by tradesmeninsights | Jul 7, 2010 | Marketing Tips, Marketing Tools, Social Marketing, Twitter
Twitter is one of the most useful social media tools we use to drive traffic. For it to be effective, you first need to determine key words and phrases that fit into your space.
Twitter has tools as well as third parties that can help. I recently read an article by Adam Holden-Bache in Social Media B2B where he outlines some tips on fine-tuning your audience searches. Here are some highlights:
- Determine key words and phrases – Go to Google AdWords Keyword Tool and enter some key words. For example, air conditioning heating gets an average 550,000 monthly hits and 450,000 are local searches
- Search Twitter by key words – Twitter Advance Search, take what you find on Google and plug into Twitter
- Optimize tweets for inbound opportunities – Use Google Reader and select Twitter Search Feed. When you click on “show details,” it tells you when most activities are taking place so you know when to Tweet
- Use Buzzom.com to search Twitter Bios – Search key words that would describe the people that buy your products, such as remodeling contractors
- Use Twellow.com to search business categories – This is a directory of Twitter accounts and you can search broad categories to identify people who are in the energy market, aerospace or green
These are some great tips. Do you have any to share?
If you like this article, you may like:
How to Engage the Professional Tradesmen on Twitter
Awareness of Twitter has Exploded: Great Way to Reach the Professional Tradesmen
by tradesmeninsights | Jul 6, 2010 | Marketing Tips, Marketing Tools, Social Marketing, Traditional Marketing
We all use e-mails as part of our marketing strategy, but have you considered adding social sharing options? If you haven’t, you should and here’s why:
A recent study by GetResponse showed that e-mail messages that included social sharing options generated 30% higher click-through rates than e-mails without a social option.
Messages with 3 or more sharing options generate 55% higher click-through rates.
These findings make sense if you consider that Twitter posts 55 million tweets a day and that the average Facebook user has 130 friends. This is Viral at its best, and if you give your audience an easy way to share your info, they will.
So next time when doing an e-mail campaign, make sure you include social sharing options.
by tradesmeninsights | Jul 1, 2010 | Marketing Tips, Social Marketing, Twitter
Twitter is often one of the most misunderstood and underutilized social media tools. I use it all the time and it’s one of the best lead generators for my blog.
Chris Brogan, one of the industry’s gurus, has put together a list of tips that I thought would be useful, so here they are:
Intent (Human Artist)
- Don’t read EVERY tweet. It’s perfectly okay. You have permission.
- Follow anyone who follows you (and unfollow spammers/jerks).
- Promote other people 12x to every 1 self-promotional tweet.
- Build lists to watch people who matter to you more closely.
- Retweet the good stuff from others. Sharing is caring.
- A lot of @replies shows a lot of humanity/engagement.
- Robot tweets are less sexy than human tweets.
- Promote the new/less followed more than the “names.”
- Set an egg timer. Twitter is addictive.
- Everyone does it their own way. You’re doing it wrong, too – to someone.
Technical
- A non-standard background and face avatar means we believe you may be human.
- Leave 20 characters or more space in each tweet to improve retweeting.
- Use Seesmic or Tweetdeck or Hootsuite so you can see more.
- Linking one update to several communities is technically possible. It’s just not respectful of each community’s uniqueness.
- Tools like http://bit.ly let you see stats. Use them.
- Make hashtags small and simple. We need room to tweet.
- If software allows you to “post updates to Twitter” as well as to the app, don’t do that. We rarely want to see them.
- If you develop software that pushes updates to Twitter, be VERY explicit how that works.
- Every time you use OAUTH to give apps permission to use your account, you open a potential security hole. Check your permissions monthly.
- The best mobile app is the one that you feel comfortable using. We don’t know better.
Business
- Spamming us repeatedly is okay. We just unfollow you.
- Spend more time in search than in chatting us up about your stuff.
- Finding people who need what you’re selling trumps advertising to us.
- Retweeting someone’s nice words about you is lame and doesn’t buy you more attention. Let it stand.
- If your link is an affiliate link or a client, say so (in parentheses).
- Your customers might not be on Twitter. Use rapleaf to find them.
- Invite your customers to Twitter, then make it worth it for them.
- Use Twitter as a personalized communication tool, not another blast.
- Having different accounts for everything seems like the right move, until you realize it’s hard to grow multiple followings.
- Just make money and then the boss won’t ask about ROI any more.
Integrated Usage
- Twitter makes every event better. Post the hashtag everywhere. Make every speaker sign/label/name include a Twitter ID.
- Apps like TweetChat.com make following event chats really easy. Put in a hashtag and go.
- Tweeting the content of events is nice, but so is occasionally making a real live connection with the speaker.
- It’s okay to tweet your blog posts, but try asking a question that leads readers into the post.
- Can you invite Twitter followers to your other social platforms, like LinkedIn or Facebook? Sure you can.
- I’m not into mixing my location apps with my tweets, but if you do, do it FROM the location app into Twitter, not the other way around.
