How to use Twitter Icons for Small Business

As a small business owner, your small business should own a Twitter account and it should be used on a regular basis to maintain contact with your customers or prospective customers.  But do you know how to present yourself on Twitter as far as your icon and profile goes?

break out of your twitter shell with a new icon for smart marketingYour social media marketing profile is representing your small business, and your Twitter icon should embody the feel of your small business.  The worst thing that your Twitter followers want to see is that horrible Twitter egg icon.  This shows your customers that you haven’t put much thought or care into the way you present yourself online.  Break out of your Twitter shell!

If you have a logo already, you should use that accordingly.  This allows customers to recognize your brand and your company easier.  But what if you don’t have a set logo yet?  Simple, just create your own icon that features the name of your business.  This is your chance to think outside of the box you are currently in.  There are many free online photo editing websites, such as www.picmonkey.com, that will allow you to design your icon to the exact size Twitter requests.  Amazing!

Regardless of what your icon is, it needs to look professional.  If it is a picture of the front of your business’ building, make sure it is in focus and that it is not pixilated at all.  This also shows carelessness.  Also, you want Twitter followers to be able to tell what is portrayed in your image.  If, like above, you have a picture of your building, don’t take the picture from across the street leaving a lot of empty space on the sides of the icon.  Make your icon relevant to your business so that people don’t have to guess what your icon represents.

Twitter icons are small real estate spaces where you can either make or break that connection with a future Twitter follower who you hope to turn into a customer.  Don’t let a substandard icon take over your Twitter any more.  Vamp up your icon and get more followers today, who will turn into leads tomorrow.

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How to Use Facebook Polls for Your Small Business Marketing

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A recent trend happening on Facebook right now is the debut of Facebook polls.  As a small business owner this is a great opportunity to add this to your social media marketing arsenal should be using this new tool to reach out to your followers and see what their hot buttons are.  You can then show them the value of the services your business specializes in and how it relates to the areas that are important to them.

using facebook polls to drive traffic to your website and facebook pageWhat kind of questions should you ask?  Try to refrain from asking yes or no questions.  Instead, ask questions that users would actually answer and that pertain to their everyday lives.  For example, if you are in the chiropractic business, you can have a poll such as:

My latest chiropractic experience was:

  • Awful, I’m still in pain and I’m still paying for the bill
  • Alright, but not great – I’m looking for a new chiropractor
  • Average, I have no complaints but it doesn’t stand out in my mind
  • Amazing, I have already booked my next appointment
  • Other (explain)

The main component I look for at my chiropractor is:

  • Friendly staff that care about my treatment
  • Fast service, short wait times
  • Clean environment, including the waiting room
  • Complimentary services, including coffee, massage chairs and my choice of music
  • All of the above

Once you have your poll out in the blogosphere for a while, you are then able to view the results.  You will get a list of the participants who answered your poll question and ranking of all of the answers.  This should help your business narrow down any issues your customers are currently having as well as find out what is important to potential customers.

Some quick tips:

  1. Put a hard deadline on your poll to increase traffic “Answer by the end of the week!”
  2. Make sure your poll question(s) relates to your business so that you can use the results to improve your business
  3. Don’t overload your Facebook followers with polls.  One per week is enough.
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Get More Clients for Your Small Business with Social Media Marketing

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Thanks to the internet-focused age we live in, small business owners have been slowly making the switch from time consuming, costly outbound marketing to effective, efficient inbound marketing.  The new focus on inbound marketing has allowed small businesses to get found by the customers who need them and ultimately get more clients, without trying to outspend the competition.

As a small business owner, you can market your small business using social media marketing by making effective use of free online tools. These tools allow you to interact with your prospects on your social media networks and check to see how many of them share or retweet the information you provide to them. A few of the free tools also offer reports that let you know if your social media efforts have had an impact on your clients.

To effectively market your business, you need to be active online and in social media.  But just having a Facebook page or a Twitter account is not enough anymore.  To reach more people and get more clients you need to make sure you are getting a return out of the time and work you are putting into your social media networking. Is it truly growing your online footprint?

tweetdeck vs. hootsuite for content managementFor better management of your social media accounts, here are two social media marketing tools that help you manage all of your accounts in one place and provide some free reporting tools:

Hootsuite is a social media client (still known as Twitter clients, but do so much more) that allows you to build custom social analytics reports, update multiple networks in one step including, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook (profiles and pages) and Foursquare, compose and converse on the go with mobile apps for iPhone, Android and Blackberry; track results review success with click-through analytics in real-time; manage multiple contributors with team collaboration, share data and access without sharing your passwords; optimize delivery by choosing the best time and date to deliver your message to your audience. Hootsuite allows you to schedule messages in bulk and have your posts made when it makes the most sense for your business.

