Have you starting using Twitter, yet? I know Twitter can be a little daunting.  Just thinking about finding Followers, sending Direct Messages and Replies and what are hash tags? Don't worry, start to take strides every day to understand the potential Twitter has for your business!  Here are five quick tips to implement right now:
 
1. Set a minimum number of tweets per day – and stick to it.

This sounds simple, but tweeting should become a habit just like going to the gym.  Once you skip just one day at the gym, it's easy to break your healthy habit.  The same goes for Twitter, once you skip a day of tweets, it's easy to move this exposure out of your top priorities.  This can be a deadly use of social media. Make sure you are not only promoting your products or services or you will find you are losing your followers. Incorporate personal Tweets, maybe you're not focusing today and you need a Starbucks break.  Tweet about it! Who knows, your next client could be a huge Starbucks fan and begin to interact with you!

2. Build a friendship with your consumer.

In order to be at the top of your consumer's mind, you must build a relationship.  Consumers don't want to only be reminded of you when they are making a purchase; they want to have a continuous conversation. An easy way to strike up a conversation is #FF (or Follow Fridays), where you choose several of your followers and reply to them with #FF.
 
Example: #FF @SavvyWithJenna

3. Use humor to connect.

Strive for a light-hearted relationship.  Consumers want to enjoy the relationship you create and humor is the best way to establish it.  *Warning, remember you are still representing your business. Share a funny story about your day – a good laugh will always brighten someone's day.

4. Gain a focus.

Have an objective for your communication.  If you do not have a strategy, it is difficult to measure any effectiveness in your efforts.  Are you looking to target a special industry? Do you want to reach a target individual? Maybe you're looking for newly engaged brides, just search for #engaged!

5. Think like your consumer.

Consumers are faced with over 5,000 advertising messages a day.  Consider what will spark the interest of your followers.  How would you reach you with your message?  Give the consumer a message they want to talk about.  Twitter is a viral medium.  If you post something that is useful for your market, many will RT (or Re-Tweet) your message to their followers in turn spreading your messages even further than you can imagine. 

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About the Author:
About the Author:Jenna is the author of Driven: Start Savvy and Strong with Jenna, a weekly e-zine dedicated to empowering women entrepreneurs. Driven serves advice on growing your business, enjoying your life, and expressing your unique style. Sign up for Driven: Start Savvy and Strong with Jenna today at http://www.savvyandstrongwithjenna.com/landingpage.html
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There has been a lot of reporting on Shane Warne's recent rant via Twitter about his Brittish Airways flight between London and Las Vegas.  The high profile cricketer had much to say, including the following:

What hasn't been commented on is Brittish Airways total lack of response (well, as far as I can find); the silence is deafening.  BA does have a twitter account @British_Airways and is active on Twitter and has responded to other complaints around the same time:

But, apparently complete silence on the high profile Shane Warne. Mystifying. Or is this a new tactic (otherwise known as "the Emu strategy").

What are the lessons here? Following are some thoughts:

This is a classic example of how social media can negatively impact your brand. However it's also simply the classic example of customer feedback and how it is dealt with. Negative feedback is just as important as positive feedback, if not more so, as it gives a company true insight into where service improvements can be made.
This could be handled by BA as a great PR opportunity. My father always used to say (and it's probably a famous quote from someone) "It's not the mistakes you make that are important; it's the way you fix them". Social media is a great public forum; ideal for fixes.
Is BA monitoring its' brand on social media? Is it possible that these tweets weren't picked up until they were quoted in newspapers and on-line forums around the world? Monitoring is so important. With the tools available today companies can get instant social media feedback on their brands. If BA were really "switched on", these tweets could have been picked up and addressed at the time.
Does BA have a crisis management strategy? Again, there has been much reporting on BA's handling of recent strikes via social media and even positive comparisons to Nestle. But they knew the strikes were coming in advance. What about their response to negative social media press as it happens?

