Archive for April, 2010

Monitor Multiple Twitter Feeds

Tuesday, April 27th, 2010

One of my many responsibilities is the eCampaign Co-Chair for Kasich for Ohio Governor in Butler County. My primary focus is on social media for the county. Each county has a different Tweeter account. The one I manage in Butler County is @ButlerForKasich. I have been experimenting with Twitter and have discovered a lot of useful information, not only for Kasich in Butler County but also for Ohio in general. This was done by using a tool I have mentioned before: TweetDeck.

I have many, many feeds that I have created and follow in TweetDeck. TweetDeck allows you to define feeds using various parameters. For example, you could set the parameter to a group of users or anyone who uses certain keywords. The really nice thing is you can set up multiple columns in the TweetDeck application so you can see these feeds simultaneously. In @ButlerForKasich’s case, I have columns for all followers, mentions (Tweets with a specific users name), and a column each for keywords “kasich” and “strickland” (the incumbent Democrat is Gov. Ted Strickland).

This set up has allowed me to track everything that is going on with the governors race in Butler County and Ohio. We have started building up followers since I can quickly and effectively engage local Twitters. And, interestingly enough, I have discovered the Strickland campaign Butler County, specifically @ButlerForKasich. My account is the only county account that gets challenged by Strickland’s anti-Kasich campaign “Kasich Facts.” This typically involves inaccurate information but on one interesting occasion @KasichFacts tried to trick people into thinking we supported the anti-Kasich campaign. Take a look at these two Tweets:

As you can see, my Tweet was promoting Kasich’s statewide website, www.KasichForOhio.com. However, @KasichFacts took that Tweet and substituted in the anti-Kasich site, www.KasichFacts.com, and made it look like a re-tweet. They technically did not misquote us because they did not use the “RT” prefix to signify a re-tweet. I find these types of tricks underhanded, but at least the Strickland campaign’s insecurity towards the @ButlerForKasich account shows that I am doing my job.

The moral of the story in today’s post is you need to monitor multiple Twitter feeds. It will help you find opportunities and identify threats. There is a wealth of information out there, don’t pass it up!

The next post will be May 11th.

Posted in Butler County, Butler for Kasich, Kasich, Kasich Facts, TweetDeck, Twitter | 162 Comments »

Data Driven Decisions

Tuesday, April 13th, 2010

For a long time I have been passively gathering followers, gaining a handful a day. However, recently I noticed my number of Twitter followers plateauing. I was getting new followers, but apparently my new followers were equal to the number of people who unfollow me. I was stuck at 1090 follows. This went on for a week or two before I concluded this was a new trend for my account. I decided to start investigating why this was happening.

My first suspect was an auto-DM (direct message) directing new followers to this blog. An auto-DM is a standard message that is sent out automatically typically after someone follows you. I had set it up a long time ago when I was playing around with different tools and then basically forgot about it. I have heard arguments against auto-DMs but my Twitter followers were growing and hits to my blog was growing (albeit slowly). Since the trend was changing on my Twitter side I began to investigate the relationship more in depth. I dug into the data that my Google Analytics account had gathered on traffic for this blog. Hits were growing but where were they coming from? Search engine traffic was better than what I hoped. Facebook referrals were remaining healthy. Twitter referrals where a different story. In the past month Twitter had sent a whopping 1 hit. My Twitter strategy obviously needed rethinking. It also meant I can get rid of the auto-DM without hurting traffic to my blog. Within a day or two of turning the auto-DM off, my number of Twitter followers clearly broke the resistance level of 1090 and has returned to growth. It is now time for me to start working on improving my Twitter strategy.

This was a process and decision driven by numbers. The problem was identified through numbers (a flat trend of 1090 followers). A possible solution was identified through numbers (no one was clicking on the link in the auto-DM). The solution was confirmed by numbers (follower growth picked up again and surpassed 1090). I do however want to point out that the process was not completely numbers. It took a little bit of intuition and background knowledge to start off the search with the auto-DM. However, the numbers made the difference between a guess and a solution.

This process can be applied to any number of situations. The great thing about the Internet is that it is easy to track numbers. Where are visitors coming from? Where are they going? What are they doing while on your site. Many social media tools are even now providing in depth analytic tools. Make sure you are using these assets and apply the data to your campaigns. You’ll even be able to solve bigger problems than my 1090 ceiling of Twitter followers.

The next post will be April 27th.

Posted in Google Analytics, Twitter, analytics, social media | 191 Comments »