Using Twitter For Local Marketing

March 9, 2009 By 2 Comments

When you first start using it, it’s easy to think the world of Twitter is so large there is no way it will help your small business on a local level. After all, your first several weeks are all about meeting new people (others on Twitter) and building a connections with them.

After about a month, though, you’ll notice things start to change for you. The “Twitterverse” comes into more focus and you begin to have a little more control in how you want to shape your network. For a small business, it’s very important to define your audience and target your customers so that you can make the most of understanding marketing efforts.

Successful marketing – on every level – is all about customer engagement. It brings people into your story, it motivates them to buy, and of course, it’s what brings them back again. If there’s one word that you must always think of first when you’re developing a marketing program, it’s “engagement.” Fortunately, that’s also what Twitter does for you. It allows you to develop a relationship with others in your Twitterverse so that you can engage with them and build a long-lasting and trusted relationship. You can do this with people half way across the globe, and you can do this with people half a mile away from your store, too.

Here are several ways you can take advantage of Twitter as a smaller, local business owner:

  • Find other Twitterers to follow by searching for specific keywords or for other Twitter users in your area.
  • Meet other Twitter users by learning of “Tweetups” in your local area and participate for networking.
  • Link back to your Web site or blog through your Twitter profile.
  • Use applications like Twitpic to take pictures of things in your store and then “tweet” it out to your followers.
  • Have pictures taken of you and your customers so that you can show the world how much you love engaging with them (plus it shows people have a great time in your store).
  • Respond to queries or questions by others using Twitter. For example, if someone says they’re looking for a great Italian restaurant in Dallas (and that’s your business), Tweet to them where you are located so they can come in for a great authentic meal.
  • Use a service such as Twellow to get your company listed. It is like a yellow pages for Twitter.
  • Send out coupons regularly. In this economy people love a great deal – even if you cater to a more affluent crowd. You can get more advanced with your marketing if you provide a link back to your Web site or a landing page where you offer special discounts on goods and services.
  • Offer customers special coupons if they “re-tweet” (Twitter language for forwarding) your offers. This is a great way to do viral marketing on Twitter.
  • Keep people in the know. If your business is entertainment focused, then send out weekly tweets alerting to people of events coming up.
  • If you have a blog, Tweet about each blog post you write.
  • Once you build a nice network of followers, engage with them even more by doing polls and surveys on topics that relate to your business. The feedback you get can then be used for press releases you send to the media.
  • Don’t forget to chat with other small business owners on #smbiz, a live chat session that takes place each Tuesday on Twitter from 8-9 pm (Eastern). Host John Sternal (@sternalpr) helps you find answers to anything you need help on in running your business and you can network with other small businesses for advice.

Although Twitter is just two years old, it is one of the fastest-growing destinations for social networking and social marketing. It doesn’t matter what industry you’re in, there is a definite business value for Twitter and it will only grow exponentially in the months and years to come.

Tell us how you use Twitter for your local business.

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Finding Followers on Twitter

February 9, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Recently I agreed to do some blog writing and social marketing for a new client who sells natural supplements. So I decided to create a Twitter profile for this client to promote their blog and product. Before I got started however I needed to come up with a Twitter Strategy. Don’t worry this isn’t like a formal marketing plan! It can actually be simple and just a few thoughts of how to go about marketing on Twitter.

Here are some of things I had to think about as I got started creating a new business profile. Maybe these thoughts can help you.

Do I want to use my own name, the business name, product name or a topic?

Originally I created my own personal profile using my name and the topic that I’m most interested in promoting. So I chose SternalMrktg. However, I found I not only talked about marketing. Sometimes I talked about TV shows or things that are going on in my life. I also started following people who are talking about things that are interesting to me outside of my business, like golf, cooking, wine, family, pets, being thrifty, etc. Then I created another profile, Understndnmrktg, just for this website to promote the posts we write and increase traffic. This profile would be the business profile, with the business/website name and stay focused on one thing – small business marketing.

For my client’s profile, I didn’t want it to be my name, nor did it make sense to go with an unknown business name. Therefore I selected the username Joint_Pain, a topic that was relevant to all possible buyers of this natural supplement.

For your business you may want to consider a topic rather than your name or your business name. See what works for you, you can always change your name and you won’t need to start a new account.

Who do I want to promote my services to?

Once I created the new profile I wanted to start following people so they would see me and hopefully follow back. BUT WAIT! Nobody wants to follow someone who has nothing interesting to say. So I had to start out with some updates to put on Twitter. I decided to copy some headlines from the blog and include links back to it. I also included some other links to other articles that I found online that would be interesting to people who want to discuss or learn about this topic, joint pain.

Try to find interesting articles online about your industry, new trends that people should be aware of, and share a link to that article with a little description. Maybe you have some advice for a potential buyer, something that they should know about the buying process. Think about advice you would give to a friend. Keep it short, you only have 140 characters.

Ok, now who should I follow?

There are different ways I could go about this.

  • I could follow people who are really going to be into this topic and might be into reading the blog I’m now promoting and possibly be interested in buying this health supplement.OR
  • I could follow really popular people and hope they retweet something I say.

I’ve decided to do a little bit of both, but mostly stay focused on potential customers.

