1. DIGITAL WORD OF MOUTH:
TEN STEPS TO TWITTER
SUCCESSS
Kendra Wright, Saffire Events
Troy Bowers, Amador County Fair
2. PRESENTERS
Kendra Wright Troy Bowers
President CEO
Saffire Events Amador County Fair
Experience: Experience:
• Began building websites • CEO of Amador County
in 1995 for Fortune 1000 Fair, the #1 small county
• Started online consulting fair
company in 1998 • “Seasoned” fair
• Helps events have a great professional
online presence • Second generation fair
manager; have worked
most every job on the
fairgrounds
• In 1978, first company to
6. POLL
How many of you have a Twitter
account for your event?
How many of you have a personal
Twitter account?
7. AGENDA
Set up your Twitter account
Customize your Twitter page
Figure out who to follow
Tweeting ideas and strategy
Who to tweet about!
Advanced Twitter maneuvers
Managing Tweets
Twitter analytics
8. STEP 1: SET UP TWITTER
No more than 15 characters in Username
Example: Amador County Fair
• Too many characters: @AmadorCountyFair
• Use: @AmadorFair
• Use your real business name so search engines & customers
can find you
Include your state in your username if you need to
differentiate yourself!
9. SET UP PERSONAL ACCOUNT TOO
It’s a good place to “practice”
But be careful!
• KitchenAid debate disaster
Follow different people on personal vs.
business, so it’s obvious what account
12. WHO TO FOLLOW IN SET UP
When you set up your account, just follow
the minimum - Industry associations &
businesses
• IAFE @IAFE
• IFEA @IFEAworld
• State/regional organization @WesternFairs
• Saffire Events @SaffireEvents
13. STEP 2: CUSTOMIZE YOUR PAGE
Edit Profile
• Add a photo (logo)
o Get 10x more followers
• Add a bio (mission – make it fun)
o Get 8x more followers
Customize your design
• Use your website background
14.
15. NEW! ADD A HEADER
Make a file that is1200 x 600
It will be a background behind:
• Twitter name
• Bio
• Location
• URL
Just another way to convey your brand
Upload it to Profile/Design
16. STEP 3: DO A FEW RETWEETS
• Retweet people you follow
• Look through your timeline
• At first, this is just to get your feet wet
• Give people a taste of what’s to come
17. STEP 4: FOLLOW SOME PEOPLE
Events similar to yours
Big events
People involved in your event
Local businesses
Just for fun
Don’t follow too many until you have tweeted
and have a branded page!
18. EVENTS SIMILAR TO YOURS
Nevada County Fair
Chowchilla-Madera Co Fair
Calaveras County Fair
Motherlode Fair, Tuolumne County
Del Norte County Fair
19. LARGE EVENTS ON YOUR RADAR
San Diego County Fair
Alameda County Fair
California Expo and State Fair
San Joaquin County Fair
Stanislaus County Fair
20. PEOPLE INVOLVED IN YOUR EVENT
Sponsors
Vendors
Entertainers
Volunteers
Exhibitors
Board members
21. AMADOR EXAMPLES
Jumbo Shrimp Circus
Amador County Fair Foundation
Amador Music Hub – local musicians
connection
Amador Wine Grape growers
Jackson Rancheria Casino & Hotel
Junior Livestock
Lions and Rotary Clubs
22. LOCAL BUSINESSES
Local businesses
• Amador (county)
• Plymouth (city)
Local press
Pilfer from those we are following & our followers!
23. JUST FOR FUN
If you don’t have a personal account
Just for fun/personality
• Backyard tomato farmer
• Amateur beer and wine maker
• Hiking and biking
Follow people on a Tuesday morning; there may be
better chance they’ll follow you back.
24. FINDING MORE PEOPLE TO
FOLLOW
Who to follow – View All (based on interests)
Find friends – if you have:
• Gmail
• Yahoo
• Hotmail
• AOL
People you may know (who your friends
follow)
25. STEP 5: WRITE SOME TWEETS
It’s a chicken and the egg: people don’t
follow people without tweets, but you’ll get
better bang for buck once you have more
followers
Tweet what you think will be helpful to your
target audience
• Don’t be too self-serving
26.
27. WHAT TO POST
Website changes/blog posts/email articles
Testimonials
Photos/Videos
“Insider info”
News of weird/human interest stories
Contests
Questions
28. TRICKS AND TIPS FOR TWEETS
Tweets between 120-130 characters get the
highest click-through rates
Tweets containing via, RT, please and check
had higher click-through rates
Tweet on the weekends (more on that
shortly)
29. THE ART OF THE HASHTAG
Twitter Hashtag Definition (courtesy of Mashable):
The hashtag is a way for Twitter users to
organize themselves: if everyone uses a certain
hashtag to tweet about a topic, it becomes
easier to find that topic in search, and is more
likely to appear in Twitter’s Trending Topics.
Saffire Definition Addendum
Many also use hashtags to add something
parenthetical/funny at the end of a tweet
30. THE ART OF THE HASHTAG: BAD
Hashtags preferred by Olympics:
#London2012 #Olympics #GoUSA
31. THE ART OF THE HASHTAG: FUN
Jimmy Fallon tweets out a hashtag, and
people tweet funny responses
#FactCheck
33. STEP 6: PROMOTE TWITTER &
HASHTAGS
POST it – relevant places on your website/blog
PUBLICIZE it – Twitter feed, regularly and
consistently
PRINT it – event materials, at your event, etc.
