Monthly Archives: September 2010

A new technique for content & blog title optimization strategy

September 10, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: Social Media | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

I’ve read a million blog articles about content strategy and they are all interesting. I like the articles that teach you to appeal to the emotion of your readers if you want to get shared. That is so true. I try to appeal to the interest of people, by picking unusual points of view. But, here is a new strategy that is easy to implement, but actually a little bit complicated to do correctly.

The process of content creation & marketing
Blog writers typically brainstorm to find a great topic. Then, they will often put a lot of time into writing a great article. Next, the article will be promoted on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and a few others. It sounds very standard and predictable, and it is. The problem is that not all of the stuff you write will be appreciated by your users. I find that only 1% of my content has become super popular. 1% is better than 0%, but I would love to improve my batting average.

My little social experiment
So, I underwent an experiment. When I publish my own content on Twitter, I might average a little less than a single retweet. I wanted to see what happened when I tweeted content from the masters. Would I get retweeted a hundred times, or would it be about the same as my content? The results were surprising. I got a slightly better batting average tweeting content from the professionals which baffled me. Why is my content only a little less popular than theirs? Maybe because I am unique and original despite my poor writing skills and lack of graphics in my blog. The next thing that bamboozled me was that content that was in the top 10% of popularity on their blog didn’t do any better than their average content on my Twitter. I couldn’t figure out why.

Crowdsourcing and what matters
It is not predictable to try to understand what does well on Twitter and why. If you publish the same content twice, it rarely does as well the second time. If you use different tags, or adjust the text in the tweet a little bit, the results can change dramatically. So, the quality of the content is actually only 30% of what is important on Twitter. Subtle changes in wording, elaborations, a little punch or twist can make all the difference. What really matters is not what did well on someone else’s Twitter, but what my crowd likes! Even if the other crowd is one that is heavily engaged in business, marketing, and social media, their posts might not do well with my crowd which is also interested in social media and business (international business mostly.)

A spiritual element: crowdsourcing’s metaphysical realities
Never ignore the metaphysical element in social media marketing. There is a lot more than what time of the day you post, how good your images are, and how optimal your titles are. There is a spiritual connection you have with your followers on a deeper level. They are tuned into you in a way that they are not tuned into others. You jive with them and so does content that means something to you. If you publish something that is quality material that meets the niche requirements of your followers, but your heart isn’t in it — your followers might not like it either. If you publish something that means something to you — and is just you, you might be surprised at how well it does although it still needs to be tuned to the interests of your followers.

Identifying the best content
After posting a lot of other people’s material on several of my twitter accounts, I learned that roughly 7% of the material I published was super popular, and that was after I manually filtered out 70% of the posts I look through. So, if I had published every article I scanned, it would be only 3% that got retweeted or favorited more than five times on my account. My goal was to identify what the most popular Titles are, and then to create my own original content using similar titles and see if those blog entries would be more popular. Using topics that are winners might boost my batting average so that 20% of my blogs become super popular. Instead of quantity, I could focus on targeting.

The results
After finding out what was popular on my Twitter, I republished the material on my Google+ profile, and the content did fairly well on Google+ as well. I am going to write a few blog articles using the winning content ideas and see what happens. That will take longer. I can only identify one winning idea per day on a busy day, so my system for identifying semi-viral content is slow. The fact is that there just isn’t a lot of material out there that will do super well on Twitter! Good luck!

How many people should answer your phones?

September 10, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: Sales | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Philosophers have been asking this question for ages. How many people should you hire to answer your business lines? What do you think Socrates would say?

Socrates – First of all, I need to tell you that my time machine is parked in the back, and I can’t spend too long here, because I have things to do back in ancient Greece. You understand, right?

Business owner – Okay: How many people should be trained to answer my phones?

Socrates – What do you have to lose if you don’t answer a phone call?
Business owner – Potentially, I could lose a million dollar sale.

Socrates – Wow, I am in the wrong business. What is it that you do again?

