I was asked on Twitter the other day “What do you think of my first blog post?”. So I had a look .. had a read. It was funny, it was interesting but you know the headline didn’t get my attention.  If  I had seen that headline on Twitter I would not have wanted to click on the link to read the blog. So on Twitter getting people to want to take the next step means that you have to get the basics right and the most basic element is a “Compelling Headline” that just begs you to read it. I have even been known to hit the publish button on my Blog for a new article, announce the post on  on Twitter and monitor my clicks with a great URL shortener called www.bit.ly ( I highly recommend it as a vital Twitter analytics tool/app) notice the hit rate isn’t good and then go and “modify” or “completely change my headline”. Here are some interesting facts and figures courtesy of  copyblogger.

• The famous advertsing guru David Ogilvy, was known to have once to have rewritten a headline for an automible advertisement 104 times.
• Some of the best copywriters advocate spending 50% of the time writing the copy for an advertisement  and 50% on the headline
• Master copywriter Gene Schwartz often spent an entire week on the first 50 words of a sales piece — the headline and the opening paragraph
• On average, 8 out of 10 people will read headline copy, but only 2 out of 10 will read the rest. This is the secret to the power of the headline, and why it so highly determines the effectiveness of the entire piece.

Note:  Even Presidents appreciate a headline “I glance at the headlines just to kind of get a flavor for what’s moving. I rarely read the stories, and I get briefed by people who probably read the news themselves.”  George W. Bush

 On Twitter you have 2 challenges amongst many to get people’s attention that make the headline even more vital.

1. You only have 140 characters to get people to click on the link in your message
2. It is streaming past you and within seconds its gone

So you have limited space and limited time to get people to “take action” to  click on that Twitter embedded link that follows your “Micro Blog Headline”, to then go to read your blog post or website page.

The art of the headline has been re-invigorated due the shortened attention span  engendered by the internet, TV, the  RSS reader and the email inbox and Twitter has made it even worse, so, due to the nature of the environment the battle for attention has intensified.

So how do you write a headline that gets people’s attention in 140 charcaters and a few passing seconds? One of my favourite resources I use from time to time is at copyblogger.com …(there are many others) and another one is at Authority Blogger titled “102 Proven Headline Formulas” and also another good site at prevential.com ..”15 Proven Headline Templates That Improve Twitter Traffic”

There are some proven types and categories of headlines that have been developed over the last 50-60 years (hey.. not everything was invented yesterday) such as

• Get What You Want (In Health, Wealth, Relationships, Time and Lifestyle) eg.. The Secret To Getting More Money For Your Property !
• Crystal Ball and History eg.. 10 Predictions on the Future of Social Media
• Problems and Fears eg … Get Rid of Your Debt Once and For All
• Fact, Fiction, Truth and Lies example.. Little Known Ways To Make Money On The Stock Exchange
• How To, Tricks Of The Trade. such as..  How To Plan The Ultimate Holiday
• Best and Worst  eg The 10 Worst Mistakes Made by Bloggers  

Note: One headline I thought of using was “How To Get Twice The Traffic To Your Blog in Half  The Time” .. what do you think …is that a better headline than the one I ended up using?

So what are the some of the best headlines you have used on your Twitter or Blog Post that have worked for you?

 Social Media has been in the news a lot, about how it can be used by business to make profits. What is quite often not realised, is that social media can be utilised to enable non profits and charities to raise money for good causes because NGO’s are all about community, and this raises passion and involvement. Some non profits have worked out early that the power and passion that social media evokes in people can be harnessed for the good.  Other NGO’s have taken a bit longer to realise that social media can be harnessed effectively because it doesn’t cost money it just takes time, a lot of the supporters of charities and non profits are more than happy to spend the time, devoted to helping their favourite charity make a difference. So to help those supporters on the learning curve here are some tips and examples to get you inspired and started. 

“ 20 Social Media Tips and Techniques for Charities, Non-profits, & Philanthropies ” by “Creative Fusion Media” throws a lot of different resources together to assist Non Profits to learn about and use social media, for their causes.

