Posted by Jody Raines
Class is in Session! Announcing Penn State in the City!
If you are from the Philadelphia area and you are serious about learning how to use the Internet for business, I am excited to announce a new social media class that is being offered in Philadelphia by Penn State at the HUB!
The program is called "Penn State in the City" and one of the classes is a hands-on session to learn how your website and social media can be used to create an effective online presence. The information from the Penn State in the City brochure is below:
Social Media Strategies for Marketing
Tuesdays, October 19 – November 23
6:00-9:00 p.m.
Instructor: Jody Raines
President, WebMarCom Internet Strategies
Social Media has changed the way we communicate as evidenced by over 500 million active users on Facebook. Savvy business people are using the Internet to their advantage to market their business. This class is designed for business people who currently have accounts on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn and who want to improve their knowledge to create a strategy for their business.
The topics are timely and attendees will learn hands-on skills while developing a greater ability to harness the power of the Internet and social media. Bring a laptop or call 610-648-3281 to reserve one for class usage.
WHO SHOULD ATTEND:
· Business owners who want to improve and optimize their Web site, social media, and paid Internet programs.
· Entrepreneurs involved directly or indirectly with developing and
expanding their business.
· Marketing department personnel from technical and non-technical businesses, professional associations, and the government.
· Sales people who want to use social media to gain an advantage.
COURSE BENEFITS:
• Learn to immediately implement strategies for effective social media engagement.
• Effectively manage Twitter, Facebook business pages, Facebook Places, 4 Square, GoWalla, and LinkedIn.
• Understand how to immediately improve your Web site and Internet presences.
• Set up tools to monitor your company and PR online for free.
• Discover time management tools and strategies for efficiently managing social media accounts.
• Understand Internet trends – how to stay on top and get ahead of the curve.
• Create a Facebook page for your business and understand how to use it.
• Learn how to create a Twitter following and how to use Twitter effectively for your business.
COURSE CONTENT:
During this power-packed six week session, this course will explore:
• Internet: Why the Internet is critical to your business.
• Your Web site: What is SEO and how can you make your Web site more effective via Analytics and keywords.
• Facebook: How to use Facebook as part of your marketing program and how to register for Facebook Places.
• Blogging: How to get started, why blog, and what topics to blog.
• E-mail marketing: How to create more powerful e-mails and improve results.
• Twitter: Why use Twitter, how to build a Twitter following, and what is the Twitter protocol.
• LinkedIn: Tips and techniques to use LinkedIn effectively including LinkedIn Groups.
• YouTube, Podcasts: What is the power of video on the Internet.
• Mobile Applications: How to use them.
• Time management techniques: How to manage your time while effectively using social media.
For more information, download the Penn State in the City Brochure visit the Penn State in the City page, or call 610-648-3281.
Hope to see you there!
Posted by Jody Raines
Social Media marketing has adopted Facebook with great passion,
and this week, the announcement of Facebook Places was eagerly greeted with equal enthusiasm.
What’s all the excitement about Facebook Places? (and why should you care?)
If you have a business located at a “brick and mortar” location (a location that your customers can visit) you really need to understand Facebook Places and how it can help your business...Why? Because most likely your competition will understand it, will begin to use it, and your customers will be using it!
What are places? Places is a “mobile application” that allows users to check in and say where they are. It’s a lot like FourSquare, only it’s connected to Facebook and therefore there is a built in audience of potential visitors to your location. As part of your Internet Marketing strategy, it's a good idea to know what Facebook pages is all about.
To see whether your business is listed you should use the most recent version of Facebook application for iPhone or touch.facebook.com. Other mobile devices and the web will be added as Facebook continues to roll out the program.
You can also access Places through your device’s web browser by following these steps:
- Point your browser to http://touch.facebook.com.
- Tap the Places tab.
- When you are prompted to share your location, tap "Share Location."
According to the Facebook FAQ, here’s how to ‘claim’ your place: “To claim your Place, search for your business name on Facebook via the normal Search bar. If your business’s Place already exists on Facebook, click on it to visit its page. At the bottom left side of your Place there will be a link that says "Is this your business?" Click on the link and you will be directed to a claiming flow.
