Monday, August 9, 2010
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Twitter For Business Part 3
Twitter For BusinessTwitter is a great tool to market your business in today's tough marketplace.
1. Do your research before engaging customers
Know how your customers use Twitter. It takes only a minute to go to Twitter Search () and find out if there are any conversations happening about your brand, product, service or industry. Know what your customers are saying about you.
If your search yields zero results, don’t worry: there may still be an opportunity for you and your brand to establish a presence and start a conversation on the service. However, Twitter may or may not be the right tool for you to engage your consumers.
2. Determine organizational goals
Not all brands utilize Twitter in the same way. Some, like @ComcastCares, use Twitter to provide customers with support. Other branded Twitter accounts, such as @DellOutlet, have utilized the service to sell products.
It’s important to think about what you are trying to achieve using Twitter before devoting your time and resources to it. You’re likely to get more out of it that way.
3. Utilize either a branded or personal profile
You have two options: you can either use a branded profile with your company’s logo, or you can opt to create a more personal profile that unites your own personal brand with that of the company.
If employees are using Twitter to primarily engage with people on behalf of the company, they should have a branded profile. A branded profile is one that clearly identifies the user as an employee of the company; usually through a username (i.e. @Intel_Eric, @synopsys_roy, @MelfromSymantec, @AMDOpteronPhil, @RichardatDELL to name a few) or has a branded background picture and bio.
4. Build your Twitter equity and credibility
To be a successful brand on Twitter, you have to build credibility and equity. That doesn’t necessarily refer to the number of followers, tweets, or retweets you may have, although these are important factors. Rather, it’s more about developing a reputation as a trusted source of information or being seen as an expert in a particular subject.
You won’t succeed in building your Twitter equity by pushing out one way marketing messages about your product. Instead ask questions, be personal, and engage people naturally within the Twitter community. Otherwise, customers won’t listen to what you have to say.
I usually follow the 80/20 rule: 80 percent of my tweets are conversational and personal, 20 percent are about the company I work for. I’ve found that this has really helped build customer engagement and link click-through rates.
5. Track metrics and conversation trends
Any enterprise or medium sized business should invest in a paid tracking service like Radian6 () or Nielsen to better track Twitter conversations, identify trends, measure sentiment, and to get a quantifiable picture of what is going on in the social web.
One metric you absolutely must track: how much money Twitter has saved your brand. How many issues did you solve, leads did you create, and dollars did you save through Twitter engagement versus traditional resources?
If your goal is to handle customer support issues via Twitter, it’s wise to check if there is any decrease in the call volume to your support center. And if you are selling products via Twitter (as Dell is doing), you should of course measure your sales via that channel.
6. Don’t go overboard; less structure is better
Your Twitter use can appear disingenuous and inhuman if you’re too structured with your approach, to the point where your community may be turned off. Treat your Twitter relationships the same way you would any other relationship. Honestly, how much planning or structure is needed before spending the evening out with friends?
Your Twitter experience will change and evolve over time, because the community that follows you will help shape what you say and how you respond. Remember to always use the 80/20 rule, but be flexible with your approach.
I’m not saying that you should let your employees run wild on Twitter, though. Planning, training, coordination and integration with social tools is imperative — just don’t go overboard and create a social media policy that is too restrictive.
7. Listen and observe before engaging
Don’t just start tweeting assuming that the Twitter community is going to accept you with open arms. It’s important that you spend some time just listening and observing the behavior of those who are talking about you or your company. Understand how your customers behave and adjust accordingly.
You don’t have to follow everyone that mentions your company to listen in on the conversation. In fact, this may irritate some people. Instead, when you’re ready to start answering questions, @reply them. In my experience, nine times out of ten, they’ll end up following you. Let the relationship grow from there.
8. Be authentic & believable
Authenticity is the golden rule in social media. We’ve known this for years, but there is another, related rule that is just as important: you and your brand need to be believable. This means spending time listening to your community, observing it, and learning about the dynamics of that community.
Your will become believable only after you have established trust among those in your community. Because I am trusted by my followers, if I tweet that my new netbook is amazing and fits my mobile lifestyle, people will believe me and perhaps even buy one (it is amazing, by the way).
9. Track, measure, and iterate
If there’s one thing that bugs me about working in the corporate environment, it’s the amount of time needed to execute. Sometimes it’s better just to launch a product or initiative, track it, measure the results and then iterate.
I learned this concept working at Yahoo for Mike Speiser, who was the VP of Community Products (and founded ePinions and Bix). This was his philosophy at Yahoo, and it worked, especially in the competitive landscape of social networks.
The great thing about the social web is that it’s not difficult to track the results of Twitter engagement, assuming you have determined what your organization’s goals are. It’s even easier to change course if you find that your efforts aren’t working according to plan.
