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Twtter is the biggest all in one Twitter application directory. People here can subscribe to whole lots of apps and get benefits- of all the applications free of cost. Twitter is not just a place where you Tweet, it is more than that where people can share and help each other out. So, twtter has been making application that makes user ease their twitter.

Find most exciting Twitter application on the internet just here. You can have lots and lots of fun with application and make you tweet easy. You can have access to different twitter related applications that can access twitter and get information related to your twitter account. You can optimize your twitter account by getting the Report Card for your twitter, getting the latest trends that may be beneficial to you interest, auto following the followers and more.

When planning a wedding, an important corporate event or any other occasion where live music is required, it is necessary to be able to discuss your needs with the actual bands for hire. An agency may arrange players but not understand the music. Music sets the mood and can create an atmosphere from classical formality to cutting edge trends, so it makes a big difference in the quality of the entertainment if the person planning it knows the music profession. If you just want background sound, you can put on a disc.

Wedding bands Melbourne need not play the same old songs over and over again. Sometimes every event sounds the same and there is nothing to attract the youth or the old timers. Bands for hire should be versatile with a varied repertoire from cool jazz to hot James Brown. The mood of a wedding does not stay the same throughout the night. In the beginning a certain kind of music is required while people talk and enjoy the food. Later, when the dance floor is cleared the music needs to change to take the party to the next level. A good wedding band Melbourne will effortlessly change from mood music to hot rock.

Rock isn’t always the music of choice for weddings and corporate events and wedding bands Melbourne are versatile enough to include backup singers, a horn section with trumpet, saxophone and trombone. They do not need backup tracks to make their music fantastic. You may customise the wedding band Melbourne and select the right configuration for your event.

The budget for live music is always a consideration, and professional bands for hire will work with you to get the entertainment you want to make your wedding or event memorable without going over the price you can afford. Setup and sound check are not part of the usual five hour time period allotted for most events. The band will be ready to play before the guests start arriving.

To get the best sound possible for your wedding or corporate event it is good to have a band that usually plays together. When musicians are grouped together at the last minute, you will not get the same quality of music. You may also indicate if you want a male or female lead singer. You can have both and a rapper if your budget allows.

Wedding bands Melbourne may be versatile, professional and have awesome sound, but this does not mean you lose control of the live music at your event. You can not only choose the music, you can choose the line-up. They will take request on the spot and arrange for karaoke so your friends and family can sing at your wedding. This, as well as your bridal dance, should be indicated in advance so the band has time to learn a new song or practice your favourite.

The earlier you contact a wedding band Melbourne the better your chances of getting the date you want.

When it comes to food, dogs are just like their owners. They love a delicious meal filled with variety and flavour. Your canine also needs dog food that provides the right vitamins, minerals and nutrients to build a strong body. Like you, a pet may have special needs to ensure they are properly nourished. Getting to know your pet’s habits and irritants is essential to finding the best pet food to keep them strong and healthy.

Quality dog food is made with the basic nutritional needs of all dogs in mind. The formula should include an appropriate amount of fatty acids to help dogs maintain a healthy, shiny coat; calcium for sturdy bones; and lots of protein for energy. Yet, the quantities of each nutrient can differ based on the dog’s size and age. Puppies, for example, require more protein and calcium until their bones, muscles and organs mature.

Premium Pet Food

Dog are as diverse as humans, and different breeds can benefit from custom dog supplies designed for their unique physiology. For instance, the long, shaggy coat of a sheepdog may respond more effectively to certain enzymes and nutrients than the short, sleek coat of a Greyhound. Specialty dog food is also crucial for canines with allergies, skin sensitivity or digestive issues. If your dog experiences frequent discomfort when eating, it may eventually lead to a serious nutritional deficiency.

Reduced fat dog food provides a balanced diet for pets that need to shed a few pounds. Simply cutting back on your dog’s food decreases other essential nutrients without adding the extra fiber they need to maintain a healthy calorie intake. This balance is also a concern if you prefer natural formulas over processed pet food. Instead of making your own dog food at home, consider using pre-packaged natural dog food that incorporates all of the essential nutrients.

