While Twitter is a short blog platform, customers have the ability to be more creative and portray their thoughts in fewer words. The hashtag is an integral part of Twitter, everybody uses a Hashtag after every tweet. 

Companies can gather user-generated content, organize contests, and giveaways, and launch products with hashtag campaigns to generate more leads and sales.

Leveraging Twitter benefits on your website can be a brilliant strategy to maximize user engagement, enhance brand awareness, and boost conversion rates. Embedding a Twitter hashtag feed on website can work as social proof of your brand and encourages potential customers to invest in your brand.

Methods to embed Twitter Hashtag Feed on Website

Let’s see how brands can display their stunning Twitter Hashtag feeds on websites.

Method 1: Social Media Aggregators

Numerous social media aggregator platforms have made it easy for website owners to develop and enhance their website layouts with Twitter hashtag Feeds. One of the most used platforms is Taggbox. 

These platforms help you develop responsive and result-driven widgets that have the potential to engage your audience and increase your website dwell time. These aggregator platforms offer you customization and moderation features with which you can display relevant and personalized content to build trust. 

It also offers you with analytics feature which helps you measure and analyze your widget’s performance and help you with improvement. Let’s see how easy it is to develop and embed Twitter Hashtag Widgets on your website. 

Step-1: Create an account or log in to your existing social media aggregator account. 

Step-2: On the dashboard, tap on Add social feeds. 

Step-3: Choose Twitter as your source platform and in the next pop up choose your connection type from various options like a hashtag, handle, mention, list, etc.

Step-4: You will be redirected to the editor page. Design your widget as per your requirements using the customization feature. Choose from the numerous responsive themes and layouts, change the background color or keep it transparent, edit the font size, style, and much more. 

Step-5: You have full authority over what content you wish to display with the moderation feature. You can eliminate any irrelevant or unimportant content from your widget. 

Step-6: Once you have designed your widget, click Publish. 

Step-7: Choose the website building platform from HTML, Wix, WordPress, Shopify, etc. Adjust the width and height of your widget. 

Step-8: Copy the embed code provided below. 

Step-9: Paste this code into the backend of your webpage.

Step-10: Make the necessary changes if apply and tap Publish. 

Wasn’t that effortless? Simply follow the above steps and transform your website. You have now embedded the Twitter hashtag widget on your website effectively and creatively. 

Method 2: Using WordPress Plugin 

Approximately 76.5 million websites are on WordPress as it requires minimal coding skills to create an entire website that is highly responsive and impressive. Using WordPress plugins is one of the easiest ways to embed Twitter Hashtag feeds on your website.

Plugins help you develop well-customized, highly moderated, and responsive Twitter Hashtag widgets that have the ability to provide a smooth and robust user experience.

Here’s how you can install and activate the Plugin on your website. 

Step-1: Download the required plugin from the WordPress Directory.

Step-2: Upload the plugin in the plugin section, and click Activate to make it functional. 

Step-3: Go to the plugin, and find your widget. 

Step-4: Copy the  shortcode 

Step-5: Paste it into the editor section of the webpage you chose to embed the widget. 

Voila! You have your Twitter Hashtag Widget live on your website. 

Method 3: Twitter Self Embed

Twitter itself offers an option to embed Tweets on your website. This option is highly reliable as it is provided by Twitter itself and is extremely easy to use. However, this option comes with its limitations. Twitter currently does not allow users to embed multiple posts or feeds at a time. You can only embed one single tweet in one go, making this process time-consuming and complex.

This option is extremely useful if you wish to embed very few tweets on your website. Let’s see how. 

Step-1: Locate the Tweet you wish to embed 

Step-2: On the top right corner, hit the three dots menu option. 

Step-3: Choose Embed Post

Step-4: You will be redirected to the Twitter publisher website(https://publish.twitter.com/#), and copy the code displayed there. 

Step-5: Paste the embed code on your webpage section in your website building platform. 

Step-6: Make the necessary changes, adjust the widget parameters, and tap Publish

Congratulations! You have successfully embedded a Twitter post on your website. 

Conclusion

More than 85% of people follow reviews before making a purchase decision. Twitter is one of the best ways to gather reviews and display them on your website to give your visitors a nudge in making a purchase. Twitter Hashtag feed helps you gather reliable and authentic content from your users which can be incorporated to push your potential customers into trusting your brand. 

By the end of this blog, we have learned various methods of embedding the Twitter Hashtag Feed on your Website. These methods are responsive, user-friendly, result-driven, and have the potential to transform your website. Engaging websites help you increase your dwell time. While other factors help with increased conversion rates and overall brand growth.

The post How To Embed a Twitter Hashtag Feed on Website? appeared first on Tech Web Space.

Twitter birdies were recently dubious about Twitter SEO. There are speculations that the Twitter algorithms favor the tweets that keep people on the platform instead of redirecting them into a new one. Or maybe that’s what the people like and retweet the most? 

