Have you ever wondered how to use the power of Google to search for people to follow on Twitter? Check out this custom search string. I wish I could take credit for discovering it, but I can't.
While perusing on Twitter, I came across a tweet that had the following Google search string in it:
site:twitter.com bio location tx 100...1000000 followers -400
Unfortunately, I don't remember who posted this originally.
If you happen to catch this article, please let me know so I can give you proper credit. Having said that, let's look more closely at what that search string does.
Here's the breakdown:
"site:twitter.com" Says search on the site twitter.com
"bio location tx" Instructs the search engine to look in the "bio" section for the location of "tx" aka Texas.
"100...1000000 followers" Says find people that have between 100 to 1 million followers
"-400″ is code that instructs the search engine to exclude certain words from the result. It's automatically appended to the string when you hit the "search" button. I don't know or understand why, it just is.
This little "-400" snippet could come in handy if you wanted to exclude people with the phrase "make money online" or "look at my pictures" or something along those lines in their profile. I'm not saying that you should, I'm just pointing out that the option is there.
In case you haven't guessed it, the string is for an advanced Google search. Most people never use the advanced search functionality, but it's there for the taking. Every so often, I come across something like this and I remember why I think the big G rocks.
For fun, I suggest you run this search in your own city and see who comes up. I found a lot of interesting people to follow using that little search string, you might too. Let me know if this works for you in the comments.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Use Social Media To Create Leads Client ! And Of course Money
Of course, your first passion and love is for the job that you do. Home staging is challenging, interesting, and so rewarding once each project comes together and your clients reap the benefits of your magic touch. You don't want to have to learn a whole other profession just to garner interest in your business, and there are only so many hours in each day. You will find that most of your advertising and gaining public presence can be done with simple, often free online tools that are already being used by over 300 million people each day. Social media sites are the business owners best friend.
The top four sites, such as Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and Twitter, will allow you to easily link your business website to your respective profile pages, and this gives a greater amount of visibility to your brand or company name. By linking yourself in this way, you have a far greater chance of not only being found by those who seek the services that you provide, but of being picked up more readily by the search engines. The more popular your links become, the higher on the search pages your business will become.
If you aren't familiar with SEO or with keyword statistics, this is not a big deal at all. There are plenty of ways to keep your website updated and fresh, and people that you can hire to write the content that you need for a very fair price. This opens up your time for the important things, such as running your business, and ensures that your site and blogs are always handled in a professional way. There are also ways of uploading and feeding rich media to your website so that you can offer visitors multiple ways of seeing the value in what you do.
YouTube offers widgets, for example, that you can place within your website, as well as links to your other social media pages. What this does is allows people to see flash slideshows or even actual footage of before and after results for homes that you have staged. Most people cannot argue with a home well staged and sold, so be sure that you make your work the star of all of your online endeavors. Don't forget to add your links to all of your business and personal emails, and start building up that contact list.
The top four sites, such as Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and Twitter, will allow you to easily link your business website to your respective profile pages, and this gives a greater amount of visibility to your brand or company name. By linking yourself in this way, you have a far greater chance of not only being found by those who seek the services that you provide, but of being picked up more readily by the search engines. The more popular your links become, the higher on the search pages your business will become.
If you aren't familiar with SEO or with keyword statistics, this is not a big deal at all. There are plenty of ways to keep your website updated and fresh, and people that you can hire to write the content that you need for a very fair price. This opens up your time for the important things, such as running your business, and ensures that your site and blogs are always handled in a professional way. There are also ways of uploading and feeding rich media to your website so that you can offer visitors multiple ways of seeing the value in what you do.
YouTube offers widgets, for example, that you can place within your website, as well as links to your other social media pages. What this does is allows people to see flash slideshows or even actual footage of before and after results for homes that you have staged. Most people cannot argue with a home well staged and sold, so be sure that you make your work the star of all of your online endeavors. Don't forget to add your links to all of your business and personal emails, and start building up that contact list.
Learn From Social Media !How to Market Your Product
We are living in the information age, the age where ideas are more popular than products, where programs replace product, where teleseminars and webinars trump books. Everyone it seems has hung out a shingle touting their expert status whether it is in how to make money, social media, teleseminar techniques, millionaire mindsets, living longer, losing weight or any other specialty of the day. The challenge is in making sure that you are genuinely getting your information from proven talents and real experts. So before you dive after someone's latest nugget or invest in that hot program, here are some guidelines to measure their true value:
Do they "walk their talk?" Do they do what they recommend you do? Are they practicing completely what they teach? (Check them out online!) This is particularly prevalent with online business. The best teacher of teleseminars is one who is doing them frequently, has created a process, and is successful at it. You want to avoid someone who has never put on a teleseminar but proclaims themselves an expert and shows you someone else's process but has never done it themselves. A recent favorite example is a social media speaker who doesn't have a profile or presence on Twitter, none on Linked IN, and a fan page with less than 50 fans on Facebook, and no other profile on that network. They may know some things, and can contribute to a discussion, but they aren't active online, in the trenches day to day practicing what they are planning to preach.
What is the depth of their experience? A Lifetime? Years? Months? Days?
There are many self proclaimed experts who hang out a shingle because a topic is popular, their experience is limited, but their confidence isn't! The challenge is that you won't get the real depth of knowledge you seek and deserve and you are likely to get erroneous information due to their lack of expertise.
What is the source of their expertise? Formal Training? Private Mentoring? Certification (if applicable and relevant)? Winging It? Now, I'm not suggesting that the school of hard knocks isn't a valuable teacher; it is one of the most valuable! But in the information age it is simple to enroll in programs, mentoring, and more to take your expertise farther. Check to see if your expert has. They need to know their expertise inside and out, both actual practice and the education view.
Are they recommended by colleagues and clients? Now I appreciate this may be a bit unusual, yet in this information age, it is important to know who an expert is surrounded by. It is simple enough to get a handful of rave reviews from friends, that's why it is important to look for comments and kudos from colleagues, peers, and real clients/customers. The exception is if this person's expertise is translating from another field or specialty and their reputation in that field carries them into this one.
