Dan Perry

There are a number of companies using Twitter, but there’s a difference between using Twitter, and actually being an engaged member of the Twitter community. Let’s take a closer look at some of data, and see what we can find.

For each company noted in the original post, I’ve collected the following 6 points of data:

• Name of Company and Twitter URL
• Number of Followers (in general terms, the higher the better)
• Number of people following (the higher, the more engaged, although that’s up for debate)
• Date of most recent tweet (Are they currently engaged?)
• Date of 20th tweet (the homepage of each site shows the last 20 tweets. The farther back the date, the less they are updating, thus the less they’re engaged.)
• Notes

I’ve focused on 6 non-media companies using Twitter. There may be more, and I apologize if I left anyone out.

Technorati
4,014
26
October, 2007
April 2, 2007
Valiant effort, but it’s been abandoned. Shame, considering they have such a large, and seemingly still loyal audience.

Macworld Magazine
3,800
838
March 25, 2008
February 15, 2008
Seems like a really good mix. Not automatically following everyone, but definitely following a group. Semi-frequent, relevant updates (20 in the last 5 1/2 weeks). Tweets include info on reviews, events, and homepage design tweaks. Very impressive.

JetBlue
927
994
March 27, 2008
March 5, 2008
Frequent tweets are good to see. Like that they’re answering questions of users. Most of the latest 20 tweets are responses to questions (more legroom, etc.) Also, a shout out to The Guardian for a positive comment on the airline. Great mix.

Forrester Research
960
658
March 22, 2008
November 16, 2007
Started off slow, but they’ve posted 5 times in the past week, so they’re gaining steam. In addition, most of the first 15 posts included inbound links, while the most recent 5 are much more personal. Willing to bet that Jeremiah Owyang had a chat with the official Twitterer!

SouthWest Air
329
105
March 27, 2008
January 24, 2008
All 20 tweets are pointing inwards, with no @replys, which tells me they’re not comfortable with the tool yet, but at least they’re trying. Also, they’re following JetBlue. Competitive Intelligence? I’m guessing yes. Good for them; JetBlue is doing a lot of things right as far as Twitter is concerned.

Apple Inc.
1,529
0
January 28, 2008
June 11, 2007
Again, sort of a shame. No posts in two months, and most of the latest 20 are for products. Oddly, none of the tweets have links that point either in or outbound. For such a strong marketing company, I’m left less than thrilled.

Of the six reviewed, I’m most impressed with JetBlue and MacWorld Magazine.

I like JetBlue mainly because they’ve succeeded where a lot of companies don’t; they’re Twitter “persona” has a personality. By reading the tweets, I can almost picture the person typing them. With multiple decision-makers and multiple departments, that’s tough to do. Congrats.

MacWorld is a close second. If they would increase their tweets, but keep the same “feel”, they’d be giving JetBlue a run for their money.

What do you think? How should a company convey themselves via Twitter? Looking forward to your comments.

For those that haven’t seen the latest TV ad from Honda, at the end thy ask the viewer to search for “Shop Honda” on Yahoo. Why not just have them search for “Honda”? In fact, the same enhanced result comes up for both searches, so why add the word “Shop”?

I can think of a couple reasons.

1. By typing in the word “Shop”, they are putting the person in the shopping mindset. They’re telling the user that you can shop on the Honda website. Subtle, but good, but the most important reason is
2. Tracking. This is a brilliant idea from an analytics stand-point. Every company that produces TV ads wants and needs a way to measure how effective they are. By asking viewers to type in “Shop Honda” instead of just “Honda”, it allows them to see the increase in referrers for this specific term. If they have a baseline for daily/weekly/monthly searches for the term, by asking viewers to specifically type it in, they can measure the increase, and make assumptions based off that increase.

Ironically, none of this is relevant on any other search engine (only applicable on Yahoo). It may have been prudent to review this prior to launching this campaign. Here’s why.

