Unfollow Inactive Twitter Accounts with ManageFlitter
Mar 02There is just one go-to tool I use to unfollow inactive twitter accounts from the twitter accounts I manage. ManageFlitter quickly and easily helps you manage the accounts you follow and give you options to sort and clean up at the same time.
You can quickly see which accounts:
- Aren’t following you back
- Are inactive
- Are talkative
- Don’t have a profile picture
Then, you can quickly select which inactive twitter accounts to unfollow and send them packing in one shot. You can even tweet about it when you’re done!
You can also use ManageFlitter to search twitter and the bio of accounts you are following. All of these options are available in the free version, but there is a pro upgrade which let’s you follow accounts and view a dashboard of activity.
I like to use this tool to unfollow inactive twitter accounts about once a month. Just to keep my accounts under control. It doesn’t ever look good if you come across a twitter account following 3-4 times as many accounts as they have followers. Not a good look at all.
Have They Invented Miniature Grizzly Bears Yet
Feb 16This is amazing. I want a little baby bear so bad. Not a baby bear that grows up into a giant killing machine though. Like a miniature bear that you can pal around with all the time. Take to the park and such. NEED. That baby wolf isn’t all that bad either.
7 Takeaways from the 2012 Marketing Sherpa Email Summit
Feb 15They say “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas”. Well, not this time. After all, the point of attending the 2012 Marketing Sherpa Email Summit was to bring home some amazing email marketing tactics from some of the best in the business. The Sherpa conference is a unique one where all the speakers are your peers and therefore the sales pitches from the stage are rare. Anyways, some points stuck out more than others to me and I’m looking forward to assembling a plan of attack to put them into use.
Takeaways from the 2012 Marketing Sherpa Email Summit
List Growth
It’s getting harder and harder to grow email lists as consumers became more protective of their email info. A marketer now has to battle against this aversion to grow their email list. Make the opt-in process as simple as possible for the user by including many entry points, such as web forms, facebook tabs, twitter access, mobile opt-in and QR codes. By lowering the friction of the signup process you can expect a better conversion rate. Make sure that existing media like email signatures, website footers and confirmation pages have sharing options so existing contacts can share this info with their networks easily. Also, if your business is a brick and mortar location make sure to include email list growth signage in waiting areas or high traffic areas, perhaps even the bathroom! Lastly, incentivize staff to acquire new contacts by running contests or setting challenges.
Multi-Channel Approach
Even though this was an email marketing conference, it is beginning to become pretty clear that consumers needs are changing and that marketers need to adapt. Consumers now want to be reached through a variety of mediums, which means the days of the old “email list” are ending quickly. Marketers now should be concerned with understanding the personas their business interacts with and how they need to share their message with them. To this point, it will be necessary to be able to share messages across different channels; email, facebook, twitter, google+, you could go on and on.
Content is King
Leaving aside the obvious benefits of SEO, creating amazing content for your audience is becoming a remarkable tactic during the sales process. Marcus Sheridan, The Sales Lion, spoke passionately about how content marketing transformed his business by answering questions for a consumer. Teaching instead of preaching. This new content can become ammo for your email marketing campaigns, and be especially useful for lead-nurturing campaigns.
Sound Like a Human
Sounds obvious right. It is obviously difficult to write personalized email when sending to massive lists however. Jermaine Griggs of Hear and Play Music explained how he crafted an automated email campaign with the intent of keeping a personal touch. Jermaine’s 170 message campaign, all based on user profile and behavior data, was so personalized that his company would receive phone calls and holiday cards personally addressed to Jermaine. You should really take a second and sign up for email at www.hearandplay.com to see for yourself.
Slice and Dice
Having the tools to segment your consumer data is becoming increasingly important. A marketer now needs to parse through a subscribers profile data, purchase history and web behavior in order to determine the perfect message to send. If you can’t send a relevant message to a subscriber you will not keep them engaged for very long. If a subscriber is not engaged then deliverability issues will start to creep up.
Be Relevant. Be Relevant. Be Relevant.
If there was a word cloud for the Marketing Sherpa Email Summit I would bet the biggest word would be “Relevant”. It is becoming so important to be valuable to your subscribers. Subscribers are being bombarded from all directions by marketing messages and attention spans are becoming shorter and shorter. If you can’t engage a consumers attention then your messages will be ignored and you will lose subscribers. Use segmentation to slice up your subscribers in ways you know you can send a relevant message to.
