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As social media engagement increasingly becomes an important metric for small business marketing, many entrepreneurs and business owners feel overwhelmed by the available options.
These days, Facebook is usually the go-to platform, but Twitter can play a valuable role in a strategic marketing approach.
It can be hard to find the right balance between playful and professional, relevant and current, and pithy and informative when it comes to 140-character tweets. Read on for five ways companies can boost interactivity on Twitter and improve their bottom line.
Tweet relevant content
As you grow your community, you want to fill a specific niche for your followers. Make sure your content is generally tied to the company’s industry. There is, of course, some wiggle room for “tweeting outside the box”, but it’s a good idea to offer up content that is relevant to your business to keep things consistent.
Optimize message times
Take advantage of programs like Hootsuite and Tweetdeck to prep tweets first thing in the morning (or at the start of each week) to avoid any lulls in messaging.
While you certainly don’t want to rely completely on auto messaging, it can make it easier to stay consistent with tweets throughout the day.
Another timing trick – write unique, interesting tweets in the afternoon when other tweeters are tired after lunch. Your tweets are more likely to be retweeted when followers don’t feel like putting in the effort to make up their own content.
Use hashtags
Hashtags are a great way to expose your brand to those who wouldn’t normally stumble across your tweets.
Look on the homepage for the trending hashtags of the moment and include the most relevant one to the end of your tweet. Hashtags are easily searchable and, depending on your industry, they can make a “boring” company seem fun and worthy of engagement.
Mention others
Twitter is a great place to get the attention of people who could be major brand influencers down the line.
Interact with people with large followings on twitter and mention them whenever possible to ensure that they see your tweets.
When important tweeters engage with your brand, you increase the odds of gaining free publicity from them.
Just include @username to the end of a tweet when you want to direct someone’s attention to your message.
Ask questions
Asking questions is a great way to get followers engaged and interacting with your brand.
Questions also serve as a valuable, informal survey tool. The merchant account provider, HighRiskPay.com found that posing questions about convenient payment solutions for small businesses was one way to determine what services were most valuable to customers.
The process of asking questions via twitter is not as scientific as conducting official market research, but in this case, it provided the company with information about their business model and made it easier to appeal to customers down the line. All thanks to inquiring tweets.
Twitter might not be considered the most professional of social networks but it’s a valuable tool for any company looking to promote a brand and gain visibility on the web. Not only is twitter a way to interact with users around the world, it’s also a way to share industry news and build a community of potential customers.
About the Author – Brian Patterson is a Marketing Analyst with Online Trading Academy, a day trading education firm with 33 locations spread internationally.
Social media has become a vital tool in internet marketing and has widely been used in making new marketing strategies. It is not an old way to promote things in social places.
But now internet has provided this facility as well! You can bring your product in public where a lot of people are present and your product or service will come to their sight and will be at a distance of only one click away!
Now a day’s internet marketing is not complete at all when you are avoiding social media marketing.
Methods of promoting over internet
There are many ways of promoting a product over internet, you can use affiliate marketing, PPC and social media marketing.
Out of these social media marketing has emerged and grown at a very fast rate. No one ever imagined that this could actually happen!
Now there is a trend of making online stores more than investing huge amounts in advertising and setting up the business physically.
Emergence of social media
The reason of emergence of Social media marketing at such a great rate was that. It provides facility totally free of cost to some extent and that extent is enough to make and stand a new business in the line of already reputed and running businesses.
That is a great opportunity for the business owners to promote their businesses by making fan pages and groups over Facebook and many other social media networks.
There are many types of social media presents; Facebook allows you to do anything!
YouTube is yet another important social network where you can post video reviews and descriptions about your product and services. Twitter lets you tweet around and that tweet can be spread to a lot of twitter accounts in no time.
The reason for emergence of social media as a marketing tool was that it takes no time and your latest idea or offer about your product or service reaches to thousands and thousands of minds.