What is the real deal? 

It is actually a bit of both the theories. Let’s get into how and why. 

Theory: Twitter SEO provides more reach and engagement to Tweets with no link 

Twitteratis were happy and gay with their e-life. But then the pandemic kicked in, and we witnessed an influx of thousands, if not millions, of new Twitter accounts. The result? Competition increased, and a lot of influencers struggled in keeping up with their online presence. 

Apparently, various new Twitter accounts gained more than 5k followers in 3 months, while the old accounts grew merely 500 followers in that span. 

The Catch 

One of the anomalies among the growing accounts was the lack of links on their tweets. They only tweeted with the purpose of interaction. But the ones that witnessed a downfall would often link their blogging site, business profile, Etsy shop link, etc. Such links act as CTAs. 

On looking closely, we could literally witness that linkless tweets got 40% more retweets and likes. 

Confirmation: Linkless Tweets Do Get More Reach 

And that’s really annoying. For starters, Twitter is one of the most popular channels for digital advertising and marketing enthusiasts. 

From Tesla to Zomato- every corporation tries to reach its audience via tweets. And they link their products, websites, polls, and many more along with relevant images and stuff. 

But here’s a thing- a tweet with media like image, gif, or video performs really well. However, adding a link to it again decreases its engagement to a significant extent. 

Let’s get into the crux of the situation. There are two prominent reasons why the tweets with links get lesser engagement and reach. 

#1 The Effect Of Twitter’s Audience 

Twitter CTAs Divert Users 

When you add a Twitter link, you redirect them into a different app/website. Apparently, a tweet without a link would make people scroll the timeline further. And thus, it gets more traction. 

It is the most evident reason why tweets outperform the ones with a link. A button that says “read here” might be okay after a thread. But when you add something like that in the first tweet, you distract the viewer from clicking on the like or retweet icon. 

As a matter of fact, the people who haven’t read your Tweet link can’t comment or retweet with a comment. So, it limits the metrics of engaging audiences. 

Users Engage Better With A Linkless Tweet 

A tweet that doesn’t push anything encourages users to join a conversation. 

When they don’t have a link to click, they reply to what they read on their feed. Such promptness in tweets and retweets automatically improves their reach. 

It is contrary to when you post a link because the reaction time gets reduced. The viewers would have to first click on your link, read the reference URL, open Twitter again, and tweet back at you. 

Honestly, they are, most probably, going to skip all of these steps. 

#2 Algorithm Makes All The Difference 

Twitter tries to hold people to its timeline. 

With every upcoming update, Twitter is trying to make its platform more relatable and fun. Any content that increases the screen timing of a user on the app would serve the purpose. 

Remember, Twitter doesn’t want you to make people escape their platform every once in a while. Therefore, around 19/20 Tweets you look at on your screen at any given instant have no links. 

If you check the metrics, your Twitter SEO won’t be very high for the tweets that consist of a survey link. 

Social signals and engagement metrics matter 

Social signals are likes, comments, or any other human response you get on your social media post. 

When you start getting social signals as soon as you tweet, your Twitter SEO automatically escalates. 

Such things may or may not happen when you tweet with a link. Not everyone reads the links, so they’re probably going to skip it. Plus, the ones who read it would probably like it later. 

All-in-all, people are going to take time to start liking, sharing, retweeting, or even commenting on your tweets. As a result, your Twitter SEO goes a bit down. And that’s inevitable. 

Is Twitter Biased? 

Well, NO! 

First of all, Twitter SEO doesn’t discourage linked tweets. 

The decrease in reach and engagement that you see in these tweets results from two things that we discussed above- the user metrics and Twitter algorithms. 

If Twitter was so unhappy with links, they could always get rid of the option. But they won’t- because Tweets with links contain all kinds of content- from promotions and brand endorsements to informational toolkit and tutorials. 

Twitter would stop generating ad revenues and stop gaining a cross-promotional audience from other channels if they outrightly BAN Twitter links. 

Twitter doesn’t favor linkless tweets. 

Which makes us conclude that.. 

Do NOT Stop Linking Your Tweets 

Do This Instead 

There’s no point in getting discouraged about your linked tweets if you’re not getting the engagement and reach that you think you deserve. It’s the same for all the users on the platform. 

While it is not advisable to link all of your tweets, it is also not advisable to stop linking them all at once. 

Try to strike a balance between both of them. We observed a hike in the engagement level of CTA posts when there was more reach among a user’s linkless tweets. 

Thus, improve your overall Twitter SEO to get a better engagement in the long run. Here’s how you can do it: 

Optimize Your Profile 

Your profile handle and user bio act as meta-description for Google and act as a ranking factor. 

