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Could Customized Newspapers Bring Readers Back? I Don’t Think So!

Posted by robertford on March 9, 2009

Taking The Idea Of Personalized News A Little Too Far!

Taking The Idea Of Personalized News A Little Too Far!

Tim Arango posed a very interesting question in his article in yesterday’s New York Times - Could Customized Newspapers Bring Readers Back?

As I started reading it, I found myself checking the calendar to see whether I’d moved the clocks on 24 days, instead of 60 minutes, and that it was now April 1st, and this was the first ‘April Fool’ prank of the day.

Okay, let’s take a look at what MediaNews Group, the nation’s fourth-largest newspaper chain, is planning as their latest attempt to save the ‘dead tree and ink’ business.

They plan to test a new service in LA this summer, where you can create a customized version of The Los Angeles Daily News, with readers picking and choosing only the stories and topics that interest them.

Sounds good so far, right? No having to waste all that paper by delivering the Real Estate, Sport or Auto sections direct to your trashcan. You’ll have just the news you want to read, and nothing else (okay, maybe highly targeted ads, now that they know exactly what you’re interested in).

The next part of the announcement is where it starts to breakdown for me, and that is how they plan to get this personalized newspaper to you. Have they gone for the radical new business model that some have suggested of giving away the razor (in this case, an Amazon Kindle), and then selling their customers the razor blades (or rather, a subscription to an electronic version of their publication).

As a new owner of a Kindle (and already a pretty obsessive one – I’d forgotten how many classics are in the public domain, and freely available to download in a Kindle-friendly format), I’m intrigued by that model, but believe strongly that there needs to be a further round of disintermediation, with the balance of power moving away from traditional content aggregators (e.g. newspapers, book publishers, TV stations) and moving to content creators and the new aggregators (e.g. Amazon, Google, Microsoft (when they finally get their act together in this space)).

So, back to MediaNews Group’s master plan (you know, it really is so outdated, that it does remind me of Doctor Evil’s demand for one million dollars). It turns out that they have been working with a technology company to develop a proprietary printer for a reader’s home, that would receive and print a subscriber’s customized newspaper — along with that targeted advertising we talked about earlier.

Hand up all those who want another piece of consumer electronics cluttering their home office or their kitchen table?  Another device that is going to be adding to your power bill, while it sits in powersaving mode, waiting for the latest news to be pushed its way. Another device that will probably have proprietary and expensive consumables to stay on top off.

Although their idea has met with skepticism and ridicule, their spokesperson (Peter R. Vandevanter, vice president for targeted products at MediaNews) continues to put a brave face on it, saying “What we’re really talking about is moving individualization, which has been resident online, to print”.

I don’t know about you, but I sort of have a feeling that indivualization is very happy living on the web right now, and is looking forward to migrating to the next generation of personal readers when innovators like Sony and Amazon have ironed all the kinks out, and the technology has dropped to prices that are more consistent with mass adoption. Somehow, I do not think that personalized news will be coming to dead trees near you in the foreseeable future, and if they do, hold on tot it, because it is almost certain to become a museum piece pretty quickly.

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My next URL purchase – FrigidaireSucks.com

Posted by robertford on February 26, 2009

Customer what???

Customer what???

I’m not one bash to hit someone when they’re down, but if Frigidaire is an indicator of the sorry state of the ailing US manufacturing sector, it is time someone puts them out of their misery.

For those of you who know me personally, you’ll know that I like to cook. Cooking is a hobby, a form of relaxation and a great way of constantly reconnecting with family and friends for me, and I take it pretty seriously. If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you’ll know that I shared my most recent customer service horror story a couple of weeks ago, and that was all about the problems I’d been having in getting a 6 month-old Frigidaire range fixed under warranty.

I wanted to write a happy ending to this story, I really did .. the arc I had in mind was boy meets range of his dreams, boy loses use of range, range is restored to its former self and everyone lives happily ever after. Sadly, and it really does sadden me, that’s not the way that it has worked out.

