This is a true story of social media success that didn’t take long to generate signs that it was indeed working. This is one of my best examples of following social media rules of engagement to work in the brand favour. The reason this success is so profound is because its marketing team, while well versed in utilizing online (search, display, affiliate) marketing to achieve clear ROI success, did not necessarily see social media as a venue to achieve similar results.

Columbia House was a traditional direct mail company, whose strong foundation of measurability, attribution and ROI were key pillars that drove its success for many years. Technology and industry changes ie the decline of music CD consumption…Apple’s introduction of the iPod… and the subsequent move to cheaper MP3 downloads, left the music industry scrambling to monetize artists and their music. This, in turn, necessitated Columbia House to focus more efforts on movie sales. Despite its long tenure and strong presence in the movie entertainment distribution business, it had also met with criticism from users in areas regarding claims of negative option, unfair shipping charges, and challenging customer service issues.

So a new company was started in Canada –> with a new business model that responded to many of these consumer claims in hopes of starting fresh, recruiting a new support base and migrating its loyal customer base. The new company launched November 2008 and its positioning has been evident on their website to this day: “CH Canada.com Welcome to the NEW Columbia House..You spoke, we listened…No more unwanted shipments..”

Initial social insights were conducted around the brand and its competitors in the weeks before launch to validate the new business model. What CHCanada discovered was a wealth of passionate conversation both positive and negative about the very topics (…and then some) that instigated the business change. Unlike traditional research, the comments were in social media spaces for the world to see… and remained unchalleged and unresponded. The company noticed, at the same time, the number strong advocate discussions that had gone unleveraged. What CH had realized was that a comment posted many months ago could strongly influence those who had seen the discussion for the very first time. These strong conversations could very well hamper a successful launch of the new business model. In addition, as is the plight of most Canadian subsidiaries, any strong changes implemented locally were still “blips” in the overall map and did little to positively impact the overall Columbia House brand…the US parent that still retained the original business model.

The key to ensuring a successful launch of CHCanada.com was to provide voice in the social sphere and prove to its customers that it had truly changed before it could hope to acquire new customers. So CHCanada began engaging in conversation. We quickly identified three forums where strong discourse existed about Columbia House. The most difficult efforts included confronting its detractors. Honesty, transparency, and humility were the order of the day. Applying this strategy has allowed forum members to welcome CHCanada to the thread. By letting forum members understand what CH had done to change, and by openly asking people for their honest opinions and questions, CH has been able to eventually build trust as evidenced by the length and tenure of each CHCanada.com thread—> all of them with a range of 700 – 1200 posts starting from as early as January 2009. Along the way, not all forum members were not so quick to welcome CHCanada with open arms. It’s not surprising they “googled” each of our names to validate who we were and what we were saying. From time to time we have been met with accusations of SPAM and have been banned from sites. But overall, our presence in key forums has made an incredible impact on CHCanada’s reputation, its organic search listings, and has resulted in ever increasing positive sentiment in favour of CHCanada vs. its US parent. This topic cloud is indicative of the positive consumer perceptions surrounding the brand.

Within a short period of time, CHCanada was able to translate its participation into strong business results. Rob Weatherall, Marketing Manager of CHCanada has indicated, “Entering into the realm of social networking I knew this was something that needed to be done but was quite skeptical what impact it would have on my business. Within a couple of months of launching our program with Isobar, I clearly saw the positive impact this media was going to have. Social networking not only provided an open line of communication with customers, it also provided a product/offer testing arena, an ever-ready focus group, a source of testimonials, and for this business – our highest value customers.”

Highest value customers –>traditionally resulting from strong customer relationship management but developed over a long period of time. Now imagine applying the same principles to social media and experiencing the same effects in half, or even a quarter of the time! Who would ever have thought that by talking to customers, marketers would be able to take out the guess-work of their initiatives or implications of their analytics reports . Ask the customers what they want and give it to them! It’s that simple. And they will come…..And they came in droves. CHCanada initiated a free-shipping promotion in September because its customers asked for it. The result: The company witnessed the highest single sales of the year, with sales equivalent to half the month of August.

And the success continues. Twtpoll surveys have become a strong crowdsourcing vehicle to gauge consumer preferences. Responses for surveys have been strong with momentum starting from the moment of posting. Social media has allowed CH Canada a very inexpensive test-and-learn vehicle for promotions. Varying test components has allowed CH to pull off another successful FREE shipping promotion of late: resulting in the second highest sales day of the year.

Rob Weatherall summed up his experience this way: “The best form of advertising is word-of-mouth – what better way to get your message out than through social networking. Without the knowledge, expertise and passion Isobar brought to the table, this business would most likely have continued to avoid, out of ignorance, what has turned out to be an extremely smart business move”.