Use your Twitter handle as the alt text for your profile picture- rename the file before uploading it. Also, try to add relevant links and URLs into the bio. A blogging or YouTube link ranks the highest. Embed URLs using RocketLink. 

Also, add clickable links to your other social media handles using @mentions. Try to link to your company’s home page if you mention a website instead of a social media handle. 

Contrary to popular beliefs, avoid using hashtags in your bio. Popular tags change every hour, and Twitter ranks tweets, not profiles based on these tags. 

Follow Latest Trends 

It’s always worth tapping an ongoing topic every once in a while and stepping into the ongoing discussion. 

Don’t worry. You don’t have to stay opinionated on controversial socio-political matters. Understand what your brand should talk about, and get to the depth of it in every aspect. 

Engage in every conversation that revolves around the services that you provide. Everything that you tweet can be useful- from a random reply for a query to an elaborated PDF for an asked set of information. 

Don’t (Always) Include Images. 

Although media does captivate eyes, images don’t always stand out in tweets. 

Include images and gifs only when they look relevant and make the tweet look way more enticing. Or else, drop it. Sometimes, plain texts make way more sense. 

Also, Twitter offers a dark mode for its users now. So your Tweet screenshots would look cool anyway. 

Less Is More 

Twitter is all about one-liners. The entire community revolves around creating maximum impact in minimum possible words. 

The best-performing tweets are not always the shortest. But a maximum of them is, for sure, one-liners. Remember, your audience chooses Twitter over other social media when they want quick updates. And they’re not here for long-form stories. 

So, don’t be a long wall. People might as well scroll past. 

Use Hashtags 

Always pick the trending hashtags over the generic ones. 

Generic hashtags like #giveaway and #art is cool when you want to target a specific audience, but make sure you don’t overuse them in every tweet. 

Use the generic hashtags occasionally and focus more on the trending hashtags to get more page visits. However, never skip the use of generic tags, as they positively affect your Twitter SEO in the long run. 

Engage With Other Handles 

There’s no other social media that updates you with news at the pace Twitter does. Seldom do you find an active Twitter handle inactive for more than two hours. 

To keep up with the pace, you have to come up with a way of interacting with your pre-existing and potential audience regularly. Your Twitter SEO can go down terribly if you don’t tweet, retweet, reply to comments, and interact with other users every single day. 

Tools like Socinator let you schedule and automate your tweets, retweets, comments, follow-backs, etc., so that you can focus on other stuff while the software takes care of your online presence on Twitter. 

Wrapping It Up 

Your ROI via social media channels has a lot to do with how well you understand the algorithms and SEO and is not entirely dependent on how well you manage and promote your content. 

For the most part, marketers do have whims of the implications of Twitter SEO. But things may take an unexpected turn at times, leaving everyone confused. Think of it this way- tweets that don’t want to sell you something strike better than ones that do. 

Thus, it is better to personalize and improvise every once in a while. This way, when you actually have a sales pitch ready, you have more people reading it instead of scrolling past it. 

The post Twitter SEO: Do Tweets with Links Get Less Reach and Engagement? appeared first on Tech Web Space.

Most of the time product owners, company founders, or extremely talented professionals put all their efforts to build a world-class product and services. They get so much absorbed in the process that they don’t realize that the personal brand is as important as their company brand.

Are you also one of the professionals hide behind your company brand?

It’s time to come out of the shadow and show the world who you are, what is your story, why you made such a product, or provide such services that change the life of users.

So, what exactly personal branding is?

Personal branding as the name suggests making a person a brand! Just like any other top brands like Apple, Sony, Forbes; people are also a brand such as Jack Ma, Elon Musk, and more.

Projecting career journey, their achievements, their ideas, and perspective towards the trends make people a brand. Customer trust the brands so does people who make those brands.

Source: Maroonoak.com

Here is the list of the tips you should follow to build your personal brand:

#1 Make yourself reachable

A lot of people know that Elon Musk builds an electric car, they know his thought process and people can connect with him, interact with him through various channels.

You shouldn’t be like a star which people can just see but can’t reach.

“Out of all business decision-makers, 84 % start their buying process with a referral. And Google is the very first place people look after getting a referral.” – Salesbenchmarkindex

If you want to reach the people, you need to first make yourself reachable, approachable, and available for your audience.

When people search you on Google, it’s up to you what you want your audience to see in the results. Your personal website, social media marketing channels, your blog, your opinions, your speeches anything could come in the search results. You have to make sure you are there where people can find you and connect with you.

#2 Social media

Social media add credibility to your profile. People check the common connections you have on LinkedIn or the number of followers you have on Twitter or how frequently you interact with your audience.

“When brand messages are shared by employees on social media, they get 561 percent more reach than the same messages shared by the brand’s social media channels.”

Join the social media channels any of them, or all of them, it’s up to you. Social media help you understand your audience, what they want from you, or what you can offer them.