Business owner – I am in the call center business. We are very good on the phone handling our clients’ customers. However, when clients call us about OUR service, we seem to never be able to answer the phone. How ironic. A call center that can’t find a way to answer their own phone! It sounds like good material for a Seinfeld episode.

Socrates – Hmmm. You mean you use those little plastic devices with the wires, and you can talk to people across the world. I never could figure out how those worked. We didn’t have them in my time in ancient Greece you know. We just yelled really loud when we wanted to communicate with someone far away — or sent a messenger. To answer your question, it is that important that you answer your phone, so you don’t lose any sales, I would recommend this philosophy:

Train a dozen people to answer phones. Train them everything they need to know to answer many different types of questions. It doesn’t matter if they ever use their skills or not. The point is that they will be ready, just in case the phone rings with that million dollar client. It is sort of like a security system in your modern houses. In ancient Greece we just bought a mean looking dog to scare away burglers. But, in your world, you need an electronic security system with motion detectors. The system very rarely gets put to use, but when it does, you save yourself from losing all of your priceless art work, jewelry, etc. If you find that some of the lucky dozen are not so good at phone answering, then you narrow it down to a few. But, take the training seriously, because you can lose clients that would revolutionize your business. And it’s not only about the money, it is about prestige as well. What if you got a famous multi-national company on board? You could brag about it to all of your other prospective clients (whose calls you are currently failing to answer) and impress them.

Business owner – That sounds like a great philosophy of business. You are right when you said you are in the wrong business. You should open a messenger service back in ancient Greece. You will become the richest philosopher in all of the Mediterranian. You will accumulate so much money that you have time to be idle all day long and entertain yourself by asking your students ridiculous and meaningless questions.

Socrates – That is an interesting point you make — because, that is what I am doing all day long right now on a philospher’s salary — and loving it too I might add.

Business owner — Well, if I took your advice and hired people to answer the phone, I would accumulate so much business that we wouldn’t know how to handle it. And, we would be so busy that we wouldn’t have time to answer the phone — which incidentally is exactly the position that we are in right now!

You might also like:

Call centers who don’t answer their phone
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2013/10/08/call-centers-who-dont-answer-their-phone/

Better training for call center workers
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2013/10/05/how-to-get-more-business-for-your-call-center-better-training/

Medical Transcriptions and Errors

September 10, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: Medical Transcriptions | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Medical Transcriptions and Errors

Outsourcing medical transcriptions
The medical transcription business is a tough one. Jobs get outsourced from the United States to the Philippines. Americans lose their jobs and get mad. Then the client company suddenly realizes that the rate of mistakes is much higher overseas and brings the job back to America even though it costs five times as much for labor. At my company we are also terrified to hire anyone at any price, because errors are disasterous to us. Our clients get mad when you make an error with their listings, and fixing the problem and dealing with irate customers is not worth the savings in our personal time to do the work ourselves. Sometimes its less work to do something yourself.

Indian medical transcription
Many Indian medical transcription companies sprung up over night a few years ago and then lost the majority of their business. The level of experience was just not the same as what it is in America, and the level of mistakes was higher.

What do accuracy figures mean?
So, what does 99.9% accuracy mean in any case? One blog I read describes it in these terms: 99.9% accuracy means that on a form with 5000 entries, you will have an average of five errors, and the chance of having no errors is only four percnt. So, 99.9% accuracy means 4% accuracy.

In my words, 99.9% accuracy means that only one field in one-thousand will have erroneous information, assuming the company boasting this level of accuracy is telling the truth. So, you need to figure out what the cost is in having an error.

The cost of errors
If each error costs you $100, and you save $200 on labor, to fill out one-thousand fields, and get one error that costs you $100, you are ahead of the game. On the other hand, what if you can find a company overseas which has a comparable rate of accuracy that U.S. companies have? Then, outsourcing medical transcriptions is the correct thing to do.

Test medical transcription companies out.
The main point to remember is that new companies have to be tested. You can’t really believe their references, although some references are better than none. You can test out a well reputed company and see how they really are to work with in real life. If your experience is good, then you can offer them a little more work, and gradually over a year or two, give them the majority of the work.

