Twitter Chats: How to Create a Successful Tweet Chat

Are you familiar with Twitter chats?

Wondering how Twitter chats can help market your business?

To learn more about Twitter chats and what they can mean for your business, I interview Pam Moore for this episode of the Social Media Marketing podcast.

More About This Show

The Social Media Marketing podcast is a show from Social Media Examiner.

It’s designed to help busy marketers and business owners discover what works with social media marketing.

The show format is on-demand talk radio (also known as podcasting).

In this episode, I interview Pam Moore, founder of Marketing Nutz, an agency specializing in social media marketing. One of Pam’s areas of expertise includes Twitter.

Pam shares why businesses should host Twitter chats and the marketing benefits of running them.
You’ll discover how to get started, where to find participants and ways to promote your Twitter chats.

Share your feedback, read the show notes and get the links mentioned in this episode below!

Listen Now

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

You can also subscribe via iTunes, RSS, Stitcher, SoundCloud or Blackberry.

Here are some of the things you’ll discover in this show:

Twitter Chats

What Is a Twitter Chat? 

A Twitter chat is a way to get people together at a predetermined time and talk about a subject. Their purpose is to organize conversation and connect people.

Use tweet chats to connect people around a particular subject. 

Image source: iStockphoto

Pam says that if you’re new to social media, and to Twitter specifically, then Twitter chats are a great way for you to learn how to use it. Twitter chats not only allow you to form a deep connection with a community, but Pam has also seen people empower their lives and businesses faster than they thought possible.

When you plan a tweet chat, you can make them formal or informal. You’ll find out why Pam recommends that you have a combination of both. You can also do tweet chats in a series, which can help with your brand’s positioning. With this type of tweet chat, you need to put together a strategy over several months.

One of Pam’s clients, IBM, recently held an event called IBM Connect in Orlando, where they hosted tweet chats with some of the influencers and speakers for the event. The aim of these tweet chats was to generate awareness and excitement for the event, plus drive registration.

IBM used tweet chats for the IBM Connect event.

This particular chat had over 40 million impressions over the course of a few days, and included 2500 tweets. Nearly 600 people took part in the conversation
.
You’ll find out what comes after the tweet chat that is just as important as the chat itself and why you are left with a social asset.

Listen to the show to find out what IBM added to the front and back ends of their tweet chat for IBM Connect.

Why host a tweet chat?

One of the marketing benefits when you host your own tweet chat is that you can start to a build a community around it. You can capture the mindshare of that audience for a specific time on a regular basis. This gives you an opportunity to communicate and support your marketing objectives.

You can build a community around tweet chats. Image source: iStockphoto

Your core goal is to focus on the needs of your audience. When you provide great content, which can bring good people to the community, then they’ll begin to depend on you and want more.

Pam has seen so many people—clients included—grow their businesses and make connections and partnerships. It easily puts you in a leadership role.

Listen to the show to discover how a tweet chat can easily go viral.

How to prepare for a tweet chat

Pam says that the process includes both art and science. As the chat leader, you need to provide some framework, but you don’t want it to look like you have planned everything that you say.

You have to balance structure with flexibility and agility. In a structured-style tweet chat, you have a list of questions. Pam usually creates a list of questions and has a specific topic to talk about.

Pam is the leader of the GetRealChat, which is held weekly to educate and help the audience. As the leader, you can share your expertise and also leave the questions open for the community to answer.

Pam leads the GetRealChat every week.

You’ll hear how you can use tweet chats to grow your email opt-in list and subscribers.

Listen to the show to find out what led IBM to put together a social buzz chat after the tweet chat, and how the company created a social asset.

How to get people to participate live 

When you lead a tweet chat, you need to make sure you work in unison with any guests whom you invite to join you. Don’t ever throw them in at the last minute.

The best way is to get on the phone with guests ahead of time, so you can have that voice-to-voice connection first. If it’s your first time on a chat, then Pam encourages you to be on the phone while on the chat.