#3 Personal website

Having a personal website always to a good idea to build a personal brand, as the website talk about you, all your achievements, your journey, your challenges, and how you came so far.

The website ranks well in Google when it is completely SEO optimized. You can always add the right search terms and make the website rank in Google search engine result page. You can demonstrate your knowledge and expertise through your website.

For example, Gary Vaynerchuk is a social media influencer in his books, his blog is loved by the audience.

#4 Storytelling

People forget what they read or what they listen, they remember the emotions. When you talk about what you have done for a company people might forget that, because they receive a lot of information per day and it’s difficult to remember all.

People show more interest in WHY you do something. The reason should be good enough.

Present your journey in the form of a story, build an amazing story that the audience can connect with. The audience is more likely to remember the story which impacted their hearts more than brains. Create an inspiring story for your audience, to remember you.

For example, Jack Ma, people know the story behind his success and how he made such a huge empire. That is why people remember him, admire him, respect him.

#5 Content is the ultimate king

Generating a lot of content is not the key here anymore!

Make people’s life easy with your content

People do not care what you do, people care what you can offer them, or how you can help them.

“Ninety-two percent of people trust recommendations from individuals (even if they don’t know them) over brands.” – Nielsen research

Add value to your audience by helping them solve a problem or help them facing a challenge. Your words could change someone’s life, try your best to do if you can.

Creating effective content that adds value to your audience is the key. Sharing amazing insights based on your experience and expertise could help your audience to solve a problem.

Content helps you connect with your audience it should be a part of your personal branding strategy. Remember people look up to you to guide them, to help them.

What content you can share?

• Share your interviews
• Your experience in some technology
• Your areas of interest or expertise, skills
• You can share your video talks, quick video tips
• Actionable insights to overcome the challenges people might be facing
• Your business tips or productivity tips should help them learn something new from you
• Stories you learned something from
• Case studies to show some good examples which can help your audience
• Talk about what worked for you, for your brand and what not
• Do’s and Dont’s for people in business the same as you. They will learn from your experience.
• Share free information
• Provide free training so that people know your knowledge and expertise
• Share some good advice when people reach out to you as a goodwill
• You can share an EBook with your audience

Try to be helpful, share your knowledge with your audience.

That is how you connect with people through content marketing.

A small piece of content on your social media can keep the enthusiasm of your audience alive.

#6 Be genuine, Be authentic

“Be yourself, everyone else is already taken.” – Oscar Wilde

It is hard to project who you are in reality, but that’s what makes you stand out of the crowd. Today we’re people maintaining an image online, you can share your originality, your thought process, your ideas.

You should start sharing the information about you which is not sensitive or hurt your sentiments. A certain limit on sharing information can help you maintain a balance. You should not be too controversial or too neutral about things.

Why do people add information about the founders or person behind the business on the company about us? Because they know people trust people more than just products.

So sharing your story while being authentic helps your audience connect with you and your brand.

What you should talk about?

• You can talk about your struggles stories,
• Your experiences or how you overcome some of your bad habits,
• How you cracked your first interview or
• Sharing a couple of pictures of your struggling days,
• Your area of interest
• Your favorite book could be something they might want to know.

#7 Be alive, Be present – consistently

You can’t just make a post on social media and leave it for 10 days. You must have to be consistent with whatever strategy you are using to maintain your personal brand.

You have to show up where your audience is waiting for you. You have to maintain your post frequency, your content consistency. That is what keeps your audience hooked with your personal brand for a long time.

Make a pattern of your content even if you are not regular, so that people know when it comes out. Do not confuse your audience and let them think about it. Keep your audience informed.

For example, a digital marketing influencer Neil Patel is pretty much consistent with his presence online so that people can connect with his content and he keeps them engaged all the time.

#8 Build network, make more connections

Building an audience network by connecting with more people is an important thing. People do not invest in products; they would like to invest in people. They trust the people behind the particular product they are using.

So building your network, inviting more people to join you should be in your to-do list if you want to make a personal brand. These people could learn something from you, or you can learn something from your audience. You can generate more business because if people love your attitude they recommend your product or services to others. Connections are priceless, they help you directly or indirectly!

You should take some time to find the right people to connect with, nurture them, give them a helping hand without looking for immediate benefits. It helps you build a long term relationship.

#9 Gain trust through personal branding, don’t sale!

The main difference between a product and a brand is that products could be many in the market and people need to choose from them. But when it comes to brand people trust them, and stay loyal with them mostly.

To gain trust and that eventually drive sales for you. Don’t sell your personal brand. Tell your audience how you can add value to their lives and show them. They will learn and end up trusting you.

People love engaging the leaders they trust. People follow you when you lead them.

#10 Support your audience, then they will support you

Be there for your followers or your audience. Show your interest, express your thought, support them. Show people that you are there, they will reciprocate. But you need to initiate it! Once you win your loyal audience you won half war here. These the people who make you a personal brand.