It is done — said the outsourced programmer

September 10, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: Software Development | Tagged , | Leave a comment

It is done — have you heard these words recently?

In America, when you say something is done, it is generally done.. But, I have had many experiences in India where an Indian programmer completely sabotages their entire career future (and their boss’ future) by saying, “It is done”, when it is not done.  I am baffled by how dishonest and careless some people are. Maybe they yearn to be fired. What other explanation can you give.  Keep notes on people you hire for outsourcing. If they say, “It is done” more than once when something is not done, then you say, “You are fired!”, or “No, YOU are done!”.

Communication could be part of the picture assuming that dishonesty is anything less than 100% of the problem. There are many tricksters in India, but blatantly obvious tricks won’t fly unless YOU are paying less than 100% attention, right?  And if you are not paying attention, then you will be the one who is done regardless of who you hire.

Don’t be done — and don’t hire others who lie through their teeth or who are incapable of communication.  Choose your programmers with care and tolerate nothing less than substandard mediocracy!  Why not set your standards high? Because really good programmers charge US$150 per hour minimum and you might not be able to afford such good workers.

The trick in outsourcing is to find people who can slog through projects in a clunky way and keep moving..  If you can hand pick really talented people, then you are in a very unusual position and might prosper beyond expectation. But, for the rest of us, we need to find bare functionality — expecting more will leave you disappointed if you engage in outsourcing.

Twitter’s algorithm for “people” under keyword search doesn’t add up!

September 10, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: Analytics | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Dormant accounts galore!

Suggestions for Twitter’s algorithm

Twitter’s algorithm for who shows up under “People” in a given keyword query has some serious drawbacks. Results include many dormant profiles that haven’t posted in months. I’m not sure what the other components of the algorithm are. It might include how many posts they made with the tag / keyword in question along with how many relevant followers they have. It is complicated indeed.

I think that what makes more sense is to see who has been the most active in the last month. For those who have been active, then another layer of how well they have been doing in the last six months, and how many relevant followers they have might compliment the algorithm.

I think they should hire Janet Jackson to put her 2 cents worth in when creating a new algorithm. Her suggestion might be — what have you done for me lately?

The karmic consequences of war and rebirth

September 10, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: Of Interest | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Not all of us are Hindus or Buddhists. Not all of us believe in rebirth. There have not been that many books written on the subject. People who have studied rebirth often have examples of real souls and how they migrated from body to body and under what circumstances. Unfortunately in the East, there is a lot of misinformation being spread about this fascinating topic. If you are bad in India, you will be reborn as a cow. But, in Thailand that is simply not the case. In Thailand you get born into a mad dog for 500 incarnations. Good god, being a cow once sounds a lot better! The shortage of good reading material on this critical subject is a shame. There are many qualified gurus out there who could write books on the subject, but only touch upon the matter.

Here is some rebirth theory in a nutshell.

Intelligence
If you develop intelligence in a particular life, you bring some of that with you. Research was actually done on rats where parts of their brains were removed. Yet, they still had their routes memorized. Scientists couldn’t figure out why. Apparently, part of their memory was lodged in an astral field around their body. Others feel that rats have a sort of collective consciousness — if one rat makes it through a maze in 30 minutes, the others will make it through faster since they can tap into a larger “rat consciousness”. Science and spirituality often agree on a lot once the scientists have taken the time to research particular issues.

A lot of intelligence is also carried in your soul from one life to the next. My medium speaks to the spirits of gurus, and they are very intelligent. They are disembodied now, but they carry their intelligence with them even though they have no physical brain.

Wealth
If you have the consciousness of wealth, you are more likely to carry that with you into other lives. Additionally, if you were born into a wealthy family, but graduate from college penniless, you are more likely to regain that wealth simply because you might gravitate towards a lifestyle that creates wealth.

Destruction
If you destroy something belonging to someone else, eventually something of yours will be destroyed as a karmic punishment. But, when? Will the punishment come right away, a year later, or 30 lifetimes later? The Rav at Kabbalah center once said that time is speeding up and karmic retrobution is faster than ever now. If you did a bad deed in 4000 B.C. it might have taken 3000 years for the karmic effects to come back. But, if you do a bad deed now, the effects might only take seconds to manifest!