So when you invest in yourself, your knowledge, and your expertise, be sure that you are getting it from truly qualified, experienced experts in their field. You deserve the finest in your information investment and also a source that will support you in your learning. Most (though not all) reputable programs offered by genuine experts come with a full money back guarantee. Your financial investment in your greatest asset is then well protected. Check before you dive in, experts stand on every corner, true experts guarantee the quality of their content and delivery. Results are always up to you!
Do they "walk their talk?" Do they do what they recommend you do? Are they practicing completely what they teach? (Check them out online!) This is particularly prevalent with online business. The best teacher of teleseminars is one who is doing them frequently, has created a process, and is successful at it. You want to avoid someone who has never put on a teleseminar but proclaims themselves an expert and shows you someone else's process but has never done it themselves. A recent favorite example is a social media speaker who doesn't have a profile or presence on Twitter, none on Linked IN, and a fan page with less than 50 fans on Facebook, and no other profile on that network. They may know some things, and can contribute to a discussion, but they aren't active online, in the trenches day to day practicing what they are planning to preach.
What is the depth of their experience? A Lifetime? Years? Months? Days?
There are many self proclaimed experts who hang out a shingle because a topic is popular, their experience is limited, but their confidence isn't! The challenge is that you won't get the real depth of knowledge you seek and deserve and you are likely to get erroneous information due to their lack of expertise.
What is the source of their expertise? Formal Training? Private Mentoring? Certification (if applicable and relevant)? Winging It? Now, I'm not suggesting that the school of hard knocks isn't a valuable teacher; it is one of the most valuable! But in the information age it is simple to enroll in programs, mentoring, and more to take your expertise farther. Check to see if your expert has. They need to know their expertise inside and out, both actual practice and the education view.
Are they recommended by colleagues and clients? Now I appreciate this may be a bit unusual, yet in this information age, it is important to know who an expert is surrounded by. It is simple enough to get a handful of rave reviews from friends, that's why it is important to look for comments and kudos from colleagues, peers, and real clients/customers. The exception is if this person's expertise is translating from another field or specialty and their reputation in that field carries them into this one.
So when you invest in yourself, your knowledge, and your expertise, be sure that you are getting it from truly qualified, experienced experts in their field. You deserve the finest in your information investment and also a source that will support you in your learning. Most (though not all) reputable programs offered by genuine experts come with a full money back guarantee. Your financial investment in your greatest asset is then well protected. Check before you dive in, experts stand on every corner, true experts guarantee the quality of their content and delivery. Results are always up to you!
Creating A link Bait For Your Websites
The term "Link bait" is used for a type of internet marketing that involves getting your message out and getting viewers to link to it from other websites. A form of viral internet marketing, it can be an effective tool to drive traffic to your site.
The key to using link baiting is creating content that appeals to bloggers, Diggers and other internet surfers, who in turn link to your content, drawing in more viewers and so on. While some think link bait is beyond the reach of many websites and blogs, more and more of the experts are coming to the realization that this form of viral internet marketing can be used for any type of campaign.
This can happen simply by realizing that the internet is more than just a mass market. It is, ultimately, a collection of very specific niche markets with link savvy consumers who want more than just the popular lists or entertainment. Your children can be using the link bait method without even realizing it if they link to products they like on their MySpace or Facebook pages. The internet is filled with unexplored potential to be discovered on a daily basis. All you need to harness that potential is a good understanding of the method and a means to use it.
Going beyond the basics on your website is an excellent way to generate link bait. Rather than just listing products you can also give tips, advice etc. on using your products. Giving extra information increases your visitor's understanding, encouraging them to buy and to pass on the information to friends who will also pass it on. This is called giving the customer added value and is a popular way to generate traffic.
By using the tools, methods and ideas plus social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook you can easily generate link bait and tremendously increase the traffic to your site.
The key to using link baiting is creating content that appeals to bloggers, Diggers and other internet surfers, who in turn link to your content, drawing in more viewers and so on. While some think link bait is beyond the reach of many websites and blogs, more and more of the experts are coming to the realization that this form of viral internet marketing can be used for any type of campaign.
This can happen simply by realizing that the internet is more than just a mass market. It is, ultimately, a collection of very specific niche markets with link savvy consumers who want more than just the popular lists or entertainment. Your children can be using the link bait method without even realizing it if they link to products they like on their MySpace or Facebook pages. The internet is filled with unexplored potential to be discovered on a daily basis. All you need to harness that potential is a good understanding of the method and a means to use it.
Going beyond the basics on your website is an excellent way to generate link bait. Rather than just listing products you can also give tips, advice etc. on using your products. Giving extra information increases your visitor's understanding, encouraging them to buy and to pass on the information to friends who will also pass it on. This is called giving the customer added value and is a popular way to generate traffic.
By using the tools, methods and ideas plus social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook you can easily generate link bait and tremendously increase the traffic to your site.
Travel The States Via Twitter
Where in the USA do you want to go today? If you use the Internet to plan family and adventure trips, perhaps you have browse sites developed by the many tourism bureaus established around the country. For every state and territory in the union, there is a department encompassing that entire region, and multiple cities and towns within are certain to have organizations that more precisely market their area. It's no surprise, too, to see so many bureaus and tourism representative entice Twitter users to follow them and get the low-down on hotel and attraction specials and upcoming events.
If you're the wandering sort, here are fifty (give or take a few) profiles that ought to be on your follow list. Note: not all accounts below are officially representative of their respective visitors bureaus, but do reflect travel tweeting for that state. To visit just tag on the Twitter profile name after the URL.
If you operate the state's tourism bureau it is necessary to have all social media profile visible so prospective visitors can follow your updates. Consulting with a search engine and social media optimization company that specializes in travel and tourism is a good way to raise your online awareness as people plan their vacations.