Deliverability is Scary
This is always the subject no one wants to talk about but it arguably the most important. If no one can read your email message than all the market research, creative and advanced segmentation is null and void. Always honor unsubscribes and provide a simple way for users to opt-out of your messages. The ISP’s are clearly working for their users and against marketers when it comes to delivering email. Consider re-engagement campaigns for inactive users. Clean up the old, inactive accounts and watch your open rate and clickthrough rate climb. Don’t be fixated on the size of your list.
By now you have probably realized that all of these issues are tied together. Acquire opt-in email addresses and give the subscriber clear expectations. Send the subscriber relevant, personalized emails based on the segmentation you’ve set up and you will keep them engaged. An engaged subscriber will buy more and share messages with their network and in turn help your sender reputation.
What was your favorite part of the 2012 Marketing Sherpa Email Summit? Did I leave anything out? Thank you for reading. Please share your thoughts!
I Passed the MarketingExperiments Email Marketing Certification Course
Feb 15
At the conclusion of this years 2012 MarketingSherpa Email Summit I finally was compelled to take the MarketingExperiments email marketing course exam. This was my third Marketing Sherpa Email Summit and I wanted to see what the course was all about. I like the Marketing Sherpa methodology, in that I let the stats tell the story and try to measure anything and everything.
The MarketingExperiments Email Marketing Certification Course
The entire MarketingExperiments email marketing certification course is based on one heuristic, if you can remember this (and you will by the end of the day) you will have no trouble at all with the exam:
eme = rv(of+i) – (fr+a)
That’s it. Well, not entirely, but you will apply this heuristic to every part of the an email campaign, from the email capture page to crafting a message, designing a landing page and finally getting a conversion.
In plain english that mean looking thing up there simply means that an emails effectiveness (eme) is equal to the relevancy (rv) of the offer (0f) plus the incentive (i) minus the friction (fr) and anxiety (a). Makes sense when you think about it. One of the main takeaways of the course, and the summit, was that the job of the marketer is to make sure the Perceived Value of an offer is greater than the Perceived Cost.
You will spend the entire email certification course applying this methodology to email capture, email message, and landing page to ensure a consistency to your email campaign.
I would highly recommend this course and conference if it is available to you. Dr. Flint McGlaughlin is a tremendous speaker and interjects just the right stories throughout the day to get his message across while keeping the day on schedule and making sure everyone knows what will be in the email marketing certification course.
I’m very happy to say that I completed the MarketingExperiments Email Marketing Certification course with a score of 93! Now, I’m looking forward to the optimization summit in Denver which focuses on landing page and email optimization.
6 Must Have Google Chrome Extensions
Jan 24Google Chrome, like Firefox allows you to add extensions to the browser to enhance its performance to your needs. There are thousands of extensions to choose from to enhance email, social media integration, on-page SEO info and much much more. Here are a few must have google chrome extensions that I use all the time to save time and get the most out of chrome.
6 Must Have Google Chrome Extensions
AdBlock – The web the way you want it, without ads. AdBlock strips the ads right out of the web pages you browse and does it without you even noticing. This is the best ad removal tool because it doesn’t interfere with the layout or content of the page. Just install AdBlock and you’ll never have ads in your face again.
Auto HD for YouTube – If you like to watch YouTube videos (and who doesn’t) this should be the first thing you install. When you watch videos on youtube.com with this tool enabled the size and quality will automatically display in HD. You can set which quality you would like to be displayed (720p is default) and then from now on you never have to set the quality again. Auto HD also adjusts the content of the page to allow for widescreen videos to be displayed.
Buffer for Chrome – If you share a lot of content on twitter or facebook then you need to install this extension. This app can automatically schedule your messages and spread them out so you won’t annoy your friends and followers. After you share your messages buffer will track clicks and reach of each message in its dashboard. I wrote an entire review of Buffer with much more detail.
FB Photo Zoom – This one is for the heavy facebook users. This add-on makes viewing pictures on facebook much simpler. Once installed, hover over any image in facebook and the full-size image will pop out. Once you hover away the photo will disappear. Pretty intuitive, since facebook displays most images too small by default. You can toggle this setting on and off with a switch that lives right next to the chat sidebar in facebook.