Make it easy for your customers
to find, adopt and promote it.
34. “ADVANCED” TWITTER MANEUVERS
Favorites (from Profile page)
Lists
• Create public or private
• Subscribe to others
Replying to tweets
• People can track “conversation”
Deleting tweets
35. POLL
Do you use a program to manage
your Twitter and/or Facebook posts?
38. STEP 8: GO ABOUT YOUR DAY
Install Firefox extension
• While you are online reading articles, don’t
just post them; highlight text and click Buffer
icon at bottom right to tweet
40. STEP 9: TWEET ABOUT YOUR
PEOPLE
Now you follow “your people”
You may have even retweeted some of them
Now start writing original tweets about them
• Be ruthless: Keep track of how many followers
THEY have, and tweet about those who have
the most followers – include @ (Twitter name)!
e.g., @saffireevents
• Your goal, especially while you don’t have many
followers, is to get retweeted. So think like
people you tweet about. Hint: People tend to
retweet when you say nice things about them.
41. SPECIFIC IDEAS
Send opening day congrats to other fairs
Judiciously promote big sponsors for retweet
Same with vendors and entertainers
Post thanks to people/groups; they’ll repost
43. STEP 10: TWEAK & REPEAT
Check BufferApp or Twitonomy analytics.
Write down topics that had the most reach.
• Do more of those.
Write down topics that had the least reach.
• Do less of those.
Besides their work in the event industry, their team does work for large consumer companies in a lot of industries. This gives a breadth of experience that they bring to marketing events online.
A few years ago, a phone call changed the trajectory of their company.Rodeo Austin called and asked them to build an immersive, online presence. Immediately, Saffire Events felt this was an industry they wanted to call home, because this was an industry they could help. And the best thing is, because of geographic disparity, Saffire can bring the experience of lots of fairs and give us functionality that we would never be able to afford from someone just building one event website.
Troy, I had to unfollow Saffire Events so we can show these people how to do a follow.
Since we do the Amador website, we’re the perfect people to supply these graphics, so we’re going to add a heading now; it’s basically a background for the top part of the page.
Looks pretty snazzy, doesn’t it, Troy?
Don’t follow too many until you have tweeted and have a branded page!
Troy, do any of these look legit, like you’d want to follow them?
1. Share your Blog postsDoes your company blog? Why not take the time to share that wonderful content with your audience on Social Media? Sharing your blog posts with your Facebook and Twitter followers will not only help you engage with them, but it will also increase web traffic to your blog. If you increase this traffic you can then convert them into paying customers.2. QuestionsAsk a question on Twitter, LinkedIn, Quora or Facebook and then share the answers you get. Create thought provoking and engaging questions based upon your area of expertise or industry that will produce great responses. Then share those answers with everyone on your company’s page. You can generate great feedback and start interesting discussions.3. Highlight Customer Stories and TestimonialsLet your customers do the marketing for you! Share the stories and experiences that your customers have had with your company for all to see. This will show your company from different perspectives and show others what they can expect when doing business with you.4. Local ActivitiesA great way to get people involved with your business and the community is to let them know about the things that are happening locally. Keeping your fans engaged with what’s going on in the community will not only look good for you but when they tell others where they heard about the event, they will be reminded of your company and that they heard it from you first! A good way to do this is to run a contest and give away something relevant to your community.5. Fill in the BlankThis is a great way to get some conversations started. By creating fill in the blanks, you are setting yourself up for some interesting responses. These types of comments/ posts really get people to participate because when people see them they just can’t help themselves and feel the need to chime in with their two cents.6. Organize a contestCreate a Contest that is both engaging and simple, but make sure that the prize is enticing as well! Simplicity goes very far when it comes to online contests. The fact of the matter is that people want to enter to win something for free, but are more reluctant to do so when they have to give out their information in fear of being spammed and contacted for services or products that they don’t need or want. Therefore use contests to create more visibility for your company and attract more followers and fans rather than trying to sell them something!7. Top 10 ListsCreate top ten lists for different topics related to your industry. This is a great way to give your professional opinion on what you think is more important along with creating some discussion and engagement. Top ten lists usually draw a lot more attention because they are easier to read and people like to see how things rank in a list. This is why whenever you can create a list about a specific topic, you should. It’s also great for SEO (Search Engine Optimization)!8. How-to VideosShow a video on how to do something specific that’s related to your business or industry. By making a step-by-step video, you not only improve SEO, but you’re also helping your online credibility. Just make sure that you pick something that you are an expert in and make sure it is done right. No one likes watching a how to video and not being able to do what it is you set out to show him or her. Since video is very popular on the Internet, it makes sense to be one step ahead of the competition and take the time to film out exactly what you are trying to show them.9. Post Funny Photos or SayingsPeople love to laugh, so if you have something funny to say or something funny to show, then share it! Just make sure it’s appropriate for your audience and doesn’t pull in politics or religion. You don’t want to lose credibility for something you thought was funny but offended your audience.10. Customer ContentDon’t put the entire burden on your own shoulders all the time. Let your customers and clients do the work for you! Allow them to upload and share their content with their friends and followers. Make sure that you respond accordingly to any negative content that may arise! Encourage your audience and provide them a place where they can share their content, to get all around engagement! Just be sure that it doesn’t turn off topic or become spammy.Leave us a comment below and let us know what has worked for you! We’re always curious to learn about what strategies work for particular businesses! You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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