Internet Marketing Tools

As I conclude my reflections on using Twitter for your online personal networking program, I share three final skills you want to bring to your Twitter table.  These skills are not unique to business networking.  They are essential small business skills.  If you practice these skills with your Twitter program, you will be more successful.                                                          

Other Networking Skills

Over my years in networking groups, I have seen business owners join with expectations that if they show up and do their weekly commercials, they will get referrals.  The business owners who uses this approach, usually drops out after six months because, “It just didn’t do any good.”

The successful networkers bring other skills that make their meeting more productive.

They have an agenda. Each meeting master networkers come with an agenda they want to accomplish.  This could be meeting with someone at the meeting, listening to a new member, or sharing a resource with another member.  They go to their meeting with a purpose, a list of items they want to get done.

They have clarity about their business.  Good networkers go beyond the typical business labels, “I’m a real estate agent” or generalizations about their business, “I sell houses.”  They know specifically who is a good referral for their business.  They are clear about the benefits their business provide and they tell members of the group exactly how they will work with referrals.  Their clarity makes it easy for group members to give them good referrals.

They attend the right networking groups. All networking groups are not equal.  Most business networking groups are a conglomeration of many different businesses.  This smorgasbord of businesses is sold as an opportunity to get in front of a wide audience of people.  What if the members of a particular group are not a good source of business for you?

I knew one lady who owned a decorating business and attended the popular networking groups.  She was not getting the referrals she wanted.  She quit the group and joined a professional women’s business group—prime candidates for her decorating services.  The best networkers know that all groups are not equal.

You successful Twitter Network requires you to use these same networking skills

Before you engage on Twitter, write down you business purposes for using Twitter.  What do you want to accomplish with Twitter?  When you have a purpose and a focus, you use your Twitter time more productively.  You sort out time wasters from productive Twitter activities.

Social media sites expose business weaknesses.  Twitter is no exception.  Most of your Twitter activity is 140 characters or less.  You need to be absolutely clear about what your business does, how you do it and who is your best customers.  Your Twitter followers need this clarity!

I use this helpful exercise.  I sit down and write up 24 one line statements about my business, what I do, the benefits I provide, how I do my business, who is my best customers.  I take the best of these statements and use them to create my Twitter bio.  I take the 24 statements and using a scheduler, Futuretweets.   I schedule one of these 24 statements for each hour in the day.  I repeat this scheduling process on a weekly basis.  Now I have a quality set of Tweets expressing the core aspects of my business to my followers.

Critical to your Twitter success are your followers.  Do you follow people who can help your business?  Are your followers the best candidates for your business?  You can use any of the free software tools, like Tweet Search to sort and focus on the right group of people for your digital network.  Run these programs on a regular basis so that your network is always fresh with the best group of people for your Twitter networking.  It’s call pruning for success!

Conclusion

Over the past six posts, I have shared my reflections on looking at Twitter as your own person online network.  I have suggested this as a way to get your arms around the many Twitter activities.  By applying the same skills you would use to be successful in a physical business networking group, you can be successful in your own Twitter networking group.

To be continued, I welcome your comments

Al Hanzal

Twittering Is Not a Short Term Project

Our local basketball team, the Minnesota Timber Wolves has won very few games over the past three years. The team hired a new coach, a new general manager and brought in a number of very young players.  They have put in place a 3 year plan to get the team back into the playoffs.  They have asked the fans to be patience.

Business networking requires patience.  Joining a business networking group with the expectations of getting immediate results is unrealistic.  Networking takes time to establish relationships and credibility. Business networking is not a quick fix.

As a digital networking site, Twitter calls for the same type of patience.  If you are looking for short term results you will need to adjust your expectations.                      

It takes time to establish a brand presence on Twitter.  It takes time to build up followers who actually listen to you.  It takes a lot of starts and stops to make Twitter into an effective marketing tool.  If you need short term sales, Twitter is not for you.  Look at Twitter as a long term marketing strategy.

The Money Is in the Follow Up

Business networking groups are not deal making places.  They are connecting places.  Connecting is not measured by how many business cards you can get or give out.  Connecting is the spark that comes from listening to others, being interested in others and following up with others.

Good networkers know the money is in the follow up.  They follow up on the connections they make at networking meetings.  They use phone calls, emails, and send helpful resources as ways of following up. They keep the connections alive with additional follow up activities.

Do you see how this skill relates to your Twitter network?  Initially, new followers may be curious about a Tweet you send or something they see in your bio.  The spark needs to be followed up.  A Retweet, a Direct Message, a question, an acknowledgment, a compliment will move the spark into a flame.  And then you continue with more follow up activities.  The money is in the follow up.