You’ll discover why Pam likes to get on the conference call 15 minutes before the chat with everybody who is participating. Behind the scenes, the chats are very structured, but to the community it needs to look completely unstructured.

The way to get people to participate in a tweet chat is to leverage your existing community using your email list. If you don’t have one, then you need to start to build a list.

Build an email list if you don’t already have one.

Pam likes to do some market tipping to let people know about the chat.

The most important thing is to make sure your content is good. You can also reach out to some key influencers within your community and get them to partner with you.

You’ll hear the story behind how GetRealChat came about.

A lot of different tweet chats have arisen from the GetRealChat, created by people who came in 3 years ago and hardly knew how to tweet or retweet. These people now lead their own communities and some even work for Pam and her team.

Listen to the show to find out how long a chat should last, and what you need to do to make it succeed.

How to find tweet chats

If you’re new to tweet chats, then head over to the GetRealChat blog to see all of the transcripts from Pam’s tweet chats.

Pam recommends that you use the TweetChat platform. Once you enter the specific hashtag, it will automatically filter all of your tweets for that hashtag. It will also add the hashtag at the end of your tweets, so you don’t have to.

TweetChat will add the hashtag at the end of your tweets.

Listen to the show to find out how we use TweetChat at Social Media Examiner.

Common mistakes to avoid

Pam says that if she were to do it all over again, she would structure her chats more from the start.
The objective of tweet chats is to serve and help people. So if you see it start to take off, then you need to think about monetizing your platform.

IBM is a client of Pam’s because they approached her to participate on her platform and to communicate with her audience. You’ll hear the reasons Pam set up the GetRealChat blog.

Make sure you have a platform for your audience to go to.

When you first start out, you need at least 10-20 people on a chat. It’s about quality over quantity.

Pam has always tried to focus on quality, and to ensure that people feel part of the community. You need to keep the people who care about it really engaged, because they are the heartbeat of the chat.

It’s better to have 100 people who are interested in your content and communicate within your chat on a monthly basis than it is to have 500 who are just tweeting or retweeting because they want to become famous and be part of the hashtag.

You’ll discover how many questions you should have ready and why five is normally not enough.
Listen to the show to find out what turns up the dial on the viral nature of a tweet chat.

The strategic use of retweets

Pam says that when she runs a tweet chat, she has windows open for TweetChat and HootSuite.
You need to make sure you know the key players in your community and give them some social love. Some of the best ways you can do this is to:

• Notice when they ask questions
• Greet them as they come in
• Share relevant content they tweet

Another thing you can do is welcome people back. Pam has people in her community who over time have stepped up into a welcoming role. People just want to be acknowledged.

Listen to the show to hear why Pam doesn’t consider influence score when replying to people.

Tools to help manage a tweet chat

Along with TweetChat, there are a few other tools available to help you manage a tweet chat.
You can use a platform like Storify to help manage your tweets. Tweets can be collected within Storify and then shared in a blog post.

During tweet chats, you or a colleague can favorite some tweets in a separate Twitter window that you know you’ll want to pull into a transcript. This will make it much easier for you to go into Storify, do a search and pull up those tweets.

Use Storify to turn your favorite tweets into a transcript.

To create the transcript, it’s simply drag and drop. Storify then shows you what your transcript will look like.

You need to install the WordPress plugin for Storify on your blog, and once Storify gives you the URL for that transcript, you can easily embed it within your blog post.

The WordPress Storify plugin allows you to embed your tweets into a blog post.

Hashtracking is another tool that Pam loves. It gives you real-time insights for your hashtag.
Some of the measurement features include:

• The reach of your hashtag
• How many impressions you are getting
• How many people participated in the chat
• How many tweets were sent
• What other hashtags were communicated

You’ll discover why Hashtracking is a very powerful tool when you have sponsors involved in your tweet chats.

