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12 Ways To Use Social Media Marketing With Twitter

Monday, March 1st, 2010

Twitter is a wildly popular microblogging service. It involves writing Tweets, which are short updates of a maximum of 140 characters that tell your followers what you are up to. Although your Tweets are technically supposed to answer the question, “What are you doing?” Twitter has moved far beyond that. Tweets are used to share stories, link to photos, promote content, break news, and a whole lot more. Twitter has also become an incredibly important tool for social media marketing professionals. Here are 12 ways in which Twitter can be used in your social media marketing campaign.

1. Sharing Links to Items of Interest

As soon as you read something online that you think is interesting, it is easy to share it on Twitter with all of your followers. Twitter is highly effective in this manner because it is such a quick way to be able to reach a large group of people. You can also get a lot of great ideas for blog posts from Twitter since many new ideas and stories are floating around that haven’t even made it to the blogosphere and definitely not to mainstream media.

2. Building Your Network

Using Twitter is a great way to build your network because it allows you to find and follow people with similar interests. You can use Steeple to find people who live in your geographical area. You can also use other tools that help you find new people to follow based upon who your Twitter friends follow.

3. Build Relationships within Your Current Network

People in different networks often use Twitter to connect with their contacts instantly rather than using instant messaging for that purpose. Furthermore, many people use Twitter to connect with their network during events like conferences.

4. Re-Distributing Content from Your Blog or Website

Twitter can be used to redistribute content from your blog or website. However, you should take care to do this thoughtfully since many of your Twitter followers may already read your blog. For that reason, you may want to avoid using a blog plug-in that automatically Tweets your posts. Your best bet is to Tweet your content manually and customize each Tweet so it doesn’t get old.

5. Get Involved in Live Tweeting Events

Twitter launched at SXSW last year, catapulting microblogging conferences to fame. Live Tweeting events are great because they are a form of citizen journalism that allow you to connect with several new people in your niche while making active and valuable contributions to current discussions in your community.

6. Pitching Stories to Journalists on Twitter

You can send a direct message to a journalist who is following you on Twitter to pitch a story idea.

7. Communicating with Your Team

You can use Twitter as a company intranet that connects all of your employees. Twitter can be particularly useful in this regard if you have a virtual business with employees in different geographical locations. You can set your updates to private for security reasons. Anytime you are working on group projects, you can stay in touch with your team members using Twitter.

8. Brand Monitoring

Stay up to date with any mentions of your business on Twitter. If there is anything negative, you will be able to counter it quickly. You can also use Twitter as a way to receive feedback from your customers and improve your business. Just ask your followers to give their opinion on something. For example, if you designed a new website, ask your followers what they think about it and get their constructive criticisms so you can make your site design even better.

9. Acquire More Votes on Social Media Websites

If you have submitted a story to Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon, or any other social voting website, tweet a link to that submission to try to score more votes from your followers. If your followers like what they see, they are sure to vote for your content.

10. Hiring People

Looking for a programmer, designer, or writer? Whatever type of professional you seek, try finding them on Twitter. Simply send your followers a tweet telling them you are looking for someone for a job. They can either recommend someone to you or offer themselves for the job. Using Twitter in this way is ideal for finding qualified freelancers. It is much more convenient than putting out a classified ad.

11. Build Your Personal Brand

When you use Twitter to talk about things as mundane as what you ate for breakfast or how you are going to sleep early tonight, you make your followers feel like you are casual and approachable. Even those with running a company that has a cold, corporate brand image could create more appeal and build a unique personal brand using Twitter.

12. Streamline Electronic Communications

When you use Twitter, you’re likely to find yourself using IM, email, and other electronic communication methods less. Twitter not only provides public chatting through Tweets, it also allows you to send direct messages. Twitter will help you streamline your electronic communications, allowing you to scale back online.

Tags: social media, social media marketing, twitter marketing
Posted in Social Networks | No Comments »

The Top Twitter Tools for promoting your business

Wednesday, January 20th, 2010

In my last article I discussed how to start using Twitter as a tool to promote your business.

