Erich Stauffer

Tag: Twitter

  • Twitter Ads: My Experiment and the Results

    How Much Does a New Follower Cost on Twitter?

    That’s what I wanted to find out. I’d never ran a Twitter ad before. You can run ads for more than just new followers, you can also do it to drive more engagement (retweets, favorites, and clicks). I wanted to experiment with gaining new followers.

    I’d had experience running Facebook ads before for new Likes and Google Adwords for page clicks. I was familiar with setting a budget, identifying a target audience, and crafting the ad text. This was no different. The first step is choosing @usernames.

    Twitter Ad Targeting

    This was an ad for @skinnycoco so I targeted two of it’s competitors as well as “users like our followers”. The latter means similar interests and demographics. You can add multiple usernames and even exclude usernames you don’t want to target.

    Like Facebook ads, doing the above step gives you an estimate of reach. In my case it was 7K. The next two steps allow you to choose interests by browsing categories and to choose locations. I chose not to choose a category and chose United States.

    Twitter Ad

    The most important aspect of creating the ad is the text of the ad itself. You can either choose from an existing tweet or create a new tweet. Anything you could post under a normal tweet can be posted here (ie. text, picture, or link) in addition to “cards”.

    Twitter Cards allow you to attach rich media experiences to tweets about your content. If you’ve ever seen a longer post with text, image, and a call to action underneath, that’s a Twitter Card. These cards can be used at your promoted tweet in your ad.

    How Much Does a New Follower Cost on Twitter?

    Twitter Ads

    I budgeted $20 to see how much each new follower would cost, on average. For $20 I got 3,977 impressions (views), 66 clicks through to the Twitter profile, and 26 new followers. That translates to $0.77 per like and an engagement rate of 0.65%.

    What Could Improve Those Numbers?

    The first thing I would change would be to try different tweets and run them at the same time to test engagement. I didn’t realize that you could, like with Facebook and Google ads, run multiple ads on a single campaign. If I do it again, that’s what I’ll do.

     

  • 20 Serial Entrepreneurs: An Analysis

    Serial entrepreneurs want to change the world and “make meaning” but successful ones also make money, and lots of it.

    Here is a list of 20 serial entrepreneurs and the companies they helped create:

    1. Andy Bechtolsheim: Sun Microsystems, Granite Systems, Arista Networks
    2. Biz Stone: Twitter, Xanga, Blogger
    3. David Duffield: PeopleSoft, Workday
    4. Dennis Crowley: Dodgeball, Foursquare
    5. Elon Musk: PayPal, SpaceX, Tesla Motors
    6. Evan Williams: Blogger, Twitter
    7. Jack Dorsey: Twitter, Square
    8. Jason Calacanis: Silicon Alley Reporter, Weblogs Inc., Mahalo, Launch, OAF/TWI
    9. Jim Clark: Silicon Graphics, Netscape, Healtheon, MyCFO, Neoteris
    10. Kevin Rose: Digg, Pownce
    11. Marc Andreessen: Netscape, Opsware, Ning
    12. Mark Cuban: MicroSolutions, Broadcast.com, 2929 Entertainment, HDNet, Magnolia Pictures, Landmark Theatres
    13. Mark Pincus: Tribe.net, SupportSoft, Zynga
    14. Max Levchin: PayPal, Slide, WePay
    15. Nick Grouf: Firefly, PeoplePC, SpotRunner
    16. Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis: Kazaa, Skype, Joost, Atomico, Rdio
    17. Scott Jones: Boston Technology, ChaCha
    18. Sean Parker: Plaxo, Napster, Facebook, Causes, Founders Fund
    19. Steve Jobs: Apple, NeXT, Pixar
    20. Wayne Huizenga: Blockbuster, Waste Management, Auto Nation

    Birds of a feather flock together

    Of the companies listed, you may have noticed some repeated names. When we sort the list by the companies with at least two serial entrepreneurs from our list, we get three companies:

