Let’s face it. If you are reading this, odds are you aren’t Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber, or any of the other top 100 most followed on Twitter. If you aren’t on Twitter yet, sign up today. In fact, do it now and then come back and finish reading this post.

Twitter isn’t new. The more people that join and follow other users, the more your tweets get diluted. The secret is to not wait for followers to come to you. Don’t tweet and hold your breath to see who replies, mentions, retweets, or follows you (but, if you do receive replies, mentions, and retweets, be sure to respond to ALL of them).

The key is to consistently send tweets, but spend the bulk of your time using search.twitter.com. Search for your company or brand name, products or services you offer, competitors, and any other relevant keywords related to your industry. Then, start authentic conversations with all of the people that are already sending relevant tweets. You can quickly build real relationships (and followers) by taking this approach. And, the best part is that you can be certain that the people you are talking to are highly engaged. Quality over quantity.

Twitter even put together its own tips on how to use Advanced Twitter Search.

Image: MightyBoyBrian on Flickr

Super Bowl XLVI was the most watched television broadcast ever - estimated at 111.3 million people.

Did you know the Super Bowl ended in a tie? According to Marketing Land, out of the 59 Super Bowl commercials, there were 8 Facebook mentions and 8 Twitter mentions. 

As the game ended, Twitter counted 12,233 posts per second, the most for any English language event in the six-year history of Twitter.

So, how did the big brands fail? Simple. They didn’t give the viewer a good reason to continue the conversation online. Simply adding a Twitter hashtag or Facebook icon/URL at the end of an ad is not enough. Big brands paid big budgets to gain the attention of 111.3 million people and then left them hanging. It’s going to cost them a lot of money to regain that attention in the future. To make matters worse, a lot of the brands that showed Twitter hashtags in their commercials were not actively engaging with tweeters online (#wasteofmoney).

Whatever you do as a small business, always keep the conversation going (Gary Vaynerchuk is a big advocate of this).

Be sure to subscribe so you can read my next post: How your Small Biz will Win with Twitter.

5) 1 out of 5 social network users is likely to visit another social site after leaving one.

4) There are now more than 800 million active Facebook users, with over 200 million added in 2011.

3) More than half of Facebook users log in every day - that’s more than 400 million people.

2) Americans spend more time on Facebook than any other U.S. website.

1) Nearly 23% of online time is spent on social networks.

**BONUS: Small businesses don’t have to spend much to get results.  Zoomerang found that nearly 60% of all small business decision-makers spend less than $100 on social media and 74% of businesses don’t employ anyone to manage their social media marketing.

Source: Read 20 more stats on SocialMediaExaminer.com

Nice wake up call here.  Originally posted by Brian Solis on SocialMediaToday.com.

“Over the years, I’ve researched the gap that exists between what businesses think consumers want in social networks and what it is that they really want or expect. As you can imagine, there’s a significant delta between each and here, Nielsen delved a bit deeper to share insights into specific brand-related behavior by consumers in social networks. Much of their time is spent in pre-commerce phase of decision making, reading consumer feedback and learning about products. At the point of the decision, they seek to obtain coupons and promotions. Post commerce, they’re actively posting positive or negative feedback, thus influencing the decisions of others.”

Read the full article here: The State of Social Media 2011 - Social is the New Normal

In early 2012, Facebook will give each qualified business at least $50 of free advertising on Facebook.

The social network also promises free resources and information on how to market your business on Facebook. The company is sending its reps out to meet with small business owners in person. Since Facebook has a self-service ad platform that’s actually geared more to small advertisers than large ones, the program seems to be about building awareness, especially since 64% of small businesses think social media is unnecessary.

Do you think this will attract more SMBs to Facebook and other social networks?  Or, will most take the money and run?

Read more on Mashable here.

Not knowing enough about social media is no longer a good excuse for small businesses.  Based on the eMarketer study above from July 26th, only 14% of SMBs claimed to not know enough about social media.  Therefore, SMBs are now educated about social media, however they choose to not participate.  A whopping 43% believe that it’s not necessary for their business.

According to the CMS Wire post here, some of the highlights of SMB social media usage include: 

• The self-employed and small business owners were more likely to report new partnerships, with at least 59% noting a benefit.
• Small businesses were twice as likely to find qualified leads than other types of businesses.
• 48% of self-employed and small business owners saw improved sales as a direct result of their social media efforts.
• The self-employed (59%) and small business owners (58%) were more likely than others to see reductions in marketing costs when using social media marketing.

Why aren’t you using social media for your small business?  Please share your thoughts.