Pam believes that if you are new to tweet chats, these tools are all you need to get started.

Check out the full podcast episode with Pam Moore.

Listen to the show to hear what you can view in the Hashtracking transcript.

Other Show Mentions

This week’s podcast is sponsored by Social Media Marketing World.


Social Media Marketing World 2014 is our physical mega-conference, which is set to return to San Diego, California on March 26, 27 and 28.

The conference features more than 80 sessions in four major tracks: social tactics, social strategy, community management and content marketing.

If you want to see the excitement for this conference, check out our hashtag #smmw14.

If you enjoy networking and a key part of your business strategy is to meet people who could possibly become business partners, strategic alliance partners or future customers, you will love this conference. We have integrated networking in so many different ways.

1. Bingo on opening night
2. Walks/runs in a morning
3. Opportunity after the opening keynote
4. Dedicated networking space
5. Dedicated networking ambassadors

Be sure to check out more about the conference.

Call in and leave your social media–related questions for us and we may include them in a future show.

Key takeaways mentioned in this episode:

• Connect with Pam Moore at The Marketing Nutz or at Pam Marketing Nut.
• Check out IBM Connect and the hashtag for the event.
• Use TweetChat for Twitter chats.
• Check out Jessica Northey, a country music artist who runs a tweet chat at CMchat.
• Look at the GetRealChat blog for transcripts of Pam’s tweet chats.
• Try Storify to manage your tweets.
• Install the WordPress plugin for Storify, so transcripts can be embedded in a blog post.
• Use Hashtracking to gain real-time insights into your hashtag.
• Learn more about Social Media Marketing World 2014.
• Contact Emily at emily@socialmediaexaminer.com if you are interested in corporate sponsorships for Social Media Marketing World 2014.

Help Us Spread the Word!

Please let your Twitter followers know about this podcast. Simply click here now to post a tweet.
If you enjoyed this episode of the Social Media Marketing podcast, please head over to iTunes, leave a rating, write a review and subscribe. And if you listen on Stitcher, please click here to rate and review this show.

Ways to subscribe to the Social Media Marketing podcast:

• Click here to subscribe via iTunes.
• Click here to subscribe via RSS (non-iTunes feed).
• You can also subscribe via Stitcher, SoundCloud and Blackberry.

What do you think? What are your thoughts on creating Twitter chats for your business? Please leave your comments below.

Facebook Marketing Declines: How Business Should React

Do you use Facebook to promote your business?

Are you wondering how the recent Facebook algorithm changes will affect your marketing?

To learn what the future of Facebook means for your brand or business, I interview Mari Smith and Jay Baer for this episode of the Social Media Marketing podcast.

More About This Show

The Social Media Marketing podcast is a show from Social Media Examiner.

It’s designed to help busy marketers and business owners discover what works with social media marketing.

The show format is on-demand talk radio (also known as podcasting).

In this episode, I interview Mari Smithand Jay Baer. Mari is the co-author ofFacebook Marketing: An Hour a Dayand considered to be the world’s leading expert on Facebook marketing and Jay is the author of Youtility: Why Smart Marketing Is About Help Not Hype. He’s also host of the Social Pros podcast.

Mari and Jay share how to be successful with Facebook’s new algorithm and what these changes mean for your Facebook strategy.

You’ll learn how to monitor your reach and engagement, and how to navigate paid versus earned media in your content strategy.

Share your feedback, read the show notes and get the links mentioned in this episode below!

Listen Now

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

You can also subscribe via iTunes, RSS, Stitcher or Blackberry.

Here are some of the things you’ll discover in this show:

Facebook Marketing Declines

Recently, an article by AdAge referenced an official Facebook document that said, “We expect organic distribution of an individual page’s posts to gradually decline over time, as we continually work to make sure people have a meaningful experience on the site.”

AdAge‘s article references an official Facebook document, which urges marketers to buy ads.

