Archive for July 2009
Top Ten Ways to Use Twitter for Marketing
Top Ten Ways to Use Twitter for MarketingBy Jason OConnor (c) 2009 Twitter is a micro-blogging site that asks you a basic question, “What are you doing?” It allows anyone with an account to write up to 140 characters in a text field as a means to update, comment, promote or communicate to others who are “following” you. When people follow you, they see what you’ve recently contributed when they login. They see your “tweets”, which are the messages you leave. And of course you can follow others who tweet about the things that interest you. As an Internet marketer you may want to follow other Internet marketers, for example.Like anything, and this is especially true of working with social media, the more you give, the more you get. In other words, the more often you tweet the more activity you’ll generate. Some suggest that you tweet a few times a day, every day. Not every tweet needs to be profound. But they should all be useful. It’s important that you don’t abuse Twitter for marketing and promoting your products, services or affiliate links. Most of your tweets ought to be about offering your followers useful and valuable information. Only once in a while should you try to use Twitter to promote something. Otherwise you’ll be perceived as a spammer, and no one wants that tag.Imagine if you had a large number of people following your tweets? Some people have tens of thousands following them. If you had something to promote and you had a large following, you could quickly and efficiently alert a lot of people of your promo. It acts sort of like a mass emailíng blast to your house email list, but it’s a heck of a lot easier and faster. This is the power of Twitter.One thing that I’ve noticed with Twitter is that it can seem overwhelming at times. The sheer information on Twitter, the ‘how-to’s', tutorials and all the other ubiquitous advice on how to use and take advantage of it can seem hard to understand and implement. So here’s an easy-to-understand list of the top ten ways in which you can use Twitter to market yourself, your business and your website.The Top 10 Ways To Use Twitter for Marketing:1. Use it to promote new pieces of content you or your company create to drive traffic to your site. From online articles to blog posts or from videos to webinars, each time you add something to the Web that is of value, tweet about it and include a link. (Most people on Twitter use www.TinyURL.com to take a long URL and make it short.)2. Use it for learning new marketing ideas, strategies and techniques. If you follow the right people, and you have to be picky about who you follow, you’ll get pointed to a good amount of useful tutorials, videos, e-zines and other things that teach you about marketing.3. Use it to get new customers. Use Twitter’s search to find people who may be interested in your product or service. There are many ingenious ways to search for people on Twitter. For example, if you sell red widgets you could go to http://search.twitter.com and find people who have tweeted specifically looking for red widgets. To do this, type the following into the search box: red widgets?• You’ll notice a lot of the results will be of others selling red widgets. These ones will all obviously have links in them to direct people to the site they’re selling red widgets on. To weed these people/tweets out, use the negative sign like this: -http red widgets?• Since every link has ‘http’ in it, using the negative sign in front of it will cause your search results to not include any tweets with links in them. 4. Use it to build your email list. Use Twitter’s search to find people who may be interested in the monthly newsletter you send out to your house email list. Invite these people to join.5. Utilize Twitter plugins or add-ons such as TweetMyBlog or The Twitter Updater, which both automatically make tweets of every new blog post you publish. Also check out TwitThis. When visitors to your website click on the TwitThis button or link, it takes the URL of the Web page and creates a shorter URL using TinyURL. Then visitors can send this shortened URL and a description of the web page to all of their followers on Twitter. Finally, look at TweetLater, a service that allows you to write lots of tweets at once and then schedule them to go out over time.6. Use it to build buzz about an upcoming product or website launch. 7. Use it to better brand yourself or your business. Remember, when someone wants to learn more about you or your company, they are increasingly using sites like Twitter for research. You could easily use Twitter to establish yourself as an authority in your field.8. Use it to update followers on breaking news regarding your company. If your company is mentioned in a new article, tweet about it and include a link to the article. Or if you’re at a conference or trade show, you could tweet what you’re doing and invite people to visit you in person.9. Use it for business networking, master-mind groups (see Napoleon Hill), and getting yourself seen by high-profile people in your industry.10. Use it as an instant messaging system to keep you and your team on the same page during projects. This is especially useful for those who work with teams spread out in different cities or countries.You should note that this top 10 list is not in order of importance or in any particular order. I suggest that you give Twitter a try if you haven’t already. See if you can apply a few of these techniques and tactics to help you take advantage of Twitter as a marketing tool.And one more important thing to remember is that there is no silver bullet in marketing. You should always be trying and implementing numerous tactics when marketing your business. Don’t only rely on Twitter or any other one thing. Instead, use Twitter (or any other Web 2.0 site) as simply one more tool in your entire social media and marketing toolbox. About The AuthorJason OConnor is a Web consultant. He writes for The Net Gazette, a Web marketing newsletter, and owns Oak Web Works, LLC, a Web design and marketing company.