When I type “Shop Honda” into Google (or MSN), the number 1 result is for an Australian site selling Honda motorcycles, lawnmowers and generators. Unfortunately, the Honda PPC ad is #3, meaning they’re probably not getting a lot of traffic. I would LOVE to see the increase in traffic for the Australian motorcycle site. I’d be willing to bet the site will be down at some point during this promotion due to a flood of unqualified traffic.

To sum it up: Love the thought, but see room for improvement on the execution.

Although it is great that Yahoo was able to provide Honda with this synergy, don’t forget the other search engines. At the least, supplement it with additional spending in the paid space.

A good friend of mine is planning a Bum Rush this weekend (March 29th to be exact) for the release of the book “Age of Conversation.” Here’s a synopsis of the book:

In what began as a half dare, the editors, Gavin Heaton and Drew McLellan challenged bloggers around the world to contribute one page - 400 words - on the topic of “conversation”. The resulting book, The Age of Conversation, brings together over 100 of the world’s leading marketers, writers, thinkers and creative innovators in a ground-breaking and unusual publication.

The goal is to produce as much buzz about the book this Saturday, March 29th. All the specifics are here, including info on the official Amazon link to use when purchasing the book.

Oh, before I forget, everything goes to charity, so be sure to buy the book this weekend, and join in all the social marketing activities!

Was doing some research into how companies are using Twitter, and thought the list was too good not to share. Enjoy, and let me know which ones I forgot in the comments.

NOTE: The number in parentheses is the number of followers as of March 20, 2008.

Companies on Twitter

Technorati (3,746)
MacWorld Magazine (3,517)
JetBlue (778)
Forrester Research (909)
SouthWest Air (124) - Interesting: Southwest Air is following JetBlue. Competitive Intelligence? (thanks @alscillitani)
British Airways (53)
Apple News (516)
Apple (1,474)

Publishing Companies on Twitter

KPNS San Diego (1,099)
Chicago Tribune (105)
Associated Press (297)
Columbus Dispatch (13)
NPR (827)
CNN (2,134)
Fox News (533)
ESPN (1,099)

BBC (In a class by themselves):

BBC Entertainment (476)
BBC News (1,799)
BBC Sport (499)
BBC Politics (249)
BBC Business (401)
BBC Sci-Tech (637)
BBC Breaking (774)
BBC Tech (1,983)

New York Times (NA) - 15 different feeds (like BBC)

Interesting:

David Letterman (966)
I Can Has Cheezburger (1,502)
Twitter Fiction (408) - Great works of fiction in 140 characters or less.
Brooklyn Museum (394)
San Francisco Zoo (182)
Chicago Weather (205)
Seattle Weather (182) - Other cities available too.
Amazon Deals (299)
Dell Outlet (615)
PRJobs (353) - Using Twitter for recruiting. Not bad.
PollsBoutique (47) - Interesting, quick polls.

OK, who did I forget?

I was attending a conference in Santa Barbara, and decided to do a little digging into local courses, to see if I should bring my clubs. Found this wonderful little gem perched right on the ocean, and couldn’t pass it up. There’s something about water on a golf course (whether a river, Great Lake, or ocean) that makes it special.

I arrived at the course around 1 p.m. in the afternoon on a weekday, and ended playing my round as a single. Luckily, the group in front of me was 6-7 holes ahead, which left plenty of time to take pictures (yay for me!)

The course starts out simple enough, with the first hole right off the clubhouse. Then, you go back and forth a few times until you reach the 5th, which is an uphill par 5.

The best part of the hole is that the closer you get to the green, the more the ocean comes into view. I ended up on the right side, just short of the green. Here’s the view.

After holing my chip (yeah, right) I remember seeing a few kite-flyers just south of the golf course. I got to tell you; there’s nothing like being stuck on a plane for 4 hours, then within a couple hours, standing on a golf course overlooking the ocean. The difference is like night and day.

