maisha's blog

You've decided to take the plunge into Twitter. You even have some idea of how you're going to use it (gasp – a real Twitter strategy!). But since this is *online* marketing we're discussing, you now have a array of options facing you for exactly how to do that and which tools to use. Which one has the features you'll need? How do you answer that question without spending endless hours testing and wondering?

Looking for the perfect Twitter desktop app?

I use not one but four. Which one (or ones) will met your needs?

Here's my list of applications that you should consider for managing your Twitter account from your desktop.

Read article on Inc. magazine.

Small businesses all over the country are successfully using Twitter to win customers.

How are they doing it?

Here are 3 very action/sales focused case studies and a breakdown of what they mean and what you need to implement these same tactics for your business.

Read the article from Inc. magazine

The biggest challenge for bloggers is usually not content but readers. 

Here is the list of proven techniques, used by real small business owners, for getting new readers to check out your blog and then getting them to come back and become loyal readers.

Top 13 Ways to Drive Blog Readership
http://blog.inc.com/e-commerce/2010/01/13_proven_techniques_to_attrac.html

Why would you spend hours publishing free content and then more hours making sure people read it?

The purpose of blogging in general, is usually to establish and/or support an existing brand with an understanding of how that brand generates revenue.

Outside of the fact that you happen to be reading one right now, I find that there are lots of smart, business savvy folks out there who when placed in the position of having to explain, strategize or build a blog (or decide if one should be built at all) are at a bit of a loss. Blogs are usually easy for most people to recognize but harder for folks to define.

As of this writing, there are 47 million professional profiles on LinkedIn. How many of them represent your prospects, future partners, or happy customers just waiting to write a testimonial for you? After 6 articles on the topic you now have no excuse not to find out. :o)
 

Strategies, a LinkedIn profile guide, a LinkedIn feature guide, case studies and many user and reader contributions:

Maisha Walker's Inc. magazine series - a Small Business Owner's Guide to Leveraging LinkedIn

Depending on what kind of "entity" you are, you have 3 choices for how to create a presence on Facebook. As I mentioned in A Guide to Social Media Tools and their Uses, many of the social tools handle "entities" differently. The kind of presence you would set up for a business vs. a person in LinkedIn is not the same as what you would set up on Facebook, which makes for a very confusing experience for someone just trying to understand how to get started.

In my view Twitter, like many marketing and social media tools, is basically a stage. How you present yourself upon it depends on what talents you have and what you're trying to accomplish.

Below, I've outlined 9 methods of interacting on Twitter. This list should either allow you to comfortably ignore Twitter because none of these methods of interaction are feasible or meaningful for you, or recognize an opportunity for yourself or your business.

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Social media tools empower you, using tools that are largely free, to maximize your business' exposure and interaction, connecting and staying in touch more often and with more people than you ever could before.  But how do you do that?  What are the best social media marketing tools for small businesses?

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