Twitter helps and tips..why tweet?

Facebook and Twitter are no longer just your social networking site for family and friends.

They have in fact, become the most powerful social business networking tools around, besides LinkedIn. You can give a whole new boost to your business using these two very effective, important social networking tools. They are the best thing because of the real time interaction offered by them allowing you to interact with people namely your client/customers.

With the marketing landscape changing so rapidly, businesses are slowly venturing out trying to incorporate either Twitter or Facebook for their marketing fields.  Most seem to reach the 1st step, then stand there uncertain of what to do, what to say, or who to put in charge of SM marketing. Others are standing back and watching to see how it’s value is going to play out.

One of my favorite things about Twitter is it’s real-time value.  For the past year and a half…I have gotten the news before the news stations have.  Not only that…but it’s REAL PEOPLE not spiced up news, and it’s from different parts of the globe.  This gives you such a WORLD WIDE view that to look at the news anymore from one station….is like watching a 1 dimensional movie…BORING!

Twitter conversation has become very informative and quick.  If your not sure about the news…..check twitter.  You can usually find a healthy stream of information about the same topic.  Need opinions on something?  Check Twitter… using hashtags and lists…

Want to know how a new product will be accepted…ask opinions ask questions on Twitter.  Your audience can be worldwide.

So back to using Twitter…Once you’ve set up your profile, or company profile:

Here’s some valuable steps in launching your Twitter presence amongst real-time tweeters…and how it’ll help YOU.

• Add a picture.  People want to see YOU or your BRAND.
• Talk about other people’s interests..showing that your HUMAN.
• Point out interesting things in your world…not just about YOU.
• Share helpful links to things in your community.
• Be careful DON’T get stuck just tweeting about YOU.
• Add a few others from your company… like @HomeDepotdeals, LionelAtDell.

Need some idea’s what to tweet about?  Here’s a few to get you started.

• When promoting a new blog post, don’t just dump a link… ask a question with the link.
• Ask questions on  Twitter… people LOVE giving their opinion.
• Follow interesting people..then see who they follow and add some more from their lists.
• Tweet about other’s interests…someone who has an interest in photography and used twitpix to post a picture…
• Retweet an idea or link that was of interest..
• Promote others that are of interest…they will appreciate it and tweet back or promote you.

REMEMBER….

• You don’t have to read every tweet.
• or reply every @reply…
• Use direct messages for 1 to 1 conversations…that pertain to you and there’s no value to putting it up on a twitter stream..

Useful tools…

• Tweetdeck, Hootsuite, Twhirl make your Twitter lists and searches much easier…

Power of Your Word

Have you noticed how fast word gets around? How there’s no waiting for the news…it seems like everyone knows?  Have you noticed how your buying habits have changed?  Yet it doesn’t seem so different…

The marketing landscape has been flipped upside down.  Retailers, companies, businesses, buying and selling are all scrambling because of YOUR WORD.

Didn’t know you had that much power did you?

Looking at 2007, 2008, 2009 and getting ready to head into 2010, we’ve seen the shift changing right before our very eyes. We’ve watched the housing industry drop into an almost endless abyss, we’ve watch gigantic car companies plummet right behind them.  We’ve also watched and heard retailers groaning from the east coast to the west. But in the middle of all that earthquake shattering chaos…we’ve watched other companies rise and increase. What do they have that you don’t?

The Power of Your Word.

What?  I don’t get it you say?  Well let’s look at some amazing short stories.

• Amazon…very large company.   Offers alot of great deals and value.  But here’s the secret.  They also offer “the power of your word” – RATiNGS & REViEWS. What a consumer says about a product or service.
• Netflix – Simple yet straight forward.  Great movies all the time at your convenience with GREAT customer service and RATiNGS.  Seriously how likely are you to watch something with a 1 star rating?
• Overstock.com – GREAT values, great selections, Great shipping, and GREAT REViEWS.  What the customer thinks about the item. WOW…the Power of Your Word! Will you buy an item with a negative review? More than likely the answer is NO!

This all started back when EBay made sure to inform people about sellers and buyers.  If you wanted to make sure you bought from a reputable dealer….you checked his or her feedback/ratings for any negative feedback or problems other customers might have experienced.  Before all this rating and review…most of us relied on the “commercials”, “ads”, “salesperson” and before that…it was “word of mouth” what our “friends”, or “friends friend” had to say about something.  Today, it’s similar – “old world values” but “New World technology”.   Just visit Facebook or Twitter ask and see what your “friends” say about an item or service. We could go on and on but you get the idea.

Advertising and sales has reached a crossroad.

Today’s consumer has the last word about what they think. With cell phones platforms changing rapidly to interactive means of talking, shopping and doing business, it’s up to you to either listen or risk falling into that deep abyss groaning. Social Media has emerged as the conversation platform of consumers. Social sites have “listened” to the consumer and answered.  Internet Marketing is continuing to climb vertically, Mobile marketing is on the rise as are video marketing sites.

