Your Small Business Toolbox - More Value For Less Cost » Use Social Media

5 stupid reasons not to use Twitter for business

Tonya R. Taylor — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 04:03:50 +0000

Women owned business, home based business, entrepreneurs and other small businesses are discouraged from using Twitter because they don’t see it as a lead generating tool or a sales generating tool. Many small businesses look at Twitter as just another thing on their “to-do” list. Don’t let one of these 5 stupid reasons for not using Twitter for business keep you from embracing this new-media as a way to attract new clients.

1. Your competition is not using Twitter, so neither are you

At first glance Twitter appears to be just another tool to say what you had for breakfast, chat with your friends, share pictures and upload videos. Using Twitter is a golden opportunity to catch your competition napping. If your competition is not tweeting this gives a competitive advantage by allowing you to communicate with your customers (and theirs) more often and in real-time.

2. You don’t have time for marketing your business on Twitter

In hard economic times, one of the first expenses to get cut is your marketing budget. However using Twitter for your business provides a free marketing opportunity to reach profitable new markets. You will discover many ways to market to your specific audience that get results and grow your business fast.

3. Twitter won’t last long so you don’t want to learn it

Small business owners who don’t get Twitter think it’s annoying and it’s not here to stay. However, major brands have incorporated Twitter into phones, radios and television. Think about it, you can’t even listen to the radio, watch the news or a commercial without hearing the words Twitter or follow me on Twitter. What you need is a weekly “here’s what you do next” action step to complete.

4. Twitter won’t help your local business grow

Advertising locally on TV, radio, newspaper or magazines is way too expensive (thousands of dollars) but small business owners still think tweeting about their local business is not effective. Use Twitter to build successful ongoing relationships that can start offline or online.

5. You’re already on Facebook and/or Linkedin

Small business owners think there is no value using Twitter because they are using Facebook or LinkedIn. Even though they are being overwhelmed with irrelevant information from these sites like pillow fights, mafia wars, Farmville etc. Let’s not forget the restrictions on whom and how many people you can have in your network or have as friends. Small business owners think adding Twitter will produce more useless information; however, successful marketing is a cross platform and an on-going activity.

Using Twitter for business is perhaps THE best marketing tool ever.

Photo courtesy: microsoft.com

Copyright © 2010 Rising Star Ideas, LLC. All Rights Reserved

P.S. Are you still saying "I don’t get Twitter?" Take charge, download my free report guaranteed to reveal why Twitter is a priceless effective business tool for a women owned business, entrepreneur, sales professional, event planner, professional organizer, solo professional and many other small business owners. You’ll get answers to the top "I don’t get Twitter" frequently asked questions (FAQ) on how to get greater results using Twitter for business. You get insider secrets to quickly gain an advantage over those businesses who choose to ignore Twitter without spending a ton of money advertising and marketing.

If you liked today's article check out these related articles:

Entrepreneurs: Why use FREE tools to grow your business? (Hint: Its not what you think)

Grow your business on YouTube, Facebook & Twitter

Pssst. People are Talking… About Your Business!

How to use Social Media to jam-pack your next event

Tonya R. Taylor — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 04:03:12 +0000

Are you searching for FREE ways to quickly get the word out about your next live event? Do you need a massive crowd for your meet-up, teleseminar, webinar, conference, workshop or seminar?

You bet!

Easy, use social media to jam-pack your next event for free!

Here’s how:

Use high-powered keywords to attract the right people

Create a LinkedIn event, before you click on the “Publish Event” button…

Make sure you click on the “Add more details” link to add:

a detailed description – the first 300 characters will be displayed to people browsing events

up to 20 keywords to help people find your event

up to 20 job titles of exact people who should attend

Use the event link created on LinkedIn to send tweets

Know your target audience to promote the event directly to them

Use the Groupsite directory to discover public groups you can join. You can visit and join public groups in 17 categories from Business to Wellness.

