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A big question for marketers that want to connect with businesses on Twitter is that they often don’t know where to look.  Part of the rub is that Twitter is predominantly a service used by individuals, not companies.   While you can use search.twitter.com advanced features to find individuals using specific criteria, it can be more productive for finding companies or commercial users of Twitter via a managed list.

Here are a few resources for finding Twitter accounts for brands, companies, executives, analysts and journalists via directories and lists.

Twibs.com - Alphabetical Directory and search engine of 5,368 businesses on Twitter with a voting option to see which profiles are featured on the home page. Each business Twitter account has a profile showing latest Tweets and others’ Tweets about that user.

Twellow.com - Directory and search engine of Twitter users. Allows customization of profiles, categories and addition of links to other social services. Grabs publicly available messages from Twitter then analyzes and organizes them into the categories found at Twellow.com. Users can add themselves also.  Features “Twellowhood” to find local Tweeple.

Tracking Twitter - The Electric Artists Twitter Tracker is a real-time listing of the top media, entertainment, and consumer product feeds EA is following on Twitter  - Broken down into the following categories: Brands, Media, Television and Celebrities.

A Wiki of Social Media Marketing Examples - This list published by Peter Kim shows much more than Twitter, but you can sort the list of brands using social media by type, then scroll down to the “Microblogging” section.

Media on Twitter - This is a wiki created by @PRsarahevans with the help of a few friends as a resource of contact information for journalists and bloggers around the world. 

Other useful Twitter user discovery lists and directories include:

Social Brand Index - Jonathan Kash maintiains this index of Twitter accounts sorted by: Business, Education, Entertainment, Executives & Notable Individuals, For Consumers, Government & Politics, Housing Market, Media, Non-Profit, Organizations, Service Providers, Social Properties, Technology and Travel.

Analyst Twitter Directory  - Listing of industry Analysts on Twitter by Carter Lusher of SageCircle.

Brands That Tweet - Collection of brand names Twitter accounts from Paul Dunay. Many of the accounts listed are squatters and not managed by the brands.

C-Level Tweeters - Another collection from Paul Dunay of CEOs, CTO’s and CMO’s. There are many more in the comments.

The Ultimate List of Moms on Twitter -  Wendy Piersall has assembled this list of Tweeting moms plus many more additions in the comments.

Ultimate Small Business Twitter List - Anita Campbell and friends have compiled this list of  people and organizations to consider following on Twitter if you want to keep your finger on the pulse of small businesses.

Which topical or categorically specific Twitter directories, wikis or lists did we miss?

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With concerns over the recession and its impact on marketing, we decided to run a TopRank Reader Poll to discover reader (and their networks) preferences for digital marketing tactics in 2009.  Companies world-wide are cutting costs as well as looking for creative, high impact and accountable marketing.  Our amazing readers both on Online Marketing Blog and followers at @leeodden helped uncover the top tactics.

Over the past 11 days 532 readers have cast 1559 votes for their 3 top digital marketing tactics for 2009 with Blogging, Twitter and Search Engine Optimization topping the list.  Equally interesting was that out of the top 10 tactics, 6 fall into the category of Social Media Marketing. See the full list below along with other statistics about where voters came from as well as info about the readership of Online Marketing Blog.

The question we asked was, “What 3 digital marketing channels & tactics will you emphasize in 2009?”  Here are the top ten tactics selected:

• Blogging (34%)
• Microblogging (Twitter) (29%)
• Search engine optimization (28%)
• Social network participation (Facebook, LinkedIn) (26%)
• Email marketing (17%)
• Social media monitoring & outreach (17%)
• Pay per click (14%)
• Blogger relations (12%)
• Video marketing (10%)
• Social media advertising (7%)

See results for the full poll of 45 different digital marketing tactics here.

Other stats and observations about this poll:

All 45 tactics received at least one vote, even “no holds barred spam”.   Email marketing rated higher than PPC which is surprising given the budgets spent on PPC vs email.  Some tactics are much easier to implement than others, or less expensive, which may explain a few of the top choices, such as Twitter.

