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Written on February 28, 2008 – 6:26 pm | by Brian Wallace |

(yes, that’s supposed to be a Twitter army )

Why Twitter is Important

(click image for full size)

To many Internet Marketers,Twitter has become important. Some people may not yet understand, but this may just be part of their journey through the social media learning curve. As with any social media application, site influencers got to where they were by putting in the time to understand the community. Twitter is no exception.

Let’s take a look at 7 Steps that Make Twitter Work:

Step #1. Twitter is more than personal updates. Sure, some people like to put in cat updates or say what they are eating for lunch, but Twitter is much more than that. Blogs used to have much the same stigma pinned on them, but one day the world woke up and understood the power of simple publishing + citizen journalism. Microblogging has reduced the time to market of content down to minutes and seconds, a huge improvement over blogs which brought it down to hours from previous forms of communication.

Twitter is a great place to:

-broadcast breaking / important news -hire people -get advice (on just about anything) -run a poll -rag on others -promote yourself -promote others

Step #2. Now that you have your head on straight, socialize. Chances are, if you participate in the social media community, people you know are already on Twitter. While Twitter doesn’t have the best way in the world to find people, sometimes the best way is to just see who your friend is following.

Step #3. Don’t just sit there, say something. Join the conversation. Without being too noisy, get in there. Nobody is going to ask you to the dance if you are just sitting around. See what people are talking about, jump in with some “@’s” (replies to a user) and perhaps some direct messages too.

Step #4. Now that you’ve said something, quiet down. Like any social media site, know the community and follow its norms.

Step #5. Know the difference between a push vs a pull mechanism. When you post a link to your latest blog post to Twitter, you are doing a push. An action meant to grab the reader. They can ignore it, but people that like what you bring to the table will check you out. Instantly. RSS on the other hand is a pull. Users will check RSS at their own pace and it will take more time to get buzz around your content.

Step #6. Fine tune, and read what’s out there. Here’s the part where you get to see where others have broken ground already, leaving valuable information for you along the way. My suggested reads: -Jeremiah Owyang on how he uses Twitter -Shana’s awesome post about 26 reasons why I love Twitter -DoshDosh put together a fine list of 17 ways to use Twitter.

Step #7. Put it all together and measure your results. As the title of the post mentioned, I promised a 438% growth in followers in a 30 day period. Here was my progression:

The notable jump right past the midway point came from a mention in Marketing Pilgrim’s initial post on Internet Marketers to follow.

After looking through this list a few times, I thought that both Twitter addicts and those that may not even use Twitter at all might be left with a few questions. Here’s my attempt to answer a few:

Q: 438% growth doesn’t just magically happen. How did you do it?

A: Well, I’ll tell you:

1 - Followed people I knew 2 - Adjusted my level of noise 3 - Thanked people for following me 4 -Kept the conversation going with those that replied quickly 5 - Instigated a few fights 6 - Chatted with better known people 7 - Unfollowed those that were bothersome / too noisy 8 - Crosslinked on my blog and other social media profiles 9 - Did a bit of brand management / data mining, keeping a keen eye on Tweeterboard stats, Terraminds info, and Tweetstats graphs 10 - Retweeted things that I felt were important that my followers might have missed from my Twitter friends

Q: Ok, so you got some new Twitter followers. If I post a link, maybe I get 5-10 visits to my blog. Why should I care?

A: The reason that you should care isn’t the direct traffic, but rather the indirect influence. If you Tweet a link to a new blog post, people will rush to submit it to social sites. This is changing the “pull” dynamic inherent in RSS (which may become passive for folks that are too busy to keep up on RSS) to a “push” dynamic through Twitter - but to people already interested in you. What’s more is that your followers may see your Tweets as a call to action, and begin to submit / vote for post you may have.

Tags: Twitterincrease_Twitter_following Use_Twitter_for_marketing

I recently received an email from Russell Wright from the Theme Zoom Team, who writes that the Google Quality Rater's document, which is found on the link below, was supposedly leaked from Google Secret Labs. It is supposedly used to train search engine "quality raters". Some experts hold the position that this document MAY be some sort of elaborate hoax, but that Search Engine Land is treating this document as if it is real and authentic.

It sure looks real to me… but I don't know if it really came from Google.

Read  what Search Engine Land writes about the document, which can be found here, and judge for yourself.

 ********************

Brian Ussery has discovered a revised copy of the Google Quality Raters Guidelines, which he archived on his own site (has been removed.  The pdf can be found on this site).

The documents are used by Google Quality Raters to aid them in classifying queries, measuring relevancy, and rating the search results. To do so, the Quality Rater must understand how Google works and this document has a bunch of that. Let me pull out some of those details in easy to read bullet points.

Three Query Types:

• Navigational: someone searching for a site, such as a search for IBM.
• Informational: someone searching for information on a topic of interest, such as finding out more information on Danny Sullivan.
• Transactional: someone searching when seeking to purchase something either online or offline, such as searching for 'buy ipod touch.'

Quality Rating Scales:

• Vital: This is the highest score a web page can receive for a query. A vital result comes from a query that is most likely navigational and the resulting page is the official web page of the query. When searching for 'ibm', the vital result would be www.ibm.com.
• Useful: This is the second highest score a web page can receive for a given query. A useful rating should be assigned to results that "answer the query just right; they are neither too broad nor too specific." One of the examples given for a useful rating would be a search on meningitis symptoms with a resulting web page of http://www.webmd.com/hw/infection/aa34586.asp
• Relevant: This comes after a useful rating, and is used for results that return less useful results. The guidelines say the result is often "less comprehensive, come from a less authoritative source, or cover only one important aspect of the query." An example would be a review of laptop computers, but the review only takes five computers and not all computers within its class. Since it is not a fully comprehensive review, it would be rated as relevant and not useful.
• Not Relevant: This rating is used for pages that are not helpful to the query but are somewhat still connected to the original query. Classifications of a not relevant page would be "outdated, too narrowly regional, too specific, too broad" and so on. One of the examples give is a search for the 'BBC' that returns a specific article from BBS; it is too specific and is not relevant to the query at hand.
• Off-Topic: This is the lowest rating a page can receive for a query. If the returned page is completely not relevant to the query, it would be given a rating of "off topic." An example given is a query on 'hot dogs' that returns a page about doghouses.

Categories For Results That Can't Be Rated:
Not everything can be rated, and those must be classified somehow. The categories for those types of results include:

• Didn’t Load: For pages that return a 404 error, page not found, product not found, server time out, 403 forbidden, login required, and so on.
• Foreign Language: This is given to a page that is in a "foreign language" to the "target language" of the query. English is never a foreign language, no matter what. So, if you search in Chinese for something and a Hebrew page is returned, it is a foreign language, but if an English page is returned, it is not a foreign language. There are exceptions to the rule.
• Unratable: When the rater cannot rate it for any other reason.

Spam Labels:
Now for the really good stuff, spam labels. This is a new addition to the quality raters guidelines and is fairly small. The labels include:

• Not Spam: The not spam rating is given to pages that "has not been designed using deceitful web design techniques."
• Maybe Spam: This label is given when you feel the page is "spammy," but you are not 100% convinced of that.
• Spam: Given to pages you feel are violating Google's webmaster guidelines.

Flags:
Flags are for pages that require immediate attention, such as:

• Pornographic content
• Malicious code on pages

That is a brief overview of some of the many points in the document. For more, see the archived document and for some history, check out Google Blogoscoped.

/Angela Wickenberg