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	<title>Christopher S. Penn : Awaken Your Superhero &#187; Twitter</title>
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	<link>http://www.christopherspenn.com</link>
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		<title>Do New Klout Scores Predict Influence?</title>
		<link>http://www.christopherspenn.com/2011/11/do-new-klout-scores-predict-influence/</link>
		<comments>http://www.christopherspenn.com/2011/11/do-new-klout-scores-predict-influence/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 01 Nov 2011 13:36:25 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Christopher S Penn</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Advertising]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Marketing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Social media]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Social networks]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Twitter]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.christopherspenn.com/?p=3326</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style" addthis:url='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2011/11/do-new-klout-scores-predict-influence/' addthis:title='Do New Klout Scores Predict Influence?' ><a class="addthis_button_facebook_like"></a><a class="addthis_button_google_plusone"></a><a class="addthis_button_twitter"></a><a class="addthis_button_email"></a><a class="addthis_button_linkedin"></a><a class="addthis_button_stumbleupon"></a><a class="addthis_button_google"></a><a class="addthis_button_compact"></a></div>One of the biggest hanging questions from my previous post on the algorithm change to Klout scores was: does the new Klout score do a better or worse job of predicting influence? Let&#8217;s attempt to answer that together today. Before we begin, the disclosures and disclaimers. This set of tests was done with two datasets [...]<div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style addthis_32x32_style" addthis:url='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2011/11/do-new-klout-scores-predict-influence/' addthis:title='Do New Klout Scores Predict Influence?' ><a class="addthis_button_facebook_like"></a><a class="addthis_button_google_plusone"></a><a class="addthis_button_twitter"></a><a class="addthis_button_email"></a><a class="addthis_button_linkedin"></a><a class="addthis_button_stumbleupon"></a><a class="addthis_button_google"></a><a class="addthis_button_compact"></a></div>
Related posts:<ol>
<li><a href='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2011/10/old-klout-scores-vs-new-klout-scores/' rel='bookmark' title='Old Klout scores vs. New Klout scores'>Old Klout scores vs. New Klout scores</a></li>
<li><a href='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2011/07/innovation-has-a-low-klout-score/' rel='bookmark' title='Innovation has a low Klout score'>Innovation has a low Klout score</a></li>
<li><a href='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2010/11/where-klout-really-shines/' rel='bookmark' title='Where Klout really shines'>Where Klout really shines</a></li>
</ol>]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style" addthis:url='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2011/11/do-new-klout-scores-predict-influence/' addthis:title='Do New Klout Scores Predict Influence?' ><a class="addthis_button_facebook_like"></a><a class="addthis_button_google_plusone"></a><a class="addthis_button_twitter"></a><a class="addthis_button_email"></a><a class="addthis_button_linkedin"></a><a class="addthis_button_stumbleupon"></a><a class="addthis_button_google"></a><a class="addthis_button_compact"></a></div><p>One of the biggest hanging questions from my previous post on the algorithm change to Klout scores was: <strong>does the new Klout score do a better or worse job of predicting influence?</strong> Let&#8217;s attempt to answer that together today.</p>
<p>Before we begin, the disclosures and disclaimers. This set of tests was done with two datasets from my audience on Twitter. It&#8217;s a niche audience of folks largely focused on digital marketing, which means that it&#8217;s not representative of the general public. I also interact with my audience in peculiar ways, including using a variety of tools to do some funky automated stuff. <em>Thus, my audience should not be interpreted to be representative of the general public and certainly not representative of your audience</em>.</p>
<p>First things first. Let&#8217;s see if we can ascertain what the new Klout score uses as its basis for making influence decisions. In the past, Klout scores relied heavily on activity, meaning that if you tweeted a lot, you&#8217;d get a halfway decent score. I pulled a random sample of 2,516 Twitter IDs from my followers and grabbed their followers, following, tweets, and lists counts.</p>
<p>Second, the usual warning applies. <a href="http://www.christopherspenn.com/2011/06/cause-and-effect/" target="_blank">Correlation is not causation</a>!</p>
<p>Is there a correlation between followers and Klout score? Yes, a relatively weak one:</p>
<p><a target="_blank" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/financialaidpodcast/6302442390/" title="SOFA Statistics Report 2011-11-01_09:10:58 by Christopher S. Penn, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6109/6302442390_ac9de56e30.jpg" width="500" height="457" alt="SOFA Statistics Report 2011-11-01_09:10:58"/></a></p>
<p>It&#8217;s weak enough that I wouldn&#8217;t rely on it, but not weak enough that it&#8217;s statistically insignificant.</p>
<p>How about the people you follow and Klout score?</p>
<p><a target="_blank" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/financialaidpodcast/6302443928/" title="SOFA Statistics Report 2011-11-01_09:10:58 by Christopher S. Penn, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6059/6302443928_b009a13bb7.jpg" width="500" height="455" alt="SOFA Statistics Report 2011-11-01_09:10:58"/></a></p>
<p>Weaker than followers but still not insignificant.</p>
<p>What about being listed? After all, if someone puts you on a Twitter list, they must want to follow you in some sense.</p>
<p><a target="_blank" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/financialaidpodcast/6301919511/" title="SOFA Statistics Report 2011-11-01_09:10:58 by Christopher S. Penn, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6040/6301919511_3f1e24c602.jpg" width="500" height="454" alt="SOFA Statistics Report 2011-11-01_09:10:58"/></a></p>
<p>Also weak, though stronger than following count.</p>
<p>Finally, what about being just flat out noisy?</p>
<p><a target="_blank" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/financialaidpodcast/6302446768/" title="SOFA Statistics Report 2011-11-01_09:10:58 by Christopher S. Penn, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6019/6302446768_039a69a3f1.jpg" width="500" height="458" alt="SOFA Statistics Report 2011-11-01_09:10:58"/></a></p>
<p>Weak, but stronger than following and listed.</p>
<p>What does this tell us? No one factor is dominant in the new Klout algorithm, though if you had to pick something to focus on for activity, getting new followers is the best of a bad lot. There&#8217;s another possibility as well: Klout may be giving more weight to other social networks, which means that Twitter (which this data set is based off of) may have less impact on your influence score overall.</p>
<p>Now, let&#8217;s get to the meat of the question: <strong>do people with higher Klout scores do what I want them to do?</strong> That, after all, is the definition of influence, the ability to change an outcome or cause an action to be taken. As you know from many past posts, I use an open source package called TwapperKeeper to keep a log of all my tweets and mentions. I pulled out everyone who has ever retweeted me since I installed the software, which was about a year ago, and then did a count of how many times they&#8217;d retweeted me. After all, if I&#8217;m influential to you, chances are you&#8217;ll retweet me more than once over the span of a year, right? It also follows logically that if you retweet me, chances are you retweet other people too, which should in turn make you influential and as a result you should have a higher Klout score.</p>
<p>So, to answer the question whether a Klout score is an accurate predictor of whether you&#8217;ll do what I want you to do (in this case, retweet), let&#8217;s run the numbers:</p>
<p><a target="_blank" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/financialaidpodcast/6301949301/" title="SOFA Statistics Report 2011-11-01_09:21:38 by Christopher S. Penn, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6035/6301949301_e7605bd1c2.jpg" width="500" height="451" alt="SOFA Statistics Report 2011-11-01_09:21:38"/></a></p>
<p>Uh oh. It turns out that Klout score is a horrible predictor of whether someone will retweet me. The Pearson R score is so low that it effectively says there&#8217;s no relationship between the Klout score and the likelihood that you&#8217;ll retweet me frequently.</p>
<p><strong><em>The bottom line is this: if you are using or want to use Klout scores to determine who to follow for the purposes of getting them to retweet you, Klout is a useless metric for this purpose, at least with my digital marketing crowd. </em></strong></p>
<p>As always, I believe strongly in peer review, so I&#8217;m including the anonymized data sets for the information shown above so that you can run your own tests on it. I&#8217;m not a statistician by any stretch of the imagination, so I would encourage you to do your own study using my methodology or at least download my data sets and slice &#038; dice &#8216;em for yourself.</p>
<p><a target="_blank" href="https://s3.amazonaws.com/SecureHosted/anonymizedsample.csv" target="_blank">Download the random sample of Klout scores vs. followers and other general measures in a CSV</a>.</p>
<p><a target="_blank" href="https://s3.amazonaws.com/SecureHosted/anonymizedrts.csv" target="_blank">Download the people who retweeted me vs. Klout scores in a CSV</a>.</p>
<p>What&#8217;s your take on this Klout data?</p>
<hr noshade size="1" width="100%" />
<p style="font-size:12pt;" align="center"><b><a target="_blank" title="Share this page" href="http://www.sharethis.com/share?url=http://www.christopherspenn.com/2011/11/do-new-klout-scores-predict-influence/">If you enjoyed this, please click here and share it with your network!</a></b></p>
<hr noshade size="1" width="100%" /><p align="center"><b>Want to read more like this from <a rel="author" href="http://www.christopherspenn.com/welcome-aboard/" target="_blank">Christopher Penn</a>? If so, please subscribe right now!</b></p>
<p align="center">
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<p align="center"><a href="http://cspenn.com/currents" target="_blank"><b>Click here to read my blog on Google Currents on your mobile!</b></a></p>
<hr noshade size="1" width="100%" />
<table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr>
<td width="33%" align="center" valign="top"><p>Marketing White Belt<br /> 
  <a href="http://cspenn.com/book" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.christopherspenn.com/mwbsquare.png" width="125" height="125" border="0" /></a><img src="http://go.seomoz.org/aff_i?offer_id=1&aff_id=1075&file_id=27" width="1" height="1"><br /> 
  Basics for Digital Marketers<br>
  is now on Amazon & B&N
</p></td><td width="33%" align="center" valign="top"> 
Watch me speak:<br />
<a href="http://cspenn.com/sofresh" title="Small Square (200 x 200)"><img src="http://www.christopherspenn.com/images/sofresh.png" alt="Small Square (200 x 200)" width="125" height="125" /></a>
<br />Attend virtually!
</td>

<td width="33%" align="center" valign="top"> 
I recommend:<br />
<a href="http://cspenn.com/ta" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="http://www.christopherspenn.com/tweetadder.gif" width="125" height="125" alt=""></a><br />for Twitter audience building.</td>
</tr></table>
<hr noshade size="1" width="100%" />

