Mike Bitter » Uncategorized

Search, for WHAT??

admin — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 09:55:13 +0000

TweetDeck has a really cool function called Search. You will see it different ways depending on what version of TweetDeck you have, but look for the magnifying glass. It is a very small icon on the upper left toolbar. Search allows you to add a keyword column to TweetDeck. The beauty of this column is you can track any comments about your business, your competitor’s business and anything in between. I suggest the first thing you do is set up TweetDeck, then set up your Search columns. You can set up as many Search columns as you’d like.

Twitter on Deck?

admin — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 10:40:32 +0000

Many people talk to me about how to follow others on Twitter. It is pretty hard to follow a conversation or do market research when you have only one column and the tweets starts rolling past. So how do I keep track of tweets on Twitter? I don’t, I use a third party service called Tweetdeck. The best part is that it is FREE!! When you first set up TweetDeck, several standard columns appear; Friends, Mentions, Direct Messages and Tweet Deck Recommends. These columns are a clean, easy way to follow tweets. By using the columns you don’t have to sit at your PC waiting for the next tweet, they go to a column and you can answer them later. The Friends column is the people whom you follow or are following you. The Mentions column will have an entry when your user name is mentioned during a Twitter conversation. You will always know when someone is talking about you. Direct Messages is for anyone who wants to talk to you directly without anyone else in Twitterville seeing your conversation. TweetDeck Recommends is a column whereby TweetDeck recommends certain people for you to follow. Sometimes these people are movie stars, VIPs, famous golfers, etc. You have to decide why you want to follow people. More than likely famous people will not follow you back. I like to follow active users, people who are online and participate in Twitter. It is counterproductive from a business as well as a personal point of view if I following people who are not responding or don’t participate in Twitter. There is one last thing I want to leave you with for today. So how do you know if they are active? Look at their Following to Follower numbers. If they have more people following them than they are following, they are more than likely not very active. Watching following to follower numbers is a great way to see how people use Twitter, but more on that later. Tomorrow we’ll talk about a great way to do market research with Twitter. Good Luck and if you’re alive, comment on what you’ve read so far!!

What About 140 Characters?

admin — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 10:02:16 +0000

What does 140 characters have to do with Twitter? Each post, or tweet can only be 140 characters long. That doesn’t seem like a lot until you take a look at how long sentences are when we talk. For instance “good morning” is only 12 characters. “How are you?” is 13 characters. “How’s your business doing?” is only 25 characters. Get my drift? There will be times when you might have to write more “efficiently,” but all in all most conversational sentences are less than 140 characters. Don’t be shy, TWEET away!!

TO TWEET OR NOT TO TWEET

admin — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 10:03:57 +0000

Now that you have your account set up, TWEET! Talk to others, or just sit back and read what others have to say. When you tweet, be honest. People like honesty. Twitter people can see when someone is fake, so don’t do it. People (sometimes called Tweeple) also don’t like to be solely marketed to. What I mean is people like to get to know you first. After you get to know people, you’ll find out what they want and need. Build a relationship with tweeple and you will find that they will more than likely need your product or service or know someone else who will. Take time to get to know tweeple. Show you care. Like a friend of mine always says, people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. Get onto Twitter and meet people. In the next few posts I’ll tell you about a free 3rd party software that will make tweeting easy. Till then see you on Twitter.

HOW DO I GET TO TWITTERVILLE?

admin — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 14:24:25 +0000

Twitter is probably the most misunderstood social networking site. When I talk to people about Twitter one of the first things they ask me about is the 140 character limit. Think about it. How many characters are in “good morning?”, or “how are you?” Good morning has 13 characters and how are you has 12 characters. That is a long way from 140 characters. Although there may be something you want to say that is more than 140 characters, you’ll know instantly because the background where you type your message turns red. Before we get too far down the road, let’s talk about setting up your Twitter account.

Twitter account set up. Go to Twitter.com to set up your account and select “Sign Up.” Its the big yellow box on the right. You can’t miss it.

