10 Tips to Brand your Business on Twitter.

Twitter is a social media and micro-blogging site where you send out short 'tweets' to all of your followers. With over 65 million tweets going out every day among its 160+ million users, your business needs to be there. Here are 10 ways to use Twitter to brand your business.

1. Follow the Experts
Find experts in your field and follow their tweets. This shows your followers that you know what's going on in your industry and you can also learn how to market yourself on Twitter by watching what they do.

2. Be a Subscriber
Don't just subscribe to the experts, but also to anyone that's active in your industry. Twitter is the only social media site where users often follow more than they're followed. Follow lots of people and comment on their tweets.

3. Mark Favorites
When you find a tweet that you'd like to save for later, you can mark it as one of your favorites by clicking on the little star. Your followers can see your favorites listed on your profile. Your favorites list shows everyone a bit about who you are.

4. Ask Questions
Get discussions going on Twitter by asking questions. They don't have to be anything earth-shattering but can be about anything. Just throw them out there and let your followers respond. You not only get some activity going, but also learn valuable information about how your target market thinks.

5. Comment on Links
When you like something you see online, you can tweet it. It gives you the option to comment on your links and you should always do this. Just sharing without saying anything about it doesn't do anything for your branding; it only directs people to the link.

6. Make it Personal
People want to know about your brand but also they like to learn about you. Sometimes, it's good to tweet something purely personal as long as you don't do this too often. Twitter users love these tweets and they'll show the human side of your brand.

7. Post Pictures
You can post pictures on Twitter and you should be doing this often. Choose pictures that are related to your brand and take your own photos showcasing your goods, your employees or the way your business works.

8. Value and Relevance
Whenever you get ready to post something, ask yourself these two questions: Is it relevant to my brand? Does it provide value to my followers? There are lots of tweets that don't deliver either relevance or value, so make sure yours do.

9. Don't Self-Promote (Too Much)
Once in a while, it's alright to show off your products and services, but don't be the type of user who shares it every time something good is said about your brand anywhere online. Focus on benefitting your users and not yourself.

10. Make the Most of Your Characters
Since Twitter only allows you 140 characters on less in your tweet, you need to learn the art of concise writing. Check out magazine and newspaper headlines to see just how much you can pack into one short sentence. And make sure you use a url shortener so that you donít waste precious characters.

The most important thing to remember is that Twitter is supposed to be enjoyable. While you should be professional and realize that everything you do reflects on your brand, whenever possible offer something that's just plain fun. Show your sense of humor and be personable. Twitter is all about human interaction and that's what Twitter users want to see.

10 Simple Ways to effectively leverage Google +

Google+ is Google's own social media site. Fully integrated with other Google sites like Gmail and YouTube, it's still relatively new compared to Facebook, but offers great promise. It currently has over 20 million users and this number is growing every day. Creating a Google+ account for your business gives you an advantage in Google searches and also offers excellent features that help you build your brand. Here are 10 ways to use Google+ for brand-building.

1. Write a Killer Description
Your short description is what will show up with your page in search engine results, so spend some time making it really good. It should grab attention, tell what your business is about, and be keyword optimized.

2. Be Unique and Personal
Whenever you're interacting with people on Google+, be yourself and show your human side. Don't be afraid to use a little humor. It's important to be real and not appear impersonal.

3. Use Scrapbook Photos
Google+ lets you put photos at the top of your profile's main page. These are called 'Scrapbook Photos' and you can use them creatively to attract attention and brand your company. You can also change them as often as you'd like to.

4. Track Trends with Sparks
The Sparks feature lets you search using keywords and find out what's trending. You can then post these trends on your Google+ page to show your fans what's going on in your industry. This helps to brand you as an expert who knows what's hot.

5. Tell Them about You
Spend some extra time writing a great 'about' page that tells people who you are, what you do and your brand message. Go ahead and use your real name and link your 'about' page to your personal Google+ profile to put a human face on it.

6. Get Rid of Useless Tabs
Google+ gives you a whole bunch of tabs automatically and there are many you won't use. Delete the ones you don't use so that they don't clutter up your profile. When you click on 'Edit Profile,' you'll see where you can delete them.

7. Think About Your Posts
On Facebook or Twitter, it's perfectly acceptable to make crazy, off-the-cuff comments, but with Google+, you should be more careful. Currently, the site is used mostly for professional networking or as a news source. Spend some time on your posts and make sure they're relevant and appropriate.

8. Share Everything Everywhere
If you use Google Chrome as your browser, you can download a program called Extend Share. This automatically gives you the option to share your posts to Facebook and all of your other social media sites, allowing you to brand across platforms easily.

9. Hold a Hangout
Hangouts is a feature that lets you do live video chats or impromptu webinars. Pick a topic related to your industry and hold your own Hangout. This gives your fans a chance to interact one-on-one with you. Even the Dalai Lama and Desmond tutu have done a hangout!

10. Don't be Greedy
Don't use Google+ only to promote your own brand. Devote some time to checking out other people's profiles and updates. Comment and interact with them. This boosts your brand visibility and attracts new fans.

