Facebook Just Got Twittered: The Twitter Rush

I feel like I am in the gold rush. We are all part of this massive push to join the online minions of the Twitter world.

I just finished reading a post by Sarah Perez from ReadWriteWeb about Nielsen Online reporting Twitter “has now surpassed Facebook and others to become the fastest-growing site in Member Communities.” I wasn’t really expecting this type of growth out of Twitter. And there is a reason for that…

It is hard to describe the concept or meaning behind the Twitter revolution. Facebook is easy to describe and (sometimes) use but Twitter?? No way.

In a way the growth of Twitter is encouraging to the Social Media enthusiast in all of us. The world of social media tools and marketing is no longer for the computer nerds stuck in their mothers basement. This world of two-way communication and online relationship building is starting to gain traction from small businesses to corporate America.

You may be asking…What do we do with this information?

To all the non-Twitter Users:

You use the stat of an increase of 1382% of unique visitors year over year (2008-2009) and beat yourself over the head until you at least TRY the tool. It is important to understand all communication tools available.

To the Twitter Users:

Congratulations. We now have a used tool.. now let’s figure out how it can be useful.

The Jeremiah Owyang Smack Down on Vaporware

If you are reading social media blogs and you are not reading Jeremiah Owyang’s blog… you are either an idiot or missing out completely! He has a new post called Vaporware in the Social Media Space which talks about the misleading of Social Media companies when they are launching their wares.

Flash. Bang. Boom. Look at me. Look at me. I have 3000 widgets. Well.. Right now I have 2 widgets.. the 2998 come in due time.

Add them to the list.

I am in the same boat as Jeremiah.. I am getting tired of hearing about all the new innovative products and offerings of certain social media companies.. only to be let down in the long run. It is fairly dissatisfying. Here are Jeremiah’s requirements to a successful launch

“On day of announcement they should be able to show a demo of their product. If it’s an enterprise product, or complicated, then show a video with it working. Consider using a customer reference or a test case to demonstrate how it’s been working in the past.”

If companies do not live up to the hype.. put them on the list. As a collective group we can stop the bleeding…

I am going to join the fight. Are you?

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Grow Your Biz Using Social Media Class

For those of you in the Indianapolis area.

I have completed some Rain University Classes the past couple of months and I have another class coming up on the 19th of March.

This class is not for beginners. We will not be covering basics. It will help if you have been through at least one of the introductory classes or are already blogging and engaged in several social media sites.

Social networking is a great way to promote your business and build your brand. With that said, how do you use it productively? How do you spend 30-60 mins a day and get the most out of social media?

What you will learn:

We will also be offering this class with a live online video stream. To find out more information follow the link to the Information Page.

Yes. My Voice Matters.

I was reading through my weekly intake of Jason Falls at Social Media Explorer and came across a post with a reference from the Cluetrain Manifesto. First off, I love the book. I read it when it came out a couple of years ago and still keep it around my desk. In his post, Jason makes reference to Cluetrain point fingers at the marketing industry asking them, “Where is the consideration of the people?”

From Cluetrain:
Conversations among human beings sound human. They are conducted in a human voice.

I agree with Jason when he says that the Cluetrain Manifesto basically introduced the concept of social media to Corporate America. It is also extremely important for small business owners to understand the concept of listening and starting conversations.

Social Media has a wide array of people. Some people need your product or service.. other people would rather not listen to your hard sell speech about blah. blah. blah. It is about the conversation.. the personality.. and the person on the other end, not you.

I would encourage you to read Jason’s post because it has some awesome points for all matter of people using social media as a strategy for growth. I want to focus on the concept of using a human voice while in the depths of social media. Whether you are using Twitter, Facebook, or Plaxo (etc) it is important to listen first and speak second.

How long is it going to take us to learn that the CONSUMER is now in control of the conversation? It is no longer about quantity. It is no longer about how many direct mail pieces you can send out or how many banner ads you can buy.

It is about the them not about you. Use Twitter and Facebook as a tool to speak as you would your best-friend at a barbeque (okay bad example but you get the drift). We are all in the same rat-race here. Trying to help each other succeed in the cut throat world of small business marketing.

Talk about what YOU do not the industry or the sale of the day. How do you help people? How do you creat relationships with your clients? That is what people what to hear. They are to be inspired.

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Use Your Highlight Reel to Build Your Story

I should just start a blog called, “Seth Godin Strikes Again!” because he is constantly reminding me of GREAT concepts in marketing. He has a post called, Which parts are you skipping? The concept of the post is to remind marketers that it is important to build a foundation to your story, make the good parts of the story easy to find and the beauty of the entire process… not just a piece.

This is an important concept, especially for the small business owner who is looking to establish a strategy in social media marketing. It is extremely important to build out a strategy (a foundation) before you begin using the hundreds of tools at your fingertips in the world of social media.

Every tool you use, whether it is Facebook, Vimeo, or your personal blog, is a highlight of the overall picture: You and Your Business. Social media marketing is a small piece of the overall puzzle but it does help you develop small highlight reels that build brand development.

Remember to focus on the overall strategy and use your highlight reel to pull people into the story.

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10 Small Biz Social Media Tips for Today

Chris Brogan had a post this morning called 10 Things You Could Do Better Today. It was pretty inspirational to me… on the level of a good pump up in the morning. I have always been appreciative of people who can elicit some type of emotional response in the morning.

I thought I would also give you a list of 10 Things… for all of you small business owners out there who are using social media marketing tools.

1. Start a Facebook fan page for your business. It is a great way to interact with your personal connections on Facebook.