The 6th is a par three that runs parallel to the ocean, so lots of wind to deal with. My tee shot was close enough for a birdie try, my first legitimate shot of the day. Of course, I missed it, but still felt glad walking away with a par.

As I worked my way back towards the clubhouse, I couldn’t stop thinking of how great it was to be playing golf, even by myself. My round was actually average, or a little below average, but the sense of being on the course, and knowing that I’d already had a great time, and that I wasn’t even half-way done is truly a great feeling.

The tenth hole isn’t long (only 381 from the black), but the approach is directly into the wind. The shot is also great in that there’s a drop-off behind the green. I chickened out, and left it short, but was still rewarded with this view.

The 11th is a 224 yard par 3, but is so far downhill, the camera doesn’t do it justice. It’s a very interesting shot, because you need to adjust not only for the wind (which is right in your face), but the drop in elevation as well. In addition, the green is narrow and long, which makes it that much tougher.

The best part of the 11th is that once you’re on the green, you’re probably 20 steps from the ocean. You can see it, hear it, and smell it. I can even smell it now as I type this. What a place to be.

The 12th, 13th and 14th all border the ocean, so it’s all OB on the right. One of the best views on the course is from the 12th tee box, looking back towards the 11th green.

As you work your way through the rest of the holes (trying to make up a few shots you lost from the distraction of the wonderful views), you finally come up on the 18th. It’s a great finishing hole for two reasons. One, it’s a par 3, which is rare, and 2, it’s all carry over water, with the wind at your back. At least the green is large enough to land a ball and (hopefully) stick it.

As you can probably tell, I loved playing this course. I was lucky enough to have had perfect weather, and to have the time (as a single) to really enjoy the course and the views it had to offer. If given the chance, I’d gladly play here again.

If you play it (or have in the past), be sure to comment below on your thoughts of the course.

Other California Golf Course Reviews:

Riviera Country Club, Pacific Palisades, California

Return to the Golf Course Reviews Homepage.

For anyone who had any doubt that the anchor text matters, behold, a personal example proving it. Doing a vanity search for my own name in Google produces the following SERP:

Note that the Flickr page is currently outranking the homepage of my site. Why is that? Well, this particular Flickr page is the main page for the Google Fridge Giveaway I held a couple months ago. So many people linked to the image using my name as anchor text, it is now outranking the root domain of my site!

The really interesting part is that nowhere on the Flickr page does it say “dan perry”. My username is “danperry.com”, but nowhere on the page do you see my name with a space between the first and last names.

Anchor text still rules, and I have the screenshot to prove it.

In mid-December of 2007, Flickr started showing statistics for Pro accounts (and for $20/year, why are YOU not a Pro?) There is a lot of good info that you can get from these stats. Definitely not the most robust stat platform I’ve seen, but valuable nonetheless. Let’s dig a little.

To get to your stats, select “You” from the top navigation, then “Your Stats”. There are 5 main items:

• Daily aggregate Views
• View Counts
• Most Viewed Photos
• Referrers
• Breakdown of Your Photos

Truthfully, only two of these are very interesting (Most Viewed Photos and Referrers.) It’s nice to see what photos of yours are popular, especially if you’re viewing the stats on a pretty regular basis. Sometimes a picture will get extremely popular, and increase in views by a wide margin in a short period of time. You’ll be able to keep track here.

The Referrer section is the fun one, especially for anyone with marketing running through their veins. You can see by the screenshot that yesterday, Google sent me 6 visitors, Yahoo Image Search sent me 15, etc.

Now for the fun part. By clicking on the Google link, I see that a visitor found my Flickr page by typing in “emerils delmonico steak house las vegas”. It also provides a clickable link, so I can see the result in Google’s SERP. Here’s what it looks like when I click through:

As you can see, my Flickr page is ranked #4 for this query. If that doesn’t get the marketing wheels turning, I don’t know what will. What can I do to take advantage of this? How about writing a review of this restaurant, posting it to my blog, and linking to the post from this image? There are lots of other opportunities as well. (Think of any? Share them in the comments.)

