Twitter is a great tool to help your build business.

Here’s a list of ways you can implement Twitter to help increase your business.

• Customer Relations
• Crisis Management
• Corporate Reputation Management
• Team Building
• Issue Advocacy
• Product Promotion and Sales
• Internal Communication
• Lead Generation
• Crowd Sourcing
• Customer References
• Testimonies
• Announcements
• Professional Networking
• Traffic Generation
• Live Event Coverage
• Couponing

For other ideas, read this great article from Chris Brogan, 50 Ideas on Using Twitter for Business

What else would you add? How are you using Twitter for your business? I would love to hear from you.

Have you read my new book “Your Twitter Business Toolbox“? If not, it is a must read. Click here to download the first 10 pages for FREE.

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As we all know, Social Media is huge and I am sure you have questions about how you can leverage it to increase your influence, create raving fans and pocket more cash.

Now’s your chance to get YOUR questions answered.

I am hosting a FREE TELE-CALL with nationally known author and speaker Shama and Chris Patterson (a powerhouse in the internet landscape).

Go to www.thesecretsofsocialmedia.com/ask-shama, ask your question or just simply register to listen in on the call.

This is not a pitch fest. Our goal is to simply help you get the answers you need, so that you can better leverage Social Media for you and your business.

The call will be on Thursday, July 16 at 9 PM (EST) and will go for 1 hour.

Go and register now at www.thesecretsofsocialmedia.com/ask-shama

I am looking forward to having you on the call.

To learn more about Shama go to www.shama.tv and Chris Patterson go to www.insociamemdia.com

Some people believe in scatter marketing. This is where you throw your marketing message anywhere and everywhere and hope it sticks. In my view, this is the way of marketing for those who lack knowledge or training. You need a proven marketing plan!

To run a successful online marketing campaign, you must know the numbers. Knowing the numbers can help you in many areas, such as: where to spend the most of your money and energies, what is working and what is not, finding out where the right people are and so forth.

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Success Tip: A word of warning, DO NOT SPAM social networking communities. If you do, you will be ostracized quickly by its members. Marketing effectively is part science and part art. It is a mixture of creative genius, research and testing. Very few people can pull off successful campaigns. In fact, all successful companies/websites have a team behind them. If you are really serious about being successful with your online endeavors, you must hire a competent & proven internet marketing group or be a bona fide expert yourself.  For more information or for recommendations, contact me directly at 407-459-7774. We can discuss how to help you achieve your marketing goals. Great companies such as Coca-Cola, New York Times, Nickelodeon, Kanye West Foundation, Strang Communications and many more, have used our services.

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Let’s look at some interesting numbers for Twitter. As we look at them, take time to creatively think about how you can use this information to leverage the Twitter community for your own online marketing campaigns.

The Fastest Growing Member Community Destinations

At the #1 spot:  Twitter with a whopping 1,382% yearly growth rate.

As of Feb. 2009, Twitter had 7 million users and still growing. Do you think Twitter might be a great place to get your message out? Let’s keep going and find out.

Twitter’s Global Reach

1.97% of all Internet users worldwide visit Twitter, which is up 254.6% over the last 3 months.

Average Time Spent on Site

Why is knowing time spent on a site important? Simple, it means people like what they see. It means that you are bringing value to the viewer. The more time a person spends on your site usually means they will tell others about your site. And, if you have a product to sell, then higher your chances are that they will purchase from you.

Remember this Important Tip:  People don’t buy from websites, they buy from people.

Alexa.com ranks Twitter in the 42nd position, with an average time on site as 9.1 minutes. The Global Index Chart from Nielsen puts the average duration on a web page viewed at 0:00:51.

As you are planning out your marketing strategy, ask yourself this, “How can I get Twitter users to spend more time on my site?” Your answer will come from a combination of creative genius, the right ingredients and testing.

Let’s look at another important element: Age Demographics

1^st place – ages 35-49 (41.7%)
2^nd place – ages 25-34 (19.6%)
3^rd place – ages 55+ (16.6%)

Why are these numbers important?

1-       You need to gear your message to the appropriate age group. What age group does your product or service cater to? If you have a product designed for ages 2 to 17, you may not want to use Twitter as one of your main sources for marketing.

2-      These numbers can help you determine your branding and messaging style.  If you are going for the sweet spot (ages 35-49) then you might not want to use a marketing message geared to the 18-24 age group.

There are many more numbers we could look at, but these are the main ones to consider when determining your marketing outlets.

To be successful in marketing, it is crucial to discover the – who, what, where and when of every social medium you are considering. Understanding these elements will help you make clear and precise marketing decisions.

Coming up soon, I will show you research on Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace.