Use Eventbrite if your event is free. List your event in the public directory Eventbrite will promote it to all the major search engines. You can easily publish your event to Facebook with just a few clicks.

Use Ning’s 1,000,000 million networks to find them in the following categories: Music, Networking, Entertainment, Politics, Art, Education, Causes and sports.

Build a community around your upcoming event

Create an event on Facebook start inviting (relevant) people to build your community. Ask your community to

Uploaded video shot during the event

Post pictures from their camera phone in real-time

Use the wall to add comments or testimonials

Remember to go back and tag people who attended the event

Connect Twitter to Facebook to automatically send event tweets

Let people know by tweeting about it

Keep the information going, tweet about the planning of the event

Ask questions to attendees and questions to those who are not attending

Tweet about your presenters providing their bio, website link, or twitter handle

Create a Twitter list of attendees, speakers, etc. to make it easier to spot their tweets

Ask participants to tweet during the event using a unique event specific hashtag

Let people know what to expect by providing a sneak peak at the agenda

After the event continue to engage

Keep the buzz going by asking your attendees to complete a survey on Facebook or Twitter

Tweet the event testimonials, links to pictures and video

Send tweets when pictures and videos are uploaded to help drive traffic back to the Facebook community

Have you used social media to help promote an event? Tell me about it the comments below.

Photo courtesy: Flickr Grabadonut

Copyright © 2010 Rising Star Ideas, LLC. All Rights Reserved

P.S. Are you still saying "I don’t get Twitter?" Take charge, download my free report guaranteed to reveal why Twitter is a priceless effective business tool for a women owned business, entrepreneur, sales professional, event planner, professional organizer, solo professional and many other small business owners. You’ll get answers to the top "I don’t get Twitter" frequently asked questions (FAQ) on how to get greater results using Twitter for business. You get insider secrets to quickly gain an advantage over those businesses who choose to ignore Twitter without spending a ton of money advertising and marketing.

If you liked today's article check out these related articles:
A Social Media Success Story (Part 1)

3 tools to turbo charge your social media marketing

Growing Social Network Numbers Quantity VS Quality

This Way To Social Media Success

Tonya R. Taylor — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 04:03:00 +0000

Follow me up the social media road as I interview Christopher Bell III, founder of ChrisBell3rd & Company, about his journey to social media success.

The Motivation

ChrisBell3rd & Company was founded and successfully launched through the use of social media tools.

Chris: I believe social media is important to business because it has the ability to exponentially accelerate exposure to unique and compelling content, products, and services at a very low cost.

Look… if Pepsi, a Fortune 500 company decides for the first time in 23 years, not to advertise in the Super Bowl, but decides to use a social media campaign instead? Hey, I’m thinkin’ this: if they’re using some of the same free social media tools I have, then I know I’m in the right space, doing the right thing, at the right time.

The Opportunity

The biggest mistake a small business can make in using social media is to see it as a distracting fad, or that it has no business value.

Chris: The way I see it, there are only two types of business that aren’t using social media – Those who are going out of businesses, and fools.

When a competitor doesn’t use social media, I almost want to thank them for subsidizing my mortgage payment, contributing to my kids college education, and paying for my dream vacation. How? Because they’ve decided to give me the opportunity to access their prospects and customers.

The Tools

Knowledge is power… and money.

Chris: I use LinkedIn and Twitter because my target audience uses them and I view them as being complimentary to one another.

LinkedIn as a strategic resource.

Chris: I review personal profiles and company overviews to research, identify, and plan executive-level engagements with potential clients and where possible, I leverage a mutual connection by asking them to facilitate a warm introduction on my behalf. The result: Everyone I’m introduced to via LinkedIn is usually receptive to communicating with me.

Twitter as a tactical resource.

Chris: I “follow” the latest Twitter feed of relevant subject matter that’s important to me or my potential clients (using tools like Tweet Deck for filtering) in preparation for any dialogue or engagement.

Simple objective.

Chris: I’m looking to accelerate the speed of trust and prove out my value as an asset who does his homework and knows as much about his client’s business as he does.

