Twitter is a very useful tool to driving traffic to your web site, and in this article I discuss ways to get your Tweets Retweeted. I suspect that the top search engines are spidering peoples tweets, not necessarly to index or rank them, but using them to find content on the web very quickly. A popular post or article can be tweeted some several hours prior to it getting linked too. Search engines being interest in Twitter is very relevant to ensure their indexing is fresh and up to date.

1. Length:

Twitter limits you to only 140 characters per Tweet. A retweet is directly linked to the 140 characters as any retweet will be included at the front of the retweet: ‘RT’ @yourusername. Therefore, you need to keep you tweets short as possible, and leave sufficient space for the retweet information.

2. Phrasing:

There a few different types of phrasing, which are successful in achieving retweets. For example, definitive phrasing tweets which are authoritative and factual carry a lot of weight. Humorous tweets get retweets again and again for obvious reasons. Shocking tweets that provide information that isn’t widely known often get retweeted especially when they turn out to be factual. Carrot daggling tweets are often very intriguing to people. For example, you only give a snippet of information, or part of the story in the tweet and follow it will a url.

3. Content / Subject Matter:

This is very much fits the classic pattern of link bait on the web. For example, technology is big on Twitter and obviously celebrities. Content is king and will need to be current and relevant to your audiences.

4. Time of Day:

Research has shown that tweeting between 9am to 3pm pacific time is more likely to capture the maximum number of individuals are using Twitter. For example, if you tweet earlier you will capture Calaifornia one of the most heaviest percentage of users in the United States. Also, by tweeting before 3pm you will capture the United Kingdom audience. London has recently been deemed as the city with the most tweeters.

5. url:

To include a url very much depends on your Twitter strategy. If you are attempting to drive traffic to a web site, then obviously need to include a url. If there purposes of your tweets to raise you profile and follows, then I would suggest including urls selectively.

6. Pushing:

Email your friends asking them to retweet your tweets. Most people don’t mind helping you out, and it only takes a matter of seconds.

How will Social Networking websites look like in the future? Or more importantly, what functionality will sites such as Twitter and Facebook provide and how will we interact with friends, family and work colleagues 3 years from now.

In the coming years, Social Networking websites will more likely become the hub or portal to all our online activity:

1. email:

Most Social Networking already have a form of messaging or internal email system. Applications are already beginning to appear to incorporate existing popular email accounts such as Gmail, Yahoo Mail and Hotmail into Social Networking sites. In the near future internal Social Networking sites will allow you to email people outside of the its own internal network, either via it’s own system or using a third party.

2. ecommerce:

You will already find some major online stores allowing you to purchase directly via website like Facebook. In the coming years, this will explode. I am personally waiting for supermarkets to produce applications for sites like Facebook, to allow ordering of your weekly food/grocery shop directly from your profile page.

3. businesses:

More and more business will be conducted via social networking websites. Currently, most of the main stream businesses and companies will have a social networking present for marketing purposes. In the near future, business transactions will begin to appear via your Facebook profile. For example, not only will you see an ad for car insurance, the link from that ad will not take you to an external web site, the link will take you to that companies page, where you will be able to obtain a quote, and purchase the policy directly from your social networking site.

4. marketing:

Marketing on social networking website is already widespread. In the coming years, it will be bigger business and as the ad market becomes more competative, you will only begin to see ads from the companies that have huge marketing budgets. Gone will be the days of ads from local small businesses.

5. hub/portal:

As mentioned previously, social networking websites will become a hub or portal of all your online activity. This will include all the items mentioned in this article along with many others I haven’t covered.

6. billing:

Do you have paperless billing? Do you get an email reminder when your bills are due? If so, the next step is receiving these notifications via your favourite social networking website. This could be in the form of a private message, pop up, or a private comment placed on your wall.

7. calender:

Do you already use an electronic calender and organiser? If so, there will be applications soon that will allow you to import your calender into your favourite social networking web site. You will be able to customise this to receive notifications in your desired format.

Social Media has rapidly expanded in the last few years, and more and more businesses are seeing the potential of expanding their marketing strategies to include Social Media platforms.

So, what do you do? You hire a Social Media Manager. Or do you? Perhaps we should take a closer look at Social Media first, to determine what the fundamental factors of social media are. Well actually we don’t need to do that either. If you have a marketing strategy, then I’m sure you have a marketing manager, and a customer service manager? Am I right? I’m sure I am! In any marketing strategy the principles are the same regardless of what platform your are using to market your product or service. The most important part is to listen to your customers, and provide what they need using clever marketing ideas that are fun, interactive and capture the audiences imagination.