Until then – Happy Marketing!
Bo Cable

One thing I really enjoy about working in the world of the internet is vast number of people you get to meet and learn from. That’s why I have asked a friend of mine Phil Strong to come and write the final principle in this series.

Phil calls himself a social entrepreneur. He and his wife Kathy start businesses with a view to growing others. The list of his business ventures, past and present, include owning a building company, a national real estate company, an on-line shop for families, a financial services company, and millions of dollars of property. All these businesses were formed with a purpose of growing the people inside them, to see them released into their own futures. Follow Phil on Twitter – @strongphil.
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The Key To Guaranteeing Your Desired Outcome And Creating Maximum Impact

If you’ve ever played blindfold games as a kid, at parties, or team building exercises you’ll know what it feels like to walk blind.  That uneasy feeling of not knowing which direction you’re going and uncertain if you’ll bump your knees or walk off the edge of a step.  The loss of total control is not a nice feeling and a large part of our comfort comes from the trust you have with the person who is leading you.  (If you’re doing this exercise by yourself it’s definitely a scary experience!)

The life of an online marketer is kind of like this – a ‘walk in the dark’ experience for most of us – especially at first.  The question is “what do we have to do to walk with our eyes open?”

Principle #5 gives you the answer to this question and, in my view, helps you to guarantee your desired outcome.  If you had the key to creating the Social Media Marketing Explosion you were after, would you be happy?  Of course you would.

Here is Principe #5:

A SYSTEM GUARANTEES YOUR RESULT

A system is a predetermined set of activities that have been tested to generate specific outcomes.

I’ve spent a lot of my working life studying people I consider to be successful in many areas.  When I asked them how I could be successful they all shared the same principle:

Success is about doing the basic things the right way.

So I’ve translated this into all aspects of my life by identifying the “basic things” I need to be doing on a regular basis to propel me towards my goals.

Your system for creating a Social Media Marketing Explosion can be exactly the same.

The first step is working out what you want the end result to be, i.e. your desired outcome.  Then it’s a matter of knowing what the regular activities are you need to complete that will lead you closer and closer to your desired outcome.  And then it’s a matter of setting the regimented discipline of implementing those activities.  This is a system!

When I am implementing a system in an area that is not natural for me (and Social Media Marketing is definitely this for me!) I like to make it really easy for me to follow.  The way that I do this is to create a check list for me to follow.  This becomes a list of daily or weekly activities that I need to follow.  These are activities that I have learned from experts and are proven to lead me to the result I desire.

That’s why I learn Social Media Marketing from Bo Cable.  I don’t mean this as a cheap advertisement, but I share it to make a point.  I don’t know what to do so I ask an expert – him.  He shares with me the exact steps I need to take and I follow them with regular discipline.  This leads me towards my goals.

To summarize this thought process I’ve put the actions into four steps for you:

1. Identify your desired outcome – what is your goal in the area of Social Media?

2. Confirm the regular actions that will lead you towards your goal.

3. Build a system that will help you to implement these actions with disciplined regularity.

4. Leverage those actions by repeating them often.

Finally, why would you want to do it this way?  Because time is money.

Your time is valuable and the best thing you can do to help yourself is develop a system that helps you to make the best use of your time.  Your system will help you to leverage your time so that you can achieve more and more with less and less time.  And, as a result of this increased exposure on the internet, your activity will be leveraged because you are in more and more places at the same time.

The result?  The explosion you are after!

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Phil Strong is an international author and speaker who teaches people about money.  Phil is developing his online presence and seeking to build his own Social Media Marketing Explosion by helping as many people as he can with their financial education.  You can access more of Phil’s information at http://philstrong.com.

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To stand out above the crowd, you need to be a highly creative person. Look at some of the greatest marketers of our time; Seth Godin, Jay Abraham, Rich Schefren, Dan Kennedy – all are highly creative people.

I have asked a good friend of mine Rick Hubbell to write principle #4 – Developing Your Creativity for Maximum Impact.

Rick is a very innovative person who has helped many large corporations and individuals meet and exceed their goals by using the power of creativity.  Rick is in the process of developing a series on creativity and as soon as it is available, I will let you know. I hope you get a lot out of this principle as it is my goal is to help you leverage social media and the internet for profit and influence.

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Developing Your Creativity for Maximum Impact – Part I

Highly creative people brighten life and make things better. These original thinkers have unique talents that inspire and ideas that solve problems. They brim with potential to improve the world.

Yet most often, creative types live well below their possibilities, particularly as professionals. Why?

To lump all ‘creatives’ together is too simplified, yet many years working with them – and being one myself – have taught me unconventional tactics that work in many, if not most cases. If you apply yourself, there are ways to produce uncommon results through YOUR creativity without settling, selling out or starving.