Facebook will ask you to verify that you are the owner through a phone verification process, or you may be asked for document verification. Once your claim is confirmed, you will own your Place on Facebook.”
Whether you list your business or not, chances are that it will be listed by a patron, so it’s better for you to “claim” your business up front. By “claiming” your business, essentially you are registering your ownership with Facebook... and you can then assure the accuracy of the information and use Facebook to promote your business location.
Will claiming your business assure your Internet strategy of success? Not really. Will it mean you will have more customers? Possibly. Bottom line: You don't have to bother claiming your Place. But, if it's going to be there anyway, you may as well at least manage and maintain the basic details. By claiming the Facebook Place you are able to edit the address, business hours, profile picture, contact information, and other settings such as designating admins authorized to alter the Places page.
The neat thing about Facebook is that for the most part, users tend to cluster geographically and then spread out. It makes sense because most of the people you interact with on a consistent basis are local. And the power of a referral to your business or about your business can resonate with other, like-minded people.
If your Facebook Place doesn't exist yet, you can use the smartphone Facebook app to check-in at your business to create it. Once your business has a Facebook Place, there is a link at the bottom that says "Is this your business?" Click that to begin the verification process.
It’s not difficult to claim your place, but you will need to send Facebook some evidence that you are the owner... such as your Federal EIN (Employee Identification Number), a scan of official documents such as your articles of incorporation, certificate of formation, local business license, or Better Business Bureau accreditation.
After you submit your documentation, you will receive an email confirmation, and your submission will be reviewed.
Note: The Places application is still being rolled out, so you may not be able to access it yet. Check The Facebook Blog for updates on product launches and other Facebook-related stories.
Posted by Jody Raines
Social Media marketing is about the art of engaging. It's a continuing evolution and the tools of Internet Marketing can go in and out of favor quickly. The sweetheart applications these days are geo-based Foursquare and Gowalla, both location-based 
Twitter-like apps.
As a business owner, the questions I'd ask is whether either of these applications are valuable in the arsenal of ways to reach my prospects, and if so, how would I effectively use them?
First, let's take a look at why these social media channels are important...
According to
TechCrunch, some interesting statistics on the growth of Foursquare and Gowalla suggest they are both in an explosive mode, similar to the beginning of the Twitter bubble, with Foursquare in the lead:
- As of today, Foursquare has just over 1.9 Million users. Gowalla has around 340,000.
- At its current pace, Foursquare will surpass 2 Million users within a week.
- Foursquare is adding almost 10x as many new users per day as Gowalla and, despite a significantly larger base, has a daily percentage growth rate that is 75% higher than Gowalla’s.
- Currently, Foursquare has about 5.6 Million venues and Gowalla has 1.4 Million venues.
- 1 in 3 venues on Foursquare have been checked into only once or never. That number is 1 in 4 on Gowalla.
- The most popular venue name is “Home,” followed by national fast food chains like “McDonald’s” and “Burger King”
- On Foursquare, men outnumber women almost 2-to-1. Exact gender breakouts are not available for Gowalla, but the most popular first names suggest a similar distribution.
So understanding the exponential growth is one thing. It's quite another to have a strategy to capture that growth and transform it into some kind of business tool.
My experience with both GoWalla and Foursquare has been pretty similar. There are some differences in terminology and graphics...
These are applications that you use on your smartphone (I have an iPhone) where you check in at various places and collect points. They are both structured like a game. When you have visited a location more than anyone else in a 90 day period, you get the right to become the "Mayor" of that place. Sometimes that means you are eligible for a gift certificate or a free item. It's a nice perk for loyalty.
Personally, I find these applications to be marginally cute, and most of all a pain - because I have to remember to check in every place I go. I suppose you can get addicted to something like this - especially if you are a former coupon-aholic, and now you have to collect every point or discount.
What would spice up the experience is if more establishments offered some incentive for me to go there... Whatever the incentive is, the idea is to get me to go to your store versus the competition.
I do see that as being an effective use by businesses. The application is still a toddler and therefore there are many businesses who haven't caught on yet.
If you have a method to reach an audience, and the cost to engage is minimal, why wouldn't you try it out to see if it brings any incremental business?
Visiting the foursquare website is interesting to a user because it features specials and incentives from the local merchants.