It’s up to you to tune in to what’s being said….or tune out.

Social Media has untraditional ROI’s

Social Media = Positive ROI

Companies that are widely engaged in SOCIAL MEDIA surpass their peers in both revenues and profits.

300,000+ business have a presence on Facebook

Dell sold over 3,000,000 computers over Twitter.

Blendtec quintupled sales with “Will It Blend?” YouTube videos

37% of Generation Y were aware of the Ford Fiesta via Social Media before it even launched.

What these statement speak LOUDLY is Social Media has given POSITIVE RESULTS with low overhead.  THATspeaks volumes by itself.  BUT marketing wants ROI’s drawn up on paper.  In today’s marketing….not happening presently. Traditional marketing has lost it’s high dollar appeal, fueled by this economy, its generating a mass movement to Social Media Marketing.  Only 18% of traditional TV campaigns generate a positive ROI…old media was Pay to Play…do you think the majority of media dollars will reside there tomorrow?

WHAT ABOUT THE ROI’S?

Good question…but shouldn’t we be answering:

“WHY ARE WE TRYING TO MEASURE SOCIAL MEDIA LIKE A TRADITIONAL CHANNEL?”

71% of companies plan to increase investments in social media by an average of 40% because:

1. Low Cost Marketing
2. Getting Traction
3. We Have To Do It

Socialnomics blog states really well:  Social media touches every facet of business and it should be viewed more as an extension of good business ethics.  Which, if done properly, will harvest sales down the line.  Enjoy this video by Socialnomics.  It gives you a simple straightforward ROI explanation…

Social Media ROI: Socialnomics

ROI’S?  Most definitely Social Media is moving and keeping up with technology.  Marketing – traditional marketing has just barely started moving in that direction.  Realize that people have taken the power of conversations into their own hands. Most people become informed on whether a product or “brand” is worthwhile by opinions and comments from consumers via reviews, Social site, email, and twitter.

Those can’t be tracked as traditional ROI’s.  So quit trying. Think OUT OF THE BOX!

Mcdonalds says it plainly: “Our head of Social Media is the customer”

It’s a new era, with old value’s…at the speed of the internet = realtime: word of mouth.

What’s your opinion?

Internet Marketing is an interesting playing field…

…as the traditional marketing sector has also been affected by this recession.  With companies slashing their marketing budgets from traditional means such as Television, radio, newspaper ads, SMM and RM has increased 10 fold due to it’s affordability and outreach.

The gas price inflation which in effect has kick-started this change, encouraged businesses to look for other vehicles or means to “get the word out”. Vehicles or means that were available but low-keyed in existence were:  Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, Myspace, blogs, ping, Youtube, Delicious, digg, StumbleUpon, Squidoo and countless others.   They were vehicles just waiting to be boarded and boarded they were.

Twitter’s vertical climb was off the charts and couldn’t be harnessed because it was moving so fast.  Facebook’s social outreach created such a landing place for personal and businesses pages that it also has morphed into a community which has blown itself off the charts with phenomenal growth.  Youtube went from being a fun place to upload personal video’s to a wide open advertising market, with phenomenal growth continuing as it has and is becoming a tool for businesses & marketer’s having a lower price tag than television. (Consisting of someone shooting the video, processing it and uploading to their site, versus full blown production costs.)

Video itself is ubiquitous – existing or being everywhere at the same time…constantly encountered  it also has helped change the market field.  Businesses are changing their vehicles from traditional means to places like-YouTube, Facebook, Hulu, Metacafe, Blip.tv,  which can host or provide links to user friendly self-help video’s, educational video’s, how to video’s and news-feeds.

Networking has become a part of who we are.

Businesses are reaching out to customer loyalty, which in turn creates “word of mouth” marketing in today’s world on an internet level. This is where Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, blogs, YouTube and others have become so important to businesses. People are talking in these places, talking to friends, relatives, and certain acquaintances/businesses. If they like your product or service, they will talk about you, to you, to family, to friends, to neighbors and connect with you.

Online ratings and reviews are an amazing tool that affects consumer’s buying decisions, and consumers really are using this information to make those decisions. Online companies have already realized this and business owners are now turning to this phenomenon as consumer’s are wanting to know how good the product is, how many people are liking the product and more.  The consumer has become very active in researching product information.  Businesses need to understand this.

Studies show that the average person has around 250 friends, acquaintances, business connections, etc. within their network/social life. Things to focus on – building relationships with your customer/client, not buddy buddy, but really listening to what they need, being helpful, finding the best deals and passing that on, being aware of what’s happening in your region. Keeping in contact with your clients, even sending thoughtful cards to them.  These things will bring your customer/client back and open the door for “word of mouth” marketing, whether it’s in person, online with Facebook, Twitter or others.

