Category Archives: Flipbooks

My Support of Blogger Aaron Lee’s "Scheduled Tweets"

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For some time, “programmed tweets” or “scheduled tweets” have been a controversial topic. We’ve mainly heard the voices of people who advocate against them. They argue that its not real, and that its like “talking to a computer”. I don’t agree with these assertions, so imagine how overjoyed I was to see a true Twitter giant like Aaron Lee admit on his blog that he sometimes programs his tweets.

Some of my Twitter favs like Flipbooks, 2cre8, TechZader, TrendyDC and Ruhani Rabin do it – and do it well. I sometimes do it too, and for all of the reasons Aaron Lee eloquently presents. He arguably penned one of the best social media posts I’ve read all year. Reading it got me thinking: why would someone say programmed tweets do not represent “authenticity” and are “fake”?

People will continue to have their views on the matter. I just ask that people understand that the process of “programmed tweets” is a 4-Step process (and that the computer actually does the easiest part). Seriously. Here we go:

1. The Search for the Tweet: Humans do this. I try to maintain a dynamic and diverse feed, so I’ll look for tweets on travel, tech, music, health, comedy, politics, social media, sustainability, charity, etc. I look far and wide.

2. The Construction (or “look”) of the Tweet: Humans do this. If I find something on a website and want to tweet it, I may add hashtags, and, possibly my own stamp of approval on the subject matter with words like “hot” or “must read”. If I’m retweeting someone, I have to figure out if I want to use “via” or “RT” – the two most popular ways of identifying a retweet.


3. The Scheduling of the Tweet: Humans do this. I might want to space my tweets, so I’ll have a quote to start the hour, another quote 7-10 minutes later, and then a link. Two hours later, I may want to promote one of my Twitter lists, and in the process promote two names on the list as reasons to follow the list. And then 10 minutes later, I may do two links back to back. In other words, I am in complete control over the time.

4. The “Tweeting of the Tweet” itself: Computers do this…because humans allow it. This is the easiest part of the process. Period.

So why is this controversial? Because you’re not sitting in front of your computer pushing the “tweet” button? To me, its a non-issue. I have good friends who strongly disagree with me. And that’s cool. But I schedule my tweets during the time I sleep -which happens to be the time a lot of my friends in Asia, Europe and Africa are awake, or beginning their day. I love connecting with people all over the planet, and I have ambitions and dreams that make occasional “programmed tweets” a necessity.

My post won’t convince everyone, but I am happy Aaron Lee has given voice and reason to the argument on other side of the issue.

Bravo!

Flipbooks and the Power of Twitter

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This is the first post in a 12-part series, TwitterPowerhouses, which focuses on the contributions of people who’ve helped to expand, influence, and redefine how we view social networking. I co-wrote it with blogger and world class chef Yasamin Beitollahi. It was cross-posted on The Huffington Post.

2009 was indeed the Year of Twitter. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, it has generated words like Twitterati, Twitterverse, and uber popular Tweetup, which refers to meetings organized through the site. It placed second on the list of most searched topics on Bing. And most notably, the Global Language Monitor, which tracks trends in language, called Twitter the top English word of 2009.

The micro-blogging phenomenon rapidly matured into a global news service. From President Obama’s Inauguration, to the protests in Iran, to Michael Jackson’s untimely death, to updates on H1N1, Twitter has been a very effective way to give real time updates on issues of the day. Blogger and marketing visionary, Blair Semenoff, aka: Flipbooks on Twitter, has come to epitomize the website’s dramatic shift towards great content and information.

Semenoff’s understanding of social media and its applications for entrepreneurs and the growth of their businesses are remarkable. Beyond his knowledge, it is his ability to communicate it effectively that makes him stand apart while his humor in delivery keeps you coming back for more. Despite the limited words available within Twitter’s micro-blogging platform, his high-octane style always manages to grab your attention. This clearly demonstrates his understanding of how this new and powerful social media tool should be used to engage and empower. If you want to unleash the power of Twitter for your business, Flipbooks is someone you should pay close attention to.

Authors’ note: We hyper linked the words Tweet, ReTweet and Hashtags, which are used repeatedly in the interview below, to help give people unfamiliar with Twitter an understanding of how it operates. Enjoy!