Taking a quote from one of the fourm members, “while i haven’t ordered from chcanada in quite some time, i still frequent the thread and certainly appreciate the comments and inititiave shown by the chcanada staff. when is the last time you saw an amazon or futureshop/BB rep come in and ask us what we like? NEVER!! “
Another one says, “ I’m amazed at how much they try to make everyone happy & take in their input. They’re doing a great job at trying to get everything right.”

It’s becoming more commonplace to see campaigns that leverage the strength of the consumer’s viewpoint and deliver a spectacular product from a grassroots view. Mentos is among those that has succeeded in this realm.

Yonge-Dundas Square on August 13 was a scene of fun in the sun, with giant slides, gladiator challenges, and hilarious Sumo wrestling competitions. This was an adult fun park, conceived by Toronto resident, Danielle Lamarche, winner of the 2009 Mentos Campaign, “Make your World Go Rounder“.

Cossette was the agency responsible for this campaign. The premise: Make Your World Go Rounder was meant to be light-hearted and fun, and make Canadians smile by reminding them about life’s simple pleasures. According to Alison Neil of Cossette, “In the competitive and cluttered gum market we wanted to bring attention to a product feature of Mentos Gum, their roundness (the only round gum on the market), hence “make your world go rounder… we certainly consider this campaign to be non-traditional. We decided to develop an experiential/User Generated Content campaign to engage consumers, develop a dialogue with them and enhance their brand experience.”

Danielle Lamarche, who received a cash prize of $5000 summed up the day this way: “The event was extremely well received. An unbelievable amount of people came to the fun park. It was so well set up and had blow up games that even adults loved to participate in. It was steady all day and fairly long lines actually began to form after 6pm.”

Lamarche’s winning response : “Put up an Adult Fun Park in Dundas Square with blow up slides and more. We all want to be kids again!” Says Lamarche, “I really wanted to give a suggestion that would be something adults could do to let loose. I knew that it also had to the affordable and executable. It also needed to be an idea that could be Mentos Gum branded. I always watch out of the corner of my eye when kids play on the blow up toys these days and wish I was still able to do it as well. I’m sure many other adults feel that way so why not give them a chance to do it for a day?”

What does she think of the Mentos brand now? She sees a brand that tries to encourage positive thinking. “A lot of the responses that I saw were about giving to others, donations to charity, and making a mass audience happy. … People want to be happy and want to see the world become a better place. We’ve come to a time now where people are becoming much more aware of what is going on in the world and I think it’s important for brands to be aware and responsive to it.”

The campaign focus was the website: (www.makeyourworldgorounder.ca and www.pourquevotremondetourneplusrond.ca) but was heavily supported by out of home, transit, radio and web advertising. The latter also included social media accounts on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr to support the contest, communicate the new line of products, begin developing brand loyalty, and help with Mentos Gum SEO.

The response to the contest was overwhelming. Close to 20,000 idea submissions in Canada were received.
According to Neill, “We feel that we’ve accomplished our goals of increasing brand awareness and communicating that Mentos Gum is a great, fun product that is close to consumers.”

In using consumer generated content to help fuel conversation, Neill agrees that UGC (User-generated content) works. Says Neill, especially ” when you listen to your consumers, participate in the dialogue and give back to them. We are big believers in experiential marketing at Cossette.”

Yesterday afternoon we said good-bye to my parent’s Golden Lab, Midas. Midas just turned 12 this past spring. He has always been a joy to both my parents the minute he entered their lives. My younger sister originally owned Midas and when she moved to the big city it made sense for this young pup to stay in a home that gave him plenty of room to run plus gave him a home with family he already came to love.

I remember when Midas first entered our lives. He was the cutest golden pup, with a button nose, incredible rambunctiousness and energy, and an eye for mischief. He was quite a handful and this continued to be his monniker over the years. He did go to obedience school for a time but the discipline was something that didn’t come quite easily to this little dog with a mind of his own. I watched “Me and Marley” early this year and it so reminded me of the times we had with Midas. I know my mom would say that I was hard on Midas, that he was not a bad dog. I didn’t know any better — I never had a dog and I expected that he would learn, as we had, the responsibilities of growing up in our family. That meant not barking so loud in the house … which he often did; or jumping up on the table and gobbling up as much available food that he could muster before his collar was yanked away….which happened a lot; and sleeping where dogs are supposed to sleep — on the floor or on their own bed not on my parents’ bed. The latter brought back memories of me passing by my parents’ bedroom late one night and finding Midas asleep beside my dad while my mom lay perpendicular at the foot of the bed. “Odd” I thought, “the dog and the master seemed to have reversed their roles”.