Dog Food Varieties

Flavour is almost as important as nutrition. Dog food is typically flavoured with hearty foods like beef, chicken, lamb and vegetables. Whether you choose wet, chunky, dry or dry with gravy is up to you. But, if you don’t want your pooch to turn his nose up at the bowl, you have to find the varieties they really enjoy.

Humans are social beings and naturally like to be social. Social media offers numerous opportunities for both personal and professional purposes i.e., right from connecting with family and friends to like-minded professionals. Research also concludes the fact that people are logging on to social networking sites like Twitter; Facebook and Linkedin like never before.

Social media has witnessed a sea of change over the past few years. Apart from networking, it also enables people to teach others to develop 21st century competencies. Let’s see the advantages and disadvantages of social media learning:

Advantages:

Support Interaction: What is the difference between traditional and social media learning? The traditional method is a typical classroom kind of learning with little chance for interaction. However, social media learning takes the form of interaction which is a highly effective form of active learning. It helps network with people of similar passion and goals. It helps to share ideas and experiences, and obtain competencies implanted in real life, unravel opportunities and recommend the path to success.

Natural Learning: According to research, people go to work to improve their relations with their colleagues rather than secure a good pay package. In one Telecom Company, the management kept employees from meeting each other during the coffee or lunch breaks. Soon, there was a drop in the employees’ performance levels. This, therefore, proves that social networking has a direct impact on the way people learn and work.

Easy Access: Social networking sites help access information anytime and anywhere. It also facilitates access of information of a diverse kind on a given topic with ease and efficiency. In turn, it supports lifelong learning processes and professional development.

Multiple Learning Styles: Social media learning involves accessing information through a range of visuals, text and perceptions on a given subject. It also encourages one to actively participate by posting content on social networking sites. It helps users post or express individual views, thereby generating tons of content onto the site.

Disadvantages:

Uncertainty: Social media is subjected to continuous change. Hence, this lacks the required structure to fit into the exact learning need.

Performance Tracking: A critical step for learning is measuring. However, at present, measuring tools are there but a few.

Managing Social Networking Sites: Once logged into a site, one gets invitations to log on to other similar sites. Thus, logging on to many sites is not possible for one person. Hence, its difficulty to manage and eventually becomes cumbersome.

Inspite of these disadvantages, learning through social media via higher technology has a greater impact on learning and is appropriate for a professional environment based on competency. The latest advantage of this media is its ability to impart knowledge effectively. But often, many corporates are overlooking the advantages of learning offered by such media. The need of the hour is to help corporates understand the advantages of social media learning for employee training and knowledge sharing which is often overlooked.

In the present scenario, social media is turning out to be relatively inexpensive and accessible learning platform rather than just a place for networking. “Humans are social beings, hence learning through social media will surely impact the way for one to learn.”

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In the competitive business environment of today, businesses strive to shorten their sales cycles and achieve large profit margins. Especially in the business-to-business (B2B) context, the need to sell more actively, yet more effectively, becomes imperative as consumers become more sophisticated and market shares seem to shrink under the pressure of competition and high concentration. To that end, social media seem to have the answer.

How B2B Works?

Business-to-business (B2B) is the practice of exchanging goods and services between businesses, which integrate business solutions in the aim of achieving the best possible results. B2B markets differ fundamentally from business-to-consumers (B2C) markets because B2B customers are not physically limited in the consumption of products and are well aware of the product as a result of own market research. Therefore, they can make well-informed purchasing decisions.

To better illustrate how B2B works, we assume that a business owns a publishing company with five popular magazines titles. Although the company has spent both time and money to create unique and appealing websites for each magazine, it did not use the appropriate web marketing strategies to optimize these websites and drive traffic to them, thus increasing their visibility in the major search engines. This is the point that the management needs to realize the importance of incorporating social media in the B2B strategy to achieve effective website optimization for the magazine titles and attract more customers to each website.

Social Media Evolution

A major growth factor in the B2B context is social media. The Internet era serves as an excellent basis for the development of integrated marketing strategies that target active social media users. According to a survey conducted by Edison Research (April 2010), 7 percent of the U.S. population uses Twitter, and 41 percent has an active Facebook account. So, there is a target audience that is familiar with social media.