2010-01-04-blair_profile.jpg

You’re known as a “Viral Marketing Scientist.” Can you tell us the story behind that title and define it for us?

Believe it or not, I studied Twitter for over four months prior to sending my first Tweet. This gave me time to understand how Tweets are broken down into keywords, stock pile content to bring to the community, find my niche and create a list of the first 1000 business prospects and more importantly “movers & shakers” of Twitter to follow first. I feel this is why the majority of people “fail” and quite using Twitter. They hop in and expect everyone to care about what they have to say. Guess what? That’s not the case and it takes time to develop numerous friendships as well as getting your niche noticed. Sure ReTweets give you assurance that someone has read your Tweets but how many people read your Tweets is more important. People need to focus on their personal brand (bio & avatar picture), quality of content, as well as the copy writing of the Tweets while not destroying it with the wrong and/or too many hashtags.

And I am probably one of the very few people who documents and/or takes mental notes on the flow of keywords. What are keywords? Keywords are the searchable words/hashtags used in 140 characters. The more keywords you use the more visible this makes you on Twitter. This is why using and contributing to hashtag communities increases your visibility and how many followers you attract. Prior to Tweeting I used a program called Monitter to see the flow rate of keywords as well as allows you to see conversations in a certain mile radius. In fact, monitoring people/conversations nearest to your business is what most businesses need to be doing! Now I use Seesmic to give my brand maximum exposure by drawing the reader’s eyes to 2 or more of my Tweets without spamming the keyword/hashtag.

The content of your Twitter Feed (page) has been described as exciting, exquisite, and a marketing goldmine. How do you decide which topics to tweet?

I can sum it up with two words: Diversification & Consistency. My niche is providing quality content 24/7/365. And due to the amount of information I sort through daily, I rarely use/read any of the content I Tweet but I know what a quality post should look like. If I wouldn’t read it, I don’t Tweet it. And consistency through quality! Where my sources of information come from and the amount of Tweets I send per day are key. A good Tweet is just as valuable the day it was wrote as months from now. I am also deeply emerged with the most active Tweeters and know what the “real” trending Tweets are, un-like the commercial way of thinking of trending topics as the ones chosen by the Twitter trending tracking systems.

You are the 29th person in the history of Twitter to achieve 100,000 ReTweets. And you did in just over 200 days. What’s the secret of your success?

First make friends, and the best way to do that is by ReTweeting. Second is delivering value in each of my Tweets. Now value doesn’t only come in the form of content on Twitter but actually being “social” and taking the time acknowledge as many people in your Twitter stream as possible. Most people don’t see this from my Tweets since it was achieved through sending over six thousand direct messages. It’s truly the best way to show someone you’re thinking about them. Saying “Thank You” is the essential element of Twitter.

What advice would you give to someone who is new to Twitter and overwhelmed, confused, or unsure how to identify quality Twitter Users? How do you wade through millions and millions of Twitter users and connect Quality Twitter Followers?

Your brand and Tweets are only as strong as those who you follow and become friends with. I feel it’s important to aspire to have more than thousand people in your Twitter stream because it broadens your audience as well as your perspective. Great directories like Twellow and Twitter Grader can connect you to amazing people and good sources of information. Now you’re probably asking how do you keep track of 1000+ people? This is actually simple if you begin with using an application such as Seesmic or TweetDeck, and immediately creating and maintaining user lists and/or TwitterLists.

For those who may not know, what does your Twitter Handle (name) mean?

I use Flipbooks as my name and this decision was chosen for SEO ranking for my marketing company TruAction Flix. We actually had first page Google rank within 6 days of being on Twitter. It was also chosen based on psychology. The word flipbooks, which has been around for 142 years, needed to be repeatedly seen so it would be re-integrated into everyday conversation. With over 20,000 Tweets happening per minute, anything people can do to differentiate themselves is a key element to getting noticed on Twitter.

What’s next for you in 2010? Word has it that you’re going to be teaching a class on Twitter, and that it involves Fortune 500 Companies.

