How To Use Twitter Properly To Promote Your Business

When using twitter to promote your business you have to use it regularly and consistently plus bring meaning to your tweets. Its not good enough to just have twitter and use it because others are or be the first to do it, you have to be the best at it, and know how to use it effectively.

Twitter is a unique social media platform because you can connect all your Social Medias to it. And Twitter falls into the category of micro blogging tools because of the short, disconnected messages it distributes. Twitter shares some features with the most common social media tools (Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Google+ and YouTube). However, the differences really define Twitter.

•   Facebook: A tweet is like a short Facebook status update. However, with Twitter, every tweet arrives at every follower’s feed, unlike the filter of Facebook’s EdgeRank. 

•   Pinterest: Twitter allows you to share photographs and provide commentary in your tweet. However, with Twitter, it’s much easier to have conversation around a shared image than with the comment feature on Pinterest. 

•   YouTube: A tweet can contain a link to a video. However, Twitter doesn’t allow you to create a channel or organize your videos for easy location and commentary. 

Gathered from http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/how-to-use-twitter-for-business-and-marketing/ written by Charlene Kingston.

3 Questions You Must Answer To Grow Your Facebook Community

According to the article 8 Questions You Must Answer To Grow a Vibrant Facebook Community written by Mike Gingerich “Many marketers jump on Facebook and expect instant results. They often see other business leaders seeing success and question why they aren’t experiencing the same results.” I will discuss the first 3 of his 8 questions you must answer if you want to know the other 5 go to http://www.pammarketingnut.com/2013/10/8-questions-you-must-answer-to-grow-a-vibrant-facebook-community/

What are your goals and objectives?
It is always important to first set your goals. In order to grow a vibrant Facebook community you need to set goals if you didn’t that not a problem, no better time then now. The objective is to connect and engage with your target audience in a way that resonated with them.

What is your target market?
The next step if you haven’t already is to clearly define your core target audience. These are the people you are going to target. You need to define the specific demographics, psychographics, and geographic. The questions in which you will be trying to answer are How old are they? What specific industry or niche do they work in? What is the role they have at work? Do they work?

What is the online behavior of your target market?
So what you need to try and figure out is what social platforms are they on now? How frequently do they use or visit these platforms? What type of content do they prefer and how do they prefer it? (I.e. Video, audio, text or all of the above) 

This video is for the people who would prefer audio/video over text, this video explains the 8 Questions You Must Answer To Grow a Vibrant Facebook Community.

“The truth is that although some Facebook marketers may make it look easy, chances are high that the ones that are driving real business results did not just get lucky.” Said by Mike Gingerich

Top 3 Big Myths About Social Media and Content Marketing

Myth 1: My customers are not social

The myth most businesses owners have is that “my customers are not online” well in the article 11 Big Myths About Social Media and Content Marketing written by the Content Marketing Institute and based on the 2013 data from the Pew Internet project 72% of American adults who are online use social networking sites. (Note: 85% of American adults are online). Even among Americans 65 years old and better, 43% of them use social. To further put this into context, about 70% of American households had satellite or cable television, circa 2011. 

Myth 2: Social is not measurable

Social media is measurable but first you have to do something that can be measurable for example: tracking URL’s, visibility into your purchase funnel, unified customer databases. This will allow you to ensure your boss that social media is making you money.

Myth 3: Social is for creating new customers

Most of the people your company is communicating with via social medias are already current customers. Research from DDB found that 84% of the fans of company Facebook pages are on average current or former customers of the brand. For example on Facebook people “Like” what we actually like. On Twitter people will on Tweet about or Retweet what interests them. This makes social media more of a customer loyalty/retention strategy.

If you want to know more there are 9 more big myths that the Content Marketing Institute mention and they are:

Myth 4: You should ignore negative feedback

Myth 5: Social will kill email

Myth 6: Company channels are your most important social assets

Myth 7: Content creates thought leadership

Myth 8: Content marketing and social media are separate initiatives

Myth 9: Your content marketing should be about your products and services

Myth 10: Too much content will give away your secrets

Myth 11: The rules are different in B2B

http://www.convinceandconvert.com/social-media-strategy/11-big-myths-about-social-media-and-content-marketing/

Why Use a Phone Book Anymore?

Smartphone Call From Search

In my Interactive Web Marketing Class (Professor Lindsey Fair) we have been discussing Mobile Marketing in particular. We discussed how many Canadians are using their phones to look up businesses in the moment rather then a desktop computer or a phonebook. So companies need to adjust accordingly by creating a mobile site that is phone screen friendly and has their contact information available because now if you’re like me and your on the go a lot, you probably use your phone to look up restaurants hours or just to call them. All smartphones allow you to call the number directly from the search result. This is a handy feature but did you know that 70% of all smartphone users do this?

According to Google 70% of mobile searchers call a Business directly from search results. A survey of over 3,000 mobile searches that recently made purchases in 7 different areas of business (Travel, Restaurant, Auto, Local Services, Retail, Finance, Technology) revealed that 70% of these searches used the call directly from search feature.

Smartphone users are realizing the effectiveness of calling directly from the search and now businesses need to realize it too, because in the article written by the MarketingCharts Staff “47% said they are more likely to explore other brands when they’re unable to call a business directly from the search results, and an equal percentage said they get frustrated or annoyed.” Not only that if they cannot call your business about 35% would be less likely to use the brand and 33% would not recommend you to a friend.

If a marketer saw this they would realize quickly that a company couldn’t afford to loose a referral because people are more like to go to a company if a friend told them it was good.

Facebook… Grow Your Fan Base

All companies want to have a higher like count and fan base on Facebook, but how? Jim Belosic has a four effective ways to boost your Facebook Fan Base. 

1. Host an Event

• Belosic suggests that you host an event to gain more followers to your Facebook and this can increase your like too. Belosic says “A Facebook contest or promotion can help a struggling Facebook Page Like count — if it’s done right. Like a crash diet, you can have amazing results by preparing well in advance and following the guidelines. Or you can take shortcuts and have a mediocre outcome”.

2. Put Some Skin in The Game

• In business this means owners making personal investments back into their companies but for online advertising many companies are not spending the $ they should be. Belosic says “But to get to the next level with your Facebook Page, it helps to invest more than just time. You also need to spend some money. The most obvious — and often the most effective — option for promoting a Page is Facebook advertising.”

3. Leverage Traditional Media

• Companies are spend a lot of money on traditional media but in todays marketing world that is not enough you need to include Social Media. The combination between new and traditional media could be the knockout for a company if done right.

4. Cover All Your Bases

• Make sure you do everything you can to increase likes and fan base as Belosic says “Basically, there are many little things your business can do to encourage more Facebook Likes, all of which can add up to make a big difference.”