No one said it was easy – but it’s possible. Here is a key to doing it…

One Precious Key Instead of All the Regurgitated Principles You See Everywhere Online

Ready?

Key: No matter how gifted you are, do not live life like you are entitled to be an exception – but don’t underestimate yourself either.

What I mean by that is that a HUGE percentage of creatives, and I mean HUGE, go through life waiting for their ship to come in – dabbling, tinkering, settling, wishing and hoping – rather than swimming out to meet it.

Grab a latte, a smoothie or some tea, perch yourself in a comfortable spot and let’s chat.

Misleading Overnight Success Stories

In the US we tend to have so much media exposure that everyone starts feeling like they need to be a wonder model or an overnight sensation, otherwise something must be wrong with us. We all need to be DaVinci, Rembrandt, Apple, Twitter, the cool non-conforming urban artist or Dave Matthews, because, after all – that’s our destiny. The problem comes when we entertain the idea that we should be entitled to such a radically exceptional outcome – like it’s supposed to float down when someone finally recognizes the true measure of our talents.

Yes, someone wins the lottery and a streetcorner musician is heard by a producer and becomes a millionaire over night – but don’t play those odds with your life. If those things happen to you or me -great. In the meantime, I am still going to maximize my life with the talents I’ve been given:

• employing discipline
• mastering my craft
• sharing with others in ways they may connect with my creativity
• creating finished products and
• doing all these things consistently.

On the other hand, once we start navigating life with the ‘entitled-to-be-an-exception-because-our-creative-gift-is-so-special’ mindset, we are headed for disappointment. Those things always depends on someone else.

(Before you feel like I might be killing your creative buzz-dream with bad vibes dude -in no way am I saying don’t dream as big as you feel is right in your heart. Not at all.)

Just get involved with your destiny and start developing your creativity daily for maximum impact. You will likely be pleased with the results.

Rick Hubbell is a status quo challenger, international business consultant and creativity coach who loves helping others excel. Contact him at rickh@rickhubbell.com for lessons from this series or for more information on his products & services.

The Entire World is Suffering from a Chronic Case of Attention-Deficit Disorder!

In order for you to make a sale, you must first convince your prospects and/or customers to give you their ATTENTION.

Ignoring this principle will cost you more than you can imagine.

Attention:

Nearly every principle that rings true in life has a dramatically oversized twin online. For every Casino there are thousands of gambling websites. For every newspaper stand cluttering the subway entrance there are hundreds of thousands of online news feeds, blog posts, and social media updates bringing us news faster than we can read them. And for every billboard and sign dotting our local boulevards, there are millions of online ads, campaigns, and strategies screaming for our attention and ultimately our money.

The internet has become one gigantic flea market. Millions of products to look at and buy. There we are: one little booth, overloaded with gimmicks and shiny colors, squeezed between  other overloaded and gimmicky booths all competing to catch the attention of the online shopper. All squeezed into our little booths, easily searchable, well optimized, well designed, all 15 billion of us. 15 billion web pages and counting… all competing for ATTENTION.

If the world were a fair place, your great company and superior product would automatically attract tons of online attention.

The problem is this: the world is NOT a fair place. And as we have learned, the un-fairness of the world is exponentially greater in the online marketplace.

Answering the questions of well optimized, well designed, and strategically priced doesn’t matter as much as they once did.

One of the major questions you have to answer in creating a Social Marketing Explosion is this:

How do I capture ATTENTION?

Attention is hard to capture in an online society where we have developed  continuous partial attention disorder (a.k.a Online A.D.D.) as we balance our emails, feeds, blogs, social utilities, entertainment, news, and shopping. We’ve become focused on a little bit of everything, making it nearly impossible for a single advertisement to completely capture our attention.  As consumers we see and ignore thousands of advertisements every day.  Why? We aren’t interested, don’t like it, or don’t trust them. They seem impersonal and gimmicky. We don’t buy because we feel like we’re being sold.

Look at your current marketplace and ask the question: “Who is getting the most attention right now? Why?” If your industry is like the majority of others, that company/product/person has figured out how to get PEOPLE talking. They have figured out how to get PEOPLE blogging, IM’ing, Twittering, and talking about them over coffee. They’re getting the most attention because social media has given them the vehicle that advertising dollars no longer can – HUMAN INTERACTION ATTENTION.

Social Media today can literally be defined as “Online Human Interaction Attention.” Creating a Social Marketing Explosion will require you to create an atmosphere where Online Human Interaction Attention (OHIA) is achieved.  As seen in rapidly expanding social utilities, being a part of an online community and something bigger than ourselves has become more than a trend, it has become THE industry standard.

