Tweetin, Twitter, Facebook, Blogs and Email!

What’s all this about Twitter, Facebook and social media. Well, probably the biggest draw is that it’s FREE. If used properly all the forms of social media can be very effective. Social media or viral marketing is basically word of mouth advertising. One person sees a post, reads an entry, forwards it to someone else, or @ replys to you and the word is spreading. Twitter and Facebook, make it easy for users to obtain the information they need quickly. Whether it’s @nytimes, or @BarackObama or @rightbraintech they’ll be able to stay current on what’s going on, by following the topics that interest them most. Hopefully that topic is you.

It’s all about getting the word out there. The more current the information you have on the internet, the more there is for Google, Yahoo and all the other search engines to crawl through. That means you’ll show up in more searches, higher up in the list. They all crawl through keywords and content, to look for information related to the search term. Twitter also uses #hastags (basically keywords) that users can append to the end of their tweets, making them even more searchable through Twitters own search engine, as well as the internet.

However, these tools will only be effective if used properly. Here are several guidelines that you should follow:

First, your company needs to have a consistent brand. Right now, there are only a few social media tools that allow you to brand your page relatively easy. HTML Email, Twitter and Blogging are the only ones that make it easier to Brand a social media site. Branding is so important in the corporate and business environment because it's the face or "look" of your company. Sometimes it's the first thing that people see. A clear and consistent brand will make your company more reputable, and before you know it, the world will be able to identify your company just from the look and feel of your ads. Twitter allows you to add graphics, logos and stylize the colors so that it looks like an extension of your website (similar to what we created for Eastern Elite Allstars shown above), instead of the red headed step child.

Second, you can't rely on JUST one medium. Posting something on Facebook, or Twitter will definitely help drive traffic to your site, but utilizing a combination of two or three will help ensure you get more targeted exposure. If you have a small business, with a group of people, or even a marketing channel that you utilize, a good place to start might be email. You can create targeted HTML email marketing campaigns which are directed specifically to a group of your clients. By using a professional email client such as MailChimp, ExactTarget or Constant Contact you'll be abiding by FCC rules governing email marketing. You can also have your designer (that's me), create and code a beautiful HTML email that utilizes text, graphics as well as best practices for EFFECTIVELY delivering that email to a users inbox. I love MailChimp. Not only is it Free (for up to 500 email addresses), they have a very intuitive user interface that makes it easy to track and post your email on the other social marketing sites such as Twitter and Facebook, with just a click of the button. MailChimp even takes it one step further by adding Google Analytics. If your website has Google Analytics enabled, MailChimp will pull that information back into your email tracking report. One less place to look something up.

Third, you need to stay current and up to date. By adding information to your Twitter page, blog, or even your website you keep the content fresh, SEARCHABLE and people will want to know what's going on, whether it's an event at your restaurant or your next competition. Large companies such as Nike and Pizza Hut have employees that constantly monitor search terms on Twitter, Facebook and other social sites for good and bad information. This allows them to respond almost immediately to positive, and in some cases negative feedback that could be damaging for their image.

Lastly, you need to have tracking or some way of measuring the amount of traffic your getting in order to show the return on investment. Yes it may be free, but your paying someone, or spending your valuable time to post meaningful information on all these sites. By utilizing Google Analytics (ALSO FREE) for your website and tracking email opens/click-throughs, you can see where people are going, and what their doing once they get there.

Now that you understand everything that's social media, you need to know one more thing. All that traffic has to be driven somewhere. That somewhere should be your website. This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

 Here are a few examples of twitter sites that we have branded for clients:  @EasternElite_MD, @srtracing, @OE_Energy_gov