<div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style addthis_32x32_style" addthis:url='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2011/11/do-new-klout-scores-predict-influence/' addthis:title='Do New Klout Scores Predict Influence?' ><a class="addthis_button_facebook_like"></a><a class="addthis_button_google_plusone"></a><a class="addthis_button_twitter"></a><a class="addthis_button_email"></a><a class="addthis_button_linkedin"></a><a class="addthis_button_stumbleupon"></a><a class="addthis_button_google"></a><a class="addthis_button_compact"></a></div><p>Related posts:<ol>
<li><a href='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2011/10/old-klout-scores-vs-new-klout-scores/' rel='bookmark' title='Old Klout scores vs. New Klout scores'>Old Klout scores vs. New Klout scores</a></li>
<li><a href='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2011/07/innovation-has-a-low-klout-score/' rel='bookmark' title='Innovation has a low Klout score'>Innovation has a low Klout score</a></li>
<li><a href='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2010/11/where-klout-really-shines/' rel='bookmark' title='Where Klout really shines'>Where Klout really shines</a></li>
</ol></p>]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.christopherspenn.com/2011/11/do-new-klout-scores-predict-influence/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>14</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>I&#8217;m rolling out an auto-DM campaign!</title>
		<link>http://www.christopherspenn.com/2011/10/im-rolling-out-an-auto-dm-campaign/</link>
		<comments>http://www.christopherspenn.com/2011/10/im-rolling-out-an-auto-dm-campaign/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 24 Oct 2011 11:35:26 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Christopher S Penn</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Advertising]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Marketing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Twitter]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.christopherspenn.com/?p=3309</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style" addthis:url='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2011/10/im-rolling-out-an-auto-dm-campaign/' addthis:title='I&#8217;m rolling out an auto-DM campaign!' ><a class="addthis_button_facebook_like"></a><a class="addthis_button_google_plusone"></a><a class="addthis_button_twitter"></a><a class="addthis_button_email"></a><a class="addthis_button_linkedin"></a><a class="addthis_button_stumbleupon"></a><a class="addthis_button_google"></a><a class="addthis_button_compact"></a></div>Consider this your fair warning: I&#8217;m rolling out an auto-DM campaign to my Twitter followers. /waits out the inevitable fit of rage You&#8217;re probably wondering why. I&#8217;m testing a belief that many people on Twitter would engage more, would get more value, would be happier followers, if they actually saw half of what I published [...]<div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style addthis_32x32_style" addthis:url='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2011/10/im-rolling-out-an-auto-dm-campaign/' addthis:title='I&#8217;m rolling out an auto-DM campaign!' ><a class="addthis_button_facebook_like"></a><a class="addthis_button_google_plusone"></a><a class="addthis_button_twitter"></a><a class="addthis_button_email"></a><a class="addthis_button_linkedin"></a><a class="addthis_button_stumbleupon"></a><a class="addthis_button_google"></a><a class="addthis_button_compact"></a></div>
Related posts:<ol>
<li><a href='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2011/06/do-auto-dms-work/' rel='bookmark' title='Do Auto-DMs Work?'>Do Auto-DMs Work?</a></li>
<li><a href='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2008/11/what-marketing-should-learn-from-the-obama-campaign/' rel='bookmark' title='What marketing should learn from the Obama campaign'>What marketing should learn from the Obama campaign</a></li>
<li><a href='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2008/06/how-to-auto-follow-on-twitter/' rel='bookmark' title='How to auto-follow on Twitter'>How to auto-follow on Twitter</a></li>
</ol>]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style" addthis:url='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2011/10/im-rolling-out-an-auto-dm-campaign/' addthis:title='I&#8217;m rolling out an auto-DM campaign!' ><a class="addthis_button_facebook_like"></a><a class="addthis_button_google_plusone"></a><a class="addthis_button_twitter"></a><a class="addthis_button_email"></a><a class="addthis_button_linkedin"></a><a class="addthis_button_stumbleupon"></a><a class="addthis_button_google"></a><a class="addthis_button_compact"></a></div><p>Consider this your fair warning: I&#8217;m rolling out an auto-DM campaign to my Twitter followers.</p>
<p><a target="_blank" title="All sizes | Autumn Mornings (2011) | Flickr - Photo Sharing! by Christopher S. Penn, on Flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/financialaidpodcast/6275807461/"><img class="aligncenter" src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6059/6275807461_12e50f3a42.jpg" alt="All sizes | Autumn Mornings (2011) | Flickr - Photo Sharing!" width="500" height="234" /></a></p>
<p>/waits out the inevitable fit of rage</p>
<p><strong>You&#8217;re probably wondering why</strong>. I&#8217;m testing a belief that many people on Twitter would engage more, would get more value, would be happier followers, if they actually saw half of what I published on Twitter. I suspect that people miss just about everything because it&#8217;s very noisy. My audience consists of many folks who are marketing professionals. They in turn follow and subscribe to lots of people, which means that even blocks of updates like #the5 are gone within minutes of them logging into Twitter, so they miss the good stuff.</p>
<p><strong>I firmly believe that things like newsletters are the antidote to this</strong>. Newsletters are a better archive than hitting the favorites button, they&#8217;re a more lasting archive, and they&#8217;re a more convenient archive that&#8217;s portable and self-contained.</p>
<p>Here&#8217;s the campaign details and how I&#8217;ve set it up to work. Everyone following me should get one and only one auto-DM. Each day, my <a target="_blank" href="http://cspenn.com/ta">TweetAdder</a> software will send the maximum allowed number of daily DMs (250) out to everyone who is following me with this tweet:</p>
<p><em><strong>Thanks for following. May I please ask you to subscribe to my newsletter so you don&#8217;t miss useful marketing news? <a target="_blank" href="http://bit.ly/twadm">http://bit.ly/twadm</a></strong></em></p>
<p>It will get you to this <a href="http://www.christopherspenn.com/thanks-for-following-me-on-twitter/">Twitter landing page</a>, which I just wrote. If you inspect the URL in the tweet closely, you&#8217;ll find that it contains a referrer field that will flow into my CRM, which will give me an idea of what percentage of the 43,000+ people following me have decided the DM was of enough value to subscribe. Of course, it also contains the usual Google Analytics tracking codes too.</p>
<p>Naturally, I&#8217;ll be able to track analytics as well, following down the chain of actions:</p>
<ul>
<li>How many DMs did I send?</li>
<li>How many were clicked on? (bit.ly data and GA data)</li>
<li>How many &#8220;converted&#8221;? (newsletter subscriber data)</li>
</ul>
<p>For those who do subscribe and fill out the form completely, I&#8217;ll also be able to cross reference Twitter handles and when you started following me; this should give me an idea whether newer followers are more interested in engaging in this way than older followers.</p>
<p>Stay tuned in! I will publish semi-regular updates about the experiment, which according to my math, should conclude in 175 days or roughly on April 16, 2012. At or after that time, I&#8217;ll share some rollup statistics on how it went. If you&#8217;re a data junkie who likes to crunch this sort of information, please check back in around mid-April and I&#8217;ll gladly share an anonymized data set with you if I can.</p>
<p><em><strong>As I said at the beginning of the post, consider this your fair warning</strong></em>. If getting a single auto-DM really, really upsets you (and it honestly does to some people), please take a few moments to unfollow me now. I won&#8217;t be offended, since that&#8217;s effectively the equivalent of opting out. I&#8217;ll tweet out this post, too. However, if you miss the tweet, you definitely prove the point that the auto-DM campaign is trying to make, yes?</p>
<hr noshade size="1" width="100%" />
<p style="font-size:12pt;" align="center"><b><a target="_blank" title="Share this page" href="http://www.sharethis.com/share?url=http://www.christopherspenn.com/2011/10/im-rolling-out-an-auto-dm-campaign/">If you enjoyed this, please click here and share it with your network!</a></b></p>
<hr noshade size="1" width="100%" /><p align="center"><b>Want to read more like this from <a rel="author" href="http://www.christopherspenn.com/welcome-aboard/" target="_blank">Christopher Penn</a>? If so, please subscribe right now!</b></p>
<p align="center">
<a href="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/a/emailverifySubmit?feedId=761786" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><img src="http://www.christopherspenn.com/btn-email.png"/></a> <a href="http://www.google.com/ig/add?feedurl=http://feeds.feedburner.com/ChristopherSPenn" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><img src="http://www.christopherspenn.com/btn-google.png"/></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/ChristopherSPenn" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><img src="http://www.christopherspenn.com/btn-rss.png"/></a> </p>
<p align="center"><a href="http://cspenn.com/currents" target="_blank"><b>Click here to read my blog on Google Currents on your mobile!</b></a></p>
<hr noshade size="1" width="100%" />
<table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr>
<td width="33%" align="center" valign="top"><p>Marketing White Belt<br /> 
  <a href="http://cspenn.com/book" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.christopherspenn.com/mwbsquare.png" width="125" height="125" border="0" /></a><img src="http://go.seomoz.org/aff_i?offer_id=1&aff_id=1075&file_id=27" width="1" height="1"><br /> 
  Basics for Digital Marketers<br>
  is now on Amazon & B&N
</p></td><td width="33%" align="center" valign="top"> 
Watch me speak:<br />
<a href="http://cspenn.com/sofresh" title="Small Square (200 x 200)"><img src="http://www.christopherspenn.com/images/sofresh.png" alt="Small Square (200 x 200)" width="125" height="125" /></a>
<br />Attend virtually!
</td>

<td width="33%" align="center" valign="top"> 
I recommend:<br />
<a href="http://cspenn.com/ta" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="http://www.christopherspenn.com/tweetadder.gif" width="125" height="125" alt=""></a><br />for Twitter audience building.</td>
</tr></table>
<hr noshade size="1" width="100%" />

<div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style addthis_32x32_style" addthis:url='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2011/10/im-rolling-out-an-auto-dm-campaign/' addthis:title='I&#8217;m rolling out an auto-DM campaign!' ><a class="addthis_button_facebook_like"></a><a class="addthis_button_google_plusone"></a><a class="addthis_button_twitter"></a><a class="addthis_button_email"></a><a class="addthis_button_linkedin"></a><a class="addthis_button_stumbleupon"></a><a class="addthis_button_google"></a><a class="addthis_button_compact"></a></div><p>Related posts:<ol>
<li><a href='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2011/06/do-auto-dms-work/' rel='bookmark' title='Do Auto-DMs Work?'>Do Auto-DMs Work?</a></li>
<li><a href='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2008/11/what-marketing-should-learn-from-the-obama-campaign/' rel='bookmark' title='What marketing should learn from the Obama campaign'>What marketing should learn from the Obama campaign</a></li>
<li><a href='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2008/06/how-to-auto-follow-on-twitter/' rel='bookmark' title='How to auto-follow on Twitter'>How to auto-follow on Twitter</a></li>
</ol></p>]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.christopherspenn.com/2011/10/im-rolling-out-an-auto-dm-campaign/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>20</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>How to archive your tweets permanently</title>
		<link>http://www.christopherspenn.com/2011/06/how-to-archive-your-tweets-permanently/</link>
		<comments>http://www.christopherspenn.com/2011/06/how-to-archive-your-tweets-permanently/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 24 Jun 2011 13:25:44 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Christopher S Penn</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Advertising]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Marketing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Metrics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Twitter]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.christopherspenn.com/?p=3027</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style" addthis:url='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2011/06/how-to-archive-your-tweets-permanently/' addthis:title='How to archive your tweets permanently' ><a class="addthis_button_facebook_like"></a><a class="addthis_button_google_plusone"></a><a class="addthis_button_twitter"></a><a class="addthis_button_email"></a><a class="addthis_button_linkedin"></a><a class="addthis_button_stumbleupon"></a><a class="addthis_button_google"></a><a class="addthis_button_compact"></a></div>A question frequently asked of me is, how do you archive your tweets? The answer is a free, open-source package called YourTwapperKeeper, from the folks who make the service of the same name. In order to use it, you must be familiar with how to install a server-side application, including setting up a database, editing [...]<div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style addthis_32x32_style" addthis:url='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2011/06/how-to-archive-your-tweets-permanently/' addthis:title='How to archive your tweets permanently' ><a class="addthis_button_facebook_like"></a><a class="addthis_button_google_plusone"></a><a class="addthis_button_twitter"></a><a class="addthis_button_email"></a><a class="addthis_button_linkedin"></a><a class="addthis_button_stumbleupon"></a><a class="addthis_button_google"></a><a class="addthis_button_compact"></a></div>
Related posts:<ol>
<li><a href='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2011/04/when-is-the-best-time-to-tweet/' rel='bookmark' title='When is the best time to tweet?'>When is the best time to tweet?</a></li>
<li><a href='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2010/12/delivery-strategy-is-separate-from-content-strategy/' rel='bookmark' title='Delivery strategy is separate from content strategy'>Delivery strategy is separate from content strategy</a></li>
<li><a href='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2010/11/where-klout-really-shines/' rel='bookmark' title='Where Klout really shines'>Where Klout really shines</a></li>
</ol>]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style" addthis:url='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2011/06/how-to-archive-your-tweets-permanently/' addthis:title='How to archive your tweets permanently' ><a class="addthis_button_facebook_like"></a><a class="addthis_button_google_plusone"></a><a class="addthis_button_twitter"></a><a class="addthis_button_email"></a><a class="addthis_button_linkedin"></a><a class="addthis_button_stumbleupon"></a><a class="addthis_button_google"></a><a class="addthis_button_compact"></a></div><p>A question frequently asked of me is, <strong>how do you archive your tweets?</strong> The answer is a free, open-source package called <a target="_blank" href="http://your.twapperkeeper.com/">YourTwapperKeeper</a>, from the folks who make the service of the same name. In order to use it, you must be familiar with how to install a server-side application, including setting up a database, editing a configuration file, running a MySQL script, and setting up a Twitter application using the developer&#8217;s interface. If you&#8217;re not able to do this, you may want to look for other options, but this solution is quite powerful and you can&#8217;t beat the cost.</p>
<p>The one thing that will trip up folks when installing is that unlike other PHP-based open-source packages, you must actually copy/paste or run the included MySQL configuration script separately. It&#8217;s a very manual install, which can be intimidating for novice developers. Follow the directions in the README file to the letter and you should be okay. <em><strong>If you&#8217;re not sure how to run a MySQL script, you may want to have someone else do it for you</strong></em>.</p>
<p>Once you&#8217;ve gotten the package installed, configured, and operational, you authenticate with Twitter and can begin to archive your tweets by any text string, including your username, hashtags, and more.</p>
<p><a target="_blank" title="Your Twapper Keeper - Archive your own tweets by Christopher S. Penn, on Flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/financialaidpodcast/5866551520/"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5064/5866551520_7f112d55cf.jpg" alt="Your Twapper Keeper - Archive your own tweets" width="500" height="148" /></a></p>
<p>Here I&#8217;ve set up a couple of searches, for myself and for the recent Blue Sky Factory conference.</p>
<p><a target="_blank" title="Your Twapper Keeper - Archive your own tweets by Christopher S. Penn, on Flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/financialaidpodcast/5865999569/"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5192/5865999569_7c3762ec7b.jpg" alt="Your Twapper Keeper - Archive your own tweets" width="500" height="106" /></a></p>
<p>Once the searches pull in some results, you can do an incredible amount of slicing and dicing of the archive, excluding retweets, filtering based on users or text, looking at specific time periods, and more. Unlike regular Twitter search, you can dig back into the archives for as long as you have data collected, which can be handy for analyzing Twitter patterns over longer periods of time or in month over month/year over year periods, far more than the two weeks of history that Twitter provides.</p>
<p><a target="_blank" title="Your Twapper Keeper - Archive your own tweets by Christopher S. Penn, on Flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/financialaidpodcast/5866000719/"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3087/5866000719_fbbbd72c42.jpg" alt="Your Twapper Keeper - Archive your own tweets" width="500" height="204" /></a></p>
<p>The most powerful feature, however, is the ability to export to a variety of data formats, including XML, JSON, and CSV/Excel. This is valuable if you want to provide, say, a <a target="_blank" href="http://blog.blueskyfactory.com/best-practice/email-marketing-conference-recap/">tweet-based event recap</a>, or you want to do analysis of timestamps, user interactions, and networks in third party data tools.</p>
<p><a target="_blank" title="Workbook1 by Christopher S. Penn, on Flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/financialaidpodcast/5866014379/"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5199/5866014379_87e2223fd2.jpg" alt="Workbook1" width="500" height="209" /></a></p>
<p>Here&#8217;s a partial example from the Excel export. I can, for example, sort out what percentage of tweets and people are using what clients in my audience, get geographic coordinates for use in services like <a target="_blank" href="http://batchgeo.com">BatchGeo</a>, and do time-based analysis of how tweets and retweets flow (hat tip to Gilad Lotan <a target="_blank" href="http://twitter.com/gilgul">@gilgul</a> for the idea).</p>
<p><strong>YourTwapperKeeper isn&#8217;t for everyone</strong>. It&#8217;s decidedly unfriendly to install. In fact, for most marketers, you&#8217;ll want to have the IT guys do the heavy lifting for you entirely, but once you&#8217;ve got it up and running, you&#8217;ll wonder how you ever recorded Twitter data without it.</p>
<hr noshade size="1" width="100%" />
<p style="font-size:12pt;" align="center"><b><a target="_blank" title="Share this page" href="http://www.sharethis.com/share?url=http://www.christopherspenn.com/2011/06/how-to-archive-your-tweets-permanently/">If you enjoyed this, please click here and share it with your network!</a></b></p>
<hr noshade size="1" width="100%" /><p align="center"><b>Want to read more like this from <a rel="author" href="http://www.christopherspenn.com/welcome-aboard/" target="_blank">Christopher Penn</a>? If so, please subscribe right now!</b></p>
<p align="center">
<a href="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/a/emailverifySubmit?feedId=761786" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><img src="http://www.christopherspenn.com/btn-email.png"/></a> <a href="http://www.google.com/ig/add?feedurl=http://feeds.feedburner.com/ChristopherSPenn" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><img src="http://www.christopherspenn.com/btn-google.png"/></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/ChristopherSPenn" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><img src="http://www.christopherspenn.com/btn-rss.png"/></a> </p>
<p align="center"><a href="http://cspenn.com/currents" target="_blank"><b>Click here to read my blog on Google Currents on your mobile!</b></a></p>
<hr noshade size="1" width="100%" />
<table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr>
<td width="33%" align="center" valign="top"><p>Marketing White Belt<br /> 
  <a href="http://cspenn.com/book" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.christopherspenn.com/mwbsquare.png" width="125" height="125" border="0" /></a><img src="http://go.seomoz.org/aff_i?offer_id=1&aff_id=1075&file_id=27" width="1" height="1"><br /> 
  Basics for Digital Marketers<br>
  is now on Amazon & B&N
</p></td><td width="33%" align="center" valign="top"> 
Watch me speak:<br />
<a href="http://cspenn.com/sofresh" title="Small Square (200 x 200)"><img src="http://www.christopherspenn.com/images/sofresh.png" alt="Small Square (200 x 200)" width="125" height="125" /></a>
<br />Attend virtually!
</td>

