How do I grow my Twitter following?

Posted by: Michael Reynolds, President/CEO in General on Sunday, October 17, 2010

I was asked this question recently: "How do I grow my Twitter following?" On the surface, this question could be simply about numbers. However, I'm going to take it a bit further and address how to grow your Twitter following with interested followers. Having a lot of followers is great but it's even better if they actually pay attention.

Post good content. This is the number one most important thing you can do. Posting promotional material, advertising, or announcements as your only content will not grow your following very much. Posting links to educational blogs and articles will, however. People will be more interested in what you have to say if you are sharing content that has value. Each time your followers see a link that you post, they are making a decision about whether to click on it based on the question "what's in it for me?". If they think they will learn something or be entertained, they will be more likely to click.

Talk to other people. Even posting good content will not get you very far if you don't talk to anyone. Be sure to reply to your followers and have actual conversations. If people feel like you are listening, they will be more likely to listen back.

Re-tweet other people's stuff. This goes along with talking to people. When you see something you like posted by someone else, re-tweet it. It just takes a second and shows that you endorse that person's content. Others will appreciate what you are doing and start to do the same for you (as long as you are posting good content). This also shows that you are listening to others.

Use targeted hashtags. A hashtag is a keyword prefaced by the "#" symbol. Some common hashtags I use include #Indianapolis, #sushi, #tennis, #marketing, and #lds. These hashtags place my tweets in a group along with other related tweets under the same keyword. Many people filter their incoming tweets based on hashtags that interest them. This means that if you use certain hashtags in your tweets, your content will show up in their Twitter feeds.

Be consistent. If you over-tweet, your followers will stop paying attention and are likely to un-follow you. If you rarely tweet, you are not participating enough to build a brand. However, if you are consistent and reasonable, you will start to cultivate a network and build a following over time of people who are actually listening to what you have to say.

Growing your Twitter following takes time so don't expect it to happen overnight. It can take months to really gain momentum so be patient. However, once you have developed a rhythm and have made Twitter a normal part of your communication routine, it will become much easier and you will be gaining new followers daily. Be sure to follow back the ones who interest you, as well.

How do you grow your Twitter following? I would love to hear your comments below.

Fight breast cancer with Twitter

Posted by: Michael Reynolds, President/CEO in General on Monday, October 11, 2010

October is Breast Cancer Awareness month. If you hate breast cancer as much as we do, join us in doing our part to support the efforts to find a cure. For every re-tweet that this blog entry gets in October, SpinWeb will donate $1 to The Central Indiana Affiliate of Susan G. Komen for the Cure.

Susan G. Komen for the Cure® was founded in 1982 on a promise made between two sisters – Nancy Goodman Brinker and her dying sister, Susan Goodman Komen. More than 20 years later, Komen is a global leader in the fight against breast cancer through its support of innovative breast cancer research grants, meritorious awards and educational, scientific and community outreach programs around the world. Together with its Affiliate Network, corporate partners and generous donors,  Komen has raised nearly $1 billion for the fight against breast cancer.

If you want to make a donation of your own, please visit the donation page on the Komen Indy website. Otherwise, simply click the "Tweet" button at the bottom of this blog and add your tweet to the count and we will make a $1 donation on your behalf. Thank you in advance for your help in spreading the word!

Let your people out of the box

Posted by: Michael Reynolds, President/CEO in General on Saturday, October 9, 2010

It seems like more and more businesses are starting to use online tools to market and communicate their messages. Social media is new and shiny and companies are eager to find more ways to broadcast commercials using Twitter, Facebook, and other social networks. However, many businesses are still applying marketing 1.0 tactics to web 2.0 tools.

Traditional marketing utilizes techniques that broadcast a message to the masses. Typically you would make a commercial, buy some airtime, and broadcast to your viewers for 30 seconds in hopes that the message sticks. Perhaps you would buy a billboard, paint it with your logo and message, and capture as many eyeballs as possible. These techniques do actually work.

Now that social media has opened up new channels of communication, business owners and marketers are eagerly applying the same tactics to new mediums but then sometimes question why it’s not working.

What some businesses are consistently failing to understand is that people are craving contact with actual people. Social media is a space for humans to communicate, not faceless logos. Rather than hiding behind your logo and keeping your employees a secret, empower everyone to exist online as a person. The CEO could benefit from blogging and signing his/her name to postings. The marketing director might actively talk to people on Twitter as a real person. Employees should be encouraged to connect with clients and associates on Facebook as themselves. Your team should be empowered to manage their own LinkedIn profiles as people.

This is an age of personal contact and human stories. Successful companies need to embrace the shift in customer expectations and blend corporate branding with personal branding. If asked what their most valuable assets are, most companies would quickly respond with “our people!” If that’s true, let them show their faces to the world and to your customers. If you are creating a positive environment and hiring the right people, your employees should be proud to represent your organization.

People want to do business with people they like and trust. Let your people out of the box and encourage them to have a real conversation with your customers.

The trouble with PayPal

Posted by: Guest Blog by Derek Bogard and Mike Seidle in General on Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Today's guest blog is written by Derek Bogard and Mike Seidle from Virtual Payment Systems.

If you want to take credit cards (we'll call them payment cards from here on because Visa, MasterCard and Discover all offer debit, gift, payroll and many other kinds of cards now) on your website, the first answer is usually PayPal. It's easy for your web developer to integrate and has no up-front or recurring cost, so it appeals to everyone's inner cheapskate. Unfortunately, PayPal isn't the best choice if your goal is to maximize sales.  