The steps are very basic, yet very effective and proven to work.

But if you really want to see great results you will need an extra hand from some additional tools.

These tools are specifically designed to really promote Twitter accounts, and believe me they really work. And the best part is they are totally free!!

So here goes…

Twitpic allows you to share photos with your visitors, plus each time you post a photo on Twitpic it not only posts the message to your linked Twitter account, but it also allows any other fellow Twitpic user to see the pic as soon as you submit it, so you instantly attract people. You can also tag each image with particular keywords. So for instance if you were a Ford car dealer, as you post that photo of the vehicle you would add a subject topic that will attract people, such as Perfect used red Ford Coupe, and then add the tags; ford, red car, used cars, coupe, etc…
Works very well to attract a particular follower interested in your services or products.

Twitwall works in a similar style, though it goes one step better and integrates your Twitter account background into your Twitwall account, so make sure you have a nicely branded Twitter background. For an example of this, check out one of my Twitwall sites: http://twitwall.com/view/?who=whitsundayaccom

Tweetdeck is a very handy tool to help speed up the process of adding Tweets. The main TweetDeck website is also a kind of TWitter yellow pages, so you can easily target the specific audience you want to attract. Tweetdeck is actually a bit of software you download which allows live updated of your Twitter account or even multiple accounts, so you can easily post, respond and follow your friends Tweets without having to log in to the actual Twitter website.
For the iPhone users out there, Tweetdeck also has a handy App which works just the same as the the one on your PC, so you can tweet from anywhere!

On the subject of Yellow pages for TWitter, take a look at Twellow. Twellow is exactly that..a yellow pages for TWitter users. Simply sign up a free account and you can then select and follow specific people just by a simple search and click of a button!

Another handy tool for keeping in touch with fellow Twitter users is a handy little piece of software called Digsby. Digsby is an instant messaging software for IM, Email and Social Networks, all in one.
Simple to use and very handy for multi-tasking all your accounts at once. Sorry MAc and Linux users…it’s not available yet, but coming soon, so I will keep you posted!

If you run an RSS feed or a blog and want to easily post messages to your TWitter account or Facebook, then Twitterfeed is the tool for you.
You simply create an account and do a little bit of set up and then Twitterfeed will allow you to track your feeds easily. It really is as simple as it sounds.

for the traveller, Check out Twitwhere. Twitwhere is a cool little bit of software that allows your tweets to appear in a Google map, which can then be added to your website. It works on GPS data embedded into photos that you link to. Probably very handy if you are a tour operator, or travel the country doing motivational coaching or similar.

For those that are interested in searching and following particular tweets posted, a great little application is twhirl. Based on the Adobe Air platform, Twhirl is a smooth sleek running app. Much simpler and less screen room required than Tweetdeck, this handy little app can run all the time while you work.

With the recent arrival of the latest Android phone from Google, Twitter users are also catered for with Twidroid. A very stylish mobile version of Twitter, this handy app is a real winner for Twitter fans.

If you want to search for particular tags (keywords) that people are broadcasting on Twitter, check out Tweetscan. This is an easy way of finding followers interested in similar products or topics that you relate to. It even finds people!

For more Twitter Apps, free and paid, check out Twitdom
It has pretty much every type of Twitter solution available!

Combine a few of these great handy tools and you will quickly learn how easy it is to promote your business and attract new potential customers!

Until next time, Keep Tweeting…!

PS: You can also follow me at twitter.com/webseocoach or twitter.com/devision

Author Chris Bourke @ Devision Design and Web SEO Coach

Tags: twitter, twitter promotion, twitter tools
Posted in Social Networks | No Comments »

All aboard the Twitter Express!

Wednesday, January 20th, 2010

As I have previously mentioned in my past articles on the subject of using Twitter as a business tool, Twitter can be a great way to promote your business or services to literally thousands of new potential customers every single day.