This concept is the backbone of social media and in this way you can promote your product or service easily and within no time.
Social media mugging
Social media mugging has no doubt taken the whole world into its grip and has allowed everyone to promote the business over internet in the best way.
It takes no time and your business can touch new heights. Social media marketing strategies have integrated everything.
Now you do not need to apply the old strategies in older way. You can use social media to do anything and in no cost up to a certain level.
Linking up!
Linking up is important is social media as it was important in other strategies.
Back links are important to promote a particular website over internet. When your website will be promoted, your business will be promoted and with the promotion of your business you will get new sales at a better pace.
In order to make things more compact, you can integrate everything to social media. You can add plugins and bookmarking your site will help you a lot in coming up to the social networks and in turn getting more conversions.
Author Bio – Haword Roze is a University Lecturer and Editor of Self Test Training. He is researching on University Programs since last three years. You can find his Cisco Certifications and Papers Jobs from Top Universities and Colleges from all over the world
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In today’s highly technological era, entrepreneurs are not only limited to handing out flyers to in order market and advertise their products. Thanks to internet tools we know as social media, businessmen now save a lot of time and effort and still get the company exposure they need without having to leave the office.
But like every marketing strategy, there are rules to follow and habits to cultivate. If you wish to harness the power of social media for your business success, make sure you develop and stick to the following habits:
Build relationships
Unlike print media, social media gives the entrepreneur a chance to talk with his or her customers and hear feedback from them.
One habit you should cultivate is building relationships with your prospects. The goal is to talk with them rather than talk to them.
Be more like a friend than an aggressive salesperson. In no time, you will gain more followers or fans, and eventually turn them into satisfied customers.
Be truthful
No one ever likes to be deceived. In your social media campaigns, grab your readers’ attention by telling the truth.
When you write articles about your product in your business blog, base it on your knowledge and experience with the product.
Don’t exaggerate or write things that are not actually true. Being truthful will build your credibility and will, in turn, invite more interested customers.
Remember, it only takes one dissatisfied customer to bring your business down.
Inform
Customers no longer have to go very far when they go shopping.
Use your social media networks to promote huge discounts, special packages, events, bargains or services.
It can help you increase your company’s trustworthiness and generate traffic to your site.
Entrepreneurs can use this especially during holidays or special seasons.
Respond
Social media networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest makes communication easy – and fast.
Providing immediate feedback to questions, comments and posts are a huge plus to your audience.
Remember, prospects who ask are those who are interested in your product – a timely reply can hasten the purchase.
Provide assistance
To make your business grow, one thing you should prioritize is customer service.
Harness the power of social media to provide customer assistance.
Instead of asking them to call or visit your establishment, a comment, tweet, or post will be enough to provide them with the information they need to know.
Have you been doing these lately? What other social media habits do you suggest?
About the author: Melissa Page is a passionate writer and social media contributor who works with My Life, a site that helps you manage your social networking profiles and other communications. When she’s not busy writing, she’s playing bowling with friends.
There are numerous social networks throughout the online world. For each of them, there is a different audience appeal and application. Every business must be able to understand the full capabilities of their social network and how to employ those abilities in order to generate a quality online presence.
Amongst the social networks, Twitter is one of the most popular social sites for business use, mostly because of its open networking abilities. Anyone can find anyone else so they can see or listen to what they have to say. And while this social site has already gained great appreciation, there is one other beneficial tool that many users overlook.
This often overlooked tool is your “favorite” function. Normally we would use this to simply save a clever quote, an important resource, or even a thread that is noted as something to remember. It proposes a simple job, to store what you enjoy, but there is another far more effective way to utilize this basic tool.
When people visit your Twitter page, they see your stream along with a background, the groups you follow, and those who follow you. But, they also see your favorites which are commonly the things you pay the most attention to. So ask yourself: what is it that you pay attention to? Shouldn’t it include the positive things people say about you as well as trending topics?