Yes this is true. To be honest, top-ranking companies should be ashamed of their presence on Twitter. It is the most powerful marketing tool ever created because it brings awareness to so many projects in the blink of an eye. So not only are they missing out on a priceless marketing opportunity, but they are actually not complementing how consumers see their brand on the web at large. First, what are you saying to your consumers when they’re the ones who support you, but you don’t have an online presence? Second, it seems the norm is to place one or two interns as their company’s online community manager instead of creating a team of representatives to bring value to the company’s social media message. It seems as though companies are too worried about what they say, instead of focusing on the positive information and value they can bring to their presence Twitter. The primary focus of an online community manager is to increase the public visibility of the company and make first contact with potential business prospects. It’s critical to respond to online discussions with skill, consistency and aptitude. In many ways, a community manager is the evangelist for the company’s products and a voice of the customer in internal discussions. The role is hard to understand from the outside but it’s impossible to miss once a start-up in execution mode.

How would you summarize Flipbooks in 140 characters or less?

Flipbooks are the most emotionally engaging promotional product ever made & provides endless location for listing Social Media accounts. ~B

To read more about Blair Semenoff’s innovative marketing strategies, log on to his site TruAction Flix. You can also connect with him through his Twitter feed.

Guest Blogger: Blair Semenoff aka @Flipbooks

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Today’s Guest Blogger is marketing visionary Blair Semenoff, known on Twitter as @Flipbooks. He graciously allowed me to share his great post with my readers. This is one of the best, most thoroughly reasoned posts on Retweets, and, how to get the most out of Twitter as a whole. Enjoy!

How @Flipbooks Hit 80,000 RTs

by Blair Semenoff aka @Flipbooks

Here is an article that has gotten me well over 250 Re-Tweets (RT) by one of my favorite sources of information Fast Company ~> ‘Nine Scientifically Proven Ways to Get Retweeted on Twitter’….and believe it or not, after I wrote this blog was the very first time I ever read it! lol What I’m going to share with you isn’t Science, but simple tips to help increase the amount of RTs you get. So who am I to tell you how to get an RT? Well…. on December 6th I celebrated my 80,000th RT which according to this article ~~>http://dailyrt.com/profiles/drt-all/ Ranks me 31st most RTed person/brands in the Twitterverse, so I think I know a thing or two…. So if you’re serious about “succeeding” on Twitter, I’m going to HELP YOU reach a higher level of RTs GUARANTEED!

1. Say THANK YOU!! I can’t stress this enough. This is AN ESSENTIAL ELEMENT OF TWITTER! And this is the part of Twitter I miss the most. I don’t care who you are, or who you THINK you are, say THANK YOU! I used to do my BIG SHOUT-OUTs (groups of 10) and did them for every RT until I hit 150+RTs/day and it became so stress full & time consuming (had to type names manually at that time) that I had a semi-break down! lol Personally I think until you get 100+RTs/day you should be saying Thank You to everyone. (Exceptions & Alternatives are at the bottom of page)

2. #B-Tips It doesn’t matter how many followers you have if they’re not listening. Build friends, not followers. My first Tweet was sent on May 13th 2009 at 7:49pm. So for me to reach an average of 384 RTs/day (now-a-days 500+ daily) with only 14,000+ followers, obviously I’ve tried my best to keep in some sort of contact with people (usually w/ the RT to show I care enough to see what they’ve said & am thinking about them) I suggest you concentrate on friendships instead of how many people are following you. This is Social Media btw…This isn’t a step, just should be common sense. Take care of your inner group of people who RT you the most first. And en-less you’re a major news source, you should be RTing people. If you’re not RTing in my opinion you’re just “stealing” Tweets from certain people and Tweeting them for yourself and that’s that!!

3. Killer content. And how do you find killer content? By following YOU, ya you the one who’s reading this! Twitter is about sharing information gathered on Global scale. A mind blowing amount of information is in each & everyone of our time-lines if we just LOOK. And of course you are only as strong as the people you’re following. (and the people in my stream are the BEST!) I’m not going to go into detail on how to find these ’gems of the Twitterverse’ I’ll save that for another post.

Where else? Guess what its right in front of you! Every Tweet contains articles or blogs that have an archive, recent post and usually MOST POPULAR. Obviously Digg, StumbleUpon yada yada… are AWESOME sources of info for the community. Search around you’d be amazed what you’ll find! And get subscriptions and/or RSS of articles you enjoy reading. I do Copyblogger, AdAge and way too mention! lol

4. DON’T REMOVE PEOPLE FROM THE RT. Look for Tweets that have been RTed 3 or more times. While leaving yourselves 12-15 characters, so another RT can be achieved. Why? A) This means it’s great content. B) When people see friends in an RT, they’re more likely to RT it. C) Great way to make new friends since its likely someone you’ve just RTed you’ve never met. *I like to follow anyone I RT & people who RT me.

