How to get 1000s of followers on Twitter

So just how to get 1000s of followers on Twitter.. quickly?

Well maybe you can’t – at least not in the way you are expecting or many spammers will have you believe is possible.

One of the ways that smaller (and big) business can attract customers is through social media. Twitter for a variety of reasons has become very popular.

A short lesson from history about twitter

In the past when we wanted to market we needed mailing lists of thousands or tens of thousands. The reason for this was simple, as people and researchers discovered the response or conversion rate was often around the 1% mark. So doing the maths it was easy to calculate the size of the data base one needed to achieve the planned business goal.

Understanding the difference in what Twitter brings

Those involved in marketing have taken each new technology as it has come along and used it in their existing models.
What many have overlooked however is that twitter and other social platforms have their own “norms” and methods.

It’s all in the twitter list

You see when you have a “list” many marketers will say that once they have trusted you to have their details they as potential customers are a warmer prospect – so they are more likely to buy from you – so for sake of argument let’s say that the percentage that responds changes from 1% to almost 10%. Now if that list contains only people that have bought from you before, or have significant experience of you to trust you – that response rate is higher.
Leaving the response rates alone for a moment (I will come back to that), have a think about referrals. For we know that both referrals and testimonials help in persuading potential customers into trusting us to make a purchase. Getting referrals however has often been difficult for many businesses.

The need to think differently about twitter & social media to win

Now imagine a way of having existing customers talk about your product or you as a provider on a daily basis – each time they tell many people they know. Also imaging that in time the conversion rate on that list becomes many times higher than the 10%.
Well welcome to twitter. If all you are thinking about is the number of followers you have- then I am afraid you have missed the point – and you may as well stop. Simply put, if you have 100 good quality followers, and each of them have 100 good quality followers then one great message has the opportunity of getting to 100,000 people – every day! Ok so realistically that wont happen, but then most people on twitter statistically have several hundred.
Many also say that it takes too much time – well the typical number of tweets from a user is just 10 a day.
The point here is to engage with your followers, not like other marketing channels where it is just about broadcasting.

Social media is all about influence & engagement

Many are starting to use Klout scores – if you think this is important – then it is easier to have a higher score with a smaller audience than a large audience. Better to have 500-1000 people that you talk to, they talk to you, and they retweet your message – for this is a form of referral!
Some points to note:

• 67% of users are more likely to buy products from brands they follow on Twitter. This compares favourably to the 51% who buy products from brands they follow on Facebook (HubSpot, Edison Research)
• Companies that use Twitter gain twice the number of leads each month than their non-Tweeting counterparts (HubSpot, Edison Research).
• Twitter users are more educated than the general population. Just 12% of users report a high school education or less (HubSpot Internet Marketing, Edison Research).
• Twitter users have higher incomes than the population at large with nearly half of Twitterers earning $50,000 USD or more annually. This compares to 33% of the general population (HubSpot, Edison Research).
• Many Twitter users are considered early adopters with 19% among the first to purchase new products upon launch compared to 10% of the general population (HubSpot, Edison Research).

 

Do we need 1000s of followers on twitter?

So while I started this article on how to get thousands of followers – you can, just with a few hundred – for the “followers” count is sheer vanity. There will be thousands of people that read your tweets that are not following you – and that is what you want. Build a reputation for great content, and good followers will find you, especially if you:

1. Tweet every day – just 5-10 times
2. Give useable/ valued information – not just promotions
3. Talk & engage with your followers – i.e. reply to them – help them, answer questions
4. Talk about things that are not about your company or product (show you are human)
5. Retweet other peoples messages
6. Give people links to sites other than your own

Twitter is not a quick win. It can take an account 9-12 months to be trusted. But when established the responses to things you put out can be very quick. If you are new to twitter and want quick responses then try another technology – if you are serious about engagement and growing your business then slow and steady wins the day

**sources:

http://www.sysomos.com/insidetwitter/#followersvstweet

http://www.socialtechnologyreview.com/articles/40-fascinating-twitter-facts

How to get 1000s of followers on Twitter…

Farewell Social Media – Hello Social Business

Social technology is THE productivity tool

Social media has changed the way many of us communicate, engage and collaborate, yet to many organizations “social media” is a dirty word. With many employers believing social media to be Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, IT departments all over are increasingly blocking employee access to these sites.

The simple reality is that organizations cannot stop staff from using social media, all they can do is help employees find increasingly innovative ways of accessing the platforms. If they cannot use a work PC, then they will use a smart phone.

Even these “very social” sites are creating lots of business and business opportunities.

Missing the point about engagement

By believing that social media is “the devils work”, that it reduces productivity, or that it undermines brand is at best short sighted. Social media can be used for business. Business productivity, through knowledge sharing and management as well as collaboration and of course marketing.

By training employees to harness social media TOOLS we build a solution that provides social business solutions, problem solving and most importantly knowledge management through collaboration.

IBM know this and have recently starting engaging with many bloggers and others active in the social media space to further understand the potential benefits both internally, and externally with clients and potential clients.

Below are two of the videos resulting from an event held last month.

The question is are you seeing the Threat or the Opportunity as the greater for you and your organization?

On another discussion recently one person asked about the difference between Brand and employee brand – well, if you have a poor reputation in the market place for your brand, employees, if given a choice will work for your competitors.

Remember no “noise” about an organization will seem like a “super injunction”. The new generation will look at potential employers, and if they can find no discussion openly about an organization (good or bad) they will assume the worst – a bit like a hotel or restaurant review – its its that bad people wont be bothers to comment!

To find out more about what IBM are doing join the discussion and debate:

www.facebook.com/IBMSocialBusiness
www.twitter.com/IBMSocialBizUK

www.twitter.com/rapidbi 

15 reasons I will unfollow you on twitter

Reasons I will unfollow you on twitter

Following a post on connecting or more accurately not connecting on LinkedIn a few weeks ago, this prompted me to write a short series on other social networking tools.

Please read this in the context of how and why I use Twitter.

My/ our context for Twitter

For me and the RapidBI team, Twitter is both a marketing and engagement tool. I (RapidBI) use twitter to reach potential customers or website users. My interest in you is as much about what you can offer me to help and grow as a professional, and how you can help my business in your small way by promoting or retweeting some of our posts (bonus points if you RT a blog post of ours). I will of course promote our products, as well as other interesting blogs/ articles from peers. I also tweet information I hope will be of value to people that are interested in HR, Training, Learning & Development, Organizatiional Development, Management, Leadership, Business etc..

Remember that I do not need to follow you to read your tweets. there are many ways to do this including having #hashtag searches on your desktop application, or searching for keywords…

Reasons to unfollow

A few the reasons why I may unfollow you:

1. You have not tweeted for 5 or more weeks – if you are not tweeting are you reading?
2. You only tweet links – I’m in this for business and relationships – if all you tweet are links, how can I engage with you? plus its spam if affiliate links all the time
3. You keep @mentioning me with links that I have not requested or they are not part of a conversation we are having – that is spam!
4. You keep sending me unsolicited DM’s that contain links.. that is spam!
5. Your tweets are unprofessional or NSFW (Not safe for work) – I use twitter for business so need to manage our reputation
6. Not a human, If you’re upbeat all the time, or never show that you are upset (human!), it’s a clear sign that you’re not a real person. I want to see some balance. The real, authentic you
7. Unnecessary anger or swearing – sure be real/ authentic. but have some balance
8. You don’t engage with me either by talking or occasionally re-tweeting or providing a #ff to your followers
9. Politics or religion – sorry but this has too much room for arguments – so I won’t engage – if you try to get me in on this too often well…
10. You only tweet links to your own site – don’t be selfish!
11. You use truetwit – I cannot pass this easily using my mobile devices – so I pass!
12. It’s about social media not “social ME-dia” … engage please don’t just promote
13. You are a mashable or other rss feed publisher– please – stop being a re-publisher and give me YOUR thoughts & views – I will follow RSS if I am interested, but not individuals that broadcast several feeds
14. You try to be clever, by sending too many #FF or #hashtag tweets with multiple names in a single tweet and tweets which promote other people in bulk etc – over automation does this – be human
15. You keep asking for rt’s to get more followers

Power of the crowd…

I also asked my followers and some of the first responses are included in the article below.