- Getting others to tweet your posts or news or registrations is useful, but sometimes comes off as a barrage or spam. Be prepared for that perception.
- Tweets that point us to photos and/or video and/or music, etc., are always a great way to enhance the experience.
- Please remove Twitter from LinkedIn. Use the #in tag instead and be selective.
- Spammy or no, events that tweet their attendance registration seem to drive attendance.
Off-Twitter
- Are your tweets really what you want to show in your sidebar? Doesn’t that direct people away from your site?
- Think of Twitter as a guidance system to what you think is interesting. A lot of that is likely off-Twitter.
- Apps like VisibleTweets.com are neat, but can be very distracting at events.
- If you use tweets on a screen at an event, be warned if you moderate. Angry crowds can happen.
- Don’t forget to invite people from off-Twitter to follow you on Twitter. Include your actual Twitter ID (I see lots of “follow me on Twitter” with no details).
- Asking questions on Twitter makes for very interesting commentary and opinions for blog posts.
- Tweetups are awesome, especially if you make them about more than just drinking and saying hi. (Though, hey, drinks can be nice.)
- Outside of the Twitter app, keep “Tw” names to a minimum. We’re not your “tweeps.”
- If your only marketing efforts are on Twitter, start building an email marketing list. Never put your eggs in one basket.
- Start thinking in 120 characters (remember? save 20). Every bit of this advice is tweetable.
Your mileage may vary. Some of these might be really helpful and others might not be that useful at all, given your own situations. In fact, feel free to make your own version, add and subtract at will, and comment on where you disagree or agree. It’s all up for discussion. Besides, you’re doing it wrong.
If you like this article, you might enjoy:
How to Engage the Professional Tradesmen on Twitter
Awareness of Twitter has Exploded: Great Way to Reach the Professional Tradesmen
B-to-B Marketers: Tips on How to Optimize Twitter
by tradesmeninsights | Jun 29, 2010 | Marketing Trends, Social Marketing
B-to-B marketers are slowly catching up with the rest of the world regarding social media. They are finally seeing that there are opportunities to generate leads and position themselves as thought leaders according to a new report from eMarketer.com, B2B Social Media Marketing Heats Up.
Most B-to-B companies have longer selling cycles and more complicated messages to convey and that’s why they are spending more time and money on podcasts and blogs. 2010 activities also include creating a branded profile page, managing promotion and PR outreach within the social networks.
Marketing on social networking sites are estimated to grow 43% in 2010. Forrester Research predicts that B-to-B firms will spend 54 million on social media marketing by 2014.
If you like this post, please pass it on to friends.
by tradesmeninsights | Jun 24, 2010 | Marketing Tools, Marketing Trends, Social Marketing
Although this market segment is rated low, currently the projections for the next five years shows exceptional growth. According to a study by eMarketer 70% of Hispanic population will be online by 2014.
This online population is young and thriving according to a new report, Hispanics Online: Demographics and Media Usage, and are very active online.
What does this mean for those of us who want to sell them stuff? It means there is a great opportunity for us to communicate to these contractors online. The majority of online Hispanics are native born and speak English proficiently, but they take notice when marketers’ Spanish-language efforts are lacking.
According to a survey from Opinion Research Corporation in March 2010, Hispanics were more likely to respond to e-mail or banner ads than their White or African-American counterparts.
To be successful in this space, marketers must move beyond the perceived language barrier and make a commitment to reach them. There are trade magazines that reach out to the Hispanic contractors, but they are given out primarily at distribution points and manufacturers don’t know who they are. Social media lets them identify themselves to you.
If you like this post, please pass it on to a friend.
by tradesmeninsights | Jun 23, 2010 | Marketing Tips, Social Marketing
Sometimes you’re better off using video to get your point across. It lets you demo your product and even have customer testimonials telling their peer groups how good your product is. Video works!
This may not be a surprise to some of you, but are you taking advantage of those videos by doing video marketing? Video marketing places them online, and hopefully you are doing a social media program that encourages posting videos.
One advantage of putting them online is that they will be there forever and will keep generating leads because of your key words and tags.
Forrester Research found that videos were 50 times more likely to show up on the first page organically than traditional texts.
I recently read a post from Amy Porterfield in Social Media Examiner, 16 Tips for Successful Online Video Marketing, that outlined some helpful hints when doing online video marketing. Here are 6 quick tips:
- Make your title count – make sure appropriate key words are in the title
- Content is king – make sure you give them good stuff
- Include your URL in video – give them a way to contact you
- Don’t forget branding – make sure your logo is prominently displayed on the screen
- Always provide an HTML link – lead with a link to where you want to drive them
- Go beyond YouTube – embed it in your website and blog
Amy also gives you 10 ways to supercharge your videos.
Don’t miss an opportunity to extend your credibility by using online video marketing.
If you like this article, you might like, Why Online Video Attracts Professional Tradesmen.