So where we left off two weeks ago (day 11), the service engineer had declined to actually check out the range to determine the problem (waiting until the morning he was supposed to show up to let us know that) and said that he would order the appropriate part. Let’s pick up the story again from there:

Day 12: I vented my fury via this blog, with the underlying hope that somewhere deep within the corporate offices of Electrolux (the parent of Frigidaire), someone would read of my problem and do something about it. While I got a number of sympathetic notes from readers who’d experienced similar problems, I confirmed that Frigidaire / Electrolux isn’t really monitoring the blogosphere (I’d already established that they weren’t listening to Twitter back on day 6).

Day 17: After leaving a couple of messages for the service company (who did not return my calls), I decided to play amateur detective and try to find a warm body, somewhere within Frigidaire who would listen to (and do something about) my problem. The 1-800 number that I had dropped me back into the telephone tree from hell, but after trying every single branch of it, I finally found a place where punching ‘000′ (try it sometime .. it often is an unscripted backdoor to get through to a real person) took me off to a different menu. Now I was through to the Electrolux Customer Service Department, and while the menu tree was equally confusing and long-winded, I finally got through to a real life customer service agent, somewhere in the Philippines.

Excitedly, I gave here the make, model and serial number of my range, and sat back waiting to be rescued (scenes from ABC’s Lost were flashing by my eyes, I swear). Instead, I was brought back down to earth with a bump when she told me that their Service Agent software wasn’t working and asked me to call back. I explained that it had taken me almost an hour to get through to her, and that I wasnt going to be going anywhere in a hurry. I asked what the Service Agent software did, and she confirmed that it let her type in my zip code, and the give contact details for authorized Service Agents. I patiently explained (again) that I’d already been there, done that, and that it wasn’t working for me, and that I needed to speak to someone from Frigidaire.

She then offered to transfer me to the automated Service Agent phone service, and seemed surprised when I almost screamed. Again, I pointed out that was the service that I’d tried, and had not been able to get any resolution. I then asked to speak to a supervisor, and was told that they ddin’t have one on duty, and that I’d need to speak to someone back in the US, but that she couldn’t transfer me. Not being ready to give up, I asked what their escalation procedure was, and after having to explain what that meant (i.e. “what do you do when your processes break down?”), she finally agreed to escalate my problem, and said that someone would get back to me within 24 business hours. I tried to get her to explain what that meant (“do you work around the clock,meaning one calendar day, or do you mean 8-hour business days, which would mean 3 calendar days?”, but she could only repeat 24 business hours, like a matra, so I gave up and said goodbye.

Day 20: I got my answer, because it took 3 calendar days before I heard anything. Last Thursday, it was almost like Christmas morning, because I got back from an early morning meeting in Philadelphia to not one, not two, but three communications on the matter.  First, I finally got a call back from the service company, saying that the part he needs is on back order, and that maybe I can hurry it along by calling Frigidaire. Secondly, I got a response from the escalation procedure (copied below):

Thank you for contacting Electrolux Major Appliances.  I sincerely apologize for the inconvenience you have experienced with your range.  Please contact one of the local authorized servicers listed below to schedule a service appointment.  Thank you again for contacting Electrolux Major Appliances.

FIVE STAR APPLIAN DE 19850 (856)629-1800
BENNETT SERVICE INC (302)656-4107
WHITMAN’S APPL RPR PA 19116 (215)677-4062

Hmmmm… so after twice telling the customer service representative that the Service Agent Identifier was cutting it for me, they used their 24 business hours wisely, and sent me the exact same list via email. Maybe they thought putting in the written form would make magic happen!

The last response that I got was the one that gave me most hope, which was a comment posted on my blog, from one of their Escalation Specialists, Chris Polk.

I am contacting you on behalf of Electrolux Major Appliances in relation to your posting on charliefourwhiskey.com. I would like to apologize for the difficulty you have had with your appliance. I would appreciate the opportunity to discuss this issue with you so that I can personally look into this matter. In order to do so, please send me your contact information, and the best time to contact you. I would also need your model and serial number and a file number if available, so that I can research this matter. Again I regret your disappointment with your appliance and look forward to resolving this issue with you.

Sincerely,
Chris Polk
Escalation Specialist
Electrolux Major Appliances
chris.polk@electrolux.com

If you’d have gotten a response like that, you’d have been hopeful too, wouldn’t you? Even though I was already 20 days in, and incredbly frustrated by Frigidaire’s broken processes and apparent disregard for their customers, I found myself rooting for them to come through, turn things around and have me back on their team.

