Connie Bensen

When I think of viral, the first thing I think of is YouTube. In particular the WillItBlend videos. But YouTube isn’t for everyone. I have the capability to make live videos and screencasts, but umm I’m not compelled to do so. I’ll leave that to a master like Gary V.

Two days ago Slideshare sent me an email about my Case Study for using Twitter for Lead Gen:

Your presentation is currently being featured on the SlideShare homepage by our editorial team.

Today I received another email that said:

"Twitter: a Case for Lead Generation" is being tweeted more than any other document on SlideShare right now. So we’ve put it on the homepage of SlideShare.net (in the "Hot on Twitter" section).

It was odd because I had tweeted a link, but Twitter was quiet (or so I thought…). In looking at the stat’s on Slideshare I saw that SocialMediaToday and it’s sister site, MyVenturePad had published my blog post and were receiving a LOT of traffic. There were almost 1500 views between them. Next question, what was driving the traffic? A quick search for the phrase, “Twitter Engagement”, that’s a part of my blog title showed that there was some serious retweeting happening on Twitter!

Slideshare is an active community with great shareable features

For the past three years I’ve been studying why things happen in social networks. Then I unravel them and share the steps so that you can apply them to your situations. And this one is easy to replicate. It will work for YouTube as much as Slideshare too!

First, a quick explanation of Slideshare. Skip this if you’re familiar with it.

Slideshare is a free site where you can host your powerpoint decks. It’s a really active community. They totally understand the concept of ‘shareable’ which is so imperative for word of mouth (some call it viral). (This is one of the main principles that Andy Sernovitz asserts and I highly recommend that you read his book, Word of Mouth Marketing.)

The secret sauce is that it allows you to embed your presentation in your post and others can download it and also embed it. They also offer a nice widget that I’ve put on the side of my blog AND are integrated into Facebook and LinkedIn so my friends there can see my newest decks.  It can grow legs! and Slideshare keeps track of the number of views. The community in Slideshare can favorite presentations and comment on them. So Slideshare has done a great job of helping their users connect!

How can you make Slideshare + SocialMediaToday + Twitter = Viral

I’ll list the steps. You provide the ideas

1. Create your content and post on a shareable site such as Slideshare or YouTube
2. Write a blog post and embed the content
3. Syndicate your blog to great communities like SocialMediaToday.com, MyVenturePad.com, etc
4. They and many others tweeted the link x 180 + times!
5. Engage with the communities on Slideshare, Socialmediatoday & Twitter. Here’s an article I wrote on syndicating your blog. (That post is how I got my job at Techrigy)
6. Watch the ripple effect afterwards and thank those that blog about it and further share my content.

Here’s the stat’s on this adventure 24 hours after publishing my blog post:

On Slideshare.net (note that it’s been downloaded 48 times)

SocialMediaToday.com – 1529 views

MyVenturePad.com – 1147 views

Tonite I was asked a question. Will this work for a company and their brand? Of course! I realized yesterday that Dell had followed me on Slideshare. And their decks are quite interesting! Check out the So So Social Media Strategy. (Note that my deck is also branded & has my contact info.)

Another point is that you don’t need the reason of speaking at events to create and post slide decks. There are also people in Slideshare community that have never posted a deck (but what fun is that?!)

So what are you waiting for? Get busy, and make a slide deck. Link it up here. Need ideas? Go explore the decks in Slideshare.

Special thanks go to Beth Harte & Ann Handley for inviting us to share Techrigy’s story in Marketing Prof’s Twitter Success Case Studies and again at their virtual event! (It forced me to make the slide deck!)

And thanks to Adam Helweh @SecretSushi for his thumbs down on my first draft. You can thank him for his honesty & for pushing me to be more creative!

Now I want to see your work!

I know that some  of my readers are still learning about Twitter. So I have to share an excellent compendium of Twitter resources by my friend Paul Chaney:

Start here if Twitter is completely new to you

And this is part 3.5 in his series.

Follow me @cbensen & I’ll follow you back

Enjoy & don’t be shy about asking for help.

I’m at the Social Media Strategies Conference in San Francisco. Yesterday Twitter was mentioned often so I offered to present some business cases for using it. You can watch the conference being live streamed.