To be continued, your comments are always welcomed…

Al Hanzal

I have been sharing my reflections on using Twitter for your small business marketing.  One way to view Twitter, compare it to popular business networking groups.  When you strip away the features of Twitter it becomes a digital networking program.  By applying skills you use with physical networking group to your Twitter site, you will be more successful. Here’s another in the list of skills I have been posting about…

Consistent Participation Skills

The worst thing you can do when you join a business networking group is to participate on a random basis. Networking groups have an unwritten rule–to get good referrals from others you need to show up every week and participate.  Your consistency and your participation are ways you create credibility with people in a networking group.  They learn more from your behavior than your words.  Out of sight; out of mind.

Twitter also demands consistency and participation.  How will people get to know you and like you and trust you if you fail to Tweet or respond to their Tweets on a regular basis?  This involves a time commitment. You can use software tools to help manage your time.    Make no mistakes about it.  You must bring a consistent participation to your Twitter site.  If you are not committed to this consistent participation, Twitter will not work as a marketing tool.

To be continued, your comments are welcomed…

Al Hanzal

I have been sharing my reflections on Twittering and the best ways to use it in your small business marketing.  I have suggested by viewing Twitter as a business networking tool you can be more productive with it.

Give Before You Get

The second success principle of business networking is Give before your Get. Or Givers Gain!  It doesn’t take long in a business networking group for people to identify the “Takers” from the “Givers”.  Takers come to the meetings wanting referrals from others and give little in return.

Givers look for ways to give referrals to others; they share resources and materials with others; they help others become more successful in their businesses.  You reap what you sow.

Twitter requires the same giver mentality.  How can you help your followers?  What resources can you share with them? Where can you point them to solutions for their problems?  By giving to your followers you will receive in return.  It’s the law of the universe!

The Real Power of Networking

The real power of networking is not who you know but who they know.  This is the third principle of business networking.  Good business networkers realize the power of their networking group is not in the group members.  It’s in the second and third level of people each member knows outside of the group.

Your 250 Contacts

Experts tell us that each of us knows about 250 people.  What happens once we contact these 250 people? Where do we go from there?

Each of these people we know also knows 250 people.  If each person that we know introduced us to 5 of their contacts and each of those contacts introduced us to five of their contacts, well, you can do the math. Your network has increased exponentially.

On your Twitter site, you may have hundreds if not thousands of followers.  The real power comes from the people they know and follow.  By clicking on any one of your followers, you can see all of their followers.  Click on them and now you opened up many new followers.

When others retweet one of your Tweets, you are now put in front of their followers. This is the viral element of Twitter and the power of networking.

Digital networking overcomes the time and space limitations of physical networking and now allows us to see well beyond our immediate contact list.  Do you see how this can opens up new possibilities for your small business?

To be continued, your comments are welcomed…

Al Hanzal

For three months I have posted Twitter tips and techniques for small business users.  My goal has been to show how Twitter can attract more customers in today’s business climate.  

Starting next month, I will shift my focus to posting about Youtube.  How can small business owners use this social media site to attract more customers to their businesses?

As I conclude my Twitter posts, I will share some final thoughts on how Twitter can be used in your small business.

Twittering as Networking

Strip away all of the Twitter techniques, tips, forms, and software tools.  What do you have? You have a digital networking tool.  For the moment forget about Twitter as social media site. Think of Twitter as your own digital networking tool.

I am sure that you have participated in some form of business networking group.  The purpose of these groups is to gather business people together to provide word of mouth referrals.

Twitter is a digital version of these networking groups, with one big exception.  It does not have space limitations (a physical meeting place) or time limitations (weekly meeting times). You can do Twitter networking anytime from your computer or phone.

Successful with business networking groups requires a specific set of skills.  These business networking skills are the same ones for Twitter success.

“Be Interested”

The number one rule of business networking is “Be Interested”.   What would you think if a person who did nothing but push their business cards in your face at a business networking meeting?  You would avoid them like the H1N1 virus.

A solid business network comes from being interested in group members and creating relationships with them.  Who are they?  What is their business about? What’s important to them?  What challenges do they face? What do they like and dislike?  Many networking groups have a function called one to one’s where you spend time talking with other group members to learn more about them and their business.

Use this same “interest building” skill with your Twitter program.  Be interested in your followers before you start pushing your business.  Ask them questions.  Respond to their Tweets.  Compliment them. Acknowledge your followers on Twitter.  Being interested in your followers is critical to building a strong Twitter network.  Take the time and make it one of your goals to build this foundation.  Don’t skip this step.