The types of incentives you can offer include "Mayor Specials" awarded to the most loyal customer over the last 90 days, Check-in Specials awarded when a user checks in a certain number of times, Wildcard Specials and Frequency Specials. It's like a modern day frequent shopper program or coupon that you can access with your phone.
Facebook and Twitter are paying attention, and both have upgraded to incorporate geotargeted applications.
Here's just a sampling of some of the local specials on Foursquare:
- Carrabba's Italian Grill (Marlton, NJ)
- Mayor of Carrabba's enjoys a complimentary dessert with the purchase of an entrée. Grazie!
- Whole Foods Market Marlton (Marlton, NJ)
- Free Small Gelato/Sorbet (any flavor of your choice) for the Mayor!
- The Sports Authority (Washington Township, NJ)
- Get a $10 Cash Card towards today's purchase as a thank you for being our Mayor & Sports "Authority"! Exclusions Apply. Ask Store for Details. 1 per person. Issuance Code: 27427831
If you are a business considering using a location based application, my advise would be:
1. Sign up for the application and use it as a customer.
2. Learn the protocol of the application.
3. Connect with new people and make 'friends'
4. Register and launch your business.
5. Create an offer, and publicize it.
When you are ready to consider a social media marketing program, consult with WebMarCom for suggestions and recommendations for an Internet strategy that works for your company.
Posted by Jody Raines
Social media marketing is important as part of an effective internet strategy and website tool. As an Internet Marketing Strategist, part of what i do on a daily basis is assist my clients with using tools such as Twitter as part of an overall plan. Sometimes it's 
interesting when a client feels they are already doing something correctly, to show them that there are ways to improve the ROI of their internet investment.
I had a conversation with a client today about Twitter. Yes, they have a Twitter account, and yes, they've done some tweeting. However, a quick look at their account, and I knew instantly that they were struggling how to use Twitter.
Social Media marketing is not much different than regular marketing. To some, because social media marketing is new and it's a bit geeky, it's foreign territory. The idea of communicating over the Internet is where they get hung up. They open an account, maybe even create a profile, then they get 'tongue tied' (or more appropriately 'finger tied') because they don't understand the protocol.
In this instance, the stream of tweets indicated that something was glaringly missing.
What was it?
Every statement in their carefully crafted 140 character tweets was presenting their business well. They did a great job.
Bottom line: Doesn't matter how great of a sale you have... No one is listening to your tweets!
But wait, they did have about 200 followers, who they were sure were hanging on every tweet, just fascinated to see what was coming next.
Reality check. No one is listening!
You can have a zillion followers and if you do not have any interaction, you can be sure you are tweeting to no one.
So, how do we remedy this? What's the cure? And how do we use Twitter to make it an effective tool for business?
Jody's Top 5 Tips For Effective Twittering:
1. Figure out who you want to talk with. Let's say you can identify people based on their interests or their geography, or even by their company. If you can do that, do you think you can find a few people who are interesting to communicate with? If the answer is yes, there are ways to do this, in my next post, I'll give you some tools that help.
2. Once you figure out who you want to listen to, follow them. What I like to do is read a few of their posts to get an idea what they 'talk' about, then possibly ask them a question or respond to one of their posts. This has nothing to do with business, it's simply a way to get on their radar.
3. Build your following by aligning with influential Tweeps. Some of the twitteratti have so many followers that they don't check who they are or are not following, therefore if you would like a reciprocal relationship, it's important to let them know that you exist. The simplist and easiest way is to say 'hi'. Re-tweeting is also effective (RT) and follow friday is another great way to pay a compliment (#FF or #FollowFriday).
4. Listen to the conversation by using a 'Twitter Client' such as Seesmic, Hootesuite or Tweetdeck. These interfaces enable to you follow and monitor specific people that you organize into groups. It's much easier to scan these if you organize your followers by category. It's also easier to jump in and out of conversations.
5. Don't just talk about your business. Use the 70-20-10 rule where 70% of the time you are being social, 20% of the time you are sharing information and just 10% of the time you talk about what you do.
The KEY is to establish relationships. And here is the gold at the end of the rainbow - by establishing these relationships, when you have something you need to get out there, to a huge audience, you can ask for the ReTweet... which has two huge implications:
1. Your message will be conveyed to the followers of your followers - a much much bigger audience than your followers alone.