<td width="33%" align="center" valign="top"> 
I recommend:<br />
<a href="http://cspenn.com/ta" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="http://www.christopherspenn.com/tweetadder.gif" width="125" height="125" alt=""></a><br />for Twitter audience building.</td>
</tr></table>
<hr noshade size="1" width="100%" />

<div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style addthis_32x32_style" addthis:url='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2011/06/how-to-archive-your-tweets-permanently/' addthis:title='How to archive your tweets permanently' ><a class="addthis_button_facebook_like"></a><a class="addthis_button_google_plusone"></a><a class="addthis_button_twitter"></a><a class="addthis_button_email"></a><a class="addthis_button_linkedin"></a><a class="addthis_button_stumbleupon"></a><a class="addthis_button_google"></a><a class="addthis_button_compact"></a></div><p>Related posts:<ol>
<li><a href='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2011/04/when-is-the-best-time-to-tweet/' rel='bookmark' title='When is the best time to tweet?'>When is the best time to tweet?</a></li>
<li><a href='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2010/12/delivery-strategy-is-separate-from-content-strategy/' rel='bookmark' title='Delivery strategy is separate from content strategy'>Delivery strategy is separate from content strategy</a></li>
<li><a href='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2010/11/where-klout-really-shines/' rel='bookmark' title='Where Klout really shines'>Where Klout really shines</a></li>
</ol></p>]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.christopherspenn.com/2011/06/how-to-archive-your-tweets-permanently/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>3</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Do Auto-DMs Work?</title>
		<link>http://www.christopherspenn.com/2011/06/do-auto-dms-work/</link>
		<comments>http://www.christopherspenn.com/2011/06/do-auto-dms-work/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 11 Jun 2011 12:00:08 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Christopher S Penn</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Advertising]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Marketing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Strategy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Twitter]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.christopherspenn.com/?p=2983</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style" addthis:url='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2011/06/do-auto-dms-work/' addthis:title='Do Auto-DMs Work?' ><a class="addthis_button_facebook_like"></a><a class="addthis_button_google_plusone"></a><a class="addthis_button_twitter"></a><a class="addthis_button_email"></a><a class="addthis_button_linkedin"></a><a class="addthis_button_stumbleupon"></a><a class="addthis_button_google"></a><a class="addthis_button_compact"></a></div>Some people love them, some people hate them (rather like popups, right?). But the question isn&#8217;t whether or not you like them, the question is, do they work for generating any kind of traffic or attention? The answer is&#8230; let&#8217;s test! You see, as much as I may have an opinion on any given marketing [...]<div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style addthis_32x32_style" addthis:url='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2011/06/do-auto-dms-work/' addthis:title='Do Auto-DMs Work?' ><a class="addthis_button_facebook_like"></a><a class="addthis_button_google_plusone"></a><a class="addthis_button_twitter"></a><a class="addthis_button_email"></a><a class="addthis_button_linkedin"></a><a class="addthis_button_stumbleupon"></a><a class="addthis_button_google"></a><a class="addthis_button_compact"></a></div>
Related posts:<ol>
<li><a href='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2011/02/do-welcome-popups-work/' rel='bookmark' title='Do welcome popups work?'>Do welcome popups work?</a></li>
<li><a href='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2009/02/a-different-stimulus-idea-that-might-work/' rel='bookmark' title='A different stimulus idea that might work'>A different stimulus idea that might work</a></li>
<li><a href='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2010/06/work-related-socialsync-leaves-the-nest/' rel='bookmark' title='Work-related: SocialSync leaves the nest'>Work-related: SocialSync leaves the nest</a></li>
</ol>]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style" addthis:url='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2011/06/do-auto-dms-work/' addthis:title='Do Auto-DMs Work?' ><a class="addthis_button_facebook_like"></a><a class="addthis_button_google_plusone"></a><a class="addthis_button_twitter"></a><a class="addthis_button_email"></a><a class="addthis_button_linkedin"></a><a class="addthis_button_stumbleupon"></a><a class="addthis_button_google"></a><a class="addthis_button_compact"></a></div><p>Some people love them, some people hate them (rather like <a href="http://www.christopherspenn.com/2011/02/do-welcome-popups-work/" target="_blank">popups</a>, right?). But the question isn&#8217;t whether or not you like them, the question is, do they work for generating any kind of traffic or attention? <strong>The answer is&#8230; let&#8217;s test!</strong></p>
<p>You see, as much as I may have an opinion on any given marketing practice, I frequently need to remind myself that<em><strong> I am not my audience</strong></em>. I am not my customers. I am no one except myself, one anecdotal bit of evidence in a sea of data waiting to be explored. I routinely rail against the HIPPO problem &#8211; the highest individually paid person&#8217;s opinion &#8211; as being the cause of many marketing failures, so it&#8217;d be absurd for me to let my personal preferences dictate whether or not something is worth trying.</p>
<p>So let&#8217;s look at a few days&#8217; worth of data from my analytics. <strong>The goal in this case was pure traffic alone, not conversion</strong>. I wanted to know if auto-DMs would have any kind of real effect on traffic to my website, since traffic is the easiest commitment to get out of someone &#8211; just show up. On June 6, I kept doing all of my normal Twitter practices (welcome message, #the5, etc.) plus turned on the auto-DM feature in <a target="_blank" href="http://www.tweetadder.com/idevaffiliate/idevaffiliate.php?id=10695_0_1_3" target="_blank">TweetAdder</a> (affiliate link) with a simple message and a custom, trackable hyperlink.</p>
<p>Before I show the data, I want to ask you this as a fellow marketer: <em><strong>do you have an opinion of auto-DMs? Is that opinion founded on data you collected or the HIPPO problem in your head?</strong></em> If the latter, there&#8217;s a good chance you&#8217;re not making the most of many different marketing tactics and strategies because you&#8217;re letting your judgement cloud opportunities.</p>
<p>Ready for the data?</p>
<p>Here&#8217;s the contents of the daily welcome message I send, usually first thing in the morning:</p>
<p><em>Good morning friends from (wherever I am). (something relevant daily). New friend? Welcome aboard: <a target="_blank" href="http://cspenn.com/w">http://cspenn.com/w</a></em></p>
<p>This message shows up in my analytics as cspenn.com welcome message / linkshortener.</p>
<p>Here&#8217;s the auto-DM I was sending:</p>
<p><em>Thank you for following me. If you&#8217;re interested in learning more, here&#8217;s a quick summary: <a target="_blank" href="http://cspenn.com/dm">http://cspenn.com/dm</a></em></p>
<p>cspenn.com welcome DM direct message / linkshortener</p>
<p><strong>A key part of testing is making sure you have tracking turned on and made as granular as practical in order to get reliable data</strong>. Doing this experiment without correct link tracking would lead to bad conclusions or no conclusion at all. In this case I set up custom URLs on my site and tagged them with the Google Analytics URL builder.</p>
<p>In the period between June 6 and June 10, I picked up 86 new followers. (thank you and welcome aboard, folks)</p>
<p><a target="_blank" title="All Traffic Sources - Google Analytics by Christopher S. Penn, on Flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/financialaidpodcast/5818051276/"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2496/5818051276_c95ac52bc8.jpg" alt="All Traffic Sources - Google Analytics" width="500" height="267" /></a></p>
<p>In that time period, we can see that 45 of them responded to the welcome message (since very few followers who&#8217;ve been around for more than a day or two click through on it &#8211; they&#8217;ve seen it). 3 responded to the auto-DM.</p>
<p>Proportionally:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>The daily welcome message engaged 52% of new followers.</strong></li>
<li><strong>The auto-DM engaged 3.5% of new followers.</strong></li>
</ul>
<p>The winner is clearly the daily welcome message and not the auto-DM. Once I had a few days&#8217; worth of data, I turned it off. With as large a Twitter audience as I have and as busy a frequency I have, I&#8217;m confident enough in my own data to say that it&#8217;s not working for my audience.</p>
<p>Does this mean you shouldn&#8217;t use auto-DMs? NO! No, it doesn&#8217;t, because your audience may be different from mine. The people interested in you may respond differently. If you don&#8217;t test it, you&#8217;ll never know. <em><strong>If you let your opinion in advance of data cloud your decisions, you&#8217;ll never know and you may be losing money, opportunities, or other things you value.</strong></em> Test it. Test everything, and only after you have reliable data that you sourced yourself should you pass judgement. This is true of every marketing method you have available to you. Write off methods without testing at your peril.</p>
<hr noshade size="1" width="100%" />
<p style="font-size:12pt;" align="center"><b><a target="_blank" title="Share this page" href="http://www.sharethis.com/share?url=http://www.christopherspenn.com/2011/06/do-auto-dms-work/">If you enjoyed this, please click here and share it with your network!</a></b></p>
<hr noshade size="1" width="100%" /><p align="center"><b>Want to read more like this from <a rel="author" href="http://www.christopherspenn.com/welcome-aboard/" target="_blank">Christopher Penn</a>? If so, please subscribe right now!</b></p>
<p align="center">
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<p align="center"><a href="http://cspenn.com/currents" target="_blank"><b>Click here to read my blog on Google Currents on your mobile!</b></a></p>
<hr noshade size="1" width="100%" />
<table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr>
<td width="33%" align="center" valign="top"><p>Marketing White Belt<br /> 
  <a href="http://cspenn.com/book" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.christopherspenn.com/mwbsquare.png" width="125" height="125" border="0" /></a><img src="http://go.seomoz.org/aff_i?offer_id=1&aff_id=1075&file_id=27" width="1" height="1"><br /> 
  Basics for Digital Marketers<br>
  is now on Amazon & B&N
</p></td><td width="33%" align="center" valign="top"> 
Watch me speak:<br />
<a href="http://cspenn.com/sofresh" title="Small Square (200 x 200)"><img src="http://www.christopherspenn.com/images/sofresh.png" alt="Small Square (200 x 200)" width="125" height="125" /></a>
<br />Attend virtually!
</td>