Consider that these favorites could be used as third-party testimonials. This is a great way to build a recommendation wall for your business. When people mention you or discuss you in topic, this is a great opportunity to capture a testimonial. Eventually, threads dissipate and old tweets disappear, but not if you favorite them. Favorite the people that say something positive about you- be it an article, comment, product, service, or book. When your name appears, don’t just respond to it- save it as a testimonial. Another advantage is that you can later re-tweet it or share it on other social sites like Facebook or reference them in a blog.
Twitter’s favorite function can basically be used as a testimonial resource, making it an excellent candidate for word of mouth marketing. When others talk about you, it’s stored on your wall to endorse your professionalism and capabilities. With Twitter’s open network, it is possible for anyone to see these recommendations, especially if someone is researching you for a future business prospect. You can let others speak for you because what they have to say tends to have far more influence than all the finessing you alone could manage.
There are plenty of social networks out there where an open audience discusses the things that interest them. Along with these networks are tools that can be employed to accumulate testimonials on them. Always keep your eyes and ears open and be innovative when it comes to utilizing these outlets. This opportunity shouldn’t be passed up, so put it to use today and start building your recommendation wall on Twitter.
Author: Maria Elena Duron, is CEO (chief engagement officer) of buzz2bucks.com – a word of mouth marketing firm. She helps create conversation, connection, credibility, community and commerce around your brand. Maria Duron is co-founder and moderator of #brandchat – a weekly Twitter chat focused on every aspect of branding that is recognized by Mashable as one the 15 Essential Twitter Chats for Social Media Marketers.
I am very happy to show you this Complete SeoCustomer Guide 2012 Q4. And it’s still free for all members of SeoCustomer.
This guide contains all the post and articles from 3. Quarter 2012 about SEO, SEM, Social Media Traffic and Link Building – 159 pages.
After a while the older articles are no longer visible here on www.SeoCustomer.com but you can still get a lot of tips and tricks from the posts.
So I have collected all the articles in an eBook (PDF) – so you can get a hot cup of coffee (or tea) and sit down and read about it all.
You can get the Complete SeoCustomer Guide 2012 Q4 here free after signing up for the weekly newsletter.
As a bonus you will also get the Complete SeoCustomer Guide 2011, 2012Q1, Q2 and Q3. All together 5 ebooks now.
Have a great day out there.
Carpe diem, Henrik
Today, SEO of any standard seems to be incomplete without the integration or the interference of Social Media. Social Media when integrated with your other promotional activities does a world of good to your blog’s goal.
There are many ways you can use different Social Media networks to promote your website. One among them is link building. The following are the list of social media sites you can use for passing link authority apart from usual community benefits. While some help you build huge traffic, the others help you gain value through its authority.
Mixx
Mixx helps you pass authority easily. The social media site can be used to good effect to rank high in the Search Engine Results Page. Being a growing community, Mixx makes it easy to interact and promote websites. For a startup blog or website, Mixx is just a great tool.
Digg
Digg provides authority from the stories submitted. Being a popular social network medium today, Digg has all the strength it takes to promote your blog. Adhering to the terms and conditions on the official Digg website will help you promote your website better.
LinkedIn needs no introduction and is certainly one of the best places to promote your website. The social website has some fascinating features, which you would not find in any social media network. By featuring pictures and videos, LinkedIn helps in indexing links and passing authority.
Hugg
Hugg, like Digg, focuses on a variety of environmental issues. It is capable of passing authority and crawling. So Hugg is yet another tool in your list. Use Hugg to good effect and you will see your page ranking rise in no time. Some social media tools are silent achievers. Hugg is one of them.
Indian Pad
As the name suggests, the above mentioned site is the most popular websites targeting the Indian community. Here, links are indexed, easy to crawl and pass the authority. Indian Pad popular features News from different categories and Technology.
Mister Wong
Mister Wong is a favorite social network to many. It’s a social bookmarking site that is ranked no 6 and it invites do follow links.