Google+ is new but it is getting more active every day. The key to using it effectively is to set aside a little bit of time each day to interactions. There's a lot to learn and features are being added constantly. Always stay focused on this one question ñ What do you want to achieve with your Google+ presence? Stay focused and the time you spend on Google+ will be well worth it.

Facebook Hashtags? #Srsly?

Sometimes I have to share something that I've found from another source, and this is going to be one of those times.

Head over to All Things D, and check out one of their newest articles about how Facebook might be introducing hashtags, to take a little bit of the love from Twitter. Even with the new News Feed event not announcing it last week, it seems as though Facebook will be heading in the direction of adopting the Hash Tag.

So, what are your thoughts on it? #happy, #sad, #appalled?

Check out the full details here: http://allthingsd.com/20130314/facebook-to-introduce-hashtags-and-thats-a-double-edged-sword-for-twitter/

The Power of Google+ to build your Brand.

Google+ is Google's own social media site. Fully integrated with other Google sites like Gmail and YouTube, it's still relatively new compared to Facebook, but offers great promise. It currently has over 20 million users and this number is growing every day. Creating a Google+ account for your business gives you an advantage in Google searches and also offers excellent features that help you build your brand. Here are 10 ways to use Google+ for brand-building.

1. Write a Killer Description
Your short description is what will show up with your page in search engine results, so spend some time making it really good. It should grab attention, tell what your business is about, and be keyword optimized.

2. Be Unique and Personal
Whenever you're interacting with people on Google+, be yourself and show your human side. Don't be afraid to use a little humor. It's important to be real and not appear impersonal.

3. Use Scrapbook Photos
Google+ lets you put photos at the top of your profile's main page. These are called 'Scrapbook Photos' and you can use them creatively to attract attention and brand your company. You can also change them as often as you'd like to.

4. Track Trends with Sparks
The Sparks feature lets you search using keywords and find out what's trending. You can then post these trends on your Google+ page to show your fans what's going on in your industry. This helps to brand you as an expert who knows what's hot.

5. Tell Them about You
Spend some extra time writing a great 'about' page that tells people who you are, what you do and your brand message. Go ahead and use your real name and link your 'about' page to your personal Google+ profile to put a human face on it.

6. Get Rid of Useless Tabs
Google+ gives you a whole bunch of tabs automatically and there are many you won't use. Delete the ones you don't use so that they don't clutter up your profile. When you click on 'Edit Profile,' you'll see where you can delete them.

7. Think About Your Posts
On Facebook or Twitter, it's perfectly acceptable to make crazy, off-the-cuff comments, but with Google+, you should be more careful. Currently, the site is used mostly for professional networking or as a news source. Spend some time on your posts and make sure they're relevant and appropriate.

8. Share Everything Everywhere
If you use Google Chrome as your browser, you can download a program called Extend Share. This automatically gives you the option to share your posts to Facebook and all of your other social media sites, allowing you to brand across platforms easily.

9. Hold a Hangout
Hangouts is a feature that lets you do live video chats or impromptu webinars. Pick a topic related to your industry and hold your own Hangout. This gives your fans a chance to interact one-on-one with you. Even the Dalai Lama and Desmond tutu have done a hangout!

10. Don't be Greedy
Don't use Google+ only to promote your own brand. Devote some time to checking out other people's profiles and updates. Comment and interact with them. This boosts your brand visibility and attracts new fans.

Google+ is new but it is getting more active every day. The key to using it effectively is to set aside a little bit of time each day to interactions. There's a lot to learn and features are being added constantly. Always stay focused on this one question ñ What do you want to achieve with your Google+ presence? Stay focused and the time you spend on Google+ will be well worth it.

10 Out of the Box Ways to Use Social Media for Your Business

Social media sites offer a way for people to communicate online and interact with their favorite businesses. Sites like Facebook, Twitter and Google+ are among the most popular and most visited on the Web, and many of their users check theirs every day. Here are ten ways you can use social media to better connect with your fans and boost your business.

1. Improve Your Customer Service
These sites give your customers direct access to you. This gives you a chance to listen to what they have to say and learn how they feel about your business. By being responsive and offering them access, social media works wonders for your customer service.

2. Manage Customer Complaints
Social media sites let your customers leave comments on how you're doing. When they complain or criticize your business practices, you not only get valuable feedback, but also a chance to reply and repair your image.

3. Share Real-Life Customer Stories
Social proof is powerful in establishing your company's credibility, and social media gives you lots of opportunities to get real testimonials. Positive reviews from your customers can be seen instantly by anyone who accesses your profile or theirs.

4. Get Your Employees Involved
You can use your social media sites for idea development. Give your employees a platform where they can share their ideas. You can also use it to keep in touch, offering newsletters, updates and employee incentive programs.

5. Boost Customer Loyalty
You can use your profile to run your customer loyalty programs by offering incentives and rewards. Everything can be done through the site so you don't need to deal with any more punch cards.

6. Attract New Business
Your social media presence gives you free advertising on the world's biggest message board. People can find your profile through Web searches and their friends' profiles. This is a great way to attract new customers.