Sadly, as I soon learned, that was not meant to be. I quickly sent Chris an email, giving my full contact information, and sat back waiting for a call… and waited.. and waited.

Day 21: After waiting a full 24 hours for a response, and getting nothing, I sent Chris Polk another email:

Chris,

It is now day 21 since my range stopped working. If I had just wanted a hob, that is what I would have bought.  It would be nice to be able to use my oven again, and other features such as the clock and the timer.

I am still waiting for a call from you at 302-345-2303.  I did get a call back from the service company, saying that the part they’ve ordered is on back order. I’m not even sure that they’ve ordered the correct part, because they haven’t been out to check the range, and some of the symptoms didn’t match with what they plan to replace.

Please call me ASAP.

You guessed right… I heard nothing!

Day 22-23: I took the weekend off – I though that it might be good for my blood pressure!

Day 24: I realize that my mistake is not putting the rest of my life on temporary hiatus, and just sitting by the phone and keyboard, waiting for a call or an email from Frigidaire / Electrolux. By not doing that (silly me.. I was focusing on trying to earn a living), I missed a call from Elizabeth Cruz, who is an Executive Office Supervisor with Electrolux. Elizabeth’s brief message was that she was calling me on behalf of Chris Polk, and asked that I call her back. I called her back right away… and waited… and waited .. you know where this is going, right?

Day 25: I started my morning with another call to Ms. Cruz, asking that she call me back. After waiting a few hours, and still not hearing back (so much for the “I’m either on the phone or away from my desk. Please leave me a detailed message on how I can assist you and I will get back to you AS SOON AS POSSIBLE” message) Frustrated at not getting any response , I decided to try send the following email to Chris Polk.

Chris,

It is now DAY 25!!

Please call me today on 302-345-2303.

The response?  You guessed it – zip – zilch – nada!!


Day 26: Okay, life got in the way again. I’m driving back from a meeting in Philadelphia, when I hear my phone ring. Rather than reach for my bag, then reach for my bluetooth headset, I figure that I’ll let it go to voice and then call them back when I got home, which was just five minutes away.

Of course, it was a call from Ms. Cruz that I’d missed. Her message was that she would also try to reach me by email. I immediately called her back, and got her voice mail. After leeaving her a message, lettign her know that I would be sitting by the phone ALL DAY, awaiting her call, I checked email. Sure enough, she’d sent me the following message:

Good afternoon,

I am contacting you on behalf of Chris Polk.  I have tried calling you
twice, but haven’t been able to reach you.  Will you please provide me with
the name and phone number of the service company that is ordering the part
for you?  We will have to contact them to see what part is it, so we can
try to assist if we have it available.  If it’s on backorder, then we need
to request that invoice to get it reviewed for replacement.  I look forward
to hearing from you, so we can get this issue resolved.

Sincerely,
Elizabeth Cruz
Executive Office Supervisor
Phone (706)651-7216
Fax (706)228-7415

I hit ‘reply’, and here’s the message that I sent her:

Liz,

Glad to have an email address for you. I have left a number of voice messages for you, after missing your calls.

I am going to be working out of my home office for the rest of the afternoon, and would appreciate a call back. It is now 26 days since I had a working range, and I’ve found the Electrolux / Frigidaire customer service process to be well and truly broken.

I look forward to discussing my experience and issues with you.

Regards,

Robert Ford

Did I get a reply? Hmmm, if you’ve been paying attention to the story, you’d know better than to ask that. Of course I didn’t get a reply .. no call .. no email .. .no nothing.

After a couple of hours, I started calling her voice mail, and leaving follow up messages. At about the third, I found that by pressing zero, I got through to the Electrolux / Frigidaire operator. I asked her if she had the capability to page Ms. Cruz, and she said “no”. I then asked her to put me throough to Chris Polk, and after some time, she came back and said that there was no number that person. I asked if maybe I’d mis-spelled it, but she said “no”, that they did have a Chris Polk, but that they only had an email address. Hmmm.. I don’t think I’ve encountered anyone in Customer Services that doesn’t have a telephone number.