 Nine of my Favourites in this blog include

1. Create a Niche . Oceana’s blog shows great use of dividing their blog into the specific issues and campaigns they deal with, so that you can very quickly see what the causes are about on the very first page
2. Listen, Read and Learn productively using  Google alerts and/or Google reader is a great way to access information. Check out Nonprofit Alltop and Fundraising Alltop to check out what kinds of content does well and to hear interesting new and relevant non-profit news.
3.  Use Social Media Photos. Get a profile on Flickr and create a group for your staff and supporters.
4. Get a social media crash course. Chris Brogan’s Fish Where the Fish Are is a great ebook and a quick read that can help introduce you and your team to social media.
5.  Make it Delicious. Del.icio.us social bookmarking is a great productivity and organizational tool. You can also use it to share info with coworkers, collegues, and funders. The tagging function allows you to separate, segment, and organize your web research and data.
6.  Utilise Blogs such as  WordPress and Typepad to keep the faithful informed, with the latest news and information and resources
7.  Using Twitter For Generating, Managing and Informing Followers for The Cause.  Check out Guy Kawasaki’s tips on getting more Twitter followers,  Tweetdeck helps you manage it, and Darren Rowse’s blog Twit Tip educates you all about twitter and being a better twitterer (is that the word? Perhaps a better twitter citizen, or twitter-zen)
8.  Make Your Own Network or “Tribe”. Make Your Own Social network on Ning. A great example is the Classroom 2.0 group. It only takes 60 seconds.
9.  Using PR to promote the Cause Using Social Media Of course I mean personal relations (as arcane, trite, or banal as that might sound). You can also network on Peter Shankman’s Help a Reporter Out or Wanna Press  (this service just started, so there may be hiccups).

And of course log into one of the top bloggers in the world (Beth Kanter) and she just happens have a blog about non profits which I personally use for inspiration.

Beth’s Non Profit Powerpoint Presentations are on Slideshare

So to wrap it up, once you have learnt some of these skills, you can use it to raise money for your non profit or favourite charity. To inspire you, here is a Post from Mashable by Gradon Tripp that shows how “5 Events That Have Used Social Media for a Good Cause” raise nearly $300,000

But, what we’ve also seen, is social media bringing together people to lend their time to important causes on a global level. By using the sites we LIVE on every day (don’t tell me you haven’t realized you’ve been spending about 30% of your day tweeting)–why not use all of these friends and followers to do something good?

While many people have ideas to start a charitable program or event, actually doing something isn’t as easy. There is planning, event scouting, logistics, food, drink—you name it, it’s tough. Typically, this process can take weeks or months to come together. But, with the help from online communities this process can become even easier, and the results can be nearly instantaneous.

See how (got to love some of these names) Twestival, Tweetsgiving, Tweetathon, Well Wishing and “The Daniella Project” used Twitter to motivate organise and open the pockets of people who cared.

So tell me, what are some of your stories that you can share on how you have used social media for your charity or good cause?

Twitter continues to confound and confuse, and many people I meet say “What is Twitter about? Well its about community, its about sharing, its about marketing and hey… it only allows 140 characters… but you can link people to a website or a blog.. you can play them some music.. you can show them some photos or a video… all in 140 characters… wow, are you confused yet. One thing I really like is that it brings back the art of the headline.. because you only have this small opportunity to grab their attention.  My teenagers have a very short attention span, and hey I am not far behind… if you don’t  get my interest in 3 to 4 seconds I move on…. The fact that Twitter is streaming past you, if you don’t grab it it passes you by.. this makes it more compelling and in the end … potentially a bit addictive, you keep asking .. what have I missed out on? … What was that?.. Was that worth checking out?  Its immediacy is both frustrating and compelling.

Brian Clark is the founder of Copyblogger and co-founder of DIY Themes, creator of the innovative Thesis Theme for WordPress and reviews the the old art of writing headlines in the a Twittersphere . Get more from Brian on Twitter

1. “The Art of Writing Great Twitter Headlines”  by Brian Clark

Twitter has become the place for sharing content links. If your content catches attention on Twitter and spreads, suddenly you’re getting significant traffic from people who may have never visited your site before.

