Here is the list of dubious Twitter behaviors:

1. The Snob – When you follow back fewer than 10% of the people that follow you. If you do not choose to follow people back, you are not engaging with your audience. The winning formula is being open, transparent and freely sharing with information.

Interestingly, breaking this rule is the norm for celebrities, but we know there are different social media rules for celebrities. For example, if your name is Lady Gaga with more than 23 million followers, we’ll cut you slack for following back fewer than 2.3 million.

2. Blah, Blah, Blah – You average more than 24 tweets per day (excluding @reply.) These people are pumping out information and not engaging. This tweet volume is the fast track to being ignored or worse…saying so much without saying anything makes you background noise, like a ceiling fan.

3. What He Said – If your tweets either average more than 70% retweets, or more than 50% famous quotes, nobody is going to consider you a thought leader. You become a “hype man” always telling people what someone else said. Mix in an original thought.

4. Snoozefest – If you have fewer than 30% of people follow you back, you are following too many of the first three categories and at the risk of insult…your twitter feed is kinda boring.

5 – 8. Spam-tastic – the following makes you look like you are spamming, even if you don’t think you are:

• If more than 90% of your content is pushed out from an RSS feed (look like a twitter bot), or
• More than 50% links to apps (like Foursquare, and paper.li), or
• More than 25% of the time you post the same link URL (self-promo), or
• More than 80% of your tweets are links (shameless plugs)

If you are doing one of these, you look like you are spamming, if you do more than one – you are a spammer. Unless spam is your end game, incorporate more appropriate Twitter behavior: ask a question, answer a question, and respond to an issue with your opinion.

I have examples of each one of these categories; I’ll share on request. For example, tweet me to find out who averages more than 125 tweets per day and NEVER replies.

Shout out to @twitcleaner for cataloging the type of behavior and setting thresholds to let us know where innocent Twitter mistakes can make you look terrible. Did we miss anything? Share your thoughts here or on Facebook at Weise Communications and follow us on Twitter at @Weise_Ideas.

Did you see our “Wall Tweet Journal: Four Twitter Tips to Improve Your Presence Today” on the SideNote?  We can’t help ourselves, if we tell you things you shouldn’t do, we have to give equal time to best practices, right?

However, when marketers start tweeting, they can’t understand why they are not making connections and seeing results. I heard a colleague describe Twitter as opening your glove compartment, shouting your info into it and slamming the door shut. Not particularly satisfying.

Resisting the urge to say “You’re not doing it right,” I promised to deliver four tips to improve your Twitter presence that can be implemented today.

1. Make your Twitter bio meaningful and searchable – You have 160 characters of searchable content, use the keywords you wish to be associated with you and/or your company.

Below are two profiles, one has 17 followers and the other has more than 146,000 followers, can you tell which profile has the bigger following?

I have a deep relationship with sleep and I’m about whatever, man!

Social Media Thought Leader, Consultant, Speaker | Author The New Relationship Marketing | Coauthor Facebook Marketing: An Hour A Day | Scottish-Canadian

I’ll spare the first bio the embarrassment. The second bio belongs to @MariSmith. Mari recently co-hosted a content-rich webinar with @GuyKawasaki. The webinar is titled “7 Hottest Social Media Business Trends Impacting Your Profits Today.” Since I’m using Mari as an unauthorized example, check out her webinar for other social media trends to leverage today.

2. Use Twitter Lists to gain credibility about a subject – A Twitter list is a selected group of Twitter users. All Tweeps have the ability to create and be a caretaker of a Twitter list. When you click to view a Twitter list, you’ll see a stream of Tweets from only the users included in that list. As you build lists of Twitter users with content that you believe is valuable on your subject expertise, you become a resource for others as your lists are shared.

Here is a hidden SEO tip: Link your Twitter feed to your website (RSS feed) and include your Twitter handle (@username) in the naming convention of your list. When your Twitter list is shared with others, your list will link back to your website through your Twitter handle.  It takes patience and a strong Twitter list curator mentality, but as your credibility increases, it will also impact your SEO.

3. Maintain laser-like focus on your subjects – Friends and colleagues know that I am a proud graduate of the University of Oklahoma and a huge fan of Oklahoma football (Boomer Sooner!) However, my twitter feed positions me professionally as focused on marketing, social media and SEO. It is not the venue to discuss the latest recruit, coaching decision or blowout victory. We recommend multiple twitter accounts, one focused on your professional brand and another that feeds your personal passions.

