SoFla Web Studio Blog

Know your number to get Re-tweets...

Posting to twitter is a great way to get your message out. It lets people who are following you or, more likely, following a key phrase or word, know that you have something to say of value. However, more important than your single is the ability for users to re-tweet (RT) your message. This makes it possible for your tweet to actually go viral and gain a significant amount of viewers. Thus getting your message out to a wider audience.

If your tweet uses all 140 allowed characters (thats all you can post folks) then when some one attempts to retweet, they will have to edit or truncate your post in order to fit the extra re-tweet tag. Some people may not retweet because of this, or your message may get lost because it has been deleted (for instance, the last characters of an important link).

This means that it is best practice is to leave extra space at the end of your tweet so that people can easily retweet your message without any hesitation. But how many spaces should you leave? Twittercism has a great formula to calculate your twitter number.

Your Number = length of username + 8 characters

That makes my number 16.

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Push Gmail is finally here for the iphone

gmail-pushBack in at the beginning of 2009 Google launched the beta of Google Sync. Google sync allowed Google users to synchronize their Gmail contacts and Google Calendar events to their iPhones or Windows Mobile devices (Android natively syncs data). Syncing mail was not included but that was until now. Google now has push email for Gmail. Now if I could only figure out how to sync my gmail (Google Apps) with MicroSoft Outlook and my Iphone.

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Start thinking like a publisher or a socializer...

perryellis

At recent Internet & Technology Summit, Keynote speaker Mike Volpe, VP of Inbound Marketing @ hubspot.com, presented "The Future of Marketing".

Mike wrapped up his presentation with the following two points:

  1. Stop thinking like an advertiser or marketer
  2. Start thinking like a publisher or a socializer

After hearing this, I thought of a recent email I had received from Perry Ellis. I am subscribed to the Perry Ellis newsletter, because I shop at their store and I like the fact that they honor mobile coupons. Their emails generally contain a deal of some sort and when I bring in my Iphone with the email, I get the credit. I don't have to print anything (saving paper and the environment) and I don't have to remember to do anything (since I always have my phone with me).

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Just add a form to my website...

So many times we are told to just put a sign-up form on a website. No discussion about goals, required fields, actions, validations or anything whatsoever. Just "Put a newsletter sign up form on my website", is many times all we are told. Asking any questions from our team usually results in a futile lecture about web principles and usability that the client will never understand or retain. It's nice to know that there are some people out there who "get it". I came across this article several months ago. Although it is a year old (which is ages in Internet time) the principles are still true today and I can see them holding ground for the foreseeable future. Check out the Web Form Design Patterns Part 1 & Part 2 for a great read on all of the thought that goes into creating those "simple" sign-up forms.

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Learn business strategies for twitter from the source.

twitter101Forget paying for a seminar on social media. Twitter has released a definitive "how-to" guide to help get your business on board the social media bandwagon. Twitter 101 for business is chock full of good information for those companies, especially small business, who have yet to exploit the benefits of this new marketing channel. If you have some time to do some reading, (it is quite lengthy and comprehensive) I would suggest to take a look at the guide. You will have to spend some time with it, but no one ever said that a social media strategy was quick. (except maybe those salesman in an infomercial or 1 hour seminar)

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