Four ways you lose me

It’s a fact that you can use twitter for marketing your product. I, myself, have bought an item from someone who I found during a twitter search. I was searching for “paypal alternatives”, they happened to have made a post about paypal. Long story short – I saw her website, liked her product and bought one (using paypal). Enough “twits” have lost my interest lately, for stupid things, I just had to rant.

• Follow to Unfollow

Sometimes it takes me awhile to process the information on your service. I like to research things, compare, then make a decision – nothing loses my attention more then when someone “follows” and then “unfollows” me just as fast. In the last week I have “tweeted” about my interest in a new web merchant service. A few tweeters who offered (or was affiliated with) this services started following me – and I was actually interested in their info. However, when I went back to find their “twitter name” I saw they had “unfollowed” me within 24 hrs. HUH – well I guess they weren’t really interested in my business. It felt….rude. I know who they are and I refuse to entertain their service now. Nor will I recommend them.

• Auto Direct messaging

I hate when someone acts like they are soooo interested in you. They ask what you do. OK listen, if you were interested in me – well you would have checked out my twitter page. It tells you right there in my bio what I do. HUH Don’t act like you want to know if you can’t take the second to look at my page. People who respond with my name really impress me – they took the time. I want to be their friend

My favorite auto DM was when I followed someone to message them that they were infringing on my image copy rights. I wanted them to immediately to cease and desist before I took legal action. It knocked my socks off why they auto DM’d me “Thank you for following, we appreciate your interest in us and look forward to your business” Are you kidding me?

• Empty Twitter profiles

I actually check out peoples twitter pages, their blogs too. I enjoy reading others opinions. I’m all for information sharing and learning. I even read the things I don’t agree with – just to try to understand. If you have nothing to say I don’t want to follow your page. So those using twitter to spam or fill space it feels like an insult. I don’t feel like buying anything from someone who insulted me! Sometimes I don’t know what your selling even – I don’t get it.

• Fake sharing

This one irks me the most. Someone sends me an interesting tweet. I get excited about how freely they want to share information. Maybe it’s from someone who I have some experience to offer back – freely! I follow the link only to find out you want me to buy it! I mean, that’s like someone offering you their seat on the bus and then demanding a quarter for it. Offer me something of value will you! Then let me decide if I want to trust your opinions enough to pay for your information. And NO I’m not comfortable “just” providing my email – thanks anyways. I’m on to you.

Wake up and smell the…social networking?

click on image to make it larger

I was “catching up” on my friends facebook pages and saw a perfect example of the powers of social networking for those companies who still wonder what it is. I found myself thinking that maybe I’ll try this coffee too! 2 of my friends say it’s great…I never heard of it before but I TRUST their opinions. Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to figure out how to get them to talk about YOUR product.

• Provide a quality product

• Provide great customer experience

• Understand your customers

What Social Networking means for my business…

I’ve been reading up on tweets lately. Searching for small businesses such as myself – selling a product online – trying to learn something new (and I do all the time) from others.

But…I’ve been struggling to figure out what social networking means to me, and how I can use all the tools available to increase my business. After all, that’s why I was interested in social networking in the first place.

I wasn’t looking for a job, or to build an MLM empire, or to convince people I knew all about SEO (search engine optimization) and SMO (social media optimization) like most tweets I found about business were.

I wasn’t this new wave of “entrepreneur” that popped up during the recession either, or the “twitter expert” so many claim to be. Could my business really benefit from this platform?

I have been slowly learning that the answer is YES. Here are just some of the things that I have discovered.

• Social networking is about offering “networks” information they would find interesting or helpful.

You don’t have to sell anything to people, just share experiences and resources. If they want what you sell – they will check it out. They would never have known about your product it if they weren’t initially interested in what you had to say and visited your site (or blog). Otherwise they would have found you in the search engines. I have a few blogs that I do for my personal interests – parks and dogs. The information I share is totally unrelated to my product – yet I see in my google analytics traffic coming to my main site through those blogs. Ahhhhh!! I get it. So I have to think the work or time I put into it is like the $ I pay per click. A soft or passive sell. I figured I better make blogs about things I was passionate about – otherwise I’d never do it.

• Social networking is about sharing and contributing.

It’s really about the EASE in which you can share ideas, articles, or even products you like. If it was not for reading tweets I would never have found twitter.com/addthis which offers an excellent tool. The tool can be put on any site to allow your audience (or visitor) to easily share it with others they know. So now I can offer people the ability to add my Ring Guard website to their Social Network and guess what..they have! On the “AddThis” website you can track what sites they are sharing with (and what pages).

• Social Networking is about learning and growing.

I’ve “stumbled” upon many resources I never knew exisited (and I have been making a very decent living online for over 10 yrs). I found out how to use certain aspects of google more effectively (google goal setting and google base to name 2). I have seen what others are doing to promote themselves. I have had people answer my questions (not many mind you but at least some do). I try to “pay it forward” as much as I can.

Now of course there are idiots out there social networking who THINK they know it all or will not acknowledge your contribution to a thread of interest. AND I have run into a “data mining” link fake out from a tweet …so you have to weed out the bad and follow those who you value.

After all….it really is about the QUALITY of follows not the QUANTITY.