Google Street View Continues to Raise Privacy Concerns
Google Street View Continues to Raise Privacy ConcernsBy Brian Cooper (c) 2009 Medium BlueGoogle Street View, a Google Maps feature that lets users see images of streets and the surrounding areas, continues to generate controversy. Since its launch in May 2007, the feature has prompted questions about whether it constitutes an invasion of privacy, complaints about inappropriate images, and even a lawsuit. Aaron and Christine Boring vs. GoogleThe lawsuit came from a Pittsburgh couple in April 2008. The couple lives on a private road. However, Google’s Street View team travelled down the road and continued taking images all the way up to the couple’s home. The images were then posted to Google Maps and included close-ups of the couple’s home, swimming pool, and outbuildings. Google’s response? “Complete privacy does not exist in this world except in a desert, and anyone who is not a hermit must expect and endure the ordinary incidents of the community life of which he (or she) is a part.”(1)While Google’s assertion that its Street View imaging team is an “ordinary incident of community life” is far-fetched, Google does make some good points in its response. Namely, that the plaintiffs could have simply requested that Google delete the offending images from Street View via a form available on Google Maps. Instead, the couple filed suit and in doing so have made the matter public record and ensured that the images will be viewed by even more people.Since the lawsuit, Google has removed the images in question, but the suit remains open.The Borings’ NeighborsOn Goldenbrook Lane, a nearby street, some of the Borings’ neighbors also had an incident with the Street View team. In this incident, the Street View team drove up Goldenbrook Lane and into the driveway of the McKee residence. They continued to drive, snapping Street View images the whole way, up to the garages of the McKees.(2) While it appears that the McKees didn’t resort to a lawsuit, Google has removed the images of the home that were taken from private property from Street View.Street View in CaliforniaIn California, the antics of the Street View drivers continued. Drivers reportedly went on over 100 private roads in Sonoma County according to an analysis done by PressDemocrat.com. In another instance, Street View drivers went past two no trespassing signs as they photographed the 1,200 foot private road leading up to Betty Webb’s house in Humboldt County. In another incident reported by PressDemocrat.com, Street View drivers ignored a no trespassing sign, passed through a gate, and drove through someone’s yard on a dirt road near Freestone. Street View and U.S. Military BasesIn March 2008, the Pentagon requested that Google erase some images of military bases taken from public streets due to the potential threat those images posed to national security. “It actually shows where all the guards are. It shows how the barriers go up and down. It shows how to get in and out of buildings,” said General Gene Renuart, commander of U.S. Northern Command.(3) According to Google spokesman Larry Yu, Google has honored the Pentagon’s requests.(4) However, the Pentagon was still reviewing the many images of military facilities that were included in Street View.(5)Street View Goes GlobalAfter the complaints in the U.S., other countries warned Google that Street View would have to be modified to comply with their stricter privacy laws. To this end, Google has improved facial recognition technology so that it can find faces in images and blur them so that they are unrecognizable. This technology has also been applied to license plates. The blurring feature has since been applied to U.S. Street View imagery in addition to images in other countries where Street View is now available.AccountabilityWhile Google has removed some of the aforementioned locations from Street View, the burden to monitor Google’s actions, be it Street View or other Google services, continues to fall on people like you and me. With regard to Street View, Google argues that “many people — visitors pulling in the driveway, neighbors turning around at the end of the road, deliverymen delivering packages — can all plainly see the exterior of the (Borings) home.”