Using Twitter for marketing your business or brand is an excellent idea for most. Whether your business is on Twitter for brand awareness, customer service or an increase in sales (perhaps all three), Twitter can provide abundant exposure and branding opportunities that are hard to beat.

As a Social Media Strategist, I’ve noticed that the majority of businesses, brands and entrepreneurs that have Twitter accounts that are fledgling or plodding slowly along is because the business or brand isn’t quite sure how best to utilize this powerful micro-blogging platform.

With the goals of achieving the best click through-rates, exposure and retweets, I’ve pulled together a “Top 10″ list of  Twitter tips that should be committed to memory and employed on a daily basis.

(more…)

#hashtag
As anyone who uses Twitter knows, the ‘#’ symbol, called a hashtag, is used to mark keywords or topics in a Tweet. Interestingly enough, it was created organically by Twitter users as a way to categorize messages. Hashtags are simply a way to “tag” your tweet with subject matter to make it easy to be found. Anyone can create a hashtag simply by placing the ‘#’ sign in front of a word. (more…)

Take your Twitter Account from Anonymity to Massive Popularity!

You have a Twitter account for your brand or business. You even have a handful of followers. Now, like so many, you aren’t sure how to get more Twitter followers (especially relevant followers) or what to do next. No worries; you can take your Twitter account from stark anonymity to massive popularity. Follow these Twitter tips to take your Twitter account to the next level of marketing. Done right, you can take your Twitter account from being a social outcast to being a social celebrity. (more…)

With 500 Million + people on Facebook and an estimated 280,000,000 Twitter accounts, there is no doubt that social media is eye opening… shockingly so. The significance of social media for businesses is equally big. Expanding your brand’s potential reach via Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and  more has become the holy grail of marketing.   (more…)

With so much hype surrounding the enormous benefits for businesses to  reap with social media, many have eagerly (and expectantly) jumped into the social landscape with a Twitter account and maybe even a Facebook profile or fan page built around their brand or business.  The problem happens when these expectant businesses look around and say, “Now what?” How do I get followers? How do I use these sites to generate leads? How do I justify social media? How do I find the time? What else is there? Why are we even here? …and so on.

If you’ve asked yourself any of these questions, or are less than enamored with the success of your social media campaign, try these social stump-blocker solutions below:

(more…)

In the world of social media marketing, we often hear of the importance of monitoring as the first actionable item. Although social media monitoring has numerous benefits to a businesses, both large and small, it may be unclear as to how to use monitoring. A recent study reveals that close to half of businesses surveyed don’t know how to use monitoring effectively for marketing purposes.
(more…)

The client wants to know if their social media campaign is working! They want to understand how social media marketing will meet their goals before they commit to a budget allocation for a “mythical campaign”.  Social media marketing companies like other marketing agencies need to back their claims with statistics and provide metrics to prove effectiveness.

Granted, it is a relatively new game with the rules of engagement (sorry couldn’t resist it) still evolving, but there is a sizable number of reliable tools in form of plugins and apps that can be used in combination to measure different features of social media channels. There is no magic pill with one-tool-measure-all functionality yet and measurement is not esoteric like it would be, for say a PPC campaign, but social media experts can assemble a more or less effective group of measurement tools that best fits the business goals.
(more…)

It’s not likely that you are going to lose your online data anytime soon, though it is always a present possibility. Your real threats to your online social media accounts are hackers, viruses, user error, disgruntled employees and legal issues. You risk your access being shut off—without warning—if a service suspects you of violating its terms of service. At this very moment, many hackers are targeting online accounts simply because they are easier to access than your computer. On top of that, roughly one third of all data loss is due to user error. Backing up your social media accounts can minimize this risk.

Below are some useful apps and services, mostly free or with low subscription fees, for backing up your social media accounts and more.
(more…)

Tools for an Engaged Social Presence

I am always interested in finding the best and latest tools to enhance and expedite the  social media experiences, maintenance and growth for Harp and for our clients.

Following is an abbreviated list of useful tools, resources and/or apps with links and short descriptions that you may want to incorporate into your daily social media practice. Though we obviously don’t use all of these, I have used a good many of them for different reasons.

(more…)

This is the second in a series of three posts highlighting bits  from my International Social Media Association (ISMA) teleseminar: Strategies to Ensure an Engaged Social Presence.

ISMA: You talked about ‘employing Best Practices’ techniques just now. Can you expand a little on what this may include – let’s start with Best Practices for Twitter?

Twitter Best Practices for Brands

• Make sure your bio is filled out and have a well-branded page. See how to optimize your Twitter bio for more tips.  I suggest using your business name in the real name because this is what’s indexed by Google.
• Use 120 characters…they say 120 is the new 140. Write your tweets with retweeting in mind. Ideally you’ll want to keep your character count to 120 leaving plenty of room for  retweeting without the original tweet being hacked.
• Use Keywords for SEO in tweets and load them in the front of the tweet. Not always easy to do but worth keeping in mind.
• Use the RT@ at the end of the tweet (helps with SEO)
• Be generous and thankful. Always thank those who re-tweet you, or give you a #ff or shout out.
• Provide useful, helpful information. This will help to establish your Twitter credibility and establish your brand as a leader in its field/industry.
• Try to include a link in 90% of your tweets. Use a URL shortener like bit.ly or ow.ly (from HootSuite). These provide tweet statistics which are useful in determining the most interesting content to your followers.
• Avoid text message abbreviations, pay attention to grammar and spelling.
• Try to be mindful of the 80/20 rule.  That is, 80% of your tweets should be helpful or conversational while only 20% should be promotional.
• Use someone’s first names when tweeting to them.
• Be genuine! Authenticity is the golden rule in social media (via Mashable). You and your brand both need to be believable. Give a human voice to your brand and don’t be afraid to let your enthusiasm and spirit show in your tweets.

 ISMA: And how about on Facebook?  Do the same rules apply? Are there Best Practices for Facebook as well?

Best Practices for Facebook

• Facebook is about community around a brand – it’s about creating relationships with your customers or potential customers.
• Make sure your Fan page is branded. People should be able to have instant recognition with your page.
• Monitor your wall (make sure your notifications are on) (not a feature for fan pages not associated with a profile)
• Provide good unique content – start conversations, chat, ask questions, and always respond to any comment on your wall…positive or negative.
• Be conversational vs. corporate (again, speak with a human voice vs. a corporate voice)
• Create events
• Ultimately you want to make an enjoyable environment for fan page

And nuggets of Best Practices for Social Media.

• Understand, you do not control the message.  Old habits die hard and there’s a tendency to want to treat social media participation like advertising where the ability to control messaging is the norm.
• Commit resources & time to be successful or you may very well fail. It’s important to forecast labor hours, who, what, when, how and where with the intention of succeeding, not just experimenting.
• Be fun and visual: Visuals play a big part in the user experience you provide. They engage and help you capture consumers’ attention for a longer time.
• Relationships first. Business second: Remember that social media is relational, not transactional.
• Give to Get: A well-executed social media strategy requires reciprocity, relevancy, transparency, authenticity, but perhaps above all other things, commitment.