In other words, Facebook says that they are going to show less of your Facebook updates to your fans and followers. If you want to get seen, you will have to pay to play.

This news has raised a lot of concern among marketers.

Previous changes to the Facebook news feed

Mari explains how up until a few months ago, the algorithm that governs what content goes into the news feed was called EdgeRank. The term used now is the Facebook news feed ranking algorithm.

The formula changed dramatically, with Facebook telling everyone that on any given day, a user can potentially see 1,500 possible stories. A story includes likes, comments, shares, videos and photos.

Once you click Like, Comment or Share, Facebook knows what type of content to show you. Most users are aware that the majority of content shown comes from friends.

This means that business pages struggle to get organic visibility.

On December 2, 2013, Facebook announced they will start to decline or diminish organic reach for pages because users predominantly want to see content from friends and brands that they enjoy interacting with. According to Inside Facebook, studies show more than 40% decreased organic reach on Facebook.

Listen to the show to find out what type of content Facebook will give less weight to.

Is Facebook trying to protect its fans from marketers? 

I recently heard Gary Vaynerchuk say that Facebook is trying to protect its fans from marketers. It seems that Facebook has realized that they need to provide a quality user experience, otherwise people won’t click on the ads.

Jay explains why Facebook doesn’t want to devolve into MySpace. They are now a public company, which needs to continue to generate tons of advertising money. One of the ways to do this is to squeeze the algorithm.

Listen to the show to find out how Facebook has used one of the oldest business playbooks in history to get you hooked.

Marketers see a decline in organic reach

In December, an article by Ignite Social Media showed that brands saw massive declines in organic reach that month.

Jay says that a large number of brands on Facebook have seen a decline in organic reach, but there are other brands that have not been impacted by the change at all.

There are some exceptions to the rule. On one of his podcasts, Jay recently interviewed the chief of police of Brimfield, Ohio, who said the department has over 75% engagement rates on its Facebook page.

The Brimfield, Ohio police department has very high engagement on its Facebook page.

Jay says that we’ve had it pretty good on Facebook for a long time and while it’s annoying that you now have to start to pay, he doesn’t think it should have come as a big surprise.

Listen to the show to discover why Jay believes that you can still be effective on Facebook for “free.”

Brand loyalty

Mari says you can have brand loyalty no matter what size your business is.

She has always admired Oreo’s marketing, which has 35 million Facebook fans. Oreo’s Talking About This number, which includes fans and non-fans at any given time, is 251,000 people.

Then if you look at Skittles on Facebook, they have 25 million fans, but only 56,000 are actually talking about this.

Skittles has over 25 million fans on Facebook.

Both brands are quirky, fun and post great content. It really comes down to the quality of the content and how much the fans are interacting.

This goes for any brand, no matter what size or budget.

Listen to the show to hear how you can build brand loyalty and various ways you can get traction.

The impact on small businesses

Mari explains how people have shared their unrest and frustration with these new changes. Some have even considered abandoning their Facebook business page and just use their profile page instead.

You’ll hear why Mari feels that this is unfortunate and why there are still so many advantages to having a business page. Not everybody across the platform is experiencing this decline.

Jay says the tricky part of it all is trying to figure out the cause. It’s hard to advise people right now, because even the professionals don’t really know. There are a lot of organizations that specialize in Facebook research, who are actually trying to crack the code to see what the new best practice is.

Listen to the show to find out why Jay believes that this is the year for Google+ pages for business.

How to tell if your business has seen a decline in organic reach

Mari advises you to look at your Facebook Page Insights, which are available on both desktop and mobile.

Mari loves the little scorecard feature. You can go into your Insights and look under the Posts tab, where every individual post will pop up. It will give you at a glance both negative and positive feedback.

You can see what kind of reach you got, the click-through rate and whether people hide your content as spam or unlike your page.

You can see in Post Reach who you have reached and who you have engaged.

You’ll discover some of the great stats you can get when you export data and what you need to look at that will determine whether your organic reach has gone down.

