The Internet Strategist
March 5, 2012

How I Built 10,000 Connections

Posted by Maisha Walker at 9:30 AM

Goal setting is embedded in my DNA. Because something deep inside me gets so much satisfaction from completing them, I have to be careful that the goals I set are not colossal wastes of time and energy.

Not long ago I gave myself the goal of quintupling the number of connections I have. Ultimately of course, my goal was to gain more clients, do more speaking engagements, produce my own events and also just get the information I have to share, out to more of the people who need it.

I started with about 2,000 connections and (geek that I am) set up an Excel spreadsheet to keep track on a monthly basis of the number of new connections I would gain across the various social networks.

As of September 2011 I am officially the proud owner of more than 10,000 social connections (actually as of this writing nearly 12,000). So as not to be disingenuous, I'll be more specific. That means that across the five social tools I actively use - LinkedIn, Facebook, my email list and Twitter, 10,000 of my closest friends’ multiple personalities are following my daily habits. As I started sharing this news with a few of those friends the questions you might expect came up. How did I do it? Is this number impressive or lame? What does this actually mean for my business and my career? And how the heck does one keep up with 10,000 connections across multiple networks in a way that isn't a full time job?

Since you all know I'm a wee bit of a data geek I though it would be helpful to provide some context around what my communication process looks like with that many connections going on.

I get:

> 1,000 emails per week
20 LinkedIn requests per week
30 Twitter followers per week
3 Facebook friends per week
20 messages per week on LinkedIn

These numbers all shift up significantly when I've published a new post or I've been featured somewhere like when I was named one of the top 11 people to follow on Twitter.

I also want to mention that over the years I've noticed lots of people using tools like TwitterAdder in order to rapidly gain followers. While this can be useful (large numbers by themselves can seem impressive) I made a conscious decision to grow my network "organically". Basically everyone in my network is someone I either personally know, or who I personally connected with out of a specific interest, or who requested a connection with me. I generally also disconnect with people who send me spam.

My thinking has been quality over quantity. I think this strategy has helped my click through rates on twitter and Facebook which are traditionally dismal to be higher than many people's even though my content is not generally for entertainment or shocking.

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How did I do it?

When I started my quest, I had about 2,000 connections. I was able to build an additional 8,000 connections in just 2 years. I strongly believe this is due to a couple of really big things that may unfortunately be hard to replicate, and then a lot of really small things that are actually quite easy for you to replicate - so easy in fact that sometimes people don't believe me.

Hard things to replicate:

  1. I speak. A LOT. In 2010 I spoke at nearly 100 events in a single year. If you do the math, that works out to an event every 3 days for a whole year. Over my career as an Internet Marketing consultant and speaker I estimate that I've spoken at or conducted more than 400 classes, events and workshops. I've met more than 5,000 people. When you look at it that way, having 10,000 connections may even seem small.

  2. Well, I write for Inc. That's one thing that it will be somewhat hard to replicate. But arguably Inc. just helped me to build my network a bit faster. I attribute about 40% of the new connections to this column either directly or indirectly through new subscribers, twitter followers, events I did for or through Inc. etc. There is no doubt in my mind that it really helps to have a highly visible platform for sharing information and news with people who want to hear from you (also read Blogging's Big Payoffs).

4 Easy things to replicate:

  1. Work your own blog - in every post I write (at least once I came up with the idea) you will always find 4 things
    • a link to share my content on Twitter
    • a link to follow me on Twitter
    • a link to join my email list
    • a link to connect with me on LinkedIn


  2. Work your email signature - while I don’t include every social link on the planet I do include a link to my LinkedIn profile, my Twitter feed and my Inc. column. It’s a great way to make sure people know what you’re doing without having to interrupt their day to tell them (although I do recommend that too).

  3. Work it in person - use a newsletter signup sheet if you’re speaking. Bring handouts with your social links on them and a reason to connect. Collect business cards and be sure to send those people an email inviting them to connect with you on LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter. Consider inviting people from your professional organizations and have something to offer – provide a reason why they should connect with you (and not a “download my free whitepaper” reason, more of a “this is who I am and why I think connecting might be mutually beneficial” reason).

