Articles

Marketing On Twitter

Part 1: Introduction To Twitter

Twitter is a hot new social networking site. To learn about Twitter, go to Mashable, the "Social Media Guide" (www.mashable.com). This article is aimed at Twitter newbies. It will focus on using Twitter for business and marketing.

You may be familiar with other social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook. Members interact by posting messages on each other's pages. Twitter works the same way. Twitter members post short text messages (up to 140 characters) to their group of friends. Other friends respond, creating a circle of conversation.

As a Twitter member, you can send direct messages to other users, but only to those who "follow" your "tweets." One of your marketing goals on Twitter is to grow a list of interactive followers. If someone follows you on Twitter, it's considered good etiquette to follow them back (known as "re-following"). You can often establish a large list of followers just by following a lot of people.

On Twitter, re-following is good etiquette.

Twitter is searchable, so you can find people tweeting on just about every subject. When viewing Twitter search results, keep in mind you're seeing just fragments of a conversation. Twitter Search can be a good way to find people who share your interests.

To get an idea of how Twitter works, do a Twitter search for "Etsy" or "Artfire," two artisan ecommerce websites. This search turns up a large number of artists selling their handcrafted wares online.

Despite its simplicity, Twitter has many applications. Celebrities use Twitter to communicate quickly with their fan base. (Ashton Kucher, from the TV show, "That 70's Show" has over 4 million followers on Twitter.) Politicians use it to get the vote out or poll their constituents. Businesses use Twitter to advertise new products and services. You can even set up a private list to use as your own company bulletin board.

To start using Twitter, go to www.twitter.com and create an account. Type some terms in the Search box. When you find a member whose posts interest you, follow that person. Chances are they'll follow you back. Twitter is a fun way to rub shoulders with the rich and famous.

Part 2: Getting Started On Twitter

The first step of a journey may be the most difficult. So let's get started. Go to Twitter.com, pick your user name, and create your account. On your Twitter home page (www.twitter.com/YourUserID), type a term in the search box and click on the search icon. Don't bother posting any messages (also called updates or tweets) yet. What you'll see are snippets of separate conversations from Twitter users.

At this point you can click on a Twitterer's user name or icon to visit their home page and see their latest updates. When you find a user whose tweets are interesting, go to their home page and click on the Follow button at the top of the page. Following a member allows their posts to appear on your home page. It also lets them send you direct messages via the Twitter messaging system.

You can use the Find People link at the top of Twitter pages to find interesting people to follow. Many businesses are also using Twitter. For example, typing in the words "Palo Alto" (my hometown) in Twitter's Find People search brings up links from Palo Alto Westin Hotel to Palo Alto Daily News. They're all using Twitter!

Although you can read other members' tweets by following them or using Search, at this point you still can't communicate directly with other Twitterers. As mentioned in Part 1, you can only contact members who follow you. In the next part of this series, we'll look at one of the most important Twitter topics: how to grow your follower list.

Note: Twitter Search can find members physically near you. Try using the following format:

near:"your town" within:5mi

Part 3: Growing Your Followers

On Twitter you can only communicate directly with users who "follow" your updates. When you post an update on Twitter (an update is a short message of up to 140 characters), your message appears on your followers' Twitter home page. You can also send direct messages to your followers via Twitter's messaging system.

Without followers, you can still publish updates and hope someone finds your messages via a keyword search. But you will be missing out on the essential conversational nature of Twitter. Therefore, especially for online marketers, growing your followers list is an important task.

At first glance, it seems pretty straightforward: the more followers, the better, right? But things are not that simple. As with a brick and mortar store, you don't just want traffic -- you want the right kind of traffic.

Growing your followers list is easy. Follow a bunch of people, and many of them will follow you back (a common practice, called "re-following" on Twitter). Follow ten thousand people, and three or four thousand of them will probably follow you back. There are a number of applications developed to help Twitter users manage their follower lists. Twitter discourages use of automated follow and unfollow tools as they dilute the personal networking experience.

If you are an online merchant, you'll want to dissociate yourself from opportunists and scammers who follow you just to get free advertising. Some Twitterers post constant spam. Prune those followers from your Twitter marketing account using the Block tool.