Appreciate your audience, show kind gesture if they do something nice. Show your support in their learning process.

#11 Start your own blog

Starting your own blog help people to keep a tab on your recently published content on the web. They can subscribe to your content and can read it anytime as per their convenience. Having a blog, a good way to interact with people.

When people started asking me some questions about digital marketing which is my area of expertise, I started writing on social media, and people showed great interest in reading more, then started my own digital marketing blog – SEM Updates which talks about digital marketing, advertising, branding, and social media. The audience made me do it for them. And now I have they have an easy way to connect with me through emails, comments on my posts and share their feedback and suggestions.

You can keep your blog on your organization’s website or you can simply create a blog or personal website.

Consistently writing a blog always help people to connect with you for a long time. And here you can demonstrate your expertise as well.

For example, the video series shared by Darren Hardy receives a lot of engagement. People interact with him regularly and he keeps creating more content to solve their problems.

#12 Become a contributor on other top blogging sites

Writing on your own blog is always a good idea. But contributing some well-researched piece of content on top blogs in your niche would help you expand your audience reach.

Write the articles to showcase your skills and expertise. These articles will help your audience to know you better, to trust you. Guest blogging helps leaders to be found, to be searchable.

You can write long guides, articles, expert advice, opinion on the latest trends, case studies, etc. Keep it informational and insightful.

I started writing guest blogs 2 years ago, today my articles got featured in the top 20 digital marketing magazines and people loved the content, and connect with me to know more about it through my website SEM Updates and social media channels.

Conclusion

Your loyal audience is your true brand ambassadors. Win them! And you will win the rest easily. You are the face of your business, product, or your company. You need to tell the world who you are and WHY. That why it is a very important part of your personal brand. The stronger your ‘WHY’ is, the more people will connect with you. Tell them the story of ‘YOU’.

Build a legacy for which people remember you. Personal branding is not a project which can be finished in a year! It’s an ongoing process by which you build your name as a brand.

The post Top 12 Expert Tips for How to Build a Personal Brand appeared first on Tech Web Space.

The first thing I want to ask all those great minds who believe that by bulk posting their online page traffic would blow up – who gave you this idea? How do you know you are not over layering content over content thinking you’re going to come up with a delicious chocolate cake but in reality you’re making a really drippy cheesecake by adding too much! Better just drink it than eat. Do you know what that means?

It means that your cooking experience turned out to be a failure.

Bulk Posting – why not?

You might be thinking why we should not post a lot when trying to have a successful social media campaign. Here are a few to help you understand better.

Delayed Responses

If there is too much content for the audience to react to or read – most are likely to pass away without even a minuscule of attention. It is not because people would maybe start ignoring your posts no – no one ignores good content on purpose.

I remember I used to check up my favorite Facebook page every day if they had something new on their feed. However, I started getting busy with school and work and didn’t log in for days. It got frequent

I missed out on too many of its posts because I didn’t have the time to read them let alone comment or like. There had one less person in their traffic. It got difficult for me to keep up with their speed posting. Now, if any of their posts pop up in my feed

I read it. I like it. If it doesn’t then sorry I don’t have enough time to go about checking page to page. Lesson to this is that please, don’t overcrowd your page.

I even have Facebook pages of my own and because I know how I would have wanted to see posts I publish my content just that way. 1 post per day is okay and 2 are more than enough.

At most 4 or 5 – but don’t go overboard with the memes or anything at all. Not only would your likes and comments decrease but so would your traffic

why? You’re giving your audience everything already thus there would once come a time when you’d just fall short on ideas.

Keep everything in store. Slow and steady wins the race. No one likes a hullabaloo.

Unclear marketing or social media strategy

Bulk posting can lead you to zero creativity and/ or creative block which means you like many others might retort to sharing stuff from other pages or so – it isn’t bad but if it gets frequent than why should people even visit your page? There’s nothing new to it.

Moreover, when there are a lot of posts and people comment – they would expect you to reply to them – that’s just how it works. How many posts can you reply to given that the reply time is 1 hour?

As per many studies or so idk I read it somewhere I don’t even remember anymore – you have an hour to connect with the commenters. After that they lose interest in keeping up with the conversation or might get busy in something else. I figured I do that too so it must be the truth, no?

Risk of unwanted and inappropriate behavior

In the case of bulk posting, you attract a lot of different people to your content. This happens because of the diversity in your content. All sorts of people would give their opinions and/ or disagree with others. Some might abuse and some might bully. I remember, I once commented to not waste food on a post where people were walking on custard. I talked about Africa and oh my lord people called me a buzzkill and whatnot. A lot agreed too.

I hated it and never opened the page again. Thus, if you want a healthy activity on your page you need to make sure the posts aren’t so much that you don’t even have the slightest idea what happens where.