We should only follow people that add value, and just because you add value to me, does not mean I add value to you.

Difference – it is interesting and exciting to know that we all have different reasons/ motivations for unfollowing, This I suspect is based on our reasons and method of using twitter. There is no right or wrong reason for unfollow, other than purely people don’t follow back – I don’t! and for me that is not a valid reason to unfollow – there are people I follow that don’t follow back. We should only follow people that add value, and just because you add value to me, does not mean I add value to you.

By following some of the information given here you can minimise the risks of being unfollowed, however

It all depends on your reasons for being on Twitter, what you want to achieve and your plan or strategy.. you do have a plan or strategy for using twitter and other social media don’t you….

@HRUnique Lisa Windsor - @RapidBI So far, I have unfollowed for offensive language, biblical quotes and comments about tv!
@AngieStrader AngieStrader - @RapidBI I unfollow when I see excessive auto tweets for an MLM. They just clutter my feed and I hate clutter!
@GenPubs Patricia Venables - @RapidBI Anyone who thinks it’s clever to use bad language and swear words. I’m old fashioned!
@moxby_design Martin Oxby - @RapidBI unfollow with inappropriate profile imgs, spammy links/posts or if it appears most tweets are automated
@GrahamJHarris You Too Social Media - @rapidbi Foul language is top of my list. And I don’t follow people if they use TrueTwit. Thanks for asking this.
@BrendanD100 Brendan Dunne - @RapidBI Twitter is a social medium, if two tweeters are not listening to each other, there’s nothing social happening.
@Histerius histerius - @RapidBI a) no activity for weeks b) many spam retweets
@HR_Katherine Katherine Duff - @RapidBI I unfollow for lots of auto-tweets, excessive use of profanity, blatant broadcasting/no engagement & sometimes boring tweets!
@eiohel Miljenko Williams - @RapidBI I almost never do. If I do, it’s generally because Twitter does it by itself. And I am oblivious of it doing so, unfortunately.
@ajaybtraining Andy Blake - @RapidBI Constant self promotion, no interactions, dogmatic thinking all get me unfollowing…
@NerissaWilliams Nerissa Williams - @RapidBI lack of tweeting activity, automated “sales pitches” offensive content, general spamming and lack of engagement + discussion….
@mshawcoaching Madeleine Shaw - Unfolo 4 frequent crazE abbreviations 4 no rEson

Thanks for contributing.

What is interesting here is that there is a lot of common ground. So if you want to be unfollowed… follow the “guidelines” given here.

Authentic social media leadership

For me it is all about balance. If using twitter for business, show you are real, show you are human, show you are interested

Please feel free to add your own reasons for unfollowing below

 

Other (planned) titles in this min-series:

• Reasons why I will follow you
• Reasons why I will #ff you
• Reasons why I will RT you

10 reasons I won’t connect to you on LinkedIn

10 reasons why I won’t connect to you on LinkedIn

LinkedIn has become THE connection and networking tool. It easily allows members (for free) to connect with people they know, share ideas, thoughts and of course look for new employment opportunities.

The principle is simple, if you know someone then invite them to connect… its as simple as that. Or is it?

When I first joined LinkedIn I would often receive connection requests from people I did not know, but I accepted. Some time later this would come back to haunt me. Some of these people would “spam” my contact list with requests to connect or advertising messages. This caused a number of my network to “unlink”.

This was a powerful lesson for me. From this point onwards I only connect with people that I have some relationship with – either real life connections, or people I have interacted with on one of the various groups.

So here are some key reasons I won’t link up with you:

1. I don’t know you – sure we may be able to help each other, but lets build a relationship first before I let you in my trusted network
2. You are an “open networker” or member of “LION” – if you will connect with anyone, then I cannot se how you value your connections – use Twitter instead!
3. We worked at the same company – but I don’t remember you
4. You send a standard “I value my professional network and I’d like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn. “ and I was not expecting it – tell me why you want to connect, make it personal
5. You are a recruitment consultant – if you want to contact me use Inmail – if you are not paying for this service then you are not serious
6. Individuals looking to Connect for the purpose of recommendation or referrals. – I will make my own mind up thank you!
7. A difficult boss, subordinates or client wants to connect.. If they were difficult once – they will be trouble again
8. Your image/ avatar is not of you. LI is a people place. Plus it also means you have not read the “LinkedIn rules” – “DON’T Upload a cartoon, symbol, drawing or any content other than a head-shot photograph of yourself in your profile photo;”
9. You request an invite to link as we are both members of the XXXXX group. If you want to ask a question, do it through the group. Just linking because we have a common interest does not build a relationship
10. You request to link and say that we have done business together & I have never heard of you – if you lie here what else are you lying about?

** Please note these are reasons why I MIGHT not link with you – its not a hard & fast set of “rules” but a set of guiding principles

LinkedIn is a powerful communication tool

LinkedIn is a powerful communication tool, and each of us needs not only to know how to use it, but to have a strategy for its use as part of our “social media” or “social business” approach. We need to have this to help ensure a consistent approach. If we are not consistent, then people looking at our profile may be confused and pass up by as a result. Its not about having a profile “because every one else does” – its about having a profile for a purpose. Sure over time that purpose may change. But only over time and not day-to-day.

Just because you use your statuses in one way does not mean that is true for everyone. Some may argue that the best way to “know” someone is to read their status updates - for me its more about their profile, how much they opt to make public (or hide!) and their approach in groups and how they answer questions – its is more about “me..me..me” or is it “how can I help you?”

So for me LinkedIn is about relationships and trust, and the trust has to be there before we link. It has to be win/win.

Its also about showing who we are. If we try to be things we are not, the lack of authenticity will show through. The goal is not to be liked by all, but to be understood for who you are and the unique skills and experience each of us can offer.

 What is your personal strategy/ “personal policy” for using LinkedIn? Is it a conscious plan or an evolving beast?

Social Media, Talent Management & Communications #cipd11

Social Media – the power of communications using internal & external talent

Social business is born and its all change for Human Resources, marketing, communication, engagement,talent management…

At one level or another we have all been impacted by some form of social media, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Forums, Blogs, Yammer, Sametime, MSN etc. Over the last few months we have seen the Arab Spring, and many other changes to the society in which we live. On a day to day basis it is not obvious that things are changing… but stop and think for a moment. Two years ago we would not have seen the little “f” or “t” icon that is now on almost every TV show, billboard and magazine advert. Many of us are addicted** to our smart phones, updating our networks and reading the “recommendations” and testimonials people we are connected to are constantly giving.

How have things changed?

Go back 5+ years and people were being told to put testimonials like the one below on our websites and marketing materials:

”…Best training course I have ever attended. In fact I did not ‘attend’ I was fully participating and contributing. Mike was inspirational and at the same time challenging”

But now a testimonial is different and looks more like:

 

 

Not only is it instant, it’s public. This feedback can be both positive and negative. Equally if people think you are wrong, they will tell you:

 

This has the advantage in being “real time” and “honest” as we can easily trace the person that provided the feedback. We can also use potentially negative feedback to show we are listening and have reacted. Remember M&S built a reputation of excelence customer care by putting the returns desk at the front of their stores, (its now at the back!).

A case in point

Early on at the recent CIPD annual conference in Manchester UK this week, I was aware that unlike last year where there were between four and five attendees tweeting on a regular basis, this year there were more than thirty eight conference delegates doing so on a regular basis. A little homework shows some startling facts.