    1. Twitter: Biz Stone, Evan Williams, Jack Dorsey
    2. PayPal: Elon Musk, Max Levchin
    3. Blogger: Biz Stone, Evan Williams

    Similar Industries

    And of the companies listed, another trend emerges, which is the similarities in industries.  The companies can be narrowed down into a surprisingly small number of groups, which could be categorized as ‘Technology’ and ‘Other’, but broken we see a large amount of Web 2.0 and Entertainment companies as well as Transportation:

    1. Software: Twitter, Blogger, Xanga, PeopleSoft, Workday, Dodgeball, Foursquare, Netscape, Ning, Plaxo, Napster, Facebook, Digg, Paypal, Slide, WePay
    2. Hardware: Sun Microsystems, Arista Networks, Granite Systems, PeoplePC, Apple, NeXT
    3. Entertainment: Pixar, 2929 Entertainment, HDNet, Blockbuster, Zynga, Magnolia Pictures, Landmark Theatres
    4. Transportation: SpaceX, Tesla Motors, Auto Nation

    This follows a pattern in economics called ‘barriers to entry’ of which software has the lowest barriers in terms of cost and transportation, the highest.  Hardware and entertainment, it seems, falls in the middle, which is what you would expect.  So in the future, we can probably expect more serial entrepreneurs in the software arena, probably culminating up through app makers, which has the lowest barrier of entry and the highest audience: a combination ripe for the next round of serial entrepreneurs.

  • Twitter API Not Available – Twitter Over Capacity

    Twitter is over capacity. Too many tweets! Please wait a moment and try again

    I use both Tweetdeck and Twitter itself to post messages, or tweets, to update both my account, the accounts of my businesses and brands, and the accounts of my customers.  It’s really frustrating when the Twitter API (the connection between third-party programs like Tweetdeck and Twitter) and/or the website is unavailable.  I’ve somewhat learned the times when Twitter is most busy and tried to avoid these times, but this is a trade off.  Because of the way Twitter works, you have to be kind of “in the moment” to matter.  Yes, followers can go back and look at old tweets, but for the most part, they are only looking at their current stream and if you aren’t in it when they are, they don’t see you.

    Why is Twitter so Overloaded All the Time?

    Twitter has become the SMS of the Internet. Because of its restricted 140 characters per post, It has become the hottest thing in social networking. Every one from big companies, to  CEO’s to teens uses Twitter. The more popular the site becomes the more load there is on the servers and the software running on that server.  The original code used to run Twitter, Ruby on Rails, didn’t scale well, but that has been in the process of being fixed for a while now.  The issue now may be the simple lack of available servers.  However, the new Twitter interface seems to be more available than the old one which could indicate that the new profiles are running on both new software and new hardware platforms.

    Graph of Twitter Usage Throughout the Day

  • Introducing a Brand New Way to Market Your Business

    Grow Your Business Organically

    A lot of SEO companies market how they will promote your business online using Internet marketing and online advertising techniques, but Erich Stauffer noticed a gap between where promotion stops and business begins and so we used social media management to not just promote your business, but grow your business.

    Digital Marketing Strategy

    We’ll work with you to create a comprehensive strategy to marry your business brand, vision, values, products, and services with traditional outdoor, radio, TV, and yellow page advertising alongside social networking and social spaces like Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and other technologies like apps for the iPhone and Android phones.

    SEO is Not Enough – Content Marketing

    It’s no longer enough to have a top-ranking website in Google if your web site is not converting traffic, your story is not consistent, and you are not creating lasting relationships with customers. Erich Stauffer can help you to do all three with content marketing.

    Social Media Management

    We are excited to offer social media management to help your business organize and streamline their marketing efforts with a consistent message that is in-line with their mission, vision, and values. We believe so strongly about this product that we would be happy to take you out to lunch to show you how it works in a one-on-one session. Are you interested in learning more?