But the real story was that my parents’ so loved this dog that they treated him like gold. Midas was their “boy” and he was given the world. I often smirk when I think of their newly reupholstered living room sofa and love-seat, covered with sheets, newly sewn for Midas. This would be his bed for life. I felt like I was infringing on his territory when I proceeded to sit on one of the two pieces of furniture. When people came over they had to pull the sheets off — an odd site that seemed to unnaturally transform the room into a proper sitting area.

My parents said they disciplined Midas and they almost convinced us that he had changed….well, sort of. Jumping on the table with food on it was Classic Midas. He did it, oh so perfectly, when no one expected it. It didn’t help that my parents did not consistently tie him up. At times he was seated by the table when we all were eating. Despite one parent’s hand on the leash and the other on the utensil, this did not deter this ambitious dog, intent on making a serious food killing….and he succeeded every time. A stern yelling from my dad with a finger waving in front of his nose was not punishment enough. The next time was even more priceless as he successfully pounced after most of the table was cleared. It seemed more acceptable since most of us had already eaten. My mom was able to keep the kitchen clear of food access when they were away from home but once that food was exposed it was “dead meat”.

I know I was hard on Midas but I, in hindsight, found his antics amusing. He loved my kids, and my nieces and nephews. He loved to be pet; and in his later years he was content just to sit by my dad’s chair when he was at the computer. My mom used to say that Midas would be by the window when they left for work and would be at the window when they returned home, with his tail wagging in excitement. It was a joy for both my mom and dad to see him at the end of the day.

And that’s why it was so important for me to write this post. Midas played a strong role in our lives. He was always there for my parents (in my mom’s words) “through harsh times and good times”. He was a constant in their lives who brought extreme joy to both of them. In the last little while, Midas had started slowing down. His breathing was laboured; evening walks were more about walking than running; and going up the stairs was an arduous task. When we finally made the decision to let Midas go it was incredibly difficult for me and my kids. All the memories came rushing back as I couldn’t hold back the tears any longer. Seeing my dad, who has always been the strong pillar of the family, break down was extremely difficult to witness. We would never see Midas again at least on this earth.

In the last 24 hours the pain has abated somewhat as my family sat together to share memories and view photos of all of us. It was a great time, something we hadn’t done in a very long time. And I appreciated my parents more in that moment than I ever had. If anything, Midas has taught me so much about unconditional love, loyalty and the simple pleasures of spending “time” with those you love. I told my kids to pray for Midas and my parents in their grief. As my son prayed tonight, he added the words, “Midas, when we are 100 years old, we will all be together again in heaven”. Midas, thank you for what you’ve brought to our lives. We will miss you so very much. Knowing what you’ve given to my family — my mom, dad and sister, in particular has given me a better perspective on life. Thank you and rest in peace! Love Hessie

Midas July 2009

It’s been awhile since I’ve written a post. Twittering and work has kept this blog at bay. But recent incidents have really compelled me to put down my thoughts on the keyboard.

I was on Twitter at 5:40 when rampant news about Michael Jackson’s supposed death started circulating. It was a bit of a frenzy on twitter as the community continued to post news articles, which were conflicting. No one jnew what to believe. TMZ first came out with the story but most of us waited for CNN to come out with an official word. It took a while to get through all the postings to figure out what was true. I called my sister to check the news to verify the reports..it took some time ..anyway, when it was all said and done and all news sources confirmed the inevitable it came with an overwhelming shock to me. I didn’t know what to think. I spent the next few hours just glued to the TV and my laptop just watching all my favourite videos and pouring over the accolades and reminiscence. I finally broke down Friday night…don’t exactly know why but I guess the realization that MJ was gone really hit home.

Let me step back…..I have always been a huge MJ fan. My reclusive childhood meant that going out with friends was a luxury, so I spent lots of time in front of the tube watching videos….specifically MJ, replaying the dance moves and mimicking the choreography, particularly the backslide aka moonwalk. My sister was a much better dancer than I so she was the standard I could only aspire to.

I still remember the Victory Tour 1984, Detroit. My sister and I won tickets through the local radio station. When the day finally came we showed up — one glitter glove on each of our hands, black jeans, white T-shirts and the signature single glove earing —- with keen anticipation when Michael would descend from his helicopter. When he did come on stage, utter frenzy erupted.  Our dance moves did not really play out since most of the fans, including my sister, were constantly screaming at his very presence. His style, his presence, his music was sheer genius. It was one of the most spectacular shows I’ve ever seen. Since then my love for this artist has not waned.