10. Don’t just strategize: execute!
We spend too much time strategizing with little to no execution. When you have too many ideas and not enough people who are willing to roll up their sleeves and get stuff done, you are going to find yourself late to the game. Or, in the case of Twitter, late to the conversation.
By spending too much time trying to think of the best strategy, you are going to miss priceless opportunities to fix problems, answer questions, turn sour situations around, and create brand affinity with customers. With Twitter your mantra should be: just get out there and try it.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Using Social Media a quick guide
I thought I'd share with you a few tips on using social media for your business. The first step is to create a fan page for your business. How do you do that? Good Question Here it is.
Step 1: Create a page for business or band. http://www.facebook.com/pages
Step 2: Complete the information about the business, product or band.
Step 3: Then add images, information and post a few statements about your business.
Step 4: Goto Account and manage pages. Once every week and add information to it.
Some words of advice talk about everything except business. Good Luck.
Step 1: Create a page for business or band. http://www.facebook.com/pages
Step 2: Complete the information about the business, product or band.
Step 3: Then add images, information and post a few statements about your business.
Step 4: Goto Account and manage pages. Once every week and add information to it.
Some words of advice talk about everything except business. Good Luck.
Thursday, June 24, 2010
TWITTER FOR BUSINESS Part II Hash Tags
As I said earlier the proper use of hash tags are important. I have to be honest up until recently after I read some information on Twitter I too did not know what a hash tag is or its proper use. It is really simple once you think about it. A hash tag is something any user can add to tweets that would categorize a tweet according to a particular subject. This way anyone who writes on that particular subject would then use your category or hash tag. If one was writing a tweet about autos then # autos would be an appropriate hash tag. This all allows the Twitter search to find all tweets that relate to the category.
Now how can this help marketing for your business. Well, when you search you can explore Twitters who write about the product you sell. You can use Twitter search to discover a particular category and the Twitter user who used it. My business is to provide internet marketing services for businesses. Therefore, I am looking for small business owners who need help with marketing online. I could look for # B2B, # small business owners, # start ups, etc. For knowledge it would be good to also connect with my competitors such as # internet marketing, # marketers, # online marketers. You get the idea.
Now how can this help marketing for your business. Well, when you search you can explore Twitters who write about the product you sell. You can use Twitter search to discover a particular category and the Twitter user who used it. My business is to provide internet marketing services for businesses. Therefore, I am looking for small business owners who need help with marketing online. I could look for # B2B, # small business owners, # start ups, etc. For knowledge it would be good to also connect with my competitors such as # internet marketing, # marketers, # online marketers. You get the idea.
Friday, June 18, 2010
TWITTER FOR BUSINESS
Twitter For Business
There are several ways to use Twitter for business development especially if you have decided to twitter on behalf of your company, then you really should learn some of these helpful tips. You can follow people who have common interests and live in the same local area. They become your target market. You can take measures to ensure a return visit. This would include being interesting. You can use a hashtag efficiently, use appropriate tweets, retweet interesting content, keep your account with appropriate followers, use a Tweet UP to promote a business to business event and use your twitter account in moderation to achieve positive results.
There are many ways to use Twitter to achieve positive results. When we discuss these results we are talking about driving more traffic to a business website thus increasing the likelihood of conversion. A conversion is where a user agrees to be part of a mailing list. Another way to achieve positive results is to keep current on trends, to search for a target market & competitors, use tools to be notified if someone is talking about your company, follow smart people who use twitter correctly, tweet about relevant topics, post pics, audio, use Hash Tags, twitter widgets, boost personal connections with advice, jokes, observations, quotes, etc.
Twitter for business is specialized. What you do for prospective customers or current customers is different from interactions with friends. While interacting with prospective customers you should always maintain a level of professionalism. You want to connect with your audience, but you also want to investigate product concerns as well as customer service. The more you discover about how well your business is doing the better able you are to handle it and make the necessary changes to improve brand reputation. Using Twitter to facilitate conversation with customers is extremely helpful as you can really discover what it is your customer expects from your Brand. You are also creating that positive relationship which encourages brand awareness. To get a list of companies on Twitter check out Tracking Twitter dot com. There is even an intranet organization that allows for internal message among workers called Present.ly. (http://presentlyapp.com)
It is really important to be a good listener. Pay special attention to your customer's concerns. Discover your strengths and weaknesses and find out what improvements need to take place. Make sure you make clear objectives and you stick with your plan. The following is a sample list of goals you may have: serve customers better, increase number of customers, and connect with potential partners. It is also helpful to integrate with your other channels and have twitter accounts that engage with customers. Tweet Stats helps you identify with what is working well and what is not. Many executives or high level CEOs who are extremely busy are also the designated twitterers. It is no secret that these people are the ones behind the veil. They are personable and talk not just about the company, but they connect on that personal level and this is what works. Twitter as the medium allows for the CEO or the twitterers to demonstrate his/her personality and humanness behind the organization.