<td width="33%" align="center" valign="top"> 
I recommend:<br />
<a href="http://cspenn.com/ta" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="http://www.christopherspenn.com/tweetadder.gif" width="125" height="125" alt=""></a><br />for Twitter audience building.</td>
</tr></table>
<hr noshade size="1" width="100%" />

<div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style addthis_32x32_style" addthis:url='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2011/06/do-auto-dms-work/' addthis:title='Do Auto-DMs Work?' ><a class="addthis_button_facebook_like"></a><a class="addthis_button_google_plusone"></a><a class="addthis_button_twitter"></a><a class="addthis_button_email"></a><a class="addthis_button_linkedin"></a><a class="addthis_button_stumbleupon"></a><a class="addthis_button_google"></a><a class="addthis_button_compact"></a></div><p>Related posts:<ol>
<li><a href='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2011/02/do-welcome-popups-work/' rel='bookmark' title='Do welcome popups work?'>Do welcome popups work?</a></li>
<li><a href='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2009/02/a-different-stimulus-idea-that-might-work/' rel='bookmark' title='A different stimulus idea that might work'>A different stimulus idea that might work</a></li>
<li><a href='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2010/06/work-related-socialsync-leaves-the-nest/' rel='bookmark' title='Work-related: SocialSync leaves the nest'>Work-related: SocialSync leaves the nest</a></li>
</ol></p>]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.christopherspenn.com/2011/06/do-auto-dms-work/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>15</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Who are you reading?</title>
		<link>http://www.christopherspenn.com/2011/05/who-are-you-reading/</link>
		<comments>http://www.christopherspenn.com/2011/05/who-are-you-reading/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 20 May 2011 14:07:57 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Christopher S Penn</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Blog Tag]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Blogging]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Blogroll]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Social media]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Social networks]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Technology]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Twitter]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.christopherspenn.com/?p=2922</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style" addthis:url='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2011/05/who-are-you-reading/' addthis:title='Who are you reading?' ><a class="addthis_button_facebook_like"></a><a class="addthis_button_google_plusone"></a><a class="addthis_button_twitter"></a><a class="addthis_button_email"></a><a class="addthis_button_linkedin"></a><a class="addthis_button_stumbleupon"></a><a class="addthis_button_google"></a><a class="addthis_button_compact"></a></div>I&#8217;m always on the lookout for new sources, new points of interest, new things to research, new ideas. I would imagine you are, too. I&#8217;d like you to leave suggestions for who you&#8217;re reading in the comments below. Here&#8217;s the criteria for who I&#8217;m looking for you to share: The original content test. As much [...]<div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style addthis_32x32_style" addthis:url='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2011/05/who-are-you-reading/' addthis:title='Who are you reading?' ><a class="addthis_button_facebook_like"></a><a class="addthis_button_google_plusone"></a><a class="addthis_button_twitter"></a><a class="addthis_button_email"></a><a class="addthis_button_linkedin"></a><a class="addthis_button_stumbleupon"></a><a class="addthis_button_google"></a><a class="addthis_button_compact"></a></div>
Related posts:<ol>
<li><a href='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2007/07/test-post/' rel='bookmark' title='Test Post'>Test Post</a></li>
<li><a href='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2010/06/whats-in-common-a-simple-google-reader-heuristic/' rel='bookmark' title='What&#8217;s in common? A simple Google Reader heuristic'>What&#8217;s in common? A simple Google Reader heuristic</a></li>
<li><a href='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2010/11/how-to-build-a-twitter-audience-in-8-steps/' rel='bookmark' title='How to build a Twitter audience in 8 steps'>How to build a Twitter audience in 8 steps</a></li>
</ol>]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style" addthis:url='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2011/05/who-are-you-reading/' addthis:title='Who are you reading?' ><a class="addthis_button_facebook_like"></a><a class="addthis_button_google_plusone"></a><a class="addthis_button_twitter"></a><a class="addthis_button_email"></a><a class="addthis_button_linkedin"></a><a class="addthis_button_stumbleupon"></a><a class="addthis_button_google"></a><a class="addthis_button_compact"></a></div><p><a target="_blank" title="Photos from Dallas, Texas by Christopher S. Penn, on Flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/financialaidpodcast/4454613851/"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4009/4454613851_a309848851_m.jpg" border="0" alt="Photos from Dallas, Texas" hspace="9" width="240" height="180" align="right" /></a>I&#8217;m always on the lookout for new sources, new points of interest, new things to research, new ideas. I would imagine you are, too. I&#8217;d like you to leave suggestions for who you&#8217;re reading in the comments below. Here&#8217;s the criteria for who I&#8217;m looking for you to share:</p>
<ul>
<li>The <strong>original content</strong> test. As much as I love Techcrunch, Mashable, ReadWriteWeb, etc., I&#8217;d much rather subscribe to the sources they read. Who is writing original stuff? Share them below!</li>
<li>The <strong>first</strong> test. When you open your blog reader, whose blog do you go to first? Share them below!</li>
<li>The <strong>blind retweet</strong> test. Who are some people who are so worth reading that you automatically retweet their stuff first, then read it, because you know they are always providing ridiculously good value? Share them below!</li>
<li>The <strong>dark horse</strong> test. There are some folks who are pretty well known, like Chris Brogan, Mitch Joel, Avinash Kaushik, Jason Falls, etc. that most people know. Who don&#8217;t we know but is writing at the same level of value and quality? Share them below!</li>
</ul>
<p>If you include a link (please do), there&#8217;s a good chance the comment will be moderated by Disqus, so I&#8217;ll approve it manually &#8211; thus, don&#8217;t hit submit comment a whole bunch of times if nothing appears. I&#8217;m out of the office today, so come back at the end of the day to see all the comments, or if you folks leave a phenomenal list, I may take the time to publish it as an OPML file for everyone.</p>
<hr noshade size="1" width="100%" />
<p style="font-size:12pt;" align="center"><b><a target="_blank" title="Share this page" href="http://www.sharethis.com/share?url=http://www.christopherspenn.com/2011/05/who-are-you-reading/">If you enjoyed this, please click here and share it with your network!</a></b></p>
<hr noshade size="1" width="100%" /><p align="center"><b>Want to read more like this from <a rel="author" href="http://www.christopherspenn.com/welcome-aboard/" target="_blank">Christopher Penn</a>? If so, please subscribe right now!</b></p>
<p align="center">
<a href="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/a/emailverifySubmit?feedId=761786" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><img src="http://www.christopherspenn.com/btn-email.png"/></a> <a href="http://www.google.com/ig/add?feedurl=http://feeds.feedburner.com/ChristopherSPenn" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><img src="http://www.christopherspenn.com/btn-google.png"/></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/ChristopherSPenn" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><img src="http://www.christopherspenn.com/btn-rss.png"/></a> </p>
<p align="center"><a href="http://cspenn.com/currents" target="_blank"><b>Click here to read my blog on Google Currents on your mobile!</b></a></p>
<hr noshade size="1" width="100%" />
<table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr>
<td width="33%" align="center" valign="top"><p>Marketing White Belt<br /> 
  <a href="http://cspenn.com/book" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.christopherspenn.com/mwbsquare.png" width="125" height="125" border="0" /></a><img src="http://go.seomoz.org/aff_i?offer_id=1&aff_id=1075&file_id=27" width="1" height="1"><br /> 
  Basics for Digital Marketers<br>
  is now on Amazon & B&N
</p></td><td width="33%" align="center" valign="top"> 
Watch me speak:<br />
<a href="http://cspenn.com/sofresh" title="Small Square (200 x 200)"><img src="http://www.christopherspenn.com/images/sofresh.png" alt="Small Square (200 x 200)" width="125" height="125" /></a>
<br />Attend virtually!
</td>

<td width="33%" align="center" valign="top"> 
I recommend:<br />
<a href="http://cspenn.com/ta" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="http://www.christopherspenn.com/tweetadder.gif" width="125" height="125" alt=""></a><br />for Twitter audience building.</td>
</tr></table>
<hr noshade size="1" width="100%" />

