Using Social Media to promote your brand

If you think Twitter, Facebook, and other online social media communities are only for teens, you’re missing out on valuable and free marketing platforms for your brand (book, business or product).

Further, if you’re not on social media, you’re risking losing your potential clients/customers to those smart business people who are utilizing social media.

Which social media platforms you focus on depends a great deal on what your brand is. Here are seven excellent reasons why you must use social media no matter what you are promoting:

Reason 1: It’s the Most Cost-Effective Online Advertising

The current most popular social media platforms being used for business are free: Twitter.com, Facebook.com and LinkedIn.com. (LinkedIn does have an upgrade that costs, but it’s not necessary to get this upgrade.) And this is “relationship” marketing to targeted markets. “Free” is definitely more cost-effective than spending money on online advertising techniques such as Pay Per Click or banner ads.

Reason 2: You Can Have Global Reach With Social Media

The world is now a global marketplace. Why not reach this global market? Many of the most popular social media platforms have this global reach, and you can see this clearly illustrated on Twitter. At any time of day or night you can see real-time “tweets” from people in Japan, England, the U.S., India and many other countries.

For example, if you have a book that might appeal to anyone in the world who reads in English, why limit yourself to just promoting in the U.S.? Thanks to Amazon people outside the U.S. can buy your book even if it is only available in U.S. stores.

Reason 3: You Can Attract Targeted Groups of People as Potential Clients/Customers for Your Brand

Social media enables you to join groups of people with the same interests and goals. On LinkedIn and Facebook you can join groups as varied as Children’s Book Writers to eMarketing. If you choose groups to join based on your brand, you’ll be putting yourself in front of the exact groups of people you want to reach as potential clients/customers. This can pay off in increased sales for you.

Reason 4: You Can Form A Community by Using the Community Aspect of Social Media

Once you are active on social media platforms and have people who are your followers (Twitter), your friends (Facebook) and/or your connections (LinkedIn), you can start groups of highly targeted interests. You can create a niche market in your brand, book or business and share your knowledge with others who join your community.

These people can become your loyal followers, friends and connections - and they can help spread your marketing message to their followers, friends and connections.

Reason 5: You Can Use Social Media to Establish Your Expertise

People like to do business with people they know, like and trust. By sharing your knowledge for free online with the people in the social media groups you belong to, you can establish yourself as an expert. This can pay off in increasing potential clients/customers’ trust in you.

And you can also receive invitations for blog “interviews” or BlogTalkRadio show interviews or podcasts. And these interviews lead to more free exposure for your brand and more free exposure for your expertise.

Reason 6: You Can Use Social Media to Find Cross-Promotional Partners

Amazingly in the world of social media, people who would be considered competitors in the off-line world are teaming up to provide products and services to their combined clients/customers.

And these clients/customers are very responsive to these cross-promotions (often called joint ventures) - especially when introduced to a second expert by a first expert they already know, like and trust.

You and your cross-promotíon partner can each get access to the other person’s “list” (the names of interested clients/customers collected at a website) and thus you’ve greatly expanded your potential client/customer pool.

Reason 7: With a Few Keystrokes You Can Announce New Updates of Your Activities

Your updates on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn take seconds - and you’ve announced to your followers, friends and connections what you’re doing or what you’re offering or what you’re speaking on. And there are even online applications that allow you to update your status across several of your social media accounts simultaneously. So it is as easy as 1-2-3 to keep in front of your potential clients/customers.

In conclusion, once you become active yourself on social media platforms, you’ll find many more reasons to promote your brand, book or business on social media in order to attract targeted potential clients/customers. And you’ll look back at your pre-social media days and wonder how you ever did marketing without using online social media.

About The Author
Phyllis Zimbler Miller (@ZimblerMiller on Twitter) has an M.B.A. from The Wharton School and is an Internet business consultant whose company website www.MillerMosaicLLC.com has lots more useful advice like this. Grab her free report on “The Top 3 Internet Marketing Elements” to maximize your Internet marketing experience. Claim your report now from www.TeachMeBranding.com.

How To Increase Your Followers And Make Money With Twitter

The web is fast becoming a center for social activities. Instead of just looking for information, advice and the latest news in the more conventional ways the internet has to offer, people are relying on their friends and acquaintances.

This is now easier and faster than ever before, thanks to innovative websites such as Facebook and Twitter. The latter is particularly popular since you can get all the latest updates and information directly to your mobile phone, no matter the hour of the day or your location.

This innovative communication system is therefore an excellent source of revenue in many ways, as long as you put a little effort in the venture you are undertaking and use some of your own creativity.