The post Constant Posting Isn’t As Good An Idea As You Might Think! appeared first on Tech Web Space.

A mindset that projects positivity in times of adversity. Try telling that to the world’s leading social media network, which suffered its biggest ever Facebook outage in history on March 13^th 2019.

It was a simple server configuration which led to the shutdown, prompting scenes of panic amongst the social media marketplace. Businesses, social media influencers and the general public joined together in venting their frustration at not being able to log into any of three social media networks with the Facebook family of apps.

It Wasn’t Just A Facebook Outage

As well as Facebook itself (including its ever-popular Messenger app), Instagram services were also down due to Facebook having acquired the platform in 2012. Additionally, WhatsApp, which was also purchased by Facebook in 2014, was part of the collateral damage, with its services being rendered “unavailable” during the outage. It took almost a full day for the social media juggernaut to reinstate business as usual, however many would say the damage had already been done.

It’s Not The First Time Either

Last year in September 2018, Facebook suffered a significant hack which resulted in 50 million accounts being exposed. In a coordinated attack, the hacker (who still remains unknown) used a combination of three separate bugs to attack Facebook’s framework, resulting in a breach of personal data which made headlines for all the wrong reasons. Quick to deny a re-occurrence of this activity, Facebook were swift in posting an official company update whilst the issues were being resolved. Ironically, this statement was released on the company’s Twitter account:

Entering ‘Damage Control Mode’

After almost 24 hours of no service, Facebook finally reinstated its operations, switching promptly to damage control. A Facebook spokesperson released a statement explaining, “Yesterday, we made a server configuration change that triggered a cascading series of issues. As a result, many people had difficulty accessing our apps and services.”

Facebook again took to its Twitter account to post an official statement letting its users know things were back to normal. Minimal fanfare. Business as usual.

Instagram took a more jovial approach to being back online, posting a GIF of Oprah Winfrey celebrating the news. A more creative approach and worthy of recognition given the circumstance.

The Impact Of The Facebook Outage

It goes without saying that on the day of the outage, millions of businesses suffered extensively. Any business, influencer, entrepreneur (or individual for that matter) who had planned to spend money on any of the social media platforms would’ve been faced with a day of lost revenue, missed business opportunities, miscommunication and a whole lot of frustration. After all, not many of us ever expect Facebook’s central operations to go down. With the outage occurring on Wednesday, by the time Thursday rolled around, Wall Street reacted and Facebook’s shares were down almost 3%.

Whilst countless companies had invested dollar spend into the Facebook family of apps, Facebook itself released a statement saying it was still investigating the overall impact, “including the possibility of refunds for advertisers.”

Given the company is estimated to pull in daily projected revenue of US$189 million, we’re pretty sure they can afford it. Will advertisers see any future refunds though? Watch this space…

When you look at the user base of Facebook, the social media giant estimates that 2.7 billion people worldwide use its apps, with 1.52 billion users utilising its services on a daily basis. A staggering level of global influence. So when something breaks, it truly is an issue affecting companies and individuals worldwide. To put this into perspective, popular website Down Detector graphed the outage below with some surprising results. It looks like Greenland, Russia, Canada and Alaska were the places to be that day!

So Who Were The ‘Winners’ On The Day?

In amongst the inferno of the Facebook outage, some savvy marketers seized the opportunity to snap up timely responses to the dramas unfolding online. In today’s modern business world, reactive social media is beginning to offer opportunists the chance to capitalise on events, providing relevant (and at times jovial) content which connects emotionally with frustrated users.

Let’s take a look at some of our favourites.

Winner: Twitter Becomes Flavour Of The Month

It seemed highly ironic that Facebook took to its Twitter profile to release its official company statements during the outage. As a popular news source with an active user base sending 500 million tweets daily, its global base of 261 million users grew in popularity, making it indeed a win for Twitter. Needless to say, a series of hashtags #facebookdown #instagramdown #whatsappdown and memes quickly began trending to capitalise on the scenario.

In the final quarter of 2018, Twitter released figures showcasing a user base of 126 million daily users, far inferior to Facebook’s 1,520 million, and 60 million fewer than SnapChat. Whilst the platform doesn’t have the same level of global reach as Facebook’s suite of apps, as a news source, it still stacks up as a crowd favourite for conversation and news-related activity.

In the Q4 and Fiscal Year 2018 Report released in February of this year, Twitter revealed ‘conversation’ as one of its four main investment priorities of 2019, stating; “Conversation is Twitter’s superpower. Promoting more conversation on Twitter ensures we are the place where people all around the world go to see and talk about what’s happening.” In light of recent events, it’s clear to see that the platform is already aligning with its goals so far this year.

