Posts Tagged ‘marketing’
14 Insane Twitter Tips For Business
-by Kim Redd
Recently, I have found myself passionately sharing Twitter advice with not only clients, but with friends, colleagues, neighbors, and even strangers. Some think I am iNSaNe over this “twitter thing”. What better reason to write a post!
As a business, you have three main goals when it comes to Social Media: Monitor your brand, build your brand, and increase sales of your brand. Twitter is just one facet of Social Media. Here is what I share with my clients…and strangers…and now you!
14 Insane Twitter Tips For Business: What I Tell My Clients
1. Follow everyone back…yes even the porn stars! Unless someone offends you, spams you, or uses foul language, follow them back. It’s courteous and will win you more followers (i.e. customers/prospects) organically. Do you care about what your customers are saying? Then show it by following them back.
2. Change the avatar to your head shot. Yes, YOU! Choose a picture where you have a big smile. People buy from people they like, not companies. Humanize your business. It’s the only way to succeed on Twitter. IMPORTANT: Once you select your avatar, do not change it. It becomes your personal brand.
3. Put YOUR name in the Profile. It’s okay to keep the Company or Brand name as the name that shows up next to the Avatar. This will help you build your personal brand as well as your company brand. If you are worried about stalkers, don’t use your last name.
4. Engage your followers. Talk to them. Cultivate them. First rule of Social Media is “be interested, not interesting”. Have you reached out directly to any of them yet? This is a huge opportunity to interact with your customers/prospects. Don’t blow it.
5. Find more followers. A following of 28 is not going to increase traffic in your stores or on your website. Run searches to see who is chatting about your brand and your industry. Start following them. Begin following the competition, other marketers, and Twitter superstars. As you interact with each of these segments you will see your following grow naturally.
6. Listen. Have ongoing searches running for your brand, company, industry, and pertinent topics. Stay on the pulse. Nip issues in the bud. Offer advice when questions are asked. Great opportunity to make a good impression.
7. Be Active. Tweet at least once a day but not more than 10/day (unless you are having a conversation: then it’s okay to go over the threshold of 10). You need to commit time each day to actively listen and tweet.
8. Be thankful. Thank those that Retweet (RT) your tweets. Always give RT credit if you RT another tweep. Thank those that recommend you on #FollowFriday.
9. DO NOT USE AUTO DIRECT MESSAGES. Nothing bothers tweeps more than auto DM’s filling up their inbox. It’s okay to auto-follow for complete coverage, but please don’t send impersonal automated messages. You will be unfollowed and/or blocked. That won’t help your brand.
10. DO NOT use DMs for pitching products or special offers! Do I really need to expand on this concept?
11. Tweet conservatively. The internet is permanent. Don’t say anything you wouldn’t want posted on a billboard in front of your home and/or office.
12. Compliment others, generously. If you see a great tweet with interesting articles about your industry, marketing, etc give the tweep kudos by retweeting their tweet. This will help build your following and your credibility. Great way to make new Twitter friends and build your brand.
13. Schedule a Tweet Up in your area or attend one. By meeting other tweeps, marketers, prospects you can gain insight, advice, and/or possibly new drinking buddies. Look for local folks to follow. Same applies when you are traveling for business.
14. INSTALL TWEETDECK! If you haven’t already done so download it now. http://tweetdeck.com It’s a fantastic way to organize your followers and conversations. Use it in addition to twitter.com
WARNING: These tips are MY opinions and there are other schools of thought out there.
FEEDBACK: Let me know which tips are your favorites, how many you found helpful, and which ones suck. It’s okay to disagree with me too… just tell my why. Send me an @reply or leave a comment here.
Watching out for you, one tweet at a time -TwitterWatchDog
Get instant Twitter Watchdog Secrets, Tips and Tools that will help maximize both your personal and professional Twitter experience. Just enter your name and email address now.
How Will the FTC Affect Twitter and Advertising?
FTC: How will it affect Twitter and Advertising
Recently, CNN covered FTC targets bloggers, celebrities along with many other media organizations. Basically this rule extends to the internet including bloggers and social networkers (along with celebrities) or just anyone who endorses a product. This is not just an endorsement, but one that involves a monetary exchange.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) wants anyone endorsing a product for monetary gain to disclose what companies they are working with to ensure the integrity of the product. With the undeniably fast growth of social networks like Twitter and Facebook, as an example, users are turning to monetizing their streams.
Paid to tweet companies like Be-A-Magpie, Sponsored Tweets, and more have popped up in the last year alone. With some tweeps with more than 10,000 followers, these applications allow users to choose what advertisements to tweet. These tweets, if done tastefully are unobtrusive. Already most of those sites require some type of disclosure to allow users to know. For example, perhaps you might have seen #ad, #sponsored, or “my sponsor…” or something similar to those examples.
(Note: The paid to tweet sites listed above are not an endorsement, but an example and have no affiliate links tied to them to give any gain to anyone.)
It is important to disclose tweets that endorse products because it allows the user to keep an honest front with followers, as well as an honest front for the company and the product being represented. However, as the CNN article listed above mentions – the FTC may go after advertisers first before bloggers and social network users so the companies will make sure to provide instructions for product reviewers or even Tweeps to adhere to the disclosure compliances.
How will this affect Twitter and advertising? Well, it would just mean that companies like Be A Magpie and Sponsored tweets will continue to make sure some type of disclosure is issued with each tweet by their users. This will also drive away companies that are seeking less honest ways to advertising products that are questionable. Also, tweeps will now know exactly what is being endorsed.
