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Yvonne at JaxWorks SEO & Web spoke informally to MCABW (Montgomery County Association of Business Women), a group in Conroe and The Woodlands area.
Watch the video of Yvonne at JaxWorks:
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Social media marketing has emerged as one of the most popular ways to market a business. Sites such as MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Digg and thousands of blogs and podcasts have made it possible to connect with your customers on a one-on-one basis. Before jumping on the bandwagon, make sure you consider these social media marketing pros and cons. 
Here are the pros of social media marketing, the cons will come tomorrow!
You can reach customers that traditional marketing misses. You never know who will direct a friend to your blog, Facebook page, or Twitter page, so your potential for reeling in new leads is unlimited.
Not only can you use social media to build your brand, you can use it to demonstrate your personality, interact with customers and show them that you care, which, in turn, breeds loyalty. Social media marketing can also boost your reputation and build relationships.
You can learn how to improve your products and services. By encouraging open communication through public comments, you can learn what you can do to make your products and pitch more palatable.
You can learn more about your target audience, not only by their comments but also by studying visitor analytics. This information can prove invaluable when planning other marketing campaigns such as direct-mail postcards.
Social media marketing is cost-efficient in comparison with other marketing methods, even if you hire a someone for your social media content needs.
There are lots of pros to marketing your business using social media. Tomorrow I’ll tell you the cons and you can decide if social media marketing is right for your business.
In the meantime, “share” me with your friends using the social media buttons below!
The great thing about Twitter is that you can tweet from your mobile device and most people do. Twitter has seen an extreme amount of growth in the last year and more and more Twitter users are finding new ways to stay connected to Twitter 24/7. This means using our mobile devices to engage and participate on Twitter. Access via our mobile devices enables us to engage with others, even while we are out and about. All you need is your mobile phone and an application that allows you to tweet.
There are some individuals who prefer to tweet via SMS or using the mobile Twitter site and both of these are great mobile tweeting options, however others especially those new to Twitter prefer applications that are installed on their mobile devices.
There are many applications available, but today I’m going to focus on the most popular for the iPhone, Blackberry, Android and Palm.
iPhone
Twitterific – One of the most popular Twitter applications for the iPhone.
TwitterFon – A personal favorite of many because of it’s simplifed navigation that allow a user to jump from on area to another.
Blackberry
UberTwitter – Gaining in popularity, but many complain of the drain it has on the battery.
Twitterberry – Most popular application for Blackberry users.
Android
Twidroid – Most popular full-featured Twitter application for the Android phone.
When I’m talking to business owners and marketing directors about Twitter, I always here “I just don’t have the time.” Managing your social media takes time but there are many tools out there to make it easier. When I post to my blog, this blog will automatically go to FaceBook, Linked In, and Twitter. It’s great…I kill 3 birds (tweet?) with one stone!
If you can just commit 15 to 20 minutes to social media marketing, including using Twitter and Facebook you will begin to see the positive marketing impact it can have on your business.
Here are some tools that will make your life easier.
TweetDeck is your personal browser for staying in touch with what’s happening now, connecting you with your contacts across Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and more.
With TweetDeck anyone can tweet like a Pro. Customize your Twitter experience with columns, groups, saved searches and automatic updates helping you to effortlessly stay updated with the people and topics you care about. See what people are saying about you and join the conversation by tweeting, sharing photos, videos or links directly from TweetDeck. We like to think of it as air traffic control for Twitter.
Connect with your Facebook and MySpace friends directly from TweetDeck by updating your status, posting photos or videos, commenting, liking and groups your friends to make it easier to follow only those you really want to see what your friends are doing by creating columns for each of your groups of friends.
It’s true business transactions are transpiring in the Twitterverse. Individuals and businesses are connecting every day on Twitter. The sale of a product or the scheduling of a service is not uncommon across the daily Twitterers. There are even companies finding that perfect job candidate on Twitter. Talk about amazing!
People are more and more using Twitter for business transactions, the sale of products, scheduling services, and finding candidates for jobs. Are you participating in Twitter for these opportunities? Nielsen reported that in a 12 month period from February 2008 to 2009 Twitter grew their unique visitors by 1,382%. This brought their user base to 7 million, so let’s put this in perspective. There are 7 million people out there that you could be prospecting to. Interested? I knew you would be, so how do you start finding those prospects that have an interest in your products or services?
First of all, don’t offend and lose prospects.
1. Be willing to give other people information and knowledge in your area of expertise. Provide information that they can use while maintaining your personality and unique persona. Just don’t give them fluff: put meaningful information out there that they can really use. Solve problems, answer questions…you get the idea!
2. Don’t spend all your time promoting your products or services. That is annoying and unattractive to followers. At best they will ignore you, at worst they will “unfollow” you.