Unless you are a celebrity, your best approach to marketing on Twitter is to build a small "word-of-mouth" network of followers who will recommend your product to their friends. Online networking makes this super-easy because everyone can mail all of their friends by "retweeting" your updates! You can cross-post your messages to Facebook and give an RSS feed or podcast. Keep your network updated by posting friendly notes, links to pages of interest, ideas, news stories, personal updates, company news and new business promotions.

Hint: When you post links to websites, the URL can be very long. Since you're limited to 140 characters, use a URL-shortening service like TinyURL (www.tinyurl.com) to create a shortened url. You can customize your Tiny URL and even install their widget on your Bookmarks toolbar. The link http://tinyurl.com/foothillweb points to Foothill Web Design.

Part 4: Retweets and Mentions

On Twitter, retweeting is the coin of the realm.

One way you can promote your network on Twitter is by "retweeting," or reposting other members' tweets. Retweeting lets you share interesting content and also help out members of your network. To retweet a message, just hover your mouse over the message and click on the Retweet button. Everyone likes to have their tweets retweeted, and if you do this often enough, most tweople (Twitter users) will return the favor.

Twitter is a social networking tool, even when it's social networking used for business. The best way to experience Twitter is to become an active participant in your group. Publish useful content. Take the time to get to know people in your network.

A good way to get noticed on Twitter is by getting "mentioned." Another Twitter user can mention you by putting @YourUserName within their tweet, which creates a link back to your profile. The mention appears on the home pages of that user's followers. As above, mentioning others is a good way to get mentioned.

Installing Joomla On Your PC

This quick-start guide explains how to install Joomla on your own PC. Experiment with your "localhost" installation before making changes to your live site. Complete documentation is available at Joomla.org.

Installing Joomla on a PC ("localhost")

Download and install XAMPP from ApacheFriends at http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp.html. Choose the full version of XAMPP, not the lite version.
Download latest version of Joomla from http://www.joomla.org. Extract the ZIP file archive to a directory under
```
c:/xampp/htdocs
```
For example, create a folder in
```
c:/xampp/htdocs/joomla
```
and extract the Joomla files there.
Start the XAMPP Control Panel via the Windows Start menu, then start Apache server and MySQL database by clicking the Apache and MySQL Start buttons.
Start your browser, then type http://localhost in your browser's address bar, and press the Enter key. This brings up the XAMPP Welcome Screen.
From the XAMPP Welcome Screen, go to phpMyAdmin by clicking on the phpMyAdmin menu item.
In phpMyAdmin, type a short descriptive name for your database in the Create New Database field. (Take note of the database name. You will need it later in the installation.) Click the Create Database button.
Now you are ready to start the Joomla installation! Using your web browser, navigate to the new Joomla folder. If you followed the instructions above, your new Joomla folder is located at:
```
http://localhost/joomla
```
You should now see the Joomla Installation screen. (Remember, XAMPP must be running first!) Pick your language and click the Next button at the top of the screen.
Click the Next button to continue the installation. On the Connection Settings page, use the following settings:
Database type: mysql
Host Name: localhost
User Name: root
Password: nothing, leave it blank!
Database Name: The descriptive name you chose for your database in phpMyAdmin (see above)
Continue clicking the Next button. Don't worry about FTP settings for now. You can leave them blank.
On the Main Configuration page, type in a name for your site, as well as your email address and a password to the Administrator area. Remember your password!

Be sure to install the sample data by clicking the Install Sample Data button.
When you receive a confirmation that the files were installed, then click the Next button.
If all goes well, you should see a Congratulations screen. But before you can view your site, you must delete the installation folder from your hard drive. It is located at
```
c:/xampp/htdocs/joomla/installation <-- delete this folder only!
```
After deleting your installation folder you can view your website's frontend by going to:
```
http://localhost/joomla
```
You can also log in to the backend as a Super Administrator by going to
```
http://localhost/joomla/administrator
```
Administrator login:

User Name: admin
Password: The password you chose during installation

Where to go from here

Complete documentation and discussion forum is available at www.joomla.org.