Listen to the show to find out why Mari is excited about Instagram for brands and businesses in 2014.

Do we have reason to be concerned? 

Jay doesn’t think the new changes are necessarily a reason to be concerned. He feels it’s the natural evolution of what was formerly an immature industry, which is now more mature. It’s becoming more about the media and less about the social.

There are tens of billions of dollars at stake. Somebody will take these dollars and turn social media into an advertising platform, more than it is already. All of these platforms are going to have both organic and paid opportunities and Jay thinks that the smart companies, including small businesses, will take advantage of both.

Smart companies will take advantage of both free and paid opportunities. Image source: iStockphoto

Jay says that it’s important to recognize that it’s not as if this doesn’t work anymore. It just doesn’t work as well as it once did.

You’ll hear why Jay is a firm believer that paid social will be a requirement for almost all businesses.

Mari explains that for a long time, she has put a lot more money into community building than advertising. She has developed a reputation for being someone who responds and now has a team whose sole job it is to respond to questions on her fan page.

Mari shares why Socialbakers is one of her favorite social media analytic tools for Facebook, and why community management is more important than ever.

Listen to the show to find out why both Mari and Jay strongly believe that you have to actively respond to customer questions.

Start to budget for social advertising

Mari says that you should start to budget for social advertising. You can budget as little as $5 per day to promote content that you put on your wall. You don’t necessarily have to buy ads down the right-hand side.

Mari has recently created a Facebook ads course with her good friend Dennis Yu, who believes that the news feed ads are where it’s at.

You need to create content that doesn’t look like a marketing message. Instead, make it look more like a conversation piece that people can engage with. You’ll hear what you can do to amplify the reach of this content.

Listen to the show to find out what you can do if you don’t have an advertising budget.

Examples of useful advertising

As Jay talks about in his book Youtility, the idea would be to advertise content instead of a company.

Jay says they have seen some good success with Facebook advertising of business-to-business content, such as ebooks and webinars. You have to be smart and aggressive about targeting.

One of the mistakes that people make when they advertise on Facebook is that they try to cast the net too wide. You need to use keywords and other targeting capabilities.

To help promote Social Media Marketing World, we use a service called Perfect Audience. It costs approximately $40 per week.

A sponsored story is a lot more economical for advertising events.

Listen to the show to find out why Jay thinks Facebook retargeting will become very popular.

Should we have something we call our own?

Jay says that without a doubt, you should have something you own, whether it’s content assets or community assets.

You’ll hear Jay explain about paid, owned and earned media and why they’re so important to your business.

Jay’s friend Jeff Rohrs, who is the co-host of the Social Pros podcast, has a great new book called Audience. It’s all about how to build your own assets online and create ties with audiences that you can then use to build a successful business down the road.

Listen to the show to find out why you need to figure out what you own and make it worthy of attention.

Tactical steps marketers can take to get the most out of Facebook

If you’re a small business owner, then Mari advises you to use your personal profile in conjunction with a fan page.

You’ll discover what you need to do with your personal profile to blast through the 5,000-friend limit and be able to publish public content that people can sign up to see.

Mari has three opportunities to be seen in the news feed on any given day organically. She posts to friends, publicly on her profile and to her fan page.

Mari typically posts only once a day on her profile and her fan page—both of which are different content.

Facebook has been promoting Instagram because they want you to integrate and connect your Instagram account with your Facebook pages. You can also do this for fan pages too.

There are lots of different things to consider and integrate. You need to have a solid business plan in place and use social media as an amplifier.

Listen to the show to find out why Jay says that you have to play the algorithmic game to make sure your posts get maximum organic reach.

Other Show Mentions

Social Media Marketing World 2014 is our physical mega-conference, which is set to return to San Diego, California on March 26, 27 and 28.

The conference features more than 60 sessions in 4 major tracks, which include social tactics, social strategy, community management and content marketing.

