Author and technologist Nicholas Carr says, “Twitter is the telegraph system of Web 2.0.” The New York Times has mentioned that Twitter is one of the fastest-growing phenomena on the Internet. Only a few brands skimmed off profits from Twitter and others just tweeted about some direct marketing stuff. However, there are numerous ways you can leverage Twitter for your business and improve your bottom line. Here is the one-stop Twitter guide for business.

Get started

1. Create a Twitter account

2. Make sure, that you have selected a unique vanity URL for your Twitter account

3.  Upload an image and customize your profile image using this tool: http://walterhiggins.net/projects/twixenate.html

4. Include a link to your corporate website

5. Promote your Twitter presence on your corporate website, client emails, etc.

SEO juice – Recently, Google started indexing tweets; these tips could help you optimize your Twitter account.

6. Include your brand name as the title of your profile

7. Use the Google keywords tool and shortlist important keywords relevant to your products

8. Include those keywords in your bio

9. Use keywords in the first 30 characters of your tweets in order to be optimized by Google

10. Get re-tweeted and increase backlinks for your content

A “following” strategy – This will help you to connect with your target audience.

11. Identify your target audience based on their interests

12. Use hashtags “#” (Hashtags are a community-driven convention to add additional context and metadata to your tweets) to search for your target audience using this tool: http://wefollow.com/

13. Use more directories for search such as: http://www.twellow.com/, http://justtweetit.com/ etc.

14. Follow the influencers in your industry using this tool: http://www.twitalyzer.com/

Identify local Twitter users, or tweeple – If you are a company that serves only a particular location, networking with local tweeple will add more value to your business.

15. Follow influencers in your location using this tool: http://twitterholic.com/. This tool lists all the influencers on Twitter, based on the number of followers and location.

16. Enter keywords relevant to your product and use the “near this place” option in Twitter’s advanced search to identify tweeple who are interested in your product

17. Search for tweeple near your location using this tool: http://www.tweepz.com/

18. Network with local tweeple by searching for them with hashtags, using this tool: http://localtweeps.com/

How to make your tweets effective

19. If you prefer Web tweeting, use this tool: http://twitzap.com/ for advanced features

20. Download Tweetdeck for more power tweeting from your desktop

21. You can add additional Twitter accounts in Tweetdeck and control them using a single application

22. Schedule important tweets in advance using this tool: http://www.tweetlater.com/

23. Use: http://cotweet.com/ for collaborative tweeting

What to tweet on – Starting and joining the right conversation(s) will give you more exposure.

24. Post tweets based on the interests of your followers

25. Search for topics relevant to your product(s) and talk to influencers

26. Use hashtags to power the conversation

27. Post tweets about useful links and articles

28. Use: http://happn.in/ to talk about the trends in your locality.

Twit research – Twitter is a good source for market data as prospective customers are present there.

29. Finalize the sample size of the search.

30. List hashtags relevant to your research objective

31. Get secondary data for your research based on hashtags by using this tool: http://twubs.com/

32. Analyze hashtags  relevant to your research using this tool: http://www.trendrr.com/

Get feedback –As Twitter is a real-time medium, organizations use Twitter to get direct feedback from customers.

33. Get feedback from customers and other tweeple by replying and directly messaging them

34. Use hashtags to organize the feedback

35. Get feedback from local tweeple using this tool: http://nearbytweets.com/

36. Use: http://twtpoll.com/ to conduct a simple survey in Twitter to get real-time feedback

37. Post new product screenshots in http://twitpic.com/ and get instant feedback from your followers

Twit hiring – If you are looking to hire people for your organization, Twitter is another source to find the right talent.

38. Search for job seekers near your location using advanced search features in Twitter public search

39. Use hashtags in your tweets to reach active job seekers

40. Post tweets to announce benefits such as perks, allowances, etc. for the job(s) you offer

41. Use: http://twitpic.com/ to share corporate events to show job seekers your organization’s work culture

42. You can also use Twitter to conduct background checks on employees by using the Twitter advanced public search.

Tweetup – “Is an organized or impromptu gathering of people that use Twitter.” Tweetup is an excellent platform to promote products among local Tweeple.

43. Search for a Tweetup near your location using: http://nearbytweets.com/

44. Organize a Tweetup in your locality using  this tool: http://www.twtvite.com/

45. Pitch for influencers in your location by attending Tweetups.

46. Give away promo codes to attendees in the Tweetup to spread your product virally.

Follow your competition – This can give you insights on what your competitors are working on.