3. Once you say something, it’s out there for everyone to see, so be sure you use common sense when tweeting. You don’t want to say anything derogatory or inappropriate about anyone. This also turns people off and they will not consider buying your products or services.
4. Don’t repeat the same message over and over again. Give your followers new and informative information…don’t spam them!
5. All social media is about interaction, not about plugging your business or self promotion. Interact and form a relationship with our friends, customer, colleagues, and prospects. Treat them like you would treat a friend!
So, now that we know how to act, how do we find prospects?
That’s it…now get out there and Tweet!
Twitter Search
I’ve taken so long to get all these Twitter posts out and I apologize but let’s look at how to use social media in your marketing strategy. There are so many companies, and when I say companies, I mean both the large companies as well as the soloprenuer out there that are beginning to think social media marketing is about getting rich quick, or it’s the quick fix to small marketing budgets that will pull them through the recession with little or no effort.
To tell the truth, social media is about interaction, not hustling clients! When you interact, you create relationships; when you create these relationships, you create opportunities to share your products and services. This doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time, consistency, and a genuine interest in the creation and nurturing of those relationships. If you aren’t willing to do that, then hire a consultant that will do it for you!
No matter what industry you are in, do it badly and you will destroy your reputation within the social media realm. You can save your reputation by minding your manners.
Social Media Marketing No-Nos
It’s not all about you and your business, so interact with others. Get to know others; don’t just try to sell and promote your products. It won’t work.
Spamming is not ok, ever. It’s true that spamming is becoming a problem in the social media networks, and we are being required to weed through it, just like we do in our email inboxes. Don’t spam followers; if they didn’t ask for it, don’t send it. It’s that simple! Permission marketing is key.
Inconsistency will lead to failure. You must be consistent when it comes to using social media. Participating once a month or once a week just won’t get the results you desire.
Want followers? You will have to be a follower. Just like you can’t open a storefront and think that customers will just show up, you cannot sign up and start off in social media thinking everyone is just going to come and follow you. You must be a follower. Social marketing isn’t about flying solo, participate.
It’s important to realize that social media marketing does work, but as with any marketing strategy, but you must find the right social media marketing vehicles that will work for you and your industry, as well as design the campaigns that will present you with the results that you desire. If you’re B2C, FaceBook is a great option. If you’re B2B, you may rather spend more time on Linked In. There are a lot of different things you can do to market and you have to find the right fit! Social media marketing is a low to no-cost marketing option, but you will need to invest your time. If you are not willing to do that, consider selecting another marketing option or have a company do your social media marketing. They can then create and implement your social media marketing strategy. If you decide to outsource, just be sure to select a company or a consultant that has an idea of what they are doing
Good luck in your endeavors and I’ll attempt to get these blog posts out more often. Thanks for reading and if you liked this post, please see below and share it with your friends!
Ever heard of Twitter hashtags? A hashtag is used to unite specific tweets about particular topics. It’s a way of organizing or grouping tweets together.
What does a hashtag look like?
It’s the tweets you see that contain the “#” symbol plus a topic or word.
An example that comes to mind is this evening, while watching Fox News, many people gathered together and united their post by including the hashtag #foxandfriends. This enabled the hashtags to be searched and allowed Twitter users to follow the conversation of others on Twitter regarding the popular news show. The same was true during the last presidential election.
Twitter Day 6!!
Twitter Hashtag Resources
If you are interested in what topics are being talked about on Twitter, there are a few resources you can visit to gauge trending topics that are being discussed. These sites include:
Hashtags.org is an extremely valuable resource when it comes to researching popular trends on Twitter. It provides you with information on how many messages were sent regarding a specific hashtag and within what time frame.
Twemes
Twemes is another popular site, because it provides you with information on what themes are floating across the Twitter cyberwaves. I’ve also found the RSS Feed feature to be extremely helpful when I want to follow a specific hashtag.
Wthashtag
Trying to find information on the history of a hashtag? Would you like more information about a particular hashtag on Twitter? Wthashtag is the place to go. It is a wiki tool that is generated by users that explains what a hashtag means, how you can use it, when it was first discovered, and a live stream of that hashtag. This is a great resource if you are doing research into specific hashtags.
Why Use Hashtags?
Hashtags can be useful when you want to create as well as monitor visibility on Twitter. This can be extremely beneficial when monitoring your company or your products. They can be used to categorize your Tweets according to topic or purpose.
Simply put, hashtags are a great way to organize Tweets and allow others to follow specific topics or events. Once you learn how to use them, you will wonder how you ever Tweeted without them.
Twitter Day 5!!!
Finally, day 5 – months later! Sorry this has taken so long,
Should we consider Twitter to be a marketing tool or is it just for people who have a lot of time on their hands and the need to fill their day?
Think of Twitter as a means to get instant public messages out to your audience, whether it is an audience of colleagues or potential customers.Twitter is becoming an increasingly important platform for online communication. TechCrunch reported that Twitter is receiving 8 million unique visitors per month and about 3 million messages are posted daily.