On the other hand, although social networking has grown extremely fast over the last five years, social networks are not widely regarded as a reliable way of gathering knowledge when seeking for B2B implementation. Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn are on the lead and their importance has become evident, although not yet fully realized in the B2B marketplace. However, using social media in the B2B strategy can be beneficial for the business.

Social Media in the B2B strategy

Social networking is a great way to offer superior customer service. Many businesses offer great products at competitive prices, but they cannot establish long-term mutually beneficial relationships with their customers. This happen because they lack a direct point of contact to facilitate communication. Especially, in the B2B context, that companies want to make sure that they are doing business with their right client and the right person in the organization, social networking is a great way to bridge any gaps between the two companies and offer superior end-products.

Exchange of knowledge and collaboration are inherent parts social media. As companies track their customers’ increased activity in social networks, they exchange their knowledge and use their insights to engage more customers and expand their customer base. Although the social media landscape is huge and cannot be easily monitored and controlled, companies can leverage this knowledge through effective collaboration and implementation of SEO strategies in the B2B marketplace.

The more customers are attracted, the more traffic is driven to the company’s website, thus increasing the company’s visibility on the Internet. Increased visibility brings in more customers and more customers mean increased sales productivity. Web marketing strategies are based on visibility that can be increased through effective implementation of social media strategies including high quality web content and SEO optimization. This is equally important in the B2B as well as in the B2C marketplace.

In conclusion, sales productivity depends on receiving comprehensive information in an ever-changing data environment, as well carrying out effective research and efficient outreach. Social media is a great way for B2B marketers to interact, exchange knowledge and address the needs of their customers ensuring that they are talking to the right people conveying the right message at the right moment. Considering that customers seek to connect with a company that knows its business and is passionate about it, social media offer a huge landscape to develop the appropriate marketing strategies and connect on a level that can go beyond promoting a product’s benefits. It can go to the level of customers advertising the company on the Twitter or Facebook accounts. This is the credibility that comes along with implementing social media in the B2B marketplace.

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Wed 19th November

social Media Special

Social Media is everywhere, you cannot avoid it and as a marketer/business owner/manager and so on you should be looking to make the most of it.  This instalment of the Perfect Storm blog focuses on Social Media and will hopefully help you to understand the fast paced medium. Even if you are a Social Media expert I hope you find something of interest within these words.

It is always wise to start such things with a definition and the folks at Mashable have supplied us with a great article that looks to clear up exactly what social media means. You may agree or disagree with their thoughts, let us know your opinion.

Defining Social Media

Thanks to Mashable for clearing that up!

Everybody loves a secret right? Well MP Daily Fix have published a podcast that delivers the supposed ‘secrets of social marketing’. Take the time to have a listen, it is well worth it.

Secret Podcast

Like anything in life there are a number of faux pas when it comes to marketing with social media. David Spark at Mashable identifies that mistakes that you must try to avoid.

Don’t Trip Up!

What happens once you are engaging with your customer via social media? You are striving for that all important click through yes? Quite simply you want them to buy from you. How they get to that point is up to you but take heed of what Kevin Barenblat at Mashable has to say.

What Happens After the Click?

It is all good and well talking about Social Media but how does it work in practice? This gem of an article lists all (bear in mind that new outlets are being dreamt up everyday) current Social Media tools and points you in the direction of working examples.

The 22 Step Social Marketing Plan

Hopefully you have found all of the above both educational and useful! Now to finish with a couple of interesting theories based around Social Media.

Three Minds blogs on how Social Media affects our real life social circles and what we can expect from the next generation.

The Web Should be a Great Party Host

Ben Parr at Mashable theorises that Social Media will change the way we map history.

Changing History

Hopefully you have found this round up of interest and useful. The volume of online articles on Social Media is staggering and we suggest you use Google Reader (or similar) to keep up to speed with the latest news. Obviously the Perfect Storm blog will continue to point you in the direction of the best blogs, news and articles from the web and beyond.

Perfect Storm Digital can create and manage integrated Social Media plans for you and your business. Please do not hesitate to contact mike@perfectstormdigital.co.uk for more information on our services.

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So what’s all this business about social media marketing?  I know some of you have already taken to this wholeheartedly but there are others amongst us for whom social media marketing is a mystery as to what it is and why they should bother getting involved with it. 