TweetDeck is another client that is has a very similar function as Hootsuite. It boils down to your preference and which one provides the simplest user experience for you. Just now that once you begin to market you small business using social media marketing, having a tool that monitors, tracks and allows you to see what is working best for your business, is a must.

To read more about what each social media client has to offer check out TweetDeck VS HootSuite: The “Twitter Client” Showdown.

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How to Grow Your Business: 3 Easy Steps

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grow your businessAs a small business owner your ultimate goal is to grow your business. The way you do that is by reaching out to as much of your target market as you can and connecting with them in a way that relates to their needs and wants. No matter who your target market is, consumers are searching for the products and services they want online.

To get more clients, small business owners are making the shift from costly outbound methods to more effective and measurable methods that focus on building relationships with consumers and turning those relationships into a loyal customer-base. This has allowed small business owners to get found by the customers who need them and ultimately get more clients. Are you part of this select group of small business owners who have become serious about their marketing? If so, here are a few tips for you to use to join those who believe in smart marketing for smart business.

Blog for small business – An industry-related blog can be a game changer for your small business. If you’re not blogging, you’re in the minority and your customers are being pulled onto your competitors’ websites. For more information on how to get started blogging for small business, download our free e-book.

Promote your small business with Social Media – Have something to say that will help your target market and add value to their lives? Use your social media networks to spread the word quickly. Download our free report to see why you need social media for your small business.

Webinars for small business – Host informative webinars and stay in touch with the latest best practices in your industry. For more ideas on how to host webinars that are useful to your target market, you’re invited to attend our weekly webinar. Every Tuesday we host a live webinar that teaches internet marketing basics to grow your business.

Join us Tuesdays starting May 3 at 10am PT/1pm ET for help with your internet marketing for your small business.

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How to use Social Media Marketing to Grow Your Business

Use social media if you want to grow your business, pay attention.  As a small business owner, you know it should be a part of your marketing mix, but what you may not know is how to get the most out of it or even how to use it at all.  There are several different forms of social media including Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

It’s important that we view social media as a tool and not an end unto itself.  It must be maintained on a constant basis.  It is also ever changing and new user interfaces are added every few months.

The key takeaways from today’s social media audio blog are:

  • If you choose to use social media as part of your marketing, define it in your marketing plan.
  • Social Media is not an end unto itself and should fit into your overall marketing plan.
  • Know your business goals and what strategies and tactics you want to use to achieve them and whether or not social media is a good tactic to use.
  • Know how you’re going to measure the success of each tactic before you begin.
  • This is a great tactic to grow your business, but how does it fit into your overall marketing plan?
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Are You LinkedIn? Social Media for Service Professionals

Article first published as Are You LinkedIn? on Technorati.

LinkedIn means businessAfter eight years of being the social media hot spot for business professionals, LinkedIn reached its 100 million user mark. However, there are many service professionals who still don’t get LinkedIn’s full value.

Pay to Play

Unlike Facebook and Twitter, LinkedIn offers a more corporate, professional feel. There is a subscriber option that gives users more access and more networking capabilities. Overall users are able to build a professional network of current and past professional relationships. Before sending a “connect” request, LinkedIn asks how you know this person. This is unique in that it’s not a herding contest of who can get the most “connections” but a legitimate source to grow quality relationships with people who you can help, or who can help you.

LinkedIn comprises five major features which are similar to that of Facebook:

  1. Events
  2. Applications
  3. Search
  4. Groups
  5. Answers

Answers are a unique feature that you can use to demonstrate your expertise in your industry by providing good and useful advice.

It’s Not Just Who You Know, It’s Who They Know

LinkedIn shows you your network and degrees of connection, as well as how many people you are potentially connected to and how you are connected to them. This is useful because you can ask to be introduced to key players in your industry by someone you know that also knows your desired contact.

Another unique feature of LinkedIn is the ability to give and receive recommendations. Send a link that says “will you write me a recommendation on LinkedIn?” to former clients, employers and co-workers. This recommendation is listed on your profile page and works as a great credibility booster.

Using LinkedIn for business may make more sense for most professionals than having a Facebook page. However, as with any marketing tactic, there needs to be clearly defined objectives. LinkedIn can serve as a powerful self-promotion and business promotion tool, and with 100 million users shouldn’t be dismissed as a more viable social media option for your business.

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