Have a look at the top 30 contributors to this particular twitter stream (#cipd11):

Impressions Contributed by 523 Twitterers

Twitter name	No. of impressions
RapidBI	2,473,237
CIPD	1,175,146
hrmagazine	207,910
PeopleMgt	182,836
joningham	160,767
CIPD_Events	119,249
williamtincup	70,689
MervynDinnen	39,964
lruettimann	38,377
koganpage	34,222
Academyofrock	26,625
TimDouglasHR	24,361
dougshaw1	23,153
mwbuckingham	18,944
grahamsalisbury	16,742
JobsiteUK	16,451
MJCarty	16,136
neilmorrison	15,488
HRConnector	15,264
DPGplc	12,678
HRSolutionsUK	12,393
sczepanski	10,961
robjones_tring	10,556
charlie_elise	10,478
warwickuni	10,447
N_Thomson	10,026
signalbc	9,840
davidpaulwoods	9,522
HR_Exchange	9,436
Timothy_Hughes	8,710
garelaos	8,465

** source tweetreach.com for the tag #cipd11 on 11/11/11

Between the 500+ people that got involved this resulted in an Exposure of 5,193,637 Impressions. Not bad for a conference that had an attendance of around 1300!

From the graphs we can see that over 160,000 people say one tweet or message about the event, with more than 80,000 seeing seven or more messages. We can also see that while there were over 700 messages sent out from attendees, over 500 of those were re-sent by readers – recommendations if you like.

This type of circulation is significant, and much more than would be expected through conventional Business-to-Business (B2B) print channels. This particular event was “experienced” by over 300,000 unique individuals. That is a marketing reach not to be ignored.

If you as a business are not into social media, then I hope the evidence above shows that it’s either your messages or your competitors’ messages that will get to customers. Who’s material do you want them reading about?

It also shows that as well as growing your network, a strategic alliance with other people that have networks that cross over your market space can be highly valuable.

Internal communications & engagement too

This is not just about marketing, or customer engagement. Internally if social media communication tools were to be used, just imagine the impact that could be achieved amongst your people. Employee engagement can be harnessed to share information and learning across organizations with complex structures and multiple sites/ countries/ time zones.

If the current generation of professionals do not learn how to use these tools quickly there is one thing for sure… the undergrads of today are ready, competent and looking for the opportunity. Please do not get me wrong, I’m not saying go and hire these people. Quite the opposite, learn to use the skills and techniques before the current batch of undergrads takes your job. And to prove the point, if you look at the top 10 of the list above, there was only one person under the age of 30 contributing to one of the corporate accounts, and her personal profile while on the list was down in the late 20s! This is a skills and attitude thing – not an age thing.

Trust your staff

Throughout this conference (CIPD11) and many other conferences before it, there has been an increasing trend to block social media. Many claim it is a main cause of poor productivity, and “brand risk”. Well they said the same about the telephone in the 1980s, they said email would be a distraction (sending personal messages and potentially subversive) in the “naughties”. Both of which have proven in the main to be untrue. Social media if not already mainstream business tool in your organization soon will be. The future is employee and customer engagement – social media is one central and core tool set and strategy.

Remember that some of the key talent that can help you deliver your business goals may well sit outside the organization, they may be a supplier, a customer, a service user… its not JUST about employees.

Social media addiction**

I do believe that for the more habitual posters in the web 2.0 space, there is a form of addiction. A compulsion if you like. The reality is like most addictions you cannot stop it by saying “stop”. So if you say do not Facebook, they will but much more carefully. This could be a lost opportunity. Why not harness your people’s love for social media and their passion for your business?

Social media is changing, in the context these tools are starting a revolution in the way we communicate and collaborate. They are becoming tools of the “social business”.

Footnote – The reach of RapidBI would have been higher, as an experiment I sent NO tweets using the tag for more than half of day 2! I will start my medication soon..

How to use Twitter for great customer service

Social Media & Customer Service

Over the past few months I have been (un)fortunate enough to have experienced some very poor customer service in the context of relatively high value purchases. In each case after failing to have the problem acknowledged by the appropriate customer service channel I have put up a direct tweet or two, and the reactions have been curious.

From a direct point of view I have had everything from very quick resolution through to being completely ignored. However one thing is clear – if a company has a Twitter presence, and other channels have failed – then contacting them via twitter has some interesting results.

One factor that seemed to trump many others was the fact that twitter accounts are either run by or contracted to a marketing/ PR function, rather than operations in the way that the customer service function often is. This means that more often than not it is in the PR interests of the company to reach resolution faster than using normal customer service routes. Now while twitter should not be the first channel for communication to a supplier if you are unhappy (best to use local formal channels first), but it is one not to ignore if other channels appear to be failing.

What does this mean for suppliers?

Well the key thing is that if you are on twitter at all, you need to have a system to monitor activity or comments. this can be done in some of the client applications, Hootsuit for example or even using Google alerts for your company or product name with a hashtag attached (#) .

Please be careful here – twitter is NOT like other marketing channels and works best when fully integrated with the business. One example I can give was with a national (international) chain – the twitter account is run by a social media marketing company, and when they engaged with me they asked for my contact details - so I private messaged them (DM) and waited.. and waited… and waited. Nothing. I later found out that they had passed this information on to their local customer service/ operations teams – but no-one told me that the communication had got through. To me as the customer it looked like communication failure. Actually the opposite was true – but i did not know! This caused me to put more negative comments into the public arena – not good for them. So the bottom line is, if you are going to use these tools – make sure they are fully linked with “the way you do business”.

 

In my opening paragraph I said… “I have been (un)fortunate enough to have experienced some very poor customer service” – what diod I mean?

well from a personal point of view having the poor service led to several delays, personal cost and additional stress I did not need – on a fortunate basis, I learnt a lot about how many firms miss-manage their social media ptresence. It is clear they think they “should be doing it” but do not really understand how it is different from traditional marketing strategies – and how close it actually is to customer service team roles.

While all of this was going on I became aware of a blog post by heather Townsend on a similar issue – below I have added some “lessons” she included in the piece.

 

Some interesting lessons and ideas from - Heather Townsend

Heather is known as the Efficiency Coach and her original article can be seen here

Lesson 1:

Use searches on twitter for common keywords connected to your products and services to hear ‘real time’ what your customers are saying about you on twitter. If a provider had a permanent search for ‘<company or product name>, they could have been talking with you before you start talking openly talking about your challenges/ frustrations.

Lesson 2:

Use twitter to communicate outages to your customers. Everyone knows that sometimes stuff happens which shouldn’t happen. But we are all human, and all we really want to know is what is going on, and when your service is going to be back up. Don’t try and hide your problems – the internet has meant that it is almost impossible to try and hide now.

Lesson 3:

When communicating outages to your service, be honest with your customers about the time it will take. Don’t communicate an hour, if it is going to actually be out for two hours. Regularly update your customers, using Twitter and your website, (and apologise) if it is taking longer than planned.

Lesson 4:

If you operate a cloud computing service have a business continuity plan for stuff like scheduled server maintenance, and don’t turn off your system unless you really have to in a peak user time.

Lesson 5:

Your customers will now communicate with you via a range of different communication mediums – e.g. e-mail, Twitter, phone. Make sure you have a (CRM) system which can cope with the different methods, and train your customer service staff to properly use the system.

Lesson 6:

If your customers or potential customers mention you on twitter, either thank them or apologise immediately (depending on their tweet). Do not defend your product or service, empathise first.

Lesson 7:

Before jumping in with a solution, read the tweet stream of your customer. It may give a hint as to their current state of mind.

Lesson 8:

At the first sign of any customer service issue, use twitter to openly acknowledge the problem, and apologise. But aim to get the customer to e-mail or phone as 140 characters is too limited to properly try and solve problems. Plus this gets the negative tweets out of the public domain quickly.

 

So how to use Twitter for great customer service?

