Here is a question I get fairly often:

I notice in your Twitter posts/tweets that you have a “tiny url” for the website postings you want the reader to see. What is TinyURL? How is this different from a regular URL?

GOOD question, Bob. Here is the answer: Twitter allows only 140 characters and that include any URL you may insert into the text. The problem with URLs is many of them are very long and hairy, as you’ve probably noticed. So … thanks to TinyURL freeware, here’s what you do to solve that problem:

1. Go to http://www.tinyurl.com
2. Scroll down a bit and you’ll see a box titled: Enter a long URL to make tiny:
3. Do what it says and click on the Make TinyURL button.

OR, if you want to add TinyURL to your toolbar:
1. Click and drag the following link to your links toolbar: TinyURL!
2. Once this is on your toolbar, you’ll be able to make a TinyURL at the click of a button. By clicking on the toolbar button, a TinyURL will be created for the page you are currently on. 
3. Next time you’re composing a note in Twitter and want to include a page’s URL, open another window (or tab up) so you can see the content there. Grab the URL and click on the TinyURL thing on your Toolbar, and it will give you the short version you can copy and paste into your tweet.

Try it out. You can always delete your test twitter.

BONUS:
This question also comes up about Twitter: Why should a business bother with Twitter? Well, what you have to keep in mind is there are two parts to the Twitter opportunity, and you don’t see the second one unless you know about it. I’ve had all sorts of businesses contact me when I twitter about something because these businesses are constant running SEARCHES against all Twitters for keywords. When they find something, they send that person an email (or Twitter). It’s the ultimate one-on-one marketing.

Go to Google and type Twitter Search and you’ll see all kinds of search engines. In fact, Twitter actually purchased a specialized Twitter Search software company that has been integrated into Twitter - see http://search.twitter.com/. 

The business leverage here is getting more intimate with people who are exposing so much about their daily lives (business and personal) that you can hook into this and engage with them. Answer questions, help them out, solve a problem for them, sell them a product they are looking for, fix something broken they are complaining about.

I tell you, when someone pops up in your email box telling you they saw a Twitter you posted and they are offering some help, it just about blows you away. This is true for B-to-B and B-to-C.

Another feature is the list of hot topics that are shown at http://search.twitter.com/, so go exploring and see what’s possible for you and your business on Twitter.

Tom

It’s time to update you on my whereabouts the last couple of weeks.

◊ The big event was the launch of ’showbizzle,’ and that started with a bang.  Unique visitor traffic and views of the episodes shot up rapidly the first two weeks after launch. From what I can tell, about 50% of the traffic view the episodes on the showbizzle.com site and the other 50% of the views are coming from the 10 video distribution sites we’re using with TubeMogul.com. It’s heart-warming to see episode views shoot into the thousands in such a short period.

If you have not visited the showbizzle.com site yet, then make a point to check it out. Have fun, and while you’re there go ahead and become a member. The quality of the video and performances is stunning. Though I’m biased, I’ll have to admit that I check the new views each day (three new ones Monday through Friday) to see how the characters are doing in their very dramatic and at times funny lives.

◊  My copy editor, Jenny Meadows, at her so-appropriately-named business (MyCopyEditor.com), gave me some good advice during one of our conversations. Once a week (or so) she’ll post here a very short summary of all the media I produce for various clients. I create two audio interviews a week typically; one for EnterpriseLeadership.org and one for TalkBMC. I am in the process of making some of these video-based for BMC Software who sponsors both the sites. I am working closely with the BMCtv group to define a workflow that is fast yet maintains good quality for video podcasting. The issue, as you can imagine, is how to capture an interviewee on a video podcast in some kind of consistent way that has appropriate quality. BMC folks are spread out all over the world, though the majority are in Houston, Austin and the San Francisco area. So I’m testing a variety of approaches: Capturing video from webcams; sending out a camera for them to use; and, of course, scheduling them into a studio at BMCtv (Austin or Houston) when they come into town. It’s an interesting project and I’m enjoying the journey. You’ll see results from this in a couple of weeks.

◊  Gary Powell hosted a Friday afternoon social media training event at his place. It was a non-stop question-and-answer affair with some extremely talented independent individuals who have businesses on the web. Truth is, I learn a lot during these kinds of small-group trainings, and one of the points that kept coming up was expanding the use of Facebook for your business.