<div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style addthis_32x32_style" addthis:url='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2011/05/who-are-you-reading/' addthis:title='Who are you reading?' ><a class="addthis_button_facebook_like"></a><a class="addthis_button_google_plusone"></a><a class="addthis_button_twitter"></a><a class="addthis_button_email"></a><a class="addthis_button_linkedin"></a><a class="addthis_button_stumbleupon"></a><a class="addthis_button_google"></a><a class="addthis_button_compact"></a></div><p>Related posts:<ol>
<li><a href='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2007/07/test-post/' rel='bookmark' title='Test Post'>Test Post</a></li>
<li><a href='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2010/06/whats-in-common-a-simple-google-reader-heuristic/' rel='bookmark' title='What&#8217;s in common? A simple Google Reader heuristic'>What&#8217;s in common? A simple Google Reader heuristic</a></li>
<li><a href='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2010/11/how-to-build-a-twitter-audience-in-8-steps/' rel='bookmark' title='How to build a Twitter audience in 8 steps'>How to build a Twitter audience in 8 steps</a></li>
</ol></p>]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.christopherspenn.com/2011/05/who-are-you-reading/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>12</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Who you want to be</title>
		<link>http://www.christopherspenn.com/2011/05/who-you-want-to-be/</link>
		<comments>http://www.christopherspenn.com/2011/05/who-you-want-to-be/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 17 May 2011 12:28:30 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Christopher S Penn</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Awakening]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Blogging]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Social media]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Social networks]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Twitter]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.christopherspenn.com/?p=2911</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style" addthis:url='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2011/05/who-you-want-to-be/' addthis:title='Who you want to be' ><a class="addthis_button_facebook_like"></a><a class="addthis_button_google_plusone"></a><a class="addthis_button_twitter"></a><a class="addthis_button_email"></a><a class="addthis_button_linkedin"></a><a class="addthis_button_stumbleupon"></a><a class="addthis_button_google"></a><a class="addthis_button_compact"></a></div>Take a few moments now to look at the following digital properties. Twitter Facebook LinkedIn Your blog Google (for your name) Do you see the person you are? Or do you see the person you want to be? If you don&#8217;t like what you see, if you see someone who isn&#8217;t inspiring to you or [...]<div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style addthis_32x32_style" addthis:url='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2011/05/who-you-want-to-be/' addthis:title='Who you want to be' ><a class="addthis_button_facebook_like"></a><a class="addthis_button_google_plusone"></a><a class="addthis_button_twitter"></a><a class="addthis_button_email"></a><a class="addthis_button_linkedin"></a><a class="addthis_button_stumbleupon"></a><a class="addthis_button_google"></a><a class="addthis_button_compact"></a></div>
Related posts:<ol>
<li><a href='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2007/03/preserve-the-chain-how-to-make-blogtag-more-valuable/' rel='bookmark' title='Preserve the chain &#8211; how to make blogtag more valuable'>Preserve the chain &#8211; how to make blogtag more valuable</a></li>
<li><a href='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2007/09/awaken-your-superhero-powers-power-6-of-10-transcendent-wisdom/' rel='bookmark' title='Awaken YOUR Superhero Powers : Power 6 of 10 &#8211; Transcendent Wisdom'>Awaken YOUR Superhero Powers : Power 6 of 10 &#8211; Transcendent Wisdom</a></li>
<li><a href='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2009/12/celebrate-your-victories/' rel='bookmark' title='Celebrate your victories'>Celebrate your victories</a></li>
</ol>]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style" addthis:url='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2011/05/who-you-want-to-be/' addthis:title='Who you want to be' ><a class="addthis_button_facebook_like"></a><a class="addthis_button_google_plusone"></a><a class="addthis_button_twitter"></a><a class="addthis_button_email"></a><a class="addthis_button_linkedin"></a><a class="addthis_button_stumbleupon"></a><a class="addthis_button_google"></a><a class="addthis_button_compact"></a></div><p>Take a few moments now to look at the following digital properties.</p>
<ul>
<li>Twitter</li>
<li>Facebook</li>
<li>LinkedIn</li>
<li>Your blog</li>
<li>Google (for your name)</li>
</ul>
<p><em>Do you see the person you are?</em></p>
<p><strong>Or do you see the person you want to be?</strong></p>
<p>If you don&#8217;t like what you see, if you see someone who isn&#8217;t inspiring to you or others, if you see someone who complains too much or doesn&#8217;t say enough of value, then <em>make the conscious choice to change this now</em>.</p>
<p>Who do you want to be? <strong>Who are you supposed to be?</strong></p>
<p><a target="_blank" title="Warcraft player by Christopher S. Penn, on Flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/financialaidpodcast/3329009033/"><img class="aligncenter" src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3359/3329009033_ae95c352cd.jpg" alt="Warcraft player" width="295" height="299" /></a></p>
<p><strong>Imagine a Future You, the person you want to be, the person you are supposed to be</strong>. What would you find in their digital channels? Would Future You be tweeting about a lukewarm burger or a cranky flight attendant to an audience of 50,000? (would anyone care?) Would Future You be relentlessly spamming your Fortune 500 executive connections on LinkedIn with random, pointless quotes or repetitive book pitches? Would Future You be waxing poetic about your intestinal bug and its vivid consequences for 2,000 words on your blog?</p>
<p>Probably not. Future You would probably be a great deal funnier, more noble, more insightful, more helpful, more kind, more gracious, more powerful, more connected, more wealthy, more happy. <strong>Take another few moments and decide what things Future You would think, say, write, and do</strong>. Make a list of things that Future You would be retweeted for, recommended about, or blogged about, and post that near your workstation, on the back of your phone, on your iPad case, or wherever you do your communicating with the world.</p>
<p>Here&#8217;s the good news. <strong>Future You is within your reach right now</strong>, beginning the moment you stop reading this post and put your fingers to the keyboard to communicate again. Put away Present You and start communicating with the world as close to Future You as you possibly can each day, and sooner than you think, they&#8217;ll be one and the same.</p>
<hr noshade size="1" width="100%" />
<p style="font-size:12pt;" align="center"><b><a target="_blank" title="Share this page" href="http://www.sharethis.com/share?url=http://www.christopherspenn.com/2011/05/who-you-want-to-be/">If you enjoyed this, please click here and share it with your network!</a></b></p>
<hr noshade size="1" width="100%" /><p align="center"><b>Want to read more like this from <a rel="author" href="http://www.christopherspenn.com/welcome-aboard/" target="_blank">Christopher Penn</a>? If so, please subscribe right now!</b></p>
<p align="center">
<a href="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/a/emailverifySubmit?feedId=761786" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><img src="http://www.christopherspenn.com/btn-email.png"/></a> <a href="http://www.google.com/ig/add?feedurl=http://feeds.feedburner.com/ChristopherSPenn" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><img src="http://www.christopherspenn.com/btn-google.png"/></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/ChristopherSPenn" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><img src="http://www.christopherspenn.com/btn-rss.png"/></a> </p>
<p align="center"><a href="http://cspenn.com/currents" target="_blank"><b>Click here to read my blog on Google Currents on your mobile!</b></a></p>
<hr noshade size="1" width="100%" />
<table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr>
<td width="33%" align="center" valign="top"><p>Marketing White Belt<br /> 
  <a href="http://cspenn.com/book" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.christopherspenn.com/mwbsquare.png" width="125" height="125" border="0" /></a><img src="http://go.seomoz.org/aff_i?offer_id=1&aff_id=1075&file_id=27" width="1" height="1"><br /> 
  Basics for Digital Marketers<br>
  is now on Amazon & B&N
</p></td><td width="33%" align="center" valign="top"> 
Watch me speak:<br />
<a href="http://cspenn.com/sofresh" title="Small Square (200 x 200)"><img src="http://www.christopherspenn.com/images/sofresh.png" alt="Small Square (200 x 200)" width="125" height="125" /></a>
<br />Attend virtually!
</td>

<td width="33%" align="center" valign="top"> 
I recommend:<br />
<a href="http://cspenn.com/ta" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="http://www.christopherspenn.com/tweetadder.gif" width="125" height="125" alt=""></a><br />for Twitter audience building.</td>
</tr></table>
<hr noshade size="1" width="100%" />

<div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style addthis_32x32_style" addthis:url='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2011/05/who-you-want-to-be/' addthis:title='Who you want to be' ><a class="addthis_button_facebook_like"></a><a class="addthis_button_google_plusone"></a><a class="addthis_button_twitter"></a><a class="addthis_button_email"></a><a class="addthis_button_linkedin"></a><a class="addthis_button_stumbleupon"></a><a class="addthis_button_google"></a><a class="addthis_button_compact"></a></div><p>Related posts:<ol>
<li><a href='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2007/03/preserve-the-chain-how-to-make-blogtag-more-valuable/' rel='bookmark' title='Preserve the chain &#8211; how to make blogtag more valuable'>Preserve the chain &#8211; how to make blogtag more valuable</a></li>
<li><a href='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2007/09/awaken-your-superhero-powers-power-6-of-10-transcendent-wisdom/' rel='bookmark' title='Awaken YOUR Superhero Powers : Power 6 of 10 &#8211; Transcendent Wisdom'>Awaken YOUR Superhero Powers : Power 6 of 10 &#8211; Transcendent Wisdom</a></li>
<li><a href='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2009/12/celebrate-your-victories/' rel='bookmark' title='Celebrate your victories'>Celebrate your victories</a></li>
</ol></p>]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.christopherspenn.com/2011/05/who-you-want-to-be/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>When is the best time to tweet?</title>
		<link>http://www.christopherspenn.com/2011/04/when-is-the-best-time-to-tweet/</link>
		<comments>http://www.christopherspenn.com/2011/04/when-is-the-best-time-to-tweet/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 08 Apr 2011 13:01:17 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Christopher S Penn</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Advertising]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Marketing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Metrics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Social media]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Social networks]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Strategy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Technology]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Twitter]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.christopherspenn.com/?p=2750</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style" addthis:url='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2011/04/when-is-the-best-time-to-tweet/' addthis:title='When is the best time to tweet?' ><a class="addthis_button_facebook_like"></a><a class="addthis_button_google_plusone"></a><a class="addthis_button_twitter"></a><a class="addthis_button_email"></a><a class="addthis_button_linkedin"></a><a class="addthis_button_stumbleupon"></a><a class="addthis_button_google"></a><a class="addthis_button_compact"></a></div>When is the best time to tweet? &#8230; is the wrong question. At least as it&#8217;s currently being asked in social media, it&#8217;s not only the wrong question, it&#8217;s an overly simplified question that provides an answer that&#8217;s not likely to help you meet your goals. It&#8217;s a question that is presented to people who [...]<div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style addthis_32x32_style" addthis:url='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2011/04/when-is-the-best-time-to-tweet/' addthis:title='When is the best time to tweet?' ><a class="addthis_button_facebook_like"></a><a class="addthis_button_google_plusone"></a><a class="addthis_button_twitter"></a><a class="addthis_button_email"></a><a class="addthis_button_linkedin"></a><a class="addthis_button_stumbleupon"></a><a class="addthis_button_google"></a><a class="addthis_button_compact"></a></div>
Related posts:<ol>
<li><a href='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2010/05/bringing-back-the-morning-numbers-tweet/' rel='bookmark' title='Bringing back the morning numbers tweet'>Bringing back the morning numbers tweet</a></li>
<li><a href='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2009/02/whats-all-the-stuff-in-the-early-morning-tweet-about/' rel='bookmark' title='What&#039;s all the stuff in the early morning tweet about?'>What&#039;s all the stuff in the early morning tweet about?</a></li>
<li><a href='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2010/11/when-is-the-best-converting-time-for-your-marketing/' rel='bookmark' title='When is the best converting time for your marketing?'>When is the best converting time for your marketing?</a></li>
</ol>]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style" addthis:url='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2011/04/when-is-the-best-time-to-tweet/' addthis:title='When is the best time to tweet?' ><a class="addthis_button_facebook_like"></a><a class="addthis_button_google_plusone"></a><a class="addthis_button_twitter"></a><a class="addthis_button_email"></a><a class="addthis_button_linkedin"></a><a class="addthis_button_stumbleupon"></a><a class="addthis_button_google"></a><a class="addthis_button_compact"></a></div><p><strong>When is the best time to tweet?</strong></p>
<p><em><strong>&#8230; is the wrong question</strong></em>. At least as it&#8217;s currently being asked in social media, it&#8217;s not only the wrong question, <strong><em>it&#8217;s an overly simplified question that provides an answer that&#8217;s not likely to help you meet your goals</em></strong>. It&#8217;s a question that is presented to people who are looking for a too-simple, easy-money, push-button answer to their ailing and failing social media efforts. Luckily, I happen to know that you, as a reader of this blog, are looking for more than pat answers.</p>
<p>Let&#8217;s dig into this question of when to tweet a little bit, show how you can set up your own data collection, and look at different meanings of the question.</p>
<p><strong>The most common measure of &#8220;when to tweet&#8221; is the retweet</strong>. It&#8217;s useful for judging how valuable an audience thinks your content is, and it does have some level of impact on your SEO. With that in mind, let&#8217;s see if anyone is retweeting you. Go to <a target="_blank" href="http://search.twitter.com">search.twitter.com</a> and search for RT @yourusername. If no one is retweeting you, the question is moot. If people are retweeting you, then we should catch that data. Here&#8217;s how.</p>
<p>First copy the feed of your search:</p>
<p><a target="_blank" title="RT @cspenn - Twitter Search by Christopher S. Penn, on Flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/financialaidpodcast/5570565331/"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5253/5570565331_4aaf1f26fd.jpg" alt="RT @cspenn - Twitter Search" width="500" height="369" /></a></p>
<p>Then subscribe to it in a Google Reader account:</p>
<p><a target="_blank" title="Google Reader (232) by Christopher S. Penn, on Flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/financialaidpodcast/5571156920/"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5256/5571156920_4515fb83e7.jpg" alt="Google Reader (232)" width="500" height="288" /></a></p>
<p>Now that you&#8217;ve got the data feed, wait a week or two. The longer you can delay gratification while tweeting normally, the better the results will be. <strong>A week is the absolute minimum amount of time you need to wait for Google Reader to collect its data. A month is better.</strong></p>
<p>Once you&#8217;ve finished your data collection period, it&#8217;s time to see what the data shows. Google Reader does a nice bit of data analysis for you &#8211; just click on the Show Details link in the upper right hand corner of your feed and you&#8217;ll be able to see reporting on the last 30 days, as well as the time of day and the day of week. Here&#8217;s when people retweet me, based on time of day:</p>
<p><a target="_blank" title="Google Reader (1000+) by Christopher S. Penn, on Flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/financialaidpodcast/5599823855/"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5262/5599823855_dc674f425b.jpg" alt="Google Reader (1000+)" width="500" height="180" /></a></p>
<p>Here&#8217;s when people retweet me, based on day of week:</p>
<p><a target="_blank" title="Google Reader (1000+) by Christopher S. Penn, on Flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/financialaidpodcast/5599825085/"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5145/5599825085_62cfc206b9.jpg" alt="Google Reader (1000+)" width="500" height="339" /></a></p>
<p><em><strong>Do you see how dangerous a pat answer like &#8220;the best time to tweet is Tuesday at 7 PM&#8221; is?</strong></em> If I were a social media newbie grasping for answers and I decided I should focus all my efforts on that overly-simple answer, I&#8217;d lose opportunities on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday of every week.</p>
<p>Let&#8217;s take a step back. <strong>What if retweets isn&#8217;t what I&#8217;m looking for?</strong> Suppose I&#8217;m interested more in how engaged people are with my company, with me, with my brand? Suppose conversation matters more than mindless spamming of the retweet button by a zombie army? I&#8217;d want to focus on actual conversations, wouldn&#8217;t I? Here&#8217;s how to find them. Start by searching Twitter for your username minus RT and minus http (which is the prefix for a link). Example:</p>
<p><a target="_blank" title="Twitter / Search - @cspenn -RT -http by Christopher S. Penn, on Flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/financialaidpodcast/5600414756/"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5026/5600414756_1c58c2ff62.jpg" alt="Twitter / Search - @cspenn -RT -http" width="351" height="500" /></a></p>
<p>I will see more actual conversations and replies with this search. Let&#8217;s subscribe to it, get a week&#8217;s worth of data or more, and see what Google Reader says:</p>
<p><a target="_blank" title="Google Reader (1000+) by Christopher S. Penn, on Flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/financialaidpodcast/5600416066/"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5306/5600416066_d953ea7d7a.jpg" alt="Google Reader (1000+)" width="500" height="354" /></a></p>
<p>Apparently I&#8217;m antisocial on Saturdays:</p>
<p><a target="_blank" title="Google Reader (1000+) by Christopher S. Penn, on Flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/financialaidpodcast/5600417658/"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5149/5600417658_72c958d511.jpg" alt="Google Reader (1000+)" width="500" height="346" /></a></p>
<p>Conversation and engagement are different measures than simple share of voice via retweet, and this search will gather that up for you.<em><strong> If you care about engagement, &#8220;when is the best time to tweet&#8221; answers based on retweets will not help you.</strong></em></p>
<p>Suppose, however, I&#8217;m more of a numbers guy, and <strong>I&#8217;m more concerned about what social media can do for my business</strong> as opposed to mindshare or engagement, nice as those are. Suppose I want to see some dollars? Is there a best time to tweet? Why yes, yes there is. Assuming you use Google Analytics with goals and goal values set up, you can create a report that looks at sources of traffic (Twitter) and goal completions by hour of the day. There is, in fact, a best time to tweet for my audience for the purposes of completing transactions:</p>
<p><a target="_blank" title="Custom Report - Google Analytics by Christopher S. Penn, on Flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/financialaidpodcast/5599843479/"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5106/5599843479_25a4fe4947.jpg" alt="Custom Report - Google Analytics" width="500" height="363" /></a></p>
<p>Obviously, I can slice this up by day of the week as well.</p>
<p>If I&#8217;m concerned about actual business volume being generated, this version of &#8220;when is the best time to tweet&#8221; is a lot more valuable.</p>
<p><strong>One thing that none of these questions addresses, however, is causality.</strong> All of this is correlative and associative data, which can be incredibly dangerous to rely on. <a target="_blank" href="http://brandsavant.com/social-media-data-dredging/" target="_blank">I recommend reading Tom Webster&#8217;s piece on this as it&#8217;s an excellent read</a>.</p>
<p>What does this mean? If you&#8217;re making judgements about courses of action based on correlative data, you&#8217;re hoping the underlying cause (which you may or may not know) works to your benefit. For example, ice cream sales are correlated to drowning deaths. If you try to set inventories based on historical records of drowning deaths, you&#8217;ll probably do relatively well, even if you fail to understand that the underlying cause is summertime for both data sets.</p>
<p>However, by not understanding the cause, I&#8217;m at the mercy of another data set that isn&#8217;t the cause of my sales. For example, let&#8217;s say there was a tsunami near my place of business in December and there were thousands of deaths by drowning from it. If I rely on that data in future seasons, I&#8217;ll be buying a lot of wasted inventory in December because drowning deaths are not the cause of ice cream purchases.</p>
<p>When is the best time to tweet is heavily influenced by when I tweet, because Twitter is an attention-based, real-time medium. 5 AM Eastern Time will never be the best time to tweet according to this data because I&#8217;m not on Twitter then! It might actually be a great time for me to be tweeting, but I&#8217;m not awake.</p>
<p>This is the greatest fallacy of &#8220;when is the best time&#8221; questions: <em><strong>Looking at the existing data may be leading me astray because I fail to recognize underlying factors that are actual causes.</strong></em></p>
<p>Let&#8217;s take a look at what I mean. Suppose I went to <a target="_blank" href="http://www.mytweeple.com">MyTweeple.com</a> and extracted a list of my 2,500 most recent followers, then feed that data into a geo-mapping application like Google Maps and <a target="_blank" href="http://www.batchgeo.com">BatchGeo.com</a>.</p>
<p><a target="_blank" title="CSPT by Christopher S. Penn, on Flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/financialaidpodcast/5600506658/"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5263/5600506658_10e8b2f0ae.jpg" alt="CSPT" width="500" height="216" /></a></p>
<p><a target="_blank" href="http://batchgeo.com/map/a8a1d95c36ad426adf6ca51a2fdc6906" target="_blank">Click here to explore this map fully, it&#8217;s fun</a>.</p>
<p>When is the best time to tweet? Well, suppose I tweet at 7 AM Eastern Time. If you look, there are a decent number of followers in Western Europe, where it is just around or after lunch. Without exploring data in great detail, I might assume that people are retweeting me because it&#8217;s early on the East Coast (where I live), but in fact, the retweets are coming from people at lunch in Europe.</p>
<p><em><strong>Do you see now why &#8220;when is the best time to tweet&#8221; is a minefield fraught with wrong answers to misunderstood questions?</strong></em></p>
<p>Do your own research. Test. Investigate. Be scientific in your approach. You might just uncover insights into your audience that no one else has!</p>
<hr noshade size="1" width="100%" />
<p style="font-size:12pt;" align="center"><b><a target="_blank" title="Share this page" href="http://www.sharethis.com/share?url=http://www.christopherspenn.com/2011/04/when-is-the-best-time-to-tweet/">If you enjoyed this, please click here and share it with your network!</a></b></p>
<hr noshade size="1" width="100%" /><p align="center"><b>Want to read more like this from <a rel="author" href="http://www.christopherspenn.com/welcome-aboard/" target="_blank">Christopher Penn</a>? If so, please subscribe right now!</b></p>
<p align="center">
<a href="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/a/emailverifySubmit?feedId=761786" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><img src="http://www.christopherspenn.com/btn-email.png"/></a> <a href="http://www.google.com/ig/add?feedurl=http://feeds.feedburner.com/ChristopherSPenn" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><img src="http://www.christopherspenn.com/btn-google.png"/></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/ChristopherSPenn" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><img src="http://www.christopherspenn.com/btn-rss.png"/></a> </p>
<p align="center"><a href="http://cspenn.com/currents" target="_blank"><b>Click here to read my blog on Google Currents on your mobile!</b></a></p>
<hr noshade size="1" width="100%" />
<table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr>
<td width="33%" align="center" valign="top"><p>Marketing White Belt<br /> 
  <a href="http://cspenn.com/book" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.christopherspenn.com/mwbsquare.png" width="125" height="125" border="0" /></a><img src="http://go.seomoz.org/aff_i?offer_id=1&aff_id=1075&file_id=27" width="1" height="1"><br /> 
  Basics for Digital Marketers<br>
  is now on Amazon & B&N
</p></td><td width="33%" align="center" valign="top"> 
Watch me speak:<br />
<a href="http://cspenn.com/sofresh" title="Small Square (200 x 200)"><img src="http://www.christopherspenn.com/images/sofresh.png" alt="Small Square (200 x 200)" width="125" height="125" /></a>
<br />Attend virtually!
</td>