For an additional tip (we’ll call it Tip #2.5), be sure to optimize the TITLE of your image. That’s what search engines pull, and add to your clickable link in the SERP, as shown in the above image. If I would’ve only used “emerils” and “Delmonico” in the Description and/or as tags, I’d never be ranked #4 in Google for the term.

The stats updates once a day, so be sure to check back often. I’ve built it into my daily routine, so I’m checking it daily. This is also beneficial if one of your images gets picked up by a blog, and you don’t know it. You’ll see the name of the blog in the Referrers section.

Hope this helps!

My wife and I stayed at the Grand Traverse Resort, and played both golf courses (The Bear, a Jack Nicklaus design, and The Wolverine by Gary Player.) We were impressed with the resort itself, and the view from our room was great. For those regular readers of my reviews, you know it’s all about the golf, so let’s start with The Bear.

The Bear is considered the harder course of the two, and for good measure. Even the opening hole is a toughie. What I really liked about The Bear was that after the first couple holes, you are almost hidden from civilization (not unlike a lot of other Michigan golf courses). Starting with the third hole, you meander into an area that is as serene as it gets.

All throughout the back 9 you’re hidden from others. It’s such a great feeling, and so different than what I’m accustomed to (in the Chicago area).

The 9th hole is a par 3, with water hugging the right side. My advice; take an extra club, and if you play a draw, aim for the bunker. (I hit the bunker, but still took a 4. Drat!)

As you start the back 9 (and yes, there is a halfway house for restroom breaks and snacks), you see some of the houses/condos built on the course, but it isn’t anywhere near overdone. Just a few, sparse houses, which isn’t that bad.

The 15th is a great hole that plays downhill, and gives you the feeling that you can drive for a mile. Personally, my favorite kind of hole. Oddly, when we were on the tee, it was just starting to drizzle, and by the time we finished putting on the green, it was a borderline downpour. Of course, that (normally) wouldn’t stop us. By the time we finished 17, it was absolutely pouring. We hit tee shots on 18, lost one in the rough, and called it a day. The lightning started, and that was enough for us!

All in all, we both loved the course, loved the serenity, and would absolutely play it again.

Other Michigan Golf Course Reviews:

Bay Harbor Golf Club, Bay Harbor, Michigan
Arcadia Bluffs Golf Course, Arcadia, Michigan
Heather Golf Course, Boyne Highlands, Harbor Springs, Michigan
Arthur Hills Golf Course, Boyne Highlands, Harbor Springs, Michigan

Return to the Golf Course Reviews Homepage.

This tip will help you get more comments, and more traffic to your photos.

When you load a group of photos using the upload tool, upload all of them EXCEPT the best one. Once they’re all loaded, go to the next step and add to a Group, add tags, etc., then Save This Batch. After all of that is done, then go back to upload, and add your best picture. Here’s why.

The last photo you post shows up as the first photo in your list. Also, and more importantly, it shows up on your contacts homepage as “Photos from your Contacts”, and also under “Everyone’s Photos”, as shown in the following screenshot.

The reason you can’t just add it to the end of your queue is that Flickr doesn’t upload images in the exact order that they’re added. To make sure, use this little trick, and you’ll almost guarantee more views and comments on your best photos.

If you have the time/inclination, save a couple of your best shots, and upload one a day, or every other day. Lots of extra work, but probably worth the effort (if the pictures are good enough).

For example, I added the above image of gas prices in downtown Chicago as a single photo after uploading all the rest, and within a couple hours I had 20 views and 8 comments. Comments… Hooray!

Got a forward from a good friend of mine outlining Golfsmith’s Friends and Family weekend.

Basically, you can save 10% - 30% on just about everything (with the usual exclusions). You can also buy in-store, online, or via phone. if online, the promo code = FFM08.

The link to the golf coupon is here. Enjoy! I know I will.