Internet Business Toolbox» social networking sites

Building Business with Twitter

sugeng — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 12:40:13 +0000

Twitter is one of the fastest growing communities on the Internet today. It is also one of the easiest communities to plug into. Although you are limited to a maximum of 140 characters per message, you can do much within the limit. Although you have to keep the messages short and sweet, Twitter is a great tool for people who value their time.

The next questions are how exactly do you grow and network on Twitter? And how do you monetize that network? How do you build business with Twitter? Let’s start first with how to grow your Twitter network.

First let’s approach it in the simplest way possible. We should not make networking more complicated than it needs to be. Networking is simply a way of making contact with a lot of people who want to exchange information with each other. The main point here is the word “exchange”. It is a social process. Therefore the term “social networking” is used for services such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and so on.

On the other hand, we can think of social networking sites as places where people gather and meet each other. It is as if you were at a cafe, pub, bar, at someone’s party or at some public places. When you attend a party, normally you do not take a megaphone and shout at everybody to come and visit your shop. Instead, you get to know each other, ask questions, share information, and perhaps exchange business cards.

Doing business at the party should not be our immediate aim of attending. Your first aim should be to make a good impression on the people you meet. When people show interest, you will then explain what you do. The people may possible recommend you to someone in their network at later day due to the good impression.

What you should do at social networking like Twitter.com is very similar to what you would do at a party illustrated above. The business card equivalent of real life is your profile page. You should post some information about yourself and what you do, and include a link back to your website. Make the content as interesting as possible for people to read.

Your post is called tweet. It is both a noun and averb. When you post tweets or when you tweet (as it is commonly called), do not make a blatant advertisement for your affiliate marketing program. You will create a very bad impression. Instead, give out and share some useful tips, some interesting insights and some daily activities related to your specialty. Being helpful, generous and nice are viewed very positively. When people have good impression of you, nobody will object to your posting a promotional link in the future.

Don’t feel that you have too tweet only about your business. Please remember that when you are at social function, you don’t want to perpetually talk about business. You will also talk about other topics of interest. Internet marketing, especially social networking and social marketing, is all about building a brand around a personality. We are referring to YOU.

The best way to the branding is not to focus on yourself only all the time. It is also about other people. If you are at a party, you would do that by going around mingling with other people. It is the same on Twitter. You do it by following other people (as it is called in Twitter’s world). Following others is the key to building your network on Twitter. The more you follow, the more you will be followed. In fact, your friends in Twitter are your followers. So who do you follow and who are your followers?

1. Follow people who are entertaining, who share information and who link out to interesting websites. Even if their network is not big, it is likely to grow in the future due to the positive attributes we discussed above. You will want to be able to plug into it.

2. Follow people who follow people. At the top of every Twitter page you will find information about the number of followers and the number of people being followed. Personally I try not to follow people who have a much larger number of followers than the people they follow. These people are kind of stingy and are unlikely to reciprocate when you follow them. Of course there are exceptions to this for example the news twitters, etc.

3. Find people via Twitter search box. You can search for people by entering keywords related to your area of interest or field of expertise. You will be able to build up a solid network of people who may be interested in what you have to offer.

4. Use a service such as Twitter Grader which will generate a list of people whose profiles or areas of interest seemed to be similar to yours. See my ranking at Twitter Grader.

5. Check out the people who are following the people you are following. Then you can click and follow all the people who appeal to you on the list.

6. Check out the people who are following your followers. You can click and follow all who appeal to you.

Interestingly, you will find that many of the people you follow will be happy to reciprocate and follow you. It pays to actively follow as many people as possible. At the end of the day, you will be able to build up a large network quickly and efficiently – and most importantly have fun at the same time.

Happy Twittering!

Microblogging is Blogging

sugeng — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 01:00:58 +0000

Microblogging is simply blogging in micro size. It means blogging with brief texts with options to add photos or audi-clips. Due to its brevity, microblogging is very popular with mobile phone users and busy people who don’t have the time to write a bull-blown article for blog posting. Microblogging updates/postings can be anything as long as they are short and within the maximum words allowed. The contents can be on personal level as update of what someone is doing or on the business level with the latest update of products and services. Even news services also use microblogging to disseminate the information to the public (or followers as they are usually referred to).

In terms of content, there is really nothing different between “normal” blogging and microblogging. You can just write about anything and about what you want to write. Of course, in business, people will plan the content properly as to project corporate image. Since the content is brief, it is much easier for people to just write something on-the-fly. That is why people can update the microblogs very frequently in a day. The most common contents are update of what people are doing and thinking. Very frequently also people comment on each other’s postings.

Here is a list of my posts on Twitter.

Currently, the most popular microblogging is Twitter. Launched in July 2006, Twitter has become the most popular microblogging site and its name is almost synonymous to microblogging. Twitter ranked 287 in Alexa as of March 2009. Here are the other popular English microblogging sites (with Alexa ranking): Tumblr (2,551), Plurk (6,629), Jaiku (59,281), Kronologger (347,889) in Indonesia, Hictu (719,358), Pacmee (899,739) in Malaysia, MoodMill (964,712), I Rate My Day (1,066,114) and MySay (1,846,084).

Some social networking sites also provide their own microblogging feature better known as updates. As examples, they are Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Xing and Bebo. There are many coming along as well.

With so many microblogging applications available, many people might want to maintain presence in more than one of these social networks. Services such as SocialThing and Profilatic come in handy in aggregating the updates from various microblogging sites. Another useful service is Ping.fm. Using the Ping.fm, you can send out your update to multiple social networks as it will be difficult if you want to send updates to all social networks that you belong to.

With this short introduction, I hope it has given a brief overview of what microblogging is all about.

Social Media Marketing

sugeng — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 05:37:46 +0000

Social Media Marketing refers to marketing using social media. And, what is social media? Watch this video that explains social media in plain English.

Social media is a form of interactions among the people. It allows the people to have conversation, to comment, to be involved in community, to have collaboration, to contribute and to share among themselves. The possibility is almost endless. This is the basis of Web 2.0 that makes all those things possible. It is not really something new, but the new technology has made it simpler for people to interact with each other.

Social media marketing is marketing by utilizing social media. How do we do that? Traditional marketing is normally a one-way communication. The marketer provides information for the people to see, look, hear, feel and taste. Social media and social marketing are two or more ways of communication. There is interactivity involved here. It means there must be participation among the parties and when necessary also conversation, collaboration, contribution and sharing.

Community is another very powerful form of social media. It is formed from conversation among people. Communities may span across various social networks. We just need to know where our existing and target markets are located and get ourselves blended into the community by talking and engaging meaningfully with the people. You can even create a community based around your products or services. Example of existing social networks are Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, etc.

From the outlook, social media looks simple. Anyone can setup a blog, create accounts at the social networking sites and start your activities in the network. However, to be effective you need to have commitment and understanding how the things work. Social media is not only about list building and having many friends. It is about meaningful connections with the people.

I would like to end this post with a video on 7 Secrets of Social Media by Perry Belcher. He talks about being remarkable, fun, helpful, supportive, controversial, resourceful and don’t be an “asshole”. I hope you get a good idea or two of how to utilize social media effectively.Social Media Marketing refers to marketing using social media. And, what is social media? Watch this video that explains social media in plain English.