So lets start at the beginning.  What is Social Media Marketing?  Essentially, its another marketing strategy – which ,bottom line, is why you should be interested in it, if you’re interested in marketing your voiceover business.  Its a marketing strategy that’s developed out of an intense dislike of hard sell marketing tactics.  Instead of banging people over the head with marketing methods that could be considered bullying ,hard sell , in your face selling. Social media marketing is about creating and maintaining relationships with potential customers so that when they are in a position to buy what you’re selling, they automatically think of you and the service you provide.  And your name springs to mind because of they way you have presented yourself in your social media marketing activities, as an expert in your field, a trustworthy and interesting person, who can deliver on what they promise, and someone that people would like to do business with.  People like to do business with people they like. So through your communications through social media marketing you have positioned yourself as that person. 

In marketing speak, Social Media Marketing is what’s known as Permission marketing, or inbound marketing.  Its developed as a reaction to the traditional forms of marketing.  Traditional marketing approaches have been things like seminars, tradeshows, telemarketing, print ads, direct mail.  The problem has been that more and more people have found methods to block out these marketing messages, making these approaches less and less effective.  Some people don’t answer their phones unless they recognise the number calling them,  many email newsletters and correspondence can get caught in the ever efficient spam filters,  people are able to fast forward their way through the tv adverts, and some ‘watch again facilities’ delete all the adverts for you anyway.  As information has become more and more accessible through the internet, customers really don’t need this type of marketing as they can get all their information they need from other sources.  So social media marketing is way of marketing that avoids all these problems as it encourages customers to find you once they’re ready to make their purchase. 

So how do you do this Social media marketing malarky?

The key is to get Social!!   And you can do this in three ways -  publish, share & network.  Social media marketing sites can be roughly  divided into these 3 categories although when you do investigate them you’ll soon realise that a lot of these do overlap within themselves.  The general rule for all these sites is to join in, become a member and DONT TRY AND SELL.  If you make blatant self-serving sales messages, people will quickly turn off and you won’t get too far.  But if you join the community, and add value to it then you will acheive higher levels of success with social media marketing.

Category 1 – Publishing.  The joy and the horror of the internet is that anyone can publish anything, anytime, anywhere, available for anyone & everyone to view.  For no cash you can publish something that could potentially be seen by millions. So which are the publishing sites? These include sites like – flickr, twitter youtube, squidoo, podcast.net, wikipedia to name but a few.  Publish everything , everywhere : videos, podcasts, articles, thoughts and opinions – anything relevant.  Also monitor what other people are publishing and promote it.  If people are writing flattering things about you and your business, make sure you know about it and direct your clients towards it  And empower and make it easy for your customers to publish your content on their social media sites.  The more people that see it the better.

Category 2 – Sharing.  These are sites like : stumble upon, digg, delicous, mixx, propellor, reddit etc … also known as social bookmarking sites.
These are the sites where you can share and promote yours and others content.  Find out where your audience hangs out and share content that will appeal to them – whether its articles, blogs, webinars, whatever.

Category 3 – is networking.  These site are : facebook, bebo, linked in , myspace, friendster etc.  These are places where you can connect with fellow Voiceover artists and existing and potential clients.  This may actually be the best place to start your social media marketing plan.  Firstly, have a look at each of them and see which ones you want to join.  You may already have ideas as to which you think will work best for you – maybe you’ve seen other voiceover artists on particular sites and have heard good reports back about certain sites more than others – some sites, such as bebo for example may be better for personal networking whereas places like Linked in and Ecademy lean more towards the business side of networking.  Once you join, make sure you set up your profile and fill in all the relevant bits.  Make sure you add links to your website, blogs and other contact media.  And also put these links into your email signature.  Once the profile and signature is completed you can start networking.  Start with existing friends and clients and then broaden your network as you get more confident. But remember to add value to your interactions. Share useful content, answer questions where you can. Dont be promotional, be helpful.

In conclusion there are four key points to remember when you embark on your social media marketing campaign:

1. At the end of the day it is a tool.  It is so easy to become overwhelmed by the shear scope of possibilities that social media marketing presents, but set your goal and always keep in mind your reasons for using it.

2. Get involved – discuss, share , become a part of the community.

3. Don’t overly sell or broadcast – people will run a mile.  Be helpful.

4. Enjoy it !- you meet interesting people and come across interesting information which could help you and your business and your personal interests.