I’ve been hesitant to recommend Facebook for business use until recently. However, there seems to be a gradual shift in adoption of greater numbers of people across a widening demographic. A good reference to learn more about marketing on Facebook is an e-book by Justin Smith called The Facebook Marketing Bible. You can download this sizable PDF for a very resonable price considering the insights it holds. Smith claims to be keeping the book up to date, which is a plus considering how quickly Facebook use is evolving and changing.

◊  Have you heard about the game-changing product from Canon: Canon EOS 5D Mark II? It’s a still camera that shoots HD video at 1920×1080p with audio. Yeah … amazing. If this rings any bells of interest for you then you simply must check out this review of the Canon EOS 5D Mark II. (It has me interested and I’ve been a Nikon guy for years).

Tom

So here I am, sitting at the keyboard, wondering just what will be of value to others to incorporate into a blog about markets of conversation. My, has the evolution of the Internet been speeding along in so many marvelous ways. At times I’m frustrated knowing this, worrying that some clients just don’t seem to find the thread of opportunity at their feet, especially with the last four years of social media, social networking, blogging, user-generated content and all the things I’m sure you know if you’re reading this blog.  My goal here, as with my business, is to help business owners be more successful on the Internet by leveraging social marketing strategies to grow and prosper their businesses in new ways.

It seems like I’ve been around the Internet a very long time now. I started with Symbolics in 1983, which was a spinoff from MIT. There I had an opportunity to learn about ftp, email, editors, routers and all sorts of then-new terms that are old hat now. I’ll always remember Bill Gooch so patiently trying to show me how to use PINE and EMACS and a command-line-based program for mail called MAIL on Unix. In fact, what I remember the most about the 1980s, during all my Symbolics experiences, was how much people helped each other learn about these new software concepts, programming ideas and hardware devices. The group had spun off from the MIT AI (artificial intelligence group), and they were just brimming with new ideas and technology to transform the world.

Back in those days Symbolics introduced the first commercial workstation for programmers that used bit-mapped screens with windows and a mouse and a multi-tasking operating system. That’s what you get now for $399 from Walmart that can run on battieres, but in those days it was more like $80,000 and the machine required a 220v connection. What I liked was how communal it felt with regard to the willingness to teach and share with everyone what we were learning. The early days of the Internet were like that because the Internet (well, ARPANET back then) made it so easy to share ideas quickly. Sharing is an intoxicating experience.

It took another 10 years (into the ’90s) before the Internet started catching on commercially and then another 10 years (early 2000) before the social aspects of the Internet started to really show potential. The market for growth was largely hardware in the 1980s and ’90s, with a gradual evolution of more and better software for PCs that were like the original Symbolics: bit-mapped screens (versus character-oriented screens).

And now, hardware is a commodity, basically. Old and new businesses realize how important it is to focus more on how you engage with your clients on the Internet in a two-way fashion versus using the Internet for spray-and-pray advertisements in hopes that someone will see them. I’ll be sharing with you more in this blog about the emerging ‘markets’ of conversation that are the new ways we will work on the Internet.

Tom

Simple

Let’s start simple.

When I’m working with a client, one of the key questions I ask is Where do you want to be 12 months from now?

It’s a critical question to consider before embarking on all the effort and money that will be set in play. Remember, in a social media/marketing strategy you’re not just paying Google for click-through ads each month. You’re directly involving yourself, your time and your money by building an ongoing relationship with your web traffic.

For a very small business, it’s usually more than enough to say we’ll start blogging consistently, build an audience and focus on all the tasks necessary to build a workflow of content and enroll others in the company to help. The goal being to build traffic and learn the ropes of blogging and engaging in conversation with other bloggers and your audience. I’ve seen this process work so well that many smaller businesses, typically in the services area, no longer need to worry every month about expensive SEO efforts. Blogging done right (content, connections and conversation) brings about a change in the way you interact with your customers versus buying advertisement to throw at them, hoping something will stick.

Of course, this is a simple strategy for smaller businesses that everyone seems to be climbing on board with these days - as well they should, in my opinion. People expect more than ‘billboard’-looking websites that haven’t been updated in months (or years, in some cases).

But what about a larger business, especially in the enterprise class? How do you develop social media/marketing strategies that leverage your efforts into business growth and keep you ahead of the competition?

Or, what if you have an idea for a start-up business that is social media/community-related? How would you go about doing that in a way that is not simply ‘yet another social network’ site?

How do you keep your social media effort alive and encourage those you bring along to stay with your business?

We’ll talk about these ideas in the next article. Stay tuned …

Tom