Top Social Media Sites

Social media sites are all the rage. People are finding new ways, each day, to keep track of long lost friends and build new business contacts, through these social media sites. Understanding which ones can get you the most exposure can be key to your SEO strategy. While the world of social media sites can seem overwhelming, if you attack it in an organized and consistent way you can gain some amazing exposure for your company and your products. Social media sites are a fast way to reach many potential customers. Just make sure that your information is short and to the point, because many social media experts do not have the time to indulge in long drawn out content.

One of the most talked about social media sites is Twitter. Once it hit the mainstream it really took off and took a lot of people with it. Twitter gives its users the ability to reach thousands of people with one, short, 140-character message. To gain tons of followers you will need to convince them that the information you have to share is current and important, but once you have convinced them, you will take your company to the next level. Twitter can be a really amazing marketing tool, if you treat it properly. If you misuse your Twitter powers you can feel the repercussions almost immediately.

Another popular social media site is Facebook. There are a ton of applications and fun ways to keep in contact with friends and colleagues on Facebook, just remember, if you are using this to promote your business, it is important to stay professional. Many people tend to get very personal and wind up sharing too much information on these social media sites. While they can be a great tool to keep in contact with friends, if you are trying to come across as an expert in your field, you may want to refrain from posting pictures of the last girl’s night out you enjoyed.

YouTube is another great social media site. YouTube allows you to post videos about you and your business for people to view. This is a great way to connect to potential customers. If you create videos that truly help people answer questions about your company, field and products, they will go to you first to make a purchase. While video can seem like a daunting task to jump right into, it may not be as difficult as you think. There are a number of sites that can help you create quality videos for free or very little investment or you can find companies that can create videos for you. Video is becoming more and more popular and even if you are unsure, you should start learning more about this great marketing tool.

Social media sites give companies an amazing opportunity to reach thousands of potential customers. They are also great tools for building a strong network of business resources. While social media sites can be used for personal and professional purposes, it is important to understand that you should try and keep things separated in order to portray yourself as an expert in your field.

More Tips for Tweeting on Twitter

If you signed up for Twitter and just love sharing things that you have learned that are making your business bigger and better you probably have some of the basics of tweeting down. Maybe you read our post “Tweet, Retweet, Hashtags: The New Language of Social Media” that showed you a few of the basics. If you are finding that Twitter has been an amazing tool for your business and are in need of more, this article will take your tweets to the next level. While tweeting can be a great way to share information you shouldn’t forget that Twitter is a two-way-street and may teach you a few things, too.

A great tool, that isn’t the easiest to find, is Twitter’s advanced search. The advanced search feature can help you find posts about a term, a person, a topic, a location or even a certain date. The tool can be found by scrolling to the bottom of any page on Twitter and look for the “Search” link. There is also another link there that lists all the Twitter search operators like “from:” which allows you to find tweets from a specific person or shows you that putting words in quotes to find tweets about a specific term. Advanced search can really help you find information on exactly what you may need help with at the moment you need it.

Another cool feature that is available to Twitter users that also have a Facebook account is the ability to install Twitter on Facebook. This allows you to update your status in one place, instead of two and keep your social media endeavors efficient. All you need to do is go to twitter.com/widgets/facebook and click on the button that says “Install Twitter on Facebook”. You will be taken through a few steps and you can choose to either let Twitter update your Facebook or Facebook update your Twitter status. It is a bit easier to configure your Twitter account to update your Facebook and doing things this way will help you keep your tweets to the 140 character limit.

If you are used to desktop applications like AOL Instant Messenger there is a Twitter application that can be added to your desktop to make tweeting a breeze. Digsby is an application that Windows users can use to view postings from Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and all your email accounts in a long window that looks like an instant messenger window on steroids. It is a great way to keep track of things without having to sign in to multiple accounts. If you like a larger view you can use an application called TweetDeck which allows you to personalize how you see your tweets and can also be configured to see your Facebook updates and also has a ton of other features.

If you have realized how important social media marketing is to your business, it is important to make the process as efficient as possible, or you can easily find yourself spending all your time tweeting and updating your Facebook account. While these tools can be amazingly beneficial to you, it is a good idea to specify how much time each day you want to dedicate to this form of marketing. Remember, it is very important to utilize multiple marketing techniques for your business and never put all of your eggs in one marketing basket.

Keeping Your Social Media Strategy Professional

For those of us that have Twitter and Facebook accounts it can be a difficult task to determine how to keep things professional if your main focus is to build a strong business network. Even if you start with the intention of keeping things professional, all it takes is one tweet or one photo to transform a professional site into something that some may find a bit unprofessional. We love social media sites because things are so instantaneous, but we forget that a single tweet can generate a rush of replies in mere seconds. So, policing your own accounts can become a full-time job. It is very important to make the purpose of your account clear from the first moment it is activated.

One of the things that can cause an issue on Facebook is the fact that people can tag you in on pictures they post without your approval. Therefore, your profile can be open to risk of unprofessional exposure. It is very important to monitor your Facebook on a daily basis for photos that may not align you as a business professional. All it can take to turn a potential business contact away is an unprofessional photo that you may not even be aware of.