Tything
If you give to charity such as organizations which help the poor, or spiritual organizations that are not for profit, you get a reward from the brighter world. I have found that this reward comes right away — within days and weeks. Some of the effect might be a little more slow. You get back far more than what you gave. This is a nice karmic reward. I like investing $1000 and getting $10,000 back within a month or so. What do you think?

Murder
The karmic effects of murder are never clear. There is no textbook answer, and no fixed way that it is decided. Perhaps the spirits known as the lords of karma decide your fate on an individual basis? It is supposedly common for one who murders another to be required to bring that person back to life. How is this possible? In a future life, the murderer would have to be the victim’s parent. It is also a common belief that in war, if you kill someone with hatred in your heart from another country — you might be reborn in their country and they might be reborn in yours.

Based on a past-life regression, I learned that in my past life I was a small child living in Vietnam. I was killed by a mad-man from America in a helecopter who was just killing everyone in sight. I was reborn in America. My revision showed that he was not reborn in Vietnam, but nearby in Laos into a very poor economic setting. No wonder I love “Summer rolls” so much at Vietnamese restaurants!

Iraq?
So, what is the effect of America’s involvement in Iraq? I feel that karmically we are inviting horrible things by being there. Many Americans are very happy to kill Iraqis. Since many extremists believe in suicide missions, what would happen if an American soldier killed such people?

Let’s look at the rash of school shootings in America. There have been many movie theater and school shootings. There was Virginia Tech, another in Colorado, and a few others I can’t remember the names of. Could it be that these were executed by souls who were extremists living in Iraq, but because they were murdered by American soldiers, that they were reborn into America according to reincarnation theory? We have been in Iraq since 1990. If you were an Iraqi killed in 1990, and were immediately reincarnated into an unsuspecting American woman’s womb, you would be 23 by now. How old was the Virginia Tech shooter? He was born in 1984, so he doesn’t fit the profile of a reincarnated Iraqi extremist. But, at this stage in America’s relationship to Iraq, there could be thousands of souls reincarnated into America who could be anywhere from 1 to 23 years old! It makes you think, is war really worth it?

Japan
There are some spiritualists who noticed that in the 1980’s, America’s corporate culture stressed “workaholicism.” Japanese souls killed in World War 2 would be in their 30’s and 40’s if they had been reincarnated into America. People in their 40’s lead corporate culture’s middle management as a rule. Could it be that people reincarnated from Japan in WW2 are responsible for America’s sudden affinity with over-working? Additionally, baseball suddenly became very popular in Japan at roughly the same time. Perhaps many “American Souls” became reincarnated into Japan and still loved baseball.

Given all of this reincarnation theory, I think that if we engage in war with a country, we should pick an enemy with attributes that we absolutely love. That way when their souls are reincarnated onto our beloved soil, we will be benefitted from that.

Tweets:
(1) There is a lot of misinformation about reincarnation. Read the realities here (in this life)
(2) If you give to charity, God will reward you in this life, within days in many cases!

You might also like:

5 reasons why Indians are less stressed than Americans
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2013/12/22/5-reasons-indians-are-less-stressed-than-americans/

Why your table and sitar lessons are the most important training for business
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2013/06/09/why-your-sitar-tabla-lessons-are-the-most-important-training-for-business/

Assessing your clients — who does this?

September 10, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: Management | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Do you assess the value of your clients?

I just learned that a huge American bank was turning away clients. Are they insane? No, they are actually very sensible. Some clients are just so difficult, that they are not worth keeping. Some argue, complain, and ramble so much that they burn out your hard working support staff to the point where a single client could be doing $500 of damage per year when they only pay you $400 of which only $20 of that is profit. Hmmm. That equation doesn’t yield good results in real life. So, the bank gives away many customers all the time.