Written by Alison Pitman.  For further information about the author and to listen to hear voice demos please do visit www.thephonevoice.com

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Whilst many people thought that the world of social media may merely be a fad, its importance and relevance in society today is undeniable. A day does not pass without hearing some mention of Facebook or Twitter, whether it is on the news or from a friend or colleague. In only six years the site has gained more than 500 million active users worldwide. Twitter receives on average 90 millions tweets per day. And the popularity of these sites is far from dissipating; in March 2010 Facebook overtook Google in winning top place for time spent on the website by users. However, the question remains are these sites nothing more than ‘social’, or are they a viable form of ‘business’ media?

Social Media And Your Business

A recent national survey conducted by Optus found that only 28 per cent of small and medium businesses (SMBs) are currently active in social media. In the same survey Optus found that over 50 per cent of SMBs not involved in social media believe that social networking is not appropriate for their industry. The survey highlighted that SMBs owners were ‘yet to be convinced’ that social media was worth the time and investment.

Let’s cut to the chase, it would be unrealistic to say that social media marketing was right for every single business but it would also be wrong to dismiss it without proper thought. Social media is developing at an exceedingly fast pace, each week there is a new announcement or development: this week Facebook’s Zuckerberg announced a new modern messaging system, in the last month there was the big news about the partnership between Facebook and Bing that will return search results based on the Facebook “Likes” of the searcher’s friends and networks. This fast pace of development should not deter businesses from getting involved with social media, but rather view it as a challenge or adventure and get on board now whilst the majority of businesses are also still learning.

Social Media Is Not An Instant Revenue Booster

For any business it is vital to work out the return on investment when committing time, energy and money for marketing. However social media does not have a straightforward quantifiable return on investment, it is a tool that will promote your business, place it on people’s radars and build a larger client base. Thus the direct return on investment is much harder to calculate and will span a larger time period. You can however measure popularity for example by re-tweets, likes, followers and number of bookmarks. These are all indications of brand popularity that are then likely to convert to sales in the future.

Social Media Is Free Promotion For Your Brand

Social media provides your business with a platform to perform to potential customers or consumers. Your business can provide industry updates, links to relevant news articles or showcase new products, designs, releases. Whilst updates and content should not focus on selling, sharing information about sales, free coupons or more interactive challenges can work if used sparingly. For example: Are you in the area? The next ten customers who mention this update will receive a free coffee/25% discount/ etc.

Social Media Is A Relationship-Building Tool

This is a business to client relationship that does not centre around money, it is interactive and provides businesses with the opportunity to become ‘liked’ by customers or clients. You are able to increase your client base through visibility of being ‘liked’ by fellow friends, family and colleagues. Social media transforms your business into a live entity that can engage and communicate with its clients. You are able to test the market, gain feedback and engage your clients in ways much more complex than simply one-way sales or marketing.

Social Media Increases your SEO Progression

Social media link building increases your SEO rankings by creating fresh content and by building the number of links to your website. Both of these elements are valued highly by Google and are important contributors that help achieve top rankings. Search engines are increasingly giving weight to social media profiles in their rankings, search now shows the latest ‘twitter’ feeds and news articles are now being listed showing how many people ‘like’ or have shared the article.

How Will You Use Social Media In Your Business?

Social media is the future; its presence is far more than ‘social’ it pervades every aspect of our daily lives – on the news, on the T.V, on the radio, it pops up in conversations with friends, neighbours, colleagues, it is now part of work within business plans and strategies. This may appear overwhelming or daunting, but do not let this put you off: it is exciting, new and fast-paced.

If you want your business to grow and to evolve and to exhibit dynamism and innovation then embracing social media is a must. It should be viewed as simply one more component of your marketing and business strategy. Treat it like any other part of your business: with thoughtful time and planning, bestow care and attention to detail, handle responsibly and maintain focus and brand consistency in all your efforts. Social media is new and mysterious; herein lies the excitement, the opportunity to learn, and most importantly the chance be part of the social media revolution.