The controversy that raged some years back did not change who he was to me. I agree he was a still a child at heart that, however naive, wanted to make people happy either through his music or his philanthropy. His influence touched millions: artists, generations, young, old. Even the famed viral Cebu Inmate videos, which drew millions of views for the Thriller rendition drew attention 2 days after Michael’s passing with another tribute video for Michael of “We are the World”.

Ultimately, the man who lived, in my mind, equalled, if not surpassed, the influence of Elvis Presley. He died young and the pressures he must’ve lived with as a celebrity, as a man trying to shed the cloud of scandal and constant negativity, must have been overwhelming.  Very few people could influence culture as he did; could corral millions into doing good and making a difference with his deeds. This video is what he has encompassed as a human being. “Heal the World” by Michael Jackson.

I have been privileged to take part in the 10th Anniversary of the Cluetrain Manifesto. I was made aware of and signed up for a blogging event in which 95 bloggers each write a post on the same agreed date, April 28th, about one of the “95 theses” from the Manifesto. Details about this event and Cluetrain’s history are found here. I will provide viewpoint on thesis number #89.

For years marketers like me have believed that advertising had the strength to influence consumer attitudes and behaviour. Advertising had more power when ad vehicles were few. As consumers, we were easy to get a hold of – we read the same papers, listened to the same radio programs, and watched the same television shows as everyone we knew.  Marketers had it easy…but it was rare for consumers to see an ad that was relevant to them. That was ok for marketers because 2% response rate or a break-even ROI was all they required to deem a campaign successful.

These days, technology has made it increasingly difficult to reach consumers. Media has become fragmented. Access profileration has allowed the consumer to be in multiple devices simultaneously including:  access from radio, TV, mobile, MP3s, search, print, billboards, videogames, IM, email, video consoles etc. Overlay the incredible explosion of the number of radio and TV channels, magazines, newspapers. This pace of change is making it increasingly difficult to pin target consumers down with a relevant message at the right place and right time.

It’s become increasingly apparent that the difficulty in reaching the consumer has been compounded over time. Access proliferation has put the consumer in control of how, when and what media they consume. At the same time these same channels are giving the tools to communicate to many people at a much faster pace. Universal McCann’s Worldwide Comparative Study on Social Media Trends, April 2008 indicates the growth of social media since 2006. Some highlights include:

• 73% of active online users have read a blog
• 45% have started their own blog
• there are over 184 million bloggers worldwide, with approx. 1/4 from China
• 57% have joined a social network
• 34% post opinions about products/brands on their site/blog

People are talking about brands to each other and surprisingly many brands are oblivious to this; or if they are aware,  they don’t realize the enormous impact it has to their reputation as a company.  The power shift from the corporation to the consumer is apparent. Advertising messages do not influence as effectively as marketers have always believed.

The very medium that divides the brand from the consumer also has the ability to bring them together. Consider this stat from the Universal McCann Study:  36% of active online consumers think more positively about companies that have a blog.  Start-ups have easily figured this out and from day one are leveraging the conversation with the consumers to help shape and evolve their businesses. They have figured out that unless they listen and respond to the market needs, there will be no market for their product or service offering. Coming from a start-up, the lack of big marketing budgets forced me as a marketer to really understand social media if I was to effectively drive reach:

• Use the networks to bring awareness of your offering.
• Engage with relevant target groups to help you fix the current bugs and improve your product over time.
• Take it on the chin and be willing to accept the good with the bad.
• Continually engage your consumers for feedback. Develop relationships and nurture them over time. Do NOT bail on your community.

Malcolm Gladwell’s “The Tipping Point” provides the best illustration of the power of conversation. He points out, ” I’m convinced that ideas …. move through a population very much like a disease does….Ideas can be contagious in exactly the same way that a virus is.”  It doesn’t take much effort to pass along a cool idea but the very nature of one idea being passed along from person to person can result in an epidemic. “The virtue of an epidemic, after all, is that just a little input is enough to get it started, and it can spread very, very quickly.”  In this way, the effectiveness of word of mouth begins to produce a clear picture of the power of the individual:

Dell found out the hard way how consumer opinion could negatively impact their business. Now, the emergence of Ideastorm, and Twitter engagement has catapulted the company into social media success and has effectively put their Dell Hell days behind them.

Customers talking about brands are making it clear what they want, how they want to be serviced, and what they consider good value for their dollar. The great thing for marketers is that engaging in these discussions limits the guessing game. Companies can now provide a product or service that the customer wants….what a concept!

Other top brands are getting on the band wagon and they are capitalizing as early adopters:

• Starbucks Coffee created a site that allows users to submit suggestions to be voted on by Starbucks consumers, and the most popular suggestions are highlighted and reviewed. Their heavy presence on Twitter has also helped the company to disseminate information and gauge consumer opinion in real time.