Alabama - TweetHomeAla
Alaska - AK_Vacation
American Samoa - SamoaNews
Arizona - ArizonaTourism
Arkansas - ARTourism
California - CATourism
Colorado - Visit_Colorado
Connecticut - HartfordCVB
Delaware - DE_Vacation
District of Columbia - DCWire
Florida - VisitFlorida
Georgia - GeorgiaTourism
Hawaii - AlohaSpots
Idaho - VisitIdaho
Illinois - EnjoyIllinois
Indiana - VisitIndiana
Iowa - IowaVacation
Kansas - TravelKS
Kentucky - KentuckyTourism
Louisiana - LouisianaTravel
Maine - MaineTourism
Maryland - MDTourism
Massachusetts - MA_Vacation
Michigan - PureMichigan
Minnesota - MN_vacation
Mississippi - VisitMS
Missouri - MissouriLife
Montana - VisitMontana
Nebraska - NebraskaTourism
Nevada - TravelNevada
New Hampshire - VisitNH
New Jersey - NJ_Vacation
New Mexico - NMTourism
New York - NY_Vacation
North Carolina - VisitNC
North Dakota - ND_Vacation
Northern Marianas Islands - GoToMarianas
Ohio - DiscoverOhio
Oklahoma - OklahomaTourism
Oregon - TravelOregon
Pennsylvania - VisitPA
Puerto Rico - MeetPuertoRico
Rhode Island - RIEvents
South Carolina - SCTourism
South Dakota - TravelSD
Tennessee - TNVacation
Texas - TravelToTexas
Utah - UtahVacation
Vermont - VermontTourism
Virginia - VisitVirginia
Virgin Islands - Virgin_Islands
Washington - WA_Vacation
West Virginia - VisitWV
Wisconsin - WIBestBets
Wyoming - WyomingTourism
If you're the wandering sort, here are fifty (give or take a few) profiles that ought to be on your follow list. Note: not all accounts below are officially representative of their respective visitors bureaus, but do reflect travel tweeting for that state. To visit just tag on the Twitter profile name after the URL.
If you operate the state's tourism bureau it is necessary to have all social media profile visible so prospective visitors can follow your updates. Consulting with a search engine and social media optimization company that specializes in travel and tourism is a good way to raise your online awareness as people plan their vacations.
Alabama - TweetHomeAla
Alaska - AK_Vacation
American Samoa - SamoaNews
Arizona - ArizonaTourism
Arkansas - ARTourism
California - CATourism
Colorado - Visit_Colorado
Connecticut - HartfordCVB
Delaware - DE_Vacation
District of Columbia - DCWire
Florida - VisitFlorida
Georgia - GeorgiaTourism
Hawaii - AlohaSpots
Idaho - VisitIdaho
Illinois - EnjoyIllinois
Indiana - VisitIndiana
Iowa - IowaVacation
Kansas - TravelKS
Kentucky - KentuckyTourism
Louisiana - LouisianaTravel
Maine - MaineTourism
Maryland - MDTourism
Massachusetts - MA_Vacation
Michigan - PureMichigan
Minnesota - MN_vacation
Mississippi - VisitMS
Missouri - MissouriLife
Montana - VisitMontana
Nebraska - NebraskaTourism
Nevada - TravelNevada
New Hampshire - VisitNH
New Jersey - NJ_Vacation
New Mexico - NMTourism
New York - NY_Vacation
North Carolina - VisitNC
North Dakota - ND_Vacation
Northern Marianas Islands - GoToMarianas
Ohio - DiscoverOhio
Oklahoma - OklahomaTourism
Oregon - TravelOregon
Pennsylvania - VisitPA
Puerto Rico - MeetPuertoRico
Rhode Island - RIEvents
South Carolina - SCTourism
South Dakota - TravelSD
Tennessee - TNVacation
Texas - TravelToTexas
Utah - UtahVacation
Vermont - VermontTourism
Virginia - VisitVirginia
Virgin Islands - Virgin_Islands
Washington - WA_Vacation
West Virginia - VisitWV
Wisconsin - WIBestBets
Wyoming - WyomingTourism
Promote Twitter On Regular Basis
If there is an online social network out there, businesses are a part of that community in an effort to boost traffic to their website. These social networking sites are dedicated to the interaction of people who want to read and share information they find on the Internet. Many users will share links, online reviews and articles via with their friends which is why the business finds a great home within these networks.
If you are trying to promote a business with a social networking website, it is not as simple as signing up and logging in to post. You need to familiarize, read and join.
Familiarizing yourself with an online social network and the tools the network offers is the perfect first step to Internet marketing. Each network will offer different tools, but all are used to share information with users. Before posting and adding friends to your network, take a look around at the top users and the website itself. There could be some hidden marketing gems that you would never see if you just jumped into the socialization.
Reading the terms of service is another huge step in creating and maintaining a strong social connection with your readers. Each social network will have a different set of terms. These details in the fine print could include information about linking to outside sources and the number of links allowed per post. It is important to know what rules you need to follow and keep track of those rules with a handy "How To" guide for each network.
Joining groups within the social network is a great way to build readership without spending hours looking for friends who are interested in your niche. If you are running a dating website, for instance, there could be a social networking group within the site that already has thousands of members. Joining this group will give you immediate access to people looking for information on dating.
Along those same lines, many business niches have groups within social networks as well. These business niches will often be filled with other businesses looking to promote their products or services which could mean learning more about online marketing but will often not lead to additional hits on your website.
Forums as Social Networks
Forums are a form of social network that tend to be a bit more rule oriented than say FaceBook or MySpace. There are forums available for every website niche, but joining these forums and sharing often requires following a set of rules. Many forums require a new member to post a certain number of times before they can share a link in a signature or within a post. This can be a great thing as it takes time to build a relationship with members of the forum.
Relationships are at the heart of social networks and those relationships can mean all the difference to a website that wants to build quality traffic. While links shared on social networks are not (as of the posting of this article) indexed by search engines, that is not to say they won't ever be indexed. Just imagine the power of your website if you get into the habit of posting regularly on a social network when a search engine begins to recognize these links.
