When you are working to grow your social media marketing, you need to keep in mind to use all avenues available.  Twitter is an excellant resource to assist you in getting your message out to people.  Here are 10 ideal tips you can use to ensure that you are utilizing Twitter correctly:

1. Be informative and become and expert
2. Limit your sales posts
3. Customize your background to include more contact information
4. Always link your tweets to something, ideally your blog
5. Provide resources for your followers
6. Follow others
7. Be Patient
8. Be professional, tweets are carried onto Google’s search results pages
9. Make time each week to tweet
10. Always disseminate the same message through all your social media channels, including twitter.

Increasing your Sales with Linkedin.com

Increasing your sales by using Linkedin requires a commitment by you and your staff to consistently pay attention to what is going on, in order for you to make money. However, if you can manage to do this then it will surely pay off. Here are a couple steps to take to ensure that you can increase your sales at your company using Linkedin:

1. 1. Plan time in your calendar to visit Linkedin TWICE per week for 30 mins each.
2. 2. Make one session about connecting with other people that you know
3. 3. Make the next session about answer questions and participating within groups that you are a member of
4. 4. Ask 1 relevant question per week.
5. 5. Don’t ask the same question to all the groups
6. 6. Don’t ask 1 question per group per week, it’s 1 question per week.
7. 7. Reply to answers that others give you
8. 8. View connections of those that you are connected to and see who you know, then request those people as a connection
9. 9. Send out recommendation requests – They work and you will get recommendations in return if you are worthy
10. 10. Join the Sales Playbook Group on Linkedin you won’t regret it!

NBC just launched a new Social Media campaign for the show “Chuck“.  The premise is that they have created a game using Social Media, to drive mentions of their show and the winner will be the person with the most mentions by the deadline.  The winner will get their photo appear during one of Chuck’s mental flashes according to Reuters and THRFeed.com.

I have never watched chuck.  Nor do I think I will start.  I do however, commend NBC for their efforts in utilizing social media to spread the word and I will monitor how they handle this.  It will be interesting to see if they announce how many mentions they got during the whole campaign.  I can only imagine how crazy some people will be who like the show and want to see their photo in his mental flash.

For my purposes, I will use this as an example of how to use Social Media to your advantage.  It gets people involved, educated about your product, and spreads the word like wildfire.  This is going to be a great case study in how to use social media and frankly I think it will work.  Stay Tuned!

NHL is having a Tweet Up?

Whats that you ask?  Well, Twitter is coming to town.   Well, not completely..  But with the start of the NHL Stanley Cup playoffs , the NHL is stepping it up and taking it to the next level…. web 2.0!

www.linkedin.com is a social networking site for business people. Lately everyone seems to be flocking to LinkedIn to get a free account and network online with other business professionals. I can honestly tell you that 18 months ago, I wasn’t a believer, but I am here to say today that not only am I a believer, but I am quickly becoming a professor to our clients about how to effectively use it. While I am by no means an expert yet, I find something new each and every day that I use it, and I pass along those ideas to our clients.

How can you benefit from LinkedIn?
First get the free profile setup, complete the profile and begin searching for your contacts. Linkedin has a cool tool for importing your outlook contacts to easily connect with you. It’s rather quick and quite painless to do this.

Networking for a new job…
Many people use linkedin.com to search for new job opportunities. As the economy continues to struggle, people are always looking for a leg up on the competition when it comes to finding new jobs and opportunities.

Recommendations….
Recommendations are just that, references and testimonials from people that trust you. Consider using this feature to market yourself or your company during your sales process to show that you have built trustworthy relationships with partners, vendors, and customers.

The LinkedIn Badge….
Many people are not aware that you can add this badge to your website and link it to your profile on LinkedIn. It’s quite simple to do and shows visitors to your site that you can be reached on LinkedIn as well. That may not mean much to you, however if you get someone who believes in LinkedIn on your site then this might assist them in making the decision to call you and I surely believe that they will visit your profile to check your recommendations.

Adding LinkedIn to your signature…
If you add your Linkedin Profile address to your signature, you can point people to your profile in a quick and efficient manner.

The much missed “Status”….
Status is similar to other social networking sites, however the great thing about the Linkedin status is that people will receive email updates either daily or weekly and that will put your name and status message into people’s mailbox. In addition, the status shows on the home page of your contacts when they log into linkedin.com.

