Posts Tagged ‘Twitter’

The Good And Bad of the Twitterverse

August 16th, 2010 by Contributor

Twitter is fast-becoming as popular as Facebook.

Chances are you’ve heard of a little, tiny social media website called Twitter. Barbara Walters is on it. Lindsay Lohan is on it. The New York Times is on it. ActionCOACH founder and CEO Brad Sugars is on it.

If you don’t know what Twitter is, in short, it’s a website you can update with anything – what you’re doing, what you’re thinking, links to funny videos, products, etc, as long as it’s under 140 characters – and people can follow you so they can read all your updates.

When used responsibly, it’s a very good thing. The times, they are a changin’ – virtually all companies now are on Twitter to promote products, news stories, anything to get their name out there on the Web and where lots of people will see it.

In addition, people from all over can “tweet” about their experiences with companies, positive or negative. When negative things about your company are out there for all to see, it can become a bad thing – Twitter can come up in Google searches, as well. For example, Horizon Realty is actually suing a “tweeter” who tweeted what they claim are defamatory statements about their company.

Concentrating on customer service is something that gets lost in the mix for a lot of companies, but it’s a very important aspect of business.

It is vital to keep customers coming back. The easiest way to do that is by keeping them happy.

Do this, and ActionCOACH founder and CEO Brad Sugars agrees. Happy customers can mean referrals, word of mouth advertising and, of course, repeat business.

All of which are great things for a company.

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Using the Internet to Leverage Business

August 2nd, 2010 by Contributor

There once was a time when it was perfectly acceptable to post a simple batch of unchanging customer reviews on your website and call it a day. But you can’t do that anymore. Well, you can, but you’d be stupid to. Seventy-two percent of online shoppers say that web reviews and ratings on company websites, forums, blogs, and so on, influence their purchase decisions more than any other factor. Thirty-nine percent of those same shoppers admit to reading eight or more reviews before making a purchase.

Given these numbers, a business would have to be extremely negligent to refuse developing more sophisticated forms of leveraging customer reviews. And SemaOnlineMarketingConference.com published an article recently that spells out just how business owners can leverage customer reviews on your website. Among their top suggestions was enable reviewers on your company website to effortlessly multi-post to Facebook, Twitter and most blogs.

PowerReviews, one of the more popular review packages available, offers a tool that enables consumers to simultaneously post a review of your product or service to your website, Facebook and Twitter as well as to blogs using WordPress, Blogger, Live Journal and Windows Live Spaces. Now that’s smart.

Of course, customer reviews can leverage your business in more ways, and a big way is for SEO results. One of the welcome side benefits of a reviews domain is higher rankings in search-engine returns. Essentially, search engines reward websites that continually provide fresh, useful content to the web with a higher ranking.

Check out the full article here.

If you need other ideas for how to leverage your business, see what advice a business coach can give you.

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Even Cemeteries Are on Twitter!

July 29th, 2010 by Contributor
If a cemetery can generate business with Twitter, so can other businesses.

If a cemetery can generate business with Twitter, so can other businesses.

What’s the least likely business to send Tweets?

How about a cemetery?

In Orlando, Florida, the Greenwood Cemetery is tweeting to people on a daily basis, and creating a lot of buzz in the process.

The Greenwood Cemetery is one of the oldest in the Orlando area and has set up a Twitter account that Tweets interesting facts about Orlando and the people who made the city’s history.

But that isn’t the only way the Greenwood Cemetery is creating new customers. They also conduct Moonlight Walking Tours about 10 times a year.

So what can small businesses learn from Greenwood Cemetery?

First of all, social marketing is a tremendous way to create buzz around your business, even for a business like a cemetery, which really doesn’t have too many repeat customers.

Second, because a cemetery doesn’t get repeat customers, the owners of the cemetery found other ways to create revenue for their company by taking advantage of the resources that are available to them – like their nighttime tours of the 130-year-old cemetery.

By staying connected on Twitter and finding their niche, the Greenwood Cemetery is a great example of the right way to grow any business.

What do you think about the Greenwood Cemetery’s unique take on their business? For more ideas on how to creatively market your business, see what a business coach can do, and try a free business coaching session.

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The Top Three Reasons Social Media Marketing isn’t Working for You

July 21st, 2010 by Contributor
It's not all fun...social media marketing takes some strategy to work.

