There are a number of potential pitfalls you don’t want to fall into, as a guide you should seriously consider NOT using twitter if…

• You don’t know what you are trying to achieve.  Far too many business owners jump in and start twittering without really thinking about why they are doing it.  It is easy to get caught up in all the hype with stories like “Twitter will be THE most important marketing tool in the next two years…”  This may be true for some businesses, but certainly not for all of them. You need a clear objective, the appropriate marketing tools and above all engage in the right level of activity.  If not you risk getting sucked into a very addictive activity that absorbs your energy and your time leaving potentially more important thing undone.
• You don’t have a clear picture of who you want to communicate with.  If you don’t know your target market, how can you communicate in a meaningful way, i.e. one that adds value to your relationship rather than damaging it?  You don’t want to be one of the babblers we think anyone actually cares if they are making a cup of coffee, they are time wasters.  In business you need to work on developing relationships with people you want to do business with – who are they and how could social media be used to good effect?
• You don’t want to interact with real people.  Your social media strategy is very likely to fail to deliver your desired results if you try to hide behind your ‘business persona’.  People buy people first – and you had better not forget it, especially in the world of Social Media.

Think of your social media strategy as a ‘virtual form of word of mouth’.  What you are really looking for is for people to want to talk about you, to pass information about you to people they interact with, and depending on your objectives to refer potential clients to you.  If you are a faceless corporate it won’t happen.

Act in haste, repent at leisure, remember this:  what goes online stays online, once you have put something into the public domain it cannot be retracted, if it is interesting it can and it will be copied, forwarded, re-written…  this applies to good news, but even more to bad news.  Social Media can destroy reputations, or help build them.

Twitter is one part of the Social Media tool kit, and this in turn is just one part of the business owners marketing mix.

If you want to know more please call 01865 920003 and we will book onto one of our free to attend Social Media workshops to find out:

What Social Media can do for your business

For those new to Twitter and Social Media who want to discover if it is right for their business

The tools that make up the Social Media Tool Kit

BitLy, Hootsuite, Seismic, Twitter, TweetDeck, Twellow, SocialOomph to name but a few…  What do they all do and which is best for you and your business?  Learn what they and how to use them in your business.

How to use the tools efficiently and effectively

Knowing what the tools do is just the start, you need to know what to do or risk wasting a lot of time learning and doing things in an ineffective or even damaging manner.  Do it right and your Social Media strategy should take just a few minutes each day.

The advanced Social Media Users Master Class

Once you are familiar with the tools and how to use them you are ready to take your Social Media Marketing to the next level – for the right business this can literally skyrocket your sales and profitability.  

Twitter is a very powerful too and for the right business the business it can generate is simply amazing.  Like any tool, it has to be right you, your business model and, more importantly your clients.

What are your thoughts on using Twitter and Social Media?  Where would you recommend someone should start their Social Media journey?

The whole purpose of using Twitter for your business is to gain new contacts and find new target markets, but how do you make this tool work for you? How do you get the right traffic and followers?

Any form of marketing takes effort and commitment to an end goal, social media is no different, and in fact has the highest rewards in the shortest time for those who master it. Generating incoming traffic has to be your number one priority as this provides you with: 

1. A stream of prospects and subscribers
2. New customers and increased sales
3. Branding opportunities
4. Broadcasting your message to mass markets

So how do you get the right kind of traffic and followers to your site? Here are a few ideas to consider.

1. You must know who you are looking to attract – know your ideal audience. Just getting followers is almost pointless. You need to know what kind of people want and need your service and then use tools like search.twitter.com to find those people. You also can’t just launch into a pitch; you must follow and engage with them. Remember the basics; nobody wants to be pitched to when first meeting you.
2. Get the right type of follower – it’s not really a numbers game. Quality not quantity is the key. You want people to read and be interested in what you are saying, this way they re-tweet to their contacts and so the opportunity grows.
3. Add a “Follow me on Twitter” button everywhere, on your website, your email footer, any marketing info you send out, invoices etc.
4. You must engage with your followers. Re-tweet, DM (Direct Message), reply to their tweets by asking questions, encourage feedback and then hold conversations – you are trying to build a relationship one to one so don’t be a robot – show your personality.
5. Tweet out some valuable links. You need to be seen as a giver and so if something interests you, shrink the web link and send it to your followers – they almost certainly will find it interesting too.
6. Measure performance of articles and tweets sent. Vary the times and see if this has an effect on response. Good times are between 8am and 9am, lunchtime and 6pm – 8pm. Change the time and see when your followers and tweeting as well and try to map this pattern.
7. Once you find a formula that works, keep doing it but more. Always test and change headlines, calls to action and style to see if any results improve.
8. When you publish an article, always add a TweetMeme button to make it easy for your followers to share your content – again you are after your followers, followers too and making it simple to share will increase your popularity.

By doing these few things, your following will increase with the right type of follower and improve the results you will see. The main thing is to get a strategy formed and action it. Do not just give up on this valuable marketing tool. Better still contact your IRUN representative and let us provide a strategy for you and help you achieve the goals you want.

With all the hype about social media, is it just a fad or are there real business reasons to have a Facebook Page? The answer is undoubtedly yes.

Why is that? Put simply, social networking is fast becoming the thing that consumes more time than any other online activity, and in some cases all spare time. It is a massive marketing opportunity to the smart players. With over 400 Million users and rising daily, and on average a user spends an hour per day on Facebook, can you afford not to be on there?

So do you have a business page and a personal page – absolutely.

Facebook must be incorporated into any online marketing strategy. Your online presence must integrate into not only Facebook, but Twitter, You Tube, Linked-in. For example, nearly 100,000 use Facebook Connect (a powerful set of API’s allowing developers to interface much more closely with Facebook) which is proven to deliver significantly more leads and traffic to those businesses.

One of the key elements is the Fan page. This allows your customer to become a fan of your product or service, showing their contacts that they approve of you – this is like a personal reference for you. This is very powerful as on average each Facebook user has approximately 130 friends, who could become your next client.

Another major development of Facebook is their news feed capability. This gives the ability to feed relevant content to fans, friends and users based on posts you have made in the past on topics Facebook thinks they will like. This makes it very important that the posts and comments made are relevant and what works best for your brand. Facebook Analytics provide data on your content engagement scores for you to monitor and adjust messages.

Real-time searches are changing in the marketplace. With the likes of Twitter and WordPress making its streams public, Facebook has also moved to do this (unless you mark the content private). Bing and Google are now incorporating this data into search results as well as normal web content searches. This has a major effect on search engine optimisation and brand management – both positive and negative. If you get good reviews on Facebook, then your reputation will increase, however bad or negative comments about your organisation or brand can also be reflected at the top of search engines too, having a detrimental effect to your business.

So now you have a Facebook Page or one that is not performing – how do you make it better and promote it?

Unfortunately, most companies start off with a bang, but get disillusioned as it does not seem to be performing, then drop it for more important things. Having a Facebook Page is much more than just having one – you need to make sure it is constantly updated with relevant content but not just a few wall posts; it has to be video, images, links and of course loads of great articles and content.

Here is a few tips on promoting your Facebook Page:

• Get a link on your website and make it prominent
• Get a Fan Page set up
• Add other Social networking profiles to your Fan page
• Create a Google profile for you business and add links to your Fan page
• Add the link to your email footers – make sure the link works too!
• Add to your business cards

All this takes time to learn and making mistakes is not an option, so why not contact your local IRUN Solutions account manager and discuss how we can ease the pain, set it all up for you, train you and advise on any new developments as they arise.