Fill out pertinent information and select “Create My Account.” You’ll have to go through three screens consisting of things that interest you, sources that interest you and finally people you are looking for. Twitter will match your interests with people who have the same interests as you do. After you’ve set up your account there ar some things I want to tell you about that will save you from getting lots and lots of potentially unwanted email, but you’ll have to decide for yourself.

On the upper right is a selction named “Settings.” Select Settings and you’ll get another set of selections. Go to “Notices” and read through each one of the types of notices you’ll receive via email. Later on I’ll show you how to increase your following exponentially and you might not want to get an email every time someone sends you a message or follows you. This could end up being a lot of emails. I uncheck these three selections for all my clients.

Profile: Now set up your profile. Make sure you have a picture of yourself, your business logo or something else you’d like for people to identify you with. If you are a business, definitely use your logo or even a picture of the outside of your building. The rest of the blanks are self explanatory. For the bio, think of something catchy, or use your company tag line. Also, make sure you “SAVE” everything you do or it won’t show up on your page. There are a few more things to the setup I’d like to share with you, but I’ll wait until tomorrow. For now, go back to the top, select “Home” and make your first Tweet. even something like ” good morning” or “hello.” Until we grow your Twitter following you may not get much feedback, but others are listening. More tomorrow.

Isn’t Twitter a Waste of Time?

admin — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 14:45:19 +0000

Twitter is not a wast of time. We’ve found people are open and honest whenever they are talking on Twitter. They will tell you how it “really is,” so whenever I start building a business’ Social Network I start with Twitter. This is a great way to immediately communicate with customers on their terms and find out what they are talking about. You can create friendly relationships along the way. This is tough for businesses to do in most other mediums.

Twitter connects you to your customers right now, in a way that was never before possible. For example, let’s say you work for a custom bike company. If you run a search for your brand, you may find people posting messages about how happy they are riding your bikes in the French Alps—giving you a chance to share tips about cyclist-friendly cafes along their route.

Others may post minor equipment complaints or desired features that they would never bother to contact you about—providing you with invaluable customer feedback that you can respond to right away or use for future planning. Still others may twitter about serious problems with your bikes—letting you offer customer service that can turn around a bad situation.

You don’t have to run a bike shop or a relatively small company to get good stuff out of Twitter. Businesses of all kinds, including major brands, increasingly find that listening and engaging on the service leads to happier customers, passionate advocates, key product improvements and, in many cases, more sales.

But Twitter isn’t just about useful immediacy. The conversational nature of the medium lets you build relationships with customers, partners and other people important to your business. Beyond transactions, Twitter gives your constituents direct access to employees and a way to contribute to your company; as marketers say, it shrinks the emotional distance between your company and your customers. Plus, the platform lends itself to integration with your existing communication channels and strategies. In combination, those factors can make Twitter a critical piece of your company’s bigger digital footprint.

For instance, let’s say you run a big retail website. In addition to learning more about what your customers want, you can provide exclusive Twitter coupon codes, link to key posts on your blog, share tips for shopping online, and announce specials at store locations. And you can take things a step further by occasionally posting messages about fun, quirky events at your HQ, giving others a small but valuable connection with the people in your company.

What Does Social Networking Have to do With My Business?

admin — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 10:42:44 +0000

This is where you come in as a business owner. Our best business is referrals. So how do you get referrals from internet social sites? By meeting and talking to people. You don’t have to spend gads of time talking, just enough to let people know you are there FOR THEM!! It is not about closing the sale the first time you meet them. It is about getting to know them. People want to feel like you want to know about them. The more you know about them, the easier it will be to apply your service or product to their lives. You’ll see how it “fits” into their needs rather than trying to sell, sell, sell. Getting a new customer is good. Keeping a new customer is awesome!! The flip side to this is that by your conversing you will attract people who want your product or service. You’re not trying to “sell” to everyone looking for that one or two sales. It is kind of a weeding-out process through natural order. You will attract people who are looking for your service, like your style, or just want to do business with you. You have to start somewhere and Twitter is where we’ll start.