Below is a sample of the visual marketing sessions we have planned.

• How Brands Use Pinterest to Turn Eyeballs Into Loyal Customers—Cynthia Sanchez with Michael Bepko (Whole Foods) and Azure Collier (Constant Contact)
• How to Create Original, Shareable, Traffic-Driving Visual Content—Donna Moritz
• How to Use Pinterest to Build Your Email List: Proven Techniques—Melanie Duncan
• Brands That Are Rockin’ It on Instagram: Tips From the Trenches—Sue Zimmerman
• How to Grow Your Pinterest Following the Smart Way—Cynthia Sanchez

Be sure to check it out.

Call in and leave your social media–related questions for us and we may include them in a future show.

Key takeaways mentioned in this episode:

• Connect with Mari Smith on her website, Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.
• Connect with Jay Baer on his website or on Convince & Convert.
• Listen to the Social Pros podcast.
• Read AdAge‘s article, Facebook Admits Organic Reach Is Falling Short, Urges Marketers to Buy Ads.
• Check out Facebook’s article, What Increased Content Sharing Means for Businesses.
• Read Facebook’s announcement on Helping You Find More News to Talk About.
• Take a look at Inside Facebook’s article, Studies Show More Than 40% Decreased Organic Reach on Facebook.
• Check out Ignite Social Media’s article, Facebook Brand Pages Suffer 44% Decline in Reach Since December 1.
• Read Jim Tobin’s book, Earn It, Don’t Buy It, which is all about the nature of organic reach versus paid.
• Listen to Social Pros podcast with the chief of police of Brimfield, Ohio to find out how they have increased their Facebook page engagement rate.
• Check out the Brimfield, Ohio Police Department’s Facebook page.
• Take a look at Oreo and Skittles on Facebook.
• Learn more about the new Facebook Page Insights.
• Head over to Socialbakers and check out Socially Devoted.
• Use a service like Perfect Audience for sponsored stories on Facebook.
• Read Jeff Rohrs‘ book, Audience.
• Email Emily at emily@socialmediaexaminer.com if you are interested in corporate sponsorships for Social Media Marketing World 2014.
• Learn more about Social Media Marketing World 2014.

Help Us Spread the Word!

Please let your Twitter followers know about this podcast. Simply click here now to post a tweet.

If you enjoyed this episode of the Social Media Marketing podcast, please head over to iTunes, leave a rating, write a review and subscribe. And if you listen on Stitcher, please click here to rate and review this show.

Ways to subscribe to the Social Media Marketing podcast:

• Click here to subscribe via iTunes.
• Click here to subscribe via RSS (non-iTunes feed).
• You can also subscribe via Stitcher and Blackberry.

What do you think? What are your thoughts on Facebook’s new pay-to-play approach? Please leave your comments below.

Image from iStockPhoto.

Blog Growth: How to Build a Mega-Following

Do you want to attract a bigger audience to your blog?

Are you wondering how you can write content that will generate more comments, shares and subscribers?

To learn how to grow a successful blog, I interview Syed Balkhi for this episode of the Social Media Marketing podcast.

More About This Show

The Social Media Marketing podcast is a show from Social Media Examiner.

It’s designed to help busy marketers and business owners discover what works with social media marketing.

The show format is on-demand talk radio (also known as podcasting).

In this episode, I interview Syed Balkhi, founder of multiple popular websites, including WPBeginner andList25. He’s also the founder ofOptinMonster.

Syed shares how he grew his very popular sites and provides actionable tips that you can employ to grow your own blog traffic.

You’ll learn about the different types of content that work best and some profitable choices for monetization.

Share your feedback, read the show notes and get the links mentioned in this episode below!

Listen Now

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

You can also subscribe via iTunes, RSS, Stitcher or Blackberry.