Like SEO for websites Twitter can be optimized for twitter search or Google searches. It is known as Social Media Optimization which allows one's twitter account to be discovered easily for search on Google or a Twitter Search in (Real Time). Twitter Search helps you filter all the real-time information coursing through our service.
There are several ways to use Twitter for business development especially if you have decided to twitter on behalf of your company, then you really should learn some of these helpful tips. You can follow people who have common interests and live in the same local area. They become your target market. You can take measures to ensure a return visit. This would include being interesting. You can use a hashtag efficiently, use appropriate tweets, retweet interesting content, keep your account with appropriate followers, use a Tweet UP to promote a business to business event and use your twitter account in moderation to achieve positive results.
There are many ways to use Twitter to achieve positive results. When we discuss these results we are talking about driving more traffic to a business website thus increasing the likelihood of conversion. A conversion is where a user agrees to be part of a mailing list. Another way to achieve positive results is to keep current on trends, to search for a target market & competitors, use tools to be notified if someone is talking about your company, follow smart people who use twitter correctly, tweet about relevant topics, post pics, audio, use Hash Tags, twitter widgets, boost personal connections with advice, jokes, observations, quotes, etc.
Twitter for business is specialized. What you do for prospective customers or current customers is different from interactions with friends. While interacting with prospective customers you should always maintain a level of professionalism. You want to connect with your audience, but you also want to investigate product concerns as well as customer service. The more you discover about how well your business is doing the better able you are to handle it and make the necessary changes to improve brand reputation. Using Twitter to facilitate conversation with customers is extremely helpful as you can really discover what it is your customer expects from your Brand. You are also creating that positive relationship which encourages brand awareness. To get a list of companies on Twitter check out Tracking Twitter dot com. There is even an intranet organization that allows for internal message among workers called Present.ly. (http://presentlyapp.com)
It is really important to be a good listener. Pay special attention to your customer's concerns. Discover your strengths and weaknesses and find out what improvements need to take place. Make sure you make clear objectives and you stick with your plan. The following is a sample list of goals you may have: serve customers better, increase number of customers, and connect with potential partners. It is also helpful to integrate with your other channels and have twitter accounts that engage with customers. Tweet Stats helps you identify with what is working well and what is not. Many executives or high level CEOs who are extremely busy are also the designated twitterers. It is no secret that these people are the ones behind the veil. They are personable and talk not just about the company, but they connect on that personal level and this is what works. Twitter as the medium allows for the CEO or the twitterers to demonstrate his/her personality and humanness behind the organization.
Like SEO for websites Twitter can be optimized for twitter search or Google searches. It is known as Social Media Optimization which allows one's twitter account to be discovered easily for search on Google or a Twitter Search in (Real Time). Twitter Search helps you filter all the real-time information coursing through our service.
Friday, May 14, 2010
Reconnect with Friends
I have reconnected with a great deal of friends. I am truly thankful for all the important people in my life. Thank you all for your hard work and dedication. At the present I experience terrential down pours with hail. That is living in the present. I am scheduled to go karting at the track tomorrow. It will feel great to accelerate on a kart. The NJ Motorsports Track has the karts available and they go over 70 mph. I will let you know how it turns out.
I have vowed to work on one aspect of my life a day. Most bothersome is all the neglected paperwork that I have deposited in the round file. My 7th grade Math teacher who reminded me of that little old lady that would ask Wendy's the main question "Wheres the beef". I was feeling at little nostalgic. Well perseverance and persistence pays off so far. I now know that in order to feel good you have to feel bad. This comes from the laws of probability, so my hopes are realistic.
I have not exercised in a week other than the bike, and my reading has slacked off. However, I have been taking an online course and writing this almost daily. Well lets see where the next week takes me. It should be interesting. As of now, no job and no money. But the pain I'm told is only temporary. I am still out of work for 6 months then we'll see what I will do next. I have gotten the CDL book and now I want to study for the test. Wish me luck.
I have vowed to work on one aspect of my life a day. Most bothersome is all the neglected paperwork that I have deposited in the round file. My 7th grade Math teacher who reminded me of that little old lady that would ask Wendy's the main question "Wheres the beef". I was feeling at little nostalgic. Well perseverance and persistence pays off so far. I now know that in order to feel good you have to feel bad. This comes from the laws of probability, so my hopes are realistic.
I have not exercised in a week other than the bike, and my reading has slacked off. However, I have been taking an online course and writing this almost daily. Well lets see where the next week takes me. It should be interesting. As of now, no job and no money. But the pain I'm told is only temporary. I am still out of work for 6 months then we'll see what I will do next. I have gotten the CDL book and now I want to study for the test. Wish me luck.
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