  4. Work the Press/Blogosphere – this is everything from getting yourself nominated for top 10 lists to exchanging articles on a new blog where you can pick up a new audience. You have to find ways to reach new people if you want to build an audience fast (then see items 1 and 3)!

These things may seem small but over the 24 months of this goal, I averaged just 300 new connections per month. That doesn’t seem like a huge number but it adds up. If you market consistently those small monthly numbers over time add up to big gains in the depth and breadth of your professional network.

I did begin the article with making sure the goals I set are not “colossal wastes of time,” yes?

Has it been completely worth it to have all these social connections? In order to save you some time, in the next post I’ll outline exactly how I LEVERAGE these 10,00012,000 connections and both what has and has not been worthwhile.


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September 24, 2011

Live from Inc. 5000 and Meeting Barbara Corcoran

Posted by Maisha Walker at 4:44 PM

My first Inc. 5000 conference experience began with a 2am arrival at Washington’s Union Station to a taxi line that snaked around the corner with not a taxi in sight. But everything was uphill from there. I shared a ride with one of the Inc. 5000 winners who showed a completely endearing excitement as he pointed to the brightly labeled Inc. 5000 van stationed outside the hotel. His excitement was contagious.

 

Ted Leonsis - does happiness matter?

I was blown away by some of the day’s presenters.

Ted Leonsis spoke from the heart about being happy to be successful. He shared the harrowing story of being in a near plane crash and striking a deal with God. “If you get me through this, I will give back more than I take.” He told us he’s been trying to live that ever since. I’ll be checking out his new book when I get home. His key takeaways:

  1. Be an active participant in multiple communities of interest and activate communities of interest in your company. We are human. We need to connect. Make these connections around things you care about a central part of your life and enable the same for your employees.

  2. Enable your employees and customers to have high levels of personal expression. There is a reason why blogging and social media posting have become so popular.

  3. Have personal empathy. He told a great story about making a statement that he wanted his company to be “cleaner” and then splitting the day between sitting in the stadium with President Obama and cleaning the stadium (including the women’s bathroom) with the cleaning staff so he could walk in their shoes.

  4. Give back to the community.

  5. Articulate and believe that there is a higher calling. This can be religious or can be a larger goal that you are working to attain. He talked about Groupon’s higher calling being to help get customers for small businesses and to help people to manage their budgets.

Ted’s presentation really inspired me. His ending point – be in pursuit of the “double bottom line” not just profit but social responsibility and social impact – including an impact on you.

 

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Barbara Corcoran challenges the attendees to be courageous

Barbara Corcoran was a dynamo on stage – sharing her rags to riches story starting out as a waitress in pigtails. I’m proud to say that when I met her we hugged and took an awesome photo which I’ll share with you when I get my copy from the Inc. photographer!

I am now a Barbara Corcoran fan. She embodied how scrappiness, chutzpa and sheer charisma were the cornerstones of her success and encouraged small business owners, who have so much less to lose, to be more courageous and take more chances in creating a brand for themselves. My favorite quote of hers “Perception creates reality”. Time and time again, she provided examples of how her merely suggesting the reality she wanted helped other people to make it real for her. I also appreciated her reminder about the “pressure of the crowd” in sales. Creating scarcity if used wisely can be an amazing sales tactic.

 

Tristan & Daniel talk daily deals and local marketing

 



Lastly – at a panel in the afternoon Tristan Walker, Director of Business Development for FourSquare, Marci Weisler of Tipping Point Partners, Daniel Kim founder of Red Mango and Inc. blogger Howard Greenstein tackled the hotly controversial topic of leveraging daily deal sites and tapping into local marketing. They shared excellent advice and ideas including:

 

  • Know your average sale - don’t make the mistake of not knowing how much your average sale is in advance of crafting a discount deal.

  • Count all of your costs when thinking about the profit of a daily deal i.e. franchisees have to pay 6% of revenues even for revenues from a daily deal.

