by Crystal · Comments (1)

19 Feb

If you’re like most marketers, you’ve been using Twitter for a long time now… Perhaps even stopped using it.

Tweets go by so quickly. Auto-tweets have removed the novelty from Twitter, drowning users in a sea of impersonal, shallow tweets. You’re only allowed 140 characters to say what you want to say (around 90, if you want people to recommend when they Retweet). And everyone seems to say the same thing; mostly endless links to blog posts nobody reads.

Fortunately, a small percentage of the Twitterverse knows exactly how to leverage Twitter. If you run a B2B-type business, many of these may make up a large percentage of your potential client base.

The rest make up a strong networking community, whether or not your business is retail or service-based. So learn to use Twitter like the crème de la crème, and you’ll soon discover these top three tips really do work.

1. Harness The Power of Hashtags

One of Twitter’s most popular features has been the invention of hashtags. Well, Twitter didn’t exactly invent them – they were inherited from old-style IRC chat – but Twitter certainly has popularized them and used them most successfully.

A hashtag is born when one or more words is prefixed with the “#” symbol. This instantly lets Twitter’s search engine deliver any tweet containing that hashtag, if you search for it. It’s an easy way to filter out search results you don’t want and zero in on search results you do.

Create a great and catchy hashtag, and you can drive viral, targeted traffic to your products, website, blog, posts, articles, other social posts – and tweets.

2. Use Twitter to Reinforce Your Business Branding

The fact that your Profile photo appears next to each tweet you make can really help brand your business, if you follow these two best practices:

Use your logo instead of your photo, if you are tweeting as, or solely for, your business
Tweet regularly and consistently

You want to send out business tweets at least five days out of seven; preferably when you know your target audience is most often online.

Regularity is the key, just as much as consistency. (“Consistency” refers to the type and tone of your tweet: “Regularity” refers to exactly how often they occur.)

3. You Can Keep Momentum and Visibility Going While Other Networks Sleep

Another fascinating fact: When Twitter’s engagement is at its highest, Facebook’s is at its lowest. So you can keep the ball rolling from social network to social network, to suit different segments of your audience – and yourself!

There are tools to help you find out when your unique audience hits the highs and lows on both networks – Facebook Insights for Facebook and TweetWhen for Twitter.

The best way to figure out the optimum time for your audience, however? Getting into the habit of being there in person, seeing who’s online at the same time and who responds to your Tweets, or mentions you.

Learning when your ideal audience is actively tweeting in real-time will gain you more business advantage than all the automated pre-posting services in the world.

And with Twitter, all a tweet or personal retweet takes is a few seconds (and less than 140 characters).

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Categories : Twitter

Top 3 Reasons To Use Pinterest For Business

by Crystal · Comments (1)

12 Feb

If your audience is predominantly female and anywhere from twenty-five to sixty-five, Pinterest ought to be one of your foremost social networking strategies.

And if you don’t believe this, just take a look at your Facebook feed – and count all the Pinterest and photo shares.

Pinterest is also a social network for those who are visual learners, so if your target market is both female and visual in expression, you can’t afford to ignore it.

Let’s take a look at the top three reasons why Pinterest can help grow your business…

1. It Enables You to Become a Trusted Resource

When you post photos on your website or blog and invite people to “Pin” your photos by installing and displaying a “Pin it” button, you are helping them solve a problem.

You are establishing, if not quite a chatting relationship, a personal connection with them. You’re increasing the chances of them remembering you – and your site.

Do keep your site photos updated. And always include at least one image with your articles, new pages or posts – as well as your “Pin it” button!

2. Offers the Ability to Command the Power of Images – and Words

It’s not just about images. You have the ability to command the power of words. Yet most people are so busy posting beautiful images on Pinterest, they forget that words still carry enormous weight – both as graphic elements in their own right… and in search engine optimization.

You can change color schemes to suit a mood… or suit the content meaning… or you can randomize the order until you get the balance you want.

You could also deposit your word cloud into an infographic.

Do use keywords for each image: Pinboards do actually appear in Google Search results.

Direct your fellow pinners to your Pins, when they search. Make sure it’s your photo of Gerbera daisies they share – not your competitor’s.

3. You Can Create Highly Targeted Marketing Opportunities

The old “it’s all about them” rule still applies, even though you are expressing yourself artistically, visually and, above all, creatively. Gear your boards to your target audience on Pinterest, and you can create highly targeted marketing opportunities while making strong statements in your authentic voice.

Pin the photos you know your potential clients or customers would most like to see. Use keywords they would use, when searching for Pins like yours.

But make sure you create a strong theme for each board, so that once they arrive, they find a multitude of photos (or other media) to select for pinning. Let your boards speak about you as a person. Let them speak about your business, and what it is all about – its mission and core values.

And whatever you do, never, ever, just randomly go Pin-happy; or pin other Pinners’ photos solely because you feel obliged to reciprocate.

After all, you want your boards to stand out!

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Categories : Pinterest

Top 3 Reasons To Use Facebook for Business

by Crystal · Comments (1)

05 Feb

Both Facebook and Mashable put monthly Facebook visitors at 1 billion, from December 2012 to February 2013.