• Make sure your twitter users are linked to customer services
• Be human and not procedure bound
• Be honest
• Respond in a timely way – not days later!
• Close the communications loop
• Have real people that are passionate about your business tweet & communicate
• Twitter is an extension of customer Service – not marketing or PR
• Do your best to have some presence 7 days a week – not just 9-5 Monday-Friday!

100 Thoughts on Business – banks using social media

Connecting with Business Leaders

In the last couple of days I have seen more and more about the #100thoughts events programme from the HSBC. On the event website they describe the events as:

“We are currently identifying 100 leading business thinkers in each of our regions across the UK. They will be invited to attend one of our sixteen planned national business events, where they will get the opportunity to network with like-minded businesses and gain insight into how others are meeting the challenges of today”

“We are inviting people from across the UK to join an online community of the freshest business thinkers on Twitter @100thoughts and to tweet their piece of business wisdom using #100thoughts. The most inspiring and unique ‘thoughts’ will be chosen as VIP attendees at the invite-only 100Thought regional events. These are being held around the country between May and July 2010 and the winners will get exclusive access to the expert panel at their chosen event.”

The tweet stream (#100thoughts) is full of short tips about running and improving a business, and although bordering on being overly commercial, the average person on twitter will see through this and discover the important elements that will help them personally.

This is interesting , as the whole event series seems to be based around a social media platform. Is this the first of its kind in the UK? Is this the way forward?

Read these initial 100Thoughts from great business leaders:

Thoughts 1-25

Thoughts 26-50

Thoughts 51-75

Thoughts 76-100

As well as providing information on these events, and how to follow the learning if you are not going there is a useful section providing business reports which is worth a look.

I am currently waiting for the details for the event in Birmingham, I will no-doubt tweet and blog from there. If you know any more about these events or want to share your learning please add them to the comments on the blog, with links to your own blogs etc.

Learning and OD through Social Media

Can we Learn from Social Media?

One thing that amazes me is the lack of acceptance in the Learning and Development world of Social Media. At a conference workshop last year, out of 40 people only three used social media for learning.

Sure some organizations are setting up LinkedIn groups, Ning or other groups and forums for people to share ideas, but that is in many ways an extension of networking or action learning that already exists, just migrating to new platforms.

Learning through social media

While many of the social media and networking tools are great communication and connection vehicles, they should not be looked at as tools to replace formal learning strategies. But they can complement them.

Social learning is said to be open, informal, direct and easy. Open, because everybody or a preselected group of people can follow what you are doing. Informal, as it is about the “here and now”, a gestalt approach. It can be more structured if for example you search for specific content, or a reaction to something someone else has just written about that has inspired you to find out more. Direct, because people can connect to you, through the channel that the original communication was made – blog, Twitter, FaceBook etc. Easy, because new technologies such as smart-phones, are making it easier to stay connected to your social media tools and update them wherever you are and whenever you want. Social learning has the effect of demolish walls and building watchtowers to scan the horizon for new opportunities.

Leslie Madsen-Brooks in her blog says:

“Social media is an excellent medium for professional development because

• It allows for both synchronous and asynchronous participation.
• Participants are active learners—that is, they are actively engaged in the construction of knowledge, not just passive receivers of it.
• Social media usually can be captured, thus providing not only an archive of the learning experience, but content that can be repurposed for future symposia, seminars, or courses.
• In learning to use social media within the context of professional development, staff learn new ways of engaging with audiences for their institutions.
• Engagement with social media involves multiple learning modalities and intelligences—visual, aural, textual, and more.”

Twitter as an Informal learning Tool

Ever since I “found” twitter in November 2008 I have found it a powerful tool for finding out people thoughts, views and applications of models, theories and approaches to learning, leadership and many other topics around which we operate.

As a practical example, Dave Lester (@digitalhumanist) used Twitter to learn about mobile media and share what he learned:

If you follow the right people on Twitter, you can learn a lot on a diverse range of topics, not least it can stimulate you to research material you did not know existed previously.

To find useful and interesting Twitterfolk (or “Tweeps”), go to Twitter Search and enter a search term. Once you locate some interesting tweets, “follow” their authors and check to see whom these authors are following.

Kindle, iPad & other e-readers

With the ability to carry around a web connected reading device comes instant access to material whenever you want.

From a formal learning point of view, if each individual were issues with a Kindle or other e-ink reader, a company could ensure that each person had instant, anywhere access to policies, procedures and how-to’s. This approach would work equally well in retail, engineering or service sectors.  Once a week or so the individual would plug their reader into a network point and BANG! they have up to date manuals etc – and its environmentally friendly too.

For informal learning a company could make training texts and other learning tools available for those that wanted to improve themselves in an informal way.

One of the problems with the iPad is cost. With most e-readers being 89-199 each they are much more cost effective mass solutions.

The new tool on the street is the Google Android based Tablets, the power of the iPad (more actually) with the cost nearing the e-reader. Sure battery life is considerably less but its a move towards on-demand, interactive anywhere learning. With Android systems being open source, it also means that it is easy for a company to commission its own apps without breaking the learning and development budget!

Many of these platforms allow comments, notes etc from both a formal and informal approach to be shared with colleagues thus taking social media off-line and into areas e-learning has not been able to penetrate.

Summary

Social media opens the doors and empowers individuals to learn if they so choose. As organizations it will be difficult to drive it – but we can empower people and show them how to learn.

Informal learning for personal and career development is at last coming of age – thanks to social media and low cost portable technology.

If you have any stories of how you have used social media for your own personal development please add them below, I would love to hear about them.

The Perfect Training Room Of The Future – now!

Anatomy of a Training Environment

Times are changing, as should the use and technology within a training room and training venue, but what technologies could be used to create an effective learning environment? While at some high-tech training rooms recently it got me thinking – what would I want in my perfect training room?

Lets look at what most training rooms (should) contain:

• Powerpoint/ data projection
• Flip-charts
• Walls to put up posters/ user created flip-charts

Lets first say that the assumptions as to the use of the room are:

1. Up to 16 delegates
2. Suitable for Soft-skills training
3. Suitable for use as a meeting room
4. Suitable for IT based training
5. Suitable for facilitation of planning meetings

The basics of a training room

I would expect the following basics are in place first in any high quality training venue:

• SPACE – the room should seat 20% more delegates than actually attending comfortable
• Ability to control light levels (and lights that are natural daylight colour)
• Natural light (windows)
• Ability to control the air temp/ air flow in the room
• Comfortable chairs
• Access to a lounge with comfy seating
• Access to syndicate/ breakout room
• Access to toilets
• Clock that the lead facilitator can see easily
• Easy access to refreshments/ water/ fruit/ dried fruit/ nuts
• Long cables on all the tech kit that do not cause anyone a trip hazard!
• Paper/ pens, stationary
• Place for coats/ bags
• Toys/ stimulating objects (A box of)
• Walls that can have flip-charts/ posters easily attached
• Sound damping – the room should not be subject from noise outside – or noise in the room impact others
• Support – easy contact to the people that can help in the event of missing items or additional resources needed

I hope it goes without saying that the venue is easy to find, parking/ public transport access etc. Disabled/ mobility impaired friendly

Furniture at the training venue

Any room must have some type of flexibility in terms of layout (see training room layout for more info)

Once we have a flexible layout we then need some equipment. Traditionally the most flexible equipment has been rail based – but this is cumbersome and rarely as flexible in practice as suppliers would have us to believe.

And now for something completely different

As the old saying goes – if you always do what you have always done, you will always get what you have always got! and this is just as true for training and learning environments. In addition we need to start to think about the environment and waste. Flip-charts are great for interactive work and for creating ownership by user generated content in a learning environment, but is it really sustainable – or even compatible with a digital based society?

So my ideal training environment (and most of this is available NOW so why don’t training providers or conference providers use this?….)