  • Eroding value - they all were concerned that the daily deal industry may in the long run hurt service based businesses like spas by creating a culture that in a sense commoditizes these services so that customers never expect to pay full price. They did suggests trying multi-package discounts.  For example - a discount on three sessions instead of one so that customers build loyalty. Another suggestion was to create a mailing list of your daily deal customers and then run your own deals with discount codes so that your business keeps all of the profit.

  • I also loved Tristan’s story about how vendor Jimmy Chu used FourSquare to get 4,000 people  chasing the Jimmy Chu brand all over London for 3 weeks and drive a 30% lift in sales.  I look forward to sharing a video where I talk more about this with Tristan.

  • The panelists were hard pressed to come up with examples of location based deals for BtoB companies. If you’re a BtoB and trying to figure this out, you’re not alone.

I also had the chance to interview Tristan and Daniel to get some insights to share with you including the backstory on Jimmy Chu. When the videos are posted I will share a few links.

Throughout the conference I got to speak to several attendees.  I was amazed at how consistently powerful their experiences have been and how much the companies who attend love the Inc. 5000 conference. Over and over again, they talk about the ability to really connect with other business owners which can be so easy to miss in today’s Internet driven world. My thought – too many people think of social media as an alternate to face-to-face connections. In fact, social media is about creating and enabling more intimate and face-to-face connections with people you might not otherwise have met. The goal is to get beyond the simple social connection and engage.

Today was my chance to be in the hot seat. I engaged with Inc. 5000 attendees by conducting live critiques and giving answers to how they could use Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social tools to build powerful marketing strategies and brands and drive business online. 

More soon!




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January 17, 2011

Online Marketing's Best Kept Secret

Posted by Maisha Walker at 12:00 PM

Over the last few months we've been working with a number of our clients on establishing and growing their email marketing strategies. We helped one client send out an email for the first time and saw conversion rates that were 2-3 times higher than their Web site conversion rates. I mean conversions from subscribers to buyers which meant real dollars in their pocket.

As we start 2011 and face the hype over new tools and new ways to use "old" tools like Facebook, this is an excellent time for you to consider the importance of email communications in your marketing strategy.

While email marketing doesn't usually get you in front of millions of people, it's good to remember that for most small businesses, getting in front of millions of people is not the point.

The point is to put what you have to offer in front of the people who have the greatest interest in it, and are most likely to either buy it or share it with someone who will. I may ruffle a few feathers by saying that I still think the best way to do that online is email. Social media can be more fun but it is also usually far more distracted. And because it's so easy for people to join and unjoin your social media groups, it also feels like less of a committment.

The psychological and physical barriers that make your email list hard to grow (subscribers' fear of having their email address snatched up, gradually tormented, and then hurled into the bottomless pit of spam despair, or the plain realization that it's just more work to actually type something than to click a "like" button) on the flip side can also make your email list an audience of much higher quality than many of your social networks. When someone joins your email list, they usually mean it. They've often made a greater committment to you and are showing that they actually want to hear from you.

So here are...

5 reasons why you should make 2011 the year you dedicate to email marketing:

 

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  1. it requires very little effort to get started - sign up for a mailing list software and put the signup form on your Web site and you're off to the races!

  2. you don't have to write that often - even once per quarter is enough at the start and is better than the extremes of not at all or emailing every month with nothing interesting to say.

  3. there are hordes of people out there who WANT to hear from you - who are you to deny them? Social media, social schmedia! Email was the original excellent way to keep up those one-to-many relationships, build your brand among people who want it, and turn your customers into evangelists. It still works, and for some things, better than social media.

  4. it is an excellent way to get you in the habit of something you should be doing anyway - sharing your story. You need to tell people what you're doing. Thinking about content to share on a regular basis is healthy for your business.

  5. average direct marketing response rates are usually less than 3% - that means 97% of the people you paid to reach will not be ready to buy from you. If buying is the only option you give them, those 97% of people will probably just disappear - even if many of them liked what you had to offer. Don't give them a "buy it" or "beat it" ultimatum. Give them the option of saying "please stay on my radar" for when they *are* ready to buy.