If you customer service manager does not know how to use Twitter or Facebook, send them on a training course, or get them to figure it out for themselves – it’s not that difficult and it will save you a lot of money if you have a small marketing budget. If you have a large marketing budget and still want to employ a Social Media Manager, please do not hesitate to contact us.

1. Personal Desktop:

Think of Facebook as your own personal desktop that everyone else can see on the Internet. Can you remember a time when you’ve walked passed a colleague’s desk and seen how they have configured their desk in a particular way? Maybe they have pictures of friends and family; a mug of their favourite football team; a picture on the wall of  a destination they would like to visit? Perhaps they have a book or magazine that was waiting to be read at lunch-time, or an open address book with contact information. All of these things give you a tangible sample of that person’s life, and Facebook is no different. Facebook is an information snapshot of someone’s life and to use Facebook as a professional tool, you can adapt a Facebook profile to market yourself or your brand. Only display the information on your Facebook profile that you’d display on your desk that everyone else can see. You would not want to display your personal home telephone for anyone to see, or a picture of you drunk after a fun night out. Only post information that you want clients to see and is relevant to your marketing goals.

2. Adding Individuals:

Look for clients, customers and old acquaintances that you know who would be interested in your marketing pitch. In turn, if they like what they see, they may become a customer or even share your brand with friends and colleagues of their own. Be selective with whom you send friends request to. You don’t want to spam people that you know or annoy potential new customers. Contrary to popular belief, Facebook isn’t about collecting friends. In a professional environment, whether you are marketing yourself or a brand, quality is more important than quantity. You can create a limited profile for individuals who you are unsure about, and open the full profile for individuals that you already know, and would welcome your invitation.

3. Applications:

Facebook has thousands of applications to install on your profile that will make your profile more functional as a professional tool, and help you organise tasks. Ten useful applications can be found here. This is not so useful if you intend your Facebook profile to be used for marketing a brand.

4. News Feeds:

You don’t necessary need to know when someone has uploaded a new photo of themselves; however, you do need to keep tabs on your contacts and especially when your customers or clients are talking about you or your product. Click on ‘preferences’ link on your profile to amend these, and adjust them according to your requirements.

5. Security and Privacy:

Security is important and you need to amend these settings, as Facebook’s default settings leaves your profile wide open for anyone to view, and furthermore, is accessible to search engines for indexing. There has been a lot of bad publicity recently over Facebook’s security and privacy settings. At one point there were more than over 170 settings, which were time consuming and complicated to amend. Fortunately, Facebook listened to what people were requesting, and have now amended these settings to a more simplistic process. If your Facebook profile is designed to promote a service or brand then you need to make you profile as open as possible; however, remember not to post any personal information.

6. Join Groups:

Join groups on Facebook that are relevant to you or your brand. Many groups on Facebook are pointless. Be selective, and you can join a community of like minded people to share and connect with. Networking with clients or individuals who share interests in your field will automatically promote yourself or your brand. Take part in conversations, ask questions, and share ideas. More importantly, if you a promoting a brand, engage with your customers and get feedback.

7. Be Efficient:

Facebook can be, and to quote from a famous song: ‘You are my favourite waste of time’. What I mean is that you can get sucked into elements of Facebook that have no bearing on your professional self or marketing strategy. Flash games, reading pointless status updates, or looking at someone’s holiday photographs of five summers ago, are all time wasting avenue of Facebook that serve no bearing on why you are on Facebook. If you are reading this, you are here to work, so close down Mafia Wars and get to it . Building a successful Facebook profile and marketing your brand takes time and effort. Don’t expect results overnight. I would schedule at least an hour a day to work on this. Alternatively, you can employ a social media manager to manage this process for you, like me .

8. Contact Information:

Don’t forget to include your contact information, which you are happy for people to have access to. Include: Postal Address; Telephone Number; Website; Email.

9. Promotions and Events:

If you have a brand or product that you are marketing, use Facebook to promote special offers. Get the message out directly to your customers and let them know about discounts and how to claim the discount. Provide information as to whether this is in-store, online or via Facebook . Let people know when the discount or promotion expires.