But don’t forget to share other people’s quality content on Twitter. This helps you build up a Twitter audience that values your editorial judgment, which in turns helps you when you have something of your own to share.

In both cases, what you share on Twitter is not just about the actual value of the content. It’s also about whether the content gets viewed and appreciated in the first place.

Yep… the difference is in the headline. You’ve heard this before, right?  Every time I tell people about the 80/20 Rule of Headlines, they seem shocked. Remember that one?

On average, 8 out of 10 people will read a headline, but only 2 out of 10 will go on to read the content. This is in a typical headline environment, such as a newspaper, magazine, or web page.

In an RSS reader or email inbox, the percentages are likely worse. The battle for attention intensifies due to the nature of the environment. Now, think about a Twitter stream.

People are scanning more ruthlessly than ever, looking for interesting tidbits. Your content link is competing with conversations, quips, and tantalizing revelations related to this morning’s breakfast cereal.  Time to up your headline game. But first, let’s review the foundational elements of solid headline writing.

2. “7 Steps to Promote Your Business Using Twitter”, originally written on the Blog Startup Nation reviews how  Twitter is a micro-blogging platform. It lets you update your status and lets the whole world know what you are up to. There are millions of Twitter-addicts all over the world, and the number of active users has increased by 900% in the past year. Companies can also use it to promote themselves.  

3. The Ultimate Guide To Twitter that has been compiled for WDD by Angela West is a indepth coverage on everything Twitter.

Twitter isn’t just a cute way for keeping in instant touch with friends on mobile phones anymore. It has ramped up quickly to be the search engine of choice for some with its human driven results.

Applications galore allow you to find friends all over the world with similar interests and keep up with them in real time. Businesses can form instant direct relationships with their customer bases simply by signing up and using the service regularly, and according to the models Twitter is trying out, they will soon be able to advertise to the Twitter community as well. It has grown into a behemoth that is hard to get your hands around. In  this blog is an alphabetized glossary for you so that you can just scan down the list and find the term that you are looking for, as well as a list of popular Twitter applications and instructions for incorporating Twitter into your website and blogs.

 4. “Great Report on Twitter By Hubspot”

In recent months the popular story about Twitter has been that the service’s user base is growing at an incredible rate. With celebrities joining Twitter (including the all important Oprah and CNN and Ashton Kutcher‘s race to a million followers, it seems like microblogging is unstoppable, and it very well may be. Now, though, we’re starting to see that the free-form nature of the service may be hindering actual usage by all those new users.

We’re happy to announce that we’re releasing version two of our State of the Twittersphere report (you can check out last year’s version here). In it we’ve found some surprising things. Namely, that many of the accounts on Twitter aren’t actually using it all that much.

• 79.79% failed to provide a homepage URL
• 75.86% of users have not entered a bio in their profile
• 68.68% have not specified a location
• 55.50% are not following anyone
• 54.88% have never tweeted
• 52.71% have no followers

We also found that since Twitter has implemented a limit to the number of users an account can follow (a maximum of 2000 when the user has less than 2000 followers) there is a large number of users who are following exactly 2000 users, possibly indicating that many active users are intentionally trying to gain as many followers as possible to increase their reach.

 5. “9 Ways To Find Twitter Users in Your Local Town, City or Region”  

The number of people visiting and using Twitter has nearly quadrupled over the past few months, and as more people sign up for the hot social networking service, it becomes more useful. Twitter is enabling everything from better customer service to easier job searches, and is being employed for some extraordinary home uses. Twitter can become infinitely more beneficial, though, if you use it to connect with people in your town.

Finding local Twitter users to connect with is great for networking, but also for getting relevant, real-time, local information about things like jobs, news, politics, weather, food, and more. Someone tweeting from London can’t help you find a good place to eat in New York City, and if you live in Chicago, tweets about the weather in Los Angeles won’t be very enlightening. Here are nine ways to locate Twitter users in your town to help you get the most out of Twitter.

6. “Is Twitter The New Digg?” …so suggests Daniel Scocco in his post on the blog Daily Blog Tips and makes this point by the following example.