• Zappos and CEO Tony Hsieh have become known for embracing Twitter as an essential tool for exceptional customer service. Tony, himself, through his Twitter account has become accessible and has helped personify Zappos as a company who is friendly, trustworthy and helpful. Twitter is ingrained in the company culture..so much so in fact that the Zappos site aggregates the Twitter streams.

• Ford Motor Company and its head of social media, Scott Monty have used the channel as a way to inform the public in real time of company happenings especially during periods of volatility. It was this kind of transparency in communication that helped quell much negative public opinion and, in my view, has helped elevate Ford’s brand presence above GM and Chrysler during the government bailout period.

So, for those brands that are afraid to dip their toe in this new conversation, who are afraid to engage with consumers, it will only be to their detriment.  Consumers will continue to speak about your company and your brand(s) with or without you. Social media is not a fad. It will continue to grow and evolve and as new devices are invented, conversation will multiply at alarming rates. The opportunity for big brands and businesses is enormous. Begin to engage in discussions at a peer level…listen and understand…develop important relationships…and build strong brand advocacy and a sustainable model in the meantime.

Credits for this thesis go to P Furey and A Wong for some really cool slides I used from their presentations.

I often wonder what was the tipping point for social media? Why is it receiving more attention now than ever? It has always been there and those in the know — whether they are the tech savvy or the digital youth — saw its benefits much sooner than the rest of us.  But now it’s really gone mainstream:

• Every radio station, newscaster, broadcast media has a Twitter account. My late night TV news station uses it as a crowd-sourcing mechanism to gauge immediate opinion on key news issues;
• Charities/causes are popping up and its organizers are wising up to the fact that they can raise awareness and donations within hours of launching their campaign;
• The newspaper industry is dying as consumers increasingly look online to find their news and information for free. As a result, a large scale shift in ad spend is expected in 2009 away from traditional print and broadcast to online. eMarketer verifies this transformation:

• Marketers have been told that this channel not only offers true measurability but it results in strong customer engagement and sustainability;

For someone like me, whose marketing roots have evolved from traditional mass to direct and database; then to online display, search and now social media –> my profound learning comes in understanding that it is a medium that continues to evolve and has yet to establish standards for marketers. I continue to hear that no one should have the right to call themselves “social media experts” and while I believe that is absolutely true, I will place my bets with those marketers and organizations who are using this medium everyday to establish their brand, and create a true understanding of their customers.  These guys practice what they preach. Other industry notables have gotten their names because they’ve seemingly held the answers to a space that was virtually untravelled by the mainstream. But I have yet to see any validation of their preachings.

Could it be that the new US President Barack Obama will be known as a key instigator in bringing this whole notion to the masses by his very acknowledgement of the pervasiveness and influence of technology and its ability to shape consumer perception and build incredible momentum?  The strength of Obama’s campaign and his revolutionary move into office are based on the ideals set by the Founding Fathers: Election for The People and By the People…. and NOT by the lobbyists or constituents who have traditionally influenced policy and government spend. He has seemingly abolished this practice and has brought on a new idealism of transparency (as per the video: White House 2.0: Social Media and Government Transparency)

As I evolve Ammo Marketing in Canada, the social media space is exciting and yet daunting. I have been able to convince some clients that traditional research does not compare to the unfiltered, unmoderated insights they will get from social media. The very research has opened clients’ eyes who become keenly aware of the honest commentary on their brands: the good..the bad…and the ugly.  This immediately creates a sense of urgency to jump into the conversation and clarify misperceptions and diffuse detractor comments.  Little by little, participation in this new media is slowly revealing its true worth: as a true engagement device that leads to a sustained dialogue and eventual impact on revenue.

One of my staff came to me today and was so excited to be in a ground-breaking and evolutionary space.  As someone who supports client initiatives by participating in relevant discussions, she is delightfully surprised by the willingness of people to embrace corporate presence and engage with them peer to peer with no strings attached. It’s amazing how much people are willing to tell you if you give them the platform to speak.  The results we’ve seen have been immediate. But be warned, it will take some time to fulfill that ROI. Effort must be consistent and committed. Consumers will become your advocates if you continue to maintain that connection and you openly respond to their concerns.

Christopher Barger, Director of Social Media, General Motors (http://twitter.com/cbarger) said it best: Look for the return on conversation…not immediately…but when it comes it will sustain itself long-term.