Build Your Email Marketing Chops

Mastering email marketing takes time, attention and planning. You will probably not see huge amounts of additional revenue in the first 6 months. This is one more reason why you should START NOW!

As my very wise grandfather would have said, you need time to "build your chops". Make a few mistakes. Publish a few pieces of horrible content that your 100 readers will tell you they hate and then as your list grows you'll be able to publish a few pieces your 1,000 readers will love. Learn what your audience wants. They will tell you through their email opens, their clicks and their actual responses to the messages you've sent them. All you have to do is give them the chance, and listen.


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October 26, 2010

6 Tools to Nurture and Engage Your Twitter Followers

Posted by Maisha Walker at 10:35 AM

A while back I wrote a piece on Blogging tools you'll actually use to run and grow your blog. I received a lot of great feedback on that series of posts and I wanted to provide a similar short list for running and growing your Twitter community.

Instead of a frighteningly comprehensive list of every Twitter tool under the sun, below are just the 6 that I think are particularly useful and effective for starting to really engage people on Twitter.

The first 3 are kind of standard/basics so skip 'em if you're a Twitter veteran. The second three are tools you may not have heard of and should check out because they'll enable you to do things that you can leverage for additional exposure, traffic, and customers.


The Basics

Link Shorteners - the vast majority of posts I see on Twitter are not the "what I ate for breakfast" posts, but people sending links to content - articles, videos, pictures etc. This is a great way to help people understand your area(s) of interest and expertise as well as help them find great content online. The basic purpose of a link shortener is to help you get around Twitter's limit for the length of each of your posts (or tweets).

You have only 140 characters to work with so sites like Bit.ly, tr.im and TinyURL will take your long, long URLs:
http://www.inc.com/maisha-walker/use-twitter-to-inspire-action.html

and turn them into nice 15-20 character ones à la:
http://bit.ly/dudwkJ (go ahead, click it!).

Many of the tools you'll use to post messages on Twitter (see Shortlist of Twitter Apps for Your Desktop and Pick the Right Twitter Tool: Mobile Apps), come with built in URL shorteners.

In addition to the practical necessity of shorter links, most of these shortening tools also provide great tracking! You can see how many people clicked on your links, which links were most popular, when people clicked etc. to inform you about which topics are most popular with your Twitter audience.


TweetMeme - the ubiquitous grey and green "retweet" box (which you see in the top right area of this post), allows readers to click on the image and easily send or "retweet" your post to their own followers on Twitter. It's a great way to encourage your community to spread the word about what you're doing or share your words of advice/wisdom.

In addition TweetMeme actually tracks your links as they hop around through the Twitterverse and displays the total number of times your link was retweeted. Not only does this help you to understand the popularity of given topics, it brilliantly enables the raging competitor in each of us to benchmark the success of our post against others and even ourselves. Very handy!


TwitPic - one of the many tools that enbale you to take photos with your phone and post them onto Twitter. Other products that do roughly the same thing: TwitGoo, yfrog and img.ly. Often tools like these are also integreated into the Twitter mobile app you're using. You usually also get some statistics so you can track response to your photos. Images can be very engaging. You'll have to decide if you want to use a special tool like this or simply link people to a Flickr account, Facebook page or a page on your Web site that displays your photos.


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Stretch a Little...

There are lots of neat little apps out there that will enable you to get creative using Twitter to build a strong and engaged community. Once you're ready to amp up your Twitter strategy here are three apps to help you get started (note this amp-ing up could be now, or it could be never. Don't feel obliged. Fancy-schmancy Twitter strategies are not for everyone but this will help you get your head around the kinds of things you can do.):

TweetSwell – suggested to me by my friend, their PR guy @TheDaveClarke who helped me compile the apps for this article, TweetSwell enables you to create Twitter-based polls – with each response also doubling as a tweet to help the poll go viral. TweetSwell also works to maintain your brand identity by making sure your poll pages keep your customized Twitter layout. Similar tools are http://twtpoll.com and http://twtsurvey.com.


