their ideas (something I know a lot about!). If you get banned from these communities (heck, even if you get banned from Google) forget democracy because you have little recourse. Unless you’re lucky (which I was once - I was banned from AdSense when I was new. I was kicked off of Commission Junction for not making any commissions in 6 months - but they let me back on and I have made money ever since). To me they act like you should be put in prision for breaking one of their rules. And the rules are paragraphs and paragraphs that no one ever reads.

If I could break down the rules for a community it should be not to dominate or harm the community. If what you do doesn’t violate that you should be given some leeway. Perhaps be treated like something besides a criminal.

I suppose I’m grouchy about mean-spiritedness - I’ve been watching and reading too many stories that show disregard for others in one form or another. I like people and socializing. I take a stand for treating people with dignity and respect - even online - and even when they’ve broken the rules.

Social media types are always talking about how to participate in online communities as a marketer. The first advice we give, is to listen. Listen? you’re thinking. The Internet is silent. The only noise is your iTunes in the background. So what do we really mean when we say listen?

Twitter is a global conversation about all sorts of things. Sometimes it’s about products or companies. But most of the time it’s socializing and networking. Social communities aren’t centered around making money. If all you talk about is your products people lose interest - unless your products are interesting to them.

Online communities are a great way to find groups of people and see what they community care about and get their feedback and input.  See what they care about and write about. Most importantly what they value.

Here’s how to find groups on Twitter and start listening:

1. Go to search.twitter.com and type in a term. Put it in quotes if you want to keep words together. Example, you want to reach blackberry enthusiasts. Type in blackberry. Read what people are writing. Look at the photo below to add Twitter search to your search bar so you don’t have to go to the site to do a Twitter search.
2. “Follow” the influencers. That means see who is writing about the topic the most. To follow them be logged into your Twitter account. Click on their name and under their picture there’s a button that says Follow. Click it.
3. Put RSS feeds on your company name, your competitors, and other terms you want to keep up on, regardless of who writes about it. On the right side there is a link to: Feed for this query

. Click that link and choose which feed reader to use from the dropdown menu at the top.

4. Hash tags are ways to track a group of people talking about something specific. You put a pound sign in front of the tag in your tweet. People make up their own tags. Like if you’re at a conference (like MacWorld could be #MacWorld) and people who are there want to discuss it or others want to see what people what. To see the most popular tags right now see: http://hashtags.org
5. Get email alerts on words you want to track on Twitter with http://tweetbeep.com