I’ve been holding off writing this post for some time partly because I because I didn’t want my emotion coming through in the post.  I was truly hurt when I realized I was banned from a Mom site (which will remain nameless to protect the truly innocent), which, by the way, is an amazing site that caters to moms — working from home, professionals, stay-at-home moms –> a truly engaged community that readily contributes and share experiences with each other. It’s only now that I feel comfortable writing this because I want to portray a very pragmatic view of the incident that happened and provide a viewpoint that we all could learn from. It taught me a valuable lesson about the internet and some of the dangers of the social web.

It’s not worth rehashing the incident in detail. Suffice it to say, I feel I conducted myself with the utmost integrity but the situations were misinterpreted, and misconstrued. And although I rationalized and effectively (or so I thought) defended my position, it was apparent that this site  was unwilling to listen to explanation. I even had a friend and manager –> someone of  authority and status, vouch for me and help clarify the situation. But to no avail.

It’s quite defeating when I make repeated attempts to access the site and the following text is  on my screen: “Hessie Jones, you have been banned from (xxx site)”.  To this day I don’t know what went wrong. Anyone that knows me knows that I am someone of integrity and would never do anything purposely to manipulate a situation. My husband says I suffer from “everyone-needs-to-like-me syndrome” and  I will try incessantly to justify why I should be liked.

But now that I have some clarity, and less bitterness towards the situation I have come to realize that if I were in their shoes, I probably have done the same thing.  I’ve also come to realize that a “keyboard” that unites individuals across the social space cannot and will not ever really be substituted for face-to-face contact. Relationships can begin over the net but ultimately every one is a faceless, nameless entity. Who you are is ultimately determined by what do and and what you type onto your keyboard. We do not have the benefit of looking someone in the eye, or conversing with them face-to-face. We are unwilling to totally submit and trust individuals whom we haven’t formally met. In my case, the site was unwilling to give me the benefit of the doubt.

That’s why what you do and what you say can ultimately be held against you if you’re not careful. I would love to be asked back to the fold and start connecting again. Maybe this time I’ll buy lunch:)

I am in the midst of providing indepth training for a client on Twitter. This is a “Get Started Version”. I’ve spent the last 4 hours researching blogs and document sites to provide me with this information. Here’s what I’ve come up with. If you have more info that’s relevant to newbies, please let me know and I’ll add it to this blog post.

Getting Started:

1)    Remember to create your profile in Settings:
•    Make sure your profile is complete. People decide to follow you based on the richness of your profile.
•    Make sure you upload a picture. It’s always nice to know who you’re connecting with.
•    Add a website URL  or better yet a blog or destination where you can invite conversation.

2)    Who to follow:
•    Use http://Twellow.com to target the users. This will depend on the account you created and the objective for the account. If it is to sell your product, then target people talking about your company, or products that your company offers.
•    Follow your friends first. Then look at their string of followers to determine whom you should follow.
•    Use http://grader.twitter.com to determine the top tweeps to follow — these are the influential voices in the twittersphere.

3)    What do I tweet?
•    Listen First: figure out what people are saying. Is there anything of value you can add? If so chime in.
•    Always provide value: is there information that you have first hand that you think would benefit others? Provide the link and let others know.
•    Emphasize another person’s tweet: if you think it’s important, then RT (retweet). This not only makes the other person appreciate that you’ve recognized their contribution, it also opens you up to further followers.
•    Promote your programs ONLY once you’ve created credibility: This is OK to do once in a while. If others see you have contributed valuable content, then the more likely they will come to your site.

4)    Tweeting long URLS: Since you’re constrained to only 140 characters, many times you need to use tinyURLS or similar functions to truncate your destination URL.  You can use your client Tweetdeck to shorten URLs before you post. It gives you more room to add some commentary to your post.

The DOs and DON’Ts:

Potential Executions:

1. Customer Service: Anyone who has customers – B2C, B2B can use Twitter to quickly listen and respond to customer feedback before problems escalate or to activate brand ambassadors…
2. Crisis Management: Using Twitter for Crisis Communications is much about preventing an isolated issue from becoming a full-blown crisis as it is about communicating to the public once a crisis has hit. Twitter is a fast way to respond and maintain an open channel.
3. Corporate Reputation Management: Twitter offers an outlet for your brand’s personality and humanity. A Twitter handle is created to share the brand personality from real-live people behind the messages being Tweeted. It’s easy to see what others are saying about your brand and the topics of interest and create a strong presence within those conversations.
4. Event Activation: The real-time ability to connect with others and share experiences makes Twitter a great platform for individuals, or companies to use during a major event. Live-Tweeting an event can be used to create a completely new channel of conversation and a way to enhance the physical experience of the event. Combining Twitter with blogs, video and other social media efforts provides more ways to interact with the content and experience you’re creating
5. Product Promotion and Sales – A successful sales and promotion plan is based on identifying your audience, providing useful content, and being prepared to engage in the conversation. When done right, your followers will become loyal, and also advocates for your brand and your promotions.
6. Issue Advocacy – Twitter’s ability to connect people with similar interests can be harnessed for the greater social good with non-profits and issue advocacy organizations creating a community and providing useful information to those they serve, volunteers, donors and other supporters.