Twitter has become a valuable tool for business use. There are so many opportunities to leverage it’s capabilities in a  way that is relevant & provides value.

• Customer Relations
  • @netsolcares   @comcastcares
• Crisis Communications
  • opportunity to respond immediately before it escalates to blogs & other channels
• Crowd Sourcing
  • product development,
  • survey customer satisfaction
• Build Brand & Communications
  • offer assistance – How can we help you? @ChrisBrogan style
  • brand presence
• Lead Generation
  • new markets
• Customer references – star items – refer people to the URL of favorites
  • I made one for Techrigy SM2
  • how to create it
    • use search.twitter.com to search for pertinent tweets
    • open tweet & star them which will propogate the favorites
• Announce new services, coupons & information
  • @digitalscrap
  • no push marketing please
• Professional Networking

Laura Fitton @pistachio has a comparison chart for the various microblogging platforms.

• For searching past twitter conversations: search.twitter.com
• For monitoring twitter: tweetbeep.com (there is also tweetscan, but it’s not as good)

This has replaced my Google Reader for RSS feeds. By monitoring the tweets in my topic area (ex: social media monitoring and my own name including misspellings) they gather the latest URL’s pertinent to my area of interest

If you’re just getting started with Twitter I have a post, Twitter 101, with links to resources for getting started. I also provide consulting in the areas of social networking & branding. Feel free to email me at conniebensen @ gmail.com

And definitely follow me on Twitter!  @cbensen

What business value does Twitter provide you with? And what are your success stories?

Here’s  a book that’s soon to be published that has my endorsement – I’ve read parts of it. (It’s written by a Minnesotan, so it has to be good! @jojeda )

Twitter Means Business: How Microblogging can Help or Hurt Your Company

Twitter is a great tool. It has allowed me to develop relationships with people on a personal level. The power is that it’s a conversation that is only as disruptive as you allow it to be. And rich relationships can be fostered because Twitter allows a window into other people’s lives.

Ogilvy PR has two good posts on corporate use of Twitter:

• Why Twitter should matter to you
• Twitter Best practices
• Why Twitter Should Matter To You: Twustomer Service Edition

There are many resources for getting started. Here are some of the best:

• Caroline Middlebrook has a great guide
• Twitter in Plain English (a clever and fun two-minute video)
• How to use Twitter (a blogger’s solid step-by-step)
• 10 Ways to use Twitter
• List of Twitter101 posts on Delicious thanks to Warren Sukernek

Have patience with Twitter. Until you have some follow people & they follow you it will seem meaningless. Who you follow depends on your interests. Make sure that you keep adding new people because that will give you the opportunity to expand your horizons. Some must follows in my opinion:

• Follow me & I will follow you back
• @chrisbrogan @jowyang @mackcollier @conniereece @kanter
• Community Managers & Social Media 
  • to add your twitter link – password is build
• List of Brands on Twitter
• Enterprise use of Twitter
  • @pistachio – Laura Fitton is creating a business
  • Dell has a hierarchy set up
• Subject Areas in Twitter
  • @fgossieaux – Marketing 2.0 & Community Expert
  • @LeeOdden – SEO expert
  • @AlbertMaruggi @PhilBaumann – health field

Ideas to find more interesting people:

If you see an interesting conversation click on the @person & see if they will add value to your Twitter stream. Follow them if they look interesting.

Twellow.com is a tool that allows you to search twitter bio’s. What is your area of interest? Mashable has an article on more uses for Twellow.

And Twitter may seem odd & disjointed. Here are two tools to see the messages in a threaded format:

• Quotably.com puts the conversations into perspective (it’s not perfect though).
• Tweeder.com thanks to my sister for that

Searching Twitter

• Search.Twitter.com. This is a great tool & you can subscribe to the RSS for the search & monitor it. It’s a great tool for building brand.
• Ways to Search Twitter thanks to @webword

How my use of Twitter has evolved as my number of followers increased

• And I have a number of articles on Twitter.

What are your favorite resources for getting started with Twitter? What advice would you give someone just dipping their toes in? Feel free to leave your Twitter must follows in the comments.

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