Corporate web sites don’t rate in the top ten tactics. Does this mean the death of company web sites? At least in their current form it does. Some companies are succumbing to the social media perspective to extremes, like the Skittles site which has been simplified to a page of search results from Twitter on the Skittles name. Others are adding social features to their company sites to compliment existing messaging and functionality. I suggest somewhere in the middle is where many companies will end up by 3rd or 4th quarter this year.

For promotion on Twitter, we generated a unique URL through Cli.gs, which offers some handy statistics as well as URL shortening. See the image on the right for the traffic to the Cli.gs URL, promoted exclusively on Twitter and the countries that traffic came from.

Overall, there were 36,144 visits to the Poll blog post over 11 days. Visitors came primarily from: United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Australia and spent an average of 2 minutes and 27 seconds on the poll.

The breakdown of traffic sources for the poll include (stats from Clicky):

• Direct 13,010
• Search 12,198
• Links 5,335
• Social Media 4,654
• RSS Reader 652
• Email 295
• Ads 3

 The large number of visitors compared to the number of respondents resulted in about a 1% response rate. For a one question poll, that’s low and undoubtedly, the large number of options (45 digital marketing tactics) may have been overwhelming. 

Feedback on the poll ranged from (”3 tactics is not enough” to “There are way too many options to choose from” to suggestions for additional tactics including providing APIs and livestreaming content. 

By now, most companies (we hope) have their 2009 online marketing plans in place. Does this ranked order of tactics mean you should change up your online marketing mix? The answer is that digital marketing tactics should match the needs of the situation, company resources, the target market and end consumer preferences.  The proper tactical mix for an online marketing program could be anything from the 45 tactics listed in the poll and still be successful as long as they support a valid strategy.

Some companies are prepared for digital and social media marketing programs and many are not. To get “ready”, companies need to develop strategic plans and get up to speed on both best and worst practices.  This TopRank Reader Poll on Digital Marketing Tactics indicates a strong interest in social media marketing. Whether those methods of reaching and communicating with customers reconciles with existing marketing plans or not, companies would do well to allocate resources to some level of ongoing education, testing and development of expertise in the social media space.

Were the results surprising to you? Right on? We’d love to read your feedback and discussion. While future versions of this poll will actually be a multi-question survey, we’d love to get your feedback on making it a better tool for you.

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Whether you think “social media” is an overused term (yes, it is) or it’s a fad, or the evolution and revolution of the web, you don’t have to look far anymore for abundant examples of how companies, organizations and the U.S. Government are going social.

Social media can involve a variety of platforms and media ranging from social networks to blogs to image and video sharing. These forms of social technologies have been in use for years, individually and together in the form of integrated social media marketing campaigns or social media newsrooms.  

A few fairly recent examples of companies using several social media types together include:  the Ford Story web site created in conjunction with Ford’s efforts during the auto industry’s bid for financial help from the government, Sony Electronics Social Media site which is a revamped version of the Sony Electronics blog that includes photos, video and networking, and Best Buy Connect, which I’ll describe in more detail below.

The objective of Best Buy Connect is to showcase the people, behavior and unedited perspectives/ideas of those who power Best Buy. It humanizes the brand, increases accessibility and fuels transparency. This can affect current and future customer perceptions as well as future employees.

I talked to Dawn Bryant from Best Buy PR about the Best Buy Connect project in December and she said, “If people outside of this company could really feel the culture and drive that makes this place what it is, we can strengthen our reputation, goodwill, and ultimately grow our talent and grow the company. The beauty of that is that we didn’t need to create anything new, people are doing it and we don’t want to control it, we simply want to make it easier for the rest of the world to find the energy and human-ness”.