On April 28, Darren Rowse publishes a guest post on his Twitip blog titled 11 Useful Twitter Tools That Don’t Require Your Password. One of the readers submits the post to a social network, and suddenly other users of that social network start “voting” on it. The story receives over 1,200 “votes,” and an avalanche of 50,000 visitors end up on Darren’s website.

You probably think that the social network that I mentioned is Digg, right? Well, it is not. I am talking about Twitter. The “votes” are tweets and retweets that contained a link to the story.

How do I know Twitter sent 50,000 visitors to that story? Because Bit.ly, the default URL shortener on Twitter, tracks the number of clicks that are sent to each URL

In reality the Bit.ly shortened URL could have been used in other places too, say email newsletters, which could mean that not all 50,000 visitors were coming from Twitter. But to compensate this, there is the fact that different Twitter applications use different shortening services. Some still use tinyurl.com, while others use is.gd and so on. This means that the Bit.ly tracked clicks are only part of all the clicks that came via Twitter, making the 50,000 visitors number reasonable, if not an underestimation.

Mind you that I didn’t spend too much time looking for a story that had received tens of thousands of visitors from Twitter. There are probably many more around, perhaps some with over 100,000 visitors referred from Twitter.

And the interesting thing is that this phenomenon is not limited to tech blogs, blogs that have the Tweetmeme widget or blogs where the author has a massive Twitter following. Just like with social bookmarking sites, Twitter is picking stories from websites that don’t even know what Twitter is, that don’t have a “Tweet This” link at the bottom of their articles, and it is sending a lot of traffic to them.

For example, last week MSNBC published an article inside its Discovery Channel column titled Nude, Mona Lisa-like painting surfaces. I don’t think that the author of the article tried to promote it on Twitter at all, and the site does not have any Twitter widgets or buttons. Yet Bit.ly shows that it got over 6,000 visitors from Twitter:

7. “Twitter Features That I Would Pay For”  by Matt Asay on cnet News

Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey has suggested that “Twitter’s a success for us when people stop talking about it,” perhaps particularly its business model (or lack thereof). Unfortunately, either it’s a success and I didn’t get the memo, or it still has room to improve. Assuming the latter, here are a few things that I’d gladly pay to have added to the Twitter service. The ability to lock in my user name. Facebook just launched personalized namespaces, but added the unnecessary drama of name-squatting. I was early enough to Twitter (and Facebook) that I got my preferred ‘handle’ on both (mjasay). Given the importance of having a consistent name/brand across services, however, I’d gladly pay for the right to lock in my preferred name. (Speaking of which, whoever it is that has “mjasay” on AIM, I’ll buy it from you.)

On Twitter you will have people “following” you, and you will be “following” others. “Following” is being updated every time a new post is added to one of your contacts’ profiles. Being followed is the same; every time you have something to add, all your “followers” will be updated. The more people that follow you, the more exposure your business will get. But it’s not about adding as many people as you can to your friends list. You need to be smart about building your follower base.

The problem is that many companies that try to market using Twitter don’t understand how this community works, and consequently their Twitter Marketing efforts don’t pay off.

To help you avert this fate, the following steps that are listed in this blog will guide you in understanding what to do and what not to do to give your company huge exposure using Twitter.

Here are some of the best blogs and posts that I came upon last week on my web journey, that I managed to tweet about. I hope you find them useful and enlightening 

1. “How Companies and Non Profits are Monetizing Social Media”

This article by Laurel Papworth  is about the various social media monetization strategies and the powerpoint presentation (embedded) shows some case studies and examples, including social network size, the revenue streams, valuations and profits.

2. ” 10 Twitter Best Practices For Non Profits ”

This Blog by DIOSA Communications discusses how non profits who are most successful at utilizing social networking Web sites like Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace and how they know from trial, error, and experience that a “marketing and development approach” on social networking sites does not work.

It’s about community building around your mission and programs. Just having profile on Twitter (or MySpace, or Facebook) does not magically produce any results. You have to work these profiles. Find the person on your staff who loves Web 2.0 and enjoys working the sites and/or find a marketing/pr intern from your local university that needs to do a senior project! If they are getting college credit, then you know they have to stay around for at least a semester.