1. A room with natural light – preferable from above – but one side with substantial windows is OK
2. A data projector central at the front, complete with suitable sound system, DVD etc (no wires!) – or ceiling mounted
3. 2 white boards, one either side of the projection area – full wall size – height & width
4. White boards covering the other 2 usable walls
5. Provision of drinking water etc in the room
6. Wireless netbooks connected together with collaboration software – and connected for electronic polls etc with the main PC in the room
7. Wifi

And then the “twist”

The data projector screen is a SMART board function on a standard magnetic white board

All the white boards are magnetic… and each has its own low cost small pc, data projector & some have their own smart recorder (at least 2 in the room, ideally 4)

A printer to print any of the smartboard captures out for handouts if required or emailed to participants.

The provision of traditional “flip-charts” are done via capture and then projection into a different part of the room as a poster for the remaining duration of the training. With PC’s costing less than £200, data projectors costing less than £200 and smart systems (digitization) from as little as £400, developing interactive solutions is not as expensive as it once was. This way anything written on one of the smart areas, can be projected onto another area for participants to reference throughout the training. This is also then in a convenient format for circulating as post event reminders. Optionally white boards can be replaced by LCD screens – as long as they can be protected so that the smart board technology can be applied. In time these could just be large touch screen monitors with limited on-board processing.

The use of magnetic walls or boards can allow environmentally friendly use of planning and note taking strategies, as well as total flexibility, and if using magnetic paint rather than metal sheets a level of flexibility can be added to an existing room for little capital outlay.

Why are technology rooms for technology training , and ‘soft-skills’ training environments basically the same as they were 20+ years ago?

Technology has the ability to integrate and create interaction between people to enhance learning.

All of the tools outlined here can be purchased and implemented in an existing space, and in small steps, making the development not cost prohibitive. So why has this approach not take off universally? Simple… many trainers are not aware of what is available from a technology point of view, and technology based people rarely think of the psychology of learning.

Twitter in training

In addition a plasma screen could be available which is linked to a twitter (or yammer or other social business tool) feed of the trainer choice. this will allow for a range of interactions not possible. Especially of value for larger groups.

Footnote

This technology based solution does not rely on brain numbing powerpoint – indeed using this approach you can record all activities that would usually take place on flip-charts and automatically digitize the content for distribution during or after the event.

What is a business blog? A marketing tool?

What is a Blog?

Lets look at the background behind this technology, so we can understand where it is coming from.

Research into the history behind blogs suggests that it was Pyra Labs is the company that adopted the word Blogger, and made the service a big success (now known as Google blogger/ blogspot).

The people that were the co-founders of Pyra Labs were Evan Williams and Meg Hourihan. “Pyra” was also the name of the company’s first product. It was a web based application which combined a simple project manager, contact manager, and to-do list.

In 1999 the product, while still in beta, were re-engineered (changed) to become an in-house tool which eventually became known as Blogger. The service was launched to the public in August of 1999.

It is believed that the term is actually weblogs was originally coined by Jorn Barger in 1997.

The rapid adoption of weblogs started in 1999 when several companies & developers made easy to use blogging software and tools. Since that time, the number of blogs on the Internet has exploded.

Blogs or weblogs are usually one of two forms:.

Personal Blogs: a mixture of a personal diary, opinion posts and research links.

Business Blogs: a corporate tool for communicating with customers, potential customers or employees to share knowledge and expertise. Blogs that are internally available are increasingly being used as knowledge management ‘pots’.

For a blog to be an effective tool to small businesses we need to understand the nature of weblogs, a definition if you like. Here are almost as many definitions as there are commentators on social media. For a weblog or blog is a social media – it is used by people for people. An effective blog article encourages interactions and collaboration, even if at a basic level.

There are many features which make one blog distinctive from another (apart from the basic design)

• Personality – people write blogs – formal, informal, facts or opinion biased?– not the corporate engine
• Voice – each contributor will have their own style
• Links – what are the nature of the links – internal, external mixed?
• Conversations – are the contributions tell or engaging, do the authors encourage discussion?
• Frequency – how often there is new content, is it from the ‘personality or owner’ or is it a collection of personality-less rss feed provide data

The only real difference between an individual and business based blog is the goal. The purpose of the business blog is to support the goals , aspirations and business plan of the host organisation.

Blog at your web domain or not?
It’s a difficult one – the new and varied content is valuable to your visitors and to the search engines, but it will limit what you can say as you will need to protect the ‘brand image’.

Some business have several blogs – the main one on the site is more about “giving value”, off site blogs may be the personal views of key insiders, views on the industry. This can then link to your site. One advantage of this is that because it is not seen as “your site” you reduce the risk of people perceptions if they dislike or disagree with the content of an individual post. – It is also valuable for search engines if you point your blog at the company site every now and again!

Summary

So a blog is a less formal vehicle for communicating information – facts and opinions to your current and potential customer base, as well as being a key part in your marketing strategy and a vehicle for increasing web traffic.

This is part of a mini-series on Blogs for small business, trainers and freelancers

Twitter as a marketing tool for training courses & events

Using Twitter to market your training event

As the training market changes, increasingly more and more trainers are looking to promote their on-line and open courses events, But how do you get people to attend and how do you keep costs down?

If you are a member of TrainerBase or Training journal (TJonline), both have the ability to promote your events, however it is doubtful if either can fill a course. Some use paid for services, where a high percentage of the revenue goes to attracting participants. But how can you do this and retain the majority of the income for little cost? The real power to fill a course has traditionally been the email list – be that list self developed or a purchased list from many of the (reputable) list providers. But now times have changed. Twitter is the new key channel.

Twitter is a great way of engaging referrals from people you do not know – and we all know the power of referrals.

So  “How, exactly, can I use Twitter to promote my event?”

Some approaches to twitter just will not be appropriate for all events, you approach will also vary depending on the twitter following you have currently.

One approach that is successful for many does not require you to have an established following. That is to create a twitter account specifically for an event or course for example:

@assertivnessinlondon

@salesingrantham

@leadershipinhealthcare

@publicsectorchangemanagement

This can act to attract people to the event based on specific needs. This then enables the course to have its own life and journey.

The more specific the name and the event the more success you are likely to get. Having a name like @leadershipworkshop means very little to people.

When you set your twitter account up – remember the bio and link to your dedicated event page. Also create a background for your twitter home page which provides additional information.

What to tweet? – or gain the attention of your intended audience

Well if your name is @salesingrantham not every message you send needs to say “Attend [xxxx course] in London” as what you are is in your name so you can start to be a little more creative. On twitter people appreciate value. Give value and they will follow you and re-tweet you, then if they do not attend the programme that are at least part of your marketing ‘team’!

For example a plan of you tweets could be:

1. First write a list of 4 key words that people would search for if looking for the event
2. Write a series of top 20 tips relevant to the topic
3. Find 10 quotes relevant to the course content
4. Have a page on a website which clearly says what the course is, who for, where, when and how much – AND a way of booking

Then run all of these as tweets, using the keywords as # (hash) tags – different tags on different posts.

Give information, useful stuff, if all you do is say “come sign-up to my event” you will disengage more people than you engage. Sure you can announce the event, IF you are going to do that, have one promotion every 15-20 posts or so – content first! Otherwise people will treat it as spam and not read what you have to say.

Next build your twitter following

Start sending the messages developed above – and retweet using your own account – remember to add the “please RT” at the end to encourage people to send your message to their followers.

As your name is the event name, each time you follow people, that name alone is a promotion of the event – if they are interested they will look you up. Its like sending each person a targeted email!

Next using the twitter search facility http://search.twitter.com find others that are interested in your keywords – follow them. Engage with people that have similar interests – talk is good. DON’T DIRECTLY PROMOTE YOUR EVENT TO THEM – let you name do that for you.

For example, if your event is about gaining sales, you could find other people who are Twittering on the subject of sales, gain their attention, and by engaging with them via direct responses and getting them to follow you, you also gain the attention of all the people following them.  It works.