2. The impact of someone extolling your virtues (or your company's virtues) is much much greater than your telling people just how wonderful you are. This takes on the tone of a recommendation or "Word Of Mouth" advertising, the most powerful advertising you can generate.
But don't take my word for it. Try some of these tips and then let me know if they work for you. Also, if you have additional tips on how you use Twitter to make it effective, I'd love to hear about them.
Send me a tweet @Sunswept next time your on Twitter and let's connect!
Posted by Jody Raines
When it comes internet strategy and social media marketing, one of
the most powerful tools in the tool kit for businesses is Linked in. Linked in is especially great for B 2 B marketing. Bottom line, I can tell you how valuable it is, but you actually have to invest the time to use it to see what I mean.
I have friends and contacts from many places, including companies where I've worked, groups that I network with, friends and acquaintances, relatives and social groups. Some of these connections were from long ago on a planet far far away, but Linkedin helps me stay in touch!
One of the coolest things about Linked in is that it is a "living breathing" directory. Even when someone changes companies, or positions, I find out as soon as they change their profile! In the old days I used to lose track of folks, now they keep me in touch so I don't have to.
Last week, I taught a program for Rutgers University, Family Business Institute, that focused on how to effectively use social media for business. The enthusiasm from the attendees as we discussed Linked in and how to use it was so rewarding. That prompted this blog post, since I figure the info is great to have, and once you start using it, you'll be asking for more... (And believe me, I do have more...)
For starters, I'm sharing some of the most effective "power tips" for Linkedin to get you started... Stay tuned for part II!
5 tips for using Linkedin for your business and lead generation:
1. Announce what you are up to:
Linked in has a great little place where you can post your latest accomplishments or links to your latest blog post. This is a wonderful way to get exposure if you are hosting an event, or speaking. Keep in mind that this message must be brief.
I did link this with my Twitter account, but I'd caution that I use Twitter and Linkedin VERY differently! It's not OK to post every tweet on Linkedin... in fact, that would be quite unprofessional. So use caution when linking different social media platforms together to observe the appropriate protocol.
2. Optimize your profile:
One of the simplest things you can do with the greatest return is to optimize your Linkedin profile. If you work with websites, you'll recognize the value of a keyword and of anchor text. So, take a hard look at your verbiage in your profile, and rewrite it using one or two powerful keywords that you want to be found for! Linkedin shows up in GOOGLE, so this is a powerful, yet simple change to make.
3. Make your anchor text count:
Another simple thing you can do is to change your company and blog from "My Company" and "My Blog" to something that can work as anchor text for your website. To do this, go into your profile and edit the settings. Where you currently have a link for your website, chose "other" then use anchor text to link to your site. Take a look at my profile on Linkedin (and connect with me!) to see what I mean.
4. Join Groups:
Groups are a terrific way to connect with people you don't have a connection to. What do I mean? Well, if you don't know someone yet you want to connect with them, you will be challenged for their email address. If you both belong to a group, you can identify that group and you don't need to have the email address! Also, it sounds more like a warm intro if you both share a group, doesn't it?
5. Ask for intros:
If you are connected by one or even two degrees, you can ask your connection for an introduction. Be sure to write a great letter to the person you targeted - which focuses on why they want to meet you and the value you offer. To simply create a sale-sy note will wind up shooting you in the foot - the person you asked to make the introduction will likely not forward the request, and if they blindly did forward it, they stand the chance of losing their credibility with the recipient of the request.
Drop me a note or post a comment here if you have other tips that you've found helpful and would like to share.
Sharing is a good thing!
Posted by Jody Raines
It's difficult, when you think of how large the world of social media 
has become, to determine an effective social media strategy. There are so many social media platforms and options, that it's easy to get frustrated, or lost, and after opening an account, simply give up.
Yet social media marketing is a large component of an Internet marketing strategy. As a web marketing consultant, I find the biggest drawback to social media programs is the amount of time it takes.
Social media does take a lot of time. On the positive side, when done effectively, social media marketing can be incredibly rewarding. The biggest advantage of social media is the power that it lends to the message. Unlike advertising, which is sent out to the masses and which has marginal credibility, social media takes our words and positions them from friends. We trust the recommendations of our friends, and therefore, the power of a simple social media message can have great impact on the bottom line.