The Results

What kind of results are you getting using social media for business?

Chris: I landed my first consulting project searching through Baltimore-DC Craig’s List. Closed my first deal for them in LESS THAN 30 DAYS. All of this happened as a result of a lead from a referral on Twitter. The net: 1st client = $29,000 in 5 months. LinkedIn and Twitter Investment: $0

I published an article that went viral. The article resonated with a well-respected blogger, Career Makeover Coach, Tai Goodwin. I was invited to participate in her BlogTalk Radio show to share tips on how one can transition into the technology sales profession.

I landed a Canadian client in April 2010 introduced via Twitter. My agreement with this awesome company will represent a six-figure opportunity.

The Prize

Chris: In January 2010, I learned of the Entrepreneur’s Challenge contest sponsored by Author Melinda Emerson, the author of “Become Your Own Boss in 12 Months”and better known on Twitter as “SmallBizLady.” In May 2010 I was announced as one the $25,000 Winners.

What’s your social media success story? Let me know in the comments below…

Copyright © 2010 Rising Star Ideas, LLC. All Rights Reserved

P.S. Are you still saying "I don’t get Twitter?" Take charge, download my free report guaranteed to reveal why Twitter is a priceless effective business tool for a women owned business, entrepreneur, sales professional, event planner, professional organizer, solo professional and many other small business owners. You’ll get answers to the top "I don’t get Twitter" frequently asked questions (FAQ) on how to get greater results using Twitter for business. You get insider secrets to quickly gain an advantage over those businesses who choose to ignore Twitter without spending a ton of money advertising and marketing.

If you liked today's article check out these related articles:
Social Media ROI ~ create a strategy, tip #1

Social Media ROI

Social media – who has the time?

Social Media ROI ~ use automation, tip #2

Tonya R. Taylor — Fri, 14 May 2010 04:03:36 +0000

“Social Media ROI“ is, part 1 of a 6 part series, an overview of five tips to help measure your social networking return on investment (ROI) efforts:

1.    Create a strategy
2.    Use automation
3.    Use cross platform tools
4.    Invest in training
5.    Track and measure

When it comes to using social media or not for your business it usually about one thing–TIME. There are a ton of tools, with new ones developed daily, to automate tasks that save time and quickly spread the word about your products or services. However in this article you will discover little known techniques to add automation to your social media marketing strategy.

When creating your high-impact social media marketing strategy you should automate some updates to Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin or your other social networking sites by:

Using social bookmarking sites

Social bookmarking is a powerful tool used to promote a website and its content. There are hundreds of social bookmark sites; with these 3 popular social bookmarking sites you can post directly to your Facebook wall Stumble Upon, Digg and Propeller. As an added bonus from Propeller you can also sent a tweet too!

Using listening tools

Use Social Mention to receive daily email alerts of the latest relevant topics posted to blogs, Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, Audio, Video and more. With this listening tool you can hear and react in “real time” to what people are saying about industry trends, key influencers, your products and services.

Using RSS feeds

A RSS feed provides a summary (post title and excerpt) of website content. You can use it from your own website or industry website with Twitterfeed to automatically tweet or post new content to your Facebook profile or fan page.

Use article marketing sites

Article marketing will get you backlinks that improve your search engine PageRank which leads to more website traffic. EzineArticles.com is one of the most popular article marketing sites for many reasons. One of the best reasons to use them is every article you publish will be tweeted automatically to your followers.

Why are some small business owners discouraged from using social networking? Believe it or not they don’t see social networking as marketing. In addition, they find it hard to measure their return on investment. One potential client said; “the effort required to use them as a marketing tool is greater than what would be necessary using traditional means”.

Really!?

What comes to mind when I think of “traditional marketing” is one-on-one marketing handing out one business card at a time during local networking events and spending money on high-priced TV, radio, newspaper or magazines advertising.

Hmmmn, which method takes more effort?

