CoTweet – What it is and Why You Need It

You have a Twitter account, right? Of course you do. And you’ve read a lot of blog posts and articles on our site and everywhere else about optimizing your Twitter efforts for business. But you might still be struggling to efficiently, effectively connect with your customers and prospects using Twitter. Well, fret no more. If you haven’t heard about CoTweet, you’re in for a treat. If you’ve been looking for the best way to manage multiple Twitter accounts or want to maximize your marketing through Twitter, CoTweet just might be the app for you.

What it does

As they describe themselves, “CoTweet is a platform that helps companies reach and engage customers using Twitter.” The tools it gives you to accomplish that are like nothing else out there. Sure, there are tons of tools available for Twitter, but few are truly focused on the needs of business users, and none offer everything CoTweet does all in one place. CoTweet is specifically designed for businesses using Twitter. Not only does it let you manage multiple accounts and assign multiple users, but much like Google Alerts, it also lets you track trends as well as tracking when people are tweeting about you, your business, and/or your industry. If that weren’t enough, the application also allows you to schedule tweets, track clicks for posted URLs, and even assign on-call duty to different users so DM and other alerts go to specific people at different times.

How it works

The core of CoTweet is a lot like an email client. You have your folders, like Inbox, Sent, and Scheduled, on the left, your messages in the center pain, and some administrative functions on the right side. There is also a search box on the left, and you can set up saved searches for terms you want to track on a regular basis. Once you set up your accounts, your feeds begin flowing in, and it allows you to see your feed, your @replies, hash tag tracking, etc. at a glance. With a couple of clicks, you can compose and schedule tweets, check click stats, and respond to DMs or @replies. The interface is very polished and fairly intuitive, and users have reported few bugs and glitches. Overall, it’s incredibly easy to get used to and begin using, which, considering its considerable functionality is pretty impressive.

To signup for CoTweet, you enter your basic information, put in your Twitter account details, and you’re up and running in no time. The cost is zero at the moment, while they are in beta phase, but that will change soon enough. Still, the company promises “We’ll give you plenty of notice before we start charging for the service, and the cost will be reasonable.” Their announcement yesterday that they have been acquired by ExactTarget, a leader in email marketing, might or might not change that, but they insist the vision remains the same.

Who’s using it

Some of the largest, most prominent companies around are using CoTweet to manage their Twitter activities. These include:

• Coca Cola
• Ford
• Southwest Airlines
• McDonald’s
• Dell
• Starbucks
• Pepsi
• Microsoft
• And, yes, Twitter

Is it right for you?

Obviously the above is a list of huge companies, and it’s true that much of the platform is designed for corporate users who might have multiple editors posting and responding to tweets on multiple Twitter accounts. That doesn’t mean small businesses can’t benefit from the application though. Even if you never used the multiple-users feature, there is still plenty of value there. If nothing else, it’s nice to have all the functionality in one place. While it’s free, give it a try. You might just find it will be worth whatever they decide to charge after the beta.

3 Steps to Navigating the Copyright Gamut

Picture it: Two weeks ago you wrote what just might be your greatest work.  It’s a masterpiece of a blog post, and before you submit it to the Pulitzer committee, you want to see where it’s ranked on Google, so you enter a unique phrase from the post, and up pops your article – but on someone else’s site, with someone else’s name on it!  And not only are they taking credit for your work, but their site is generating ad revenue, and you’re not seeing a dime of it.

 

If you’re a writer and something like this hasn’t happened to you yet, chances are, at some point, it will.  Plagiarism runs rampant on the Internet; so much so that both professional writers and entrepreneurs with great website copy to protect can often feel powerless to stop it.  But take heart.  Your work is protected by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 (DMCA), and there are steps you can take to guard your work from those nefarious thieves out to steal your stuff.  Of course it makes sense to put a copyright tagline on your copy, but that’s not enough.  Take these steps to stop plagiarizers in their tracks:

 

Step 1

Make it easy for people to contact you to get permission to use your work.  In many cases, your copy, or parts of it, might show up on another site simply because the site owner wanted to pass on the great information you provided.  If this is the case, they won’t have changed the byline and might have even given credit to you as the original author.  You want this to happen on your terms though.  Have a policy, whether internal or posted on your pages, which outlines exactly how and under what circumstances you want your work used – always after they’ve gained your permission.  For example, you probably want a link back to your content, rather than a reprint.  Whatever your policy, making it easy for honest folks to learn it is good business.

 

Step 2

You’ve done what you can to keep the honest people honest, and now you need to find out if your work is being used anyway.  There are some very easy ways to find your work out on the net.  The simplest is to find a unique phrase within your content and do a Google search for it.  (Quotes around a phrase will look for the whole phrase, rather than the individual words within a phrase.)  For example, if this was your post, you might search for, “nefarious thieves out to steal your stuff.”  Chances are, there aren’t a lot of other articles out there with that exact phrase in them.  Another great tool for finding plagiarized work is Copyscape.com.  Just enter the URL for your page into Copyscape, and the site will search for your work, providing a list of sites they find using portions of your copy.  They’ll provide ten results for free.  Their premium service offers content theft protection that will cost you five cents per search and allows you to batch search your entire site and even copy and paste offline content.  Side-Note: You can also use Copyscape to find comment spammers.  Because it searches for all content within your page, if someone is posting the same comment on blogs all over the place, like, “Try this cool dating site at ….com,” it will pick it up as copied material.

