I’m sure most of you are well aware of the hullabaloo caused by the recent move made by Mars/Skittles that converted Skittles.com from a traditional web site to a mashup of social media sites, incorporating content from Facebook, wikipedia, YouTube and Twitter.  The overall success of the social experiment has been debated widely; some seem to think it was brilliant, others feel it is ridiculous mistake to place control of a brand’s voice into the hands of the general public at large.  Regardless of which camp you are in, all seem agree that it took considerable courage.  Understandably, word of the new site spread like wildfire.  Before long, nearly everyone on Twitter was sending messages with “#skittles” in them, just to see if they would show up on the site.  I began seeing people comment in my “twitter stream” about what others had written just to get listed on the skittles page.  I realized that people were not just looking for their own tweets, but were actually reading what others had written – score one for the skittles team.

This made me curious – if people were reading what others wrote, would they also click the links others posted – just because it was on the skittles page?  I decided to turn the skittles experiment into one of my own.

I selected three articles that had done well with my readers, but had not had traffic in a few days.  I watched the “chatter” at skittles.com until the traffic slowed enough so that the tweets showing up stayed on the page one for about 10 minutes before dropping off.

Starting at around 10:30 AM I posted tweets about every 20 minutes containing links to one of the articles, and mentioning skittles somehow in them.  I spaced them this way to make sure that more than one would not show up at the same time and tip off the readers what I was doing. I was also careful not to send the same link twice in a row.  I stopped around 4:30 PM after sending 16 of the linked skittles tweets.

It was not my intent to trick the readers, but the tweets did imply a slight connection to skittles, however none came right out and said they had anything to do with the candy, or that the links would talk about skittles.  Most of the tweets I sent were similar to the examples listed below.

• Does advertising help or hinder your business? http://zi.ma/19e094, grab some skittles and read on
• I like to eat skittles while I do site testing http://zi.ma/831f makes it more fun, less like work
• I wonder if the skittles page uses the keywords meta tag http://zi.ma/78a88f ?

Because I didn’t want to increase my page views except through the skittles experiment, I asked (and reminded a few times), my regular followers to please ignore my skittles tweets – though a few threatened me with bodily harm if I didn’t knock it off soon.

As I watched my links scroll down the skittles page, I was happy to see they were being clicked on and even re-tweeted.

When the day was done, the three pages had been viewed just under 100 times total.  Not huge numbers by any means, but given how and where they were posted, and that each was only viewable for about 10 minutes – I’m calling this a succesful test.  Had I been a bit more sneaky about the text in my tweets, I’m sure I could have lured a few more in.  Thankfully, my bounce rate did not jump – believe it or not, it actually went down some.  Hopefully some of those 100 people will come back and read more of my pages…if you are one of them WELCOME BACK and please pass the skittles.

UPDATE: The zi.ma URL shortener is now dead.  As such, the links above will no longer work – sorry.

Post from: Austin, Texas SEO - Jack Leblond

Can eating Skittles increase your page views?

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So you have finally gotten so sick of the disparaging remarks directed at you for NOT being on Twitter that you have given in and decided to see what all the fuss is about.  You’ve no doubt been searching the web looking for reasons to be on Twitter, and discovered that Twitter isn’t a waste of time, like many people seem to think it is.  You may have even read up on how to build your community on Twitter and hopefully you learned how not to build your Twitter community.  If you are concerned about getting lost in all the Twitter twerminology, er – terminology – don’t be, there are lots of places you can brush up on your “twitterspeak.”  After you’ve been tweeting for a while, you may wonder how you compare to others in your field, or community.  Guess what?  You are not alone, and thanks to a couple of great tools you can learn how to improve your twinfluence and Twitter grade.  Like most new Twitter users, you’ve probably wondered how to find people to follow – Twellow is a Twitter people search tool that should help you track down interesting tweeple.  You may want to check out the Twitter page of the Austin Statesman as well, there a few talented and interesting people listed there.

But, that’s not why you are here, is it?  No, you have already decided you NEED to sign up, you just want to know what name to use on Twitter.

What is your plan for Twitter – business or pleasure?  If you plan to do both, I must urge you to use extreme caution.  If your 9-5 “friends” are not the same crowd you hang with between 5-9, you risk irritating both sets of people and then your network will lose its social value rather quickly.  Then you may as well change your name to “Thor”, move to a cave and start doing Geico commercials ;-D.

Regardless of your plans, your choice of twitter name is an important one.  Of course, Twitter names can be changed but depending on the size of your network, it could cause some confusion – assuming the name you want is even still available.  I changed my Twitter name after being online for about 4 months, thankfully it was not too terribly complicated.  And it turns out I made the right choice.

