Posts Tagged ‘Business’

Optimizing Your Twitter Presence

Wednesday, July 21st, 2010

As the world continues its transition to the digital space, the majority of companies have realized that social media is an essential piece of the marketing puzzle, Twitter being a key player. The site has experienced exponential growth over the past couple years, with 23.5 million unique visitors per month being reported in February 2010. While Twitter still has a long way to go to catch up to Facebook, it has proven itself as a powerful force in the world of real-time communications.

In order to take advantage of all it has to offer, we’ve come up with a key list of tools below:

Personalizing Your Presence

  • In addition to maintaining a wide database of pre-made Twitter wallpapers that you can simply select to install on your account, Twitbacks also allows you to customize a background of your own. This website specializes in helping you create backgrounds featuring a left-hand column that may include your social networks, links, photos, an extended bio, phone number and more.
  • MyTweetSpace is a user-friendly site that offers badges, fancy graphics and themes to help you personalize your Twitter presence. The standard backgrounds with badges are available for $5. In addition, the site offers backgrounds specifically customized for your business for a $79 fee.

Growing Your Account

  • Known as the “Twitter Yellow Pages,” Twellow allows you to search for people on Twitter in specific categories, such as: Real Estate, Green, Football, Teachers, Fashion Design, etc. You can also register yourself on the site and select the category, or categories, that you fit in best.
  • Nearby Tweets is a fun application that enables you to plug in your city, and see who is tweeting in your geographical area. While the standard public Twitter stream is bombarded with up to 12 million tweets per minute, Nearby Tweets gives you a microscopic view of who is saying what in your own community.

Platforms

Tweetdeck for desktop

  • Tweetdeck is a popular Twitter publishing application that is available in both desktop and mobile versions. Having just topped 15 million downloads as of July 2010, theservice sends out approximately 4 million tweets and status updates every day. The value in Tweetdeck comes in the ability to customize your personal Twitter experience by creating different columns, groups, scheduled tweets and searches.
  • Formerly Tweetlater.com, Social Oomph is a desktop-based application that is preferred by many due to the extensive number of features that it offers. The free version includes: scheduled tweets, keyword tracking, direct message inbox purging, extended Twitter profiles and the ability to save and reuse message drafts.

Analytics

  • Twitalyzer is a free service that provides a high-level overview of where you fall in the Twitter-scape and how you are making an impact. When you sign in using your Twitter account information, the site generates a report that shows you your impact, engagement, clout, retweet ratio, follower statistics, personality and more. Twitalyzer also provides a section with recommendations for you to create a bigger impact on the site.
  • TweetStats is a tool that allows you to take a broad look at how many tweets you are sending out monthly, daily and hourly, going back to the first tweet you sent during your first month on Twitter. Once you plug in your username, you will be provided with graphs and tweet clouds that offer an inside look into how you are using Twitter.

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Jump-Start the New Year with Business Resolutions

Friday, January 8th, 2010

We’ve all made our New Year’s Resolutions: eat healthier, save money, join a book club, spend more time with family. Having this firmness of purpose is what is so exhilarating about resolutions. Why stop at personal resolutions, why not apply them to your business? This year make determined resolves for your business.

It’s a New Year. A clean slate, a fresh start. New goals, objectives, ambitions, and metrics. While we slowly climb out of this recession, now is the time to focus on cost-effective solutions that will jump-start the New Year and allow you to make the most of your resources and get you to where you need and want to be. The New Year allows you to refocus, update expectations, set new benchmarks and ultimately strategize how you will reach your aspirations for the year. Where to begin?

Start at your vision statement. Where do you see your business headed? How do you want it to operate? What will it be in the future? What are your core values and how can those attributes make your vision a reality? After defining your vision and clearly articulating it, move on to your mission statement.

Compose your mission statement with your vision in mind. Ask yourself what the main strategic intent of your business is. What are your essential competencies? By understanding your purpose and aim as a company, and using your attributes to your advantage you can set focused, targeted goals.

New Year’s Resolutions have a bum rap for always getting thrown out the window around week three. This year, resolve to stay on track.

Mission Statements Inlaid with Vision

Mission Statements Inlaid with Vision

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Are you linked in?

Wednesday, May 27th, 2009

My grandmother’s friend’s guinea pig’s breeder suggested I call you…

Okay, so maybe that is a bit far fetched, but the age old concept of “it’s not what you know it’s who you know” is one that stands strong throughout time.