Stay tuned, this is part 3 of a 6 part series be sure to subscribe to the newsletter so you don’t miss the next part 4.

photo courtesy: TheDesignSuperhero.com

Copyright © 2010 Rising Star Ideas, LLC. All Rights Reserved

P.S. Are you still saying "I don’t get Twitter?" Take charge, download my free report guaranteed to reveal why Twitter is a priceless effective business tool for a women owned business, entrepreneur, sales professional, event planner, professional organizer, solo professional and many other small business owners. You’ll get answers to the top "I don’t get Twitter" frequently asked questions (FAQ) on how to get greater results using Twitter for business. You get insider secrets to quickly gain an advantage over those businesses who choose to ignore Twitter without spending a ton of money advertising and marketing.

If you liked today's article check out these related articles:
Social Media ROI

Social Media ROI ~ create a strategy, tip #1

3 tools to make your website or blog social media friendly

A Social Media Success Story (Part 2)

Tonya R. Taylor — Fri, 07 May 2010 04:01:18 +0000

This social media success story (read part 1 here) from the non-profit Domestic Violence Center (DVC) of Howard County Maryland is a part 2 of my interview with Kim Lennon, Outreach Coordinator.

Tonya: Why did you choose Facebook and Twitter as part of your marketing strategy?

Kim: The DVC chose Facebook and Twitter as a part of our marketing strategy because many of our staff and Board of Director members saw how effective it was for them personally, and it made sense to build relationships as a non-profit the same way as an individual would. With many of the staff belonging to Generations X and Y it was a natural transition to bring the adeptness of the staff’s Facebook and Twitter capabilities and intertwine this with the agency marketing plan.

Facebook and Twitter have allowed us to further develop our brand as an agency that is in the community to bring families from crisis to hope and be an ongoing service for those who need our help. These outlets have been monumental with the success of our marketing plan.

Tonya: What kind of results are you?

Kim: For the past month we have been monitoring the traffic on our Facebook fan page. In one month, we have increased
our Facebook fan base by 5% and on average we receive 354 views per week to our page which has steadily increased each week.

We have also been able to advertise effectively and inexpensively, which has allowed budgeted marketing funds to be used in other ways versus traditional advertising (i.e. newspapers, magazines, radio).

We are currently exploring ways to improve social networking and we hope to track how fans and followers of our social media sites become directly connected with our services.

Tonya: What is the one best tip you have learned from using social media?

Kim: The best tip I have received with using social media (i.e. Facebook and Twitter) is to give meaningful, comprehensive, and effective messages. We have found that if messages over time vary, contain links with other resources, or direct people to our website those are the messages that receive the most feedback and forwarding capability from other followers or fans.

Tonya: Why is it important for a non-profit business to understand how social media can increase their exposure?

Kim: It is important for non-profits to understand how social media can increase their exposure because this is the future of targeted marketing, advertising, and promotion amongst other things.

Social media is more than a trend; it is a new way to communicate and organize communities. Due to financial constraints, it is usually more difficult for
non-profits to get the exposure that they deserve and outlets like Facebook and Twitter make an even playing field for any non-profit to market successfully
to anyone.

What kind of results are you getting using social media to market your business? Let me know in the comments below.

Photo courtesy: microsoft.com

Copyright © 2010 Rising Star Ideas, LLC. All Rights Reserved

P.S. Are you still saying "I don’t get Twitter?" Take charge, download my free report guaranteed to reveal why Twitter is a priceless effective business tool for a women owned business, entrepreneur, sales professional, event planner, professional organizer, solo professional and many other small business owners. You’ll get answers to the top "I don’t get Twitter" frequently asked questions (FAQ) on how to get greater results using Twitter for business. You get insider secrets to quickly gain an advantage over those businesses who choose to ignore Twitter without spending a ton of money advertising and marketing.

