New Uses for Twitter
In the small business community we are very focuesed on how to use twitter to expand our brand and communicate with our customers, propsects and strategic partners. But Twitter has many other powerful applications as a search and even research tool.
In this article for the Harvard Business Reivew, the authors present an interesting example of how larger firms can use twitter to gather feed back from employees and customers. Obviously for sensitve company information, you would want a more private platform, but the strategy can work for small business easily. How? Just ask a question, and ask people to respond using a hashtag (#). Then search for results, and all your responses will come up on one page.
Simple surveys, opinion poles, and event product suggestions, can be tested with Hashtags on Twitter. Give it a try, and share your results here!
Check out Kyle Lacy on Inside Indiana Business
Looking for insights on how to use Twitter for Busiuness? Start by checking out this interview with Kyle Lacy on Inside Indiana Business.
As I listened to the interview, I don’t think Gerry is quite sure how or why to use twitter. I hope Kyle left him a copy of the book!
Foursquare is Four Times as Much Fun as Twitter for Small Business Owners
It seems like there is always something new to keep up with. A new application, new tool, new toy or new website. If I took time to check out all of them, I wouldn’t get anything done.
But everynow and then, one new application seems to emerge as a winner. Recently, FourSquare has emerged as a winner for me. What is FourSquare? It is a mobile application, which allows you to tell others where you are.
It integrates seamlessly to Twitter, and the iPhone application is easy to use. While that is all cool, the question is, why would anyone care where you are? The simple answer? It is easy to find your friends, promote cool locations and events, and now Kyle Lacy tells me it can be a good business tool and interesting part of your social media and overall internet marketing strategy as well.
While I think the badges and “mayor” status are silly, I do like being able to promote my favorite resturants, coffee shops and art exhibits. And for some of the small business owners who are our clients we are starting to explore how they might use Foursquare to expand their connections to clients. It has great possiblities for any retail location and I think it will become a core element of the marketing strategy of many small business.
So if you want to know where I am, you can follow me on Twitter, or check in on my at Foursquare, until the next new toy comes along, that I think will be five times as much fun as twitter!
Twitter is to Marketing What Microwaves are to Cooking
Thirty years ago, my mother-in-law, a gourmet cook, she didn’t think she would ever use a microwave. Raised in an era of slow cooking, taking all afternoon to prepare a meal she couldn’t imagine ever using a microwave to cook a roast or bake a cake. And she was right, the microwave was not the right tool for that type of cooking. However, as she began to experiment with it she did discover, there are things the Microwave did extremely well.
Today, at 81 years old, the microwave is the most used device in her very active kitchen. She still bakes and roasts in the traditional oven, but she defrosts, boils water, parboils vegetables, reheats and steams vegetables in the microwave.
There is a lesson there for small business owners! Tools become mainstream, when we figure out how to use them as part of things we already do. For example, Twitter. I wouldn’t use it to replace a press release, or sales brochure, but it has a place in my marketing mix. It is great for the quick hit, and little extra juice to my overall marketing plan.
So if you are still sitting on the fence, unsure about Twitter and other social media, take a lesson from my mother-in-law and try it out! Boil a little water and see the results!
How Much Time for Social Media?
Small business owners often complain about the time required to jump into social media. But these same “busy” business owners will spend hours at networking events and in pointless one on one conversations.
Now don’t get me wrong. Good networking is valuable! And smart one-on-ones will fuel your business. Unfortunately, many business owners confuse activity with productivity. They assume if they simply show up enough times, something will happen. While this is fine in the early days of your business, as you get clients and projects, you need to manage your time, choosing the events, meetings and conversations which will make the most sense for your business.
The same approach works for social media and social networking. In the beginning, register for a lot of sites. Try out different tools. Then start narrowing your focus, concentrating on the tools and sites which make the most sense for you. Read more
Hoosier by Choice!
If you have been reading my blog lately, you may have noticed a definite Indiana bias creeping in. It is by design! A native of NYC, I have traveled though much of the US, and lived in several cities. Today I choose to make my home in Indy.
Beyond the good friends, and comfortable life style, I am intrigued by the potential of this city to be so much more in the next decade. Like a farmer in the spring time, I see the seedlings of a great city, with art, culture, and tremendous business opportunities. And yet, we are often overlooked, the Midwest’s best kept secret.
Today, December 3, 2009 (12:30pm EST / 11:30am CST) tweeters from the banks of the Ohio River to the shores of Lake Michigan will try to change that perceptoin by sending a tweet containing “#Indiana” The goal is to get #Indiana to trend among the top ten words on twitter.
What types of things will people be writing about? Organizer Amy Stark suggests we write about “something fun about ” #Indiana” or a favorite #Indiana tradition or vacation spot. The idea is to show the global twitter audience how cool Indiana can be.”
In a vibrant conversation on Smaller Indiana others have voiced opinions we should also write about things going on in the business community, about some of the successful new technologies which are emerging here. ( Address Two, Bank Service Inc)
I will be among the bloggers posting comments at 12:30. I will probably share a note about my favorite coffees hop (Lulu’s on 86th) or my husband ( @aballstudio) and his exhibit as part of Modern Perspectives this Friday or maybe a note about something one of my clients will be doing.
What about you? Will you help grow the trend?