5 Tips To Growing Your Social Media Presence On Facebook and TwitterEngage and respond. Post regularly and always respond to answers or comments.
Offer value. Provide interesting and informative information and tips that are of interest to your clientele.
Link Link Link. All your social media accounts should be linked to leverage your presence on all of them, install sharing tools.
Join discussions. Get involved by reading and commenting on other people or companies blog in your industry, establish an online presence and reputation.
Be creative. Enjoy the potential of social media, experiment and play with its possibilities. If you don’t think it’s of value or interesting then don’t post it.

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There are many essential elements that need to be embraced before you can succeed with social media.  Of course, this list does not include all the elements, but only the important social media E’s to get you started.

1. Education
Educating your prospects and customers is important to the success of your business.  Not only are college and universities providing online education, but millions of people are going online to watch how-to videos, listen to podcasts, read informative blogs, etc.

2. Effective
 A big part of social media success is creating clear, consistent, timely, and captivating content to effectively communicate with your community.  The more strategic your content is, the more effective your social media efforts will be.
 
3. Efficient
Due to the amount of information, tools, and sites on the web, being efficient with social media is certainly not easy, but it is also not impossible. If you have a plan, a schedule, and an editorial calendar in place, you will be extremely efficient when integrating social media.

4. Effort
If you want to succeed in social media, you must put in some effort.  Social media is about being proactive and making a real effort to research, learn, converse, test, and measure.

5. Embrace
Embracing social media means accepting the good, the bad, and the ugly.  Although the social web has provided us with endless possibilities, it also opened doors to things that are not so great (spam, fraud, hackers, and privacy, concerns).  Control the bad and embrace the good!

6. Empower
Using social media to empower your community (prospects, customers, employees, etc.) is extremely powerful.   It is essential to create a vision for your audience and empower them to take action on what they love, trust, and believe in order to fulfill a dream or a goal.

7. Encompass
A successful social media strategy should encompass all departments of a business:  sales & marketing, PR, advertising, customer service, communications, business development, research, etc.  Remember, it does not stop at marketing.

8. Encourage
Encouragement allows your customers to feel comfortable enough to start dialogue with you.  It is vital to encourage or support feedback, comments, and sharing of information from your community.

9. Engage
Social media allows you to engage with your prospects, customers, employees, and other stakeholders.  Engaging is about helping, giving, sharing interesting exchanges, and building community.

10. Enjoy
Social media is about being creative and having fun.  To succeed, you must not only enjoy the work you do, but also enjoy the social media process.  People can tell if you are posting things because you think you have to or because you are truly enjoying it.

11. Enlighten
By sharing your thoughts, ideas, stories, knowledge and expertise, you will enlighten and inspire your community.  If you are a business with many employees, it is also essential to enlighten your employees on social media.

12. Entertainment
A very large of your social media engagement strategy should include entertainment.  The very first step in entertaining your audience is to be a person not a business.  Your message should also be interesting and amusing enough to generate reaction, which increases chances of your message going viral.

13. Enthusiasm
It is crucial to create enthusiasm for adoption of social media within your organization.  Also, generating enthusiasm (or excitement) will inspire your audience to be enthusiasts who spread your message for you.  The goal is to find those influencers!

14. Escalate
You may run into situations where you deal with negative feedback and brand haters on social media sites. How you choose to deal with the negative comments is very critical to how you are perceived on social media sites.  If you don’t handle it properly with a strategic repsonse, you will escalate the problem. Yikes!

15. Etiquette
Practicing proper etiquette is essential when networking on social platforms.  The same etiquette rules that are used in the offline world should be applied online as well.  For some basic reminders, this may be a good time to revisit “7 Rules of Social Media Netiquette.”

16. Evaluate
You may be doing a fantastic job with integrating social media into your plans.  However, you are missing the point of using social media if you are neglecting to evaluate or measure your efforts. Measuring social media can help you quantify the performance of your social media efforts, help you understand prospects and customers, tighten up the efficiency of your strategy, and use the information to adjust and optimize your plan.

17. Experiment
If you truly want to embrace social media, you must be willing to experiment.  Once you have your strategy in place, it will take trial and error of different tactics to determine what is right for your business.  Don’t give up on social media if a particular tactic is not working.  You must experiment until something sticks!