Facebook has a number of privacy settings that can help you keep things separated. For example you can create a number of different friend lists so that you can have one group for friends, one for family and one for business contacts. This allows you to set up privacy settings for each group. For example, you may want to share photos of your family vacation with your friends and family contacts, but not your professional contacts. There are also settings on Facebook that allow you to remove yourself from public search results. This will help keep your personal information separate from your professional information. It also may be helpful to remove yourself from Google. This can also be done by going to your personal settings page.

There are also settings on Twitter that can help keep your postings private so that only people that you approve of can see them. It is important to understand that once you change this setting it will make any new postings private, but postings made before you changed the setting will still be public.

Doing a little research and taking the time to learn how to safeguard your personal information is a good idea on many levels. It will also help you to separate the information that you want to share with your family and friends from that which you want to share with your professional contacts. These things will help you to keep a professional rapport with your professional contacts while still sharing photos of your vacations with your family and friends. This will help you keep things professional with your professional contacts and they will not be distracted by personal information. Social media sites can be a great benefit to your business if you just take a few precautions.

Tweet, Retweet, Hashtags: The new language of Social Media

Twittering is all the rage lately. Even if you are watching TV or listening to the radio you will hear the mention of Twitter, Facebook or MySpace as a way of following the moment to moment thoughts of TV stars and entire news channels. Everyone is jumping on the Twitter train and if you are not yet an expert you better get started. Social Media marketing is a beast all of its own and learning the intricacies of how it works can be similar to learning a new language. A few of the terms you will need to know to get started on Twitter are tweet, retweet and hashtags. There are tons of Twitter terms already in existence and new ones are created all the time. Twitter can keep you connected to customers 24 hours a day 365 days a year so you can keep them informed of things like new products or sales events, but it must be done in 140 characters or less.

First, we will discuss who a tweeter is. A tweeter is a person that posts messages on Twitter. So anyone that puts down a thought on Twitter has the title tweeter. There are currently over 14 million US visitors on Twitter alone from Joe the Plumber to rockstars like Bono. You can keep track of what they are doing and what they think is important enough to share with their followers. Twitter is an amazing networking tool if used correctly. Remember, people have to follow you and if you are not keeping them interested you are sure to lose their interest quickly. Which brings us to our next Twitter term, tweet. A tweet is simply a posting on Twitter. Now, Twitter tweets are limited to 140 characters or less so you have to get your point across quickly. Fast and furious is what Twitter is all about. You need to become an expert at getting your point across in a few words and in an intriguing way.

This marketing tool can really make your business soar to new levels. You have the power of viral marketing right at your fingertips. Think about it, you tweet a message to your followers and if they think it is interesting enough, they can comment on your tweet to their followers or simply retweet your message. Then the followers of those tweeters will do the same, over and over until thousands of people have seen your message within minutes. Think of the power of that, not only are you reaching potentially thousands of people, you are doing it for free. Not one penny of your marketing budget is being spent, that is a truly powerful marketing tool. So, in case you didn’t catch it, a retweet is simply to repeat or quote another person’s tweet. In order for a retweet to be seen by the masses it is important to put some type of notation before the @name of the person whose tweet you are retweeting. Many people write retweet or R/T or simply RT before the original tweeters name to show that they are retweeting a message. Retweeting is one of the highest compliments you can pay a fellow tweeter. It means that you think that their tweet is important enough to share with your followers. It is also a common courtesy to thank the person that retweeted your tweet.

Lastly, I wanted to mention hashtags. Hashtags are an important tool for serious tweeters because they give you a way to add additional context and metadata to your tweets by simply prefixing a word with a hash symbol, #hashtag. A hashtag is a way for others to find information about your keywords even if they are not following you, yet. It is a great way to get new followers that are interested in your topics and can give you even more exposure. Hope these Twitter tips help you get start on Twitter. It really is an important part of your internet marketing strategy, so go get some followers!

Tips for Outsourcing Your Twitter Posts

Twitter has finally blasted into the social media world and its 140 character posts, though short, can really make an impact to your SEO strategies. Now, with all these different social media sites such as Facebook, My Space and Twitter it seems that small businesses have more ways than ever to expand their online presence and reach more potential customers. These networks, in reality are giving you the opportunity to advertise your business to a potentially enormous audience for free. All you need to do is post something interesting enough to keep your existing followers interested and to entice new people to follow your Tweets.

Like many of the other internet marketing tools and strategies, Twittering takes time, maybe not a lot of time, but when you add this to an existing social media campaign, it all adds up. This is why Twitter is a great task to outsource to someone that has experience in social media marketing and can do it right. The last thing you need, as a business owner, is to have to clean up a mess of unsightly tweets that some inexperienced freelancer placed on your Twitter.

The good news is that there are many people out there that do understand the importance of social media and have experience helping other businesses gain exposure with it. That brings me to my first tip. If you are going to outsource your Twitter projects do a bit of research and find a person that already has experience with these types of projects. While you may have to pay a little more for a person with experience it will save you lots of time and money in the long run.