Here is a list of the most popular Twitter scheduling tools I promised you in the last post.

www.TWAitter.com Use as business or personal account for free. Easy sign up. You can schedule your Tweets, hourly, daily, monthly and send recurring: tweets on a daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly basis. These give you a calendar to schedule and manage your Tweets.

www.futuretweets.com Lets you send tweets in the future at specific times or send reoccurring tweets daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly. This is a simple system to use.

www.Twuffer.com Is a simple scheduling service that is free and allows for scheduling hourly, daily and monthly Tweets for different purposes. No re-occurring option is available.

www.Twitreponse.com Allows you to schedule unlimited amounts of Tweets. You can easily manage this process from a dashboard.

www.hootsuite.com Not only gives you the power to schedule your tweet sets, it also offers a variety screens to manage your entire Twitter account. Very nice and all on one screen.

www.tweetlater.com (Now http://www.socialoomph.com/) offers two versions, a free and paid version. Using reoccurring Tweets is only available with the paid version.

www.Twitbabble.com Is a free download that allows you to schedule messages from your computer desktop. A small icon is placed in your computer system tray for easy access.

After you reviewed these products, select a scheduler that makes you feel comfortable. Register with the service. Then pull up the pages of Tweet sets you created and load them into the scheduler. I usually select an hourly category to reoccur on a weekly basis. I will load one Tweet set into the scheduler each day. Now my work is finished.  About 10 minutes of time.

When you complete this work, you have in place a system that will keep your Tweet account humming on quality statements about you and your business. Think of your Tweet sets and scheduler as your 80% solution. What about the other 20% of the time?

This is your prime time for Twitter involvement. Use this time to focus on building the important relationships with people who have responded to your Tweets; use some of the Twitter search tools to find more followers that are a match for your business; use the time to respond back to direct messages from followers. The bulk of your Twitter activity goes without any personal time with your scheduler. Now you can use the 20% time to focus on marketing to the people who have found you attractive in your Tweets.

Conclusion

Your Twitter sets and scheduler system is like traditional advertising that keep your business out in front of people. If you have developed quality Tweet sets, you will have a quality presence in front of your followers who will be attracted by what they are seeing with your Tweets. Now you have the time available to work with your new potential customers.

To be continued, your comments are welcomed…

Al Hanzal

In this post, let’s explore how internet technology can work for your “24 hour Twitter TV station”.

Your goal is to spend time creating sets of Tweets.  You will put these Tweet sets into a scheduler and then delivered them on your prearranged schedule. Once this has been completed, you will now have a system of Tweeting on a consistent basis without any significant time involvement.

Tweet Sets

What is a Tweeter set?  A Tweet set is a group of related Tweets about you, your business, your products, humor, etc.  Each Tweet in the set should be about 120 characters long so that if you attach a link, it matches Twitter’s requirement of 140 characters.  Write these Tweets in your own style.

You will need about 2-3 hours to create the Tweeter sets for your 24 hour Twitter TV station.   This is a one time process.  Here are several easy ways to create Twitter sets.

1.  Your personal brand is an important ingredient on Twitter.  Write 20 one line Tweets that describe different aspects of your personal brand.  Use these one liners to show followers the passion you have for your business.  Type these up and label them “Branding Statements.”  This will be fun.  As you continue Twittering, you will add to this list of branding statements.  Save them to your computer.

2.  Create a list of the top 20 things you would say about your product or business if a customer was standing before you.  Focus on benefit statements.  Again, type up these statements and label them “Business Benefits” and copy to your computer.

3.  Review your past Favorite Tweets and pick out 20 of the best ones.  Type up and label, “Favorites” and copy them to your computer.

4.  Identify 20 helpful resources or articles that would benefit your customers.  Type in the name and source of the resource and keep them on your computer as “Resources”.

5.  Take a recent article you have written, printed materials from your industry, or any valuable article and write up 20 one line Tweets from the article.   Type these up and give them an appropriate label.  Save them on your computer.

6.  Over the next week copy the best Retweets you see on the Twitter stream.  Find at least 20 of these, type them up and save on your computer as “Retweets”.

7.  Find a list of humorous quotations.  You can do a Google search for lists of humor that fits for you.  I recently received one of those viral emails with a series of funny quotes.  It took only a minute to copy it and label them as humors Tweets.  I can sprinkle these humorous quotes in with other Tweets.  Copy and save them to your computer.

8.  Find and create Tweets from other types of lists.  For example, I have a set of  wisdom quotations from famous people.  I sprinkle these into my Twitter stream.

9.  From customer testimonials you have received, create a list of testimonial Tweet sets, type and save on your computer.

10.  Add your own ideas about Tweet sets.  I could take the list of Tweets sets I just developed for you and turn this list into a Tweet set!

You get the idea.  The more quality you bring to these sets, the better pictures others will see about you and your business.

Do you see what you have completed with this process?  You have create 200 or more one line pictures of you and your business.  People will see your passion, your benefits, what others have experienced with your business, humor, and other aspects of your business.  You now have a beautiful picture of your business that will attract followers and potential customers to you.

In the next post, I will share with you Twitter schedulers you can use with your Tweet sets–most of these are free tools.

To be continued, your comments are welcomed…

Al Hanzal

In the next post, I will identify the most popular Twitter schedulers–most of which are free to use.