  • Twitter Deactivation

    I just got a little scare when I clicked, “Sign out,” at Twitter and got the message, “Your account will be deactivated, Bye!” I logged back in successfully, but am still unsure of what is going on. Hopefully it’s just a glitch at Twitter and will be fixed soon.

  • My Media Heroes

    I’d like to share who some of my heroes and inspirations in the publishing business (bloggers, media moguls, and Internet marketers) have been and are:

    • Nick Denton: President and founder of Gawker Media, an online publishing group which puts out titles such as Gawker, Gizmodo and Lifehacker. Nick has been involved in internet media since 1996, first writing on the subject for the Financial Times of London, and then founding two companies in the late 1990s. First Tuesday, an internet-era events business with branches in 80 cities, was sold in 2000. Moreover Technologies, which is headquartered in London, provides news search technology to Fortune 500 companies and portals such as MSN. After graduating from Oxford University, Nick began his career as a foreign correspondent for the FT during the revolutions in eastern Europe. Later, while investment banking correspondent, he co-authored All That Glitters, the definitive account of the collapse of Barings Bank.
    • J. Michael Arrington: Founder and co-editor of TechCrunch, a blog covering the Silicon Valley technology start-up communities and the wider technology field in USA and elsewhere. Magazines such as Wired and Forbes have named Arrington one of the most powerful people on the Internet. In 2008, he was selected by TIME Magazine as one of the most influential people in the world. Wired magazine also included him in a flowchart of “internet blowhards” citing his obsession with “Web 2.0”.
    • Walt Disney: During a 43-year Hollywood career, which spanned the development of the motion picture medium as a modern American art, Walter Elias Disney, a modern Aesop, established himself and his product as a genuine part of Americana. David Low, the late British political cartoonist, called Disney “the most significant figure in graphic arts since Leonardo DaVinci.” A pioneer and innovator, and the possessor of one of the most fertile imaginations the world has ever known, Walt Disney, along with members of his staff, received more than 950 honors and citations from every nation in the world, including 48 Academy Awards and 7 Emmys in his lifetime. Walt Disney’s personal awards included honorary degrees from Harvard, Yale, the University of Southern California and UCLA; the Presidential Medal of Freedom; France’s Legion of Honor and Officer d’Academie decorations; Thailand’s Order of the Crown; Brazil’s Order of the Southern Cross; Mexico’s Order of the Aztec Eagle; and the Showman of the World Award from the National Association of Theatre Owners.
    • Rupert Murdoch: An Australian-born American media magnate and the founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of News Corporation, often called News Corp. Beginning with one newspaper in Adelaide, Murdoch acquired and started other publications in his native Australia before expanding News Corp. into the United Kingdom, United States and Asian media markets. Although it was in Australia in the late 1950s that he first dabbled in television, he later sold these assets, and News Corp.’s Australian current media interests (still mainly in print) are restricted by cross-media ownership rules. Murdoch’s first permanent foray into TV was in the UK, where he created Sky Television in 1989. In the 2000s, he became a leading investor in satellite television, the film industry and the Internet.  Murdoch and News Corp now own MySpace, Fox, and the Wall Street Journal.
    • Alan Webber: An award-winning, nationally-recognized editor, author and columnist, he launched Fast Company, the fastest growing, most successful business magazine in history and winner of two national magazine awards, one for excellence and one for design. He was named Adweek’s Editor of the Year in 1999, along with co-founding editor William Taylor. Webber understands the important characteristics of a “fast company”: the ongoing competition for the best people, for great ideas, and for the right way to think about leadership.
    • Biz Stone: Co-founder, Twitter Inc. Stone helped found things besides Twitter: Xanga, Blogger and Odeo. He worked for Google with Blogger. He once won a debate at Oxford Union.
    • Mark Elliot Zuckerberg: An American entrepreneur best-known for co-founding the popular social networking site Facebook with fellow Harvard classmates, Dustin Moskovitz, Eduardo Saverin, and Chris Hughes where Zuckerburg is now CEO. He is currently one of the youngest billionaires in the world with personal wealth of US$4 billion in 2010 due to his 24% share of Facebook.
    • Matt Mullenweg: The founding developer of WordPress, the blogging software that runs much of this site and millions of other sites around the world. He wrote the foreword to WordPress for Dummies and the French WordPress book. Matt worked at CNET Networks, but left in 2005 to found Automattic, which is the company behind WordPress.com, Akismet, Gravatar, bbPress, IntenseDebate, and BuddyPress. Matt is or has been an adviser to Sphere, WeGame, Rescuetime, and Foodzie.

