Using Twitter Lists to Save Time

Twitter’s great, isn’t it? Really good for keeping in touch with your Followers, for keeping up with the latest news, raising awareness of your business, demonstrating that you know your stuff and acting as the starting point for conversations that could lead to business.

But if you’re following more than 100 people it can become quite a challenge to find Tweets from people that are of particular interest due to the speed your Twitter news-feed fills up with new Tweets.

But there is a solution that makes things so much easier – and it’s called Twitter Lists

What is a Twitter List

Simply put, Twitter Lists are like filters. You add people you follow (and you can add people you don’t follow too – more on that in a bit) and when you only want to see their Tweets, you simply choose the relevant list and all the Twitter noise from everyone else is immediately filtered out, just leaving you with updates from people on your lists.

For example, I have a F1 List so when I want to catch up on the latest Formula One news, I go to my F1 list and all I see are Tweets from the people that I have added to that List, all of whom are involved in F1 in one way or another.

Types of Lists

There are two types of lists, public and private. A Public List is one that all Twitter uses can see and a Private List can only be accessed by yourself. The types of lists that you could have include.

If these were my lists, then I’d set the business-related ones to “Private” so that my competitors can’t easily see who my clients are etc.

Now, when I want to interact with my clients to see what they’ve said, and to add my own thoughts/comments all I have to do is click on the relevant list and the rest of the Twittersphere goes away.

Making your First Twitter List

Click on the “More” link on the LH side of your Twitter Page (Desktop/Laptop) and this opens a new menu. Simply click “Lists” to get into your Twitter Lists.

If you don’t have any Lists, or want to start a new one, click this icon at the top of your screen, give your new List a name, add a description if you want to and you’re good to go. There’s a final option here, “Make Private” this means that only you will be able to see the List and the accounts that you have added, unlike a regular List which is visible to all Twitter users.

If you are using your phone, all you have to do is click on your Avatar or personal picture at the top of your profile to open a similar menu, and “Lists” is right there.

Once you have given your List a name (and a Description should you wish) then just click “Next” and Twitter will show you a box which will enable you to add people to your list.

Conduct a search and when you come across someone you want to add just click on “Add” and that account will be added to your list.

Adding People to your List from your newsfeeds

When you are reading Tweets and come across someone that you’d like to add to one of your Lists, all you need to do is click on the three dots menu that’s at the top right of every individual Tweet (on desktops/laptops AND mobiles) and use the “Add or Remove from Lists” option. If you have more than one list, you’ll be asked to choose which List or Lists you want them added too.

How do I see what people on my lists are sharing?

All you have to do is head back to the menu on the LH side of your Twitter news feed, click “More” and then” Lists” or, on your Phone, access the menu that you get from clicking on your image/avatar and select “Lists”. You’ll be presented with all of your lists, and you just click the list you want to see.

See, it’s easy and a really useful way to manage your Twitter followers.

Advanced List Use

When you follow someone, they receive a notification that you have followed them and so they might follow you back, but they might be a competitor and you don’t want them to know you are Following them. So, don’t follow them, just add them to a List, and make it Private.

Look at other Twitter users Lists.

If you look at someone’s profile, you’ll be able to see how many Lists they have simply by clicking the 3-dot menu by the “Notification” bell icon.

Click on “Lists” and you’ll see their Lists and who they have added to their Lists.

If you see a List you like the look of, just click on “Follow” and this third party List will be added to your Lists and you can access it in the same way that you access any of your Lists

What’s Next

Go away, set up some lists for yourself, add some people and have a bit of a play to get the hang of the way they work. You can thank me for saving you lots of time later.

Joking aside, if you do need any help with Twitter, Social or SEO just give me a call on 01793 238020 or 07966 547146 email andy@enterprise-oms.co.uk or share your question with me on Twitter or LinkedIn and I’ll be delighted to assist.

The 7Ps that make a great marketing strategy

Back in the early 80s, when I was undertaking quite a bit of management training I became familiar with 7Ps. Proper Preparation & Planning Prevents Pretty Poor Performance*.

When I moved from IT Support Engineer and Consultant in to Internet Marketing I learned about a different 7Ps, the 7Ps of Marketing:

  • Product/Service
  • Price
  • Place
  • People
  • Process
  • Physical Evidence
  • Promotion


Sometimes, when I introduce myself as a marketing professional, some conclude that I work with “advertising”. As you’ll see as you read on, you’ll see that advertising is just one part of marketing communications, which is one of the 7 Ps of marketing.  

I’ve touched really briefly on the various elements of the marketing mix – but please get in touch if I can help you work through anything in particular, email andy@enterprise-oms.co.uk or give me a call on 01793 238020.

This is just a snapshot of the breakdown of marketing.  But it is good to sit back from your business and challenge yourself with some of these questions.

Product/Service: 

  • Is there a market for what you do? How do you know?
  • Why should people buy what you offer at all and why should they buy from you?
  • What makes you different from your competition?
  • Who is your competition – when did you last do a competitive SWOT?
  • What are the overall growth trends in your sector?
  • What is your sales pattern? What area of your sales is strongest and why and can you harness this strength elsewhere?
  • And what area is weakest? What are you doing about it?
  • How well do you treat your customers?
  • Which profitable customers can you win from whom? Who? How? Why? Where? When?

Price

  • Have you built value into your pricing?
  • Are you competitive?
  • Is your cost enough for you to work with profit?
  • How do you set your price?
  • Will you discount?
  • How will you avoid being always known for discounting?
  • What do your competitors do?
  • Keep It simple

Place

  • How easy/convenient is it for your customers to buy from you?
  • Where and how are you currently selling your products and services?
  • What are the opportunities to extend these?

