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Social Media

Truly Awesome Tactics to Gain Traffic from Twitter by @NikkiElizDeMere

March 30, 2016 by

twitter-traffic

Image created by Yasmine Sedky (@yazsedky).
Here’s a crazy statistic. On average, Twitter sees 500 million tweets per day. Out of all of the interactions people have with these tweets, 92% of them involve clicking links.

For some of us, getting in on that action feels as easy as chatting with a barista at the local coffee shop. For others, getting website traffic from Twitter may as well be alchemy. That’s okay, since it actually is possible to turn Tweets into gold. I promise.

Caveats

If your target audience is on Twitter — this is the primary caveat — Twitter marketing is the best way to increase targeted traffic to your website.

The. Best. I don’t use those words lightly. There are two reasons: 1) Twitter attracts almost everybody, which makes finding a large audience for your niche (however small it is) easy; and 2) Twitter, along with helpful tools like Tribeboost, can help you find people in your audience.

The secondary caveat is this: Twitter marketing only works if you use Twitter the right way. It’s amazing to me that people are still Tweeting about what they ate for lunch in 2016. Sometimes those posts are fun, too — don’t get me wrong — but you can do better.

Read More on Moz

Let’s Get SaaSsy – I’m offering a limited number of SaaS consulting engagements.

Search Engine Optimization, Social Media

And Now for Something Completely Different: 4 New Ways to Think About SEO in 2016 ft. @RandFish

January 28, 2016 by

new-seo

Image created by Yasmine Sedky (@yazsedky).
Recently I’ve noticed a change in Google search rankings. When I searched certain keywords, Twitter threads came up. So I tried adding keywords to clients’ social media posts to see if I could get their tweets to rank, increase brand awareness, and increase website traffic.

I was almost surprised when it worked.

Search engine ranking algorithms evolve faster than a zombie plague in a horror film – we all know this. Yet most business owners are barely keeping pace with what Google was doing two years ago. If you’re still thinking in terms of Pandas and Hummingbirds, let’s get you up to date for the SEO changes and challenges of 2016.

1. Use Twitter activity to bump your website traffic via SERPs

In 2015, Twitter gave Google access to live data streams of their 284 million users, which means real-time tweets can and will show up on search engine results. You can build on this by promoting your Twitter activity, planning your tweets to include keywords and a link to your site, and using 1-2 relevant hashtags to increase engagement. I also like leveraging the power of images on Twitter, so I pair images I create on Buffer’s Pablo image creator with my Twitter content.

Bottom line: Google’s indexing of Twitter is set to grow dramatically this year. Are you ready?

2. Hashtag trend watch

WordStream Data Scientist Marc Irvine published an interesting bit of research in December of 2015 showing that trending hashtags can predict breakout search terms hours in advance. If your plan to drive traffic to your site includes capitalizing on real-time search interest, this is news you can use:

“For the dozen popular hashtags I followed that week, on average, search interest for these terms would increase 500% over the 6 hours of their breakout on Twitter and then stay elevated for many hours or even days following that.”

Bottom line: You may not be able to see into the future, but Twitter can. So pay attention.

3. The rise of adblocking is just the beginning

Overt sales methods like traditional online ads and marketing emails are coming up against increasing resistance among consumers. One of Rand Fishkin’s 2016 predictions for SEO web marketing includes “entrenched players” trying to “legislate [ad blocking] away.” It won’t work, in my opinion, because adblocking programs aren’t the problem – they’re the symptom. A symptom of a population which has been sold to six ways ‘til Sunday and is over-sensitized. Another trend I’ve been seeing is people unsubscribing from marketing emails and newsletters, a reaction to the marketing dump that has become our inboxes.

Bottom line: SEO is going to become even more important as a way for your ideal customers to find you. Because, if you try to find them first, they’ll ignore you.