 

 

Step 3

Ok, you’ve found copyright violations.  People are using your stuff without asking.  What now?  You don’t have to go out and hire a high-priced attorney to fight plagiarizers.  The first thing to do is send a polite but firm and professional email to the site owner.  You can either use the contact information on the site, or do a WHOIS search for the info.  This email is simply a request to remove the content from their site.  Because many who are using others’ content are doing so because they don’t know any better, think of this as an opportunity to educate them.  Be sure to include the URL for the page on their site where the material is located as well as the URL to your original content, and instruct them how to link to your content if they’d like to share it with their site visitors.  Then check back in a week to see if your content is removed.  Usually, this will do the trick.

 

If you’re clearly not dealing with an amateur, and you suspect they are making a living off of stealing the work of others, or if someone refuses to comply with your request to remove your material from their site, skip right to filing a copyright infringement notice.  This can be filed with Google, and they provide instructions on doing so on their site.  You’ll need to send the notice to Google by snail mail and/or fax.  Google will then send a letter to the copyright infringer on your behalf, which looks something like this.  This is especially effective if the thief is using AdSense, Blogger, or Picassa, as these are Google properties, and they will threaten to deactivate their accounts.  The exact same letter that you send to Google can be used to a violator’s hosting provider and search providers as well.  A sample letter is available on LearnAboutLaw.com.

 

 

It’s your work, and you have the right to protect it from those who would profit from it without your permission.  Hopefully these tips will help you do just that – without the cost of lawyers, injunctions, and other such ugliness.   If you’ve had success with other (legal) methods, be sure to let us know!

Can StumbleUpon & Digg Drive Insane Amounts of Traffic to Your Website?

StumbleUpon and Digg, two popular social media websites, both serve many valuable purposes.They provide insights into trending topics, stories, and news; they provide users an opportunity to discover what others are talking about; and they create an aggregation of new and popular websites.They are also fantastic for business owners, as they can drive insane amounts of traffic to your website.

StumbleUpon

StumbleUpon is an online community that allows its members to discover, rate, and review web pages, videos, and photos.Users select categories of interest and download a toolbar, which allows them to easily give websites a thumbs up or a thumbs down, write a personalized review, or send them to friends in one easy click.

The more thumbs up a website receives, the higher it appears in the different categories on StumbleUpon.Users can browse through the nearly 500 categories and “stumble upon” pages highly rated by their friends and other community members.Members can also use the “Stumble!” button, which immediately directs them to a random website based on their interests, number of thumbs up, and reviews.

Digg

Digg is a social news website that allows users to discover and share content from anywhere on the web.Users can submit links and stories they find interesting, and vote and comment on links and stories submitted by others.The popularity of a link is determined by users who have voted it up (called digging) or voted it down (called burying) using the toolbar that appears at the top of every user-submitted page.

The most “Dugg” stories, appearing on the homepage of Digg.com, can be filtered by those trending within the last 24 hours, week, month, or year.Users can also browse through the top stories in each of the individual categories offered, or view the top stories in all of the topics.

Eyeballs = Traffic

Driving insane amounts of traffic to your website can be done, and it’s not as hard you might think (but it’s not easy either). Ultimately, the goal is to get as many people as possible to “like” and “digg” your links and pages, improving your rankings and upping the chances for your links to get seen. The more people see your links, the more they will view and rate your content. And the more your content is viewed and rated, the more people will see it. And there you have insane amounts of traffic.

The first step of this process really starts with your content. Great content is essential. If you want people to like and rate your links, the content first has to grab their attention, and then has to resonate with them enough for them to share it with others. Once you have the content figured out, it’s really just a matter of following some simple best practices.

5 Best Practices You Can Put into Play Today

1. “Like” & “Digg” other links and websites, write reviews, and leave comments. The more involved you are in a community, the better your reputation and visibility will be - meaning higher rankings for your submissions. DON’T submit only your links. This is spamming, and I guarantee you will not get far.

2. Personalize your profile. Add a picture and details about yourself - people like to know that there’s a person behind the username.The more people feel they know you, the more likely they are to trust you and what you are sharing.

3. Use tags and keywords. This will increase your chances of getting found by the people who are interested in your subject matter. Keywords and tags are also great food for search engines.

4. Make friends with people who have similar interests. People who share your interests are more likely to be interested in the content you are submitting, which will result in them liking/digging and sharing your content on a regular basis.

5.Spread the word, far and wide…and often. Share your links on other social sites like Facebook and Twitter, and ask your friends to “like” and “digg” your content.Encourage them to share your content with their networks, but don’t forget to reciprocate when they ask the same of you.

It’s Just a Matter of Time
As with all things, achieving the desired results will take time, so don’t give up if you don’t see immediate spikes in your traffic. You’ll have to build relationships and gain trust before things start to really happen for you. Be consistent in your efforts, and your hard work will pay off in the end.