Visitors spend an average of 28.8 minutes per day within Facebook’s portals, hanging out with friends and acquaintances, and looking for entertainment or news. Its daily reach is an enormous 43%, with use and popularity still on the rise.

But wait – just because it’s the most popular social network in the world, is that any reason to use it for business purposes? Isn’t it primarily social? Won’t your voice get drowned out amid all those millions of users?

Great questions. Let’s see exactly what Facebook can do for you and your business – and why you should use it for that purpose.

1. Facebook is a Community

For a staggering number of people, posting their daily status update and seeing who has replied to previous posts is the most important action of their day – whether or not they openly admit it. And that goes for some surprisingly outgoing people, totally busting the supposition that Facebook is for introverts. (One survey last year revealed that people rank Facebook friends on a par with their local, immediate friends.)

Facebook is here to stay. It is a part of our times. But what does this friendship connection mean to business?

Mainly that people nowadays do not buy on product value alone: They buy on the basis of social proof. Google states that 70% of American consumers don’t purchase until they’ve read formal or informal reviews.

Communities create trust. And that’s when people buy.

2. Facebook has Pages

Facebook also allows you to create dedicated Pages for your business or any of its products. If you run a Virtual Assistant business called “VAs-R-Us” you can have a business page for VAs-R-Us. If you write a book, you can create an Author page for that book and any others you write. And Facebook itself allows you to create as many pages as you like.

But here’s the part nobody tells you: If you forget that Facebook is, above all, social – if you are too hard-sell on your Facebook Page – you will find your audience tuning out to what they feel is endless promoting. Your Page has to have value. Share needed tips, news and knowledge. Include dazzling or touching graphics or videos. Entertain, captivate and capture.

And above all, interact and exchange… opinions, news, life.

To fulfill these conditions, always make the Page about your target audience – their needs, interests, feedback, comments and opinions – not about your need to sell 5,000 units by Friday.

3. Facebook Pages Make Your Business Feel Real

A Facebook Business Page can give identity to intangible entities like businesses or services. You can brand anything through them: Your signature product, your business’ “voice”, your business culture – even yourself.

The psychology behind it is simplicity itself: “She has an author’s page, therefore she is an author.”

Seeing it in print makes it feel real to your viewer. People quickly begin to identify you as an author on a sub-conscious level, as well as consciously.

Your book then becomes, psychologically-speaking, a “real book”.

And people will begin to recommend your book – even when they haven’t read it themselves.

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Categories : Facebook

Top 3 Tips For Staying Focused on Social Media

by Crystal · Comments (0)

29 Jan

Getting sucked into social media distractions is a real concern for anyone using social media professionally. You might only plan on working on your Twitter account for 20 minutes, then look up 90 minutes later wondering where your time went.

Social media is notoriously distracting. So how do you stay focused when you’re working on your social media strategy? These three tips will help.

Tip #1: Keep Your Business & Personal Accounts Separate

Mixing the two accounts is a recipe for disaster. You’ll log on to update your Twitter status, then get sucked right into the funny video of your next door neighbor’s niece.

If you have your accounts mixed, separating them alone will drastically boost your productivity.

Tip #2: Do Not Multitask

When you’re working on social media, you should spend that time only working on social media. Don’t do other things at the same time.

People will often try to do social media “on the side” while they’re taking care of other things. For example, you might be listening in to a company wide call that isn’t taking up your full attention. So, you might hop on Twitter at the same time to post a few things.

This is bad, because it trains your brain to not separate social media work time from other things. By not multitasking and only doing social media during social media time, you train your brain to work on social media in a very focused way.

Tip #3: Have a Daily Action Plan

Having a plan for how you spend your time on social media can really help minimize distractions. For example, if you plan on using your social media time to build an influence, you might break your time down like this:

5:00 – Schedule Posts in HootSuite
5:30 – Respond to @Mentions, Read Tweets, Retweet
6:00 – Send Personal Messages to Influencers

Don’t “wing” your social media.

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Categories : Social Media Strategy

Don’t Be A Failure At Social Networking

by Crystal · Comments (0)

08 Jan

Social networking is one of the most effective marketing tools that any type of business can use. It can have an impact on building brand recognition and igniting visibility.

Social networking has matured and is now a highly effective business strategy for business owners. That being said, we see many businesses just diving into the latest and greatest social network, setting up profiles, throwing out content, and getting nowhere. They become overwhelmed and drop it as a marketing strategy.

Why is this happening?

Social networking must be customized to meet the needs of a business or organization. It’s just not good enough to throw all businesses into the same social networks and do the same sort of things as everyone else; it has to be tailored to the audience and the market that they are in. You have to be very targeted and focused with your social networking activities and not get too spread out , so that you are not doing as well as you could be. You want to build positive relationships in a selected number of social networks as opposed to trying to make connections across many social networks.

Social media networking is targeted and has to be customized to meet the needs of that audience.

So how do I know where my target market is?

The first step to a successful social networking strategy is research. Know who your primary and secondary audience is going to be. Find out where your targeted audience is hanging out. Listen to what their current needs, interests, and problems are. And see who your competition is with regards to connecting and communicating with this target audience.

If none or very few of your target audience is on a particular social networking site, then don’t waste your time setting up a profile and trying to get connections on that site. Your resources would be better used elsewhere.

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Categories : Social Media Strategy