4. Twitter is a conversation, engage your audience – Nobody really cares what you had for lunch. Instead keep these four words in mind: ask, answer, retweet and respond. The key to engaging is asking and answering questions, retweeting interesting items on topic and responding to subject related inquiries.

If you are looking for an easy way to get involved, Twitter comes to the rescue, through @twchat. There is a collection of nearly 600 chats you can participate, check out this schedule of chats. Your bound to find at least one that you can engage and grow your audience.

To summarize your Twitter action items: optimize your bio, curate Twitter lists, use multiple Twitter accounts and participate in a Twitter chat. You can get these done today.

Let us know how much impact you see after implementing these tips. Share your thoughts here or on Facebook at Weise Communications and follow us on Twitter at @Weise_Ideas.

Be on the lookout this Wednesday for “Back Tweet Driver: Twitter Habits to Avoid” on the SideNote.

Being active in your marketing efforts while maintaining control over how your brand is portrayed is a key for franchise success. Creating awareness, engaging customers, building customer loyalty, and boosting sales are all goals for franchisors, and social media doesn’t just accomplish these things; it does it with a smile.

Smashburger, a fast-casual, gourmet burger franchise is a prime example of how a small business can catapult into the big leagues via social media. Birthing from three Denver locations, this restaurant became a smash hit with its expansion to 150 locations nationwide. With more than 77,000 followers on Facebook, reaching out to bloggers and their tweeting prowess, they have solidified the social media tools for expanding a franchise.

Just how did they do it?  Here are a few suggestions they have for your franchise success:

• Get on the same page as your customers

People like to talk about themselves and what they want and like.  Give your customers the chance to feel like they are a part of how your product or service is expanding. Use queries relating to feedback on a new product or answer their questions and complaints. If your franchisee is going to prosper, they have to listen to the desires of their target market. Take these examples from Smashburger’s Facebook and Twitter:

• Make your interaction enticing

Posting information about a new product or service can be effective, but allowing the customer to be a part of the decision is even better.  Trivia contests, voting pools and giveaways allow the customer to feel like their opinions are creating your brand.  Interactive coupons also keep customers engaged and coming back to your page to check out what is being offered today; keeping your business in the forefront of their mind.  Smashburger called out for votes and shared a link where they could vote to help their burger make it to the final round of the Dallas Morning News Burger Madness bracket:

• Keep it interesting

Consistency in updating your social media profile will keep people interested.  That said, humor and playfulness should not be overlooked. Simply creating a chuckle from your customer will improve their retention of the message you are conveying.  Check out how Smashburger used humor to reach their customers:

Moral of the story, if you aren’t using social media you aren’t gaining the best exposure for your businesses. It is an opportunity to engage customers and that engagement can lead to loyal customers. Be sure to allocate enough resources to effectively manage your social media presence. Your franchisee will thank you. And even more importantly, they won’t go rogue.

A big thank you to Bre Wolta for her research and help uncovering Smashburger’s social media success.

There are few holidays that are not centered around chocolate and/or desserts, and Easter is no exception.

Mars M&Ms has grasped this reality and flung it into a new mobile marketing advertising campaign to drive sales for the coming holiday.

The M&M mobile ads capture attention with phrases such as, “Make every basket complete. M&M chocolates for Easter,” according to Mobile Marketer. Once they tap on the ad, users are educated on how to incorporate the candies into their Easter dessert recipes. It drives the consumer to a mobile microsite where they are greeted by the infamous M&M characters and step-by-step recipes.

The brilliance of the mobile marketing is its capability to drive on impulse. People who receive the ad when they are already out and about have it fresh in their mind that they should not only buy the candy, but they should do so because they have a recipe that they need it for; making the purchase a necessity, not just a desire.

Next to Valentines Day, Easter is the biggest chocolate buying holiday, and these ‘virtual end caps’ are a bright idea for the spring season.

What recipe will you make with the pastel M&M candies? Give in, it’s Easter.

Back in August of 2010, The Side Note wrote about QR codes for the first time. The inspiration for that article was a Calvin Klein billboard in New York City linked to a video that could not be aired on broadcast television in the U.S. At that time, we saw QR codes as a cutting-edge way for businesses to reach consumers. Little did we know, the Calvin Klein billboard would be one of the better executions of a QR code. It teased to create interest, it clearly identified the sponsor and it delivered content that could not be accessed in another way.

Frankly, the blame for QR code failure lies with marketers. QR codes are simple to use, however the delivery of content requires more finesse and significantly better execution by marketing experts. Since consumers don’t know what the QR code does before they scan it, companies need to reward them for stepping into the unknown.