If you liked today's article check out these related articles:
A Social Media Success Story (Part 1)

This Way To Social Media Success

Social Media ROI ~ create a strategy, tip #1

A Social Media Success Story (Part 1)

Tonya R. Taylor — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 04:01:36 +0000

This social media success story comes from my interview with Kim Lennon, Outreach Coordinator of the Domestic Violence Center (DVC) of Howard County Maryland (a suburb of Baltimore), as we discuss the use of Twitter and Facebook as free marketing tools.

The DVC uses social media to educate the community about the issue of domestic violence, build their client base, promote events, obtain volunteers, and raise awareness about their agency itself.

Tonya:   Why do you think social media in general is so important to promoting a non-profit business today?

Kim: Like many non-profits, funding is down and it is more important than ever to stretch budget dollars. In order to do this, like many agencies, we have to be creative with marketing and publicity strategies.

Social media has allowed the DVC to create a “voice” to constantly be in touch with the community and develop meaningful messages that reach people instantly. By being a “voice” we can tailor specific messages to reach and influence a variety of populations from:

businesses

teenagers

donors

potential clients

volunteers

Tonya:   Can you provide an example?

Kim: One example of this was the publicity for our signature fall event the 2009 UnGala: A Carnival of Hope. This event was solely promoted through Facebook and
Twitter. With only a small publicity budget, creativity was essential.

These mediums allowed free advertising, while Twitter opened a new world for “word-of-mouth marketing” allowing fellow non-profits to retweet and forward our event information to even more people.

This free service would have never allowed the DVC to promote as effectively as we did with the budget in place, by being creative with our messages we created a successful and well attended event.

Tonya: What’s the biggest mistake a non-profit business can make when using (or not) social media?

Kim: By not using social media a non-profit business is missing out on the ability to let the public know who they are. Social media has opened a whole new world for non-profits to promote their mission, obtain funders, donations, and cultivate relations with other non-profits.

One of the reasons why social media works for us is because of the relationships that have been built through social networking. One of the amazing capabilities of social media is the ability of agencies to instantly share information. This is how social networking relations build and more followers become a part of your cause.

Organizations that are not doing this are truly missing out on letting the public get to know them.

Take a look at part 2 as we discuss getting results and social media tips.

Photo courtesy: microsoft.com

Copyright © 2010 Rising Star Ideas, LLC. All Rights Reserved

P.S. Are you still saying "I don’t get Twitter?" Take charge, download my free report guaranteed to reveal why Twitter is a priceless effective business tool for a women owned business, entrepreneur, sales professional, event planner, professional organizer, solo professional and many other small business owners. You’ll get answers to the top "I don’t get Twitter" frequently asked questions (FAQ) on how to get greater results using Twitter for business. You get insider secrets to quickly gain an advantage over those businesses who choose to ignore Twitter without spending a ton of money advertising and marketing.

If you liked today's article check out these related articles:
A Social Media Success Story (Part 2)

How to use Social Media to jam-pack your next event

This Way To Social Media Success

Growing Social Network Numbers Quantity VS Quality

Tonya R. Taylor — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 06:23:26 +0000

When growing your social network (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn) community numbers is it about the quantity or the quality?

This conversation was started by John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing who sent this tweet:

“wondering if as your social networks grow they become less social – engagement doesn’t scale online much better than in person”

I’m thinking wow perfect timing; this has been a hot topic in my circle lately so I immediately tweeted:

“@ducttape funny about growing social network numbers, how “expert” status is based on them for me quality is more important than quantity.”

To my surprise, within minutes he responded with this tweet:

“@RisingStarIdeas I know, you’re right – social proof drives who gets asked to the dance, but soon you find no intimacy in that #socend”

Unfortunately, on social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn some people tend to measure you by the numbers. Their social proof stems only from how many people you have accumulated.

The way I look at it, what does that kind of social proof, really prove?

Let’s start with Quantity

When it comes to Twitter and quantity I can think of a few ways to quickly increase followers:

Use a free or paid service that guarantee massive amount of followers some as much as 20,000 or more a month.