Adding JavaScript To Joomla

This article explains briefly how to add JavaScript to your Joomla articles. Keep in mind that all the steps must be completed before your script will work.

First download and install JIncludes, a plugin for Joomla. JIncludes is available for free under the GNU Public License (GPL) from the Joomla Extensions Directory. Be sure to read the instructions and always back up your system before making any changes.

JIncludes lets you add several types of code (JavaScript, PHP, HTML) to your Joomla articles. The procedure for each type of code differs slightly. For JavaScript code, you'll create an external file, then link to that file using JIncludes (see below).

Install The JIncludes Plugin

Install the JIncludes plugin in the normal way, using Joomla's Extension Manager. Before you can use JIncludes, you must configure it.

Go to the Plugin Manager (Extensions>>Plugin Manager).
Click on the "Content - JIncludes" plugin to configure it.
Remember to enable the plugin.

Remember to enable the JIncludes plugin via the Plugin Manager.

By default, JIncludes lets you define 30 "snippets," which are a combination of code plus an associated key to call the code. The procedure for JavaScript is slightly different, however; instead of entering the code, you enter a path to an external .js file.

Create An External JavaScript File

In the example below, I created an external JavaScript file named formverify.js and uploaded the file to the default Joomla script folder. I gave the keyname "formverify" to the snippet. Now when I want to include that JavaScript file, I simply put the keyname in double curly braces within the article.

Launch The Snippet

Launch the snippet by putting the keyname, enclosed in double curly braces, somewhere within your Joomla article. Example (note: without the asterisk!),

{{ formverify }*}

Configuring The Plugin Parameters

Below is a screenshot of the JIncludes Plugin Edit page. There are three pieces of information shown: the keyname, a URL, and the type of code. Notice that the URL to the external javascript file is a relative URL, as indicated by the preceding forward slash.

("Relative" means relative to the home directory. In other words, we write:

/media/system/js/formverify.js

and not

http://www.foothillwebdesign.com/media/system/js/formverify.js.)

Verify The Source Code

Finally, you can verify the success of the plugin by looking at the page's source code. Here we see the JavaScript file has been successfully included.

source-code

Where to go from here

JIncludes' author provides extensive documentation online at http://joomlacode.org/gf/project/jincludes/wiki/.

Google SEO Best Practices

The Google Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide

In this article, I'll cover the main points of Google's Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide. This valuable ten-point checklist explains the most important steps you can take to "improve your site's interaction with both users and search engines."

Please download the guide and keep it handy. Refer to the guide as you read this article. As you read through the guide, keep in mind your website should be appealing to both Googlebot and the human users who visit your site.

Before we address the steps individually, we'll follow Google's format by explaining the difference between paid (or sponsored) links and Google's "organic" search results. On any Google search results page, you are likely to see paid search results in addition to those returned by the search engine. Naturally your goal is to rank higher in the organic (non-paid) search results. Your page rank is an indication of your website's popularity. Also, links from organic search results are preferable because they are free.

The higher your appearance in the search engine results pages (SERPs), the more visitor traffic you can expect from the search engines. Since a large part of page rank is based on inbound links to your website, search engine traffic can be compared to positive word-of-mouth advertising.

The Title Tag

The Title tag is a bit of HTML code that goes within your webpage. The Title tag tells Google the name of your page, which is displayed in the Title Bar of your browser window. Google recommends you use your business name, followed by three areas of focus, for your Title tag. (More on this later.)

Google recommends that you use unique titles for each page. Since each page title is unique, it represents your best opportunity to describe the page. Ideally, your "three main focus areas" should consist of keywords you expect visitors to follow in searching for your site.

Use of a unique title tag allows you to more specifically describe your webpage. In Google's search results page, the title appears directly above your short "meta-description." To get an example of this, go on Google and see how your site is actually listed.

Always use the title tag to (1) remind Google of your business name, and (2) provide Google with several relevant keywords describing your site. Example:

Foothill Web Design - Business Web Design, SEO and eMarketing

In Joomla you set the page title from the Menu Item>>System Parameters page.