Here are some of the things you’ll discover in this show:

Blog Growth

The idea for WPBeginner

Back in 2009, Syed did consulting work for small businesses, with a lot of the work retainer-based. To free up some time, he decided to switch his clients to WordPress, which would give them the ability to change their own text and not have to contact him directly.

Once this change happened, Syed was still approached with the same questions about WordPress. At the time there was no other WordPress resource site out there for beginners. So WPBeginner was formed on July 4, 2009.

WPBeginner was started because so many people were asking the same questions about WordPress.

Syed explains how his goal in the beginning was to produce multiple posts a day and answer all of the questions that he was asked. The idea was to put the answers on the website so he could link back to them, rather than send an email.

When he noticed that other people were using the site, he knew there was definitely a market for it.

You’ll hear how Syed used Twitter to help with content creation and why he used Diggand StumbleUpon to push articles.

Listen to the show to find out why it was Syed’s goal to help individuals, rather than have hugely popular articles.

WPBeginner’s site metrics

Syed states that WPBeginner gets an average of 1.5 million page views a month and they have just over 70,000 followers on Twitter.

Listen to the show to find out how these figures are similar to Social Media Examiner’s.

The lessons learned about content creation

From the very beginning, Syed built an email list, but he didn’t engage with it. At first, he didn’t realize the value of asking people to ask you questions.

Now when you subscribe to WPBeginner, it asks you one question: “What is the one thing we can help you with right now?”

Once you have subscribed to WPBeginner, you are given the opportunity to ask one question.

You’ll discover why there is huge value in this one question and how this has changed the way WPBeginner creates content.

Syed used to be the only person who wrote articles, but the site now has multiple writers with a very good editorial workflow.

Listen to the show to hear how the interaction and response to email has developed the WPBeginner community.

WPBeginner’s business model

Syed explains that his business is monetized through building WordPress applications and plugins. A lot of the time, it’s conversion marketing for clients.

The WPBeginner brand allows them to position themselves as experts. Whenever somebody wants a WordPress company to work with, they automatically think of WPBeginner.

You’ll hear how they use affiliate links for paid plugins.

In the beginning, Syed tried display advertising. He had ads through AdSense,  and private ad sales. You’ll find out why these ads didn’t work for the WPBeginner audience and how affiliate deals make more sense.

Affiliate deals make more sense for the WPBeginner audience.

Listen to the show to find out why we use DoubleClick for Publishers at Social Media Examiner.

The challenges 

Syed explains that one of the biggest challenges they face is being able to stay up to date.

Blog articles can become outdated, and because of WPBeginner’s reputation, people in the WordPress community hold them to a very high standard. So they have to make sure articles are updated to the best of their ability.

The editorial team spends time making sure all articles are relevant and concurrently strives to produce new content.

Listen to the show to find out why all of WPBeginner’s articles are how-to information.

How List25 started

Syed explains that List25 is an entertainment site. Each article relates to 25 things on a particular topic. The slogan is “Consistently Conciliating Curiosity.” You’ll hear the original idea that Syed had for a new site and how it turned into List25.

List25 was launched at BlogWorld LA in November 2011.

At present, List25 has over 250,000 Facebook likes, over 530,000 YouTube subscribers and 62 million YouTube views. The site gets tons of visitors every month. It’s growing at 52,000 YouTube subscribers a month.

Syed believes the reason why it’s grown so quickly is because of the type of content. It appeals to the masses and is much more shareable. It raises curiosity in people’s minds.

You’ll discover why list-based posts are very popular and shareable.

One of the things that Syed did differently with List25 was to grow on all different outlets. You’ll find out why they have a lot of success on Tumblr and StumbleUpon, and how Syed uses Twitter search to ride the hashtag during holidays.

Listen to the show to find out how content is created for List25.

The strategy for List25′s YouTube channel

The videos on YouTube are created with the images from each article and made into a slideshow. Syed’s friend then does the voiceover from the article list.

The images from each article are compiled into a slideshow-style video for YouTube.