The site aggregates employee blogs, Twitter, YouTube and other sources including Tweets and blog posts from Barry Judge, Best Buy’s CMO.  Best Buy employees are already active with the social web, aggregating sources is good for many reasons including creating a central location for employee insights in different media as well as providing additional flavor for the personality of the people that make up the company - at all levels. 

A few tips of advice from Best Buy on a social media aggregator:

• A legal team can help with traditional concerns but it can be tricky since most companies aren’t approaching social media with an aggregator mentality. Many are still focused on controlling the message.
• Organizations will lose credibility pretty quickly if they persist in trying to control electronic mediums.  ”If you don’t like what you see out there as a company, you need to make changes on the inside”. The truth will manifest outside.
• Don’t mess with the authenticity of the medium (thus, aggregate and don’t try to control)
• This kind of project brings some risk, so think it through and update your PR crisis plan as necessary
• Spread the word grassroots style - promotion via social media using traditional PR tactics doesn’t work
• Revisit with those involved to stay relevant and up to speed with the technology
• Make guidelines public and easy to find - it’s about transparency

During the current economic situation, this kind of transparency is particularly interesting since most companies are probably tempted to control “the message” more now than ever as they deal with lower sales, staff changes & layoffs and inevitable belt tightening. I think by aggregating multiple sources, Best Buy is giving interested readers multiple stories to consider, which gives a broader picture of the organization. 

Best Buy Connect isn’t all there is to Best Buy’s social media efforts. Others include: askablueshirt.com,  at15.com,  forums.bestbuy.com,  geeksquad.com/news,  iambestbuy.com,  wolfinspires.com and of course, the famous blueshirtnation.com.  

Besides Dawn Bryant, who helped out a great deal with information for this post and is now working on her own PR consultancy, I’ve interviewed Gary Koelling from Best Buy, co-creator of BlueShirtNation and GiftTag with Steve Bendt who I have also talked to and I can say from those interactions and the social participation by corporate and employees, Best Buy really appears to be one of those companies that’s walking the talk both in terms of their public social media projects and the culture of the organization.

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Whether you think “social media” is an overused term (yes, it is) or it’s a fad, or the evolution and revolution of the web, you don’t have to look far anymore for abundant examples of how companies, organizations and the U.S. Government are going social.

Social media can involve a variety of platforms and media ranging from social networks to blogs to image and video sharing. These forms of social technologies have been in use for years, individually and together in the form of integrated social media marketing campaigns or social media newsrooms.  

A few fairly recent examples of companies using several social media types together include:  the Ford Story web site created in conjunction with Ford’s efforts during the auto industry’s bid for financial help from the government, Sony Electronics Social Media site which is a revamped version of the Sony Electronics blog that includes photos, video and networking, and Best Buy Connect, which I’ll describe in more detail below.

The objective of Best Buy Connect is to showcase the people, behavior and unedited perspectives/ideas of those who power Best Buy. It humanizes the brand, increases accessibility and fuels transparency. This can affect current and future customer perceptions as well as future employees.

I talked to Dawn Bryant from Best Buy PR about the Best Buy Connect project in December and she said, “If people outside of this company could really feel the culture and drive that makes this place what it is, we can strengthen our reputation, goodwill, and ultimately grow our talent and grow the company. The beauty of that is that we didn’t need to create anything new, people are doing it and we don’t want to control it, we simply want to make it easier for the rest of the world to find the energy and human-ness”.

The site aggregates employee blogs, Twitter, YouTube and other sources including Tweets and blog posts from Barry Judge, Best Buy’s CMO.  Best Buy employees are already active with the social web, aggregating sources is good for many reasons including creating a central location for employee insights in different media as well as providing additional flavor for the personality of the people that make up the company - at all levels. 