Undeterred, I asked the Operator to put me through to someone else (“anyone with a pulse” was how I put it), but each time she did, no-one ever picked up. We did this a total of five times, and never got an answer. Finally, she offered to put me through to the Customer Service Department in the Philippines. As you can probably guess, I declined her offer.  I did call back Elizabeth Cruz’s phone one more time, and left her one more message, explaining my frustration, and asking her to call me after 10am today (day 26).

Day 26: I’ve known sieges throughout history last less time than this. It will be no surprise to learn that Ms. Cruz has not called me back yet. I waited until 11:30, and then left her another message.  Still no answer.  Since then, I’ve been calling every 30 minutes, and always it goes straight to voice mail, and always, she neglects to call me back.

What do I do to get this company to respond to a genuine customer problem? It’s almost been a month, and I’ve yet to talk to anyone who can do anything but point me at the same three third-party service engineers.

If you have any better ideas, please let me know. As it is, my fingers are itching to head over to godaddy.com and spend $10 on securing http://FrigidaireSucks.com. That’s if some other disgruntled customer hasn’t already beaten me to it!

Posted in Social Media | Tagged: , , , | 5 Comments »

Be Prepared – Using Social Media to Know Your Target

Posted by robertford on February 17, 2009

I recently read a great blog post by Jeremy Toeman on How to Use Social Media to Get Hired. In it, there are some really great ideas on how to set yourself apart from other candidates, but looking through them, they’re all readily applicable for companies seeking new customers. It’s all about doing your homework, learning all about your target and their needs, and then positioning yourself as being the best person or company to fulfill that need.

Let’s take Jeremy’s suggestions, one by one, and you’ll see what I mean. His first category is what he calls the ‘braindead easy stuff’; the things that if you haven’t done them in advance of meeting him, you won’t get hired.

  • Read the last 2-5 entries of the company blog and/or press releases.
    If I am trying to win a major new client, I start by doing a ‘deep dive’ on all of their publicly available information (website, press releases, blog, SEC filings). I use Google Sites to create an up to date picture of what they do; i.e. details of their industry, their competition, their products and services, key customers, key players, etc. For public companies, the Management Discussion & Analysis section (MD&A) of their annual reports (10-K SEC filings, which you can find at http://sec.gov) are a treasure trove of useful information.
  • Do a Google Search, Google News Search, and Google Blog Search for the company.
    Just visiting a company’s website can give you a one-dimensional view of them (i.e. the ‘happy’ news), and so I take some time and research what others are saying about them. As soon as I see a potential business opportunity, I set up a Google Alert to automatically send me any news on the company. I also search the blogosphere (via Google Blog Search and Technorati.com) to see what they (and more importantly, what are others) saying about their company, brands, products and services.
  • If the company makes a product, read reviews of that product, and be familiar with its current prices, offerings, etc.  If the company makes many products, be generally familiar with them.  Use Amazon to see user ratings of product(s).
    See above.
  • Check to see if the company uses any social networking services (e.g. MySpace or Facebook Fan page), communities, twitters, etc.  If so, read through some recent content.
    This is another area where I do a ‘deep dive’. I start with LinkedIn, looking at both current and former employees, looking at demographics, the types of roles and responsibilities, and attempt to tease out an organization chart around the person(s) that I’ll be meeting with. For Twitter, I use TweetDeck to set up searches on Company, Brand(s), Product(s) and monitor what people are talking about.

    What I learn there often becomes the ‘ace up my sleeve’ when it  comes to face to face meetings, because it allows me to demonstrate a depth of knowledge, understanding and insights about their environment and the opportunities and challenges that they face. An example of this is when I met with a med-tech firm who had recently launched a new key product. Not only where they impressed when I was able to tell them about their product launch (from their press release), but how it fitted into their overall strategy (from the MD&A section of their 10-K SEC filing) and also how it was being received by their channel partners (from blogs and tweets).

  • If the company has a page that profiles employees, read about them.  Ditto for a “clients” page.
    As previously discussed, I prefer the less filtered information that I can gather about employees from LinkedIn. Depending on what I’m trying to achieve, I’ll also do my homework on their key customers and vendors (again, if they’re public and they are heavily reliant on either certain customers or certain supliers, their 10-K SEC filing will give those details) so that I can talk knowledgeably about their value chain, and the respective roles within it.