Keep your contacts informed of special events. Let people know where, when and what to expect at your special event. You can create an Events page on your Facebook profile and send out invites to all or selected contacts. You can even ask for RSPV to identify potential numbers, and this information is also good to determine how many people are expected at your event. In addition, this is also useful data to analyse how effective your marketing campaign on Facebook is working.

10. Updates:

Keep your contacts informed of updates that are relevant to yourself or the product your are marketing. For example, if you are selling products, use Facebook to promote new lines. Upload sample photographs of these new products and ask for feedback. If you are opening a new store, tell people about it.

If you make the products you sell, update your clients with details about certain products. Upload videos, step-by-step guides, techniques used,photographs of the design, manufacturing, testing and final product stage.  Many people  find production details interesting.

11. Facebook Ads:

Do you need to send more traffic to your Facebook profile or website? Did you know Facebook has it’s own Pay-Per-Click Ads system similar to Google Adwords? This system allows you to create you own ads, target those ads to specific demographics and only pay each time your ad is clicked on.

12. e-Commerce Integration:

Facebook API (Application Programming Interface) is a platform for building applications that are available to the members of the social network of Facebook. The API allows applications to use the social connections and profile information to make applications more involving, and to publish activities to the news feed and profile pages of Facebook, subject to individual users privacy settings. With the API, users can add social context to their applications by utilizing profile, friend, Page, group, photo, and event data. The API uses RESTful protocol and responses are localized and in XML format.

In terms of e-commerce, you could build a Facebook API application to sell your products directly from your Facebook pages.

This article isn’t about telling you what foursquare is. If you’ve found this blog, you will probably already be an active user of foursquare. If you do need more information about foursquare, I suggest you head over to their website: http://foursquare.com.

This article is concentrates more on the practical application of this service for businesses:

1. Verify Your Location:

If your venue isn’t in the system, a user can choose to add it. Or, they can check in without adding it, which is what most of them will do — but it won’t do you any good. So, you need to make sure you’re in the system and that your info is correct.

To make sure your info is right, got to Foursquare.com and search for your business name via the box in the top-right corner of the screen.

If you are not in the system, you may add your business by going here.

If your business does appear, but the address or name is wrong, go tothis forum and post a correction. It looks rather hap-hazard, but I know it’s official because in the time I’ve been writing this, a few of the corrections that users had posted when I began writing have already been made by the folks at Foursquare.

2. Loyalty Programs:

Major players are offering the social media loyalty programs by using the application to rewards you by returning to their locations with special offers, points programs and discounts. Tasti D-Lite, a popular frozen dessert company offering trendy alternatives to traditional ice cream. The company’s roots are in New York, where they’ve managed to become a part of the city’s diction, but its cross-country and worldwide expansion efforts are heavily reliant on social media spreading the Tasti D-Lite message beyond New York City.

3. Location-Based Social Media:

Using other social media services like Twitter and Facebook will compliment you marketing strategy. Twitter has already seen the massive potential of  location-based social media and Facebook is still dragging it’s feet in this area. Foursquare has been designed specifically for location-based social media. Location-based social networks allow users to interact, share, meet up, and recommend places based on their physical coordinates. This real-world connection to social media can mean more foot traffic and profits for business owners.

4. Creating an Event:

Because Foursquare is specifically for location-based social media, this gives wonderful opportunities to take a local customer base and encourage existing or new customers to participate in your event.

You will need setup your profile that reflects the details of your event include the venue. Whilst you have the facility to create a custom badge you can also add additional benefits to your cliental that  have major status with a discount or voucher.

Not only will Foursquare users be able to check in and follow the tips surrounding your event, but they now have a community to connect with other users. Furthermore, encourage your event participants to add their own tips. Allow exhibitors to offer their own incentives for a visit to their booth. Give speakers a chance to encourage new audiences.

5. Leave Useful Tips for Users:

Business owners can provide the same type of experience for their customers. Leave a tip about the best times to come in for a quick coffee, highlight the groups that gather on certain days, reveal where to find all the best electrical outlets if someone’s coming with a laptop, etc. Anything that betters someone’s experience with your business is good for your business. I recommend that you disclose somewhere that you are leaving the tip as someone associated with the business, as not to come off as deceptive. However, if you make it an Official Tip or a Behind The Scenes Tip, it could become part of the game and increase the fun.

Geolocation is the identification of real world graphical location of computers, mobile devices and web site visitors connected to the Internet. Geolocation information can include Country, Region, City/Town, Postcode/Zipcode and latitude and longitute.