If you are selling a service on the web, are you supporting with testimonials and case studies?

People

  • Are your people one of your main strengths of your business?
  • Or are you the bottle neck in your company? Are you better than everyone else and does everything have to come through you first?
  • What type of leader are you?
  • What is the path for your team to voice their concerns other than coming through you?
  • Are your people your best ambassadors or are they whinging about you/the business as soon as they are out of the door?
  • Are they as well trained as they can possibly be?
  • Did you involve your team when you last undertook a company SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) –really powerful.

Process

One of the vital Ps but often overlooked and often designed for the company’s benefit rather than the customer’s. Ask yourself:

  • Can your team deliver a consistent level of service to all customers and at all times?
  • Customer retention is critical.. how failsafe is your process to ensure you don’t lose any?
  • How effective is your sales process?
  • What processes have you in place for telephone answering/billing/communication with your clients/recommendations/operations/

Physical Evidence (Brand)

Your brand is defined as

  • Signs by which you are known and remembered
  • A bundle of explicit/implicit promises
  • A reflection of personality
  • A statement of position.

Have you thought about/discussed what does your company stand for? What’s its personality and philosophy? What’s your one key brand promise to your customers?

Your brand is so much more than your logo.  Think about a new visitor’s journey to your web site – does this reflect the look and feel of any communication they have had from you hitherto?  Will they recognise this as being part of the same business?  Have you had your website made mobile friendly?  Really important.

A few hours spent on this are far from fluffy nonsense. 

Promotion (Communication)

Just a few from the hundreds of options

  • Off line
    • Face to face
    • Word of Mouth referral
    • Networking
    • Telesales as part of a process
    • PR
    • Exhibitions and events
    • Direct marketing and sales letters with appropriate follow up driving to the web
    • Postcards
    • Events and seminars
    • Advertising but think carefully before you embark here. One off random ads are a waste of time and money! Is it the right target market?  Don’t be dazzled by offers…

On line

  • Website and how are you pushing your web? Does your copy talk about ‘you’, ie the reader?  Are you  making regular blog posts and updates?  Have you considered more SEO, more PPC,  back links, etc
  • Online videos on YouTube – how to/ about/testimonials – so many options.
  • Social media – which platforms should you invest time in?
  • Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest advertising.
  • Email news and updates

So then, back to the management version:
Just think how powerful your marketing strategy will be when you combine the planning from my original 7Ps with the focus provided by the 7Ps of marketing.

Combining your marketing knowledge to create a good strategy/plan using the 7Ps of Marketing coupled with the the 7Ps of Management managing implementation will surely lead to improved business performance.

But there are few quick wins when it comes to marketing, the more you work at it, the better it becomes. So, remember to take time away from working IN your business, (doing the business stuff) to work ON your business, doing the stuff that makes your business better. Set aside time on a weekly basis – little and often on a regular basis.

Remember though, I’m an Internet Marketing specialist although I’ll be more than happy to talk over other elements of your marketing activities and help where I can, Digital Marketing is where my skill set lies. If you have any questions, call me on 01793 238020, email andy@enterprise-oms.co.uk or just search Chief SEO Officer

*Oh, and of course we didn’t learn “pretty poor performance” we used a far more pithy term than “pretty”

Have you heard of The SMOG* Test?

It’s nothing to do with clean air but IS all about the readability of your website.

Did you know that the average reading age in the UK is 12-13 years and that a significant number of visitors to your website may have English as their second language?

If you haven’t given this any thought then you are probably losing visitors and business because your words could act as an impenetrable barrier and you could be losing custom.

Not only that but Google take more than a passing interest in readability.

There is a simple tool that you can use to calculate the reading age of your site and you really should apply this RIGHT NOW.

All you have to do is go to www.read-able.com, copy some text from your website that you want to test and paste it in to the “TEST BY DIRECT INPUT”Readability Test at read-able.com

Your pages will be parsed through 6 different tests [including the SMOG* test] and the individual results will be displayed together with an average.

Take a look at the Readability Test results

Readability test results

As you can see, the test results for the text that I pasted show that the reading age is 15-16 years and so a little owrk is required.

The results are provided in both age and US Grade Levels and you can find a simple Grade to Age comparison here.

Alternatively you could also try the “Drayton Bird test” by reading your content out loud. If it sounds like one side of a conversation the you are probably on the right track, if it sounds stilted and disjointed you need to go back to the drawing board!

How to make your text easier to read

If you need help with making your text easier to read you could turn to the free Hemmingway App for help.

Hemmingway App

In the screenshot, above, you can see that the App has highlighted areas for improvement, and as you make edits you’ll see the reading age on the right-hand side of the page reduce, and the highlighted text will start to disapear.

After a “first pass” you can see that the reading age has already come down. And if I paste this text in to Read-Able you can see that the reading age has fallen to 12-13, much closer to the target, and achieved without any Dumbing Down

Read-Able test results

And if you need any help with your website, search engine optimisation, social media, email marketing or any other form of online activity then all you have to do is #AskAndyP

Ring Me:      01793 238020      07966 547146
Email Me:    andy@enterprise-oms.co.uk
Find Me:      Linkedin     Twitter
Visit Me:     Bowman House, Whitehill Lane, Royal Wootton Bassett, Wilts, SN4 7DB

*SMOG – Simple Measure of Gobbledygook