  • Be very ready to talk about what the company specifically does as a business!  One of my first questions tends to be “so what do you think we do here?”, and while I don’t expect anyone to say it as well as I would, I expect them to roughly get it.
    This is really where all of your hard work pays off; when someone asks that question, and you get the opportunity to show that you really understand their industry, their market(s) and what their company does. My experience has been that not only does this approach help you get the sale, it also makes it easier to talk about value rather than price.
  • Make sure all your “social profiles” are job-ready.  Get the photos of you throwing up at the frat party off your MySpace page, and make sure your last few blog posts, twitters, and status updates aren’t embarassing.  While you should always “be yourself”, you don’t necessarily need to be all of yourself all the time (hint: it’s like dating – I didn’t tell my wife-to-be that I waited in line for 7 hours to see LOTR the first midnight showing on our first date).
    Remember that these tools are a level playing field. Just as you can use them to do your homework, they can be doing exactly the same on you. Know the information that is out there on you and your company, and be ready and willing to talk about any of it.

As always, I’d love to hear about how you use social media to give yourself an advantage, both in terms of job search and winning new business.

Posted in Social Media | Tagged: , , , , , , , | 3 Comments »

Tighten Your Belt, But Don’t Forget Customer Service

Posted by robertford on February 11, 2009

Customer Service - How Do You Score?

Customer Service - How Do You Score?

Recent events have really confirmed my belief that customer service is a huge differentiator in difficult economic times. I’ve been reading a great article by John R. DiJulius III that talks about Why Customer Service is More Crucial Now… for Any Business. In it, he talks about how in a down economy, customer loyalty is your strongest asset. He then goes on to gives some concrete tips on how to make sure that your organization understands and is aligned around the importance of ensuring a good customer experience:

  • Selling your Service Vision to your team members, creating a purpose and a cause that allows them to make a difference.

  • Ensuring your organization is doing everything to make the customer experience you deliver, significantly better than anyone in your sandbox.

  • Developing an internal culture that buys into your service vision and the opportunities available from successfully delivering on that vision.

  • Being creative and finding new revenue streams that benefit your customers

Okay, that’s the opportunity that is in front of businesses of all sizes. Let’s go through a worked example of how a major US manufacturer totally misses that opportunity. The background to this story is that when we rehabbed our 200 year-old ‘loft’ last year, we redid the kitchen, which meant buying new stainless steel appliances. Both of us were very focused on certain features, and so after a while. we decided on the following model:

Frigidaire-30″ Self-Cleaning Freestanding Gas Convection Range-Stainless-Steel-FGFBZ90GC

[Day 1] For six months, everything has been great. The range worked exactly as it should, and as we both like to cook and to entertain, we really thought we’d made a great choice. Eleven days ago, that changed for the worse when the high-tech electrics decided to stop working, effectively leaving us with an expensive hob (no oven, no timer, no clock).  Being the weekend, I wasn’t surprised when I didn’t get through to a warm body at Frigidaire’s 1-800 number. I half-heartedly listened to their telephone tree, made a note to call them on Monday morning, and got on with revising the dinner menu for our guests that didn’t need an oven (for anyone who needs it, I now have a great poached .

[Day 3] Last Monday, I called their 1-800 number again, worked through their telephone tree, and was surprised to find that there wasn’t an option to talk to a real person. I tried the various tricks (punching ‘0′ or ‘###’), but nothing got me a soothing voice at the other end. I started again and after a couple of false starts of traversing the telephone tree (having to respond to what type of appliance it was, whether it was less or more than a year old, and my zip code), I finally got to the relevant sub-menu. Here, it started to give me names, addresses and telephone numbers of local independent service companies. I didn’t really care about the company names or their addresses, and so I found myself starting to get frustrated. After they played the first one, I was waiting for an option for them to automatically connect me. I hadn’t expected that I would have to write down the number, so I gritted my teeth, took the only option they had (which ws to replay the whole message again) and found a pen and paper.