<td width="33%" align="center" valign="top"> 
I recommend:<br />
<a href="http://cspenn.com/ta" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="http://www.christopherspenn.com/tweetadder.gif" width="125" height="125" alt=""></a><br />for Twitter audience building.</td>
</tr></table>
<hr noshade size="1" width="100%" />

<div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style addthis_32x32_style" addthis:url='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2011/04/when-is-the-best-time-to-tweet/' addthis:title='When is the best time to tweet?' ><a class="addthis_button_facebook_like"></a><a class="addthis_button_google_plusone"></a><a class="addthis_button_twitter"></a><a class="addthis_button_email"></a><a class="addthis_button_linkedin"></a><a class="addthis_button_stumbleupon"></a><a class="addthis_button_google"></a><a class="addthis_button_compact"></a></div><p>Related posts:<ol>
<li><a href='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2010/05/bringing-back-the-morning-numbers-tweet/' rel='bookmark' title='Bringing back the morning numbers tweet'>Bringing back the morning numbers tweet</a></li>
<li><a href='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2009/02/whats-all-the-stuff-in-the-early-morning-tweet-about/' rel='bookmark' title='What&#039;s all the stuff in the early morning tweet about?'>What&#039;s all the stuff in the early morning tweet about?</a></li>
<li><a href='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2010/11/when-is-the-best-converting-time-for-your-marketing/' rel='bookmark' title='When is the best converting time for your marketing?'>When is the best converting time for your marketing?</a></li>
</ol></p>]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.christopherspenn.com/2011/04/when-is-the-best-time-to-tweet/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>17</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Selective Welcome Popups</title>
		<link>http://www.christopherspenn.com/2011/02/selective-welcome-popups/</link>
		<comments>http://www.christopherspenn.com/2011/02/selective-welcome-popups/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 07 Feb 2011 14:07:41 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Christopher S Penn</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Advertising]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Marketing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Social media]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Social networks]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Twitter]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.christopherspenn.com/?p=2564</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style" addthis:url='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2011/02/selective-welcome-popups/' addthis:title='Selective Welcome Popups' ><a class="addthis_button_facebook_like"></a><a class="addthis_button_google_plusone"></a><a class="addthis_button_twitter"></a><a class="addthis_button_email"></a><a class="addthis_button_linkedin"></a><a class="addthis_button_stumbleupon"></a><a class="addthis_button_google"></a><a class="addthis_button_compact"></a></div>As a follow up to my previous post on welcome popups, some folks mentioned a few concerns and questions. I don&#8217;t want to be a douchebag and slap people with a popup all the time. I don&#8217;t want to be a douchebag and put popups everywhere on my blog. I hate popups. What popup software [...]<div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style addthis_32x32_style" addthis:url='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2011/02/selective-welcome-popups/' addthis:title='Selective Welcome Popups' ><a class="addthis_button_facebook_like"></a><a class="addthis_button_google_plusone"></a><a class="addthis_button_twitter"></a><a class="addthis_button_email"></a><a class="addthis_button_linkedin"></a><a class="addthis_button_stumbleupon"></a><a class="addthis_button_google"></a><a class="addthis_button_compact"></a></div>
Related posts:<ol>
<li><a href='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2011/02/do-welcome-popups-work/' rel='bookmark' title='Do welcome popups work?'>Do welcome popups work?</a></li>
<li><a href='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2007/12/viral-is-not-word-of-mouth-2/' rel='bookmark' title='Viral is not word of mouth'>Viral is not word of mouth</a></li>
<li><a href='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2007/06/how-to-twitter-from-terminal-on-the-mac/' rel='bookmark' title='How to Twitter from Terminal on the Mac'>How to Twitter from Terminal on the Mac</a></li>
</ol>]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style" addthis:url='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2011/02/selective-welcome-popups/' addthis:title='Selective Welcome Popups' ><a class="addthis_button_facebook_like"></a><a class="addthis_button_google_plusone"></a><a class="addthis_button_twitter"></a><a class="addthis_button_email"></a><a class="addthis_button_linkedin"></a><a class="addthis_button_stumbleupon"></a><a class="addthis_button_google"></a><a class="addthis_button_compact"></a></div><p>As a follow up to my <a href="http://www.christopherspenn.com/2011/02/do-welcome-popups-work/">previous post on welcome popups</a>, some folks mentioned a few concerns and questions.</p>
<ul>
<li>I don&#8217;t want to be a douchebag and slap people with a popup all the time.</li>
<li>I don&#8217;t want to be a douchebag and put popups everywhere on my blog.</li>
<li>I hate popups.</li>
<li>What popup software are you using?</li>
</ul>
<p>Let&#8217;s address these four areas.</p>
<p><strong>1. I don&#8217;t want to be a douchebag and slap people with a popup all the time.</strong></p>
<p>Don&#8217;t. Most popup software lets you specify intervals. For example, with the software I use, I can specify not to show it for another 30 days as long as your browser allows me to set a cookie. No cookies permitted? You&#8217;re getting popups.</p>
<p>Depending on the software you choose, you can pick options like show the popup just for the first X visits. You can also set the timing so that someone doesn&#8217;t see the popup for X seconds. If you look in your Google Analytics for average time on page and set the popup to 75% of that, you&#8217;ll hit someone just before they&#8217;re ready to leave, thus ensuring they enjoy your content first:</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><a target="_blank" title="Time on Site for all visitors - Google Analytics by Christopher S. Penn, on Flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/financialaidpodcast/5424559731/"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5179/5424559731_c2103ac68f.jpg" alt="Time on Site for all visitors - Google Analytics" width="500" height="298" /></a></p>
<p><strong>2. I don&#8217;t want to be a douchebag and put popups everywhere on my blog.</strong></p>
<p>Don&#8217;t. Depending on the software you choose, you can select which pages of your site you want to selectively show the popup on. For example, if you suspect that some of your traffic from social media is a little more ADHD than the average organic SEO visitor, you can identify in Google Analytics which pages that traffic hits the most, then program your popup just to show on those pages.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><a target="_blank" title="Top Content - Google Analytics by Christopher S. Penn, on Flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/financialaidpodcast/5424564255/"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5178/5424564255_92de16a6d3.jpg" alt="Top Content - Google Analytics" width="500" height="399" /></a></p>
<p>If you realize that Twitter traffic isn&#8217;t converting at all but Facebook traffic is on your site without the assistance of a popup, then just identify the Twitter-specific pages and grab Twitter people with an attention-getting popup while leaving Facebook people alone to convert in peace and quiet.</p>
<p><strong>3. I hate popups.</strong></p>
<p>So don&#8217;t use them. Just don&#8217;t ask for the results they deliver. Make sure you <a target="_blank" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/ChristopherSPenn" target="_blank">subscribe to my blog via RSS</a>, too, so you never see them.</p>
<p><strong>4. What popup software are you using?</strong></p>
<p><a target="_blank" href="http://cspenn.com/pop" target="_blank">I paid for and use WP Super Popup</a>. I&#8217;m also an affiliate of it because I love its flexibility. Granted, I don&#8217;t use many of the options because I want my popups to be shown as much as possible within reason, but the software supports everything I discussed above.</p>
<p>Like any marketing tool, popups can be very effective if you use them well. If you use them poorly, they&#8217;ll perform like any other poorly-used marketing tool. <strong>Test out different things and see what works for you.</strong></p>
<hr noshade size="1" width="100%" />
<p style="font-size:12pt;" align="center"><b><a target="_blank" title="Share this page" href="http://www.sharethis.com/share?url=http://www.christopherspenn.com/2011/02/selective-welcome-popups/">If you enjoyed this, please click here and share it with your network!</a></b></p>
<hr noshade size="1" width="100%" /><p align="center"><b>Want to read more like this from <a rel="author" href="http://www.christopherspenn.com/welcome-aboard/" target="_blank">Christopher Penn</a>? If so, please subscribe right now!</b></p>
<p align="center">
<a href="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/a/emailverifySubmit?feedId=761786" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><img src="http://www.christopherspenn.com/btn-email.png"/></a> <a href="http://www.google.com/ig/add?feedurl=http://feeds.feedburner.com/ChristopherSPenn" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><img src="http://www.christopherspenn.com/btn-google.png"/></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/ChristopherSPenn" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><img src="http://www.christopherspenn.com/btn-rss.png"/></a> </p>
<p align="center"><a href="http://cspenn.com/currents" target="_blank"><b>Click here to read my blog on Google Currents on your mobile!</b></a></p>
<hr noshade size="1" width="100%" />
<table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr>
<td width="33%" align="center" valign="top"><p>Marketing White Belt<br /> 
  <a href="http://cspenn.com/book" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.christopherspenn.com/mwbsquare.png" width="125" height="125" border="0" /></a><img src="http://go.seomoz.org/aff_i?offer_id=1&aff_id=1075&file_id=27" width="1" height="1"><br /> 
  Basics for Digital Marketers<br>
  is now on Amazon & B&N
</p></td><td width="33%" align="center" valign="top"> 
Watch me speak:<br />
<a href="http://cspenn.com/sofresh" title="Small Square (200 x 200)"><img src="http://www.christopherspenn.com/images/sofresh.png" alt="Small Square (200 x 200)" width="125" height="125" /></a>
<br />Attend virtually!
</td>