I love the fact that a great tweet can be retweeted so many times, adding to your "influence".
Here are 5 tips to get started on an effective social media campaign. I welcome your input and thoughts and hope to add to this list over time.
1. Decide who you want to talk to
Just like any other kind of marketing effort, it's important to decide who your audience is. Then you can determine where the best place is to find them, as well as the best way to talk with them. I'm a proponent of developing a 'persona'... that's a profile of a person that describes your audience. By understanding "who", we can then figure out "what" and "where".
"What" is the message and "where" describes the places that your persona is likely to be conversing or posting.
2. Learn the correct protocol
Each social media platform has it's own jargon and protocol. For example, in Twitter, it's the RT. However, using RT in Facebook is not appropriate. Posting personal info is not appropriate in Linkedin, yet it's part of the appeal of Facebook.
It's important to understand what the expectation is for each of the platforms. Again, posting "tweets" on Linkedin is the fastest way to turn off your connections.
3. Be social, not salesy
The worst thing you can do is to use any of the Social Media platforms for bleating your sales message. It's not appropriate on any of the social media platforms to constantly push your product. For the most part, no one wants to communicate with someone who is selling them.
Make friends, learn how to help others. By helping others, you earn respect and others will want to help you.
My grandmother used to say you get more flies with sugar than with vinegar - share the love, help others and it will come back to you.
4. Use consistently
Plan some time each day to devote to the message. Not everyone can be in front of their computer or texting on their phone 24/7. It's part of the beauty of social media that your audience will check in at different times. If you are not consistent with your presence, your top-of-mind awareness will eventually fade.
5. Add value
Your audience is interested in something - what expertise can you share? What can you offer that is appealing or interesting? Make your content compelling - guides, how-to's, lists, insights. It can also be helpful content that was posted by others that you find notable.
My next post will share some time saving tips on how to handle your Social Media Marketing program.
Posted by Jody Raines
Finding new business can be difficult. If potential customers aren't knocking down your doors or calling you... then its likely you aren't practicing "Inbound Marketing".
Cold calling is one of the most dreaded processes in the sales world. It's time consuming and painful. To some, it feels like seeking a needle in a haystack. Yes, eventually it will bring in sales, and it's certainly better than doing nothing, but there is a more effective way to generate sales and leads. And that's by using your website and social media as a 'net' to capture leads. It's called inbound marketing.
What is inbound marketing? It's understanding how people make purchasing decisions and then using this information to position your company in a way that -
1. Your company is found
2. For the right reasons
3. And customers voluntarily reach out to you.
Is this magic? In a way it is... it's a science of search engine optimization (SEO) coupled with savvy marketing tactics including social media marketing (SMM).
Often my clients reach out to me because they think they want more traffic to their website. It's not traffic that they want... what they really want are conversions or sales.
Lead generation. Return on investment. Determining what your potential customer is seeking and then using an internet marketing strategy that uses the power of the internet to help clients find you and helps you to generate business.
So, if you think your web site is just fine, and you like doing cold calls, keep up the great work.
If you feel that there is a better way to position your business to generate leads, then join the inbound marketing generation!
As a Hubspot Certified Partner, we practice inbound marketing strategies and help position websites and social media including blogs, Twitter, Facebook, 4Square, Linkedin, Flikr, YouTube, UStream and other social media sites. That's why I'm sharing this video by Hubspot that shows outbound marketing versus inbound marketing...Made me chuckle, and hope it brings a smile for you too.
Yep... Cold Calling is for losers...
Posted by Jody Raines
Feeling a bit vulnerable these days? Are your "privates" exposed?
Whether you have a personal page or a business page on Facebook there are some critical things you need to
be aware of. Recent privacy changes have created the utter chaos and groundswell of discontent that is impacting Facebook.
Recent changes to the privacy settings DO affect you, especially when you think you are 'safe', or 'private'.
In a nutshell, you are not.
Consider, Facebook has a track record of 'adjusting' their privacy settings periodically. Every time the Facebook privacy settings change, your profile is at risk of being exposed.
By continuing to use Facebook, (per the terms of service) you are agreeing to the new terms of service.