Episode # 5 More Than A Few Words: Twitter for Business
I had a chance to sit down with Michael Reynolds, owner of Spin Web recently. We talked about how small business owners can use Twitter as part of their overall marketing strategy. 
Michael suggests small business owners should make Twitter part of their overall networking plan, using it to extend relationships created at live, off-line events.
A valuable search tool, he uses it to look for business opportunities and keep up with news and events. The “real time” nature of Twitter, he suggests makes it a more productive search tool then Google in certain situations.
In response to complaints that there is no time for Twitter, Michael says just like any other investment if it is “worth it to you, you make time for it.”
To hear the conversation simply click the link below.
Want to learn more about Twitter for business? Check out Michael’s seminar for Rainmaker University But hurry, there are just a few seats left!
And if you don’t have time for the seminar, or want even more, check out the new book by Indy’s own Kyle Lacy 
Conversation Starters
After more than seven years of active networking, finding a way to start a conversation with a complete stranger is second nature. Who are you? What do you do? Who would you like to meet, roll off my tongue with so little effort, that I forget it wasn’t always that easy for me.
Like many new business owners, our Intern Melinda Cooper is struggling to find her way in the maze of networking conversations, and has a few interesting suggestions. For example she thought using little known triva about Twitter might be an interesting way to get the conversation started. For example:
- It was originally called : twittr
- There are 8 birds in the Fail Whale, not 10 because there were originally 8 SUN X4100s (servers) behind Twitter. ( There are a lot more now)
- Twitter didn’t actually invent the @ mechanism people started using it, and they added it to the code.
Now these are interesting facts, and fun for Twitter users, but completely meaningless to the rest of the world. So I told Melinda she could take them to your next Tweet Up, but should leave them at home when heading to a mixed group of biz owners.
This is a common mistake novice networkers make. They forget to take a quick study of the room or the person they are talking with, before launching into a particular conversation. And it usually takes just a few questions to figure out if a topic is going to be a good fit.
I was once at a networking event with a number of inventors and investors. I was neither, but was pinned into a lengthy conversation by a chemist who just wanted to talk about his product. I honestly had no idea what he was talking about, so he was wasting his time and mine, and missing opportunities to talk to serious investors.
Instead of opening with his “pitch” if he had opened with a few questions, he would have learned a bit more about me, and realized, I wasn’t who he was looking to meet and moved on.
Good networking begins with a few good opening questions, and a little bit of practice. What are some of your favorite networking openers?
Retweeting Is What Makes Twitter Work
Written by Melinda Cooper
Oh Twitter… between your cute little bird icons and the way you allow me to view everything I need to know in seconds … my love runs deep.
For small business owners, Twitter is a key tool (or should be especially with sides like Hoot Suite). You can connect directly with your public/audience/customers in 140 words or less, multiple times a day, for free. And you can do it from anywhere.
But once you’ve Tweeted how awesome your sales are, your new hours, your important news — how do you get retweeted? (Have other’s share your information with their circles)
This article by Anand Srinivasan suggests the following:
- Install the retweet button
- Cater to the Ego
- Find the maven
- Direct message with link
- Put it in perspective
Now retreat to retweet!
Social Media at Any Age
I am getting ready for a presentation on social media to a group of “senior” execs (senior because they are older than I am). I was chosen because the meeting planner thought they would relate to me better than a “twenty something”. No disrespect to my many talented, and smart younger peers, but it is harder to pretend this is a young person’s game when they are looking face to face with someone their own age.
Every time I am asked to give a presentation like this, I think it is a little strange. Let’s face it, I don’t fit the stereotype of the typical Social Media Buff, but lately I am noticing more and more people like me, who don’t fit the stereotype. So today, blogging, and social media in general, is a game for everyone. (Though not everyone plays well)
What will I tell this group of senior execs about social media? It is easy to be overwhelmed by the sheer volume of choices, but you can’t use that as an excuse not to try any of them. You have to jump in, and it almost doesn’t matter where you jump first. Facebook, Smaller Indiana, Twitter, LinkedIn or Plaxo will all have their pros and cons. Find one which your friends, peers, business associates or children (and maybe grandchildren) are using. Connect with people you know, watch how they use the tools and learn from them.
- Start slow, listen to what others say, share little pieces of you at a time. Begin with the basics: contact information and a good photo, and build from there.
- Budget time, maybe 30 minutes a day for social media. Make it part of your routine. If you read the newspaper and make a few phone calls to start your day, scan social media for headlines, and chat with a few people on line. Social media is just another way of doing what you already do off line.
- Don’t be afraid of making a mistake. The fluid nature of the web is like sand castles and the ocean, very quickly what you say is washed away by a sea of other comments and communication.
Alexandra Samuel admits it is impossible to keep up with all the new technologies, and it is ok to stop trying to do what everybody does and find what works for you. She says:
What is available is choice: choice among social networks, choice among software programs, and choice among hardware options.
But most crucial of all, the choice to stop keeping up with all the shoulds and must-haves, and to start choosing technologies that support the goals and priorities that matter to you.
It seems I have written posts like this before and it surprises me how many people are still sitting on the sidelines. If you are in a corporate gig, it is time to jump in! The connections you make today may lead you to a new job tomorrow. And if you own your own business, you need the connection with your clients!
And if you are already playing, do you have a favorite tip for the new folks?