It's not all fun...social media marketing takes some strategy to work.

If social media marketing isn’t working for you, you’re probably not using it correctly.

How can you not use social media correctly? Believe it or not, there are a few things you could be doing wrong that can effect your business.

Here are some things you should make sure you’re not doing before putting any more effort into social media marketing:

Who are your connections/friends/followers?: You need people who are interested in your services/products to be connected to you. What’s the point in delivering your sales pitch if who you’re talking to doesn’t really care?

Are you hiding your presence?: You might not think you’re being anti-social on social media, but you could inadvertently be doing so. For instance, is there a link to your Twitter page in your email signature? Do you have a link to your Facebook account printed on your business cards? If people don’t know how to find you or don’t think to find you…they won’t.

Are you replying to people within your industry?: It’s important to talk with potential customers, but it pays to join the conversation about your industry, too — this legitimizes you as a solid player in your market. Hootsuite allows you to set up multiple columns for keyword searches and Twitter lists so you can always see what is being talked about and be able to give a timely reply.

Are you following the “rules” of social media?: You might be following too many, and it could be detrimental to your business.

There are many experts who suggest that you follow specific guidelines in how you use social media. While there are some things that should not be done (such as running a constant stream of advertising), there are some social media rules that may not apply to followers in your niche or industry.

The best way to see what works is to follow those who are successful utilizing social media specializing in the same subject area as you and analyze what they do. Do they reply to their followers/fans often? Do they share blog posts? Do they share industry news? How do they personalize their profiles, backgrounds, etc.?

So…are you doing any of these three things? Stop! And watch as your social media marketing efforts start progressing.

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Still Questioning the Importance of Social Media?

July 15th, 2010 by Contributor
Mari Smith, Social Media Marketing Specialist Extraordinaire

Mari Smith, Social Media Marketing Specialist Extraordinaire

If Brad Sugars or ActionCOACH’s social media blog can’t convince you, with his 2,342 Twitter followers and 3,960 Facebook friends, then maybe Mari Smith can.

Mari Smith is living proof that social media strategies work – she has only been active on Facebook and Twitter since 2007, but already has well over 8,000 friends and fans and Facebook, and an astounding 40,000+ following on Twitter.

She is a Relationship Marketing Specialist and Social Media Keynote Speaker, Trainer and Consultant. Dubbed the “Pied Piper of the Online World” by FastCompany.com, Smith helps independent professionals, entrepreneurs and business owners accelerate their business profits using an integrated social marketing strategy, with particular focus on Twitter and Facebook.

Her mission is to engage and educate CEOs and executives about social media to increase their skills, knowledge and integrity about social media, how to develop powerful profitable relationships using social media, and how these can help them. Business development coaching via social media is just what Smith specializes in.

She is an in-demand speaker for good reason – and she was featured on Brad Sugars’ “Master Mentors.” If you’re still skeptical about whether social media marketing can really improve your business, listen to her audio interview here.

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Brad Sugars Knows the Power of an Opportunity

March 23rd, 2010 by Contributor
There are marketing opportunities everywhere...just look!

There are marketing opportunities everywhere...just look!

There’s more and more information out there about online marketing, search engine marketing and social media marketing. But even though these new sectors of marketing are a bit different than traditional marketing, they do all have one thing in common: online and traditional marketing are all about opportunities.

This is something Brad Sugars does a great job with: finding opportunities to promote himself and his business. However, with online marketing, it can be trickier. Where do you find these opportunities? And with social media sites like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, sure, you might have 500+ followers/friends, but do they really care about what you’re promoting?

If you’re lost in terms of online marketing, you need to be able to first find opportunities which you can expand upon in terms of marketing. Don’t know how to start? The following tools will at least give you a good idea of what’s being said about your company or industry online, and where users spend their time:

• Google Alerts: emails you whenever a chosen
keyword (i.e., company or product name, CEO name, campaign tagline, industry term, etc.) is mentioned in any form of online content.
• Google Blog Search: scans the blogosphere for any keyword or phrase you type in.
• Twitter Search: scans all Twitter posts for your selected keyword or phrase.
• SiteVolume: reports how often keywords or phrases appear on Twitter, Digg, MySpace, YouTube and Flickr.
• SocialMention: enables you to search keywords and phrases by specific channel category (blogs, images, news, video, etc.), or as a whole, and to receive email alerts when a new mention is posted.
• Socialcast: offers real-time analytics on microblogging and other social activities and identifies individual users’ level of activity. Unlike most tools, it also can quantify the value of “lurkers” who aren’t visibly posting comments, but by how often they frequent a site.