You’ll hear how they cross-promote their content and collaborate with various YouTube channels.

Syed says that YouTube was an experiment that turned out to be great. They now plan to put more thought into the video layout.

Listen to the show to hear how the YouTube channel drives people back to the website.

Lessons learned about these two very different websites

Syed states that with List25, you can’t control what is said. There is so much up for debate. You can only moderate it or facilitate the discussion; whereas with WPBeginner, you can engage with users and help them out.

You’ll find out why WPBeginner is easier to manage.

The reason that List25 has grown a lot faster is because Syed has a network of power users on different social media networks. He understands the game of making it go viral.

Listen to the show to find out why List25 is about stirring people’s emotions, whereas WPBeginner has a more practical approach.

High-frequency content versus low-frequency, high-quality content

Syed says it all depends on your audience. On his personal blog he writes once or twice a week, on WPBeginner he writes once a day and on List25, they publish multiple articles a day. It depends on the model you have and what your goals are.

Articles are published once a day on WPBeginner.

If you’re a small business, a coach or in a specific industry, Syed advises you to create low-frequency, high-quality content. However, if you have a site where your primary means of revenue is display advertisement, you’ve got to get more page views. This means you have to provide high-frequency content. You need to provide your audience with multiple articles.

Listen to the show to find out why it’s important to stay relevant with high-frequency content.

Survival Tip: How to Use Testimonials in Your Marketing

Recently I’ve created a new video series. I want to share with you three simple steps for using testimonials in your marketing and why they are super-powerful forms of marketing.

We did testimonials at Social Media Marketing World this year and we will use them to sell next year’s conference.

Here are three simple steps for getting successful testimonials.

1. Obtain exit surveys through audio endorsements and video. This is very easy to do. You can use a survey system like SurveyMonkey. The two questions you need to ask are, “Would you recommend this to a friend or colleague?” and “If you were recommending this to a friend or colleague, what would you say?” You’ll find out why these questions are so important.

Another powerful form of testimonial is to record someone who can recommend whatever it is you have to offer. You’ll hear a testimonial clip from Mari Smith at Social Media Marketing World. When you ask for a testimonial via video, you need to let the interviewee speak first and then always ask a follow-on question. It’s the key part of the testimonial.

2. Go through and identify the good testimonials that you might want to use.

3. Pull it all together. You’ll find out how we put all the video clips together to make one amazing video testimonial.

Call in and leave your social media–related questions for us and we may include them in a future show.

Listen to the show to learn more and let us know how this works for you.

Other Show Mentions

Social Media Marketing World 2014 is our physical mega-conference, which is set to return to San Diego, California on March 26, 27 and 28.

The conference features more than 60 sessions in four major tracks: social tactics, social strategy, community management and content marketing.

Click here to see the full clip of all the great video testimonials we put together for Social Media Marketing World. It’s a 10-minute video, which includes a lot of people you respect such as Chris Brogan, Mari Smith and many others, who thought this was one of the best conferences they had ever been to.

I suggest you check it out.

Key takeaways mentioned in this episode:

• Connect with Syed Balkhi on his website, his personal Twitter account or the WPBeginner Twitter account.
• Check out WPBeginner.
• Look at AdSense,  and DoubleClick for Publishers to monetize your blog with ads.
• Head over to List25 to see the type of lists they create.
• Take a look at List25 on Facebook and YouTube.
• Use Twitter search to find relevant hashtags.
• Listen to Episode 7 with Marcus Sheridan: Blogging for Business: How Content Can Improve Your Sales.
• Visit my YouTube channel to see more actionable marketing tips.
• Check out the testimonials from Social Media Marketing World 2013.
• Learn more about Social Media Marketing World 2014.
• Contact Emily at emily@socialmediaexaminer.com if you are interested in corporate sponsorships for Social Media Marketing World 2014.

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What do you think? What are your thoughts on building a mega-following?Please leave your comments below.