One important thing is to not go out and follow hundreds of people right in the beginning. If the number that you follow is much, much higher than the number following you, people will think you are a spammer. Take time and let it grow. By adding some new updates or “tweets” often you will be sure to get followers. Maybe even try a service like Tweetlater.com. You can schedule your tweets for later and even spread them out through the day. This works great for people are busy running their business during the day but come up with tweet ideas at night. Use Tweetlater to post them the following day so the 9 to 5 crowd can read them and not just the late night crowd.

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I’m on Twitter, now what?

January 7, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Using Twitter for BusinessAfter promoting our first Twitter article several people have contacted me. They signed up but they just don’t get it. Well here’s some more specific details on how to get started, how to become popular and how to promote your business on Twitter for free.

Start following some people to see the different things that people are talking about. It takes a little while to get used to the 140 character conversations (Twitter limit). Some people are great to follow and give good advice on things like Marketing, PR, Staying Organized, Facts about Food, Popular Wines, almost anything.

Here’s the Twitter Getting Started page

Even though it may be intimidating start “tweeting.” (Tweets are the Twitter name for your posts). Try to avoid the mundane, like “I just got up and I’m having coffee.” Instead share facts about your industry, links to interesting website articles and then just sprinkle in a little self-promotion.

Important: don’t be a spammer and just talk about your biz or website. Try to respond to what other people are talking about and share info from all over the web.

Read our article on Twitter for Business which explains proper Twitter Etiquette.

When sharing the url to sites use tinyurl.com or a similar system to shorten the links and keep your whole tweet within 140 characters.

Let me know if this helps get you going. I was totally confused the first three or four times I went on there and hated it. But eventually I got used to it and really started liking it. Feel free to follow myself or John and check out the people we’re following.

Chrisanne – http://twitter.com/SternalMrktg
 John – Twitter is a resource that can greatly benefit any small business in any industry. Here we will explore what Twitter is and how you can take advantage of it for business purposes.

If you’re a small business owner, or even if you work for another company, chances are you’ve found yourself at one or two networking events recently. Maybe you knew people there and maybe you didn’t. But you always found yourself engaging in conversation with others talking about a wide variety of topics – the economy, specific business industries, and ultimately, your company. You go to networking events so you can learn about others and for the chance to let others learn about you.

Think of Twitter as a big, ongoing networking event that takes place on the Internet. It is social marketing at its finest. Twitter let’s you share what’s on your mind to potentially millions of people. Each time you want to share something with your group, you have 140 characters (not words) in order to share something with others. It’s the ultimate chance to reveal your “elevator pitch” about your business. But slow down, because there are rules to play this game.

You wouldn’t walk up to a group of people you’ve never met at a traditional networking event and start blabbing about your business. The others would simply walk away from you and never want to talk to you again. It’s bad tact for that situation. First, you have to ease yourself into what other people are talking about, join in their conversation, and ultimately wait until they are ready to accept what you want to say about your company. It’s exercising proper professional tact. And the same goes for using Twitter (or any blog for that matter).

The first thing you want to do is join Twitter (free and easy) and set up your profile. This takes only a matter of minutes. If you have a company URL make sure you include it in your profile. Next, use the search criteria to find others that are conversing (called Tweeting) about topics you are interested: economy, marketing, golf, wine, et al. Once you identify these people, go to their profile and start following them. You will then be able to follow what they are talking about every time they make a Tweet. If they say something that interests you, hit the reply button and send them a comment. But make sure you say something that adds value to the conversation, because you ultimately want them to then click on your profile and start following you as well.

Your ultimate goal is to repeat this process as much as possible so that you begin to get a lot of people to follow you. When this happens, whatever you say via your updates will be seen by everyone who is following you. And when you’re able to steer the conversation in the direction that your company’s value becomes relevant, then you can point them to other places on the Web (links to your Web site, or other Web articles) that promote you and your business.

But you can’t become addicted to Twitter if you don’t jump in. So set up your profile and start sharing your opinions with the world. And don’t forget to follow me @SternalPR.

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Using Social Networking for Business

November 9, 2008 By 2 Comments

There are many Online Social Networks out there that can put you in touch with hundreds, thousands and even millions of people for free. For example, MySpace has almost 250 million users while Facebook has 124 million. Many companies have created pages on MySpace and Facebook to interact with clients and prospects. These sites can be helpful if your company is B2C (Business to Consumer). What do you do if you’re looking for professionals and your company is B2B (Business to Business)?

One site that is all about business networking is LinkedIn, which has over 30 million users. So if you’re not on there, you should be! This is a free site that let’s you network with and promote your company to other professionals.

Enhancing your profile on Linkedin

Make sure you spend some time on your profile. Think of this as your online resume or a billboard for your company. Tell people about yourself and your business and be specific about how you can help them. Use the “Specialties” section to list all or most of your services. Write about yourself in the third person – it’s better for search engines to find you and list you.

Promoting your business on LinkedIn

Find groups that are relevant to your business. Think about your customers or ideal customers and look for groups they would be interested in joining. If you’re a local business, look for groups on LinkedIn that are in your area.

Once you have been accepted to these groups you will get an email. It may take a day or two for the group owner to check their new members.

Use LinkedIn to promote your business by going to the Group page (located on the left panel when you sign into LinkedIn). Click on the group and go to the Discussions page. Here you will find people posting questions, job announcements, etc. Feel free to introduce yourself to other group members and try to open up a dialogue on how you can help them and their business.

It may take you some time but it’s a great way to network and get your name out there without having to make a financial investment in your networking.

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