7. Get to Know Your Market
Social media makes it extremely easy to get to know your target market. You can find out exactly who enjoys your products and services, as well as find out what else they like. Companies have spent millions in marketing research to gather this information and all you need to do is invest a little time.

8. Create a Brand Message
Every company has a brand message, like Nike's 'Just Do Ití. You can use your social media site to communicate this message to your fans and prospective customers.

9. Connect Everything
By integrating your social media sites with your blog or website, you can generate more traffic and leads. Widgets and apps allow you to link everything together for maximum exposure.

10. Use Multimedia
Most social media sites have multimedia applications. You can make a welcome video showing what your company is all about or offer a streaming podcast to your customers. These help by branding your company and giving it a more personal touch.

The most important thing to remember about social media is that people don't use these sites to shop. They use them to socialize, share common interests, and generally hang out. Make your page an interactive place where they can get involved and spend time. This keeps your brand in their mind and whenever they're ready to buy, they'll come to you.

The 4 Cornerstones of Business Success on Facebook

As  I go through my daily professional life I find that the most common questions that I get asked about Facebook aren't high level questions about the ins and outs of Facebook Insights, or questions about how to craft the perfect Facebook ad, but more often than not I run into business owners that simply would like to know how to get started with Facebook, and what steps they need to take to be successful with their venture into social media. What I'm going to do in this blog is break down what I consider to be the 4 simple cornerstones for a business to realize success on Facebook.

First of all, and this might seem obvious, but you need to build a Facebook Page in order to get started. Don't use your personal page to promote your business, give your business its own identity and its own venue to promote itself. Many Facebook beginners make the mistake of using their personal page to promote their business, and while you can see results from promoting in this manner, you want to brand your business as its own entity, allow it to have its own personality, and be able to focus your efforts on that page so that your results can be measurable.

Secondly, you need to connect with people, your "target audience" ideally. There are several different schools of thought on how to accomplish this, and I will save discussion of the how-to for another Blog, but what you need is to build a base of fans so that someone is listening to the message that you're putting out.

Now once you have those people connected to your page, you need to engage them. This might be the biggest stumbling block for Facebook rookies, right up there with actually creating a page. The key with engagement, real engagement,  is that it involves you producing genuine content that your audience is interested in and that will cause them to interact and participate in your page. While I won't dig into this topic in depth as this could not only be its own blog post, really it could be its own blog series, content is really key when you speak about engagement on your Facebook page, and the one tip that I will offer up in this forum is that spamming advertisements is not the content that I'm speaking of.

Finally you want to take everything that you have built, your page, your fans, and their engagement and then utilize this to create more fans for your page, that will then create more interaction that will then lead to more fans. This circle of interaction and content, is what will truly allow you to build your page, build your brand, and build your Facebook presence into something that you can truly see results from in your business.

I hope that these four tips were helpful for you, please feel free to like and share this with your friends, and visit us on Facebook if you have any questions.


Chris Case

5 Tips for Social Media Success

Are you looking to succeed in your business using Social Media? The good news is, success isn't far off, you've taken the first step by reading this blog! In this blog I'll be touching on a few simple tips to help you utilize Social Media to grow your business.




1. Commit to spending a set amount of time each day focusing only on social media.
   
     While this may seem like a no-brainer, this really is one of the foundation not only of success with Social Media but success with any venture that you embark on. Commit your time, whether it is 10 minutes, 15 minutes, or an hour each day, and then be consistent with that commitment. Without consistency you won't see success, and isn't that the reason that you're committing to this?

2. Pick a topic to focus on with your Social Media that you are passionate about.

     This can be directly related to your work or not. If your passion is gardening than write a blog about gardening, take pictures of your garden and start engaging with others that enjoy gardening. While it may seem counter-intuitive to use something non business related to "promote" your business, the reality of business in general is that people will do business with people that they like, and showing off your passions is a great way to show people the real you and allow them the opportunity to get to know you and, in turn, like you.

3. Take your "passion" and research it elsewhere on the internet.

     Use online resources to find out more about the subject that you are passionate about. Begin at first by simply Google-ing your topic and searching through those resources to find out more about see where people are discussing your passion. (Note: for more complex resources for researching subjects online, stay tuned for a late blog post)


4. Pick out 5 Blogs that you like and subscribe to them.

     Using the above mentioned Google search, subscribe to several blogs that you like, and go back and read them from time to time. Pay attention to how they are laid out, the subjects mentioned, the comments and interaction by the author. Take notes on the things that you like and you don't like and always be seeking out new content.

5. Use this knowledge and Apply it.

     Most important is take this knowledge that you've learned, and use the time that you have committed to your own social media pursuits  talking about your passions is a great first place to start because it ensures not only that you will stay interested in your own content, but that you will be interested in finding new content and as a result find new and interesting ways to present and deliver that content.

By finding something that you're passionate about and then using that subject to improve your understanding of how Social Media works, you'll not only be enjoying your time online, you'll also be working on your business. By following these simple steps you can gain a better understanding of how social media works and how to be able to better utilize it to promote your business.

Be sure to "like" and share our blog with your friends and follow us on Facebook for more tips, and tricks on clearing the confusion of Social Media.