In the past couple of month two major players in the social networking arena have incorporating geolocation features and made this technology available to the end-user.

Last November Twitter introduced this feature for their mobile site as well their static web site. If you access Twitter from a mobile device not only are you tweets linked to your current location, but you can also view other users tweets that are in your surrounding location whether you follow them or not. The static Twitter web site allows users to add their location, and those tweets are also pinned to that location. You can read more at Twitter’s blog.

One of the most useful web sites I’ve seen to date that utilises this technology with a practical application is http://uksnow.benmarsh.co.uk. What Ben has done here is pull this information using a short hash tag and present peoples Tweets in a geographic layout plotting Tweeters who are reporting snow fall in real-time. I personally found this extremely useful in making decision whether to venture out or not. This real-time information far exceeds out dated, incorrect and national weather reports that simply where not local enough.

Last week we saw Google enter the social networking market with the launch of Google Buzz. Google Buzz can be access through your computer or mobile device and is pinned to your static location or uses the technology in your mobile device to pin-point your location much like Twitter when you are mobile.

So, what practical application does this new technology have for you and me other than the obvious? I’m sure we’ve all read the tweets or buzzes posted by our friends informing us what they’ve had for lunch. Now we will now where they’ve eaten lunch. But seriously this has mind blowing possibilities for marketing, real-time geographical information and practical application.

The possibilities are endless. For example, if you are a local business and you have a spontaneous promotion that you want local people know about it, tweeting and buzzing could be the answer in drawing people in. Perisable products that need to be sold at a discount is one example that springs to mind.

uksnow is an amazing example of this technology being put to practical use that incorporates real-time. Another idea is road traffic information: People reporting in real-time how traffic congestion, accidents and road works are hindering their journey and providing invaluable information to other road users.

I’m sure in the coming months their will be new web sites and applications being developed that incorporates this technology and providing real-time information. I wonder how long it will be before FaceBook jumps on board?

E-mail marketing is one of the most effective and inexpensive ways to find and keep new customers.  E-mail Marketing is the process of sending e-mails to acquire new customers and convince existing customers to make additional purchases.  It can also be used to enhance the relationship of a business with its customers and prospects and encourage customer loyalty and repeat business.

By building a mailing list, a business can create an extremely valuable asset.

The advantages of e-mail:

• E-mail lets you send information to a wide range of existing and potential customers at a much lower cost than direct mail or printed newsletters.
• E-mail marketing allows you to track your return on investment exactly and is often reported as second only to search marketing as the most effective online marketing tactic.
• The delivery time for an e-mail message is short (i.e., seconds or minutes) as compared to a mailed advertisement (i.e., one or more days).
• E-mail marketing is paper-free (i.e., “green)
• Once you have a large list, you can “rent” your list to 3^rd party marketing firms that will mail other offers to people on your list – this can be a significant additional source of revenue for your business.

How to build your email list:

Include an e-mail sign-up box on your web site.  Giving away a free report or “how-to” white  course is a great incentive for people to subscribe to your list.

You can also collect the e-mail addresses of people that drop-off of your cart page after entering their email address. You can then send them a follow up e-mail offering a discount to complete the sale.

Once a person submits their e-mail address to you they become an opt-in subscriber. Don’t just send e-mails that attempt to sell things but rather offer them information, free reports, and tidbits of news and advice. That way they will be more likely to purchase it as something you recommend to them, not just as something you are selling.

Key points:

The sending of unsolicited e-mail is forbidden by law in most western countries and can involve severe penalties for violators.

You should only send e-mail to a person when they have “opted-in” to receive it. When you collect a person’s email address, be sure that you explain how you intend to use their e-mail.  Include a privacy policy on your web site and place a link to it next to your e-mail.

Due to the large amount of spam email, it is getting harder to get legitimate commercial email delivered into people’s inbox.  Specialty software and service firms have emerged to help business manage their e-mail programs and ensure that their emails are not blocked as spam.

Although it takes time and effort to maintain and grow, a mailing list can end up being the most powerful tool in your internet marketing arsenal.

E-mail templates:

One of the difficulties with sending e-mails is you need to design a template which is ideally similar if not the same in design to your web site. Furthermore, due to some of the restrictions within the most common e-mail clients, the design process can be limited. However, there are a number of free resources and templates on the Internet that will help you do this.