 

TwtVite - allows you to use Twitter to congregate in person - sort of similar to Eventbrite. Watch the little animation video to get a sense of how it works.

For an example with live-action characters, I've found this fantastic "case study" for you of a bar owner in Milwaukee who used TwtVite to help him host the biggest Tweetup in the history of the Midwest! To get the juicy details of how he did it, visit the page and scroll down to see his answer to the question "How did you get the word out before the event?"


TwtQpon - creates online coupons which can be posted to various social networks, including Twitter. While there are tools like Groupon, Living Social that also handle online couponing, TwtQpon is designed to work specifically within social networks.

Anyone out there used TwtQpon who can talk about it? I'm eager to hear business owners' experiences with it as I think online couponing is an amazing opportunity for small businesses to very clearly and directly drive a lot of new and repeat business.


Leave me a comment and tell everyone about what you've done. Be sure to include a "signature" in your comment that includes your name, company name and a link to your company Web site so we can learn more about you!

If you have had particular success with "local" marketing using tools like Twitter, Groupon, Yelp, Facebook, online coupons, or last minute deals and can back it up with real data, let me know. I will be featuring a variety of companies as examples right here in "The Internet Strategist" on Inc.
You can submit your social/local experiences here.


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October 4, 2010

Use Twitter to Inspire Action

Posted by Maisha Walker at 4:31 PM

Over the last 3 weeks I've been part of a 5-week, 5-city speaking and book signing tour sponsored by Deluxe Corp called the Small Business Heroes tour. I'm excited about our next stop tomorrow which is Orlando and I've been thrilled to connect with and provide advice to many businesses in Denver, Portland and Austin. I was also thrilled to make my broadcast television debut with an interview on NBC news. I can never get over what a goofball I seem to be on camera but I was thankful for the opportunity and humbled by my interviewer, journalist and fellow entrepreneur Gregg Moss telling me he's a big fan of this blog! Thank you!

While the Deluxe staff on the tour are giving free presentations on many topics I've spoken and written about including Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Marketing, building Web Sites and lots of others, my presentation for this tour is on "local marketing" - how you as a small business owner can easily use the Internet to *successfully* gain visibility and sales within a local area at very little cost.

I am currently working on a whole series of articles around this topic and if you have a local marketing success story, I would love to feature your business here! So if you have a local marketing success story to share you can tell me about it here.

One of the most successful tools to market locally is - surprise, surprise - Twitter! Small businesses all over the country are successfully using Twitter to win customers.


How are they doing it?

Examples abound.

There's the Chicago based Domino's franchisee who sends personalized videos (think Old Spice Guy, but less naked) to people who tweet both praise and complaints about his pizzas, getting him praise on 87,000 Web sites and fierce loyalty from his customers.

There's the Santa Monica Hotel lounge that got 250 people into its lounge one night (to spend $$ on lots of other things) by offering free bubbly to it's Twitter and Facebook followers for "friending" them and then accessing a secret passcode.


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There's the San Francisco massage and wellness spa that regularly fills it's open, unused appointments by offering last-minute, deep discounts to twitter followers.

The bottom line is - it works. But you have to know how it works and when it works -- Twitter isn't great for everything.


How can you make Twitter work for you?

All of these examples fall into the category of "remarkable" content either as:

1. An offer they can't refuse - deep discounts & free champagne sound like pretty sweet deals. So sweet that they grab your attention and make you want to patronize the business if for no other reason than to check it out. Of course it's up to the business to turn those newcomers into loyal customers but getting people in the door is far, far more than half the battle. The trick is to find an offer that is exciting, relevant to your business and affordable.

2. Content that is highly Personal and/or Strikingly Unusual - Ramon the Domino's pizza franchisee didn't have to spend a lot of money or offer deep discounts, he won loyalty with a secret weapon that is hard to copy or steal - his charm and personality. This is one of the areas that scares business owners the most - the kind of committment that Ramon shows to having a highly personal, highly communicative relationship with his customers. While this can be a home run for people who are lucky enough to have that personality, many business owners wouldn't want to go down this path.