If you are trying to promote a business with a social networking website, it is not as simple as signing up and logging in to post. You need to familiarize, read and join.
Familiarizing yourself with an online social network and the tools the network offers is the perfect first step to Internet marketing. Each network will offer different tools, but all are used to share information with users. Before posting and adding friends to your network, take a look around at the top users and the website itself. There could be some hidden marketing gems that you would never see if you just jumped into the socialization.
Reading the terms of service is another huge step in creating and maintaining a strong social connection with your readers. Each social network will have a different set of terms. These details in the fine print could include information about linking to outside sources and the number of links allowed per post. It is important to know what rules you need to follow and keep track of those rules with a handy "How To" guide for each network.
Joining groups within the social network is a great way to build readership without spending hours looking for friends who are interested in your niche. If you are running a dating website, for instance, there could be a social networking group within the site that already has thousands of members. Joining this group will give you immediate access to people looking for information on dating.
Along those same lines, many business niches have groups within social networks as well. These business niches will often be filled with other businesses looking to promote their products or services which could mean learning more about online marketing but will often not lead to additional hits on your website.
Forums as Social Networks
Forums are a form of social network that tend to be a bit more rule oriented than say FaceBook or MySpace. There are forums available for every website niche, but joining these forums and sharing often requires following a set of rules. Many forums require a new member to post a certain number of times before they can share a link in a signature or within a post. This can be a great thing as it takes time to build a relationship with members of the forum.
Relationships are at the heart of social networks and those relationships can mean all the difference to a website that wants to build quality traffic. While links shared on social networks are not (as of the posting of this article) indexed by search engines, that is not to say they won't ever be indexed. Just imagine the power of your website if you get into the habit of posting regularly on a social network when a search engine begins to recognize these links.
Increase Your Twitter Productivit
Owning and operating your business keeps you very busy. That's a given. Busy people need effective tools to make their marketing efforts more productive with less time spent. Following are four social media tools that will increase your productivity and help to substantially grow your small business.
Blogpulse
Blogpulse is a web site designed to allow you to efficiently search through the various new blogging trends and also to simultaneously follow various blog conversations. It's an amazing tool to help you weed through all of those blogging entries that have absolutely nothing that you are looking to learn.
TweetDeck
Twitter is absolutely huge! No social media marketing strategy is complete without it. With TweetDeck, you can manage conversations, create new groups, opt to follow new friends or groups, manage multiple twitter accounts, enter new tweets and keep your eye on various trends involving social media networking. In addition, you can instantly update your FaceBook profile from your TweetDeck home page.
Flock
Flock is an Earth-friendly new web browser that integrates your various social media networking websites right into your home page. You can follow all of your friends that are on MySpace, Twitter, FaceBook and more simply by starting up your Internet browser. There are also special media bars for Flickr, Truveo and YouTube. Additionally, a simple click of an included icon allows you to instantaneously access your accounts at Gmail, Yahoo and/or AOL. And if all of that were not enough, this browser also supports Photobucket, Digg, WordPress, Blogger and more.
Jott
Jott is a service that allows your family, friends and work associates to leave messages for you by calling a specific number and leaving a voice mail. That voice mail is taken by the Jott system and turned into a text message. That message is then sent to your specified e-mail address, cell phone or web site. Jott is gaining huge momentum as a very effective social media resource.
Enhance your marketing productivity by regularly utilizing these and other social media tools and resources!
Blogpulse
Blogpulse is a web site designed to allow you to efficiently search through the various new blogging trends and also to simultaneously follow various blog conversations. It's an amazing tool to help you weed through all of those blogging entries that have absolutely nothing that you are looking to learn.
TweetDeck
Twitter is absolutely huge! No social media marketing strategy is complete without it. With TweetDeck, you can manage conversations, create new groups, opt to follow new friends or groups, manage multiple twitter accounts, enter new tweets and keep your eye on various trends involving social media networking. In addition, you can instantly update your FaceBook profile from your TweetDeck home page.
Flock
Flock is an Earth-friendly new web browser that integrates your various social media networking websites right into your home page. You can follow all of your friends that are on MySpace, Twitter, FaceBook and more simply by starting up your Internet browser. There are also special media bars for Flickr, Truveo and YouTube. Additionally, a simple click of an included icon allows you to instantaneously access your accounts at Gmail, Yahoo and/or AOL. And if all of that were not enough, this browser also supports Photobucket, Digg, WordPress, Blogger and more.
Jott
Jott is a service that allows your family, friends and work associates to leave messages for you by calling a specific number and leaving a voice mail. That voice mail is taken by the Jott system and turned into a text message. That message is then sent to your specified e-mail address, cell phone or web site. Jott is gaining huge momentum as a very effective social media resource.
Enhance your marketing productivity by regularly utilizing these and other social media tools and resources!
Branidng Your Tweets
Twitter is a wildly popular microblogging service. It involves writing Tweets, which are short updates of a maximum of 140 characters that tell your followers what you are up to. Although your Tweets are technically supposed to answer the question, "What are you doing?" Twitter has moved far beyond that. Tweets are used to share stories, link to photos, promote content, break news, and a whole lot more. Twitter has also become an incredibly important tool for social media marketing professionals. Here are 12 ways in which Twitter can be used in your social media marketing campaign.
1. Sharing Links to Items of Interest
As soon as you read something online that you think is interesting, it is easy to share it on Twitter with all of your followers. Twitter is highly effective in this manner because it is such a quick way to be able to reach a large group of people. You can also get a lot of great ideas for blog posts from Twitter since many new ideas and stories are floating around that haven't even made it to the blogosphere and definitely not to mainstream media.
2. Building Your Network
Using Twitter is a great way to build your network because it allows you to find and follow people with similar interests. You can use Steeple to find people who live in your geographical area. You can also use other tools that help you find new people to follow based upon who your Twitter friends follow.
