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Twitter Should Not be a Last Resort for Your Customer Service Department

Twitter Should Not be a Last Resort for Your Customer Service Department

I find that Twitter is slowly becoming a “last resort” for consumers who are having issues with businesses and cannot get them resolved through the normal means of phoning or emailing customer support.  We’ve seen it time and time again, made famous by @Dooce and the Maytag washing machine incident, but repeated by many others, including myself which I documented in my how to deal with angry customers on Twitter post, that a tweet is the most direct and quickest way of getting out your message to the world in realtime when all else fails.  As Twitter membership grew by …

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Think About It: Your Twitter Username is Your New Email Address

Think About It: Your Twitter Username is Your New Email Address

Let’s face it: Since email as we know it today started developing from the 1960s, a lot has changed.  The way we use email, the way that businesses try to get our email addresses to opt-us-in to their newsletters, and the fact that we tend to use email less and less as we send more and more messages through social media websites means that it may be time to start looking for more convenient forms of representing our virtual mailboxes beyond email that might exist.  In fact, a recent report by Hubspot mentioned that Facebook is now our most popular …

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8 Things I Learned about Social Media and Social Networking in 24 Hours in Toronto

8 Things I Learned about Social Media and Social Networking in 24 Hours in Toronto

If you’ve been following my blog, you already know that I won a free ticket to fly to Toronto thanks to Virgin America’s #VXToronto Twitter campaign.  I’ll write about the “Virgin” experience later.  Right now I want to share with you all what I learned on this trip. I’ve had many people ask me, “Was the trip worth it?”  My answer, of course, is “Of course!”  Because what I was doing in Toronto is what I do in social media everyday: meet new people, have interesting conversations, share information, and learn a lot of new things, things that help advance …

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How Your Business Can Twitter Better with Hootsuite

How Your Business Can Twitter Better with Hootsuite

Today’s blog post was contributed by my guest, Ann Smarty, who I have gotten to know through her managing the LinkedIn Subgroup “The Guest Blogger.”   Her post is about my preferred Twitter tool which I am also passionate about and use in my own social media consulting and implementation, Hootsuite, which just today released new Social CRM features allowing you to filter tweets by Klout score or keyword.  Ann is also currently Director of Media for BlueGlass. Business power Tweeters can rejoice – the tool you need is finally here. Any business who has a social media policy and uses …

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Is Your Customer Service Ready for Social Media? The Virgin America Twitter Campaign Case Study.

Is Your Customer Service Ready for Social Media? The Virgin America Twitter Campaign Case Study.

As I consult with companies on their social media strategies, which often means discussing options when considering social media campaigns, I was ecstatic that I was recently chosen for a free flight on Virgin America’s Twitter campaign to help spread the word about their new Los Angeles and San Francisco to Toronto non-stop flights (click here for full disclosure).  I am obviously excited to be able to participate in a social media campaign as a participant so that I can utilize this experience to better advise my clients in the future.  Another plus for me is that it will make me …

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What is a Twitter Chat and HOW TO: Easily Join a Twitter Chat Using TweetGrid

What is a Twitter Chat and HOW TO: Easily Join a Twitter Chat Using TweetGrid

There are many reasons why people use hashtags (#) on Twitter: categorizing a tweet, joining a trending topic conversation, or tweeting about a live event while virtually networking with attendees.  Without your knowing it, some of those using hashtags may even be engaging in Twitter Chats: You can safely assume that anyone using a hashtag that ends in “chat” is doing so.  Last week I announced that Perri Gorman and myself would be starting a new #JobChat every Tuesday from 5 to 6 PST, so for those of you who are still new to the concept, I have created a …

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Questions on? Come Join Me on Twitter on #JobChat!

Questions on? Come Join Me on Twitter on #JobChat!

What is #JobChat?  JobChat was created by Perri Gorman (@BeTheButterfly) and Neal Schaffer (@NealSchaffer) to serve the need of professionals and job seekers looking for advice on professional networking as well as how professionals can better utilize social media as part of their career management, personal branding and job search. Perri and Neal bring a unique combination of contrasting yet similar skills to the table to host the live chat sessions on Twitter: Perri is a former financial services recruiter and Neal a former technology sales and business development executive who also played the role of a hiring manager. Both are currently social media consultants helping both professionals …

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6 Proof Points that Japan is Leading the US on Twitter

6 Proof Points that Japan is Leading the US on Twitter

Image via Wikipedia In January of 2008 Twitter announced that the Japanese company Digital Garage had invested in them and would create an official Twitter Japan presence.  In October of 2009 Twitter announced the new release of a localized application for the Japanese cell phone market.  From January to June of 2009 it was reported that the number of users in Japan grew from about 200,000 to almost 800,000.  In March, 2010 that number jumped up to 7.52 million users and it was reported that 14% of global tweets are now originating from Japan.  But it’s more than just that: The …

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How Often Should You Update Your Social Media Status?

How Often Should You Update Your Social Media Status?

Image by jyoseph via Flickr I often get asked about whether it makes sense to completely integrate Twitter Tweets with your LinkedIn Status Update, so that every tweet shows up on LinkedIn.  Obviously there is no one correct answer for this as it depends on your objective and LinkedIn Brand.  However, the question brings to mind a greater issue: How often should you update your social media status on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Your Blog?

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What are Your Favorite Twitter Pet Peeves? Here are My Top 10. [VIDEO]

What are Your Favorite Twitter Pet Peeves? Here are My Top 10. [VIDEO]

Almost a year ago I wrote about my favorite LinkedIn pet peeves, which spurned a great list of 25 LinkedIn etiquette tips that arose from a discussion on the LinkedIn Executive Suite Group.  As I tend to spend more time on Twitter than LinkedIn these days, I think it’s time to focus on that social networking platform and talk about what drives me, and others, crazy about what users are doing on it. Just as with LinkedIn, Twitter has its own unique sets of functionalities which creates the potential for different types of behavior.  With Twitter, the root of most …

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