However here's another example of a business owner who uses her personality and passion in a far less overwhelming way. The Pink Cake Box makes "extreme cakes" and the business owner simply posts photos of her cakes to Flickr. But the cakes are so remarkable and she's been doing it consistently for so long (years) that she has built a Flickr following that now drives 10% of her Web site's traffic.


The path you take depends on you.

Yes - you! And what resources are available to you including your own passions and skills. When you think of what to offer is it your personality (very time consuming) or a great deal (more of a financial investment)?

What can you do or offer?

Who is it exactly that you're trying to reach and for what purpose? Getting new customers? Keeping old ones?

Make sure you figure out the answers to these questions first. If you're not able to answer these questions, move on to something else. Perhaps local marketing and/or Twitter are not right for your business!


Discuss These Topics Live

If you're in Orlando on October 5th or Charlotte, North Carolina on October 12th, you can see me walk through these topics in more depth in person at noon. I've also been known to sign a few copies of my book as well as sit down one-on-one with businesses for a bit of highly personalized advice.

I hope to see you there!


Follow me on Twitter@maishawalker and join me at the Small Business Heroes Tour in Orlando on October 5th & Charlotte, North Carolina on October 12th.




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August 9, 2010

Shortlist of Twitter Apps for Your Desktop

Posted by Maisha Walker at 10:30 AM

Last time I was discussing the challenges in deciding which Twitter tools to use once you've decided you're going to use Twitter at all. And when I say "use" I'm focusing on your role as a distributer of content.

I want to reiterate that this isn't as big a decision as, say, choosing blogging software. If you decide to change blogging software it can be a real pain (and expense) to do so. But Twitter management tools tend to have three things in common that make them wonderfully interchangeable:

  1. Free Versions - pretty much all the tools have a free version that will work for the majority of people. You don't have to make any financial investment to try the tool out.

  2. Low Learning Curve - the tools don't take a lot of time to learn how to use – so you don't have to invest inordinate amounts of your time to discover if one of them is going to work for you.

  3. Won't hoard your content - because the tools are basically taking content from Twitter itself (and just displaying it in a more useful way), your core content is on Twitter, not stuck inside the tool. You can even use more than one tool to read the same content in different ways if that's what works for you.

So it's not that hard to switch between them or even to use more than one tool at the same time! While I offered some hints last time on mobile tools, this becomes more relevant as we look at the tools you'll consider for desktop usage.

In fact I actually use four or five different tools to manage my Twitter accounts. Between active posting, list management, direct message conversations and statistics, there isn't one tool so far that has met all my twitter-ing needs. While this obviously isn't ideal from an ease of use perspective, it is great that I at least have the option to use as many tools as work for me i.e. using Co-Tweet to answer all of my direct messages or using HootSuite to publish all of my posts. This is only possible because the tools happily pull all of the relevant content *from Twitter* instead of storing it in their own database. So I never actually *have* to choose.

Here is a breakdown of some of the available tools that I think are worth checking out:

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TweetDeck - known for it's desktop version but also has a mobile version. You can monitor multiple accounts, tweet from multiple names, and setup pop-up alerts. There's also an iPad version.



CoTweet - great when you'd like to give multiple users access to the same Twitter account or even assign specific posts to an individual user to respond to. Because of it's multi-user and assignment features it's a great tool if you plan to use Twitter for customer service and has attracted large brands like Starbucks, JetBlue, and Coca-Cola. They do offer a feature-rich free version. As of the writing of this article it is desktop only.

 

Twhirl - like CoTweet and TweetDeck, Twhirl can handle multiple accounts and has all the features you'd expect. Note Twhirl was acquired by Seesmic in 2008.

 

HootSuite - a great tool (and my personal favorite) with a user-friendly interface. All the standard Twitter functions plus the ability to track keywords and trends, post directly to Facebook, schedule posts, put followers into groups and the ability to manage multiple accounts. You can also track clickthroughs on your embedded links. HootSuite has both desktop and mobile versions.