Top 5 Quotes:

• “Your brand isn’t what you say it is, it’s what Google says it is.  It’s also what Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn say it is.” – Mitch Joel, President of Twist Image & New York Times Best Seller
• “Be real.  Be there.  Provide value when people need it most.” – Wendy Harman, Social Media Director, American Red Cross
• “Empower the subject matter experts…experts will become our best marketers.” – Adam Brown, Executive Director, Social Media, Dell
• “You can make a dollar from four quarters; you can also make a dollar from nickels, dimes, and pennies.” (referring to the power of influence) – Build a Better Campaign Breakout Session
• “A friend can set up your dating profile for you, but they can’t go on the date for you.” (referring to community management)

Top 5 Themes:

 REAL + REAL-TIME

o    Real interactions between real people

o    Real interactions = Don’t be fake.  Be real, engage, connect.

o    Real-time monitoring leads to real-time participation in the conversation

           - The conversations/interactions are highly distributable online

ADVOCATES + INFLUENCE

o    Quality, not quantity!

o    Enable your advocates to become influencers (the crazy 1% that have your brand’s logo tattooed on themselves)

o    A really satisfied customer is the best person to talk about your products/services

o    Focus on the “already influenced” instead of the “influencers”

           - Niche content creators that are constantly talking about your topic already

o    Connect people around universal passion points

EMPOWER

o    Empower everyone (internal and external) to communicate for you

           - Your employees are some of the people who care about your brand/company the most

o    Strategy is thinking of one line of connectivity

           - People are fundamentally connected

o    Every consumer has the ability to have a thought and publish it to the world

TRUST

o    You trust people like you (not necessarily people you personally know)

o    People trust a company with a human face that they can identify with

o    A negative review converts more effectively to a sale than a positive review

           - Power of customer reviews and trusting your peers and people like you

EXPERIENCE

o    Your new home page is Google.com, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube…

           - First page of search engine results is a brand experience

o    “No amount of social media can save you if your products/services suck” - Mitch Joel

o    You need to provide a great experience every time someone touches your brand

Here are my notes from the “Science of Timing” HubSpot webinar yesterday presented by @DanZarrella.  Some really good info was shared with over 24,000 people who registered for the free webinar.  Highlights are below, and here is the deck and webinar recording: http://www.hubspot.com/webinars/science-of-timing-thanks

*Note: All times are in Eastern time

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Twitter:

· Most Retweets: 2-5pm (best time is later in the day and best days are later in the week)

· Check out www.TweetWhen.com to see your most retweetable day and time

· Highest Click-Through Rates (CTRs): Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday (no dip on the weekends) at 11am and 5pm (although CTR is consistent throughout the day and night)

· 22 tweets/day is the ideal number

· Key Takeaways:

 Tweet more, not less

 Tweet the same link a couple different times throughout the day with different content surrounding it (different quotes from the article, etc)

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Facebook:

· Pages who post every other day had the most page “likes”

· Shares by Day: Facebook sharing on links spikes on the weekend

· Shares by Hour: 11am is highest (although sharing is consistent throughout the day and night)

· Key Takeaways:

 “Don’t crowd your content on Facebook.  Let it breathe.”

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Email:

· Most emails are read in the morning (however, over 50% of people also check email at night)

· Opens by Day: Highest on Saturday and Sunday because that’s when people have time to give email more attention

· Opens by Hour: Highest during the early morning hours

· Clicks/Day: Highest on Saturday and Sunday

· Clicks/Hr: Highest during 5-7am

· Frequency: Sending 1-2 emails/month yields the highest CTR (although, CTRs are relatively the same whether you are sending 4-30 emails/month)

· Unsubscribe Rate: Highest for the less emails you send (and less unsubscribes the more emails you send)

· People pay the most attention when they first subscribe

 The more recent the subscriber, the higher the CTR

 Send new subscribers the best offers within a few days of their subscription

· Key Takeaways:

 Send more email.

 Your newest subscribers are the best.

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Blogging: Analysis was of 40,000 blogs

· Blogs are read the most in the morning, then it declines throughout the day (although, over 40% of people still read blogs at night)

· Most Views/Hr: 10-11am (and also 11pm)

· Most Comments/Day: Saturday and Sunday

· Most Comments/Hr: 8-9am (morning hours)

· Most Links/Day: Monday and Thursday

· Most Links/Hr: 7am (morning hours)

· Be careful posting all of your blog posts to Facebook (frequency issue)

· Feed blog posts to Twitter

· Key Takeways:

 Know your audience.

 Blog on the weekends if you want more comments

 Blog early morning for more links

 Blog more frequently: More posts = More links and traffic

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Lead Nurturing:

· Track the timing of when you send the highest value offers

· Track where your referrals are coming from

· Always measure how much money you are making and when you are making it

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Overall Takeaway: Experiment!