Do you use Digg or StumbleUpon? How about another social news or bookmarking site? We’d love to hear about what’s working for you.  Leave us your comments below…

What to Expect From Social Media Marketing in 2010

If 2008 was the year of beginnings and 2009 was the year of revelations, then 2010 is likely to be the year when social media marketing finally reaches its stride. It’s all about connecting and the opportunities for organizations that truly embrace the idea of social marketing are almost limitless. In fairly short order, the Internet has gone from the role of a handy source for information to a must-have, finger on the pulse, essential way of keeping in touch with everyone and everything. Expect real opportunities to emerge now that we have ways to interact in real-time.

The emergence of the iPhone and other smart phone alternatives has helped to introduce the concept of instantaneous gratification to millions of people. We live in a “now” culture and want instant answers to our thoughts, questions and problems. Commercial operations will be quick to exploit this urgency and we can expect to see applications and other solutions emerge, enabling us to convert this online connectivity to off-line action. For example, geo-targeted, personalized delivery of product or service solutions will become more commonplace, enabling you to receive a notice on your smartphone suggesting you interact with the retailer in your immediate locality based on your previous habits and propensities.

There’s so much data available within social networking now that it will be leveraged and used in ever more sophisticated fashion during 2010 and beyond. Micromarkets will emerge with dizzying regularity as this information is immediately converted from raw data to business opportunities. Trends will be identified as they are happening and as applications and solutions become more and more sophisticated there will be an increasing number of opportunities for smart and forward thinking businesses to make money, more quickly as they capitalize.

The Internet has long been fueled by the thirst for information and by the search mantra, but that information has historically been less than current. This will now change, as soaring Twitter use provides up to the second relevancy and data availability to Google and Bing search engine platforms. Real-time results will ensure that the would-be purchaser is even more educated and ready to buy products or services provided by the switched on entrepreneur.

The pace of technological change is so dizzying. At the beginning of 2010 we await with keen interest the likely arrival of the next generation of communication tools, possibly led by the iSlate product from Apple. Before long, everyone will have their own fully functional, always connected personal computing device at the right hand, where solutions and answers are only a second or so away. The mobile web will begin to complete the process of change. No longer will we have to make a special effort to do our research and formulate our buying decisions and we will be prompted by eager sellers to make a buying decision right now.

Social media platforms will be the conduit of change in 2010.

Adam Toren

A Charity Raises Money for Haiti Through Text Message Campaign

We were all shocked and saddened to hear of the events in Haiti. This poor country never seems to catch a break. In hurricane season it always seem to get a hit from a major cyclone and this can lead to plenty of damage, destruction caused by flooding and an awful number of casualties and deaths. However, even some of the worst cyclones will pale into insignificance when compared with the damage that we are seeing from this magnitude 7.0 earthquake.

As the drama is unfolding, we are coming to the awful realization that this is likely to be one of the worst natural disasters in living memory. We dread to look at the news on a daily basis and to see just how many people are left homeless with nowhere to go, just wandering around with a few possessions, that they were able to salvage to comfort them. Still worse, of course, is the growing death toll. This is likely to be a terrible testament to the wrath of mother nature and as the numbers grow and events unfold, we will be left to wonder how such natural events can happen in a faithful world.

Thankfully, the human race is very philanthropic. We naturally want to look after our neighbor in crisis and somehow this horror seems that much more real to us, as this island nation is very close to the United States, after all.

As with any major event taking place these days, news of disaster spread very quickly through social media, with reports emerging from the region through Twitter posts and other messages. Our upgraded ability to communicate can have a positive effect through all this carnage as well. A number of text messaging campaigns have emerged, through which you can pledge a certain amount of money by just sending a simple text message. This is a really easy way of contributing and showing that we all care and is a whole lot easier than the traditional method of seeking out a website and working out for yourself how to contribute.

We look at our new communication tools, our all-encompassing smart phones and our ability to socially engage with each other and imagine many ways that our “new world” can enhance our lives. Now we can see an additional use, a way to reach out to those who are very much less fortunate than we are, at their time of need.

The Red Cross has already raised more than $8 million as of Friday morning, January 15th for this essential cause. Donations may be made, a $10 value at a time, through a simple texting effort. The donation is added to your phone bill. The Red Cross is also adding $1 million from its international response fund to this ever-growing pile of money that will surely help to make a difference as that country begins the long, long road to getting back on its feet. It’s amazing to hear that the amount raised so far for this initiative is more than double the entire amount raised throughout 2009 via this method - and all within just a few days.

If you want to help, text “HAITI” to 90999 and give a $10 donation to the Red Cross.

Here are some other alternatives as well:

Text “YELE” to 501501 to donate $5 to the Yele Haiti foundation.
Text “HAITI” to 20222 to donate $10 to the Clinton Foundation Haiti Relief Fund.
Text “HAITI” to 85944 to donate $10 to the International Medical Corps.
Text “HAITI” to 25383 to donate $5 to the International Rescue Committee.

Adam Toren

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