Unfortunately I hear plenty of negative feedback from Twitter ‘newbies’ that complain it is a waste of time, or they don’t get enough people following them, or they can’t see a direct result on their website.

Like any tool used to promote your business, Twitter doesn’t just magically start working for your business….you have to make it work.

Think of Twitter as a bus… A bus with no motor running gathers no customers. But start that engine running put some wording where it gets noticed and people are flagging you down to get onboard!

You need to start that ‘Twitter motor’ and drive it forward to attract new people, but once you have the momentum happening you will find it will start driving itself.

Makes sense? Of course it does…but how do you start….

The great thing about Twitter is that the search engine love it. If you use your Twitter Bio section and really spell out what you do it will work like a website description. So say you are selling red widgets, then try and sign up your account as twitter.com/redwidgets and then in your Bio, write something like ‘The best Red Widgets in Australia at the cheapest prices.’

Now, as you start to ‘tweet’ on a regular basis, Google will soon pick up on this and treat your Twitter account like a website, so if you post enough relative tweets about Red Widgets then eventually you will start seeing your Twitter feed showing up in the search engines.
The other advantage of creating a specific Bio and correct wording in each Tweet is that if anyone on Twitter is searching particularly for Red Widgets, then there is a very likely chance you will attract them as followers, and potentially new customers!

But to really speed up the process, amongst your messages add the hash symbol (#) before a particular word as this turns your word into a ‘tag’, and tags become like links for people searching for that word. IF you do a search in Twitter for widgets, then any person that has tagged their text like #widgets will have top priority.

Make sure you also try and add links back to your website from your tweets occasionally. If your tweet is interesting enough or gets some one curious enough to want to know more, they will click that web link!

There are also also plenty of great free online services and tools specifically designed for Twitter promotion, which turn your TWitter bus into a Twitter Rocket! Click here to read on…..

Article by Chris Bourke of Devision Design @ Web SEO Coach

Tags: twitter, twitter applications, twitter tools
Posted in Social Networks | No Comments »

Business Marketing Tips to flourish in an Global Economic Crisis.

Monday, August 31st, 2009

We all hear people every day blaming the ‘global economic crisis’ for a decrease in business sales.

We hear them saying people just aren’t spending on services, or people are’t going on holidays, or people aren’t buying new products, etc etc.

I find the term ‘global marketing crisis‘ more of an excuse for business failure, than the truth.

If an economic crisis is truly the case then why are some of the major retail players such as Apple, JB Hi-Fi and others posting record profits in the past 2 quarters?

The answer is ‘simple’ – The employ simple marketing strategies!

By using simple, and often free, marketing tools and strategies you will blow off the excuse of a ‘global marketing crisis’ and your business will boom, no matter what the media is saying!

Here are a few handy tips to help:

1. USING THE WEB…

Your website is a great point of presence and reaches a wider audience than most other advertising and promotional mediums. And the best thing about it is that web hosting only costs around $95 a year. Thats value for global marketing!

Make sure all you website content is up to date and the site looks fresh and professional. People are more likely to deal with someone with a professional looking website. You wouldn’t paint your own signage, or build your own office building, so don’t build your own website! Get a professional!

Make sure you have the main basic contact details so people can contact you easily. Add a contact form to your website and collect additional information, such as how did they hear about you, would they like to join your mailing list, etc. This information can be used for future promotions.

Make sure your website is well search engine optimised. If you aren’t on the first page of Google you are out of the running. And believe it or not, a first page listing on Google is easily achievable if correctly optimized. If you’re not on that first page, go have a quiet talk to your web developer! SEO should be part of the standard service provided with any website. Without it, it is like buying a car without an engine…you won’t go far.

Embrace the many free Google Webmaster tools to promote your business, like the free Google Business listing, Google Analytics, Google Maps, Google Keyword Tool, Blogger, Google Trends, etc. Google have made it so easy to be found online, and they charge nothing!