5. Make your Tweets sound RT worthy by adding descriptive words, excitement and purpose! One of the masters on Twitter is @Twitter_Tips. You don’t see as much ’copy & paste’ over there. K, think about it like this….your Tweet is actually a news/magazine headline more or less. Look at the copywiting, structure etc… of those junk magazines beside the check out isle. I’m gonna leave it at that….but adding ‘Beautiful’, ’in the World’ or ‘ ! ‘ has gotten me a few extra RTs I’m sure. Expanding on tip #5, remember one of Twitter’s most important features is the keyword searches. The more useful keywords you use (while avoiding duplicates) the more likely you’ll get seen. And that brings me to my next point. Add your source if its from a reputable feed. This also builds creditability to your Tweet, and ads VALUABLE KEYWORDS. Example, you’ll see me adding (TIME), (LIFE), (Mashable) and a great one that hits two keywords (Yahoo! News).

6. FIGHT FOR IT! You need to put the effort in to make what you just RTed SIMPLE for the next person and the next person and so on…to RT as well. And it’s the little things you do that make it all the difference! K, so at the end of our names there is ( : ) @Flipbooks: ALWAYS REMOVE IT! Remove any periods ( . ) located before links *since obviously the sentence ends* as well as at the end of Tweets. Next look for ‘and’ & switch it to ’&” FYI doing this double (RT @….. via @……) is a waste! **I’ll be going on a rant soon on how RTs are being performed on a later date…lol**

Here is a very good example of me fighting for RTs, which JD ‘@earthxplorer‘ Andrews & I got! RT @earthXplorer: “Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind” ~Dr. Seuss (138 Characters)
What I did ~>

RT @earthXplorer Be who you are & say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter & those who matter don’t mind ~Dr Seuss (128 Characters = 12 characters left for possibly two RTs per Tweet)

7. Use #Tags, but don’t over abuse or use them incorrectly. I’m going to be brief since this subject is VERY IMPORTANT and needs to be discussed with it’s own blog. Think of #tags as a community & a place to anchor your brands message. Too many #tags (more than 3) and you look spammy, while releasing too many Tweets consecutively to the same #tag gets you ignored and possibly blocked from Twitter searches. You should be doing a keyword search judging flow of timeline prior to Tweeting.

#B-Tips If your user name is too long and/or difficult you should change it. If its to long you’re robbing yourself of extra RTs and if it’s too difficult there leaves too much room for error. Refer to this article by @Kim ~> How to Change your Username on Twitter

8. DON’T USE 2 or especially 3 Links in 1 Tweet. That’s called mass confusion & no one wants to put out that kind of effort validating EVERY link so they can RT ya!

9. According to http://tweetspeed.com/ provided to me by my very good friend @ScottATaylor there are approximately 20,000 Tweets per minute. The question is who reads yours and which of your friends are likely to RT it? And although this next tip will annoy those not using Twitter effectively (under 1000 friends in their stream) sending out 2 Tweets consecutively will increase the likely-hood you’ll be seen by your friends.

10. Another thing to take into consideration is Tweeting during busy times. From my experience 4-6:30am, 4-6:30pm & 10pm-12:00am PST are all peak times for me to obtain followers. As one of my closest friends @Paul_Steele says, depending on what country you’re Tweeting in the peak times and subjects (eg. TV shows) will repeat themselves weekly. Regardless you want to be Tweeting when the majority of your closest friends are on.

11 . Have I failed to mention I’ve Tweeted over 35,500 times and sent over 5000 DMs in only 208 days with an average of 177.2 Tweets sent a day….basically like someone who should be in the Internet Rehab Center? lol. No you don’t need to Tweet like a mad man/woman to get RT-ed, but you do need to Tweet on a consistent basis to keep up with what’s happening and to maintain friendships.

So I hope these tips were of assistance to you and I want to thank each and everyone of you for all your support and RTs!