4. Google’s got some competition (finally)

If you haven’t heard of DuckDuckGo yet, by the end of this year, you will. In 2015, this search engine grew by leaps and bounds and many early adopters in tech converted. Why are people switching? Big Brother Google is watching, but DDG bills itself (pun intended – get it? Bills? Ducks have them? Okay.) as “the search engine that doesn’t track you. A superior search experience with smarter answers, less clutter and real privacy.” What does this mean for SEO and web marketing? Consider it yet another reaction to a culture of constant selling. After all, if the search engine doesn’t track you, it can’t target ads at you either.

Bottom line: The rules for ranking with DuckDuckGo are standard: “Having quality links, quality content, using hyperlocal keywords and being mobile ready with a responsive website are all important.”

If you’re noticing a couple of trends running throughout this list: Good! Here they are in a nutshell:

  • Social media is becoming increasingly important as a tool for organic, inbound marketing.
  • Organic, inbound marketing is becoming far more effective in the face of people blocking, unsubscribing, and outright rejecting blatant outbound/traditional marketing methods.

Let’s Get SaaSsy – I’m offering a limited number of SaaS consulting engagements.

Curation, Social Media, Tools

Twitter Stack Used by @NikkiElizDeMere

June 13, 2015 by

twitter-stack

Image created by Yasmine Sedky (@yazsedky).

I have almost 60,000 followers on Twitter (as of February 2017), and while that might not be Lana Del Rey numbers (she’s in the millions), it’s enough for people to ask me which tools I use to manage my Twitter account. If you’re into Growth Marketing or Customer Success, and want to meet other people in your industry, find mentors, market your products and services, or just want in on the conversation, here’s how I do all that and more.

Grow with TribeBoost and FollowerWonk

TribeBoost helps you increase your Twitter followers by monitoring real-time hashtags and keywords that specifically relate to your niche. Then they go one step further by looking at biographical data, location and influence, and automatically follow the most promising leads. You know how it works – to gain followers, first you must follow. What I love about TribeBoost is that it doesn’t unfollow users who follow you back.

FollowerWonk lets me look at who my followers are, where they are, and what they’re talking about, which means I can find people with common interests that much faster. Hey, we might have even met that way.

Automate Twitter with Buffer and IFTTT (or Zapier)

I use Buffer to schedule my Tweets in advance, Start A FIRE to promote my brand and content, and IFTTT to, well… this takes some explaining. IFTTT is a semiacronym for “if this, then that.” You enter an if-then statement, like “If new Twitter follower, then send LinkedIn invitation.” It’s really amazing and can be used for everything from social media to getting alerts on your phone when the book you’ve been waiting for finally hits Kindle. Well worth your time to investigate its possibilities.

Chat with TweetChat and HashTracking

All the best conversations are happening in Twitter these days. It’s the best way to reach other people in your industry, like mentors, bloggers and thought-leaders. TweetChat makes it easy to chat by letting you just enter in a hashtag to follow a conversation. From there, you can save your favorite conversations on FavePages (sorted by date and hashtag) and even share FavePage Stories – all the Tweets in a conversation, curated by you (i.e. you can hide and re-order Tweets as needed).

HashTracking literally optimizes your conversation by telling you stats on the hashtag being used, lists of contributors and influencers, and giving you the ability to create shareable HashTracks™ infographics.

Make it Pretty with Canva and Pablo

I remember the days when 140-characters was all you got – now we’ve got a thousand words we have to come up with! In pictures, I mean. I use Canva and Pablo to create quick images that gain a little more attention for my Tweets.

Share Faster with Pullquote

Pullquote makes it easy for me to Tweet quotes or images from articles I find online. Just highlight the quote, select Tweet from the menu that pops up, enter your thought, tag it, and it’s Tweeted. A content curator’s dream.

Yes, I love my tools, but their sole purpose is this: To make it easier for me to share really interesting, useful content with you. That said, the one thing that I think you should never automate is engagement (I hate automated DMs), but everything else is fair game.

What are your favorite tools? Leave a comment and let me know.

Let’s Get SaaSsy – I’m offering a limited number of SaaS consulting engagements.