Invest in SEO Tools such as WebCEO – It’s a great tool for reviewing your website’s SEO (and your competitiors, and fine tuning and submitting your website yourself. It really makes the difference.

Use online Social Networks such as Twitter, Facebook and Myspace to promote your business and services. Your listing on any of these also gets found easily on the search engines. Using Twitter alone, one of my businesses profitability has jumped 180% in the past 3 months. Free marketing works wonders!

Create and write a regular blog. Blogs such as WordPress and Blogger provide free software, and they get picked up on Google within minutes. They can also be lined directly to you Twitter account or LinkedIn accounts so your post automatically reaches an even larger crowd.

Submit your website to as many free directories online as possible. The more sites you are directly linked to the better your pagerank, and in turn the better your listing chances on the search engines. Plus you reach a much wider audience from people that use the directories.
For starters, you can add a free listing to our own directory, BusinessBrisbane.com. It currently ranks as one of the best directories in Brisbane and we don’t charge a cent to list! Go on..sign up! www.BusinessBrisbane.com (for Brisbane regional businesses only).

Employ email marketing tools, and send regular enewsletters to your customers. Many customers will usually send to a friend if it is interesting, so your potential customer base rapidly expands.

2. BRANDING…

Ensure your branding and advertising is professional. The use of an effective logo and brand elements such as a slogan can be a very simple yet powerful marketing tool. Look at McDonald’s for example..they probably don’t make the world’s best tasting burgers, but they are still the world’s largest hamburger seller! Their iconic logo and simple catchy adverts is the real success. If you don’t have a nice little logo, it is worth the small investment.

Ensure your branding remains consistent. Make sure your logo is always the same colour, your advertising templates remain consistent, and print work is always in tune.

3. SELF PROMOTION & NETWORKING…

People like to deal with people they know and trust. Find your local business networking clubs and sign up. Many invite you as a guest to your first meeting to get a feel for it. Within no time you will be meeting business referrals that will be needing your services!
Make you go to each meeting well equipped with the basic marketing tools including a few brochures and nice business cards. Spend the extra few dollars and go for the nice feeling matt celloglazed finish full colour business cards. You can usually purchase 1000 for around $140, which is a great first impression investment!

For more tips on how to market your business on a budget, visit our website blog: www.devision.com.au/blog

Article by Chris Bourke from Devision Design Australia

Posted in Brisbane Printing, Marketing, SEO, Social Networks, Website Development | No Comments »

Building your Business Brand on Twitter

Thursday, May 21st, 2009

Building your Business Brand on Twitter

With Twitter becoming one of the fastest growing new web sensations since Myspace or Facebook, every man and his dog are getting on board Twitter and using it as a cost effective (Free!) global marketing tool.

Businesses are Tweeting their way to popularity, creating brand awareness at lightning speed, and driving traffic to their actual website or products, more effectively and quickly than traditional paid advertising.

But like any business, traditional or online, professional branding is essential.
And when I talk about branding I am not just referring to the way your Twitter page looks, but more importantly, the name of your Twitter account that appears.

Twitter accounts are quickly becoming like online real estate.
We have seen the importance and value of having the correct domain name.
I myself have sold domain names that cost me little over $8 for more than a few thousand dollars less than a year later. Domain names are the modern real estate, and Twitter accounts are no different.

So, if you are considering starting up a Twitter account to drive your business through the internet, you need to start at the start, and establish the name that reflects your business, or more importantly, is your business name.

For example, our business Devision made sure we established http://twitter.com/devision and then branded the colours and background of our Twitter account to reflect our website www.Devision.com.au.

By claiming the Twitter handle early we ensured our clients could find us easily.
The other advantage of obtaining the correct Twitter handle is that the search engines pick up on Twitter accounts and will list your Twitter account and your Twitter account”s description on their directories.

For example, type into Google ‘twitter Devision’ and you will see we list up the top, with our description visible.