Having written down the contact details of the first service company, I placed a call to them, and explained the problem to the young woman who answered. After she had politely listened to the full story, she then told me that she worked for an answering service, and would have the service company call me back. This was probably around 8:30am in the morning, and I didn’t hear anything until 4pm or so. Unfortunately, when the company did get back to me, I was unable to get the phone in time (our ‘loft’ has either 2.5, 3 or six floors, depending on who you ask, but I managed to be at one extreme of it, and my cell phone was at the other). I immediately called them back, but found myself back talking to the answering service, who while again were very polite, they were unable to page the service engineer, and he subsequently failed to return my call.

[Day 4] Last Tuesday, I gave it until 10am or so, and decided to try one of the other service engineers. That meant I had to go through the telephone tree again, and this time, I decided to get every possible number for my location. After about 10 minutes, I had slightly raised blood pressure (have I ever mentioned just how much I HATE telephone trees) but I’d managed to get details for three engineers. One was the person who hadn’t returned my call, so that left two. Of those, one was a Philadelphia number (30 miles away), so I discounted that one and called the third. Again, I got an answering service, who took my details and promised that they’d get back to me.

[Day 5] On Wednesday, someone from the service company called me to get the details of my range, and of the problem I was experiencing. They wanted a lot of information (purchase date, model number, serial number), but given as that I’d had five days to prepare, I was ready for them. Having got all that out of the way, I asked when the engineer would be able to come out, genuinely thinking that she was going to say “later this afternoon”. So, you can imagine that I was not a happy camper when her reply was ‘next Tuesday’. I tried explaining that it was a culinary emergency (you can only cook so many slow cooker meals before people get restless), but she was adamant; the engineer does certain areas on certain days, and my day was Tuesday.

[Day 6] Social media test. I decided to Twitter about my frustration in the hopes that Frigidaire might actually be listening in to what their customers are saying about them and their products (just like companies like Dell, Comcast and Remington are now doing). You guessed it … one of the easiest ways to monitor ‘water cooler’ conversations has completely passed them by.

[Day 11] Business had sort of got in the way of things yesterday, so my wife and I were busy shuffling schedules to make sure that we had our ‘8 – noon window’ covered. If the engineer turned up early, I had it covered. If he hdn’t turned up by 11am, she was going to take an early lunch break, so that she had it covered. As it was, we got a call from the engineer at 10:55am. At first, I thought he’d got lost by trying to find our house by using a GPS, as many people do. His answer was “No”, that he knew exactly where our house was, but that he was calling in the hope of saving us both a little time. He then proceeded to get all of the details again about the range (what was working, what wasn’t working), before then declaring that he would order the parts, and would call me again when he had them in. When I asked whether he was still going to check the range out, he said that he didn’t carry the part that he needed, and so it would be a waste of time.

Okay, so what lessons have we learned from this sorry story, apart from the fact that Frigidaire really don’t [expletive expletive] get it!  Well, I’ve learned that they really don’t care about me as a customer, despite the fact that I spent $1000 with them six months ago. They also don’t care about customer service, if they think that it is something they can outsource and automate.

One of the big things that I’ve learned from my experience in business is that customers will totally overlook something going wrong, if there is someone there to listen to them, to acknowledge that it’s their fault and make things right. Making thing right can turn a so-so fan of your business into an avid fan. Making things right is absolutely key in times like this. Customers are being cautious with their money and conservative with their loyalty, and if you lose a customer now, you’re very unlikely to get them back. We’ve all read the reports on how much more expensive it is to win new customers than to retain your existing ones, how customers that feel let down will go on to tell lots and lots of people about their bad experiences, and how companies should really be looking at the total lifetime value of their customers. While I probably haven’t bought my last domestic appliance, I’m absolutely certain that I won’t ever be buying another one that carries a Frigidaire logo.

Posted in Social Media | Tagged: , , , , , | 3 Comments »

101 Ways To Get The Most Out Of Twitter

Posted by robertford on February 3, 2009

Go on, admit it!  We’ve all been there. We’re stood in line at the grocery store, and we see those magazines plastered with promises such as ‘345 ways to enjoy broccoli’ to ‘114 ways to dance your way to fitness’, and we just can’t help sneaking a peek.

If you’re a regular reader, you’ll  know that after 18 months of scratching my head and saying “duh”, that I had my ‘Eureka moment’ with Twitter recently, and now I’m addicted.