Using Twitter for Business

OK, so you’ll be tweeting at work.  Congrats for having a boss that understands the importance of social networking.  You get bonus points if the boss is YOU.  Next question – While on Twitter, will you simply be a person that happens to work for the company, or will you BE the company?  For example;  @Statesman, @ColonelTribune, @DunkinDonuts and @TheHomeDepot are four brands I follow.  While conversations with the real people behind these profiles can be personable, entertaining and certainly informative – make no mistake, they are there to promote the brand.  If one of those people should decide to move on to other opportunities, the company can find someone else to take over and the world may never know the difference.  Well, I’m sure somebody would notice, but you get the point – right?

If you tweet as an employee on the other hand, there is a risk the the “brand” may get lost, or possibly you might become the brand, that might put your employer in an uncomfortable position.  There is a fine line to walk to maintain an effective profile.  For example, @LPT and @Ggroovin are people I follow, we’ve had many conversations both personal and professional.  The fact that they both happen to work at Dell is obvious from their profiles and the links and plugs of Dell products.  However, they manage to balance the conversations such that if either was to move on, I don’t think the value of their network would be significantly effected. Additionally, I’m pretty sure that if @LPT decided to leave Dell and become a zoologist, her tweets would still be worth following.  At the same time, should one of them move on, there would be little, if any, impact on Dell or the company’s social activities.

On the other hand, we have @LisaBarone.  While I was not on Twitter, or blogging when Lisa started tweeting (and blogging) for Bruce Clay, I suspect she was not nearly as well known as she is now.  Thanks to her remarkable ability to make sense of the complicated, entertainment from the embarrassing and, well her ability to rile up pretty much every person in her industry whenever she wants, her popularity grew quickly.  I’d venture a guess that many people (myself included) would not know who Bruce Clay is today if we had not started following Lisa on Twitter and gotten addicted to her blog.  When it comes to SEO bloggers, Lisa Barone IS a brand name, regardless of whose logo happens to be on top of her blog posts.  And, recently her blogs do have a new logo on them.  Yes there was a bit of hub-bub about it, but I suspect that most people don’t care.  Lisa posts a link on Twitter, we click and read.  Whatever Jim Boykin did to lure @LisaBarone to We Build Pages, it was a brilliant move.

There are a few people I follow that are their own brands (whether they like it or not), they own the company and communicate with the world on it’s behalf as themselves.  While unlikely, what would happen if @Graywolf or @SugarRae decided to sell their businesses and retire?  Those profiles would be useless to the new owners.  Especially since I suspect Rae would be tweeting about how Effed up the the flight to her beach resort was.

Using Twitter for Personal Social Networking

Have Fun!  My advice here, since you’ll probably be communicating with people you already know, use the same name you use everywhere else, if possible.  Hard to believe, but seriously – that’s it.  Have fun!

Consistency is a Key For Social Networking

Regardless of whether to plan to use Twitter for business or pleasure, when you think you have settled in on a suitable name, you should check and see if it is available across the various Social Networking sites.  You never know when you’ll want to branch out to other sites and increase your online presence.  Fortunately there is a way to do this easily without having to go to each site one at a time. Visit usernamecheck.com and check your name.  If it’s available on Twitter, and on a majority of the major Social sites – you are in luck, move fast and get it registered.

Hopefully this was enough information for you to make some good decisions about what name will be best for you to use not only on Twitter, but also on many of the other social network sites.  Please do stop by and visit me on Twitter as well, you’ll find me at @JackLeblond.

Post from: Austin, Texas SEO - Jack Leblond

So you’ve decided to join Twitter…now what?

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I decided to follow the majority of advice, switched over a few days later and never looked back.

Today while attending the eMarketing seminar at InnoTech Austin, my decision was proven to be the right one – multiple times.

I was fortunate enough to actually meet several people from my tweet stream, and a few more that follow people that follow me.  The spark of recognition when I introduced my self was obvious.  I have no doubt in my mind that had I stayed with @web_guy on twitter, those people I met today would have had no clue who I was.  Yes, we may have figured it out eventually, but that immediate recognition helped to jump start conversations because we already (sort of) knew each other.

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Post from: Austin, Texas SEO - Jack Leblond

Changing a Twitter Name (update)

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When I signed up, I used “web_guy,” a nick-name I was given years ago and have used on various sites and projects.  At the time I was not concerned with the “genericness” of it because I actually wanted to be an unknown.  However, since then I have become much more active.  Not only on Twitter, but also here and a few other sites.

My plan is to move back to New England, preferably Maine, sometime in the next 6-10 years.  It seems fairly obvious to me that the odds of getting a “Wow!” job offer would be improved if people new me, knew my name.  It is after all my “brand.”  If you Google “Jack Leblond,”  most of the top results are actually me.  However, if you Google “web_guy,” only a few of the results are for me.  (That may have just answered the question for me)

So, what do you think I should do on Twitter?

Should I;

1. Stick with what I have built and continue to use “web_guy”
   or
2. Pull a “longhornkate” and change it to my real name?

UPDATE:  I changed my Twitter name

If you are new to Twitter, you may want to look at So you’ve decided to join Twitter…now what?

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