18. Expertise
Social media has given many of us an opportunity to showcase our expertise faster than anything else out there.  Sharing knowledge and expertise helps set you apart from competition and increases business results.

19. Exposure
If there is anything that can get you immediate exposure for your business, it’s social media.  If you are consistent with your plan, you will be able achieve instant visibility.  This could mean a lot more opportunity.

20. Express
Like showcasing your expertise, you can freely express your thoughts, opinions, and ideas through social media platforms.  Also, by creating two-way dialogue, you are giving a chance to your prospects and customers to express their ideas and opinions.

21. Extend
Whether it is answering a question, sharing a link to something informative, or pointing someone in the right direction, extending a helping hand goes a long way online because people will remember you when they need products or services you offer.  Also remember to extend an offer on your website so you can convert prospects.

22. Eye-Catching
Due to the amount of content shared on social media platforms, you only have a few seconds to capture a person’s attention.  It is important to create eye-catching headlines for videos, articles, and blog posts.  Also, you will engage more eyeballs if tweets and updates are interesting.
 

Named as one of the “smartest people in social media,” Mirna Bard is a social media consultant who inspires organizations and entrepreneurs to leverage the Internet. You can find more information on Mirna and get practical, hype-free social media tips and business advice on her blog. You can also connect with Mirna on Facebook at http://facebook.com/socialwebstrategyconsultant where she gives great advice and fun giveaways.

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by Jeremy Willinger for http://www.etiquetteoutreach.com

While designing and launching an effective social media platform is an exciting venture for any business, it should be approached cautiously, mindful of the rules of social media etiquette. Such awareness can actually help define your brand online, while also increasing the business’s bottom line.

In presenting a brand’s online identity, businesses have to relinquish a certain measure of control over how content can be accessed and reviewed, but the business should control the conversation. This oversight should stay within the realm of established business etiquette (such as keeping language inoffensive), and conform to the laws of social media etiquette, as in avoiding over-posting.

The script should stay true to the values the company was founded on. Business etiquette for social media extends far beyond tasteful, non-risqué profile pictures to the more subtle imperative of preserving the authenticity that customers expect. Online buzz is generated when people feel that the company is being true to its established brand identity — or serious about a recent reinvention.

It is important to launch your social media website with content that is currently available. Videos, photos, events, and other material should be available for users and soon-to-be group members, fans, etc. One tip is that you do not have to accept every friend request if you decide not to. When navigating social media sites, be careful to research any preexisting groups that promote/discuss your business. If yours is a popular company, many times existing fans will take it upon themselves to create a page on Facebook. Conversely, if someone has an unfavorable view of your business, they might create a fake Twitter feed, or one with an unkind title. In this situation, a kind note to the group or page administrators or Twitter users asking them to put up a disclaimer indicating that this isn’t the official page is proper business etiquette.

Social media is not a passive environment. Once your company is established in social media, it must stay in contact with those who have aligned themselves with your business. Proper social media etiquette for contacting people is much like the rules for personal emailing: Try not to bombard, think before sending or posting, and realize the value of time. Do followers need company tweets every 10 minutes? Only if it is the greatest product launch in the history of the company, and even then tweets should be spaced out appropriately.

One benefit of social media is its constant access to customers. This is both a blessing and a curse, because with the ability to inform fans, followers, and friends of new developments and content, these same individuals expect a shortened response time to their queries and complaints. Proper social media etiquette is to respond to any inquiry in a very timely fashion. Many times, people who hear back from a company soon after tweeting a complaint will document their positive experience with that business. This makes social media etiquette a great tool for establishing positive brand association.

This positivity should also inform the tone a business takes in the social media sphere. Brands should convey an attitude frequently assumed in many social and business settings: solicitous and engaging. When users post comments, cast disgruntled votes, or make public their displeasure, good social media etiquette honors all input to smooth feathers and obviate potential problems. Businesses must also consider that what they say is in the public domain: when responding to a posting on your company Facebook wall, to a Twitter follower, or to a LinkedIn message, for example, know that everyone will see it and that it can be reposted other places without a business being aware.

For any service or product, social media is an arena that can pay off when used correctly. In many ways, when a person engages a company, organization, or individual through Facebook (et al), they are already loyal — the job of the business is to enhance that relationship. This relationship must stay professional, even in the world of social media.

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