The magic is this: If one customer likes your product/service, then you have the potential of reaching 250 more through that one connection.  If you have 10 happy customers then you have the potential to reach 2500 connections, if you have 100 happy customers ….. well, you do the math

Have you changed your playing field yet? 

If you’ve changed your marketing practices…leave a comment in the comment field below and let us know how it’s helped…

If you NEED HELP to change your marketing practices…fill in the contact form below:

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Social Media and what is SEO?

Recapping what Social Media is and what SEO does to help businesses.  

As Social Media embraces a wide variety of formats, each format provides users with a personal preference appeal means to interact and share information.  

• Breaking News:  Places like Twitter, FaceBook and blogs give ordinary people the ability to share news and events before the news media even gets there.  Items like iphones and blackberries, laptops, along with these sites have increased the news sharing so much that online news or traditional news has almost become snail paced.  
• Information Distribution Center:  Depending on the format, Social media allows one-to-one, one-to-many, or many-to-many communications.  Information can be distributed in multiple fashion, including Twitter updates,  RSS feeds, blogs and podcasts, postings on social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, Ning and YouTube.
• Building online communities around people, events and brands: Using tools such as Twitter, Facebook, Myspace along with blogs, enables people to gather and participate with like-minded people. 
• Consumer input:  Enables user contribution serving as information filters by content sharing and ratings, using the strength of comments and submissions on Twitter, blogs and video sites, also known as wisdom of the crowds. 

Social Media has forever changed the traditional content marketplace making it readily available in a large variety of formats.  This way the individual or business can mold it into whatever their needs are, making this a very appealing change where companies are in charge of their own personalized media content.

So how does this tie in with SEO?

SEO or Search Engine Optimization brings you to higher rankings in your Search engines like Google, Yahoo, ect.  As more and more businesses are launching web sites, blogs and venturing in the online arena, page rankings have become increasingly important.  How to get higher page rankings?  Have a clear and precise strategy using SEO and Social Media.  Why do I need both?  Because you can’t succeed at one without the other.  

If you venture the SEO path, great…so now your optimized and everything is in place.  So how do people find out about you?  Answer:  Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Digg, StumbleUpon,  these are just a few examples of important avenues to use in Social Media.  One Tweet on Twitter can drive up your traffic.  As YouTube and Facebook have become daily routine for most people, an informational video clip of 2 min or less can broaden your traffic, along with increasing your page rankings.  So can a Facebook page or blog, inviting discussions, comments, and reviews/share your story places.  People are looking for quality, caring and real places.  

A great “quick to the point” read would be Ian Lurie’s article about You can’t Separate Social Media and SEO.

I also really like how Lee Odden states in his blog-”if you’re going to create it, why not optimize it?” His Social Media Readiness:  6 Questions is also a great information site and a must read.

Are your Social Media Strategies compounding results?

Marketing & Strategy

With power shifts continuing…marketing is morphing itself into a world that influences your brand, your product and your services.

Consumers have grabbed ahold of Social networks in such a frenzy that those networks have skyrocketed in growth five-fold.  Building Social Strategies is vital to businesses surviving in this crucial time. To be successful, marketers must use a strategic, systematic approach in setting up this process.

*Listed below are seven practical ways to be efficient in this strategy.

1. Socialize content.
2. Word of mouth with Twitter
3. Aggregate existing content.
4. Crowdsource your support.
5. Sponsor bloggers.
6. Sponsor events.
7. Let go with APIs.

*Additional things to do:

• Manage social media for the long term.
• Start small but plan for the long term.
• Accurately prove effectiveness through social application metrics.
• Measure based on objective
• Develop the right roles.
• Social media strategist and community manager
• Educate through social media supplements.  Like Procter & Gamble’s social media lab

*Courtesy of Forrester’s Research.

Recession Marketing

What is Recession Marketing?  

Forbes has an informative article written about this..speaking about “Recessions offer what may be unprecedented opportunities to market in and environment of relatively less noise, as others cut back.”  They also warned that ad agencies would pressure clients to increase their budgets in the face of a downturn.  Basically speaking, if clients don’t spend, agencies don’t have business.  It’s definitely a good read…giving you some great pointers on where to increase and where to decrease.  

Forrester’s Research, talks about:

Three important steps to Recession Marketing.

1. What consumers want from brands
2. Prioritizing your marketing spend
3. Engaging today’s consumer online and offline

Peer opinions carry considerable weight, examples are as follows:

• Valued opinion of a friend who has used product.
• Reviews-consumer reviews are highly valued on whether to buy or use service. Many sites offer this consumer review/poll.
• Online reviews by editors of a content site.  Gives a footing to online sales.

Consumers are showing they want more control…by not trusting popup ads, rather trusting emails they have signed up for.  If you’ve been using those pesky popups…now is a good time to get rid of them!  Other trusted agenda’s are Brand Web sites, In-store ads, Consumer opinions posted online.  