These errors are frustrating because the majority of these mistakes are the marketing version of basic blocking and tackling errors in football. We’ve categorized errors into three types: stupid, lazy and ignorant.

• The stupid… the content linked to the QR code is not optimized for a mobile device – this is forehead smacking stupidity.
• The lazy… businesses use a QR code to direct consumers to their business website – too boring, you have to include more engaging, exclusive and interesting content; Bonus error: if the website is not mobile optimized – that error is both stupid and lazy.
• The ignorant… simply putting a QR code on an ad with the assumption that consumers know what to do – a friend recently said to me, “These things look like a robot barfed, what do I do with it?”

A little more about the ignorant errors, you would assume that college students would be on the forefront of innovation. Research company Archrival surveyed 500 students at 24 colleges and universities. In the study, Archrival found that although 80 percent of the students owned a smartphone and had seen a QR code, only 21 percent were able to successfully scan the QR code used in the study. A legitimate argument can be made that preloaded software on smartphones with an easier way to scan the codes will increase understanding and if people understand it, they will use it.

However, I believe that the payoff needs to be better. The content someone receives when scanning a QR code needs to deliver undeniable value. For example, give me a discount on something I want. Make something available to me because I scanned the code that others cannot get. Show me something amazing that I can’t see everywhere else. Too often the result of scanning a QR code (assuming I’m successful) is a massive letdown.

Today, I mostly see QR codes sending me to a standard company website. The same website I can get with a simple Google search. This key insight is most succinctly stated in this article from Sean X Cummings, “People will not adopt a technical solution that serves to replace a manual task, if that solution is less efficient than the manual task it replaces.”

Overall, the message to fellow marketing professionals is…step your game up!

Not only are people fascinated with how communication has turned into an interactive dialog, but whether they are finding friends on Facebook, tweeting their every move on Twitter, or now marketing their own customized burgers in the new frenzy that 4food has created, they are finding every excuse to play on the social media playground.

The restaurant, 4Food, in midtown Manhattan has brilliantly introduced a way to make creating your own burger an interactive experience.  Like some other build your own burger joints, the patty comes in a variety of meats (even veggie) and you can chose every aspect of your meal, from bun to sauces.  The donut shape of the patty is eye catching, however, leaving a hole in the middle of the patty for you to fill with a variety of “scoops” ranging from mac and cheese to Thai eggplant curry.

What sets 4Food apart is the marketing privilege the consumer acquires after their creation (from the 140 million combination possibilities) is complete.  Through 4Food’s accounts on Facebook,  Twitter  and their blog, you can name and market your personalized burger.

After you have marketed your creation, you earn a royalty every time that burger is ordered at 4Food.  The $.25 payment is credited to your account on 4food.com.

The learning curve is small, but fun for customers who currently use the provided iPads to order at the restaurant, and will be able to order on their smartphones in the near future.

The exposure that this new burger joint is experiencing purely at the fingertips of their customers is remarkable.  Social networking has driven itself to virtually take the legwork out of marketing for you, purely for free…how is your business using the power of social media to expand?

It seems that Facebook is trying to keep people on their toes with the endless face-lifts, and while most of us struggle to figure out how to simply maneuver to view photos, businesses are using the new Timeline to their full advantage.

How you ask? Here are a few perks of the new Timeline that will get your company ready for the switch:

• Cover photo and profile image

Instead of just one small image to represent your brand, you can now also use another image as your cover photo. This photo spans the top of your page and is the background for your smaller profile image.

• Large pinned posts

 Timeline will not allow you to create a default-landing page, however you can manage the posts that appear on your wall.  By moving a pinned post to the top of your wall, you can keep the most important and intriguing information and images in the forefront.

• Ability to set company milestones

 The Milestone section of your Timeline can update your fans about big events in the life of your company.  People can visually see the history of your company and relate past experiences to themselves and other companies similar to you.

• Facebook Offers

 Similar to the Facebook Deals seen on the old Facebook format, the Facebook Offers are sent out to your fans via the news feeds.  Not only is this more visible, but it is more personable when they click to claim the offer and it is sent directly to their email.

Whether you are a new company or a mature one, the new Timeline can help to increase awareness of your brand and expand your network.

Give it a go, and let us know how the re-facing of Facebook is working for you, or if you need help adjusting- give us a call!