<td width="33%" align="center" valign="top"> 
I recommend:<br />
<a href="http://cspenn.com/ta" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="http://www.christopherspenn.com/tweetadder.gif" width="125" height="125" alt=""></a><br />for Twitter audience building.</td>
</tr></table>
<hr noshade size="1" width="100%" />

<div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style addthis_32x32_style" addthis:url='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2011/02/selective-welcome-popups/' addthis:title='Selective Welcome Popups' ><a class="addthis_button_facebook_like"></a><a class="addthis_button_google_plusone"></a><a class="addthis_button_twitter"></a><a class="addthis_button_email"></a><a class="addthis_button_linkedin"></a><a class="addthis_button_stumbleupon"></a><a class="addthis_button_google"></a><a class="addthis_button_compact"></a></div><p>Related posts:<ol>
<li><a href='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2011/02/do-welcome-popups-work/' rel='bookmark' title='Do welcome popups work?'>Do welcome popups work?</a></li>
<li><a href='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2007/12/viral-is-not-word-of-mouth-2/' rel='bookmark' title='Viral is not word of mouth'>Viral is not word of mouth</a></li>
<li><a href='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2007/06/how-to-twitter-from-terminal-on-the-mac/' rel='bookmark' title='How to Twitter from Terminal on the Mac'>How to Twitter from Terminal on the Mac</a></li>
</ol></p>]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.christopherspenn.com/2011/02/selective-welcome-popups/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>7</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Do you have a welcome page?</title>
		<link>http://www.christopherspenn.com/2011/02/do-you-have-a-welcome-page/</link>
		<comments>http://www.christopherspenn.com/2011/02/do-you-have-a-welcome-page/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 02 Feb 2011 13:11:28 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Christopher S Penn</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Advertising]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Blogging]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Marketing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Social media]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Social networks]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Strategy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Twitter]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.christopherspenn.com/?p=2550</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style" addthis:url='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2011/02/do-you-have-a-welcome-page/' addthis:title='Do you have a welcome page?' ><a class="addthis_button_facebook_like"></a><a class="addthis_button_google_plusone"></a><a class="addthis_button_twitter"></a><a class="addthis_button_email"></a><a class="addthis_button_linkedin"></a><a class="addthis_button_stumbleupon"></a><a class="addthis_button_google"></a><a class="addthis_button_compact"></a></div>Those of you who have been following me on Twitter over the past 6 months have seen me tweet out the start of every day with something like this: Good morning friends! Some pithy short comment about life today here. New friend? Welcome aboard: http://cspenn.com/w This short URL takes you over to my welcome page, [...]<div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style addthis_32x32_style" addthis:url='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2011/02/do-you-have-a-welcome-page/' addthis:title='Do you have a welcome page?' ><a class="addthis_button_facebook_like"></a><a class="addthis_button_google_plusone"></a><a class="addthis_button_twitter"></a><a class="addthis_button_email"></a><a class="addthis_button_linkedin"></a><a class="addthis_button_stumbleupon"></a><a class="addthis_button_google"></a><a class="addthis_button_compact"></a></div>
Related posts:<ol>
<li><a href='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2010/09/5-power-tips-for-follow-friday/' rel='bookmark' title='5 Power Tips for Follow Friday'>5 Power Tips for Follow Friday</a></li>
<li><a href='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2008/02/metcalfes-blog/' rel='bookmark' title='Metcalfe&#039;s Blog'>Metcalfe&#039;s Blog</a></li>
<li><a href='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2010/08/you-own-nothing-in-social-media/' rel='bookmark' title='You own nothing in social media'>You own nothing in social media</a></li>
</ol>]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style" addthis:url='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2011/02/do-you-have-a-welcome-page/' addthis:title='Do you have a welcome page?' ><a class="addthis_button_facebook_like"></a><a class="addthis_button_google_plusone"></a><a class="addthis_button_twitter"></a><a class="addthis_button_email"></a><a class="addthis_button_linkedin"></a><a class="addthis_button_stumbleupon"></a><a class="addthis_button_google"></a><a class="addthis_button_compact"></a></div><p><a target="_blank" title="welcome to our home 3 by are you my rik?, on Flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/areyoumyrik/293891553/"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/121/293891553_7eb9173e50_m.jpg" border="0" alt="welcome to our home 3" hspace="9" width="240" height="169" align="right" /></a>Those of you who have been <a target="_blank" href="http://cspenn.com/t">following me on Twitter</a> over the past 6 months have seen me tweet out the start of every day with something like this:</p>
<p><strong><em>Good morning friends! Some pithy short comment about life today here. New friend? Welcome aboard: <a target="_blank" href="http://cspenn.com/w">http://cspenn.com/w</a></em></strong></p>
<p>This short URL takes you over to my welcome page, which gives you some idea of who I am, what I do, where you can find me, and some selected pieces of content that give you an idea of what I write about. I&#8217;ve been doing a welcome page since August, and on the page I explain why it exists: it&#8217;s a tour, a welcome mat of sorts to help introduce new friends to me.</p>
<p>Every day, a few people go read it when I start the day with it, between 20-30 a day. As web analytics go, that&#8217;s not exactly lighting the world on fire, right?</p>
<p>Except when I looked in the aggregate stats yesterday, those few visits every day by brand new people add up significantly, making it the <strong>7th highest trafficked page</strong> on my site overall and having a <strong>bounce rate a full 20% lower</strong> than any other page on my web site. People come to it, read it, and find their way to other content I&#8217;ve written, which is exactly its intended purpose. Here&#8217;s the kicker, the part that makes me very happy: <strong>the next page that people go to is my public speaking page</strong>. If I were a business (in the sense of a full time commercial enterprise) and a welcome page was funneling new traffic, new visitors straight to my sales page, I&#8217;d be delighted beyond measure at this kind of performance.</p>
<p>Here&#8217;s the secret of the welcome page, the secret sauce that makes it work. It&#8217;s not enough just to have one. <strong>You have to draw new attention to it regularly</strong>. By tweeting it out daily, first thing, almost every weekday without fail, it gets some traffic. Not a ton, but it doesn&#8217;t need a ton, and those who have already been to it don&#8217;t have to return to it. That&#8217;s the secret. By keeping the format of the first Tweet of the day regular consistent, new people get a welcome and old friends get a familiar reassurance. New people get introduced to me every single day and learn what I do (and some hire me to speak), while not offending familiar friends who have already seen it.</p>
<p>Here&#8217;s the secret that makes it easy for me: by using a static URL that&#8217;s very short (cspenn.com/w), <strong>I remember it without having to think about it</strong>, instead of something like a bit.ly/omfgwtfistheshortcodethatthispagewasyesterday273. I don&#8217;t ever have to think about what my welcome page&#8217;s URL is; by keeping it so short and familiar (and unchanging), it&#8217;s easy to publish daily.</p>
<p>Should you have a welcome page for your business or personal site? That&#8217;s entirely up to you. If you can make the commitment to start every day by drawing attention to it, by keeping a constant, small flow of eyes and minds to it, then I would say yes, you should have one. If you can&#8217;t make that commitment, then I&#8217;d say it&#8217;s not a bad idea to have one, but don&#8217;t expect the same kind of performance that you&#8217;d get out of it.</p>
<p><strong>Do you have a welcome page? Are you bringing new people to it every day?</strong></p>
<hr noshade size="1" width="100%" />
<p style="font-size:12pt;" align="center"><b><a target="_blank" title="Share this page" href="http://www.sharethis.com/share?url=http://www.christopherspenn.com/2011/02/do-you-have-a-welcome-page/">If you enjoyed this, please click here and share it with your network!</a></b></p>
<hr noshade size="1" width="100%" /><p align="center"><b>Want to read more like this from <a rel="author" href="http://www.christopherspenn.com/welcome-aboard/" target="_blank">Christopher Penn</a>? If so, please subscribe right now!</b></p>
<p align="center">
<a href="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/a/emailverifySubmit?feedId=761786" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><img src="http://www.christopherspenn.com/btn-email.png"/></a> <a href="http://www.google.com/ig/add?feedurl=http://feeds.feedburner.com/ChristopherSPenn" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><img src="http://www.christopherspenn.com/btn-google.png"/></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/ChristopherSPenn" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><img src="http://www.christopherspenn.com/btn-rss.png"/></a> </p>
<p align="center"><a href="http://cspenn.com/currents" target="_blank"><b>Click here to read my blog on Google Currents on your mobile!</b></a></p>
<hr noshade size="1" width="100%" />
<table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr>
<td width="33%" align="center" valign="top"><p>Marketing White Belt<br /> 
  <a href="http://cspenn.com/book" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.christopherspenn.com/mwbsquare.png" width="125" height="125" border="0" /></a><img src="http://go.seomoz.org/aff_i?offer_id=1&aff_id=1075&file_id=27" width="1" height="1"><br /> 
  Basics for Digital Marketers<br>
  is now on Amazon & B&N
</p></td><td width="33%" align="center" valign="top"> 
Watch me speak:<br />
<a href="http://cspenn.com/sofresh" title="Small Square (200 x 200)"><img src="http://www.christopherspenn.com/images/sofresh.png" alt="Small Square (200 x 200)" width="125" height="125" /></a>
<br />Attend virtually!
</td>