Commands:

From the web:

•    D username: sends a private message to a specific individual
•    @username: sends a public message to a specific individual; this message will archive in their replies tab, and be visible on your profile page
•    RT username: retweets content from another username. Use this function to amplify a specific message from someone you’re following.

From your Phone:

•    ON: turns phone notifications on
•    OFF: turns phone notifications off
•    STOP, QUIT: stops all messages to your device immediately
•    FOLLOW username: turns on notifications for a specific individual
•    LEAVE username: turns off notifications for a specific individual
•    D username: sends a private message to a specific individual
•    @username: sends a public message to a specific individual; this message will archive in their replies tab, and be visible on your profile page
•    WHOIS username: returns bio info for a Twitter member
•    GET username: returns the last update from a specific individual
•    FAVE username: marks the last update of a user as a favorite
•    TRACK word: returns updates from the Twitter community containing the tracked word
•    TRACKING: returns a list of words you’re tracking
•    UNTRACK word: stops tracking a word
•    UNTRACK all: stops tracking all words
•    INVITE 4155225678: invites a friend via SMS/text message to join Twitter
•    STATS: returns statistics

Essential Twitter Tools:

1)    Tweetdeck.com is the most popular client, using adobe air technology. Leave this on your desktop, instead of going to browser. Also these clients may be more accurate in seeing who’s replying to you. Through Twitdeck, you will be able to see four columns (or less) based on your preference:
-    posts from ALL friends
-    @ replies
-    favourites
-    Twitscoop ie Buzz trends on Twitter
-    Direct messages

2)    Search: Use http://Tweetscan.com to see who’s talking about you, your brand, or a topic you’re interested in. Sign into tweetscan so you can can create searches by keyword and have the ALERTS sent to your email box, similar to Google Alerts. You can dictate frequency as well

Also, http://search.twitter.com/ – searches Twitter by keyword. Initially, this was summize.

**For people who talk about your brand, it’s important to 1) follow them  2) respond to them on a timely basis

3)    Tagging Content: You can start to use the hashag “#” to add metadata around any tweet. This becomes more important as we rate and tag content. You can see the aggregated data on http://tweetscan.com . Here’s an example of #myfirstjob

4)    Alerts: Often, people will blog about the conversations that happen in twitter, the conversation shifts back to blogs. As a result, I setup Google Alerts for the phrase @hessiej or any specific keywords.

5)    Paste the Twitter Badge on your Site: http://twitter.com/badges – use a flash or html version of your twitter handle and post it to your website. Use it to aggregate traffic to your twitter page for e.g. dealing customer service issues real-time. Be careful — be ready to handle an inordinate amount of traffic.

6)    To specifically target users and categories, use http://www.twellow.com// . Twellow is a site which takes the geographical information and bio information from your Twitter account and uses it to categorize your profile. One of the great things about Twellow is it allows you to find people with similar interests who you can follow and interact with.

Enhanced Services:

1)    To take Twitter UP a NOTCH: Power Twitter :
Download the Firefox version. Here are the features:

-search – not on original twitter
-search scoped to a specific user
-status history peeking on mouseover
-Facebook status updates – as long as you’re logged in, it provides friends’ updates shown as status’ on Twitter
-inline YouTube, Flickr, and TwitPic – instead of URL, shows full pics, video which you can play inline.
-url expansion – allows you to see actual topic as opposed to greeked URL.
-url translation to page titles
-open web update (news feed) mapping

2)    View the latest tweets of upcoming trends on Twitter through http://twitterfall.com Updates fall from the top of the page in near real time. Unlike other Sites, this only tracks trends. The trends are listed on the left hand side of the page. Click on one to view the relevant tweets.

3)    Get the latest stats on the Top “Tweeps”,  Twitter Apps, Top Twitter Topics and Trends from http://tweetstats.com.

4)    FAVRD: most favourited tweets on Twitter. Search by keyword and see who else has favoured a particular tweet to identify like-minded contacts.

5)    See what’s hot right now on Twitter: http://www.twitscoop.com is a trendcasting service that aggregates the top topics on Twitter and presents them in a visually rich tag cloud. You can hover over each cloud to see a pop-up overview of the discussions around the topic or click through to dive deeper into the analytics of the conversation volume and duration and also participate directly. TwitScoop provides the ability to search keywords and usernames to analyze the dialogue and frequency behind them.. See it also on your client: Tweetdeck.