Particularly in times such as these, networking is key. Be it that you are looking for a job, trying to drum up new business or just needing to build your list of contacts, the sure fire way to do this is through business networking. And if you know what’s good for you – you’ll be active in the most professional networking site: LinkedIn.

linkedinpic1

Some facts about LinkedIn: 

-       LinkedIn has over 41 million members in over 200 countries and territories all around the globe

-       A new member joins linkedIn approximately every second

-       Executives from ALL fortune 500 companies are LinkedIn members

-       Approximately 170 industries are represented on the site

-       It’s free!

 

With the ability to show off your resume, background work experience, education and contact details and testimonials from previous employers, LinkedIn services as a quick look into one’s professional career thus far. With the added ability to discuss topics of interest, share news article and search directly for jobs – joining LinkedIn sounds like a no-brainer right?

And it is! But with this much at your fingertips – it is easy to get carried away. Check out my next blog for a few easy do’s and don’t for using LinkedIn. 

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Why bother using Twitter?

Monday, May 18th, 2009

So, now you know what Twitter is and how to use it. Great!  But WHY should you use Twitter? Of all the social media platforms out there, why should Twitter be at the top of your list?

Here are three quick reasons why to use Twitter.

1. Twitter is Everywhere!twitter-international_web_traffic1

A common misconception is that social media is “an American fad” that holds no weight in the international community. Actually, the complete opposite is true. Sixty percent of Twitter web traffic comes from outside the United States. Countries like Japan, Spain, the UK and even Taiwan are large contributors to Twitter web traffic.  Twitter has become the newest way to cross international borders and create the proverbial “global village” online.

2. Everyone has Twitter!

wwwninthlinkcom1

Everyone from President Obama to Ashton Kutcher to my next door neighbor is on Twitter.  Since 140-character bite-sized Tweets are the main form of Twitter communication, no one can say that they don’t have time to Tweet. Since everyone is using Twitter, having a large number of “followers” ensures that you have a large audience. And if you can communicate your brand message in 140 characters, you’ll have a captive audience.

 

3.  People visit Twitter

This may sound just like Reason #2 but there is a slight difference.  Often, social media will have a huge spike in membership at its launch, but the number of hits (or unique visitors to the website) will dwindle after the novelty has worn off.  With Twitter, the exact opposite has happened. Twitter has simply exploded since it was first introduced. In fact, a recent study has shown that Twitter.com has more visitors than the websites of the New York Times and Wall Street Journal! Twitter is even giving Google a run for its money!

The long and short of it is that Twitter is a unique and emerging platform that people are using. So, don’t be afraid to jump right in and have fun on Twitter!globalprojectshelpwebscom

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Twitter 101: The Basics of Tweeting

Wednesday, May 13th, 2009

Twitter? What’s that?

 

twitter-bird

If you are asking yourself this question then you must have been living under a rock for the past few months. But that’s okay – we’ll get you up to speed and no one will ever know your recent abode.

Twitter is THE new social media tool about today. I know I know, “there is always some latest fad that won’t last”… but Twitter is different. Honestly. It’s growing at a rate much faster than Facebook (gasp!) and is proving rather profitable to many brands in the business world. So pay ‘attweetion’ (ha) here’s a quick “Twictionary“ 101: 

 

1. Tweeps = Members of Twitter

2. Tweets = The sentences (or “micro-blogs”) you write that can be no longer that 140 characters long

3. Tweetup = An event created through Twitter

4. Twerd = A Twitter Nerd

 Okay – so now you know the lingo, how do you actually use the site? Here are a few basics:

1.    Twitter – A site dedicated to micro-blogging that resembles the “Status update” of Facebook

2.    Followers – People who have asked to be your friend on Twitter that, once accepted by you, can read your tweets on your profile

3.    Following – People you are friends with of whom you can read their tweets on their profile

4.    D – The symbol used to “Direct Message” a follower, allowing them to read your message but no-one else

5.    RT – The symbol used to “Re-Tweet” a tweet on your profile that you copied from someone else’s profile

6.    @[enter followers name] - The symbol used to reference a re-tweet (see above) or to reply to a particular follower’s tweet.

 So there you have it – everything you need to know about Twitter from a functionality point of view. Check out our next post where we’ll give you the low down on how Twitter can be used to optimize your brand…

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