Tweeting Influence: Should You Share More Than You Consume?

What does every truly influential person have in common when it comes to, say, Twitter? If you just look at celebrities, one very obvious trait their profiles all share is that they have vastly more followers than people they follow.

What does that mean?

Well, they share more than they consume.

Sure, it’s their celebrity status that has elevated them to the point where people want to follow them because of their name, not their content, but that does not change the fact that the influential Tweeter in question is sharing content much more than they are consuming it.

In no way am I downplaying the importance of consuming content. That is how we gain the knowledge and insight that foster our creative, industrious minds. There is no reason why my retweeting an insightful article makes me any less influential, but the dirty secret is that retweets and reblogs alone do nothing to make you influential. They just make you a reference.

How else do bloggers, vloggers, and Tweeters rack up followers without being a household name? They’ve figured out how to create content that people like-that people have a demand for.

The next time you are looking for a way to bolster your own influence, whether it be online or even in the workplace, take a good look at how much you share and create, not just how much you consume.

Jon Negroni is the Director of Public Relations, Promotion, and Marketing at Richter10.2 Media Group. For more information regarding Richter10.2, check out our introduction video here.

Are You Recruiting Your Prospects to Close?

Jake Sanders- If you follow the world of college athletics (specifically NCAA Division 1 Basketball, give me a break I'm from Kentucky!), there was an interesting article published on ESPN today.

The article pertains to a rule change allowing coaches to contact recruits via phone calls, text messages, Facebook, Twitter messages, etc. There will be many schools, families and recruits that will embrace this opportunity to use today’s more contemporary (and preferred) communication methods to connect with recruiters and college programs.

After all, coaches are trying to do the exact same thing you are as a salesperson: CLOSE the deal. After reading the article, I asked myself, “Do I know how my prospects and clients prefer to be communicated with? Could this be the reason I am having a hard time reaching certain prospects?” Ask yourself the same question.

Your prospects are always giving you signs and signals on how to find and communicate effectively with them. They’re practically giving you an electronic roadmap. If a prospect puts their cell-phone and LinkedIn profile on their email signature, they are telling you it is okay to connect with them using these methods.

Listen to them and take advantage of this opportunity. Don’t ignore these tips from them and continue to pound their desk phone line and leave the same follow up message. Call their cell or send them an invitation to connect on LinkedIn (once they have accepted, don’t forget to send them a direct message asking for what it is you need!). You may find that a prospect who seems impossible to catch at their office is quick to respond to a call on their cell or a text.

Now with all this being said, remember to be professional and not a stalker. If a prospect doesn’t give you their cell-phone, don’t try to get it from someone else at their office. Odds are it won’t sit well with them. Be smart and use today’s available technology to communicate more effectively with your target.

It will help you close more deals.

Jake Sanders is the Vice President of Sales at Richter10.2 Media Group. For more information about Richter10.2, check out our introduction video here. You can find more content from Jake on his website, Sales Snacks, here. 

Social Media Tip of the Week #2 – What is Twitpic?

Recently, I found a really cool new Twitter tool that got me so excited I just had to write a blog about it! Twitpic। It’s how you Tweet pictures.

As you know, the thing about Twitter is that, unlike Facebook or Myspace, you can only have ONE picture, and that’s your default। How frustrating! Well, now with Twitpic, you have a whole album online that you can Tweet and share with other Tweeters.

Now, what kind of pictures would Tweeters most like to see tweeted? Breaking news, humorous ones and Twitpics by celebs were some of the top viewed. Like on-the-scene twitpics of a shuttle launch! (click here) Or the king of Twitter, Ashton Kutcher (@aplusk) tweeting his own photos, of course. (click here)

Now, you can start using Twitpic to expand your Twitter influence।

Ali Magnano

Director of PR

Richter10.2 Media Group

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The Social Media Press Kit – The World’s Most Dynamic Virtual Business Card

If you think that Social Media, as represented by blogging, Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, YouTube, etc।, is only a personal or social pursuit with no room for making money or corporate involvement, you are clearly still living in 2002.

The Social Media population has been greatly increasing over the years। Twitter, the famous microblogging site, has grown an astonishing 1328% in the past year alone. With applications promising to “Increase your Twitter followers by eleventy-billion in seconds”, it’s no wonder Twitter is spreading like wildfire.

There has been a paradigm shift in the way that promotion and marketing is reaching the public। Social Media is not only supplementing mainstream media, but is actually replacing many traditional media avenues. With RSS feeds and Social Media bookmarking sites, there is hardly a need to read the newspaper that so conveniently arrives on your doorstep, and the public apparently agrees, as evidenced by the shuttering of or the exclusive focus online by some of the country's oldest papers.