If you’re going to get Attention online you have to effectively identify, engage, and execute proper tactics and strategies to get attention.

Four things to remember when capturing Online Human Interaction Attention – they are:

1.       Attention is more valuable than money.

2.       People give attention to people they trust.

3.       Most people don’t trust marketers. Be careful how you construct your marketing messages.

4.       People trust people who have demonstrated that are here to help them.

If you know how to get attention and how to harness its power, it can lift your business and drive you towards your success goals faster than you can possibly imagine.

In my upcoming Social Marketing Explosion System – How to Harness the power of Social Media, I will unveil tactics and strategies that you can use to explode yourself/company to the next level.

My next post will be out within a few days – Principle #4.

What has been your experience engaging your audience online? What have you tried? What have you heard about that you wanted to try? How do you feel you’re doing capturing Online Human Attention? Leave a quick comment – I’d personally love to hear about how you’re doing.

Fish Where the Right Fish Are

Okay Bo, this is a pretty well known principle, why are you wasting my time with this?

Well, give me a few more minutes of your time and I will explain. What does it really mean to fish where the fish are? I will explain throughout this post.

In today’s world, whether you’re  a mom & pop shop that doesn’t sell products on the internet or whether you’re a business person whose whole livelihood depends on it, you need to pay attention to this principle. Fish where the right fish are.

*NOTE: Even if you don’t sell products online you must have presence on the internet. Not only must you have presence but you must work on finding your fish. Just putting up a site and leaving it there will not do it! Local optimization is what you need to work on. I will be more than willing to help you with your local optimization tactics and strategies – just contact me by clicking here.

I speak with business people all the time who feel clueless on exactly how to market their site. Some are open and humble and ask for help, while others are too prideful to realize the need for help. They think they have it figured out or will figure it out somehow, sometime. Where are you in this mix?

I have found 4 groups concerning this:

Group #1 – People who build a site but do nothing and expect it to generate the results that they are anticipating.

Group #2 – The group of people who believe that if they do everything under the sun they will succeed online.

Group #3 – The group of people that think they know what their market is without doing the research.

Group #4 – This is the group you can’t wait to hear about… the group you want to be a part of…

Group #1 - Do we need to even talk about this group? This group needs to understand that “build it and they will come” concept does not work anymore. Did it ever? You must fish were fish are to catch a net full. I have also met people in this group who were unknowingly suckered by some outfit that told them they could build them a site and do the SEO as well as a bunch of other bologna.

The results?  No traffic, no sales and the site owner is left with a fatty bill to pay. Not only are they left with the bill, they are left with a bad taste in their mouth towards the real internet professionals. If you are in this group – there is hope for you. There are real professionals out there who can find your fish. Contact me through my contact page and I will send you a list of questions and criteria that will help you weed out the bad guys.

Group #2 – I like to call this group the non-educated group. This group usually consists of people who have not taken the time to really learn the landscape of the internet. Yes, they may have a great product or may even be awesome at design or coding but are clueless to the laws of massive leverage. If you are following a system or guru that tells you to cast your seeds everywhere and hope some grow…RUN! In the end you will discover that this technique does not work and it can actually hurt your reputation if not done correctly.

Group #3 – These are usually the people who actually have something going for them but refuse to listen to the community they are trying to reach. As we know things are continually changing and some people get caught up in the idea that they know better than the collective whole. The danger with this mindset is the community will only love you for so long. But once they figure out how you are not listening, they will kick you to the curb and tell everyone in their social communities. It is almost like a marriage, if you don’t take the time to listen to your spouse, eventually you’re going to lose them.

NOW HERE’S THE GROUP YOU’VE BEEN WAITING FOR!  THOSE WHO SHINE AND SUCCEED IN THE INTERNET WORLD!

Group #4 – These are the people who spend the time researching, educating themselves and making adjustments to their site and marketing as they go. They are the Michael Jordan/Tiger Woods of the internet world. Even if they miss a few shots here and there, their recovery is incredible. This is the group that does not throw its bait into the water right away. They throw themselves into the water and swim with the fish. They become the fish’s friends, understand their habits, where they go, who their friends are, where they hang out, what they eat, and find their needs. This is the group you want to be related to.

In my upcoming Creating A Social Marketing Explosion training, I will teach tactics and strategies that will help you discover where the fish are and how to catch even the most finicky ones.

I would love to hear from you.  Take a moment and leave your comments.  Also, help me spread the word… twitter this blog to your friends, send an e-mail, mention it to a business associate -that is, if you think this information is helpful.

In advance – Thank You!