3. Build Relationships within Your Current Network
People in different networks often use Twitter to connect with their contacts instantly rather than using instant messaging for that purpose. Furthermore, many people use Twitter to connect with their network during events like conferences.
4. Re-Distributing Content from Your Blog or Website
Twitter can be used to redistribute content from your blog or website. However, you should take care to do this thoughtfully since many of your Twitter followers may already read your blog. For that reason, you may want to avoid using a blog plug-in that automatically Tweets your posts. Your best bet is to Tweet your content manually and customize each Tweet so it doesn't get old.
5. Get Involved in Live Tweeting Events
Twitter launched at SXSW last year, catapulting microblogging conferences to fame. Live Tweeting events are great because they are a form of citizen journalism that allow you to connect with several new people in your niche while making active and valuable contributions to current discussions in your community.
6. Pitching Stories to Journalists on Twitter
You can send a direct message to a journalist who is following you on Twitter to pitch a story idea.
7. Communicating with Your Team
You can use Twitter as a company intranet that connects all of your employees. Twitter can be particularly useful in this regard if you have a virtual business with employees in different geographical locations. You can set your updates to private for security reasons. Anytime you are working on group projects, you can stay in touch with your team members using Twitter.
8. Brand Monitoring
Stay up to date with any mentions of your business on Twitter. If there is anything negative, you will be able to counter it quickly. You can also use Twitter as a way to receive feedback from your customers and improve your business. Just ask your followers to give their opinion on something. For example, if you designed a new website, ask your followers what they think about it and get their constructive criticisms so you can make your site design even better.
9. Acquire More Votes on Social Media Websites
If you have submitted a story to Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon, or any other social voting website, tweet a link to that submission to try to score more votes from your followers. If your followers like what they see, they are sure to vote for your content.
10. Hiring People
Looking for a programmer, designer, or writer? Whatever type of professional you seek, try finding them on Twitter. Simply send your followers a tweet telling them you are looking for someone for a job. They can either recommend someone to you or offer themselves for the job. Using Twitter in this way is ideal for finding qualified freelancers. It is much more convenient than putting out a classified ad.
11. Build Your Personal Brand
When you use Twitter to talk about things as mundane as what you ate for breakfast or how you are going to sleep early tonight, you make your followers feel like you are casual and approachable. Even those with running a company that has a cold, corporate brand image could create more appeal and build a unique personal brand using Twitter.
12. Streamline Electronic Communications
When you use Twitter, you're likely to find yourself using IM, email, and other electronic communication methods less. Twitter not only provides public chatting through Tweets, it also allows you to send direct messages. Twitter will help you streamline your electronic communications, allowing you to scale back online.
1. Sharing Links to Items of Interest
As soon as you read something online that you think is interesting, it is easy to share it on Twitter with all of your followers. Twitter is highly effective in this manner because it is such a quick way to be able to reach a large group of people. You can also get a lot of great ideas for blog posts from Twitter since many new ideas and stories are floating around that haven't even made it to the blogosphere and definitely not to mainstream media.
2. Building Your Network
Using Twitter is a great way to build your network because it allows you to find and follow people with similar interests. You can use Steeple to find people who live in your geographical area. You can also use other tools that help you find new people to follow based upon who your Twitter friends follow.
3. Build Relationships within Your Current Network
People in different networks often use Twitter to connect with their contacts instantly rather than using instant messaging for that purpose. Furthermore, many people use Twitter to connect with their network during events like conferences.
4. Re-Distributing Content from Your Blog or Website
Twitter can be used to redistribute content from your blog or website. However, you should take care to do this thoughtfully since many of your Twitter followers may already read your blog. For that reason, you may want to avoid using a blog plug-in that automatically Tweets your posts. Your best bet is to Tweet your content manually and customize each Tweet so it doesn't get old.
5. Get Involved in Live Tweeting Events
Twitter launched at SXSW last year, catapulting microblogging conferences to fame. Live Tweeting events are great because they are a form of citizen journalism that allow you to connect with several new people in your niche while making active and valuable contributions to current discussions in your community.
6. Pitching Stories to Journalists on Twitter
You can send a direct message to a journalist who is following you on Twitter to pitch a story idea.
7. Communicating with Your Team
You can use Twitter as a company intranet that connects all of your employees. Twitter can be particularly useful in this regard if you have a virtual business with employees in different geographical locations. You can set your updates to private for security reasons. Anytime you are working on group projects, you can stay in touch with your team members using Twitter.
8. Brand Monitoring
Stay up to date with any mentions of your business on Twitter. If there is anything negative, you will be able to counter it quickly. You can also use Twitter as a way to receive feedback from your customers and improve your business. Just ask your followers to give their opinion on something. For example, if you designed a new website, ask your followers what they think about it and get their constructive criticisms so you can make your site design even better.
9. Acquire More Votes on Social Media Websites
If you have submitted a story to Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon, or any other social voting website, tweet a link to that submission to try to score more votes from your followers. If your followers like what they see, they are sure to vote for your content.
10. Hiring People
Looking for a programmer, designer, or writer? Whatever type of professional you seek, try finding them on Twitter. Simply send your followers a tweet telling them you are looking for someone for a job. They can either recommend someone to you or offer themselves for the job. Using Twitter in this way is ideal for finding qualified freelancers. It is much more convenient than putting out a classified ad.
11. Build Your Personal Brand
When you use Twitter to talk about things as mundane as what you ate for breakfast or how you are going to sleep early tonight, you make your followers feel like you are casual and approachable. Even those with running a company that has a cold, corporate brand image could create more appeal and build a unique personal brand using Twitter.
12. Streamline Electronic Communications
When you use Twitter, you're likely to find yourself using IM, email, and other electronic communication methods less. Twitter not only provides public chatting through Tweets, it also allows you to send direct messages. Twitter will help you streamline your electronic communications, allowing you to scale back online.