I look forward to learning more from those I follow – and share their links with others. That is afterall what networking is about.

Social Networking for the Online Business

Social Networking seems to be on every online marketers lips these days. I’m not an online marketer but I do have to agree with them when it comes to the value of social networking. As a small online retail business I’ll try to explain what social networking means to me and how I utilize it.

• The best social networking for your business doesn’t even come from you. It comes from blogs, comments on boards, discussions, and shared experiences past customers had with you.

Yes that is right! They are out there sharing information…networking socially you can say How do I utilize this for my business? By providing the best customer service, admitting mistakes, providing solutions, giving benefits to repeat business and of course providing the product they bought! It’s what marketers may call “creating a buzz” by having others talk about your product. How do you know if this is happening? Search your web url in google and look at some of the links – you’ll see people sharing your info. Make sure it’s positive buzz.

• If your product isn’t creating the buzz you want (or you want more!), or it’s a new company with little history on the internet you could pay bloggers to write about or review your product.

Or you could offer a free product in exchange for a review. For instance, my product is popular in the diet community. I could research diet networking groups and blogs – find one that is popular and has a lot of activity on it and make an offer to the blogs owner or members. Know who your customers are, why they are buying your product. Then, understand what social circles they may utilize.

• Utilize popular networking sites.

Yes, you can go on digg.com, twitter.com, youtube.com, facebook (running out of breath) and so on. Make your profile share who you are and what you do. Maybe, just maybe one day they will remember you when a friend says….I wish I had a..(your thing here). After all, that is true networking isn’t it. And I guess today the internet is the new “Social”.

• I’ve “dugg” my own site, I admit it
• I use my youtube account to show videos on my site – and benefit from the youtube community
• Yes I’ve even written articles on my products, made comments on boards.
• I even use this blog to link to my site and tell you what I do
• ok ok….I am a errrrr do you call one who tweets? a twit? (I asked but noone responded) Anyways I use twitter, share my online experience with strangers
• I use facebook pages to offer FAQs and more information on my products.

The results?

1. 40% of my traffic comes from PPC (pay-per-click marketing),
2. 40% Natural search results (SEO) and
3. 20% from refering sites (Social Networks/blogs etc)

The interesting part. The “bounce rate” (number of people who come, and leave from the first page) is lower for social networking then with PPC. That’s a good thing. It means those coming do so because it was “recommended” or they were “refered” to me by a contact they had with another site. Half the “sell” is already done for me

The other benefit from Social Networking – You’re going to learn A LOT from others. So although it is a huge cost in time, the benefits are worth it!

NetworkSolutions new social networking site

Social Networks are popping up all over the place. Network Solutions has now opened a new social network for the developer and design community called “LinkTogether“. LinkTogether™ has everything you need to grow and manage your business. Here is a list of the free resources they offer members:

• Get Hired
  Find jobs and projects in need of a Professional like you.
• Make Connections
  Show off your skills with a well placed portfolio in the Member Directory, make new contacts and collaborate in forums.
• Save design time
  Leverage customizable Web site templates, graphics, and ready-to-go Web sites with functionality already built in!
• Share Stuff
  Post your greatest hits. Steal with glee.
• Save big
  Get exclusive deals on Network Solutions® services.
• Smarten up clients
  Educate them with Smart Guides to facilitate technical conversations.
• Fire your lawyer
  Win new work with customizable proposals and contracts .

<!–

• Leverage the community
  Collaborate in Forum and make new contacts.

–>

• Gain an edge
  Quickly get up to speed on popular topics with video tutorials

On the site there are tons of white papers ( authoritative reports or guides that often addresses problems and how to solve them) available to members addressing a wide span of information from DIY vs professional designers to increasing website accessibility. It may be worth checking out if you have a small online business and want to utilize free shared resources.

What the heck is a Hash Tag ? #lost

If you’ve been twittering you may have noticed something strange within people’s updates. The “#” (pound) key followed by a word or short acronym. These are called “hashtags”.

What the Heck is a hash tag you may be asking yourself (as did I).

Hash tags are a way to communicate a updates “subject” or “theme” to others. Allowing them to “search” the subject and see all tweets that highlight or include info on that particular theme.

hashtags.org explains how hashtags were “designed to accommodate the real-time news community”. Newsrooms could easily follow hastags to see what certain stories would be about.

Now the twitter community is using hashtags to share info to all interested in a topic. For example #adsense would highlight to others that that twitter profile is posting about google adsense. You may decide to follow that person, increasing their social network with people interested in google adsense.

You may see posts that say “@wefollow #socialmedia #web #twitter #facebook #humor #internetmarketing #socialmediamarketing #advertising #lol” These posts are letting you know if your tweets include any of the interests that person will want to “follow” your profile – increasing your social network.

The good

• Helps you identify profiles that share your interests
• Helps increase social networks allowing you to reach more people
• Allows you to search tweets that may interest you even though they are not on your “follow” list.

The bad

• There seems to be no site that explains what the acronyms mean so unless they are general you may never know what they mean.
• They can look messy and confusing making people skip them altogether.
• They take away from the “human contact” that most joined twitter for in the first place. To “share” with their friends what they are up to.

The Ugly

My opinion is if hash tags take over twitter the average person may feel #lost and #confused and just #leave altogether.