This article discusses some useful tips to help you succeed and make money with Twitter.

How Twitter Works

In order to take advantage of the opportunities the social site has to offer, you should know first how it works.

It is quite simple – you sign up for an account, which allows you to post short messages (tweets) to people who have agreed to receive them (your followers). This in turn provides you with a totally free way to share your views and advertise your offer in various ways. If you do it right, you can make some healthy profits out of it.

How To Increase Your Twitter Followers Fast

The first step towards twitter success is to get as much people as possible to become your followers. This is especially important if you are going to market various products and you want them to get massive exposure.

There is no point in posting your tweets to only a few people, unless they are raving fans or dedicated followers.

Here are 4 effective ways to get more people to follow you on Twitter.

1) Spread The Word To All Your Contacts.

Collaborate with your friends and acquaintances to spread the word about each other’s Twitter accounts. This is a great option if you are an active member of an internet community that is at the same time a distinctive target group.

Let’s say you have a music blog with regular readers. If you are constantly writing in various dedicated online forums, you can ask fellow members to become your Twitter followers.

If you have a list of subscribers, you could invite them to receive your messages. If you have a website, you could post a note informing visitors about your Twitter account.

2) Provide A Specific Free Service Using Twitter.

This can be an alert for sports games scores, for shopping discounts or the latest gossip and news in a specific area.

It is best to choose a bit broader subject and have an appropriate username presenting your service. You have to put some extra effort in this as it requires regular work, but you can readily do it from your home or office.

3) Add Your Twitter Account In Twitter Directories.

You can increase your chances of getting targeted followers by adding your Twitter account in the appropriate categories of Twitter directories.

Some of the most popular ones include:

http://www.twellow.com/
http://justtweetit.com/directory/
http://wefollow.com/
http://www.loadedweb.com/twitter/
http://www.tweetfind.com/
http://mrtweet.com/
http://mytwitterdirectory.com/
http://tweeplepages.com/

All it takes is a couple of minutes to add yourself into each Twitter directory; and you only need to do it one time to get permanent exposure.

4) Follow Other People In Your Niche Or Field Of Interest.

When you follow Twitterers in your niche, they tend to follow you back. It’s the law of reciprocity at work.

Where do you find them? Browse through the Twitter directories above and follow people who are in the same field, or have the same interests, as yours.

How To Make Money With Twitter

Despite the way in which you have attracted Twitter followers, you have to make your tweets informative and interesting in order to make people read them.

Now it is easier than ever before to make money with Twitter. Through the Sponsored Tweets service, you can present a marketing offer to potential clients to advertise their products in your tweets. This is particularly convenient since you do not have to look for customers elsewhere and spend money and time advertising your own offers.

However, there is an important point you have to pay attention to. You would not want your followers to stop reading your messages just because they are overwhelmed with advertisements. A good way to avoid this is to continue sending the usual information people expect from you and add an end line with the marketing message.

Experienced social marketers recommend sending a promotional tweet only after every 5 to 7 non-self-serving tweets. After you’ve built trust and rapport by sending helpful or interesting tweets, you might increase the number of times you advertise.

But always remember to do it subtly. One way to do that is to point them to a webpage where they can read an informative article or watch a video that “pre-sells” your product. You may also give them a free report branded with your own offers. Avoid blatant promotions and you will get more sales.

Generally, the preliminary creation of a free service will aid you in making money with Twitter, as it will allow you to incorporate advertisements more easily. For example, if you are sending information on electronic gadgets discount stores, you can have these retailers pay you for including their address in your tweets.

All these advertising tips to make money from Twitter can be successfully adopted with the right timing and strategy. It costs you nothing but your profits could skyrocket.

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Twitter Promotion Tips

Twitter is a social media platform that helps you drive your website and establishes a connection between you and your audience in a way you’ve never been able to before. Twitter should be a very important part of your online branding and marketing strategy.

The key concept of Twitter is the real-time search. Search engines generally work with old material while Twitter gives you real-time information on different topics. This can be used to increase your website traffic and exposure by finding, getting in touch and providing value to people interested in the services and products that you provide.

People come to Twitter when researching, when they have questions and when they wish to learn something about different subjects. “What are you doing?” field is used for lots of different remarks and questions. By scanning what people are talking about on Twitter, you can assume the role of a search engine by answering questions from your target audience in real-time.

1. Track down and follow your target audience

Track down people that are interested in your products and services by using tools like http://search.twitter.com, http://tweetdeck.com or http://monitter.com. Search for targeted keywords and start following people from your target group. When you follow someone, you will be listed in their profile in the “Followers” list so they will have a chance to take a look at your profile, see what you tweet about and what you stand for.