What Should be the trend In 2010
The growing number of older than traditional users, Twitter's ongoing evolution, and the way users view their online and offline lives will all be shaping potential social media behaviors for the coming year.
An ongoing trend during 2009 has been the graying of the social media as more and more users in their 30s, 40s, and 50s begin to participate. This trend should continue and become even more widely spread in 2010, especially among users in their 50s. These users have come to appreciate the power that social media provides them as a means to connect or reconnect with friends and family.
This trend toward more mature users will also influence online advertising. Marketers will now have a completely new market that can be targeted via social media.
Of all the social media sites, Facebook is benefiting the most from the influx of mature users to the social media realm. Facebook offers a relatively easy to understand means for these users to get started, enabling them to share pictures and communicate with long-lost friends.
MySpace will continue to be more focused on entertainment and younger demographics. And it remains a good fit for those specific user demographics. For older users, however, MySpace's level of customization makes it a less attractive fit. Facebook's straightforward step-by-step explanation of how to get started and lessened amount of customization makes it more of an appealing match than MySpace for this growing set of social media participants, both now and in 2010.
Twitter's appeal for all demos is expected to continue to grow in 2010. Twitter should move closer to finally making more money than it spends in the coming year as well. Hopefully, the site will be able to fix all the various quirks that currently bog it down (e.g., having periods when traffic is so heavy that it forces service shutdowns). Reducing the growing amount of spam on the site is another issue Twitter will need to address going forward. Despite these problems, however, Twitter should become more widespread and accepted in the year ahead as its purpose-that it's not just for telling people where you are and what you are doing-is better understood by the general user.
A better sense of how to use Twitter may be a user behavior that will impact that specific form of social media but other potential user behavior changes might impact all forms of social media. The time expectation involved with the use of social media, for example, may show signs of evolving in users' minds in the coming year. With so many social media venues that they are committed to using, users may reach a point where they don't have enough hours in the day to respond to every post or update they receive in a timely manner.
The amount of information users will be sharing will likely continue to grow but it will also likely become so great that users will have to consider if there is actually a differentiation between their personal lives and their online lives. This decision will impact the way they use and participate in social media.
Regardless of the other trends shaping the coming year, there are still some social behaviors that brands will need to adhere to as they move into 2010:
* Always, always listen. Brands will still need to know what is going on in the social media conversation or else risk shooting themselves in the foot. It remains vital for a brand to know what is going on and what the consumer buzz is. By listening to the social chatter, a brand's marketing team can form its strategy.
* Branding consistency must be maintained. No matter how many social sites a brand might have, no matter what forms its other marketing takes, a consistency in traits like tone, design, and content will remain key.
* Finally, a brand needs to remember that it doesn't need to respond to every post of comment made. Everyone will have their opinions, so be sure to address them in a very respectful manner and never in a way that might hurt the brand. Keep in mind that some users are out there to argue for the sake of arguing and will go on the attack simply for the sake of attacking. Don't let your brand be sucked into such an anti-social social media behavior.
An ongoing trend during 2009 has been the graying of the social media as more and more users in their 30s, 40s, and 50s begin to participate. This trend should continue and become even more widely spread in 2010, especially among users in their 50s. These users have come to appreciate the power that social media provides them as a means to connect or reconnect with friends and family.
This trend toward more mature users will also influence online advertising. Marketers will now have a completely new market that can be targeted via social media.
Of all the social media sites, Facebook is benefiting the most from the influx of mature users to the social media realm. Facebook offers a relatively easy to understand means for these users to get started, enabling them to share pictures and communicate with long-lost friends.
MySpace will continue to be more focused on entertainment and younger demographics. And it remains a good fit for those specific user demographics. For older users, however, MySpace's level of customization makes it a less attractive fit. Facebook's straightforward step-by-step explanation of how to get started and lessened amount of customization makes it more of an appealing match than MySpace for this growing set of social media participants, both now and in 2010.
Twitter's appeal for all demos is expected to continue to grow in 2010. Twitter should move closer to finally making more money than it spends in the coming year as well. Hopefully, the site will be able to fix all the various quirks that currently bog it down (e.g., having periods when traffic is so heavy that it forces service shutdowns). Reducing the growing amount of spam on the site is another issue Twitter will need to address going forward. Despite these problems, however, Twitter should become more widespread and accepted in the year ahead as its purpose-that it's not just for telling people where you are and what you are doing-is better understood by the general user.
A better sense of how to use Twitter may be a user behavior that will impact that specific form of social media but other potential user behavior changes might impact all forms of social media. The time expectation involved with the use of social media, for example, may show signs of evolving in users' minds in the coming year. With so many social media venues that they are committed to using, users may reach a point where they don't have enough hours in the day to respond to every post or update they receive in a timely manner.
The amount of information users will be sharing will likely continue to grow but it will also likely become so great that users will have to consider if there is actually a differentiation between their personal lives and their online lives. This decision will impact the way they use and participate in social media.
Regardless of the other trends shaping the coming year, there are still some social behaviors that brands will need to adhere to as they move into 2010:
* Always, always listen. Brands will still need to know what is going on in the social media conversation or else risk shooting themselves in the foot. It remains vital for a brand to know what is going on and what the consumer buzz is. By listening to the social chatter, a brand's marketing team can form its strategy.
* Branding consistency must be maintained. No matter how many social sites a brand might have, no matter what forms its other marketing takes, a consistency in traits like tone, design, and content will remain key.
* Finally, a brand needs to remember that it doesn't need to respond to every post of comment made. Everyone will have their opinions, so be sure to address them in a very respectful manner and never in a way that might hurt the brand. Keep in mind that some users are out there to argue for the sake of arguing and will go on the attack simply for the sake of attacking. Don't let your brand be sucked into such an anti-social social media behavior.
Why Realtors Making Money Out Of Twitter
Social Media has been around longer than you think. It's only recently that the media has caught wind of it and it has become mainstream. Remember when people used to talk about My Space? That was mainstream social media. Even further back, remember blogging? Yeah, that was and still is social media at it's most basic. If you're sitting on the sidelines thinking about getting in the game, you better do it now before it's too late. The following is a list of 7 reasons REALTORs should get use social media.