6)    http://twittercounter.com/ FIND TWITTER Influencers and level of activity: Provides an interactive chart that chronicles the quantity of Twitter followers for any given username. The results are viewable by week, month, and quarter and the service will also predict the future volume of followers based on the average growth/loss over time. The chart is embeddable as a widget on any profile, blog, or Web site.

7)    Share your photos on Twitter through http://twitpic.com/

8)    Twitterific http://twitterific.com A compact client that publishes tweets, shows unread tweets, has easy access to profile pages, shows either public or friend timeline, and more. This is a downloadable widget.

9)    Aggregation: http://Friendfeed.com puts all of our RSS content onto one page, making it easy to see from one glance (rather than going to different properties) and you can even reply from friendfeed to different tools. It’s smarter to organize around people, rather than tools. Add your bookmarks, facebook, myspace, and twitterupdates all in one interface.

10)    Measure the power of a user’s profile through http://twitter.grader.com/ . Just type in your username and get graded. The score is calculated as a percentlile of @users that have been graded. This is based on the number of followers you have, the power of the followers, the power of your updates, the completeness of your profile. Also use Grader to find the Twitter Elites — the top in your location and the Top Tweeps overall. Note, having an Elite follow you helps increase your ranking.

Please reference this link for other Twitter tools. It’s from Sociableblog.com.

I was intrigued by the following post from Peter Kim’s Reputation Matters. At its core the post makes sense indicating that your online conduct, who you associate yourself with and how you engage in those relationships have a strong bearing on your credibility. I agree that your number of followers is not a correct measure of your credibility but the quality of the relationships you’ve built with your network.

The quote that caught my attention from Peter Kim’s post was: “Thus we require personal interactions to help bridge the trust gap. These consist of content and quality within direct conversation. Recency and frequency matter here which should temper the “monetary”/intangible risk of any action. Behavior bundles in here as well.” In a space where relationships have been traditionally built through honest and authentic interactions, this should ideally be the norm. But we have to realize that this space is changing everyday. Marketers are starting to see the true value of social media and the wealth of brand conversations and opportunities to engage with customers will set the ground for another wave of change.

This leads me to Peter’s response to sponsored posts in which he said, “I believe that monetization leads to loss of objectivity sooner or later.” He referenced David Charbuck’s post entitled “Shooting Fish: Blog Sluts”. I read David’s post and I think he has polarized the view of bloggers. It’s nice to idealize a world where writers/bloggers have integrity and do not, in any way, prostitute themselves for the almighty dollar. The reality is that it happens with the emergence of the blogs. Everyone has forever been trying to figure out the monetization of new media and inevitably 100 ideas will unfold and a handful will be tried. Writing used to be a profession, a craft that required strong skills that were honed overtime. Today’s reality is that everybody and his brother can easily create a blog and can, with the plethora of social tools, spread their own messages to the world. That being said, Social Media 101 has provided some rules about acceptable behaviour.

This space is continuously evolving and the new media is now the sexy new channel that’s enticing to marketers because they’ve been told it’s a great way to engage directly with your customers, get immediate feedback, and build long-lasting relationships. Social media proliferated in an effort to flee spaces where advertising dominated. Now, it’s not so easy to hide from the throws of the large corporate dollar.

As a marketer I counsel clients on the value of social media to their brand but I also make them aware of the DOs and DON’Ts and the rules of engagement. The spiralling economic conditions are drawing more companies to this space to begin figuring out how to manage their reputation and start engaging with their customers. The reality is that ROI and defined timelines do not create the luxury of time to engage and develop these relationships from scratch. In most cases, companies need the help of influencers to help them make those introductions and accelerate those messages.  But those relationships have to be real from the beginning. I agree that “money” cannot play role in the relationship.  The friendship has to evolve naturally. But introducing marketers to influencers can evolve into trusting relationships, even if the initial introduction was to to help drive business. The influencers I have reached out to must, on their own, believe in and buy into the vision and activities of the advertiser. It is incumbent upon the influencer to walk away from the initiative if he cannot authentically and sincerely advocate the advertiser’s brand.  It’s not clear black and white. What I’m seeing today as a result of the initiatives we’ve created, are true relationships beginning to form between influencers and advertisers. That is also helping fuel the positive conversations about the brand and change perceptions in the meantime.

The true social media advocates have to also evolve as this space evolves. Understanding where to draw the line has to be taken on a case by case basis. Your actions will be scrutinized and your reputation will be judged by others but ultimately if you conduct yourself with integrity even your loudest detractors can’t fault you.