Google Search by Image – Google Image Search is an amazing resource to find logos and icons for projects. Google is now offering a google chrome tool that will find similar images to one you are currently browsing. Just right click on any image and you will be taken to google image search to find similar images.
Speed Dial – This extension replaces your homepage with a grid of your favorite websites. You can adjust the grid into almost any configuration and load your favorite or most popular pages. Each site will generate an icon so you can visually locate your sites. No more bookmarks pages. Speed Dial enhances the default chrome home page with its customizable layout.
Do you have any favorite chrome extensions? Do you use any of these must have google chrome extensions? Let me know in the comments.
5 Top Productivity Tools To Get Stuff Done
Jan 19Everyone wants to save time and get more stuff done, especially the everyday, mundane tasks. Finding the right mix of productivity tools to throw into your routine can be just as time consuming. Some of these are standalone apps or browser extensions. To that end, here are my top productivity tools, try these out for yourself and I’d love to know what you think.
5 Top Productivity Tools to Get Stuff Done
- Google Chrome – Get yourself comfortable with the best browser around. It’s light, fast, doesn’t crash (if you encounter a hiccup only the naughty tab has to close) and there are tons of add-ons and extensions to customize to your needs. It updates itself automatically so you’re always running the current version. You can also sync your browser so that all your settings go with you whether you’re at work or at home. Looks like I’ll need to do a whole post on Chrome coming up..
- Buffer – Have you tried this one yet? Buffer helps you schedule and measure your updates across twitter and facebook. You can install a Chrome or Firefox extension in your browser and then schedule updates in 2 clicks as you fly across the internet. Customize your sending schedule right inside of Buffer so that your messages are spread out and you don’t annoy your friends/followers. This might be my top productivity tool discovery in a while. I already wrote a complete Buffer review.
- Ifttt – If this then that. Use ifttt to sling all your updates around the web based on events. Link your profiles to ifttt, set up tasks and then the magic happens. Star an entry in google reader and have it published to twitter. Choose tweets with a certain type of hashtag to LinkedIn. Have all of your instagrams sent to your dropbox account. Send yourself a text when the weather hits a certain temperature. There are thousands of possibilities and that’s the fun part. Oh, and it works with Buffer. What’s the best recipe you’ve dreamt up?
- Rapportive – This Gmail accessory (if you’re not using Gmail, just switch already) reveals your contacts social media accounts and gives you one click access to friend/follow them right inside Gmail. It’s a nifty tool for finding people on LinkedIn especially, because those contacts can sometimes be hard to find. Rapportive can give you a snapshot and insights of your email contacts to establish a rapport quicker.
- TweetDeck – If you manage social media accounts or have multiple profiles, you need a tool to keep everything organized. With tweetdeck you can manage searches and lists in multiple columns and keep a pulse on what is happening in your world. I’ll be honest, I liked tweetdeck a lot more before they were bought by twitter, there are a lot of features no longer included, but it still does a great job and it’s free.
Do you use any of these top productivity tools? Did I leave any out? Let me know in the comments!
Join the Stop SOPA Blackout January 18th
Jan 17
Join thousands of Americans on January 18th to protest the proposed SOPA bill. This proposed legislation severely limits the expression of free speech on the Internet as well as giving far too much power to corporations in policing content on the Internet. The bill as written would seriously jeopardize the growth of the Internet and the industries that rely on it.
Reddit and Wikipedia have already announced its plan to go dark and demonstrate a SOPA Blackout on January 18 in protest and many more organizations may do the same. For some great info on the SOPA legislation you can read #BlackoutSOPA. For you folks on twitter, you can add a banner to your profile picture to stop SOPA from that site as well.
Buffer Social Media Management Tool Review
Jan 11I came across the Buffer social media management tool about 3 months ago and was instantly hooked. So here goes my review. I immediately realized how easy it was to share and schedule updates to my networks. Originally Buffer only supported updates to Twitter, but has since added access to Facebook support as well. The Buffer app makes sharing content to my network as easy as 2 clicks of the mouse.
Buffer Social Media Management Tool
How It Works
By installing the buffer app chrome extension (also available for Firefox), anytime you come across content you would like to share, you simply click the buffer logo in your chrome toolbar and a dialog box is displayed on top of your browser pre-populated with the page title and meta description of the content. You can add your own text to the update to post instantly or add it to buffer to schedule later. The integration into google chrome couldn’t be more seamless.
Read more after the jump…