If you subscribe to tools like hootsuit, tweetspinner or socialoomph, you can use there follower building tools too, again use your keywords.

You need to gain momentum, so make sure that this twitter account is linked to your LinkedIn profile – so that others in your network see. If you can encourage people to tweet about that fact that they are attending (or in the case of on-line events participating) this also build momentum

Twitter is a great way to aggregate the attention of like-minded individuals.  This lends itself well to cultivating an audience towards which you can promote your events over time. 

Twitter and other ‘update’ or micro-blogging services is more effective than e-mail, timely Twittering can keep your audience connected to your messages.  In the persona of your next event, post links, share resources and call attention to any of the ideas you consider important.  Then, when you’re ready to promote your next event, you’ll have a ready audience of potential attendees right at your fingertips.

TOP TIP – offer people that retweet you a discount to attend the event!  say 5% for one RT, 10% for 10 RTs….

TOP TIP – keep the account live after the first event – use the momentum to deliver maore particimants to future events

For more information on using Twitter see our other Twitter marketing posts

Twitter as a marketing & CRM tool

Twitter: your CRM & marketing channel

Its about more than just followers…

Over the past 12 months in my twitter contributions I have often included tips to help those involved in using twitter for their business (marketing). I often get requests to publish a full set – so here is a list of my current thinking about using twitter as a tool for building relationships for future business. In no particular order (other than alphabetical)…

1. Add value – share interesting or useful info, blogs etc
2. Add good description & link for something that would be too short in a post
3. ALWAYS keep it clean & professional
4. ALWAYS professional NEVER personal unless it is praise or thanks 
5. As far as getting followers goes; I find just being friendly and helpful does wonders. And of course shared interests help to.
6. Be honest. Have fun. Don’t try to sell anything.
7. Big followers – does not mean many listeners – the RTs tell that story
8. Change your BIO regularly
9. Change your twitter habits – make sure you don’t include links in most of your tweets, some tools treat this as spam & unfollow
10. contribute positively to conversations going on inside twitter
11. Don’t follow more people than you can handle. If you’ve got too much going on, you miss a lot of the good stuff.
12. Don’t expect Twitter to deliver revenue alone, it is only ONE element of the strategy
13. Efficient is the key to Twitter. short & sweet. Basically, get right to the point.
14. Even an attentive follower won’t read all your messages
15. Follow people who are in your field or area of interest
16. Follow the advice of people that have demonstrated competence – not think they know how to…
17. Frequent Twitter updates demand desktop or server side clients
18. funny, informative and catchy: choose two.
19. Getting followers is not a right its a privilege
20. Give – don’t take
21. Have an avatar (picture) of your face or company logo
22. Help promote the dreams of other people, and they may return the favour
23. If someone RT re-Tweets a message – send them a thank you
24. If you are going to auto DM only send a welcome message
25. If you post info of any kind, leave plenty of room for retweeting
26. In marketing messages use appropriate keywords
27. Interact and communicate with others, it’s a social media tool, so be social
28. Its not the number of followers but the number of Re-Tweets you get
29. Join the conversation, there are too many blog promoters on twitter who just broadcast. Learn @ and start networking
30. Keep it short
31. Keep your Twitter updated and the followers will come. Stay up-to-date and you will reap the benefits.
32. Learn what people care about
33. Limit what you automate
34. Look beyond the obvious (traffic, sales etc.) Add value. Build relationships. Think LONG term.
35. Make sure your BIO is up to date and human
36. Make use of other Twitter tools to make the most of Twitter (and so it doesn’t suck up all your time)
37. NEVER DM a request to follow you on another social networking site ie FaceBook
38. NEVER DM or tweet a MLM program
39. NEVER DM or tweet a traffic follower program
40. NEVER sign up to any of the Twitter ad services-it undermines your position
41. NEVER tweet when drunk, angry or think you have just won the lottery!
42. NEVER tweet cat or baby anecdotes!
43. Occasionally ask people to RT a post, if you ask every time they wont
44. Only @ people you know – & only with a link if invited, otherwise its SPAM!
45. Only promote your services less than once every 10-20 tweets
46. ONLY use a DM for personal messages or if you must to welcome a follower
47. Open up a bit.ly account for short URLs
48. Please report (@spam) unfollow & Block Twitter Spammers
49. Remember what you tweet is around for ever!
50. Rerunning tweets occasionally is a good idea
51. Respect the people you follow. Be interesting. Listen first, tweet second. Never waste words
52. Set your wallpaper to promote your message
53. Share interesting resources, not just what you ate for lunch. Twitter often, and use it to test potential blog topics.
54. Share links, share ideas, ask questions, answer questions anything but what are you doing? unless it’s really interesting
55. Share links. share insights and trends, things that are new or timely/current. Be personal. Don’t link only to yourself
56. Share thoughts and links from others (RT)
57. Share thoughts more than actions: Identi.ca will kill Twitter vs. I’m going to the toilet
58. Stop thinking that twitter is pointless and just try it. It’s all about community reach out and be a part of it
59. Thank people who re-tweet you. Either DM, @ reply, or re-tweet something of theirs
60. Think before you hit send. 140 characters have the power to help, heal or be miss-understood
61. This often goes unsaid, but I would suggest not having twitter open while writing. It can become very distracting
62. This was my problem at first, I just lurked. Get active and follow others. Great tool for tossing around ideas.
63. Treat followers with respect & courtesy & every now & then thank them
64. Tweet real stuff – highs and lows
65. Tweet regularly – at least 4 times a day
66. Tweet to show you are human
67. Tweet to show you are more than a marketing machine
68. Tweet what you read on others blogs
69. Twitter about stuff that has to do with your blog, but also Twitter stuff that has nothing to do with your blog
70. Twitter is not an IM service-keep private discussions short
71. Use a # in front of #keywords
72. Use an username as short as possible so you can twit more
73. Use favourites to save and show brand/product testimonials
74. Use travel time to tweet & read tweets on smartphones
75. Use twitpic or other photo services occasionally
76. Use Twitter to meet up with your new contacts
77. Use twitterfeed. Instant feedback from readers is the best part of Twitter. Listen to others; engage them; have a conversation
78. Want more followers? Re-tweet the good stuff you find
79. When you have over 100 friends use tweetdeck or Seesmic to help you to manage
80. Work on building a relationship-not pushing message to people
81. Write each word like it matters, because it does
82. You don’t have to follow everyone, only those of interest

Remember Twitter is not a silver bullet – or the universal hammer, it is but one tool in our communication toolbox. Done well and Twitter can be a key part of your communication strategy – do it wrong and it can undermine all of your marketing and brand development activity.

Twitter is not just for marketing – it is for learning, so make sure that you learn from others and they can learn from you. For twitter to work as a training, learning or CRM tool, people need to trust you and what you put out. As a big brand it can me all about me-me-me, however as a small business, we must be part of a community, we must respect others share the ideas of others and re-tweet their messages and blogs. Its about collaboration and win/ win. Those that only tweet their own messages will soon lose readership.

Readership is not just about followers – its the people that read and act on your messages.

From my experience I have people I am not connected to RT my messages and blog entries, so they must read the streams or use the search rather than just follow. Indeed once someone has over 200 followers, especially if they are active contributers to the twitter stream, it will be impossible to look at what they put out – so we must make it interesting and engaging that they keep looking at our material.

What are you favourite tips – share them below

You reap WHAT you sow – what does this mean in marketing?

Social media marketing – tips for success in 2010

Read my 9 top tips for social media marketing  below.

As entrepreneurs and smaller businesses marketing is a vital yet difficult concept for many of us. Many of us hate it and want to find the “quick fix”.

