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Thoughts on Twitter and how you can use the service to reach business objectives.

Adding Twitter’s Tweet Button To Your WordPress Blog

Found in: Twitter, Wordpress Tips
Friday
August 13, 2010
No Comments

This week, Twitter has announced a new feature: the official Tweet Button. This feature will allow publishers to add an official button to share their content via Twitter. Mashable has more information on the button and what this means for publishers and site owners.

I really like this idea and hope that this leads to more analytics from Twitter, similar to the Facebook Insights program.

I’ve started adding this new button to a few sites that I maintain and thought I’d share the (very simple) code for adding this to a WordPress blog template so that it appears on every post.

On this blog, I’m displaying the Twitter Button with a horizontal count. The link is a direct link to the blog post and with the title of the post serving as the Twitter content. In order to populate that, I’ve inserted the following code into the WordPress loop in my template:


<?php $twitVia = "noturnonred"; ?>
<a href="http://twitter.com/share" class="twitter-share-button" data-url="<?php the_permalink(); ?>" data-text="<?php the_title(); ?>" data-count="horizontal" data-via="<?php echo $twitVia; ?>">
  Tweet
</a>
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>

If you want to put this on your blog, just change the first variable from noturnonred to your own Twitter account name. After that, the permalink and page title will be properly inserted into the link and your button should appear on your blog posts.

For more information on the options available or to generate a different Tweet Button, visit the Tweet Button page on Twitter.

Announcing: Retailer Twitter Aggregation

Found in: Site News, Twitter, Use of Social Media
Monday
January 12, 2009
3 Comments

picture-1

I was having a conversation with a colleague of mine who suggested that it would be interesting to see a list of all retailers’ Twitter accounts on one page. We agreed that it would be interesting to see how different retailers are using the same medium – are they promoting sales, offering ideas for their market, reaching out to customers?

Continue reading this post »

JCPenney, Twitter, YouTube and Viral Marketing

Found in: Effective Use Of, Retail, Tips for Using, Twitter, Use of Social Media
Wednesday
November 26, 2008
5 Comments

JCPenney has unveiled an intriguing viral marketing campaign called “Beware of the Doghouse”. The concept is simple: Men should get the “right” gifts for their spouses in order to avoid being put in the doghouse. There’s a website and a four minute video out there supporting this campaign.

The campaign is also supported by a Facebook tie-in that some feel is a poorly executed social media strategy. I tend to agree on this one – I’d rather see retailers put their effort into making lasting relationships with their customers, rather than gimicky Facebook apps.

However, I can’t completely fault JCPenney for their social media efforts as the retailer has also unveiled a Twitter account that, so far, seems to be a very effective use of the service. The account (@askJCP) was started last week and there seems to be a real person behind it (rather than a marketing script). Yesterday, there were a lot of Tweets about the Doghouse viral video, which does seem a bit forced and contrived. But there’s also some helpful information about the retailer and I hope they continue to engage people on Twitter and attempt to make solid relationships.

I should also point out that JCPenney uses Youtube to broadcast a weekly run down of the hot items and promotions in-store. Their channel is updated weekly and the commercials are well produced and informative. I believe the retailer started these broadcasts with the Back to School season.

I’m interested to see how the viral video plays out. I personally found it funny and remarkable well produced. So far, it’s getting some reaction on Twitter but people generally see the humor in the video. But frankly, I wonder if JCPenney had any second thoughts about rolling out their campaign so shortly after another major brand has such a nightmare on their hands last week.

Last week, the people being the ibuprofen Motrin unveiled a viral video campaign that most people agreed missed the mark. Reaction was quick and fierce and turned into a PR nightmare for the company.

I am enthused by JCPenney’s use of social media, social networks, and other available web applications. I hope that marks a long term commitment on behalf of the retailer and all of this doesn’t disappear after Christmas.

Here’s hoping other retailers continue to hop on the social media bandwagon and aim to connect with their customers online.

Kohl’s launches online-only deals; Why aren’t they using Twitter?

Found in: Tips for Using, Twitter
Wednesday
November 5, 2008
1 Comment

Last week, Kohl’s discussed some of their holiday marketing strategies with the press. They plan on increasing their spending to capture a larger share of the dwindling holiday sales figures, with increased emphasis on direct mail, e-mail campaigns, and online-only sale prices.

Going into the holiday season, the retailer, which has seen Web sales increase by more than 50% so far this year, is making a big push online as well. It plans to send email blasts out to 15 million shoppers — more than double the number that it had on its electronic mailing list last year — and it’s offering one or two specially discounted items on Kohls.com every day through Christmas.

Their website has started advertising these online-only specials on their homepage, with a callout that went live this week (apparently):

This is a very interesting shift in marketing for the retailer that has, until now, always offered consistent pricing in-store and online. Their marketing campaigns even advertised this fact and, for years, coupons that were sent out to customers, in direct mail, were also good online.

Kohl’s needs to be aggressive in order to increase their market share this holiday season. This is a perfect opportunity for the retailer to utilize a service, like Twitter, to advertise these special, limited-time promotions. It is obvious that they want to aggressively promote these deals as they they are utilizing prime screen real estate to push the deal. It even appears that they already have a Twitter account, although with zero posts. They should be using this to promote the daily deals and reach more people, one-on-one.

The usage of the service would be simply – they’d just need to follow the example that other retailers have set to announce daily deals. I look at the Amazon MP3 Deal of the Day and Woot.com as two examples of retailers using the service to effectively promote daily deals.

Maybe the first step, for a retailer like Kohl’s, is the use the service to promote daily deals and then they can evolve into using the service to engage customers in conversation. I think there is always more room for retailers to use Twitter to reach their customers.

What do you think?

Handbag Planet Using Social Media to Launch Retail Store

Found in: Branding, Effective Use Of, Tips for Using, Twitter, Use of Social Media
Tuesday
October 14, 2008
2 Comments

Handbag Planet is a new store that is launching tomorrow and they are using social media to promote their site launch. They’re giving away 24 handbags over the course of the launch day and entries to the contest are gained through posting about the site to blogs, Twitter, Facebook, and other social networks.

The contest and social media campaign must be working as word of mouth seems to be strong on various networks. A search on Twitter returns 6 pages of results while a Google blog search returns close to 3,000 mentions. I’d assume that the positive word of mouth could lead into positive first day sales. If they also offer good customer service and a strong product, they can hopefully convert some of the first day customers into repeat customers.

I’m very interested to see how this plays out, how the website looks, and how their long term prospects look. I’ll sure be looking at the site tomorrow to check it out and, of course, with this blog post I wil hpefully win my fiancee a new handbag. It’s a win-win for all of us.