Alex Goldman of InternetNews.com writes “Salesforce Taps Into Twitter”, he goes on to say, “Customer contact centers have moved far beyond the phone, says Salesforce, embracing Facebook, Twitter, and other Web applications.”

Read the rest of this entry »

NIELSEN REPORTS , SOCIAL NETWORKS & BLOGS NOW 4TH MOST POPULAR ONLINE ACTIVITY, AHEAD OF PERSONAL EMAIL .

For months I have been on the social networking to grow your business band wagon.  We have personally seen the effects of its use here at Central Mass Web Design.  Now Nielson, www.nielsen-online.com has produced findings that show Social Networking and blogs via the internet is the fastest growing online category and is growing twice as fast as any of the other sectors.   Today, March 9, 2009, Nielsen released a report proving Social Media and Blogging are growing at a staggering rate.

Member Communities ( which includes Blogging) grew over 5 points in the past year, placing it above e-mail, and showing a growth of more than double any other.

Reports also show that time spent on social networks has increased globally by 18% in the past year.    Do you know what your employees are posting on their Facebook and Myspace accounts?  Do your employees know what you are posting on yours?

I recently gave a presentation to a local networking group on the benefits of using LinkedIn to grow their business and networking.  Part of this presentation talks about researching prospective employees via internet and social networking tools like LinkedIn.

LinkedIn Presentation

Time spent on Networking and Blogging sites is growing at over 3x the rate of all internet growth.  So much time is being spent on social networking sites it is eating into the time spent on other websites and activities.

The average age of online Community Networking Site Member has changed. Facebook started out as a service for university students but now almost one third of its global audience is aged 35-49 years of age, and growing.  Almost one quarter of all Facebook users are over age 50.

This is the way of the future, and I encourage you to get involved and grow with the times…before they leave you in the dust.  You can see the Nielsen report, in its entirety at http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/nielsen_globalfaces_mar09.pdf

Central Mass Web Design has actively been pursuing this avenue, and helping our clients to understand their Online Media presence.  All companies should be considering their Online Media presence when thinking about their website SEO.  Stay tuned for more information, on how to make MySpace, LinkedIn and Facebook work for you!

Kimberly Veautour

Yes! Yes! and Yes! Blogs use web site content management systems with added functionality such as comments, pictures, and RSS feeds. When you optimize a web site with constantly changing or updated content and that document gets indexed, categorized and ranked by a search engines it adds Search Engine Benefits.

Things to remember when blogging?

1. Categories’ Make sure you use categories to establish themes, and structure your posts in those themes. If you can make it easier for search engines to understand your content, you have a better chance of ranking well.
2. Search Engine Friendly URL’s Make it easy for search engine spiders to find and crawl blog content.
3. New Content – Both readers and search engines demand new content. From a search engine perspective, the more often you add content… the more the blog is searched by search engine spiders, the more you show up in search engine results. New content will also give the impression of a more authoritative web site, and your client will value the ‘expert” advice you share. A very fast way to use a blog is to integrate it directly on the home page of your website as events, news or tips section.

20 quick blog ideas to get you started:

1. Write a tutorial! Give your clients the one up on everyone else.
2. Post about current events that pertain to your business, geographical area, or industry.
3. Review your statistics to see what keywords referred your visitors to your site and post about those.
4. Write a series of posts. (Example: Take on a large but important topic that your clients would value your input and break it down into sections, with multiple posts.)
5. Update old posts with new ideas.
6. Post about frequently asked questions in your industry.
7. Combine some of your best posts from previous blogs into a new series.
8. Invite your readers to a social network you use. (This will also help with your networking.)
9. Introduce a new industry trend, and become the expert in that area to your clients.
10. Celebrate your achievements.
11. Blog an event.
12. Write a review.
13. Write a case study.
14. Write your biography.
15. Share the newest and greatest thing you found on the web.
16. Write a glossary of terms used in your industry.
17. Do a slide show that explains a new idea or technique.
18. Take ideas from another industry, and explain how it would work in yours.
19. Read other blogs to see what’s new and hot!
20. Write a blog on blogging. Use it to list new blog ideas for your clients

I hope this helps you to get started blogging! Remember your website gives back to you, the effort you put into it.

-Kimberly Veautour