What prompted me to write this article was receipt this morning of a ‘newsletter’ I get that goes straight to my junk mail. It is from Kenneth Yu ”the Puppet Master” (take care with his sites as they take a lot of processing power and clever pop ups). To be honest I liked the hype he created but his newsletter are for me are too frequent and contain little of depth or value. Is he a one trick pony? His latest however caught my eye. He included the message:

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“You reap what you sow…”

In other words, the more time, resources and energy you put into something, the bigger the harvest you’ll reap — be it financially, relationally or spiritually. So if you put in your elbow grease and late nights, you’re guaranteed success right? WRONG!

Or more rather, the Sowing and Reaping analogy is only a half truth.

You see, we followed this principle to the tee… We “slaved like dogs”, yet we were “rewarded” with disappointment, stress and relationship strain.

Have you ever wondered why sometimes you work so hard, and yet don’t seem to reap the bountiful harvest you deserve?

Here’s something that may come as surprise for you…

There’s a missing dimension to the concept of sowing and reaping. If you miss this, you’re potentially setting yourself back months, even years from where you’re supposed to be.

In one of the Biblical parables, Jesus talked about the parable of the sower.

The gist of it was that the farmer was scattering seed across the land. However, he was rather indiscriminate about it and the seeds fell on stony paths, thorny soil, shallow earth and fertile ground.

The seeds that fell on the former 3 types of soil ended up with stunted growth, or worse… Not growing at all.

Here’s the awesome part…

The seed that fell on fertile ground produced a magnificent harvest of tenfold, hundredfold… and even a thousand-fold!

What made the difference?

It’s about WHERE the sower threw his seed.

That’s right. WHERE you sow is probably more important then HOW MUCH you sow.

It’s a principle we call STRATEGIC SOWING. And we believe it’s the single most important trait of mega-successful entrepreneurs.

Once you master this, you’ll get a return on investment that’ll blow your socks off. Because every ounce of blood, sweat and tears is going to give you a windfall.

One of the biggest bittersweet lessons we learned is that Laura and I may be world-class marketers, but we’re still newbies in terms of building a long-term sustainable business.

The single most vital trait that separates entrepreneurs from marketers is the ability to effectively allocate one’s limited resources. Unfortunately, it’s an ability that comes from hard-worn experience rather than any $997 home study course.

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This was as a reflection to his own business performance over the last few months, Insightful – yes – accurate – no!

The saying “You reap what you sow” actually is a little different from the account given here.

Lets look at the phrase – what it is saying is you get back from WHAT you sow. Sure the location (WHERE) is important – but more so is the quality of the seeds you sow – sow seeds that are dead and nothing will grow no matter how much hard work you put in. What we agree on is the effort in terms of hours is not the key here.

Kenneth was right about the location – like any good marketing strategy we need to understand the environment in which we operate, the strengths and weaknesses of our service and marketing messages, we also need to look at the detail and quality of what we are sowing.

In social media marketing it is common for volume to rule the day (HOW we sow), but it is the content (WHAT) and location (WHERE which site/ social media vehicle) we put our messages that count.

The social media “marketing gurus”

Without exception all of these ‘marketing gurus’ talk glibly about keywords and other technical terms, yet all fail to inform the reader of HOW to go about identifying these things. Keywords and search engine optimisation is not that difficult, however what is more difficult it really identifying your niche. Many of the web based marketing sites talk about finding your niche – what they fail to tell you is YOU  & I are their niche! – people trying to sell or promote their business on the internet. They have their niche – and on the web it is one of the easiest groups to find! We all want quick fix solutions.

So the next time you work extra long hours, look at WHAT you are doing and WHERE you are doing it. If you are a regular contributer on more than 3-5 forums or communities – then it suggests that you are spreading yourself too thinly – over the holiday period cut some out…

9 Top tips to focus your social media marketing strategy:

1. Identify 5 keywords which your customers will use to find you
2. Identify 1 site where your peers are (for CPD & networking) – stay with them for up to 12 months & evaluate
3. Identify 2 (max) physical networking groups and get active – remember networking is about relationships NOT sales – stay with them for up to 12 months & evaluate
4. Identify 3 sites where your customers are (for sales) – stay with them for up to 12 months & evaluate
5. Using your 5 key words only contribute to those that use and focus on the keywords
6. On twitter identify 5 search keywords and set your twitter app to look at those – ignore your time line
7. Find up to 10 blogs that add value to you and add them to your outlook/ RSS feed reader
8. Turn Google off being your home page
9. Print a sheet of paper listing this information, put a heading on it: If I’m doing anything other than these STOP NOW and put it up in a place you can read it while working

Do we reap what we sow? – well only if we are careful with what, where and how we sow

Wishing all my readers a wonderful and successful 2010 and beyond

Mike

6 ways for social media (twitter) to work for marketing

What makes a successful social media marketing strategy?

As more and more people go freelance, marketing is increasingly important. Yet at a time when there are more freelance trainer, consultants & advisers, only a few seem to get the importance of having a serious approach to marketing.

Often I get questions in email and phone calls from people about why some people get success and some don’t get success from social media and twitter as marketing tools.

Where social marketing includes: forums, blogs, wikis, microblogs, online networks etc.

So, why do 95% of people either not see the point or fail?  Similarly, what’s the secret to success for the other 5% that make a success of it?

There are lots of answers to these questions, but here are 6 of the most common.

1. Success & Reward: We never really get after it.  To be honest, I think this is one of the biggest reasons for failure.  Some of us again say that we “want” success, that we “want” freedom, but rolling up our sleeves and getting after it is another story.  If being successful was easy, we would see a lot more people driving prestige cars.
2. Belief: We don’t believe in what we are doing.  All too often we get into this game “wanting” to be successful, yet we don’t fully believe in what we do.  Doubting the approach we have undertaken is a guaranteed route to failure.
3. Hobbies: We treat marketing like a part-time hobby.  Marketing activity is a key business activity and must be treated as such.  Just like becoming a consultant requires education and experience, so does learning to become a skilled marketer.
4. Lies: We lie to ourselves and those around us. We often kid ourselves into believing we are actually doing income generating activities, yet the reality is that many of us are simply being busy.  If we aren’t actively prospecting & exposing, we really are not doing marketing….
5. Fickle: We hop from technique to technique.  The grass often seems greener on the other side. It rarely is.  The solution to this is not in another approach.  The solution includes application of effort, working on you, your skills, and your work ethic. Stick with one approach and really work it, have evaluation measures. If the measure are not being hit (after a reasonable time) consider changing the platform. The goal is to master one before moving to another (keeping the previous one going with equal effort!)
6. Blame: We place blame everywhere else but on ourselves.  Those of us that who don’t create sales quickly point the finger at the technique, the site, the tools or any other myriad of choices.  Bottom line:  If others are making money using the same techniques and we aren’t, look in the mirror. 

If these are the things the 95% of people do – what are the top 6 things the 5% of successful people do? 

The team at RapidBI use a mix of blogs, forums and microblogging platforms (inc twitter) as an integrated part of our social media marketing strategy.

What are the secrets to success in marketing your business?

1. Secrets: There are no secrets to twitter or social media marketing Success at anything requires hard, consistent work that is concentrated on developing your skills & knowledge.  Every day requires diligent effort that is on task and relevant to your business (note business not just the delivery part!).
2. Thinking patterns/ Habits: There are many “self development gurus” that say that you have to work on your thought patterns, it is said that we are who we believe ourselves to be.  Our beliefs about ourselves, our company, our abilities… all affect how we interact with others and will either build our business or destroy it.
3. Focus: Concentrate on the business.  People who change every month or quarter to a new model or strategy are kidding themselves.  If this is your habit or pattern, it’s likely that you need to work on yourself first. 
4. Effort: Work harder & longer than you have before.  If this business is something you really want, you’ll put in the time and effort required, even when you don’t feel like it. 
5. Associate with success: It’s said that you are the average of the five closest people around you.  If the people closest to you have the same things as you have, you’re not going anywhere!  You must surround yourself with successful people.  Start making friends with people who inspire you.  Expand your thinking by taking in what they do.  It’s all about self development, so that you get a stronger belief in who you are and what you’re capable of.
6. Leadership: This type of self development allows you to build on your leadership skills.  No-one will ever consciously buy from you just because it’s such a great opportunity.  People, customers, want your leadership & guidance. The unique things that you bring to the relationship.  They are joining you and this we must get used to. 
7. Keep going: When the going gets tough the tough get going… never, ever, ever give up.  Often it may seem easier to quit, however the most successful people in any sector know that little worthwhile comes from taking the easy route.  It may be uncomfortable, even demoralising at times, but each day is a new opportunity to improve on the day before.  A missed sale/ opportunity is a missed sale.  It happens.  There will be more opportunities.