3. “8 Non Profit CEO’s That Tweet”  

Beth Kanter reveals some good advice and  insights along with 8 Non Profit CEO’s that tweet

Recently, BusinessWeek published a slideshow of CEO’s who use Twitter, noting the dramatic rise of CEO’s who use Twitter to clue customers in on new services, help them with questions about their products, and generally get a little bit personal with customers, business associates, and the public.

There are some other benefits to having your nonprofit’s CEO be on Twitter, these might include:

• Source of news
• Brand Building
• Focus Group/Research
• Networking Tool
• Monitoring
• Drive Traffic to web site
• Humanizing your communications

Of course, if your CEO is going to Twitter, they have to be keep a consistent schedule and be authentic.    There’s been a bit of debate about celebrity Twitter users who have “ghost” twitterers or simply people helping them tweet.

She did a brief scan to see if there any nonprofit CEOs who Twitter.  Here’s a few that she found:

4. ”26 Great Social Media Presentations For Non Profits”

This post by Rebecca Leaman lists 26 great new presentations on social media with more coming out almost daily, now that we’re deep into conference season, and many are directed specifically to the needs of non-profits. If you’ve been thinking of launching or expanding your organization in social media, Slideshare is a good starting point for information and advice. But it can be time-consuming to pick through a wide range of slideshows to find those that are up-to-date, actionable, and appropriate to nonprofits.

Here’s a hand-picked selection of presentations to get you started.

5. ” 7 Tips For Effective Call to Action – For Your Web Site or Blog”

This Blog by “Hubspot” highlights 7 tips on a calls to action and how nearly every website should have a goal and some action they want their visitors to take. The goal may be to generate leads, buy products, click on ads or even just subscribe to an RSS feed.

A call-to-action is the copy or graphic you use to entice and persuade your readers to take that action. Well-designed calls to action can dramatically increase a site’s rate of conversion to its goal.

So what’s a well-designed call to action? Here are 7 Tips.

Well,  just for fun the other day I was looking at the top Twitterers by City and Country and at first glance noticed that there seemed to be a bit of a difference between Followers and  Following (in Twitter terms) between “New York” and “London” as expressed in ratios. It struck me that it seemed to be significant, so rather than guessing, I got out the trusty calculator and did the numbers,  and as we know in the Twitter world that its good practice (manners) that if you are followed you follow back, and the ideal ratio is 1 to 1 with a bad number being anything approaching zero.

So which City doesn’t follow back and the numbers are surprising with the top 25 for London and New York  being used for the calculations  (figures obtained from Twitterholic) 

                    London                                                                                                                  New York

Followers               Following                                                                           Followers                     Following

 1,749,398                    133,582                                                                               647,915                               147,089

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          So the ratio for “following to followers” has London only following back 76 to every 1000 followers (o.o76), with New York following back 227 to every 1000 followers (0.227)

So in summary “Londons” manners in twitter terms are 3 times worse than “New York”  (it follows back 3 times less than New York)

Has the mother country lost its manners and why?

I heard today that the reason Jennifer Aniston dumped her boyfriend John Mayer was due to his obsession with Twitter as reported in the Daily Telegraph as well as mentioned in Mashable. I also have observed  people’s use of  Facebook as also verging on obsessive. 

So why are social media sites like Twitter and Facebook  so popular?  It is due to their ability to compel people to participate, share, observe like a voyeur…. like an addiction.

This is the reason that Social Media is such a powerful marketing tool because it can be compelling, addictive and can become an obsession. So where is it all heading? Watch this space.

I was talking to a friend the other day and she asked me “what is twitter about?” Well my answer went like this.

“Well it’s a micro blog that has a limit of a 140 characters that enables you to announce to all your followers in a broadcast what you are doing like, launching a new product that’s exciting and innovative, or you found something cool on the net that might be of interest to your followers, or a news event that is captivating. It can be sent to mobile phones as well as computers”

So how can it be so powerful? Well it comes down to a term called “Leverage”.

Imagine if you had 200 followers and you told them about this exciting news and they told only 20 friends each via twitter and then each of them only had 10 friends as their followers and they were sent a twitter message.

Do the Math. That is 40,000 people, that is a “Big Lever”. Makes you think doesn’t it?