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.

Wedding Planner, Kristin Love, of Details with Love, asked this question on our RI Wedding Collaborative website.

Here's another question first: Which would you rather have - 1500 followers that don't pay attention to what you write OR 150 followers who are true fans and refer you to potential clients or networking opportunities. You want the true fans. Just like in life, it's quality over quantity.

If you want to learn more about writing a great blog that people want to follow, visit Copyblogger. They are one of the best resources around for blog writing tips.

"The first rule of Copyblogger is you do not publish content that sucks."

It's true. If you want to get more followers to your blog, you have to write good, relevant, helpful content. Teach me something I don't know or put a new spin on something I aminterested in, and I will follow you.

Your goal

You want to reach a specific audience to offer great products or services. 

Your problems

Your current marketing is not effective enough.  You are about to spend an arm and a leg on a traditional marketing strategy with no way to track the return on your investment. You've heard about social media, blogging, email marketing, and analytics, but are overwhelmed.  

Where do you start

If you want to get more out of your hard earned dollars, your best bet is to start with a plan.

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.

There has been a major shift in the world of marketing and public relations during the past few years.  If you are not implementing some of the new rules of marketing and PR early in your process, you will be wasting a lot of your hard earned money.  Follow these five steps to get caught up and move ahead in today's digital age.

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.