2. Join a local social network. If you are a Indianapolis native… join Smaller Indiana. A local social network is a great way to connect with other like minded people in your geographic area.

3. Write a blog post about another business owner in your location. Give back to your clients. Give back to the community. Prop them up!

4. Comment on 2 blog posts for today… and maybe tomorrow? Keep it rolling.

Two blog post you might want to comment on:
Angels Are Still Investing by David Castor
Reminder from an Anonymous Coward by Peter Kim

5. Send a hand written note to 5 contacts in your social media realm. You will surprise them with the notion. Make sure you pick strategically but still honestly.

6. Respond to three questions on LinkedIN. Never heard of questions on LinkedIN or getting leads from LinkedIN? Check out this link.

7. Send a Direct Message in Twitter to 5 followers and ask them how you can help them today.

8. Send thank you emails to everyone who has posted a comment on your blog in the past 5 days.

9. Make a list of things you need to do, read, or experience in order to make your social media marketing tools work for you!

An example from my list: 1. Read Second Life for Dummies by Sarah Robbins

10. Be as honest and as open as possible with everyone you come in contact with both online and offline.

Quit Listening to Your Competitors

Continuing in the tradition of the Keith McFarland world today I wanted to write about another quote that is taken from a past CIO at the SAS Institute.

“Our biggest risk is that we start listening to our competitors and stop listening to our customers.”

Why is this an amazing quote? It shows the mindset of a leader and a successful company. The last thing you need to do is react as your competitors change and move in your market. This is not saying that you should not react but it is not the first thing to focus on.Your customers (both past, present and future) are who you should be focusing on.

I will focus towards an old business adage: The customer is always right.

The customer should be the first person you communicate and learn from… Social media marketing tools give you the ability to create strategies that surround your customers with a two-way communication model. This simple means that the customer is forging a relationship with you (your company) and giving the information needed to step to the next level.

As a business owner you should always be listening… listening to the conversations happening between your customers and potential clients..

What makes them tick? Do you know?

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Baby Boomer Me Up. The 43+ Revolution.

How many times have we heard the negative remarks surrounding social media marketing sound something like this:

“I don’t feel like I need to invest our time and resources into social media. I don’t think our Baby Boomer demographic will relate to that type of technology.”

At Brandswag we hear this all the time. It is a concept that has been etched into the mind of small business owners who cater to the baby boomer generation. They have a hard time connecting the importance of social media to their niche clientele. This is because of the overwhelming MYTH that social media is only for my generation, the millenials.

The shift has slowly started to take form. The paradigm shift between social media being a “bright shiny object” and it actually become a viable marketing tool. The time is not to stop ignoring and start implementing into your marketing strategy.

ReadWriteWeb’s Sarah Perez has a great post entitled, How to Reach Baby Boomers with Social Media. In the post I found the following image below… which gives an inside look into the social technolographics of the Baby Boomer generation:

Here are some stats to show you the potential of using social media marketing with the baby boomer demographic.

In 2007, the percentage of Boomers consuming social media was 46% for younger Boomers (ages 43 to 52) and 39% for older Boomers (ages 53 to 63). By 2008, those number increased to 67% and 62%, respectively.

This is some huge growth! The potential of using a blog, wiki, podcast, or social networking site to reach the baby boomer generation is something that cannot be ignored by YOUR business.

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Use Your Company Personality. It’s Still There.

Direct mail… Yellow pages… Many traditional marketing concepts have killed the personality of your company. They have taken the story you had at the beginning… that wonderful plan to rule the world and do it with your mind.. and yes they trampled it. Do you find yourself asking the question.. “How did I get here?”

How did I become part of the pack? Doing the same marketing and communications strategy as everyone else..

It is interesting to read blog post like the one by Jay Baer at Convince&Convert called Marketing Sideways to Win at Social MEdia, that call for companies to start marketing their personality instead of something NOT interesting.

Times are tough. Marketing is tough. Competition is fierce. You have to dig down deep to reach the personality and the interesting world of what makes you DIFFERENT from everyone else.

Use new tools like social media. Social media has the strength of bringing your personality out of your company. You deserve to find that personality again. You deserve to connect with consumers on a level that has never been touched in the world of traditional marketing.

A world that is controlled by the consumer but when you crack it… when you become a part of the community.. the flood gates will open and you will find your personality again.

Unless you never had one to begin with…

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Auto-Invite and Breaking My Window

Peter Kim has an had an awesome post a couple of days ago that really rocked my memory and brought me back to the world of Made To Stick or maybe it was the Tipping Point… In the long run it doesn’t really matter both books are absolutely brilliant.

In his post, Peter talks about the broken window theory where graffitti and *trash* leads to misconduct and chaos in a community. I was relating it (in my head) to social media experiencing an increase in spamming and straight up hard-selling of products and services through outlets like Twitter and Facebook. (Thanks Peter for a great article). I realized that part of the reason why we are seeing a push back from small business owners on using social media is because of the amount of email invites they receive from different networks.

We are all familiar with the “give me all your contacts so I can spam everyone to join MY network” tool that you are pushed to complete when signing up for a network. I am confident that the auto-invite button is contributing to the overall degrading of social media by vagrants and misfits.

I am positioning this argument towards individuals just getting involved in social media. Try not to auto-invite your entire list to a network… it isn’t going to accomplish anything. It is just going to frustrate people who are hesitant to get involved online because of the amount of email and overwhelming content they receive on a daily basis.

Steps To Not Auto-Invite

1. Click Next.

And if you are going to break more windows in social media…Do me a favor and un-follow me.

Have a great Friday!

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