For businesses struggling to find their footing in the ever-expanding social media landscape, there is some good news: there is a simple way to take advantage of this whole evolution and integrate your business with Social Media, build your public relations and get the maximum amount of presence on the Web. With the Social Media Press Kit, which is a microsite designed to showcase you and your company to your target public audience, the doors become open to the Social Media world. A cutting edge Web PR firm (one of the few companies in the world dedicated exclusively to this new field), Richter10.2 Media Group, has created this tool to help you capitalize on the world’s most popular social and business networking sites. It is an instant communication tool to maintain constant rapport with your target demographic from anywhere in the world.

To learn more about the best practices in Social Media and how they can help expand your business, visit www.whywebpr.com.

Ali Magnano

Director of PR

Richter10.2 Media Group

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What is a social media press kit?

What is a Social Media Press Kit?? It is a tool that will help you expand your business and your presence on the web.

To find out more-watch this short video! By clicking here.

Ali Magnano
Director of PR
Richter10.2 Media Group

The “Secret” of Social Media, by Trevor Eisenman

Helping people design a useful Social Media internet strategy to generate interest and reach for their business is what I’m all about. And since most of my clients weren’t born with a smartphone in their hands, there are usually a few key points to clear up about Social Media right from the beginning. After all, Social Media is a relatively new topic. Or is it?

If you step back and take a look at how information moves in Social Media, it’s quite different than “Traditional Media.” Back in the day, most people got their information from newspapers or magazines. The direction of information is from the few (the writer or publisher) down to the many. We’ve all seen this in action in our daily lives, maybe to the point of not even noticing it anymore. Got a favorite newspaper columnist or TV show host? One single person communicating to possibly millions of people with little interaction between the communicator and the listeners.

As we step into the Social Media arena, the direction and flow of information is between the readers and the writers. The interaction (thanks to the internet) tends to be instant and the ripple effect from this sharing of information can spread far and wide. With the users of Social Media able to contribute news and information to anyone willing to listen, we now have a conversation. Just like the conversations you are already having at the local coffee shop or at work.

With the recent buzzing and tittering by the media about Twitter and Social Media in general, it’s no wonder business owners may feel forced into using these internet-based communication tools, or perhaps risk missing sales opportunities their competition is getting instead of them. Not being familiar with the landscape, many make that sometimes fatal error of confusing Social Media with traditional advertising.

But remember: traditional advertising is the few pushing out information to the many. No matter how you dress it up, advertising never was and never will be the same thing as a conversation. Advertising flows up and down, and conversations flow back and forth. If you are blasting everyone you know on social media with your marketing or business message continuously, ask yourself: who am I talking to? If the answer is everyone at once, you might be in advertising mode unintentionally.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s OK to let everyone know what you are doing in general. You’ve gotten those letters at Christmas where a relative runs off a bunch of copies of the family “newsletter” and sends it to everyone? I like reading those. It’s just an update, a catch-up session. But when 90% of the people connecting to me on Twitter are saying the same message (“Want to get 16,000 followers on Twitter?” sound familiar?), we’ve crossed over that thin line between conversing and advertising.

So what’s the secret to this Social Media thing? It IS faster than mailing a letter or a postcard. More interactive than TV. Cheap to boot! Seems like the perfect advertising tool. But to use Social Media as just another advertising channel misses the hidden power of Social Media. What is that hidden power? It’s so painfully visible, so obvious. It’s something I call “Commonality.”

It’s where you and I share a common interest, or have similar background. It’s liking the same funny movie, or both growing up in the South with fried chicken, or having visited the same restaurant in Europe. It boils down to this: if you and I have something in common (no matter what it is), we understand each other better to that degree.

If you have a pet dog, and I have a pet dog, we instantly understand each other that much more, and, to the degree that we understand each other, we are enabled to create a personal, lasting, and genuine friendship. Social Networks facilitate this instant understanding because you can share so many aspects of yourself in a quick glance.

Ever get a friend request on Facebook from someone that doesn’t even have their picture posted and hardly anything listed on their profile? Little hard to cozy up to, isn’t it? Kind of like getting a “friend” request from a statue. Cold.

Social Media is a breeze, really. Express who you are. Make it personal (but not TOO personal!). The more you describe yourself, or rather, profile yourself, on these social networks, the more aspects there are to resonate with for someone who doesn’t yet know you. I know I prefer to do business with someone I like and trust. Would you like and trust someone you’d never met before, but who showed up on your door with a slick advertising message? Didn’t think so.

Does all this seem hard? It’s not, because if you have already been in business (and thus sales) in any capacity, you’ve already been using Social Media. Ever strike up a conversation with someone at an after-hours party? Did they eventually ask you what you do for a living? If you have, you’ve already got practice in Social Media. I’ll bet you’ve even gotten a few new customers that way. Now it’s just a matter of moving that same conversation to an online platform like Facebook or MySpace. It’s the individual and friendly (another word for social) conversations that will forward your business message, because people will like you, and even more importantly, understand you on a level they aren’t even aware of themselves. Powerful stuff.