In summary, all companies (whether actively engaged in social media or not) should at the very least:

monitor what is being said about them and their brands and employees via social media
have a strategy to deal with any social media crisis that occurs (include a reputable social media lawyer).

Any thoughts on this?

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About the Author:
Vivienne brings a wealth of commercial expertise in all areas of managing a growing business. She heads up the marketing and business development areas of the practice as well as overseeing the commercial success of the business.
Vivienne has extensive international business development and management experience across a range of industries, working with major global corporations. Her key expertise lies in developing strategic relationships and ensuring ongoing business growth with attention to profit margin.
Her experience includes

Public relations with Shearwater, Zimbabwe
Account management with Lonrho PLC's Russian trading division, London
Account management with BankEnd, Finland and Estonia
Global account management with Global One Telecoms (JV Sprint USA, Deutsche Telecom and France Telecom), Sydney

Vivienne has worked with many global corporates including, Deutsche Bank, ING Bank, Nestle, Phillip Morris and Deloittes.
She is an experienced and professional public speaker, particularly when given the opportunity to articulate her enthusiasm for B2B engagement with social media.
Vivienne is now the General Manager and social media advocate at BlandsLaw, a specialist employment law firm, who are also leading the way in providing strategic legal advice on social media.
You may contact Vivienne by email at vstorey@blandslaw.com.au
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If you pay close attention to TV and radio ads these days, many companies, both large and small, are promoting their Twitter and Facebook accounts just as much as their websites. In some cases, more than their websites.

One of the major reasons that businesses are using Twitter as a marketing tool is because it has the potential to reach so many people. And unlike a less targeted, traditional commercial that speaks to a massive audience, your Twitter messages will reach a group of people (your followers) who actually want to see your message.

Changes in consumer buying patterns have brought about changes in the marketplace, which naturally has led to changes in how businesses market to their potential and current customer base. Interruption-based marketing techniques such as commercials and mailers are losing steam as consumers are finding new ways to avoid them. The rise of DVRs and TiVos give people the opportunity to skip over a commercial, meaning the money invested in producing the 30-second spot, as well as the air-time, is missed by a large amount of the audience it's intended for.

With Twitter, you can interact with your customers, provide them with relevant content about your products, announce happenings and advancements within your company, and alert them of any deals, discounts, or new product launches. And, since your followers are following you for a reason, you can be assured your messages are being well-received by an audience who wants the information.

Here are four (and a half) reasons why using Twitter as a marketing tool can greatly benefit your company:

1) Reach - As I mentioned before, you have the potential to build a large and targeted following through Twitter because so many people use this free service…to the tune of over 20 million people.

2) Value - Twitter provides a great opportunity to share valuable, remarkable content with your audience. By doing this, you build a reputation as a trusted source of information that isn't just concerned with selling. Your audience will recognize this and be more prone to buy from you because you've established trust through being a credible resource.

3) Timeliness - If you launch a new product, create a press release, blog post, or new web page, you can send out a quick tweet to your followers directing them towards the new content. Or, if you come across information that relates to your niche, you can tweet that, too. And, it's in real-time. It reaches your audience immediately and they can link to it when they're ready to consume it.

4) Personality - Twitter is a great place to build your brand and inject personality into your marketing. Social media is about being social. Therefore, use Twitter to brand your company as not only an authority, but a fun and personable entity that customers, clients, and other people in your niche enjoy interacting with.

5) Simplicity - Using Twitter is very easy. However, there are countless amounts of people and companies who misuse the service. A general rule of thumb to keep in mind is that no one likes a "spam-bot." If you spend your day doing nothing but spamming out links to your business instead of providing valuable content, you'll quickly build a reputation as a spammer. This will lead to lost credibility, a horrible reputation, and worse, Twitter blacklisting you from their service.

So…keep it simple, but don't misuse and spam all day.

Twitter, Facebook, and other social media has caught the eye of many companies because it provides an opportunity to interact with customers and supply them with instant information. If used effectively, your message can reach a large audience who is ready and willing to receive it. You can learn more about effectively using social media in your business by checking out my blog.