And as your Twitter account also contains your website address, the cross link will in turn increase your page rank, and therefore your traffic. On average, all my websites I have set up Twitter accounts for have had a 65% increase in traffic to within a week, and the number of visitors grows as the number of Twitter followers link up with me.

the other importance of claiming your Twitter handle is to ensure other people or imposters don’t claim your name first, as anyone has the right to any name currently available on Twitter, whether it relates to them or now.

In fact Twitter handles have become so sought after and valuable that an ‘aftermarket’ website called Tweexchange has been established where user names can be bought and sold, and some of these names are selling at $100,000 or more!

So make sure you get your Twitter handle before moving on to the next step of business branding….

Creating a Twitter brand image for your business

OK, you have established your Twitter Handle and you’re ready to go. Before rushing in you need to first develop a brand strategy, starting with completing your Twitter Profile. Make sure your profile reflects your business in a short paragraph. As mentioned above, your profile appears on Google so ensure it contains the correct keywords that reflect your business. My theory to writing a good profile tag is think of if you had to tell someone you have never met before what your business does, in one sentence. For instance I do website design, so I would say something like ‘Devision offer cost effective professional graphic design, website design, and website hosting solutions throughout Australia’. That would then become my profile on Twitter, and those keywords such as ‘graphic design’, ‘website design’ are found on Google searches, attracting visitors to my Twitter account and my website.

Once you have completed your profile we move on to your image. Now, if you are not a design expert doesn’t mean you can’t have a professional looking Twitter account. Many graphic design and web design companies, (such as Devision!) can quickly design a professional background image for your account, and help set up the correct colours to blend in with your business. Alternatively there are plenty of websites such as Twitterimage and Twitpaper that also provide this service for you.

Your profile/bio image graphic (called an ‘avatar’) should be your logo or closely represent your business. Don’t upload an avatar of a photo you have found online and like…make sure it is a true representation of your business, as this is usually the first think people will see when they are on Twitter, so make they can recognize you!

Promoting your Twitter account

Promoting your business with TWitter doesn’t just have to be online.
Revert back to traditional marketing methods as well and add your Twitter account to your business cards, your email signature, on Powerpoint presentations and of course on your corporate website.

Twitter may or may not be just another online fad, but at the moment it is one of the best free online promotional tools you can use for promoting your business so go out and ride the Twitter wave!

And yes, you will find me at www.twitter.com/devision !

Of course, we keep all our best Twitter secrets for our clients!
So if you want to really know how to promote your business or make easy money with Twitter or social networks, contact me at www.Devision.com.au

Tags: promoting with twitter, twitter design, twitter for business, twitter for marketing
Posted in Social Networks | No Comments »

Twitter – Spreading the Tweet!

Monday, May 11th, 2009

By Chris Bourke of Devision Design Australia

So you’ve set up your Twitter account and followed my notes from ‘Making an Income from Twitter‘ and you are now hopefully building a continuously growing base of followers to your Twitter account.

But how do you catch up to the Twitterers that have thousands, even tens of thousands of followers quickly?

Well, I would like to share a few of my favourite Twitter Tools and online Twitter directories that you can add your Twitter account to, attracting many new followers faster than you can say Tweet!

My first and favourite Twitter directory is Twellow. Twellow is a Twitter Directory which is free to join and grabs your details from your existing TWitter accounts, so getting started on it is easy and set up in a couple of minutes. Twellow is basically a Yellow Pages of TWitter, allowing you to search for users with similar interests or similar products, or may be located around you. Twellow is the perfect companion if you use Twitter for online marketing.

Just Tweet It is another great easy to use Twitter directory service which helps you find other users just like you. This directory is great for business as it has a huge selection of pre-categorized sections to add your business, or to search from.

Another very popular Twitter directory on the rise is We Follow. We follow breaks the categories up into the most popular Tags (eg, Celebrities, TV, SocialMedia, News, Music), and then sub-categorizes into the most popular of each section. Once you add yourself to We Follow you will quickly see arise in followers, plus it is easy to search for other people you would also like to follow. You will have thousands of followers in no time!