Obviously there are more details related to guaranteeing your success in marketing your business.  But this is how I see the start. Having an understanding of SEO (search engine optimisation) is also important. Its all very well doing all of the above if the content does not work!

I urge you to learn more about yourself, your sector and how you can achieve marketing success.  Find people who’s writing inspires you, network and attend workshops and seminars. On twitter follow people like @garygorman & @SharonGaskin 

Twitter as a marketing tool for SMEs

Low cost marketing for smaller businesses on Twitter

Budgets are tight, time is short and the emphasis for many businesses is sales, sales, sales. And this is correct – for today… but what about the sales next week, month, year?

Gaining sales from existing customers is by far the most effective cost per sale according to much of the research, however gaining access to markets is getting harder. In the UK once upon a time it was easy:

• 2 commercial TV stations
• Few commercial radio choices
• A local paper
• 2 local business based telephone directories
• Local town centre shopping for posters
• Business Link networks
• Chamber of commerce

Advertising was limited in breadth, but you knew that your audience would be there…

Now however things are very different:

• 100′s of TV channels
• Commercial radio stations able to operate nationally, so 100′s of them
• Most local papers full with property and little else
• What telephone directories?
• Out of town shopping in multiple centres that do not permit post type adverts
• 1000′s of web sites
• You-tube
• Text messaging
• Twitter
• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• Business Link networks
• Chamber of commerce

Getting your message across is getting harder, although it is also cheaper than ever. Freelance professionals, SMEs and larger firms now need practical and integrated digital marketing strategies.

In the past the most successful adverts and promotions have been through word of mouth, viral if you like. Well now for the first time ever viral marketing is available to ordinary business owners – its called Twitter.

Twitter is in essence an ‘opt in’ marketplace, where you have 140 characters to promote your idea or thought, when someone likes what you are saying they will ReTweet (forward your message) to other users, then if enough people find the message of value it can go viral (sent to lots of people).

So how can you use Twitter as a marketing tool?

Get a name, the shorter the better with either your company name or a word that promotes your business/ product. The shorter the name is the easier it is for others to promote your product! Use your company name for the twitter name (i.e. @rapidbi) and your real name as the user.

Design your home page. As well as the messages you send, your homepage can contain a link, a bio of your business and other information that people can read about your offer. You can change this periodically.

Getting enough followers (people that want to listen to you) can take several months, and while there are tools that will build this quickly, its quality not quantity you want. Remember the goal is for OTHERS to send your messages, so even if only 100 people hear your message, and 10 sent that to their 1000 followers, and 10 of them send that to their 1000 followers, that is over 30000 people that have read your message!

You need to spend time finding people that are interested in the sector you operate, or the products/ services you provide. There are “keyword” software tools that can help do this such as http://www.socialoomph.com/ and http://www.tweetspinner.com/ .

Next you plan on what to say to people, just pushing your advert will bore people very quickly and they will stop following you and certainly wont be ReTweeting (broadcasting) your messages out on your behalf. One thing to to is to write 100 tips on how to… and put these out as regular messages, no links, no adverts, just good value added. Then once every 10-20 “Tweets” you can send a promotional message. The more interesting or curious it is the more chance it has of being broadcast by your followers. If you have any ‘end of line’ offers or seasonal discounts promote those too

Be human, one of the elements that most business users forget is that Twitter is SOCIAL MEDIA, this means that people are interested in the person behind the business. So every few days tweet something personal, to show you are human. The goal is for people to trust you and your company.

If your business operates a blog to help people in your industry or users of your products, link your blog to twitter using one of the many twitter plug-ins. This is a great way of telling the world that you have a new article, it is also liked by the search engines, so a win win! If you don’t operate a blog yet to support your business, then consider it now! Most of our product sales are on the back of our blog articles.

Press Releases – using twitter as a strategic marketing tool

Every time you put a press release out, tweet it, get your PR firm to tweet it too. If your PR firm are not using broadcast technology like Twitter or other social media platforms, re-consider who you are using.

Why does Twitter work as a marketing tool?

Twitter is about right here, right now, and if you happen to promote that you have a product that does x, and the person reading the stream has a problem that requires x, then guess what, if the message was a ReTweet, then in effect that is a recommendation, and we know how powerful recommendations are.

This great value also makes the marketing challenge slightly more difficult, as of course we need to send our message out regularly, but without being seen to spam. If twitter (or a user) thinks you are spamming you will be investigated and have your account deactivated, so we need to be careful here. Both of the tools listed above offer a text spinning facility, where the text in a message can be random, thus creating a different message. for example in a sentence:

• The cat sat on the mat

Could be replaced by The [cat:dog:mouse] sat on the  [mat:chair:table]

• The dog sat on the mat
• The mouse sat on the table
• The cat sat on the chair

In essence it is the same message, but with text changes. this is a highly effective way of constructing a single message that can be re-used without spamming.

Give credit to others

If there are other twitter users that put out content you think your customers will value from then it is up to you to ReTweet their messages, If you only ever send your material then there is less reason for people to follow you. Sure the very big players can get away with this – but the world of social media is changing and they will lose out in the longer term.  This is supposed to be a social media platform after all, so pay it forward and it will come back. Sites like http://www.twitterfeed.com can help you tweet your blog, and the blogs of others

Customer service

Twitter is more than a marketing tool, it can be a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) tool. As your customers can follow you, they can also message you directly, this is a powerful way to show you care. If you offer poor customer care DON’T use twitter – word will get out! The odd problem can be resolved really quickly and act as good PR

Make the most of Twitter as a marketing tool

Twitter is so much more than on the basic Twitter website, look at software tools like tweetdeck, seesmic or hootsuit, as they allow you to see and interact more easily with messages and content that is more relevant to you.

 

Summary – Top Tips for using Twitter as a strategic marketing tool:

1. First things first – Make sure your account is set up correctly with all your details so that others can find you.
2. Target the right people – people that are potentially interested in your product/ service
3. Quantity vs quality followers – go for quality every time
4. Get involved with other Tweeters – reply & comment on discussions
5. It’s all for the love of the links – but not too often
6. Have a great avatar  – have a photo (a professional one) rather than your company logo
7. Have an effective background on your twitter page
8. Update regularly – 1-6 times a day
9. Don’t be a pest – do not use auto DM’s or auto replies
10. Promote your twitter name on your email footers, blogs and business forums
11. Twitter is only ONE communication channel – never rely on one strategy for your marketing
12. The personal and business link is critical for success in social media based marketing

WARNING

There are many sites on the web that claim to grow your followers fast – please avoid them, many also tweet adverts to your followers, and they look like spam, you have been warned. Never give a site your twitter name and password, remember this is YOUR brand image we are talking about!

What are people saying about your industry or company? check it out at http://search.twitter.com/

Note - This blog article is based on our experience of using twitter as a marketing tool over the past 12 months. If a person is going to train you in these things, please ensure that they use the tools for their business, if they have only a few hundred followers and an out of date blog, then ask the question why are they not doing this effectively? Many of the tips on so called expert sites just do not work, everything I have written about here has worked in the field.

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