In the last post, I identified a number of challenges that could kill your marketing participation on Twitter. In this post I offer two perspectives outside of the Twitter program to give you insights on how you can make Twitter work successfully for you.

A Full Time TV Station

Image you are the proud owner of a TV station with 24 hour programming. How will you approach your business? You would set aside time for prime time shows to keep your audience happy. You would buy good movies or shows from others to be included in your 24 hour programming. You would probably create a weekly series of shows that got people turning to your channel on a regular basis. You would offer some current news about what’s happening in the world. And you would use reruns of the most popular shows as fillers for your 24 programming.

Think of your Twitter activity as your TV station with 24 hour programming. You want to reserve some prime time for your best followers and potential customers. You want to create a weekly series of your best Tweets. You want to find other resources to share with your followers. You want to sprinkle in some news items and humor. Since Twitter is a constant stream of real time Tweets, you want create reruns of your best Tweets and use those as part of your daily programming.

Does seeing your Twitter activity as being your 24 hour TV station begin to give you new ideas on how to overcome the Twitter challenges?

Sequential Auto Responders

I am sure you know about sequential auto responders. You may already use this technology in your business. Or if you have opted in to an internet mailing list, you have received a series of sequential emails over a period of time.

The beauty of the sequential auto responder technology is that while it takes time to initially set up the series, when you finish with this investment of time your work is done. Each time a new person joins, they start with the first step in the sequential series. Some people might be at the 10^th step; others at the 15^th step. I once bought a internet program after the 23 email I received from them. I was fascinated by the various ways they expressed the benefits of their program in the sequence of emails.

Do you see how applying sequential auto responder technology and scheduling can overcome the Twitter challenges?

In the next post, I will get down to practically details on applying these new perspectives to your Twitter activity.

To be continued, your comments are always welcomed…

Al Hanzal

Let me share with your ways I use Tweetdeck in my business.  

Getting Started

When you first install Tweetdeck you are given three columns Friends, Replies and Direct Messages. You will find a X above each of these columns.  Click the X on Replies.  Now click on the Search button on the top left of the Tweetdeck toolbar.  A search box opens.  Type in your Twitter user name.  This replaces the Replies column that originally comes with Twitterdeck. Now you have a column in Tweetdeck for every Tweet that contains your name.

Setting

Go to the Setting button at the top right hand of the page.  Here are a couple of setting that will help. Turn off the annoying beep every time a new Tweet comes in.  You can uncheck “Include All Friends” doesn’t really add anything.  Narrow the Column View if you want to see more columns at one glance.  You can also play around with the colors if you want.

Facebook/My Space

You can click on the Facebook Icon in the upper left hand corner of the page.  Follow the instructions and you can update your Facebook from Tweetdeck.  This will also create a Facebook column on Tweetdeck so that you can keep in touch with your Facebook page without leaving Tweetdeck.  You can go directly to Facebook from Tweetdeck and return directly to Tweetdeck without using an outside browser.   You can also do this for a My Space account if you have one.

Groups

You can form Groups on Twitter.  Go to the Twitter Icon on the upper left corner of the page to create a new column.  You will be given the option to create a Group.   Form any type of Group or Groups you want.  They may be friends and family.  They could be a professional group of people of fellow Twitters.

You have two choices to place people in your newly created Group.   You are given a complete list of all your followers.  You can check their box and they will be included.  Or to include people in Group that you have created, mouse over their picture on one of their Tweets and a drop down menu will appear.  It gives you the option of including them in your group.  From now on, their Tweets will come to you in the assigned Group column.

Searches

I find this the best tool in Tweetdeck.   Again go to the Twitter Icon to create a column.  This time select the Search function.  You can type in whatever search terms you want to create a new column.

Since I am interested in social media marketing, I have created a search column call Social Media Marketing.  In this column I get any Tweets that have “social media marketing” in the Tweet.  These have been very helpful to identify people who are commenting on social media marketing as well as resource they are tweeting about.  I find the search column function to be the most beneficial aspect of Tweetdeck.

I have another column for Direct Messages to me.  I can read many of these direct messages at one time and respond directly back to them without leaving Tweetdeck.

Filters

At the bottom of every column you can perform various functions with the column.  You can clear the column; you can filter the column.  For example you might want to create a filter on a column just for Retweets since they are the most popular Tweets.  You would just add a filter RT@ and that will be the only Tweet you receive in that column.

Conclusion

Everyone will use this tool differently.  It’s fun to discover your own way of using Tweetdeck.  It does helps you manage Twitter.  Instead of randomness, you now have a focused way of using Twitter for your marketing purposes. Try Tweetdeck and be sure to comment ways you are using this tool for your business. Others would love to hear how you are using this tool.

To be continued, your comments are most welcomed…

Al Hanzal