Backflip
Yet another social bookmarking site with high page rank. Backflip allows links that can be crawled and also helps in passing authority to your target site.
Swik
Swikis a clean and trustable social bookmarking site with a high page rank. The back links gained from these pages are authoritative. This community is open for developers and programming enthusiasts.
Mylink Vault
Mylink Vault features user-friendly tools and clean interface to provide your site better online visibility.
When do these social networks come into play?
The above mentioned social media networks are extremely useful, especially when you are a starter and when you use them in the right way. Try these tips to help yourself with your social media activities.
1. Keep track of what people comment on your competitor’s blog
By keeping track of what people comment on your competitor’s blog, you will be able to determine what works best. You can also learn new ways to promote your blog or know what people are interested in. This will also give you an insight on which of your products is popular among online buyers.
2. Keeping in touch with people keeps you active all the time
Being a member of a common social media platform can help you in keeping yourself updated all the time. Information and News, which otherwise could have been unknown to you, may be gathered when keeping in touch with people with similar interests.
As you see, social media integration just cannot be ignored if you are going to succeed in your online business.
This guest post is brought to you by Mark Dwayne of buytimewarnercable.com, a site that offers savings and current information with time warner.
Every business today, both large and small, uses social media as a marketing tool. However, there are specific ways to use the various social media platforms out there.
Are you utilizing your social media profiles to your advantage? Make sure you’re steering clear of these common social media mistakes.
Letting People Find Your Blog On Their Own
You put time and effort into devising a blog post – or maybe you paid good money to have a professional write it for you. Either way, it’s a waste if you just let it sit there, waiting to be discovered. Use your social media outlets to boost traffic to your blog. Put Facebook posts and Tweets out every time you have a new post up. You can also link to older blog posts that are still relevant.
Pretending that Negative Comments Don’t Exist
When you open the door for feedback from your client base via social media, it’s pretty much ensured that some of that feedback is going to be negative. Don’t simply delete a negative review and pretend it never existed. Part of customer service is dealing with unhappy consumers. Handle negativity in a professional, kind and accommodating matter, even if it is only on your Facebook page.
Skipping a Strategy
All too often, businesses start marketing via social media without a firm strategy in place. This is like starting a business without a business plan. You may start off strong, but sometime in the very near future you’re going to get overwhelmed. While it’s tempting to jump right in, do yourself a favor and devise a schedule first.
Spreading Yourself Too Thin
Sure, you can set up a free profile on every single social media website out there. Spreading yourself too thin isn’t a good tactic, though. Choose three social media platforms that best suit your company. Is your business image-driven? Make Tumblr or Pinterest one of the three. For the most part, make sure to include at least one or two of the social media dominators: Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google Plus and YouTube.
Using Social Media Websites the Wrong Way
Be smart about how you post and where you post it. Follow these rules of thumb:
• Facebook posts with photos get a lot of attention. For text-only posts, asking a question or writing a fill-in-the-blank are good tactics to get responses.
• Make Twitter hashtags work for you. This is the best way for people to find your posts even if they’re not connected to you yet.
• In the description field for each “pin” on Pinterest, use keywords so that users can find photos they’re searching for.
• Google Plus is relatively new. Try different tactics to see which works best for you.
About the Author – Rowena Kang is a writer and the Director of Content for the Morgan Law Firm. Please visit the Morgan Law Firm Blog for additional content.
Do you know which pages your visitors from Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or Google Plus are looking at?
Do you know how long time they are staying on your pages? Which one of your social media has the highest bounce rate?
The traffic from social media is growing so fast these days – I have around 33 percent of the traffic to Seocustomer.com coming from social media.
So now it’s time to get some knowledge about our visitors from these sources.
So are you ready to take a Google Analytic trip here?
I want to show you how you can use Google Analytic to get all this information.
I will use my Twitter statistic but you can use Pinterest, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn or any of your social media.
Referral Reports
This is the easiest way to keep track of your visitors.