(6) While these examples are likely accurate for the Borings and the population in general, they involve people that we know or strangers that we requested to come to our homes. Private residents didn’t request that Google visit these neighborhoods nor would residents reasonably expect that someone would be driving down their streets taking photographs of everything. In fact, I suspect that if you or I were to do the same thing, someone would call the police and we’d have some difficult questions to answer down at the station.Potential ConsequencesSo, what could the consequences of Street View be? Well, while the feature has been used to aid police in a kidnapping investigation (7), I think the feature could be far more useful to criminals. For example, a criminal could use Street View to case a neighborhood – checking Street View for cars that are parked in garages or driveways so they could know when someone isn’t at home, scan the yards and windows for any signs indicating that homes have security systems, check the proximity of neighboring houses using Street View and Google’s satellite imagery, look for signs of pets that could pose problems for a thief, see if the homes have newspapers delivered (which might help the thief determine if the residents were on vacatíon) and, assuming the criminal found a good candidate, select a few potential access points (like open windows) for breaking into the home. If the Street View car happened to pass through your neighborhood on garbage day, the camera might even capture the box of that new HDTV you got. Scary, huh?Protecting Your PrivacySo how can you protect yourself? First, check your address using Street View. To report a concern with Street View imagery, enter the address you desire and click “Search Maps.” Then, click “Street View” in the thought bubble that appears on the map. Once the “Street View” image appears, click “Report a Concern” in the bottom left corner of the Street View image and enter the details of your complaint.Second, be mindful of how your information is used and act when you feel your privacy is being threatened. Google’s Street View can be a helpful tool, but it is meant to help Google sell ads and make revenue, not protect your privacy. You can write your local, state and federal representatives and even the local paper to voice your opinion.Oh, and if you believe as Google does that “complete privacy does not exist,” then you should check out the house where Google CEO Eric Schmidt reportedly lives using satellite imagery from Google Maps. It looks like he has had some construction done in the past few years. A simple Google search of the address (366 Walsh Road, Atherton, CA) will tell you that Schmidt merged two adjacent lots in 20018 to create the new lot and then added a new fence, retaining wall, and drainage in 2004. (9) Eric, that creepiness that you’re feeling is probably approaching the level of the people who had Street View vehicles in their driveways. So, while it is Google’s mission to “organize the world’s information and make it accessible and useful,” the company should thoroughly consider how that information can adversely impact the same people it is meant to help.References:(1) “Preliminary Statement.” Boring vs. Google, Allegheny County, PA(2) TheSmokingGun.com “Google is in Your Driveway!”(3) Reuters. “Google pulls some map images at Pentagon’s request.” Mar. 6, 2008.(4) Ibid(5) Ibid(6) “Preliminary Statement.” Boring vs. Google, Allegheny County, PA(7) Telegraph.co.uk. “US police use Google Street View to find missing child.” Jan. 9, 2009(8) Town of Atherton City Council Minutes, May 16, 2001.(9) Palo Alto Online, September 24, 2001.About The AuthorBrian Cooper is the Director of Online Public Relations at Medium Blue, where he promotes the company’s clients on the Internet. He has a bachelor’s degree in marketing and a MBA in management from Georgia State University where he graduated summa cum laude. His articles have been published on numerous websites, including The American Chronicle, IM Newswatch, IT Business Net, Search Engine Guide, SEO News, Site Pro News, and TechLINKS. Medium Blue Search Engine Marketing was named the number one organic search engine optimization company in the world by PromotionWorld in 2006 and 2007.
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