Critical mass
I am looking at my database of people on my various directories. I often ask myself what the value of a non-paying client is. In the directory business you need critical mass. You can not have a nationwide directory and have only 10 subscribers. It would look unprofessional and be unhelpful. You should have a few thousand listings on a directory, and hopefully thorough listings with good service providers as well if you hope to become popular. So, we call all agree, that I need quantity in my business. But, when and where do I draw the line?

Wanting to slow down
After dealing with years of customer service issues, and endless work, I want to slow down, so I can invest more in my health, recreation, and branch out into other industries. How valuable are some of the dormant listings on my site? And how much work are they to keep on board?

Removing poor quality listings
I decided that there is no point in removing a listing that doesn’t require work. Wait until it requires some type of work, and THEN get rid of it if it is not worth it. Or, think ahead, and get rid of the listings that underperform to such a degree that they just don’t belong. But, over the years I overlooked many anaylitics. The information I paid attention to was NOT the information that was valuable. I learned that by assessing the SKILL of the people on the listings rather than just the thoroughness of their listing or click popularity — I was able to learn that many of the unpaid (and paid) listings that I had invested so much of my time into for years — lacked any type of skill in the industry that they claimed to serve. There was no knowledge of terminology or practices, not to mention social skills.

If you are not valuable in quality or money…
After talking to hundreds of people and seeing that they were not only ignorant, but dangerous to hire, I decided that I need to downsize the directory. I need to list only those who have some idea of what they are doing. But, what about the free listings. If they are not willing to learn or pay, then what good are they? I’ll keep them around for a while and hope that a few of them will take a course in terminology and procedures and get to the point where I can keep them in the long run.

7000 listings: 2000 good listings
Out of 7000 listings, only 2000 have the quality level worth keeping in an urban area. There are a few thousand others in remote areas who I will keep because there is nobody else there. The others will eventually get cut. I will have a much smaller directory. From now on I will focus on quality, not quantity — but, still try to have a high quantity of quality listings.

What about your clients?
Can you segment them into groups after reading about my unusual personal story?
Which ones are purely profitable?
Which ones are just a pain?
Which ones are new, but could be molded into good clients?
Which ones are nothing special, but worth keeping?

What they pay you doesn’t matter
My new point of view is that what a client pays you should be a smaller analytic than you think –for now. If a client starts out being knowledgeable and has all of the same characteristics of your best clients, then they have a sort of an un-monetized value. They have potential. This is what I look for. After they get to know you, and get rolling a bit with your company, if you do a good job, you might be able to talk them into a more comprehensive service plan involving a lot more money. In short, the quality of the client is more important than what they are paying you NOW. After all, the small new client could turn into a huge client later. A huge client could downsize or go out of business. The size of the client can change fast. But, their intrinsic quality in terms of their business skill, knowledge, personality, and other “soft” factors like that are less likely to change much over time.

On a brighter note
I will say that I have high paying clients that have no clue what they are doing, and a few non-paying clients who are experts at what they are doing in their business. So, if you nurture poor-quality clients to a higher level of interaction with your company, they might become larger clients who SHOULDN’T be your clients. For me — now — it is not about me getting money now. For me — now, it is about quality. Being the best quality version of me that I can be, and finding the best clients regardless of how much they pay me. I am not even thinking much about the money any more. That is secondary.

Outsourcing might make more sense than seasonal hires

September 10, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: Management | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Do you need more workers at a particular season of the year? It is not fun taking your chances with strangers. Maybe it is better having an overseas agency who can find you outsourced workers. If you find a reliable company or a few companies, you might have a channel to reliable work!

If you hire in-house workers for a few months, consider the following. You will have strangers in your office which will alter the chemistry or your work force’s delicate equilibrium in its ecosystem. What if those new people don’t get along with your existing staff? What if they take up too much room? What if you like them so much that you miss them when they are gone. You will not have this problem if you outsource your task to some foreign destination like the Philippines, India or Romania.

Additionally, hiring people in a hurry has its consequences. Having an agency in some other country that specializes in a particular type of work ensures that they can get you an unlimited quantity of suitable workers in a snap of a finger. Okay — I exaggerate. But, they already have people on staff which takes the mystery out of hiring. If you don’t like them, you can always find another agency or fire them without any legal consequences.