 

Twitbin - Twitbin is actually a Firefox extension that allows you to view your Twitter accounts as a sidebar in your browser. This setup allows you to easily keep a constant eye on what's happening on Twitter. Wonderfully convenient. For those who want to make Twitter a central communication tool holding real time conversations and posting multiple times per day this "always on" setup may be the tool for you!

 

SocialOomph - people really debate the automated direct reply issue. I like it beacuse although it can be annoying having to delete DMs that aren't very useful, it can also be a quick way to learn more about the person you just followed -- what someone puts in their direct message, and sends to every single person who follows them is telling. Or if you ask a good question in your own automated DM, it can be a way to learn something about the person who just followed you. SocialOomph has a good tool to enable you to create an automated DM as well as lots of other features.



Which Twitter desktop app do you use? Did I leave yours off of the list? Have you had any great or challenging experiences with any of the tools above?

One of the most important things you can do on Twitter is actually engage other users. While the list above tackles some of the basics of posting, next time I look forward to getting into tools for engagement and for measuring your success.

 

Follow me on Twitter. Special thanks to Dave Clarke, Communications Strategist at Churnless, for his excellent help in compiling the data for this article! You can ask Dave about his favorite Twitter tools at @thedaveclarke or ask me more about mine at @maishawalker.

 

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July 6, 2010

Pick The Right Twitter Tool: Mobile Apps

Posted by Maisha Walker at 10:33 AM

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? Which one has the lowest learning curve?

If I can ease the anxiety a bit on this one, I actually don't think this is a place to worry too much about making the "right" decision from the start. If you know (and abide by) these three reasons you'll be able to switch tools at a whim without much, if any, remorse:

  1. Free! - pretty much all the tools have a free version that will work for the majority of people. You don't have to make any financial investment to try the tool out.

  2. Low Learning Curve - the tools don't take a lot of time to learn how to use – so you don't have to invest inordinate amounts of your time to discover if one of them is going to work for you.

  3. Won't horde your content - because the tools are basically taking content from Twitter itself in a more useful and user friendly way, your core content is on Twitter, not stuck inside the tool. You can even use more than one tool to read the same content in different ways if that's what works for you.

Think of your goal as finding one or two tools and then being mindful not to do anything that *removes* content from the Twitter database while using them.

So without further ado, here are some Twitter tools that can help you put in play your tweeting master plan.

 

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Mobile Apps - Twitter Tools to Manage Accounts, Posts, Replies and Multiple Users

Let's face it, some of our best ideas happen when we're in the car, brushing our teeth, just about to fall asleep or otherwise un-tethered to a traditional computer. Here are some great Twitter tools for the mobile in you:

Seesmic - this application is especially nice for devices operating on Android. It has a clean, thorough interface and connects with URL shorteners and photo/video sharing. It's a great tool if you want a single software for both mobile and desktop.

TwitterBerry - If you've got a BlackBerry, this is a must-have app. It provides most of the basic Twitter functionality you experience at your desktop including the ability to tweet pictures, view timelines, search, and send and receive direct messages. Note however this is only for BlackBerry and as of the time of this article does not have a desktop version.

Tweetie - in addition to the Twitter functionality you'd expect, Tweetie can also do a restoration of your user interface if you're interrupted by a phone call and your offline Twitter actions can also be synced up when you come back online. Note that as of this article this tool does not have a desktop version.

What do you like/dislike about these mobile twitter tools? Which ones did I leave out?

Next time we'll talk about desktop apps, tools to boost engagement and tools for measuring your success.

 

Follow me on Twitter at @maishawalker. Special thanks to Dave Clarke, Communications Strategist at Churnless, for his excellent help in compiling the data for this article! You can ask Dave about his favorite Twitter tools at @thedaveclarke.

 

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March 23, 2010

Growing Your Business: Insider Tips from Growco

Posted by Maisha Walker at 1:48 PM

Last week I had the opportunity to speak at Inc.'s Growco conference in Orlando.

Not only did I meet some amazing business owners, I also had the opportunity to collaborate with Deluxe (yes, the check printing company!) who is making a bold move to extend their business beyond branding printed items to supporting small businesses in their need for digital branding as well.