Just log into your Google Analytic account – click Traffic Sources – Sources – Referrals Report. Easy right?
If you don’t see Twitter among the first 10 referrals, you just have to search “twitter”, using the inline filter you see at the top of the table above.
You can also use the advance segment. Click “+New Custom Segment”. Give your segment a name like “Twitter Segment”, and “include”, “source”, contain “t.co” (this is the referral link from twitter).
Now make another segment for your Facebook the same way.
Now you can select both your Twitter segment and your Facebook segment and all of your traffic.
Start by clicking your traffic sources, sources, all traffic to the left.
If you then click on the comparison view (at the arrow) you can get a picture like this one.
Now you can compare all your traffic with the two segments you just have made.
Here at SeoCustomer.com my bounce rate last month was 70 percent. The bounce rate from Twitter was 76 percent and from Facebook 73 percent.
It’s also very easy to compare visits, page/views, avg. visit duration and percent new visits. Handy right?
If you have a goal on your website (and you should always have that), you can check out which of the social media gives you most conversions.
Custom Reports
You can also track your visitors in another way on Google Analytics. If you want to know which pages are shown for your visitors from the social media this is the way.
I can show you how much traffic I get from Twitter, which pages the visitors have seen and how many are new visitors (you have choose between a lot of different dimensions and metrics).
So click on “custom reporting” at the top of your screen and “+new custom report”.
Here is the result
Not so much fun right?
If I want to see the landing pages from my twitter visitors. I just add a new dimension “landing page”.
And now you will see this report here:
So now I know which pages my visitors from twitter is looking at.
Standard Reporting
Now Google Analytic has also made a standard report about the social media traffic.
Go to “Standard Reporting“, “traffic sources“, “Social” and “sources“. Then you will see this next image – where you also can check out the pages viewed 🙂
And remember if you what to know which companies are visiting your site and which pages the individual companies are looking at. I have an article for you right here. Getting B2B leads from Google Analytic and Boost Your Sale Now.
Remember to sign up for our email club so you can download our free ebooks for members only.
Take care out there, Henrik
StumbleUpon is a social media bookmarking site, and as such it does not respond to SEO or other techniques of social marketing to generate traffic.
It is a closed system where user participation determines outcomes. Heavy users of StumbleUpon thumb up or down a lot of content, and that allows the system to understand their demographic better and associate users within a certain niche.
Be an Active User
1. Participate in the community and spend time thumbing up or down websites you discover while there. StumbleUpon uses your thumbs up to help find your niche.
2. Make friends with those who share similar tastes since StumbleUpon shares content with your friends within a niche. This will encourage people to follow you and that will increase the chance they will stumble upon your own content.
3. Contribute content to the website. Eventually, those who are in your niche and follow you will discover your content. This leads to traffic generation.
Buy Traffic
StumbleUpon lets you influence their recommendation system with advertising sold at five cents for every stumble.
There is a lot of advertising on the site, so it is not considered spam, but Stumbleupon users may thumb down your content if it seems too blatant an attempt to influence them.
The more users thumb up content, the more it appears to other users, thereby generating traffic to the site, but the reverse is true for content that receives a lot of thumbs down.
Wait until an especially poignant piece of content is in your posssession then use advertising to help more people stumble it.
Be a Follower
User ratings and their friends’ ratings help StumbleUpon form a collaborative view of the websites in their system. Users will only see content approved by people in their niche.
1. Follow those who seem like they might like your content, since the more StumbleUpon associates you with them, the greater the chance they will see your content.
2. Follow those who said they liked your content by giving it a thumbs up.
3. Follow those the system suggests for you since they are showing similar demographics to you.
4. Follow those who follow you. This is a bit of courtesy, but also a good way to build followers. If they follow you, then there is something that interests them.
About the Author – Jo Harris is a writer and the Director of Content for the Morgan Law Firm, an Austin, Texas divorce firm. Please visit the Morgan Law Firm Blog for additional content.