1. Short on cash for your marketing budget? SM is a time investment, no money necessary. With so many free sites available to you, there's nothing keeping you from putting your marketing on steroids by using social media.
2. Want to meet more people? One of the first rules of sales is, "Get in front of as many people as you can." With over 300,000,000 people on Facebook alone the opportunities are endless to meet new people you may have never met before.
3. Wondering what people are saying about you? SM allows you to keep your finger on the pulse of every conversation which mentions your name or brand. Even further, you can set up alerts for keywords to catch conversations that may signal an opportunity for you.
4. Don't have time for that networking event? With SM you can network 24/7 right from the comfort of your own home. No need to get dressed, drive, or even comb your hair.
5. Want more business? What better place to get it then using SM? When you participate in conversations with your customers and you solve their problems it's all right out in the open for everyone to see. These interactions act as online testimonials aka Social Proof. When people see how well you handle your clients chances are better for you to receive referrals.
The world is shifting to a more transparent form of business. As REALTORs it's important to make that shift now while the getting is good. Before you know it direct mail campaigns and newspaper ads will be obsolete, when that happens where will you get your business? The smart people that get in the game now will be light years ahead of their competition. It's pretty simple, get in now or be left behind.
1. Short on cash for your marketing budget? SM is a time investment, no money necessary. With so many free sites available to you, there's nothing keeping you from putting your marketing on steroids by using social media.
2. Want to meet more people? One of the first rules of sales is, "Get in front of as many people as you can." With over 300,000,000 people on Facebook alone the opportunities are endless to meet new people you may have never met before.
3. Wondering what people are saying about you? SM allows you to keep your finger on the pulse of every conversation which mentions your name or brand. Even further, you can set up alerts for keywords to catch conversations that may signal an opportunity for you.
4. Don't have time for that networking event? With SM you can network 24/7 right from the comfort of your own home. No need to get dressed, drive, or even comb your hair.
5. Want more business? What better place to get it then using SM? When you participate in conversations with your customers and you solve their problems it's all right out in the open for everyone to see. These interactions act as online testimonials aka Social Proof. When people see how well you handle your clients chances are better for you to receive referrals.
The world is shifting to a more transparent form of business. As REALTORs it's important to make that shift now while the getting is good. Before you know it direct mail campaigns and newspaper ads will be obsolete, when that happens where will you get your business? The smart people that get in the game now will be light years ahead of their competition. It's pretty simple, get in now or be left behind.
Why You Should use Social Marketing
Social media is the perfect marriage for the network marketing industry. I have known and met many network marketers who use mediums such as Facebook and MySpace purely for their business and have seen great success. I have personally used the powers of social media to recruit as many as sixteen new distributors in one month. With that said, this article will attempt to discuss some of the more powerful strategies of social media for advertising network marketing.
Social Media Network Marketing Strategy 1 Get friendly! After setting up an attractive profile and getting up pictures of yourself, it is time to get out there and meet people. Social networks is like a big party, or business after hours and so needs to be treated the same as if it was in real life and not on the internet. At a party you are mingling and meeting new people. You don't just go right up and say, "BUY FROM ME", because it would be wrong and an extremely useless tactic. Rather go find groups in your preferred social network, and start adding those people with the intent to REALLY network with them and get to know them better.
Social Media Network Marketing Strategy 2 Start talking! Update your statuses, write blog posts, and post pictures of things you are heavily interested in and knowledgeable of. It could be MLM your discussing, but it doesn't need to be. The important thing is that the authentic you is coming through so when you start speaking to your new found friends about business, they know you're more than an advertisement who is just advertising their MLM business. By being authentic people will trust you more which gives you more rapport and pull with that person.
Social Media Network Marketing Strategy 3 Call them. Yup. You heard that right. In some social network mediums such as Facebook, the social network actually offers a phone number service that you can use to call up your friends. If you have your friends segregated into groups such as MLM Group 1 or Network Marketing Friends Group, you can find that list of friends with all their phone numbers. Most network marketers are very accepting of a stranger calling them about their business, and most people who your product would help will most likely be the same.
Even with these strategies to set up your social media empire's foundation, you still need to understand the power of generating leads and making these leads, friends and lists convert into new distributors and customers for you. And that is where knowledge of internet network marketing tactics comes into play.
Social Media Network Marketing Strategy 1 Get friendly! After setting up an attractive profile and getting up pictures of yourself, it is time to get out there and meet people. Social networks is like a big party, or business after hours and so needs to be treated the same as if it was in real life and not on the internet. At a party you are mingling and meeting new people. You don't just go right up and say, "BUY FROM ME", because it would be wrong and an extremely useless tactic. Rather go find groups in your preferred social network, and start adding those people with the intent to REALLY network with them and get to know them better.
Social Media Network Marketing Strategy 2 Start talking! Update your statuses, write blog posts, and post pictures of things you are heavily interested in and knowledgeable of. It could be MLM your discussing, but it doesn't need to be. The important thing is that the authentic you is coming through so when you start speaking to your new found friends about business, they know you're more than an advertisement who is just advertising their MLM business. By being authentic people will trust you more which gives you more rapport and pull with that person.
Social Media Network Marketing Strategy 3 Call them. Yup. You heard that right. In some social network mediums such as Facebook, the social network actually offers a phone number service that you can use to call up your friends. If you have your friends segregated into groups such as MLM Group 1 or Network Marketing Friends Group, you can find that list of friends with all their phone numbers. Most network marketers are very accepting of a stranger calling them about their business, and most people who your product would help will most likely be the same.
Even with these strategies to set up your social media empire's foundation, you still need to understand the power of generating leads and making these leads, friends and lists convert into new distributors and customers for you. And that is where knowledge of internet network marketing tactics comes into play.