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About the Author:
Jason Cercone is the Co-Founder of LinXone Solutions, an Inbound Marketing, SEO, and Social Media Management agency based in Pittsburgh, PA. Get more from Jason via Twitter
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Social networking sites are an easy way to promote your products and services? Of course, reaching more clients with viral marketing such as this is what businesses are doing. One of the more popular sites today is Twitter. In fact, with millions of people already connecting on twitter your potental is nearly unlimited. And this is your chance to learn how to use twitter for marketing. Before you can actually do this, you have to make sure that you get twitter followers fast. 

First sign up with twitter, of course. But do not forget to register with other social networking sites also. Post a update on your twitter account linking to your website. This will increase twitter followers. If you are using an email marketing strategy, you can then send your marketing email to all included in your list. If you have a blog, you can write a post and allow your visitors to follow you. 

To increase twitter followers, make your account visible and be seen by everybody. These steps will help you get on your way to increasing your traffic and sales. The more people who view your posts and blogs, the more sales you will possibly get. Imagine being able to market to millions of twitter users; this is positively a good advertising strategy especially for online businesses. 

Also, make your posts, blog or products interesting. By keeping your followers interested in what you are offering you can increase your followers viraly. Do not just bore them out with one and the same links; think of other ways to attract their attention. This will also get new clients to visit your posts. So once you get your twitter followers start increasing, keep posting quality content that keeps them engaged and taking part in what you are writing about. 

Twitter and other social networking sites are great tools to have your advertising strategies jump up a level higher. This will allow you to market to millions of people and increase your sales. By getting twitter followers fast, you can now increase your sales and income for you or your business. You just have to work hard for it and be patient.

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About the Author:
Get twitter followers fast at http://www.explodetwitter.com
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Are you at the point with your Twitter marketing where the amount of work is so time consuming that you are looking for ways to automate the process?  Have you decided it is time to start engaging your prospects via Twitter but know you won't have the time or energy to commit to making it successful?

Well you've landed yourself in the right place, as in this article I'm going to reveal to you the best way to manage your
efforts with Twitter.  Now you've probably heard or seen software programs all over the internet that you can buy or even
some that are free, that automate all your tweets, follows, and direct messages.

Let me tell you that I've tried just about all of them in my businesses…while there are pluses and minuses with each, there
are a few main issues when trying to employ software that arise. 

You can avoid all of these issues and gain huge benefits by using a live Twitter manager (TM) instead.

Here's what they are:

1) Time:

This is the big one, as any business owner or professional knows that time is money and definitely of the essence. 
I have yet to find a Twitter software that will write your tweets on your behalf and create engaging content for your
followers. 

A good TM will do this on your behalf, saving you not only the time of entering the tweets into the system, but the time
involved with developing the content for the tweet itself.

Another time saving element a person can give you over software is the general maintenance of your account.  Software will
not delete direct messages and block spammers who follow you.

2) Engage your prospects:

A huge piece to being successful with marketing in this platform is building a targeted following.  While there are many software
programs that can smartly build a targeted following on your behalf, there are none that can engage your followers and
interact with them like a real person can.

3) Reputation management:

Your TM can monitor what is being said about your products and services on Twitter and other online platforms to make sure
that only positives are being circulated about your company.  They can also alert you when negative items start to surface
so that you can take appropriate action.  This is simply not possible with any of the software programs available.

On top of all this, a good Twitter manager will work with you to understand your ideal prospect and client profile and then
work with you to develop a marketing plan that gets you in front of your target audience across all of the various social
media sites that they frequent.  In essence you get an online marketing division that will produce the automatic leads and
sales your business needs from online efforts.

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About the Author:
Heather and her husband Jason own and operate the Best Social Media Manager a full service social media firm dedicated to exploding your online sales and leads through social media marketing.They have an entire suite of options available and can tailor a program specific to your business needs.  If you are serious about growing your business exponentially with social media, you must have the Best Social Media Manager!
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