If you do seasonal hires in India, be aware that monsoon season is the wrong season to do this. They might have to take an inflatable raft to work. If you hire people in the Philippines during tsunami season, their call center might become a mud flat when you really need them. Use common sense and caution if outsourcing seasonal work. Their seasons are considerably different from your seasons.

Interesting factoid:
By the way Summer comes in India at the same time that Spring comes in the USA, and Autumn comes in Australia — March for all three seasons.

Speaking of seasonal hires.
Here is a section of a menu at an upscale Chinese restaurant that I found interesting:
Maine Lobster — $40 (choice of sauce)
Fresh Atlantic Salmon Steak — $25 (w/ginger soy sauce)
Spring Rolls — Seasonal

The Power of Knowing People for Outsourcing

September 10, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: Sales | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Companies are always asking me how to get more clients for their call center, data entry house, software agency, outsourcing outfit, etc. I have many years experience in marketing and have some sales background too. I read that roughly 50% of sales made in the United States were made between people who know each other. If you are always refusing to make small talk with prospective clients, then how will you ever get to know them? The point is that you make sales by having developed a reputation of being trustworthy, helpful, capable, and having people know you.

If people know you and know that you are not trustworthy, then knowing them will not help that much. But, if you have known people for years, and you are always one of the best people to come to for advice, and you are always helpful, they will WANT to spend money on you. They will feel like they owe you as well. They will feel it behooves them to buy from you because who else can they trust at the level that they trust you?

People who own outsourcing companies in India are typically very reserved. They don’t want to get to know NEW people. They don’t answer their phone. If you get them they are busy or don’t want to talk. If they do talk they don’t want to share much about their outsourcing work. They make me not want to know them and not want to use them. On the other hand I know two really nice guys in Web Design & PHP programming. They do e-Commerce set up, blog set up and stuff like that. They are the nicest people I know in India. I like working with them partly because their work is good, but they are very pleasant to be around.

If you want more outsourcing business, I suggest working on your personality and networking skills. If you make small talk with people who work at Western companies (US, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, etc.), then people will get to know you. Instead of trying to sell them something, just chat. Get to know them, and what their needs are. People hate it when you try to sell them something, but love it when you help them solve a problem. In India small talk is not approved of in business, but in the West it is a must, and you need to master this art. Forget about mastering the art of selling. Master the art of chatting and getting to know what matters to people. Sales is about finding a need and fulfilling it. If you are too busy selling (cramming something down someone’s throat), you will be too busy to LISTEN to what the person actually wants and needs!

Network, Chat, Listen, and understand the power of knowing people so that you can effectively market your outsourcing services!!

Making suggestions without being asked — nurturing relationships

September 9, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: Outsourcing Articles | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

In business, to get ahead you need to develop and nurture relationships. Contrary to popular belief, business is not about making money as much as it is about relationships. To gain relationships, it is best to have your channels of communication open. You need to be responsive to emails and phone calls, etc. You need to give reliable information to others in order to gain trust. But, what about your clients who are already on board?

Many companies just ignore their clients who are on board.
Some companies find that phone calls from existing clients are a bother. “I’m with my son, can we talk later?” Sure, we all need family time, but sometimes I feel that companies just don’t want to deal with me. Once you have signed the contract, you are just another bad habit! Relationships need to be nurtured. Treat all your clients as if they are important. But, HOW do you nurture business relationships?

Information is a valuable commodity in business.
Helpful and reliable information is particularly helpful. If you are stupid, then you might not be of much help in this department. But, for the sake of argument, let’s assume that you are smart — at least some of the time. If you have an existing client, getting work done correctly, and on time with good follow up is of primary importance. Most companies do not do this. But, then there is the icing on the cake — making suggestions about what other things the client can do!

Self-serving suggestions vs. being helpful
People will respect you and value you more if you are being helpful to them, rather than promoting your own services. If you are always looking out for the best interests of your clients, they will become very loyal to you. If they need a good accountant and you recommend someone good, you are helping them. If they need new web design and you offer that service, there is nothing wrong in recommending that. If you are solely promoting the idea that they spend more money on your services and only your services then you lose points. If you have ideas about pricing strategies for your client that might be helpful, you can mention it.