  • Microblogging Social Networks

    A List of the 5 Most Popular Microblogging Social Networks: Jaiku, Plurk, Present.ly, Tumblr, and Twitter.

    This list of microblogging social networks is listed alphabetically and includes their availability, rank, popularity, and features.

    Jaiku

    Jaiku is a social networking, microblogging and lifestreaming service comparable to Twitter. Jaiku was founded in February, 2006 by Jyri Engeström and Petteri Koponen from Finland and opened in July, 2006. Based out of Helsinki, Jaiku was purchased by Google on October 9, 2007.

    The founders of Jaiku chose the name because the posts on Jaiku resemble Japanese haiku. Also, the indigenous Sami people of Finland have traditionally shared stories by singing joiks. On January 14, 2009 Google announced that it would be open-sourcing the product, but would, “No longer actively develop the Jaiku codebase,” leaving development to a, “Passionate volunteer team of Googlers”.
    (more…)

  • Life After HTC’s Hero: A Review

    Going Off the Grid

    Now that I have used my HTC Hero I realize that I am more plugged in than I have ever been. Not only is data being collected on me from phone, email, and Internet use, but I am freely giving up more information on Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr. But I wasn’t satisfied with the amount of data being collected so started collecting more data using Endomondo and Facebook apps on my GPS-enabled phone, the HTC Hero for Sprint. Every since I got this phone with unlimited Internet access, I have been more plugged in than ever before. The New York Times has a great article on this called The Data-Driven Life. My friends have started to comment on the uptick in wall posts on Facebook and I’ve started to get caught back up on email, but I’ve also increased my risk.

    Physical Risk

    Now, more than ever I use my phone while driving. If texting makes you 8 times more likely to get on an accident, what is the odds for someone filming and posting videos to YouTube from the road? There is also the minor strain on the wrists from using the mobile device more and in more situations.

    Financial Risk

    Because my phone has always-on Internet access and unlimited text messaging there is nothing to stop me from using the phone at work. Checking Facebook is an issue that I have found that I have and texting with my wife can happen a lot depending on what she is doing that day. The bible says to be a slave to your master; serve your employer well while you are at your job. Being a good steward of your time is part of that.

    Conclusion

    So now that I’m in, am I wishing I was out? I do like the new features of the phone like weather information, Facebook access, and the qwerty touchscreen, but its just another thing in my life I have to maintain and manage. Like this site, I need to learn to better manage my actions while driving and while at work so I don’t get forced off the grid.

  • Indianapolis Dentistry Embraces Twitter

    An Indianapolis dentist has begun using Twitter to reach out to his patients in a way that he has never done before.  “I didn’t even know what Twitter was until I started using it,” said the dentist.

    Twitter is a micro-blogging service founded by some of the same people who made blogging accessible to millions through Blogspot. The catch is that each blog entry is limited to 140 characters.  Users can post from their cell phones, email, directly on the site, or through third-party applications or websites.

    Our client now has 623 followers and is one the top-followed dentist in Indianapolis according to the Twitter directory, Wefollow.  A follower is someone who opts-in to hear what you write or “tweet” about.  We have seen traffic to their website coming from Twitter so we know it is working as a promotional tool.

    How can we help you promote your business online or around Indiana?