Winner: Telegram Steps Up To The Plate

It didn’t take long for Pavel Durov (CEO of Telegram) to snap up the opportunity of releasing a targeted statement on his personal Telegram Channel the day after Facebook’s outage. Telegram is a free encrypted messaging service and is seen as a competitor to WhatsApp. It enjoys a healthy user base of 200 million active users (as of March 2018) and prides itself on a secure network which protects its users – who in fact fund the site through donations. A drastically different model compared to Facebook. It seems that it is this very difference which Pavel wanted to highlight in his update to his followers, focusing specifically on “true privacy” and a sudden influx of 3 million followers in the last 24 hours. Coincide or perhaps a subtle Facebook burn? You decide.

Winner: Soulja Boy’s Swift Product Plug

Stepping out of the corporate world and into the musical marketplace, American rapper Soulja Boy took to his personal account (again Twitter is victorious) to leverage the occasion to market his personal app. He claimed an outage like that of Facebook’s woes would “never happen to us” with an emoji and a ‘shake my head’ acronym to again take a swipe at Facebook’s situation. Whilst the likelihood of a hack, outage or technical issue is still a risk to any app on the market, this opportunistic post seized the moment with a timely post to highlight a problem, whilst providing a solution. Basic 101 marketing executed to perfection.

Winner: News Stations Prosper From The Facebook Outage

It’s official – when Facebook goes down, people turn to the news. Popular content analytics platform, Chartbeat reported a 3-5% increase in traffic news sites during the March 13^th Facebook outage. Whilst these numbers are notable, these numbers were even higher during Facebook’s 2018 outage, where an analysis of 4,000 online news sources revealed an increase of 11% in direct traffic, supported by a 22% surge in mobile traffic apps during the 45-minute outage.

Whilst some of us turn to Twitter to see what’s going on, popular news sites are still a preferred option for finding out the latest in global events. This activity was also reflected again last year when news sites lapped up a 20% increase in traffic during a YouTube outage in October 2018, with users flocking to news sources to figure out what the problem was.

Facebook has made a concerted effort to downgrade the importance of news content on its platform, with traffic from news publishing websites falling by 40% since the beginning of 2017. The outage was a definite win for news sites across the world, who will perhaps be hoping for a repeat of the occurrence in the near future.

Winner: Global ‘Outage’ Websites

As we’ve seen, even a platform as established as Facebook, is at risk of outages. In fact, any website or app in the online digital space is at risk of hacking, malware or system errors which can take their activity offline. So much so, there are now websites dedicated to reporting outages to alleviate widespread panic and concern. Sites such as IsItDownRightNow.com have spawned a new method of ascertaining if it’s just your app or phone having issues, or if there actually is an outage.

These sites extend far beyond social media outages, and handle updates surrounding popular services such as Google, Amazon, Paypal and AOL, as well as email platforms such as Yahoo Mail, Gmail, Hotmail and Outlook. Entertainment services are also included, with users being able to check on system performance for paid subscriptions such as Netflix and Xbox.

Too Many Other Winners To Mention

There were a host of other ‘winners’ and companies who benefited from increased traffic and engagement resulting from the outage. In fact, popular adult content websites were also winners during the outage, reporting surges in traffic – however we wanted to keep this article G rated. The ABC and Triple J’s popular ‘Hack’ radio program covered this in more detail in their recent article if you’re still curious.

The Facebook Outage In Summary

Our cell phones have become pocket computers providing instant access to whatever we need, wherever we are, whenever we need it. So once one of our trusted platforms goes down, we react instantly. Some go into panic mode, whilst others turn to alternative sources for information, entertainment and conversation. The Facebook family of apps are a common feature in the daily lives of many of us on this planet. It’s a habitual symptom of our modern era.

In his book ‘The Power Of Habit – Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business’, award-winning author, Charles Duhigg unravels the reality that habits aren’t destiny. He explores the notion that we have full control of our daily lives with an ability to rewire our habitual reactions to what he calls ‘triggers’. One might reflect that Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp are embedded into our daily lives as habitual activities. Symptomatic of boredom, ‘FOMO’ or curiosity.

Others view these social media platforms as a place of business, communication, and content consumption to remain ‘up to speed’ in current events. Others are simply losing their faith in the platforms due to scenarios like the March 13^th Facebook outage.

Whilst not many of us have a back-up plan if these apps continue to go offline, the recent events have most certainly given us all a new perspective to consider.

How will you react if/when it happens again?

The post The Facebook Outage of March 2019: Who Survived? appeared first on Tech Web Space.

July is the Twitter month for us, so for those who already use Twitter for their business, stay tuned to learn more about the way forward and tips on using Twitter for business!

For those of you who have not yet braved the waters of Twitter social networks, this article will provide you with compelling reasons to invite you to use Twitter for business, and then immerse yourself in creating your profile and on the how to start creating your profile on Twitter.

Why use Twitter for your business?