<td width="33%" align="center" valign="top"> 
I recommend:<br />
<a href="http://cspenn.com/ta" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="http://www.christopherspenn.com/tweetadder.gif" width="125" height="125" alt=""></a><br />for Twitter audience building.</td>
</tr></table>
<hr noshade size="1" width="100%" />

<div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style addthis_32x32_style" addthis:url='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2011/02/do-you-have-a-welcome-page/' addthis:title='Do you have a welcome page?' ><a class="addthis_button_facebook_like"></a><a class="addthis_button_google_plusone"></a><a class="addthis_button_twitter"></a><a class="addthis_button_email"></a><a class="addthis_button_linkedin"></a><a class="addthis_button_stumbleupon"></a><a class="addthis_button_google"></a><a class="addthis_button_compact"></a></div><p>Related posts:<ol>
<li><a href='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2010/09/5-power-tips-for-follow-friday/' rel='bookmark' title='5 Power Tips for Follow Friday'>5 Power Tips for Follow Friday</a></li>
<li><a href='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2008/02/metcalfes-blog/' rel='bookmark' title='Metcalfe&#039;s Blog'>Metcalfe&#039;s Blog</a></li>
<li><a href='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2010/08/you-own-nothing-in-social-media/' rel='bookmark' title='You own nothing in social media'>You own nothing in social media</a></li>
</ol></p>]]></content:encoded>
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		<title>#the5 for the week ending November 19, 2010</title>
		<link>http://www.christopherspenn.com/2010/11/the5-for-the-week-ending-november-19-2010/</link>
		<comments>http://www.christopherspenn.com/2010/11/the5-for-the-week-ending-november-19-2010/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 20 Nov 2010 12:32:22 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Christopher S Penn</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Blogging]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Twitter]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.christopherspenn.com/?p=2278</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style" addthis:url='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2010/11/the5-for-the-week-ending-november-19-2010/' addthis:title='#the5 for the week ending November 19, 2010' ><a class="addthis_button_facebook_like"></a><a class="addthis_button_google_plusone"></a><a class="addthis_button_twitter"></a><a class="addthis_button_email"></a><a class="addthis_button_linkedin"></a><a class="addthis_button_stumbleupon"></a><a class="addthis_button_google"></a><a class="addthis_button_compact"></a></div>#the5: Where @Klout really shines and what #Klout scores I&#8217;m paying attention to: http://ar.gy/4gk #the5: What works best for traffic for @problogger? Email marketing, of course: http://ar.gy/4Y3 #the5: Take 30 minutes and your MP3 player and try this set of exercises on Escape Velocity: http://ar.gy/4Rr #the5: Recession over? No way says Marketing Charts: cost cutting [...]<div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style addthis_32x32_style" addthis:url='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2010/11/the5-for-the-week-ending-november-19-2010/' addthis:title='#the5 for the week ending November 19, 2010' ><a class="addthis_button_facebook_like"></a><a class="addthis_button_google_plusone"></a><a class="addthis_button_twitter"></a><a class="addthis_button_email"></a><a class="addthis_button_linkedin"></a><a class="addthis_button_stumbleupon"></a><a class="addthis_button_google"></a><a class="addthis_button_compact"></a></div>
Related posts:<ol>
<li><a href='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2010/11/the5-for-the-week-ending-november-12-2010/' rel='bookmark' title='#the5 for the week ending November 12, 2010'>#the5 for the week ending November 12, 2010</a></li>
<li><a href='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2010/11/the5-for-the-week-ending-november-4-2010/' rel='bookmark' title='#the5 for the week ending November 4, 2010'>#the5 for the week ending November 4, 2010</a></li>
<li><a href='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2009/12/the5/' rel='bookmark' title='What is #the5 and what does it mean?'>What is #the5 and what does it mean?</a></li>
</ol>]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style" addthis:url='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2010/11/the5-for-the-week-ending-november-19-2010/' addthis:title='#the5 for the week ending November 19, 2010' ><a class="addthis_button_facebook_like"></a><a class="addthis_button_google_plusone"></a><a class="addthis_button_twitter"></a><a class="addthis_button_email"></a><a class="addthis_button_linkedin"></a><a class="addthis_button_stumbleupon"></a><a class="addthis_button_google"></a><a class="addthis_button_compact"></a></div><a href="http://www.christopherspenn.com/2009/12/30/the5/">I tweet out #the5 regularly on weekday mornings</a>. It's a list of the 5 things in my various channels that I think are worth paying attention to, usually culled from thousands of blogs and tweets in my Google Reader. Folks have asked in the past if they could somehow get these tweets in another fashion, but every Twitter/Wordpress plugin I've seen makes a mangled, annoying mess of processing the Twitterstream, so until there's a better option, I'll just throw out this digest. If you'd like to get these before the summary, just <a href="http://twitter.com/cspenn">follow me on Twitter</a>.
<ul>
<li>#the5: Where @Klout really shines and what #Klout scores I&#8217;m paying attention to: <a target="_blank" href="http://ar.gy/4gk">http://ar.gy/4gk</a></li>
<li>#the5: What works best for traffic for @problogger? Email marketing, of course: <a target="_blank" href="http://ar.gy/4Y3">http://ar.gy/4Y3</a></li>
<li>#the5: Take 30 minutes and your MP3 player and try this set of exercises on Escape Velocity: <a target="_blank" href="http://ar.gy/4Rr">http://ar.gy/4Rr</a></li>
<li>#the5: Recession over? No way says Marketing Charts: cost cutting and generics on the rise: <a target="_blank" href="http://bit.ly/9U8BtE">http://bit.ly/9U8BtE</a></li>
<li>#the5: Real umployment? 10.76%, but Uncle Sam is fudging the numbers downward: <a target="_blank" href="http://ar.gy/4Ro">http://ar.gy/4Ro</a></li>
<li>#the5: One of mine, why personal branding is essential for combating mediocrity: <a target="_blank" href="http://ar.gy/4Rq">http://ar.gy/4Rq</a></li>
<li>#the5: One of mine, how to build a Twitter audience in 8 steps: <a target="_blank" href="http://bit.ly/ajtNA1">http://bit.ly/ajtNA1</a></li>
<li>#the5: One of mine, do you have a Golden Social Rolodex? You should. Here&#8217;s how: <a target="_blank" href="http://ar.gy/4cj">http://ar.gy/4cj</a></li>
<li>#the5: Incredible and amazing read about cheating in school and the man who does the work: <a target="_blank" href="http://ar.gy/4Xz">http://ar.gy/4Xz</a></li>
<li>#the5: In this week&#8217;s Marketing Over Coffee, listen for how to use Slideshare for lead gen: <a target="_blank" href="http://ar.gy/4cg">http://ar.gy/4cg</a></li>
<li>#the5: Google Voice for iPhone arrives: <a target="_blank" href="http://ar.gy/4Y2">http://ar.gy/4Y2</a></li>
<li>#the5: Google can now index nearly any Flash file, says the webmaster blog: <a target="_blank" href="http://bit.ly/c2HZKO">http://bit.ly/c2HZKO</a></li>
<li>#the5: An update on Philadelphia&#8217;s Blogger Tax: <a target="_blank" href="http://ar.gy/4Y0">http://ar.gy/4Y0</a></li>
<li>#the5: 15 things others wish they knew before starting to blog: <a target="_blank" href="http://ar.gy/4ci">http://ar.gy/4ci</a></li>
<li>#the5: 6 insights and recommendations for Facebook Messages for marketers: <a target="_blank" href="http://ar.gy/4Rn">http://ar.gy/4Rn</a></li>
<li>#the5: @webby2001 asks you if you&#8217;re using the 3 essential processes of marketing: <a target="_blank" href="http://ar.gy/4cf">http://ar.gy/4cf</a></li>
<li>#the5: @tdefren tells you what&#8217;s going on behind closed doors at his agency: <a target="_blank" href="http://ar.gy/4ch">http://ar.gy/4ch</a></li>
<li>#the5: @seomoz on 301 redirect or rel canonical, and when to use each for SEO: <a target="_blank" href="http://bit.ly/b5dziu">http://bit.ly/b5dziu</a></li>
<li>#the5: @problogger wants to demonstrate how to monetize mobile traffic: <a target="_blank" href="http://ar.gy/4go">http://ar.gy/4go</a></li>
<li>#the5: @mitchjoel says brands can&#8217;t be human: <a target="_blank" href="http://ar.gy/4gl">http://ar.gy/4gl</a></li>
<li>#the5: @jeffpulver invites students to attend #brandsconf for free: <a target="_blank" href="http://ar.gy/4gm">http://ar.gy/4gm</a></li>
<li>#the5: @finchsells on his favorite and most profitable affiliate marketing niches: <a target="_blank" href="http://ar.gy/4Y1">http://ar.gy/4Y1</a></li>
<li>#the5: @chrisbrogan gives you speaking tips to get started professionally speaking: <a target="_blank" href="http://ar.gy/4Rp">http://ar.gy/4Rp</a></li>
<li>#the5: @cc_chapman would like a word with you about making viral stuff: <a target="_blank" href="http://ar.gy/4gn">http://ar.gy/4gn</a></li>
<li>#the5: @avinash will get you moving with 10 steps for starting web analysis. Must read: <a target="_blank" href="http://bit.ly/cA09sA">http://bit.ly/cA09sA</a></li>
</ul>
<hr noshade size="1" width="100%" />
<p style="font-size:12pt;" align="center"><b><a target="_blank" title="Share this page" href="http://www.sharethis.com/share?url=http://www.christopherspenn.com/2010/11/the5-for-the-week-ending-november-19-2010/">If you enjoyed this, please click here and share it with your network!</a></b></p>
<hr noshade size="1" width="100%" /><p align="center"><b>Want to read more like this from <a rel="author" href="http://www.christopherspenn.com/welcome-aboard/" target="_blank">Christopher Penn</a>? If so, please subscribe right now!</b></p>
<p align="center">
<a href="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/a/emailverifySubmit?feedId=761786" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><img src="http://www.christopherspenn.com/btn-email.png"/></a> <a href="http://www.google.com/ig/add?feedurl=http://feeds.feedburner.com/ChristopherSPenn" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><img src="http://www.christopherspenn.com/btn-google.png"/></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/ChristopherSPenn" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><img src="http://www.christopherspenn.com/btn-rss.png"/></a> </p>
<p align="center"><a href="http://cspenn.com/currents" target="_blank"><b>Click here to read my blog on Google Currents on your mobile!</b></a></p>
<hr noshade size="1" width="100%" />
<table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr>
<td width="33%" align="center" valign="top"><p>Marketing White Belt<br /> 
  <a href="http://cspenn.com/book" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.christopherspenn.com/mwbsquare.png" width="125" height="125" border="0" /></a><img src="http://go.seomoz.org/aff_i?offer_id=1&aff_id=1075&file_id=27" width="1" height="1"><br /> 
  Basics for Digital Marketers<br>
  is now on Amazon & B&N
</p></td><td width="33%" align="center" valign="top"> 
Watch me speak:<br />
<a href="http://cspenn.com/sofresh" title="Small Square (200 x 200)"><img src="http://www.christopherspenn.com/images/sofresh.png" alt="Small Square (200 x 200)" width="125" height="125" /></a>
<br />Attend virtually!
</td>

<td width="33%" align="center" valign="top"> 
I recommend:<br />
<a href="http://cspenn.com/ta" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="http://www.christopherspenn.com/tweetadder.gif" width="125" height="125" alt=""></a><br />for Twitter audience building.</td>
</tr></table>
<hr noshade size="1" width="100%" />

<div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style addthis_32x32_style" addthis:url='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2010/11/the5-for-the-week-ending-november-19-2010/' addthis:title='#the5 for the week ending November 19, 2010' ><a class="addthis_button_facebook_like"></a><a class="addthis_button_google_plusone"></a><a class="addthis_button_twitter"></a><a class="addthis_button_email"></a><a class="addthis_button_linkedin"></a><a class="addthis_button_stumbleupon"></a><a class="addthis_button_google"></a><a class="addthis_button_compact"></a></div><p>Related posts:<ol>
<li><a href='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2010/11/the5-for-the-week-ending-november-12-2010/' rel='bookmark' title='#the5 for the week ending November 12, 2010'>#the5 for the week ending November 12, 2010</a></li>
<li><a href='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2010/11/the5-for-the-week-ending-november-4-2010/' rel='bookmark' title='#the5 for the week ending November 4, 2010'>#the5 for the week ending November 4, 2010</a></li>
<li><a href='http://www.christopherspenn.com/2009/12/the5/' rel='bookmark' title='What is #the5 and what does it mean?'>What is #the5 and what does it mean?</a></li>
</ol></p>]]></content:encoded>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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