Randomly follow anyone and everyone with the hope they will follow you back. There seems to be an Urban Legend stating as a courtesy you should follow someone in return for them following you.

Use a tool that identifies if an account has auto-follow activated then follow them. The tool will automatically punish anyone who unfollows you with a reciprocal unfollow.

Though I am personally opposed to these tactics for my needs, using any one of them will boost your follow count. If you dare to try one or all, keep in mind there is no guarantee your paid followers will be interested in your tweets (messages). As a matter of fact, they can unfollow you at anytime.

Now let’s finish with Quality

When it comes to Twitter and quality I can think of a few targeted ways increase followers:

Use directory services to find tribes of your target audience. You can help your followers find you by adding your Twitter handle to these directories.

Use the list feature to find real-time tweets from lists of users on any given topic.

Listen to your industry or niche, then create and tweet relevant content that adds value. As an added bonus, your tweets may be freely forwarded because good content is often retweeted.

Using these options may not increase your follow count quickly however you should over time grow a targeted list. As long as you remember about the social part that includes building relationships. In my opinion, quality is more important than quantity. My social proof includes measuring the number of followers who are listeners that turn into buyers.

Come to think of it, should social proof be less about the numbers and more about the ability to monetize your community?

Bottom Line

It doesn’t matter; how many people follow you on Twitter or how many friends or fans you have on Facebook or how many connections you have in your LinkedIn network –if nobody is listening.

I’m curious, like John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing tweeted, who do you ask to the dance…What is your social proof and how do you measure it? Let me know in the comments.

Listen Up

For daily updates on free tools, tips and reviews for your small business follow @RisingStarIdeas

Copyright © 2010 Rising Star Ideas, LLC. All Rights Reserved

P.S. Are you still saying "I don’t get Twitter?" Take charge, download my free report guaranteed to reveal why Twitter is a priceless effective business tool for a women owned business, entrepreneur, sales professional, event planner, professional organizer, solo professional and many other small business owners. You’ll get answers to the top "I don’t get Twitter" frequently asked questions (FAQ) on how to get greater results using Twitter for business. You get insider secrets to quickly gain an advantage over those businesses who choose to ignore Twitter without spending a ton of money advertising and marketing.

If you liked today's article check out these related articles:
Social Media ROI ~ create a strategy, tip #1

How to use Social Media to jam-pack your next event

Social Media ROI

Twitter allows you to listen louder

Tonya R. Taylor — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 06:39:18 +0000

I love it when I send a tweet about a product or service and the business tweets me back. Last week I sent this tweet:

“@HaierAmerica where can I find a list of remote codes? Will the model# HLT71 work with Fios?”

To my surprise within a few hours not only did @HaierAmerica respond so did @VerizonSupport with the exact information I needed.

WOW how cool is that; the mere mention of “Fios” prompted a response from their support team. I thought, even though the tweet was not directly sent to Verizon, they heard me discussing their product.

That was until yesterday, when I read the article “Listen Up” by Judy Franks who said “Hearing and listening are two very different things, listening takes extra effort. We may passively hear, but we actively listen.”

She is so right! They didn’t hear me, Verizon was listening.

They were listening too

Two days after the devastating earthquake in Haiti Twitter went crazy with tweets stating AmericanAirlines and @JetBlue were offering free trips for doctors and nurses to help with relief efforts.

Unfortunately the tweets were a hoax. However, both American Airlines and @JetBlue were listening to the rumor which allowed them to respond quickly with tweets about their specific relief efforts.

Many entrepreneurs and small business owners still think social media is a fad, but look around it’s here to stay. It doesn’t matter if a business owner is participating in the conversations on Twitter or other social media tools like Facebook people are talking about their products. Those people are driving the perception of their brand whether they like it or not.

The question is do entrepreneurs and small business hear them, or, are they listening?

In my opinion it would benefit most entrepreneurs and small businesses to at least understand how to use Twitter for business at least as a tool to listen to industry trends and hear what people are saying about their brand.