Will it work? Advertising that is shocking can be very effective if it grabs the audience, but can also backfire if the target market puts up defensive mechanisms and responds with the “it wont happen to me,” attitude.

What do you think? Will the ads hit home with a younger population? Will the ads get kids to quit smoking or avoid smoking to being with? What do you think about the new advertising campaign? Let us know your thoughts!

1. In 2011, there was a lot of discussion about access to financing as the biggest hurdle to overcome for franchise systems to grow. In 2012, financing wasn’t nearly as significant of a topic. There appears to be much more optimism that economy is turning and that the rumored lowering of the corporate tax rate from 35% – 28% will keep the U.S. competitive in the global economy.

2. Millennials, those born between 1980 – 2000, currently make up 25 percent of US population and account for $200 billion in direct spending. This generation is going to be very important for marketers; here are four considerations when marketing to millennials:

• They consider themselves health fanatics and live a lifestyle to back it up.
• They actively support causes and prefer to spend with companies that support causes as well.
• They are early adopters of technology and avid social media participants – more connections and greater frequency.
• They create and consume more “word of mouth, mouse and thumb.”

3. Social media in a vacuum is not going to sell you a franchise. Any franchisor that doesn’t believe in the value of social media most likely has the wrong mindset. Social media is not a vehicle to pitch products and services; it is one of the tactics a franchisor should use to develop a relationship with a prospect. According to Jeff Hayzlett, your social media goal should be to engage, educate, excite and evangelize.  Thanks Jeff, your session was awesome!

4. There was a lot of interest in franchise sales lead generation. Despite franchisors overwhelming their business development system with poor quality leads, they kept asking the question: “How do I get more leads?” Weise Communications believes that franchisors should be more interested in the quality of lead they generate rather than the volume of leads. There are plenty of methods to generate volumes of poor leads. If the franchisors were more interested in conversion percentage, they wouldn’t stand for the tactics that waste time. Instead, they would ask, “How do I close the sale?”

5. Veterans are going to be a target and a trend for franchise sales and franchisors should strongly consider participating in Operation Enduring Freedom through the VetFran Program.  For the uninitiated, VetFran is a voluntary effort of IFA members that offers financial incentives to encourage franchise ownership to honorably discharged veterans.

We have a sixth thing we learned, you must be very careful at the passenger drop-off at the Orlando Airport. Cars, taxis and shuttle vans are constantly moving in and out of very tight spaces. It is possible for a person removing luggage out of the trunk of a car to get their legs crushed between their car and a run-away shuttle van. The results of Tracy’s MRI will be in later this week.

Let us know if you think we missed something. Share your thoughts about IFA with us on Facebook at Weise Communications and follow @Weise_Ideas on Twitter.

See you in Las Vegas in 2013.

Maybe it is the ease of pinning a variety of interests to your own boards that other people can “like” as well, or maybe it is just simply enticing because of the wealth of diverse images at your fingertips.  In any case, the female fan base has found reason to take up pinning as their new hobby.

Not only is Pinterest surpassing Facebook, Tumblr and the like in driving traffic to top websites such as marthastewartweddings.com, cookinglight.com, and self.com but according to The Week, it is doing so at an exponential rate unseen in other social media channels.

Once an image is repined, it is exposed to an entire new circle of people.  A cycle of advertising exposure that is essentially never-ending.

It makes sense, then, that businesses should jump on board this speed train.   And that, my friends, is exactly what is happening.  Because when it comes down to it, this is target marketing at its finest.

Businesses considering Pinterest can:

1. Create their own pin boards that represent their company and their values. Think past and future designs, products, interesting product uses, ect.
2. Smaller companies can even go as far as pinning interests that its employees have, making their company more personally relatable.
3.  Add pin buttons (similar to the Facebook “like” button) to their website so people surfing their site can follow their boards on Pinterest.
4. Feature new and upcoming products on these boards so the company can get a feel for the popularity based on the number of repins.  In short, it is test marketing without the legwork.

Obviously Pinterest is a great social media channel for any company who is advertising products that can be represented visually (food, magazines, fashion, automobiles, home improvement, art, etc.).   But it doesn’t have to stop there.  For instance, travel agencies can use visually enticing beaches or monuments to capture attention and fitness centers can use images of fit models to make people stop, think and click for more.

When it comes down to it, the basic psychology is this: people want to share their interests, but more importantly they want what everyone else has.  The higher the repin number, the more appealing that product becomes and the more attention it gets.

What do you think about Pinterest and how is your company including it in your social media efforts?  Have you pinned today?