There are some challenges with using Twitter. The main challenge is understanding how to deliver a great message to an audience in 140 characters or less. One of the great ways that Twitter is being used it to point people to your blogs or online articles. Sometimes url’s alone can run well over 140 characters. There are tools that you can find online that will shorten your url’s so that you can squeeze a bit of information into your post, too. This is an example of why you would want to find a freelancer who does have some experience working with Twitter, because they will know the tricks to getting the most out of your posts.

Twitter posts can be a great way to get more traffic to your website, blog or online articles, but as with any project you are outsourcing you want to make sure you are getting what you need. Assigning small tasks, at first, is a good way to get a feel for how well the freelancer will perform before committing to a large project and finding out too late that they are not the right fit. Also, make sure they have some experience with the type of project you need help with; this will make things go much smoother. And the biggest tip is to provide as much detail as possible about your project to your freelancer. This will ensure that they have a clear understanding of what you need and will lessen the amount of time you will have to micromanage them.

Twitter Tools to Help You Twitter More Effectively

As Twitter has become one of the most popular social networking tools, there have been hundreds of Twitter tools that have been created to help you Twitter more effectively. Though you do not need any tools to use Twitter they sure can help you find people and information more easily and keep your Twitterings organized. Some of these tools include TweetDeck, Twitter Fone, twi.bz and Localtweeps to name a few.

TweetDeck is a powerful tool that helps you keep all your Twitterings organized. It is basically a personal browser that allows you to see everything that you need to see at one time. You can see the latest Tweets from multiple Tweeters all at the same time. You can even see updates to Facebook accounts that interest you. It is a powerful tool that can be downloaded for free, so go ahead and give it a try. It will bring your Twitter experience to the next level.

Twi.bz is a very helpful tool because it takes long urls and shortens them. Since Twitter only allows its users to send messages that are 140 characters or less, twi.bz is a necessity for just about everyone that Twitters. An issue with some of the other url shortening tools is that you cannot always tell where the content is coming from. This can cause a bit of hesitation for many people who want to know the source of the content before they just click on a link they know nothing about. With twi.bz you can shorten the domain but still preserve the root of the domain so it is clear where your content is originating from. This will mean that more people will feel comfortable opening your links and you can spread your information more effectively.

Another great tool is Localtweeps. Since Twitter reaches just about every corner of the globe, it can be hard to find local connections. This tool allows you to list your Twitter account in a database by your zip code so that local people and businesses can find you and you can find them. This can be a great networking and marketing tool depending on your line of work.

If you are looking for information from subject matter experts it can be hard to find them because everyone can post information on Twitter. Tweefind is a tool that gives you search results by ranking Tweeters with the most followers at the top instead of just ranking the results by the most recent post. This allows you to see information from the most powerful and influential Tweeters first.

No matter what kind of tool you can think of to help your Twitter experience chance are it is out there. All you need to do is ask the question, in 140 characters or less, and you can be pretty sure you will find a solution. Getting involved in Twitter is a great way to stay in touch with friends or grow your business. Picking the right Twitter tools can take your Twittering experience to a level you would never imagine.

How Twitter Can Help Your Online Business

If you aren’t using Twitter you are a step behind your competition. Twitter is the social networking tool and if you aren’t using it, you better start now. It is easy to use and gets important messages out to your audience in short spurts of text. The benefits of Twitter can be endless. It all depends on how well you use it. It truly is a powerful tool that can transform your online business.

One of the main goals of Twitter is to build a network with people you may not otherwise have been able to reach. You can share helpful information on new marketing techniques and, in return, get great ideas from others. The most important thing to remember with Twitter is that you must share information that people want to hear or else you are off their list. So, the key to Twitter success is communicating great information that people want to hear.

Twitter gives you a great opportunity to gain exposure for new blog posts, articles, or even to promote a sale. If you have important information to share, Twitter is a great tool to accomplish just that. If you have information on a new product and you want to get the word out, this tool can help you spread the word. By driving more traffic to your blog posts or online articles you can improve your search rankings and create more customers. Any tool that can help you drive more quality traffic to your website is a tool you should really consider using.

Many large companies are using Twitter to communicate with their customers. This can definitely build credibility for your company, if customer issues are handled correctly. Customer comments on Twitter seem to hold more weight than other types of customer forums. Customer concerns can be handled quickly and issues can be resolved in 140 characters or less. If your company can perfect this type of customer communication it can really create a name for itself. Companies can say they have great customer service, but you can only tell if this is true if you have the opportunity to speak with them yourself. Twitter allows your customers to see, first hand, how your company handles their customers and their concerns.

With all of the benefits that Twitter can offer it is a great tool to start using to build exposure for your company. Whether you are trying to get traffic to your blog, promote a sale on your website, announce a new product or communicate with clients, Twitter allows you to accomplish it all. Best of all it has to be done in short, informative Tweets, so you don’t have to spend tons of time creating massive marketing materials. Short and informative is what will get you more and more followers on Twitter. It is very important for online businesses to stay up-to-date with the latest networking techniques that are available. Twitter can and will give you tons of exposure for your company if you take the time to communicate your messages in the best possible way.