Social Media Networks are a fun, useful way to share the individual that is you with the rest of the world. The steps to participating are as follows: Join, listen to the conversations that are already happening, participate where you are interested or can be useful to others, give where you can, and be prepared to receive what others give you in return. In this way you can organically build a genuine community of new friends, customers and goodwill that may last a lifetime, no matter what business you may find yourself in down the road.

Trevor Eisenman

Richter10.2 Media Group

Win an iPhone via Twitter??

For 30 days, squarespace.com is giving away a 3G iPhone every day. The contest may be entered by anyone, and includes simply having a twitter account.

For the next 30 days, (actually, 28 now because the contest started on June 8^th) all you have to do is insert the hashtag "#squarespace" into one of your tweets, and one of those lucky winners will be chosen at random.

I'm sure it helps if you hashtag all your tweets in one day, and just keep tweeting "#squarespace, #squarspace, #squarespace." But the point of the contest is also for tweeters to get creative.

I see this whole thing as quite genius, really. Social Media is really taking on its reputation as a very popular marketing strategy, and is the way to gain presence on the web. Because-lets face it-if you’re reading this you most likely have a Twitter or a Facebook or a Myspace account. So using Social Media in Squarespaces’ new campaign to gain web presence is working-how could it not?

So if you don’t have a Twitter account, get one-pronto! And go get yourself an iPhone.

Ali Magnano

Director of PR

Richter10.2 Media Group

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Skittles tasting success with the latest Social Media experiment?

Skittles has relaunched their website so that it is essentially a Twitter search for the word "skittles".

Visitors to Skittles.com are now directed to the Twitter search result for the term “skittles” and invited to navigate their way about Skittles’ social web presence by using the flash navigation menu that overlays the page. (Their homepage is now a Facebook page.)

We have experienced a lot of controversy on the Skittles new Social Media campaign. Some think that the “colors of the rainbow” have experienced an epic fail on launching this new campaign but as reported by Marketing Pilgrim in a recent post, the Skittles web site traffic experienced a “1332% increase in web visitors on March 3rd.” Pretty impressive considering only one day had passed since Skittles launched this social media experiment, which was quite a risk.

A consideration that I am hearing a lot is that, what about the ordinary people that aren't as experienced with Social Media? And is Social Media really a way to represent a corporate website like Skittles?

Buying a piece of candy is an impulsive thing. You’re not buying a car or a house or something that you will need a lot of information on about the product and the price. Skittles is just a sweet, innocent and colorful candy, with a huge corporation. Do they really need an informative ad on their product? Not really. They are focusing on building their presence on the web, and Social Media has proved to be the way to do that. And are there really any regular web users who have never heard of social networking and the most common web apps?

I suspect not. So, after all, great work Skittles.

Ali Magnano
Director of PR
Richter10.2 Media Group
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Dunkin Dounts National Donut Giveaway Day!

Get a free donut on June 5th, which has been announced as National Donut Day. Dunkin Dounts will be giving away a free donut to every customer that purchases a beverage.

Starbucks uses Twitter in their online/offline Social Media Campaign

Since I’m on a roll with Starbucks and coffee, (I had my double cappuccino this morning with non-fat milk-see last blog), I thought I would research how Starbucks Coffee Company is using social media.



Starbucks already has a strong presence in social media. You can visit their Facebook, or if you are a Twitter fanatic you can find them there. Starbucks Twitter account has over 185,000 followers and the Facebook page has nearly 1.5 million fans.



Starbucks has recently launched “the biggest marketing effort it has undertaken,” according to the New York Times. The coffee company is displaying posters in major cities, and then challenging people to be the first to find and tweet a picture of their posters. Starbucks has other social media initiatives planned for this campaign. One is a contest for store employees to submit headlines for future ads and YouTube videos with coffee experts talking about Starbucks coffee. Starbucks’ social media presence gave it an advantage over competitors with gigantic ad budgets because its fans wanted to talk about it online. The idea for the Starbucks photo contest came from watching what people already do on Facebook and Twitter.



The reason for companies building this presence, I observed, is that social media sites like Facebook and Twitter are ways of reaching many of your clients and building a relationship with them-and that’s what we call PR. It’s the building of a relationship with the public. You want to engage in interesting topics with blogging and microblogging using sites like Twitter where you have to express an entire thought in only 140 characters.



The largest coffee company in the world seems to be catching on.




Ali Magnano
Director of PR
Richter10.2 Media Group
www.richter10point2.com