Add to this: whatever pictures and content that you've shared, even if you decide to discontinue using facebook and 'deleting' your profile, the content and pictures are still part of the data base that Facebook has become.
A database? Not a social network? Yes, believe it or not, the information that you have voluntarily supplied is now part of a super database that catalogues your 'likes' and interests, your friends, their 'likes' and interests, your family and relations, activities, television shows, movies... the amount of personal information that is now being shared about you is very robust and available to be harvested.
So, how do you protect yourself and what should you look for?
1. Evaluate how you use Facebook. Keep in mind that EVERYTHING is not private and once you put your information on Facebook, it's no longer just "yours". Use this as a guide for what you should post.
2. Protect yourself from Facebook scams! Accept friends judiciously. Facebook is not a race to the person who has the most friends. Each friend brings a vulnerability. Due to new Facebook privacy settings, anything you enable your friends to post about you is public, regardless of whether you restricted that information to 'friends'.
3. Understand that you need to OPT for privacy. The default is now set to open sharing. The New York Times reports how to adjust your Facebook privacy setting to make sure that you have them set for privacy... for now...
4. Consider the value you get from Facebook and whether it's time to shut down the floodgates. Some of the most influential technorati are concerned about the 'amoral' use of private information and have begun to close their Facebook accounts.
5. Review your account privacy settings. If you haven't recently, you may want to review these ten common Facebook Privacy mistakes.
Facebook is still a huge opportunity to market your company and to connect with others... but be wise, use caution and arm yourself with knowledge.
If you use Facebook Business Pages to promote your business, as a Social Media Advocate and Social Media Marketing Consultant, I'd still advise you to continue to do so. This article is to caution regarding personal information. To the extent that the 'abuse' of information persists and the impact of the groundswell of closed accounts impacts the fashionability of Facebook to attract an audience, it may be in the near future that Facebook goes the way of MySpace...
In addition, you should listen to our latest podcast from "Addicted To Social Media" A2SM.com which is available either on iTunes, or by clicking the podcast to the right side of this blog.
Posted by Jody Raines
Much has been said about Twitter over the last four years since it was created. Whether you like it or not, use it or not, you have to admit, that Social Media and the micro blog changed the way we get information, share information and communicate.
In fact, a recent article published in Information Week states: "Twitter has evolved into a major distributor of timely information, as opposed to a social network, making the microblogging site an oracle on the future of news, a recent study shows."
For the record, I agree that Twitter can be compared to the media, and I've often used that analogy as well. It is more social, but nonetheless, it is similar to a broadcast media but more powerful due to the word-of-mouth transformation that re-tweeting conveys to the 140 character micro blog statements.
In other blog articles, I've shared my thoughts about inbound marketing and using social media as a tool. The purpose of this article is very specific. This is a how-to that shares some real insight into using Twitter for competitive intelligence.
Why would you use Social Media for competitive intelligence? If you subscribe to the philosophy that "Twitter is a waste of time" or "I don't want to know what you had for lunch today", then clearly you are missing the power of this amazing tool. The wealth of info is truly better than any broadcast or website. If the broadcast stations are not monitoring Twitter, they are missing the boat!
Here's why I feel Twitter has changed the information landscape:
- Real time information
- Breaking news before the traditional media has the info
- If Twitter is set up properly, the information comes right to you!
If you aren't sure how to use Twitter, follow these step by step instructions, and you will be amazed at how much real info you can dig up on an industry, a company, or a person... Sometimes the info is more than they would want you to know!
1. Set up a Twitter account. To do this, go to Twitter.com. My suggestion - use your name or use your company name. Also, be sure to set up your profile and use your picture. You can even get a free background using Twitbacks.
2. Use a Twitter Client to set up your monitoring. There are three that I recommend:
Seesmic is a great platform... It's easy to use and it has some features that make it much easier than the Twitter interface. Loic LeMeur has made some terrific advances that make Seesmic a "Social Media" platform and not just a Twitter client. The ability to interface with multiple social media programs in one place with plug and play capability add to the value and future value of Seesmic as more than just a Twitter client.