A few tips of advice from Best Buy on a social media aggregator:

• A legal team can help with traditional concerns but it can be tricky since most companies aren’t approaching social media with an aggregator mentality. Many are still focused on controlling the message.
• Organizations will lose credibility pretty quickly if they persist in trying to control electronic mediums.  ”If you don’t like what you see out there as a company, you need to make changes on the inside”. The truth will manifest outside.
• Don’t mess with the authenticity of the medium (thus, aggregate and don’t try to control)
• This kind of project brings some risk, so think it through and update your PR crisis plan as necessary
• Spread the word grassroots style - promotion via social media using traditional PR tactics doesn’t work
• Revisit with those involved to stay relevant and up to speed with the technology
• Make guidelines public and easy to find - it’s about transparency

During the current economic situation, this kind of transparency is particularly interesting since most companies are probably tempted to control “the message” more now than ever as they deal with lower sales, staff changes & layoffs and inevitable belt tightening. I think by aggregating multiple sources, Best Buy is giving interested readers multiple stories to consider, which gives a broader picture of the organization. 

Best Buy Connect isn’t all there is to Best Buy’s social media efforts. Others include: askablueshirt.com,  at15.com,  forums.bestbuy.com,  geeksquad.com/news,  iambestbuy.com,  wolfinspires.com and of course, the famous blueshirtnation.com.  

Besides Dawn Bryant, who helped out a great deal with information for this post and is now working on her own PR consultancy, I’ve interviewed Gary Koelling from Best Buy, co-creator of BlueShirtNation and GiftTag with Steve Bendt who I have also talked to and I can say from those interactions and the social participation by corporate and employees, Best Buy really appears to be one of those companies that’s walking the talk both in terms of their public social media projects and the culture of the organization.

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On our free webinar this week I mentioned “thin affiliate sites” and we also discussed it a bit on the latest IMTW Podcast (episode #11).

This is an important topic for those of you in Affiliate Marketing, so I wanted to expand on it a bit and explain exactly what it means and why you should avoid it…

Thin Affiliate Sites are basically doorway pages, or web pages/sites created solely for the purpose of being the go-between from the visitor to the merchant with no real other value added to the visitor experience.

Perry Marshall calls them an illegitimate businesses, Allan Gardyne talks about why “thin affiliate sites” are offensive to Google, and Michelle MacPhearson recently put out a video about a Social Media Slap. I put out a series last Fall on the Social Media Marketing Warning myself as well.

They’re all worth a study, and they all go hand in hand for Affiliate Marketers.

Why?

Allan Gardyne explained it well in his article, discussing Google’s perspective on Thin Affiliate Sites:

Google says: “We differentiate between affiliates that produce extra service, value, or content, and those that simply are duplicates of other sites, set up to boost traffic to other sites and earn a commission for it. The former ones are not Offensive and should be rated on the merits to the query. The latter ones are Offensive…

“Thin affiliate doorways are sites that usher people to a number of Affiliate programs, earning a commission for doing so, while providing little or no value-added content or service to the user. A site certainly has the right to try to earn income; we’re attempting to identify sites that do nothing but act as a commission-earning middleman.”

Google also says: “Do not call a page affiliate spam when an affiliation is only incidental to the message and purpose of a website. To determine whether participation in affiliate programs is central or incidental to the site’s existence, ask yourself this question: Would this site remain a coherent whole if the pages leading to the affiliate (merchant) were taken away?”

That probably counts out most affiliate sites. -source

These quotes were pulled from an internal document that Google uses to train human agents they hire to evaluate their search results for accuracy. You can read more about that document at the source.

The bottom line is that to be a successful affiliate, you have to add value to the sales process - and for your target market. You have to bring something to the table to add to the buying experience, whether that be helping in the decision making process, product reviews, tips on how to use the product, unique applications of the product, etc.

Otherwise you’re just throwing out affiliate links, or creating what is called “thin affiliate sites”. If there’s no added value, what reason would someone come through your link instead of just going straight to the source themselves?

And if there’s no added value for human visitors, what reason would Google have to rank your affiliate pages well?

Look at ways that you can add value to the process. Make sure your affiliate sites, or even affiliate pages on your site, could stand on their own content-wise even without the affiliate links.

Best,