I'll explain that in a bit more detail, but first let's take a look at PayPal's two options for your website:

PayPal – Standard PayPal is an escrow account that you can deposit money into (or hook up to a checking account) and pay merchants that accept PayPal payments. There is no monthly charge to merchants, and it is very easy to add to your website. Unfortunately Merchants do pay processing fees (at higher rates than usual) – meaning that merchants don't get off the hook on the most expensive part of taking credit cards. On top of that, PayPal Standard requires buyers register or have an account to make a purchase. Unfortunately, setting up an account to make a payment takes a bit of time, and requires that you give PayPal access to your bank account and/or make a deposit from your credit card.  

PayPal Pro – This is a traditional “merchant account” set up that allows people to enter their credit card number and make a payment. PayPal for Not for Profits is the same product as PayPal Pro, except with better rates. There is nothing special about it, and more often than not, PayPal Pro's rates and features can be beat by other processors. Most importantly, PayPal Pro allows people to pay with a credit card without registering for an account.

In short, PayPal standard is easy to add to your website, but makes paying difficult. PayPal Pro has little to offer over any other traditional merchant processing gateway, and you can often save hundreds or thousands in processing fees by doing a little shopping.

Here are a few reasons PayPal Standard isn't good for business:

Bad checkout process for credit card payers. Unless someone already has PayPal and the payment card they want to use is hooked up to PayPal, the checkout process leaves a lot to be desired. On most sites that accept PayPal and also offer a “Pay with Credit Card” option, buyers will use “Pay with Credit Card” by a five to one margin.

Tough terms for merchants. PayPal's terms and conditions are tough, and leave the company incredibly broad discretion to cancel sales and give refunds to your customers compared to most merchant processors. All it takes is a quick Google search to get an idea what is wrong.

Glacially slow payouts. PayPal takes four to five days to pay merchants after a merchant manually requests money be moved to their account.

Limited Payouts. Merchants are limited in how much money they can move out of their escrow account to their bank or have money sent via check. Merchants are initially limited to $500 per month, so if you accept a payment of $1,500 it may take as long as three months to get your money.

Professional Alternatives to PayPal

Fortunately, there are two very good professional options, and SpinWeb is uniquely positioned to help you with both:

Merchant Account + Internet Payment Gateway (Traditional Internet Processing). If you've purchased at a website and entered your billing information on that website, you've used a payment gateway. Payment gateways allow a website to securely send in transactions for approval. Customers never need to leave your website, check out funnels (the web pages you have to fill in to make a payment) can be shortened and your website is able to immediately account for payments.

The chief disadvantage of traditional internet processing is that it requires your website to communicate server to server, which in turn requires either your software have built in support for a gateway or have a programmer write the software needed to communicate with the gateway. Most established web development firms like SpinWeb have off-the-shelf software that supports one or more gateways.

Third Party Portals. A new type of payment option has sprung up over the past few years that lets merchants shift the cost of accepting a payment card to the payer. Third party portal systems like VPS charge a portal courtesy fee to payers, and charge merchants a fixed price per month. The result is that the merchant does not have to pay 75-95% of the cost of accepting payment cards.

Third party portals are not for everyone as the courtesy fee must be acceptable to your customer base. Typically, that means if your business is accepting payments for services, subscriptions, taxes, utilities, court mandated payments, legal settlements, tuition or donations, third party portals like VPS are a great fit. If you sell products or are in a highly price sensitive market where free shipping is expected, customers will balk at being asked to pay any fees on top of the product price.

About the Authors

Derek Bogard is an expert on credit card processing with over 20 years of experience. Derek works with multiple processors to help clients find the best processing option for their unique needs. Derek is the Senior Vice President of Virtual Payment Systems. Connect with Derek on LinkeIn – Twitter - YouNoodle.

Mike Seidle is a software developer, e-Commerce expert and entrepreneur. Mike is the Chief Technology Officer of VPS, a leading third party portal service provider. Connect with Mike on LinkedIn – Twitter – YouNoodle.

New content editor on SpinWeb websites

Posted by: Michael Reynolds, President/CEO in General on Sunday, September 12, 2010

As you may know, websites from SpinWeb are more than just online brochures... they are information hubs. We make it very easy for our clients to update and manage their websites in order to keep them fresh and relevant.

You may have noticed a change in the look and feel of the content editor recently. Not only does it look different, but it includes a few functionality changes, as well.

So what has changed? Here are a few of the updates that you may notice as you manage your website:

• There are no more "paste from Word" and "paste as plain text" buttons. Now, everything you paste into a web page should automatically get properly formatted for the web. However, if anything doesn't get stripped or if something looks a bit odd, highlight everything and hit the Remove Formatting button in the toolbar. It is to the right of the Underline ability. This will strip out any odd formatting code that might have been left behind.
• Online help is easier to find. In the toolbar, there is a blue question mark icon on the right side that says "View online help" when you hover over it. You can click this and it will bring you to a help document that will help you use the editor correctly.
• The editor now has bigger buttons to make it easier to use. There is more space to click and more descriptive icons which should make it more usable.

We hope this new content editor makes it easier for you to manage your website. Please feel free to give us your feedback below.