Given that the core Twitter tool follows the ‘less is more’ approach to both form and function, and the fact that they’ve provided a well-documented and easy-to-use API, lots and lots of add-on applications have sprouted to fill in the gaps. While it is great that there is this healthy ecosystem out there,  it can be challenging to sort the wheat from the chaffe. Many of the add-ons don’t really seem to deliver a lot of value (at least not from my perspective), and when there is an idea for a killer add-on application, the barriers to entry are so low, that you’ll usually find a handful of competing products.

Undaunted by all this choice (okay… maybe I’m a little bit daunted by it .. I do need to stop researching stuff and focus on revenue generating projects), I decided to turn to the power of Google to whittle down the choices for me. I searched for the term “Twitter ways to” (hmmm… another trade secret out of the bag), and from what I found here are links to ‘101 Ways To Get The Most out of Twitter’, and my favorite tips from each of them:

  • 8 Useful Tips To Become Successful With Twitter
    In his post for Smashing Magazine, Paul Boag Twitter talked about how Twitter is fast becoming the third facet of his online presence (besides his blog and podcast), giving tips on topics such as keeping it personal, learning from others, tracking results and my own favorite piece of advice, which is to integrate your use of Twitter into your overall online strategy.
  • 17 Ways You Can Use Twitter: A Guide for Beginners, Marketers and Business Owners
    Over at DoshDosh.com, Maki distills down how Twitter is being used in marketing as tracking and directing attention, before providing a summary of all the ways that Twitter can be used Twitter (both professionally and  personally). While he covers a lot of different uses, the first one on is list – personal branding – is a favorite of mine and I agree with his view that it helps you develop and/or portray “a casual persona and establishes you as a social personality that is connected and approachable“. I also agree that as Twitter continues to grow, new users are  “drawn towards well established Twitter personas“, and so now is the time to mark out your territory and stake your claim.
  • 10 Ways To Increase Your Twitter Followers
    Over at TechCrunch, Kevin Rose (the founder of Digg) shares 10 tips on how to increase the number of people following you on Twitter, and his advice to Listen and Learn (“follow the top twitter users and watch what they tweet. Pay attention to the type of content they sent out and how they address their audiences”) is something that I really try to pay attention to.
  • 10 Awesome Ways to Integrate Twitter With Your Website
    At NETTUTS.com, Glen Stansberry shares “10 useful ways to start turning your site readers (or your client’s customer base) into Twitter followers, and vice versa.” Among them, my favorite is Twitterfeed which “allows you to automatically insert tweets into your Twitter stream from any RSS feed“. It’s a great way of letting your Twitter followers know that new content is available on your blog.
  • 14 Ways to Use Twitter Politely
    Over at The Morning News, Margaret Mason talks about the etiquette of Twitter (Twittiquette?) and offers the following piece of sage advice – “Remember everyone can hear you“. Actually, she really brought the point home when she added – “If it could get you fired, be used against you in court, or impede your ability to get laid, be-still your typing thumbs.“
  • 18 Super Useful Ways To Use Twitter
    Among Ian Cowley’s tips was the suggestion to ‘Monitor chatter about your brand‘. It continues to amaze me that sometihng that for so long had been difficult and expensive to do, is now so easy (and still most companies don’t think or don’t know how to do it). He went on to add that tools such as Tweet Scan makes it easy to automate this.
  • 13 Odd Ways to Use Twitter
    How about using Twitter to help you stop smoking? Among SocialMediaTrader’s more offbeat uses of Twitter, they highlighted Qwitter, which lets you “keep track of the amount of cigarettes you smoke everyday… and view trends of your smoking habits over time”.
  • 11 Ways to Use Twitter to Help Your Site Go Viral
    Over at TwiTip, among his other tips, Darren Rowse talked about how you can use URL shortening services such as TinyURL or BudURL to shorten long URLs into something that is both meaningful and tweetable, while still reinforcing your brand (remember.. if people are going to retweet you, those 140 characters can get used up pretty quickly, so it is best to scrunch your URL up as much as possible).

Okay, by my calculations, that is 101 tips, along with my own favorites. For being so nice, and reading all the way to the bottom, here is one more:

  • Make it easy for your readers to retweet your blog post by creating the Tweet for them to cut and paste:

101 Twitter Tips – http://budurl.com/101TwitterTips – Please RT

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