2. Think of your Twitter profile as your website homepage

Because of this it is important to have a great Twitter profile. Think of it as the front page of your website. You must provide value in your tweets for the visitors to subscribe to you and to visit your website. Do that by pointing to interesting articles you’ve found online, and build credibility and influence that way. Sharing information, sharing knowledge and helping people is the best way to build credibility and influence. Add some commentary and insights into some popular topics related to your field. Ask good questions and talk with those who answer you.

3. Brand yourself as an expert in your field

Keep following what is happening within your field and make sure that you become known for twittering on a subject related to your product or service. By linking to different quality resources, people will look at you as an expert on the topic, an expert who likes to share knowledge with his followers.

The overall effect of you only writing relevant messages will be cumulative in the long run as branding is a subtle process that occurs over time. You will become branded as an expert who provides regular insight into your topic and this will expose you to other people who are interested in your subject.

To have a good brand means to create good, value experiences for your customers. People trust good brands, and will therefore be more inclined to purchase your product or hire you based on your brand and what they hear about you. So having clear and consistent branding will help you stand out from the crowd.

4. Be active and get in touch with your target audience

When you have discovered people in your target group, do not just follow them. Be more proactive. Show your knowledge and the value you can provide to the potential customer by connecting, answering to questions, helping them out with their problems, and providing them what they are looking for. This way you can help out a potential customer directly when they need the help and in that way show your knowledge and expertise and hopefully turn that person into a paying customer.

This is a very simple and instant way of connecting to your target group and showing them why you are the expert and why you deserve their custom. You will be the authority in their eyes and you will be differentiated from your competitors that do not use Twitter and that do not connect with their target group directly.

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Marko Saric is a blog consultant blogging about WordPress and blog optimization at How To Make My Blog. Marko has just published an e-book on all things about Twitter marketing.

Categorizing Your Twitter Followers

Twitter is one of the fastest growing social network sites on the internet today. This particular social platform requires users to keep their post to fewer than 140 characters. Messages are intended to be nothing more than brief social exchanges however the online marketing community has still found a way to thrive on this site.

Members are generally ‘drawn’ to conversations that focus on topics in which they have an interest. In fact this is how you develop your list followers by attracting people to the comments you make or the information you may supply.

Social sites such as this are perfect for those who want to connect to others with similar interests but without a lot of effort. It is not all that unusual for a consistent user of this social networking site to develop quite a large list of followers. The issue now turns to the quality of the followers you actually attract.

Let’s briefly examine the 5 types of followers that you may accumulate within your own social network on this site.

Shared Interest

These are the BEST types of followers to have. The point of any social networking site is to share comments, interests, and ideas with like minded people. By having followers who are genuinely attracted to your interests or ideas will only make any interactions more meaningful

Spam

These are marketers who literally troll social sites in search of people that can promote to. Their unsolicited advertising can be very annoying since once they found you they are usually relentless with their product pitches.

They are the junk mail of the online world.

It is recommended to report them to the help desk so that the site administrators can take the necessary corrective actions.

Phishers

Similar to spammers these people represent themselves as legitimate organizations. Their motives are to capture sensitive or personal information about you which obviously will be put to use in a detrimental way.

It is recommended to ignore their solicitations and by no means click on any link they may send you. Once again report them to the site administrators.

Bots

These followers are really malicious programs that by and large are up to no good. Their intent is to take control of your computer in a way that is usually undetectable to you. Their intent is to use your computer as a tool for them to commit certain undesirable acts that could affect others while implicating you as the source.

Retweets

These types of followers are people who have been referred to a single tweet of yours that they may have found as interesting. Whether they have a genuine interest in you for what you represent is undetermined since a single tweet can’t reflect that.

It is nice to get followers this way but as to whether there is a mutual interest in your basics interests or ideas can only be determined over time.

Having a large following on Twitter may be somewhat misleading once you realize the intent of some of those who follow you. This social platform is not immune to the shenanigans common to the rest of the internet. Online marketing companies are known to target anyone at social sites and this can result in spam. Even more of a concern are those whose intentions are more sinister in nature as they prey upon the innocent members of various social network sites. It is therefore wise to take notice of the types of followers you may have within your own social network of followers. Once they’ve been identified you have virtually neutralized them. At this point you can either block them or report them to site administrators.

TJ Philpott is an author and Internet entrepreneur based out of North Carolina.
For additional Money Making Tips and a free guide that demonstrates how to find both profitable markets and products visit http://blogbrawn.com