What if they are not receptive?
Not everyone is receptive to ideas — or to all ideas. Some people might like some of your suggestions some of the time. The secret is not to be too pushy. You can gently suggest ideas. If they don’t have time, or don’t like the idea, then just drop it. Your job in the universe is to help others, not to burden them with your unwanted opinions.

The most important point is to think about what your client’s needs are instead of your own. If you can do this, you will eventually get far ahead in business. This is a skill that needs constant development. Learn to nurture relationships — it pays!

You might also like:

Outsourcing is like a long-distance romantic relationship!
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2013/09/20/outsourcing-is-like-a-long-distance-romantic-relationship/

The emailed question technique
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2013/08/30/a-hiring-technique-similar-to-2nd-interviews-the-emailed-question-technique/

Choosing the optimal networks to source your followers on Twitter

September 9, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: Social Media | Tagged | Leave a comment

Identifying the source: a guide to building your Twitter network

We all want more followers on Facebook and Twitter. The difference between someone with a big account and someone with a small account is how smart you are at getting new followers, not to mention how hard you try. I started out on Twitter a year ago fumbling around, and trying different strategies, most of which were useless. I tried using various keywords, links, tags, but my results were ineffective. My newer strategies involve tags that actually get results, and following strategies that are amazing.

Steps to grow your Twitter account
(1) Post interesting content
If you can’t think of anything good to say, perhaps you should wait to tweet something until you get something interesting. People will unfollow you if you are boring or not relevant to the theme of your account. Don’t create more Twitter litter.

(2) Retweet amazing content
It is hard to create good content. It has taken me years writing blogs, and still, the majority of my blog articles are not popular. But, to identify great content that other people wrote is easier. You need to compare hundreds of tweets before you pick one tweet to retweet. Amazing photos can go a long way too. If your retweets get retweeted, then you know you picked a winner, and you can use it a few weeks later again!

(3) Who to follow?
This article focuses on who to follow. But, on Twitter, if you want to grow fast, you should not think of following individuals. In reality, you are following individuals, but those individuals are members of groups. To find individuals to follow, you either wait for them to follow you, or you find them following some other account.

The trick is finding the perfect accounts to harvest great followers from. Lonely Planet is my all-time favorite Twitter account. However, they are too easy to find, and individuals who are not related to the travel industry love to follow them simply because they are so cool. The problem is, that less than 5% of their followers are relevant to the travel industry. The next problem is when I follow those select individuals, they follow me back only 10% of the time. These relevant followers appear to be like relevant followers on other accounts, but their follow-back behavior is completely different. On the other hand, if I find accounts with only 10,000 followers as opposed to the one million + which Lonely Planet has, the follow back rate is higher. For the followers to even find these smaller accounts, they had to be more aggressive which is not evident based on how they set up their profile.

The problem with finding followers on accounts with only 10,000 followers is that you run out of people to follow quickly, especially if you visit those accounts daily. Another strategy is to find accounts in the 50,000 to 200,000 member range to find followers on. Although, they might not be optimal in their follow-back rate, there are more of them. To me, it might be more efficient to make a long list of accounts in the 5000 to 30,000 range and visit those accounts daily and follow their newest members who have completely filled out profiles.

(4) One more point
Don’t follow people who followed someone else more than five days ago. They might not be that active on Twitter. They will be less likely to follow you back.

(5) Unfollowing
If someone doesn’t follow me back within two to four days, I have to unfollow them. Twitter allows you 10% more followees than followers once you cross the 2000 member threshold. You simply can’t follow unlimited amounts of people. You are forced to unfollow those who don’t follow you back.

So, the moral of the story here is — find accounts that you can visit to find great followers (people who followed those accounts or are followed by those accounts.) See what percentage of them follow you back. If particular accounts yield followers with a poor follow-back rate, then find a more optimal selection of accounts to harvest followers from.

“Live is cruel, so tweet about it!”