GeoFollow is a Twitter directory with a difference. Geofollow is a location-based Twitter directory, allowing you to search by City and State, as well as the usual Tags, Username and Keyword. Another very easy to join and use directory service, and quickly gathering momentum as one of the most popular Twitter Directories

Remember, you don’t have to understand the Twitter phenomenon, but you have to be part of it! Adding your Twitter account to these directories is a great start to really benefit from Twitter.

Next week I will be chatting about Mashable Tweets.
It might sound tasty, but it’s not..but it is very interesting!

Author: Chris Bourke from Devision.
Chris is a graphic design/ web developer specializing in search engine optimization & online affiliate marketing. Chris is also co-mananager of Devision Design based on the Sunshine Coast, Australia

Tags: twitter, twitter directories, twitter promotion
Posted in Marketing, Social Networks | No Comments »

New Twitter Users Biggest Mistakes: How to Avoid Them

Friday, April 17th, 2009

I am not usually a big fan of rules when it comes to social media, but I do think there are ways to make your experience using tools such as Twitter more beneficial to yourself and others. There are some common mistakes I see new users make that I want to share with you. The good news is, once you are aware of them they are really easy to avoid!

Mistake: Not using a real picture of yourself for your avatar.

When I first joined Twitter over a year ago I was guilty of using a cartoon-type picture of me for mine. I thought it was cute and it happened to be part of the design I had on my previous blog. However, I switched to an actual photo of myself a few months later, and more than a few people commented that they were glad to see the real me.

I feel the same about others now. A picture of you is a lot more personable than a picture of your dog or a company logo. People like to see your smile!

Mistake: Automating pushy direct messages for new followers.

Many Twitter users use a service such as TweetLater to set up automatic messages to go to anyone who begins following them. This is a bit controversial among people on Twitter. If you are automating a friendly message to just say thanks for following me, that’s one thing, but a message with a link to one of your products when we haven’t even connected yet is generally frowned upon.

Mistake: Starting to follow people without posting a couple of your updates.

It may feel like you are talking to yourself to do this, especially if you don’t have any followers yourself. But when someone comes upon your page and is deciding whether or not to follow you, they need something to go on. People are looking for some sign of life or personality.

Mistake: Not spending a good amount of time interacting.

There is nothing wrong with letting others know what you did last night or what your plans are for the day. Just be sure to intersperse your tweets with some two-way conversation. Ask questions, re-tweet others, reply to questions, comment on others tweets, etc. This builds community and keeps things balanced and interesting.

Mistake: Mass following right out of the gate.

My ratio of followers to those I am following is pretty even, mainly because I like to follow back most of the people who follow me as long as they don’t look like spammers.

However, I find it hard to follow others who, in addition to having only a couple of updates, are following thousands of people and have only a few people following them. It feels spammy, like they don’t have much interest in having a relationship or conversation with anyone.

Mistake: Doing everything from the web instead of using a Twitter client.

Installing a client such as Tweetdeck gives you more functionality than what you can do from the Twitter website alone. For example, Tweetdeck allows you to place people in groups which make it easier to keep track of them, especially once you are following lots of people. Plus, you don’t have to be connected to the web to use these types of clients. I find they make tweeting a lot easier and more convenient for keeping track of your replies, direct messages and followers.

Mistake: All promotion, all the time.

As I have mentioned in previous articles, no one likes to follow someone who is constantly selling and promoting without giving anything back. Keep things balanced and respect that others do not want to be pitched all of the time. That being said…

Mistake: Not leveraging Twitter as part of your business marketing strategy.

If you are in business and using social media, you are looking at Twitter as a tool to get results in that business, not to just socialize all day. Remember that it is a great way to reinforce your brand, form strategic alliances and build credibility and trust.

by Christine Gallagher

Tags: Marketing, social netwoking, twitter
Posted in Marketing, Social Networks | No Comments »

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