Topic: Social Media

Lewis Howes - LinkedIn Guru

I've been on LinkedIn for a while, but never bothered to finish filling out my profile and didn't often recommend it to my clients to use.  Big mistake.  After attending the Social Media Summit 2010 presentation on LinkedIn by Lewis Howes, my eyes have been open to the power that LinkedIn offers businesses who want to market to an affluent and educated pool of decision makers. 

 

 

Twitter in Plain English from leelefever on Vimeo.

 

The video above is a nice visual explanation of why people use twitter (for personal reasons) and how it works.

To learn more about what Twitter is continue reading.

 

 

Create a Twitter account

• To create your twitter account, go to the Twitter's website and click the big yellow "Sign Up" button.
• Fill in your info and click "Create my account".
• Once your account is created, login and click "Settings." From here, you can setup your account details, manage your password, register your mobile phone and IM account, configure how you receive Notices, upload your photo and customize your account's design.
• Your Twitter page is located at twitter.com/yourusername (note: 'yourusername' is what you entered as your username during the sign up process.)

Now that you've set up your account, continue reading to learn about sending messages and following other people.

 

 

 

Last night was the first session of Social Media Success Summit 2010.  Guy Kawasaki was the keynote speaker and gave a great presentation with some of his best tips for using twitter as a power marketing tool. Guy is a columnist for Entrepreneur Magazine Open Forum of American Express, and author of nine books including Reality Check, The Art of the Start, Rules for Revolutionaries, How to Drive Your Competition Crazy, and Selling the Dream. If you ever get a chance to see or hear Guy speak, I highly recommend it.  I definitely have a little crush after last nights presentation.  Smart, helpful, and cheeky.  My kind of Guy.

My cat rolled over

Guy's first reaction to twitter a few years back was, "What is this crap?".  Like for many of us when Guy first signed up for a twitter account, it made no sense.  It looked like a bunch of inane comments from boring people.  'My cat just rolled over', 'my bike was stolen', 'I just ate a tuna fish sandwich'...Why would any business owner want to spend their precious time on such...well, crap?

But wait...you don't hear old ladies in the supermarket using twitter as a verb for no reason.  It must do something other than tell you that my cat rolled over.  Dig a little deeper and you find the true beauty behind twitter. Once you see a few examples of how other businesses are using twitter, the lightbulb goes off and you start to see how you can use it for your business.

 

 

Today's consumers expect to be engaged and will turn a blind eye to anything that doesn't speak to them honestly and directly.  People don't trust marketing anymore.  They trust people.  Especially people they know.  Social media allow businesses to piggyback marketing on the social networks of their connections and their customers connections. In order to create an effective social media strategy that leads to more customers and less of you pulling your hair out over wasting time, learn a little more about how it all works, and before you 'send your first tweet' or 'update your next status', make a plan.

 

 

 

People don't want brochures or websites full of information about you.  They want to know what you are going to do for them.

Provide useful information in the media your audience prefers. It could be published in the form of downloadable white papers or e-books illustrating solutions to known buyer problems, a series of direct-to-consumer news releases with sequenced information that you know your buyer is interested in.  Or, it could be time to start a blog, podcast, or online video channel to share tips & tricks with your audience.