How can we use Twitter as a marketing tool?
Twitter As A Learning Tool
If over 3 million messages are posted everyday, are you mentioned in any of them? What about your company? This might be a good time to find out. Twitter provides a search engine that allows you plug-in company names, brand names, topics and even personal names. How is your buzz level? You can also find out the buzz level of other companies which whom you want to do business.
Today, I found out that a phone carrier made a customer unhappy and he Twittered about it. I learned that Weather Underground has some really cool iPhone applications and that the cheesecake at The Cheesecake Factory is heavenly! All that was posted today! So, whether you are engaging on and participating in Twitter or not, someone may be twitting about you.
Use Twitter as a Bullhorn!
You can use Twitter to post news or updates about your company or products. Think of what’s valuable to your consumers and let them hear about it. You’ll be amazed how your following will grow.
Promote You
It’s not uncommon for companies to post promotions, sales, or specials on Twitter. It’s important to remember that Twitter is about conversation and breaking news, so be sure if you are posting promotional information that you make it conversational and personal. If I want an ad, I’ll look for one!
Create Brand Name
Twitter is a fantastic tool in giving your brand a voice and a personality. Being successful in Twittering, you will have to put forth your personality and a unique style. That’s what makes the difference and can increase your Twitter following and make it a successful marketing tool for you.
Let’s Tweet, shall we. Come follow me by visiting my Twitter profile!
Twitter can be a great way to promote you, your brand or your company. People and businesses use Twitter as a way to connect with fans and promote themselves to millions of people.
But how do you build up a Twitter following? These simple tips will help you get started.
Follow People. The number one way to gain followers is to follow people. Many Twitter users follow anyone that follows them, while others check to see if the profile is active before deciding to follow it. You can find interesting people to follow by doing a Twitter search. You can also find people on Twellow, a twitter yellowpages, by their businesses or region.
Be Active. Post messages daily or several times a day and make sure what you have to say is interesting and engages people. If you’re a business, talk about interesting things in your business. For example, if you are a restaurant, you could talk about the entertainment. Ask questions, post interesting tidbits, follow other people’s discussions, anything to keep you friends and customers engaged. There are ways to set up tweets for several days at a time. Check out 10 Best Twitter Tools, Plugins, Widgets for WordPress blogs to see some of the automatic tweeting sites. Also, something interesting is automatic posting of Google Alerts to Twitter as a way to gain targeted Twitter followers.
Promote your Profile. Add a link to your Twitter profile to your blog, website and as part of your signature in email messages and discussion forums.
Retweet. When someone tweets something of interest, retweet it. This is a great way to honor someone else’s great information and get it out there in the twittersphere!
Participate in Follow Friday. The Twitter community has many different customs, one of which is Follow Friday, whereby users call out some of their favorite people to follow.
Twitter is sometimes hard to navigate if you are new to it and don’t know the lingo! Here are some terms you may want to be familiar with when “Tweeting”:
10 Days of Twitter!
Tweet – A twitter post or update – this is known as a tweet.
@ – The @ sign is a way of referring to others on Twitter. You can use the @ sign to send a public message to someone or to refer to or talk about someone else in a tweet.. The @ is useful in helping you find those that are talking about you. For example @JaxWorksSEO means someone is talking to me or about me.
Retweet – Retweet means sharing a Tweet of one user with your followers. Proper etiquette is to use the retweet feature when sharing someone else’s tweet rather than to just post it as your own tweet. A Retweet looks like this RT @JaxWorksSEO.”
Reply – A reply is when you respond to someone’s tweet. It looks like this @JaxWorksSEO. For example you could say “@JaxWorksSEO I’m reading your 10 Days of Twitter blog” and that would be a tweet that is a message to me that I would see.
Direct Message – A direct message is different than a reply because it is private. You can only send a direct message to someone if they are following you. A direct message looks like this: DM JaxWorksSEO.
Hashtags or # – This is the most common term that people get confused by. Hashtags are words that begin with the number sign and represent a topic or an event. You can learn more about hashtags at Hashtags.org.
Follower – A follower is someone that follows you on Twitter. This does not have to be a reciprocated relationship – a person can follow you without you following them. However, it’s best if you follow your followers back, this way you can both engage with one another.
Blocking – Blocking is when you block a user and they are unable to follow you. You will also no longer see their tweets in your Twitter stream. This is different than unfollowing. When you unfollow someone, it means that they can still follow you, but you are not following them.
Un-following – Unfollow means that are not longer following a user on Twitter. They, however, can still follow you.
Tweeple, Tweeps, Twits, Twerson, Twitterai – These are people who are known as people, members and users of Twitter.Twitterverse – The ever-growing universe of twitter.
That’s it for now – have fun tweeting!