Twitter is a key player in online social media. In January of this year, Google bought Twitter Fabric (a Twitter development arm for apps) for an undisclosed amount for a good reason. With more than 330 million active Twitter accounts, there is a large audience.

Your ability to reach your target audience is enhanced by Twitter because it allows your users to see the latest news of your business in real time and provides a window on your business through what you share and promote.

Nearly 25% of verified Twitter users consider themselves journalists and often, newspaper news on Twitter before other platforms have a chance to write a report.

Whether you are local, national or even international, following reporters and creating links is a great way to share your own content with a wide audience, with the intention, of course, that some become paying customers.

Not surprisingly, according to current estimates, 93% of businesses use Twitter and more than half use it daily.

Another big advantage is how Twitter (and social media in general) has replaced traditional public relations. Companies using Twitter report a 20% improvement in customer relationship!

How to set up your Twitter account

Let’s describe how easy it is to create a Twitter account. Then we will see how to use it.

The first step of the Twitter setup:

1. To access this in your new account, you will need to click on the top right next to the word Tweet.
2. This will open a menu.
3. Select the top part where you see the username you entered when you registered.
4. You will be taken your Twitter profile page.
5. Now select Edit Profile as shown on the page.
6. Now you can enter your bio (limited to 160 alphanumeric characters)

* When writing your biography, start with what your company does or share what your subscribers can expect from you and end with something more personal.

Example 1: A certified sports coach whose passion is health, well-being and nutrition Vegan, shares tips and recipes to help you in your health journey. Wife and mom who loves the outdoors

Example 2: (let’s say this is mine): I share tips on digital marketing, websites, branding, and social media. Experienced and passionate web developer, e-commerce consultant, wife, mother, and chocoholic.

7. Update your profile photo (image size: 400 X 400)
8. Change your header image (image size: 1500 x 500)
9. Enter your location
10. Add to your website address
11. Choose your theme colors – ideally, match them to the colors of your company brand
12. Then click on “Save Changes”!

Now that you have your profile, it’s time to look for followers.

Finding your followers on Twitter

This part is both very easy and very difficult. Let me explain!

It’s easy to keep the subscribers of everyone looking to turn you into a customer. It’s much more difficult in reverse order.

Some accounts have hundreds of thousands of followers, but almost all are people looking for customers. It can be easy to get lost in a pit of marketers, so beware of suspicious accounts.

Look for people you know. Not only personally, but the brand personalities you trust. There is a very easy search function on the top right. Just type in a name and start checking.

You can also use Twitter’s advanced search to further refine your efforts.

People with a high number of “followers” and a low number of “followers” indicate that they cannot make good connections with their content, so be careful. Even if they follow you, it simply means they are watching to see if you are following it and as soon as you do, they will unsubscribe. A practice that I do not tolerate at all.

All accounts with about equal number of “Followers” and “Followers” could simply be people in a niche that follow each other but do not touch anyone outside that sphere. They can add but make sure it’s not ALL you add.

You can also use Twitter’s email tool to manage your email for possible connections stored in your email records of people with whom you have already emailed.

If you’re still stuck: try writing a list of brands like yours and add them. Tracking your competitors does not just tell you what’s popular in your industry, it’s also getting your name in front of their subscribers if you feel compelled to respond.

Another easy tip that we described recently during our Twitter month is to use hashtags to search for local businesses on Twitter.

Many of us are dealing locally, so be sure to check this post above.

Do not worry about your follower account and focus on quality rather than quantity.

Continue tweeting

It’s now time to start tweeting! It’s an opportunity for you to have 140 characters to sell to you in your own voice.

Try a few tweets on this link to the pages of your site, but do not overdo it. Concentrate on building an identity that builds trust in your subscribers.

Look for trusted voices in your industry where you can retweet and enjoy their content.

When you retweet, look for opportunities to link them to your business. If they share X and you build awareness around X, retweet and add a link to your corresponding page, whether it’s a static product page or a blog post. The goal is to reach them, as well as your users, in order to connect to the trusted authority.

An effective way to increase the viability of your tweet is to add an image to your tweet. It’s really easy and recently, Twitter has made it even easier with the addition of a GIF feature. You can search for fun and/or relevant GIFs directly in your Tweet. Just click under the text box where it is written GIF.

Have fun and share the content you like. Do not fall into the trap of using only Twitter for its own promotion.

Managing Twitter can seem tedious when you follow a lot of tweeps. Using tools to automate tasks and methods to organize users and flows is an essential part of your success as a Twitter professional!

Tool to manage your Twitter followers

Circleboom is a Twitter unfollow app and it’s an essential part of managing my Twitter account now. The free version allows you to easily empty your “unfollowers”, follow your followers and identify your inactive followers. The premium version includes many other tools and features that will help you automate Twitter tasks.

The post Steps To Get Started On Twitter For Your Business 2019 appeared first on Tech Web Space.