With personal optimism declining, recession has been moving people toward comfort and connection showing that consumers are shopping less and researching more.  With the consumer expecting to have less to spend, marketers also have less to spend, meaning brand loyalty has become more important than ever.  Marketers must be able to provide comfort and reassurance while doing more to meet the consumers’ unique needs.

Digital marketing is seeing a lot more increase than offline marketing.  Places like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, Web Site development and Blogs have increased rapidly while the high cost traditional methods of marketing such as radio and television have dwindled down to a crawl.

“Given your decreased budget, how is your spending affected in each of the following areas?”

Base: 45 marketing leadership CMOs who have had their 2009 marketing budget reduced

Lisa Bradner a Principle Analyst at Forrester Research showed statistics representing that 72% of consumers say prior experience drives their brand loyalty, along with 58% of online adults say they trust online reviews more than any other medium except emails from friends.  Those are pretty big numbers.  She also found that in a recession many marketers are leaning toward digital as opposed to traditional.

With budgets being tighter than ever, it has driven the need for tough choices and prioritization.  On that note…Smart marketers will take that leap not only to acquire new customers/clients, but to also enhance the brand experience with the old ones as well.

Leading with Twitter

I ran across this article the other day Twitter as a Leadership Tool….and while reading it…thought…WOW!  So true!  Then the idea’s started running through my head.

Most people are not understanding what Twitter actually does.  They look at Twitter as just another “something to do” stating they have enough to do already.  I’ve experienced that numerous times.  I had an IT guy tell me the same thing…”Twitter, is just another thing to do….and keep up with.”  What they are missing is this:  

Twitter is an opportunity to give to others and make an impact, leading in a way that wasn’t possible till now.  

Leading is influence, which really is not anything else but teaching.  Twitter provides that vehicle in an extended way.  So what is Leadership?  Looking up Leadership…I ran across a lot of definitions…most of them relating to influence.  

Wikipedia’s definition-

Leadership has been described as the “process of social influence in which one person can enlist the aid and support of others in the accomplishment of a common task”.^[1]

The Art & Science of Leadership

Dictionary.com–verb (used with object)

• to go before or with to show the way; conduct or escort: to lead a group on a cross-country hike.
• to influence or induce; cause: Subsequent events led him to reconsider his position.
• to guide in direction, course, action, opinion, etc.; bring: You can lead her around to your point of view if you are persistent.

Influencing people also means communicating with them.  Twitter can be a mega phone to communicate with large groups at once, like texting one text message to however many followers you have.  Imagine that…only one tweet can reach thousands at once - simultaneously.

Twitter is another tool for leaders, enabling Leaders to step out further in ways never thought of before.  See additional comment from leaders on Leadership and Tweeting.  

Want more info on Leadership?  Visit Minding the Gaps by Thomas J. Lee.  His comment about Twitter and Leadership?  

Leadership is indeed about more than position, status, or title. But it has to be about more than influence, too. Influence alone presupposes that leaders have all the answers. So leadership has to reach for real inspiration, for the excited and collaborative involvement of followers. Twitter can help on this, too, by both implicitly and explicitly encouraging people to be more of what they can be.

What is your focus for tweeting?

Your Business and Social Media…Catch up or catch you later!

Today’s world of business revolves around engaging customers & clients with a virtual internet world.  

What is a virtual business world?  Wikipedia’s definition is:  A virtual business (or Internet business), is a business which operates without a corresponding physical identity and transacts entirely via the Internet.  Amazon.com is a great example of this…So is Ebay.  An internet place connecting buyers and sellers with a product.  

But I have a real building..how will this help me?  Lately, professional services such as administration, design, and marketing services have risen in popularity with online delivery.  Some examples of that include offerings to include services where the person providing the service works out of his or her own office providing services via the Internet or other technology solutions such as a Virtual Assistant.  

PRlog explains it this way…

“An online business is quickly becoming one of the most successful ways to reach customers worldwide and rise above the current economic situation – but it works for some, and it doesn’t work for others. If you want to be in the “works for” category, approach your online business with a good vision and careful planning. Then get the help you need to handle the things that you’re not comfortable doing yourself.”

Why is it so important to engage in Social Media and online marketing?  Due to search engines optimization and expanding your borders, both are critical in today’s business economy.  You can find out what your customer is interested in or needing before they even walk out of their front door using:   Facebook so they can become a part of your group and hear what newest product you have, have your own blog site so customers/clients can comment about likes and dislikes on your site.  Tweet about what your doing, or adding as a product/service, Post your brand on LinkedIn so anyone can view what you are about, bonus with LinkedIn is that you can also join groups with other like minded professionals and have discussions/support that would benefit you and your business creating virtual support and counsel.