In addition to Twitter, here are 3 free tools I use to create a social media listening station:

1. Social Oomph – use the track keyword option to set up real-time alerts to monitor tweets across Twitter that can be emailed to you on a schedule you choose.

2. Google Reader – subscribe to your favorite industry blogs or website or find sites using specific search terms all the information will be store in a folder in your google account

3. Social Mention – create an alert to send a daily email after searching any one or all of the following: blogs, microblogs, networks, bookmarks, comments, images, news, video, audio and Q&A

If you are not actively listening to trends in your industry and what your customers and/or prospects are saying you are missing a huge opportunity not to mention doing your brand a disservice.

With a little extra effort, using Twitter and other social media tools entrepreneurs and small businesses can easily listen louder.

Listen Up

For daily updates on free tools, tips and reviews for your small business, follow @RisingStarIdeas

Photo courtesy: © yveslecoq flickr

Copyright © 2010 Rising Star Ideas, LLC. All Rights Reserved

Tonya R. Taylor, Your Savvy Online Business Builder, is dedicated to helping you learn how to use the internet to build a bigger more profitable business. Subscribe to the weekly newsletter Building Blocks to get how-to articles, tips and resources so you can Spend Less and Make More.

P.S. Are you still saying "I don’t get Twitter?" Take charge, download my free report guaranteed to reveal why Twitter is a priceless effective business tool for a women owned business, entrepreneur, sales professional, event planner, professional organizer, solo professional and many other small business owners. You’ll get answers to the top "I don’t get Twitter" frequently asked questions (FAQ) on how to get greater results using Twitter for business. You get insider secrets to quickly gain an advantage over those businesses who choose to ignore Twitter without spending a ton of money advertising and marketing.

If you liked today's article check out these related articles:
Growing Social Network Numbers Quantity VS Quality

3 tools to turbo charge your social media marketing

Social Media ROI ~ create a strategy, tip #1

3 tools to make your website or blog social media friendly

Tonya R. Taylor — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 07:40:47 +0000

Courtesy of Flickr by Creativecommoners

I have lost count on how many websites or blogs I visited with really good, useful and informative content. These sites have unfortunately neglected the opportunity to leverage social media as a free way to massively distribute their content.

“According to a report from The Nielsen Company, Americans spent 17% of all their Internet time using social networking sites.”

With that statistic in mind, I am amazed how many websites and blogs are still not sociable.

Let me explain…

The sites I am referring to are built on some of the best blogging and web 2.0 platforms available; like WordPress and TypePad . These website are not your run-of-the mill or fly-by-night sites, they have history, a library of information and wealth of valuable traffic.

So why don’t they make it easy for visitors to share their content on Twitter, Facebook, email or one of the many social bookmarking sites?

Hmmn…

Maybe they don’t know there’s a simple piece of copy and paste code that will

automatically shorten their article title and article link then give them up to date tweet counts.

look at their website to find a relevant article title and article images before their content is shared on Facebook.

create a button for just about every social media and social bookmarking site available (not advised).

Well, just in case you don’t know, here are 3 tools that create simple copy and paste code for you to make your website or blog a more sharable social experience:

TweetMeme Retweet button has built a live count of the number of times your webpage, article or blog post has been tweeted. This button can be; used on web pages and/or blog post, added to your RSS feed, added to your emails or used as a plugin for most of the blogging software.

Facebook Share button you can effortlessly choose the button or a link option then decide if you would like to use a counter and specify where you would like to place it on the button. Adding this button makes it as easy to share content on Facebook as it on Twitter.

AddToAny button helps your visitors share and bookmark your webpages and blog posts and subscribe to your feeds using just about any service. They have also integrates Google Analytics for dynamic reporting on all your social media and social bookmarking sites on one report.

For those who have not or afraid to jump on the social media bandwagon you do not need a Twitter or Facebook account to use these buttons on your website or blog. You can find an example of these buttons at the end of this (and every one) of my articles.