What do you think of the FTC’s new policy? Do you pay to tweet sometimes? If so, do you use some type of disclosure?
What The Hashtag
What The Hashtag: How To Use The Site As a Tool
What The Hashtag (wthashtag.com) is a wiki-based site that tracks Twitter hashtags (also known as trending topics.) Each trending topic is documented automatically or users can insert new hashtags and the wiki will document each.
The hashtag each have their own page that include a description, stats of when they trended the heaviest, and a twitter stream including all users that have used the hashtag.
So, what can you do with this site? The answer – plenty!
What The Hashtag can literally be used as a data tool for you to target more of your niche followers. You can find big dogs in your niche, as well as unique people who have great ideas to help expand success in your own niche. This is a tool that gets down in the midst of the conversation and lets you use it as a way to succeed. Simply do a search for certain tags and you might find things that you have been looking for, but have not had much success trying to gather the right day to market what you are trying to share or sell.
As mentioned, users can enter their own hashtags and if you use them regularly, and within reason (there are always people who overuse hashtags and exploit them), you can attract people into your niche that you need. You can even start your own trend and document it with What The Hashtag as well.
Although my introductory of What The Hashtag in my site, Blondish.net in the article Hashtags: Hashed and Re-hashed, the site has come a long way in the past two months alone and improved. I recommend it as another way to obtain more data for marketing in your niche.
Have you heard about What the Hashtag? Do you use it? What do you think about it?
Techies, Juniors and Marketing Oh My!
Social Media is often turned over to techies or juniors in the marketing dept.
-Follow @Lois Geller on Twitter
It seems like many of our clients have enlisted newbies in the organization to handle social media.
Probably they do this because young people understand the new technology, text messaging, so they’d be a likely pick.
The challenge with this is that these interns and juniors often aren’t aware of the company’s brand and how to get it across to clients and prospects. They are usually not salespeople, either.
Probably the most effective people I meet on Tweeter are people who know how to naturally develop relationships. People who ask questions, and jump in to help people who ask for it.
You build relationships on Twitter the same way you build friendships, by giving information first, by noticing something about someone, “Oh, you’re from Saskatoon?” and finding those things in common that we enjoy in each other.
I’d be interested in your thought’s, so don’t forget to leave me a comment.
Luis Geller’s websites include: Joy of Direct Marketing and The Guts Of A Burglar
Get instant Twitter Watchdog Secrets, Tips and Tools that will help maximize both your personal and professional Twitter experience. Just enter your name and email address now.
Twitter to Stardom
by Skeeter Hansen and Your Pal Al Ferretti
Twitter may be your ticket to Internet Stardom
It’s funny because we know many of you have heard of those so called “once in a lifetime
opportunities”. Unless you have been living under a rock, you see those opportunities everywhere.
Truthfully, and if we were betting men (and sometimes we are), we would say that Twitter is a once in a lifetime opportunity for virtually anybody.
Here’s 7 reasons to ignite your light to internet stardom
1. Twitter is growing at an amazing rate and its been said that twitter users, are on twitter for longer periods of time, compared to users on other social media networks.
2. Twitter easily integrates with blogs and/or websites.
3. The amount of available twitter clients, tools and apps (more and more are being released every single day) allow for almost unheard of customization and flexibility.
4. You can spread the news about your brand, product or service at the speed of lightning.
(even faster than traditional media like CNN, ESPN, etc) That’s why they use Twitter.
5. There’s no limit on how to use Twitter (be it personally and/or professionally) with even
more ways being created all the time. Some top brand companies use twitter for special offers, customer service and more.
6. Twitter’s climate is the perfect breeding ground from the high profile celebrity to joe the plumber and every business marketing owner in between.
7. Twitter is now the default for spreading news and information and it is a preferred way by many to connect with people all across planet earth.
Our future with communication has officially changed for the good.
This is your official (no hype) “Once in a Lifetime Opportunity” to Stardom
If you know of a better way, please let us know ASAP, better yet leave us your comments and follow us..
Get instant Twitter Watchdog Secrets, Tips and Tools that will help maximize both your personal and professional Twitter experience. Just enter your name and email address now.
Special Guest Kakie
Twitter Watchdog Features Kakie Fitzsimmons
UPDATE: Due to Technical difficulties (beyond our control) with the service provider, we have rescheduled the conference call with Kakie Fitzsimmons for another time to be determined. We are sorry for the change of schedule and appreciate your understanding.
Kakie Fitzsimmons has a proven entrepreneurial ability to monetize ideas which demonstrates her capability of wearing many hats. As Marketing VP and Co-Founder of Farmer’s Hat Productions (TM), a children’s product company, she has led strategic planning, implementation and national launch of brands and products at The Mall of America in 2007.
Kakie is also author and co-creator of an award winning series of children’s books, Bur Bur and Friends. The characters in the books are a cast of multicultural characters who educate kids about self esteem, sports and outdoor exploration.
Come follow us; discover how Kakie Fitzsimmons and the TwitterWatchDog team can help you and your business be successful on Twitter.
What: Twitter training call with Kakie Fitzsimmons
Where: Blog Talk Radio
When: TBD
Get instant Twitter Watchdog Secrets, Tips and Tools that will help maximize both your personal and professional Twitter experience. Just enter your name and email address now.