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It’s Not All About Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn

February 23rd, 2010 by Contributor
The Big Three: LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.

The Big Three: LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.

As big of a fan as Brad Sugars is of LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, there are a few niche social media sites out there that might serve you well.

People can be blinded by the “big three” named above because the goal of marketing is getting your message in front of as many people as possible. However, it’s more important to get your message in front of as many people as possible who are interested in what you’re selling. That tactic will get you closer to a sale.

From niche European business networking sites to websites linking small business owners and entrepreneurs, Sitepointe.com gathered 20 smaller networking sites that specifically benefit business owners and entrepreneurs. Check them out and see who could become potential clients and who could benefit from a business coach.

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Yammering About Yammer

February 18th, 2010 by Contributor
Yammer integrates LinkedIn and Twitter.

Yammer integrates LinkedIn and Twitter.

There is a new social media site that’s being billed as a Twitter for internal business use called Yammer. This micro-blogging site serves integrates what LinkedIn does — help companies network online — with the structure of Twitter. However, unlike LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, Yammer only connects employees to the same network through the same email domain (i.e. @actionCOACH.com).

Like other social media sites, Yammer lets you express yourself with a status that asks the the question, “What are you working on?” As employees post their status, a feed is created in one central location allowing any employee within the ActionCOACH email domain to discuss ideas, post news, ask questions, share links and other information.

It’s yet another way to get information and ideas out there, and to create a public discussion. It’s too early to tell if Yammer will catch on, but at least this site has a purpose — Twitter is a public forum for anyone to use, and because users can tweet about anything, from “just arrived in Cancun, Mexico. Beautiful weather!” to “I like goat cheese”, people didn’t think it would take off.

But Twitter proved those people wrong…time will tell if Yammer will follow in the steps of Twitter…

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Brad Sugars on Twitter

February 9th, 2010 by Contributor

One of the important things on ActionCOACH founder and CEO Brad Sugars’ to-do list is updating his tweets. He’s a big fan of Twitter, the micro-blogging site, and uses it to communicate and build thought leadership while staying connected to the market and ideas and issues out there.

Sugars is not alone in doing so. He joins the likes of several other high-profile CEO tweeters – Sun Microsystems’ Jonathan Schwartz, Zappos’ Tony Hsieh and Kodak’s Jeff Hayzlett, for example – who have embraced this new medium to communicate with employees, fellow executives, investors, shareholders and consumers.

CEOs are quickly becoming Twitter-friendly and creating brand awareness through this seemingly simple social media tool. According to Business Week, the number of CEOs using Twitter had jumped over the past year as Twitter became more of a mainstream communications tools.

“I use Twitter to communicate ideas on entrepreneurship,” Sugars said. “This is a great brand-building tool. and I enjoy the efficiency that comes from brief comments compared to blog entries that are much longer and require more commitment in terms of time.”

CEOs and executives who use Twitter are considered part lead brand ambassador, part-celebrity. They have the ability to personalize their brands and are able to create more brand awareness and networking opportunities through a growing following on Twitter.

Sugars, who in less than three weeks’ time, built a solid following of 1095 people, emphasizes on having a clear objective as well as a commitment to the medium before getting on the bandwagon.

It is crucial to first determine what you would like to achieve through your tweets –in other words, who comprises your target audience –and then, make a commitment to tweeting several times a day,” he said.

Follow Brad Sugars on Twitter and watch the man in action!

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Does Privacy Exist Anymore?

February 3rd, 2010 by Contributor

Nowadays, it might not seem so – even if Facebook or Twitter profiles are protected or “locked,” if you’re friends with colleagues who see you tagged in a picture of something unprofessional or unflattering, you’d better make sure certain friends don’t see it or it could mean your job.

People are oversharing, which can get them into trouble, broadcasting exactly where they are on Foursquare and Gowalla, and uploading photos of personal moments, like the birth of their first child, for all to see.

It might be safe to say that, with any of these sites, we don’t have any privacy. Instead of living in private and making certain parts of our lives public, we’re living in public, and choosing what parts of our lives to keep private.

So, “does privacy exist anymore?” What do you think?

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