Dont Follow blindly On Twitter
Something is happening among my Twitter followers which is a bit more than upsetting. Most of them are new-styled "social media marketers" and I think the majority of them are going blind! Of the past 1000 or so new followers who I contacted asking if they knew any good one line jokes, not a single one replied! Not only that, almost all of them sent me a link to some sort of commercial message!
What opened my eyes to the seriousness of this situation is that a few of them sent messages which exactly matched what the others sent, links and all. At first I chalked up the similarities to their lack of fully developed personalities, and a need for conformity. But then the true nature of this phenomenon struck me.
I think it is time to contact the Center for Disease Control, because these poor Twits are going blind. There's no other explanation I can think of. They might still be able to see their keyboards, but some are obviously trying to hide their shortcomings by copying and pasting other people's messages. It's sad and pathetic.
We who can still see need to raise awareness of this problem. Send this message back to those whom you think may be going blind:
Stop it Before You Go Twitter-Blind!
And here's something for those of you whose eyes are failing. Copy this line and save it in a folder you can find easily on those days when your keyboard is darkest. Then send it.
Help Stamp Out Twitter Blindness.
(You Could Be Next.)
What opened my eyes to the seriousness of this situation is that a few of them sent messages which exactly matched what the others sent, links and all. At first I chalked up the similarities to their lack of fully developed personalities, and a need for conformity. But then the true nature of this phenomenon struck me.
I think it is time to contact the Center for Disease Control, because these poor Twits are going blind. There's no other explanation I can think of. They might still be able to see their keyboards, but some are obviously trying to hide their shortcomings by copying and pasting other people's messages. It's sad and pathetic.
We who can still see need to raise awareness of this problem. Send this message back to those whom you think may be going blind:
Stop it Before You Go Twitter-Blind!
And here's something for those of you whose eyes are failing. Copy this line and save it in a folder you can find easily on those days when your keyboard is darkest. Then send it.
Help Stamp Out Twitter Blindness.
(You Could Be Next.)
How to Use twitter For Your Virtual Marketing
Twitter is probably one of the most easy and free source of web traffic on the internet. More and more people around the world use twitter to instantly announce anything they want to. There are people who use twitter to discuss certain topics they like and care about. If a large number of people tweet a certain topic, Twitter will automatically list it in the right side of your account entitled "Trending Topic".
If you are a network marketer and you want to use the internet in building your MLM business, it is imperative that you must consider using Twitter in your online marketing effort. In fact Twitter has a page rank of 9. It means search engines like Google trust this site to the full extent. Twitter can be very good source of a quality backlinks too.Below are some powerful steps to maximize the power of twitter to the full extent.
1. Create a professional twitter backgrounds- There are many sites that provide this kind of service. Free ones are good enough, don't bother paying for it. You can also create a custom background in Adobe Photoshop but it requires little knowledge on how to use Photoshop. It is important to do this because it can add some sort of professional look and personal branding.
2. Upload your best-looking picture- Many Internet Marketers like me, don't follow people that we think spammers or bot. We make sure that we only follow people who is 100% genuine and true person. If you have a good looking picture. Chances are, you will be followed by genuine and true person also. You can rest assure that the information you are receiving is content- enrich not some kind of spam or pitch.
3. Update frequently- Twitter is a site focused on updates of its user. I use a software called Twitter Karma in checking which of my followers are inactive or don't update frequently. If you don't tweet regularly, chances are you will be unfollowed by most Internet Marketer who maintain a clean followers. Our goal here is to increase your followers not to decrease them.
4. Post at least 10 useful tweet per day- After you increase the number of your followers, the next thing you must do is to build some trust and connections to your followers. This can only be done by providing them useful and informative information. You can start this process by tweeting certain topic like Social Media, Affiliate and Internet Marketing, SEO, Website Traffic, Music and Blogging. Mashable.com is a great source of information about social media. It is important that you start to tweet one or two of this topic.
Just be patient and do this extra steps in your social media marketing efforts. I personally use this steps and I am getting 3-5 leads a day and extra 20 people who visited my website. Twitter is a good source of leads and traffic, If you know how to use it properly. It is important to take constant action and remember ''Patience is a Virtue''.
If you are a network marketer and you want to use the internet in building your MLM business, it is imperative that you must consider using Twitter in your online marketing effort. In fact Twitter has a page rank of 9. It means search engines like Google trust this site to the full extent. Twitter can be very good source of a quality backlinks too.Below are some powerful steps to maximize the power of twitter to the full extent.
1. Create a professional twitter backgrounds- There are many sites that provide this kind of service. Free ones are good enough, don't bother paying for it. You can also create a custom background in Adobe Photoshop but it requires little knowledge on how to use Photoshop. It is important to do this because it can add some sort of professional look and personal branding.
2. Upload your best-looking picture- Many Internet Marketers like me, don't follow people that we think spammers or bot. We make sure that we only follow people who is 100% genuine and true person. If you have a good looking picture. Chances are, you will be followed by genuine and true person also. You can rest assure that the information you are receiving is content- enrich not some kind of spam or pitch.
3. Update frequently- Twitter is a site focused on updates of its user. I use a software called Twitter Karma in checking which of my followers are inactive or don't update frequently. If you don't tweet regularly, chances are you will be unfollowed by most Internet Marketer who maintain a clean followers. Our goal here is to increase your followers not to decrease them.
4. Post at least 10 useful tweet per day- After you increase the number of your followers, the next thing you must do is to build some trust and connections to your followers. This can only be done by providing them useful and informative information. You can start this process by tweeting certain topic like Social Media, Affiliate and Internet Marketing, SEO, Website Traffic, Music and Blogging. Mashable.com is a great source of information about social media. It is important that you start to tweet one or two of this topic.
Just be patient and do this extra steps in your social media marketing efforts. I personally use this steps and I am getting 3-5 leads a day and extra 20 people who visited my website. Twitter is a good source of leads and traffic, If you know how to use it properly. It is important to take constant action and remember ''Patience is a Virtue''.
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