Friday, April 23, 2010

Marc Vasquez on getting connected

Marc Vasquez (@vasquez007) spoke yesterday to my Social Media class. He focused on Twitter. He made the following points.

Make it relevant.

No one cares about me, so don't talk about what iIm doing.
Instead provide information that is relevant to life.
The number one reward in social media is creating relevance to the audience.
Develop Informer habits, not "meformer"
Informers provide links to articles and relevant information that can
help others.
Informers invite others to join them in learning.
Informers direct others to where they can find what they need.
Informers have three times as many followers as meformers.

Pass the 70/20/10 test

70 percent of your time should be:
  • Transforming news and events into insight
  • Answering "Where does our company fit into this story/link?"
20 percent of your time should be connecting with others.
  • Engage in conversation, network and give others a chance to talk
  • Mention others in your tweets
10 percent of your time you can be chatting.
  • Chit chat about yourself on one in 10 tweets.
  • Leave out the most boring parts of your day.
  • It's okay to be a "meformer" once in a while, but keep it to a minimum.
Be interesting by providing entertaining information.
  • See @TheOnion or @SomeECards if you want to see entertainment.
Use good writing tips.
  • Find the drama: "You're sharing a story, right?"
  • Push the verb: "exploit vs. announces."
  • Choose interesting nouns: "sting" or "ring" vs. "yearlong multiagency initiative."
  • Getting tweeted is like currency on the web.
  • Share new information and novel ideas.
  • Include links if you want people to spread the word.
  • Use full words, don't shrink wrap.
  • Punctuate (but forget the semicolon).
  • Write like you're writing a headline.
  • Don't whine on the internet.
  • Make it all about the reader.
  • Have a personality.
  • Make it conversational.
  • Use the active voice, second person.
  • Keep it short.
  • Start with a headline.

Get clicked - Make your 140 characters go further.
  • Link it.
  • Make a serial of your messages.
  • Don't use all your characters so you can retweet (RT).

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