47. Follow your competitors on Twitter.

48. Use Twitter public search to get more insights on competitors’ activities

49. Analyze their Twitter account and follower patterns using: http://tweetstats.com/

50.  Compare your network statistics with competitors using: http://twitter-friends.com/

Friday, July 10th, 2009

Why spend money on marketing? To achieve a positive return on investment. If I put $1 in, how much do I get out? Does the return justify the risk? This is why Google Advertising or PPC is so powerful. You can estimate your return or ROI before you get involved in a campaign. And you can track and tweak as you go.

Even though search engine marketing is results oriented and completely measurable, many sites and tools given an inaccurate analysis of profit and ROI. I have seen tools that consider new revenue to be profit, many of which do not even consider the cost of the cost of goods. If you are not going to offer an appropriate measurement mechanism, then you should not have one at all. It is deceptive.

Let me walk you through how I run the numbers step by step…

First, download the spreadsheet that I use for this.

Know your revenue per customer (Rev). This is easy if you are a mortgage broker, a consumer software firm or anyone that has a product or service with a 1 time fee. This is a bit more work if you bring in a certain stream of revenues per customer. Then you need to know churn, average time of a customer, what typically a customer buys. The best is if you understand the notion of Lifetime Value of a Customer (LTV).

Know your average gross margins (GM%). GM% = Rev – COGS.

• Average Gross Margins are expressed as a percentage and is Revenue minus Cost of Goods Sold (COGS). For a services company, COGs is the cost of producing or providing a service. This is the key missing item in most analyses. Not listing this is the difference between investing in your business and putting your money into slots. For example if someone tells you that for an average $12 cost of acquisition (CPL), you get $8 in “profit.” This is fool’s gold if the cost of producing the product (COGS) is $10 or a gross margin of 50%. You lose $2 for every product sold through this medium. That can add up to the thousands or millions fo dollars in losses.

Estimate your cost per click (CPC). CPC = Average bid price over all clicks.

• There are many tools to estimate this number – some are on the search engines themselves. Generally a less competitive arena is less than $0.50. More competitive is around $1. Highly competitive areas like mortgages can be over $2.

Estimate your conversion rate (CR%). CR% = Lead/Clicks

• This is your conversion rate to a lead. That is, what percentage of people who click, do something that you want them to do? This is typically filling out a form to be contacted, downloading software or a white paper, or purchasing something directly. This number varies substantially from 1% all the way up to 25%. I would be conservative in this number. The output this number will cost per lead or CPL.

Estimate your quality lead rate (QLR%). QLR% = Quality Leads/Leads

• Not every lead is quality. Many filled forms are garbage info, duplicates, tests, etc. Some forms are not filled out at all. Numbers vary widely here as well. We’ve seen as high as 90% and as low as 30%. Having a quality keywords, ad copy, and landing pages make all the difference in the world here. Now if someone is purchasing something directly, neither conversion rate nor quality leads count.

Estimate your close rate (CloseR%). Close R% = Sales/Quality Leads

• Every company with a different business has a number here. Some are 3-5%, others are 30-50%. As they would say in The Holy Grail, “100% is right out.”

Estimate your search engine budget (Ad Spend) and your campaign management fees (Fee).

• If you are doing this yourself, then only your monthly search engine ad budget matters. If you are paying a firm to manage this, enter this data in – typically its a percentage of ad spend or a lead based fee.

Now it is time to make some calculations:

Clicks per Month (ClickMonth) = Ad Spend/CPC
Leads per Month (LPM) = ClickMonth * Conversion Rate (CR%)
Quality Leads per Month (QLM) = LPM * Quality Lead Rate (QLR%)
Closed Sales per Month (CSM) = QLM * Close Rate (CloseR%)

Gross Margin per Customer (GMC) = Revenue per Customer (Rev) * Gross Margin (GM%)
Monthly Lead Cost (MLC) = Ad Spend + Fees
Cost per Lead (CPL) = MLC/LPM
Cost per Quality Lead (CPQL) = MLC/QLM

Now for what really matters:

New Sales per Month (RevM) = Rev * CSM
Cost per Sale or Action (CPA) = MLC/CSM

New Profit per Sale (PS) = GMC – CPA
New Profit per Month (PM) = PS * RevM

ROI% = PS/CPA * 100

Now this is something a businessperson can work with because it includes real cost per sale including your cost of good and your cost of sales. With search engine marketing these types of metrics are completely understandable and trackable. It’s why I got into this business.

Having this data in detail is very helpful to you and your search engine marketing agency, because they can control for certain steps in the process to help you arrive at your projections. Soumya (from our firm) has done a nice job defining the terms you should know about PPC or Search Advertising.

Different businesses will have to make some adjustments to fit their situation. If you need some help, please let me know.

Check out the spreadsheet I use with clients.

This is a work in progress, so comments are appreciated.

Friday, November 3rd, 2006