EXPLAIN SOCIAL NETWORKING 102 AGAIN

admin — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 13:40:52 +0000

In a few days I will be launching Social Networking 102! This is a nuts and bolts Social Networking presentation (register by going to http://budurl.com/ActionCoachBl ). Social Networking 102 is a 2-hour presentation about how to put this thing called Social Networking together. Due to the 2-hour presentation limit I will be unable to cover everything about Social Networking, so later that day I will be releasing the entire Social Networking course. I will talk more about that later. By the time the 2-hour Social Networking 102 seminar is completed, the attendees will know how to set up Twitter, Facebook, a Blog and YouTube for business. I will throw in some “secret setup” information to help business owners build and effectively utilize their Social Networking presence. It is so vital to have this presence on the internet! Think about it. How many people read the newspapers nowadays? If they aren’t getting our news from newspapers, then where does it come from? News is now being shared by friends, family and associates through internet social sites. What does this have to do with business? Lots!! What pays for newspaper publishing? Advertising!! When we USED to open a newspaper we would glance past all the ads looking for interesting stories. We had to go hither and yon to find the few stories that piqued our interest. You remember when we used to read stories just to read them? You bought the newspaper, so why not get your money’s worth? Fast forward to today. Did you know you can, at no cost, set up an internet alert that will capture and deliver the information (news) you want to know about? You no longer have to wade through pages of news print to find the few stories YOU want to read. So how does this pertain to Social Networking 102? People want succinct information when they want it. When they need a dentist, an interview specialist or a good restaurant where will we most likely get that information? From a referral; a comment from a friend, family member or something they heard on an internet social site.

SOCIAL NETWORKING 102!!

admin — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 14:38:49 +0000

You’ve been to Social Networking 101 numerous times, but now its time to step up to Social Networking 102. This is the real deal. During this seminar in Omaha, Nebraska you’ll find out the “How-To,” the “mechanics” to Social Networking.

For more information: http://budurl.com/ActionCoach

Hope to see you there!!

Google Alert!! Google Alert!! Take Heed!!

admin — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 20:42:47 +0000

WOW!! I am sitting here thinking of what I should be doing. I have a presentation about Social Media Networking on August 20th for a local company. This will be the first time I’ve rolled out my business plan to the world and I expect to knock the socks off the attendees. I know you’ve been patiently waiting through my extended introduction, but there is one thing I tell all my participants SET UP GOOGLE ALERTS!! Did I mention Google Alerts are - FREE ?? Select this link to set up your first alert – http://www.google.com/alerts

A Google Alert is a FREE (no strings attached) tool that is the single most powerful tool on the internet that will find and bring you Google-Searched stories right to your inbox. It’s like story du jour. YOU choose what YOU want to know about and “poof!” the information is delivered to you inbox. Don’t like the Alert, at the vedry bottom of the Alert you’ll have an option of Removing this alert, Creating another Alert, Manage your alerts. Select Remove this alert and its gone. It is that easy. If you have changing interests, make sure when you add one alert you delete one of lesser value to you. The widget is pretty well self explanatory but here are some items you should have an alert built. Google Sends Alerts to the subscriber once a day (or more of your choosing) for any of your alerts being talked about on the World Wide Web. When you go to – http://www.google.com/alerts have your search term ready and your email address with you. this is so simple and everyone needs to do this right away. At a Minimum – Alert the Following

a. Your Name

b. Family Names

c. Your Phone Number

e. Family Members’ Phone Numbers

f. Other Alerts

I. Business Name

II. Type of business If someone is talking about you, your family or your business on the World Wide Web, YOU want to know about it.

The best part is this information is delivered to your inbox. If your name or identity has been stolen, you might catch something early on using Google Alerts. Don’t wait, set one up right away and see what comes to your inbox!! – http://www.google.com/alerts

-You can cancel the alerts at any time.