Don’t miss out on your opportunity to use social media to increase your traffic and broadcast your message.

BOTTOM LINE

I love to share and others do too.

Have you found great content you wanted to share, but the website didn’t make it easy for you? Please share your story leave a response below.

Copyright © 2010 Rising Star Ideas, LLC. All Rights Reserved

Tonya R. Taylor, Your Savvy Online Business Builder, is dedicated to helping you learn how to use the internet to build a bigger more profitable business. Subscribe to the weekly newsletter Building Blocks to get how-to articles, tips and resources so you can Spend Less and Make More.

P.S. Are you still saying "I don’t get Twitter?" Take charge, download my free report guaranteed to reveal why Twitter is a priceless effective business tool for a women owned business, entrepreneur, sales professional, event planner, professional organizer, solo professional and many other small business owners. You’ll get answers to the top "I don’t get Twitter" frequently asked questions (FAQ) on how to get greater results using Twitter for business. You get insider secrets to quickly gain an advantage over those businesses who choose to ignore Twitter without spending a ton of money advertising and marketing.

If you liked today's article check out these related articles:
3 tools to turbo charge your social media marketing

Social Media ROI ~ use automation, tip #2

Remarkable Results!

Social media – who has the time?

Tonya R. Taylor — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 05:38:05 +0000

I was having a conversation this week with a few marketing professionals; their positions run the gamut from C-level executive, president to volunteer. The group consisted of professionals from corporate America to small (really small) business owners.

As the conversation turned from our usual status update to strategies for promoting upcoming events, increasing membership, making the community aware of the scholarships and identifying training programs, I was surprised to learn how many of them are not actively using social media; to, well, market these activities.

Now don’t get me wrong it’s not just marketing professionals. I’m sure I can add to the list; event planners, restaurateurs, professional organizers, solopreneurs, small businesses and large ones too.

The conversation starts like this….

“Are you using social media; Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube; MySpace for business?”

Even if I don’t ask the question directly there is always someone in the crowd who will shout out one of these:

How much time does it take to do social media?

How much time should I spend on social media?

How much time does social media management take?

How much time does it take for a ______ to do social media?

Note: you can fill in the blank with any type of business or industry

Before I can give them my answer, they fire back with…

“Social media; Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Myspace – who has the time?”

If you haven’t started using social media yet because you think it’s too time-consuming, or if you’re only using one because you wish it didn’t take so long to separately log in to each one of your accounts, you’re in luck.

I have created a custom iGoogle homepage tab labeled “Social Networking Tools”. You will find 10 tools (aka gadgets) for Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, YouTube and MySpace.

With these tools you can:

use Twitter without leaving your iGoogle page

view your Facebook news feed and update your status from iGoogle

search LinkedIn from your iGoogle page

access your MySpace activity data from iGoogle

browse, search and watch YouTube videos right inside iGoogle

Just to be clear YOU NEVER LEAVE GOOGLE.

Click here to add my personal “Social Networking Tools ” tab to your iGoogle homepage. Don’t worry you can keep the tools you like, uncheck the ones you don’t like and/or add new ones.

There is one caveat: to enable this feature you must be signed into your Google account, if you don’t have one click here . Good news for Gmail users you automatically get an account with your email.

With my Social Networking Tools iGoogle homepage tab you can save time by using social networking sites directly from your web browser without ever leaving Google.

Let me know what you think, drop me a note below in ‘Leave your response!’

Copyright © 2010 Rising Star Ideas, LLC. All Rights Reserved

P.S. Are you still saying "I don’t get Twitter?" Take charge, download my free report guaranteed to reveal why Twitter is a priceless effective business tool for a women owned business, entrepreneur, sales professional, event planner, professional organizer, solo professional and many other small business owners. You’ll get answers to the top "I don’t get Twitter" frequently asked questions (FAQ) on how to get greater results using Twitter for business. You get insider secrets to quickly gain an advantage over those businesses who choose to ignore Twitter without spending a ton of money advertising and marketing.

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