Tweetdeck is a platform that is downloaded and which is resident on your computer. It's efficient, but its a memory hog, so if you are someone who typically opens a ton of windows and taxes the computers RAM, it may not be the best choice. That being said, Tweetdeck is still a favorite of many Tweeps because it has a reliable interface and it's easy to use.
Hootsuite has made some great changes and it enables multiple people to manage a Twitter account. I recommend Hootsuite for my corporate clients who want to have an account that can be accessed from multiple laptops and which can be manage by mulitple associates. It also has the advantage of interfacing with Facebook, MySpace and Linkedin in addition to Twitter.
All three platforms can handle multiple Twitter accounts and multiple columns. It's the column feature that you want to be sure to have available.
3. Create lists of people or companies that you want to follow. By dividing your Twitter stream into lists, you can easily follow and identify what is being discussed and seperate the relevant discussions from the 'noise'.
4. Create columns to follow your lists or to follow specific relevant keywords - whether you are interested in a brand or company or product - you'll learn what's happening with your targeted keyword or companies before the information hits the general public.
5. Use tools like Tweetscan to monitor what the conversation for relevent data or keywords, and have the information RSS fed to your inbox.
Keep your eyes open for new and improved Twitter and social media monitoring clients - case in point, Microsoft will introduce Spindex, a late entry into the market, but with the Microsoft name, this could be an important contender.
Overall, Twitter is one of the most powerful tools today for real time reporting and status updates. The strength of the collective input by the user community coupled with increases in popularity as well as improved search techniques make Twitter an invaluable ally in the competitive intelligence and business intelligence arsenal.
Posted by Jody Raines
Building a better website is one of those experiences that can be incredibly rewarding. By better, what I mean is an effective website or effective internet presence. The effective website is known for having been developed for the right reasons and which appeals to the right audience, resulting in real sales.
In other words:
- Site ranks on Google for keywords
- Site improves in Traffic results over time
- Site is a lead generation magnet
Would you say that your website is effective based upon this standard?
What does it take to create an effective website?
- Is it the bold graphics?
- Creative writing?
- Unique page layout?
While all of that is fantastic, the real guts of what makes an effective website is whether it delivers value.
Not just guts... but GLORY. And glory = value.
By value, what I mean are leads. Hard, cold, fast, closed, new customers. Leads.
How do you do that?
It starts by using a fairly scientific approach. And time. And a bit of creativity and skill. And pixie dust...
1. Determine what your keywords are. Then try different iterations. Then try even more. Try keyword phrases. Use a spread sheet and keep a record of where all of these keywords rank for number of hits per month, difficulty and where you may rank for that word.
2. Look for 'low hanging fruit'. Find those words that have decent monthly clicks, but may be lower in difficulty.
3. Start optimizing your pages for keywords. How do you do that? Develop content around a topic. Keep content fun, keywords relevant and yet topically focused.
4. Develop relationships and links. No one lives in a vacuum, but that sucking noise you'll hear is when you are talking to no one. Social Media monitoring is very important for understanding the audience and developing social media strategies. By developing relationships, based upon listening to the social media conversation, and developing social media relationships, you develop an audience. Others want you to listen to them, and in return they listen to you. Compound this by their recommendation and you have a winning combination.
5. Boldly add content. Go where others may not have gone, by writing interesting content, discussing the ills of an industry, or by uncovering new ways of doing things. Be fearless about adding lists of relevant topics or sites. Suggest a controversial approach to intrigue comments.
6. Answer your potential client's question. How to, Why, Critical reasons, Frequently asked, Frequently Omitted, Major Blunders. All start an article that promises to be interesting. How to answer your client's questions is one of the most frequently omitted topics in a social media program. Even if you learn about blogging or tweeting, what are you adding to the conversation and how are you using social media platforms to add value? It's a matter of being part of the conversation.
7. Create downloads that are of value to your potential client. Don't just place articles hoping for google to index you, instead create a logical progression of articles to landing page to content.
It all starts with the keyword and the keyword is content. Nothing can replace it or take its place. Even in social media marketing, the tweets, and posts are google-able. So start with using your keywords and you will earn and improve search engine results.
Its how we deal with the content and how cleverly we can sculpt it to do our bidding that will differentiate the masters from the sheep. Additionally, its' the clever twist of adding value that enables us to cultivate leads.