Deluxe hosted a dinner on Monday night with approximately 50 business owners in attendance. They invited me to be their guest speaker and lead a discussion on how growing businesses can get the most out of online marketing.

From innovative product retailers like Rich Johnston of KeyPlex Direct who had some excellent questions like "When is blog content considered too old and no longer trustworthy?" to fine art photographers like Anne Day of Anne Day Photography who was at the conference helping to produce social video content for an inspring book project targeting youth entrepreneurs, to builders like Peter Feinmann, who was "hoping that I would be stimulated by new and creative ways to grow my residential design/build business. I was not disappointed." The dinner hosted a dynamic group of successful businesses that all had unique and fascinating challenges, questions and experiences to share about how to maximize their online brand.

One of the biggest topics of discussion for almost all of the business owners was deciding whether to and how to market using a blog. It is a question many business owners are still facing. How do I get started? How do I come up with content that is interesting? How often should I post? How important is blogging for Search Engine Optimization? What else can blogging do for me?

Luckily I had answers!  We had a passionate discussion about these and other topics during the cocktail hour and over a fantastic dinner at The Ritz Carlton. I thought in honor of our event I would post some quick references for you to get answers to those questions and share with everyone what was discussed at our intimate dinner.

Growco Attendee Question: How do I get started?
The Internet Strategist: Dive in! One thing you'll definitely want to do is make sure you've thought about the purpose of your blog and how often you plan to post. Make sure you're choosing a frequency you can keep up with for the next 2-3 years minimum. To test the waters you can even start posting without making your blog public. Take a look at my 10 Step Guide to Blogging and use it as your step-by-step planning guide to get you started with your blog.

 

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Growco Attendee Question: How do I know if my content will be interesting?
The Internet Strategist: I strongly recommend not worrying too much about this one. The best bet is to write about things you are a) passionate about, b) extremely knowledgable about, and c) will be able to stand writing about for the next several years! The wonderful thing about the Internet is that there are just so many darn people on it. There's likely to be a sizable group of people who are just as passionate as you are about just about anything. Keep in mind however that your goals will impact your topic choice - are you looking to drive advertising revenue or are you looking to build credibility in your industry? Make sure you choose a topic that is appropriate for your goal and don't worry about the traffic yet. That comes with marketing. But do be honest with yourself - if you're really not a great writer, blogging may not be the venue for you. There are so many other Internet Marketing Techniques available to you. You can download my free Internet Marketing Checklist to get your head around what they all are. When it comes to marketing it's all about the cost/benefit. If you have limited resources (as we all do) make sure you are making the most of them.

Growco Attendee Question: How often should I post?
The Internet Strategist: So I get this question a *lot*. This is completely based on your goals. If you are looking to create a high traffic blog that will generate advertising revenue, minimum once per week but even better is once per day. Time and time again bloggers have seen that the more you post, the more traffic you receive. If you are not looking for advertising revenue, my advice is don't sweat it. Do what you can handle now (monthly, even quarterly is ok) and then build up to more frequent posts if you can.

Growco Attendee Question: How important is blogging for Search Engine Optimization?
The Internet Strategist: blogging can be a great way to boost your search engine rankings and is often a large factor in choosing to blog. But note - to reap the benefits of SEO, you have to have your blog content built within the same site you want optimized. So you can't build a free blog at WordPress.com and then just have a link to your corporate Web site if you want your corporate Web site to improve in the search rankings. If you want more detail on this take a look at these two articles: "Build Your Blog" and "Blogging for Coin"

Growco Attendee Question: What else can blogging do for me?
The Internet Strategist: That's a big question. There are so many things from building credibility, creating content that can go "viral", being the basis of other kinds of social media marketing, Twitter links, LinkedIn profile content (see this post for details), being fodder for other materials (ebooks, printed books etc.), helping people truly understand what it is that you do and what your expertise and strengths are. To help you understand the myriad benefits of blogging and decide which benefits you want to pursue, I would strongly recommend referencing these three articles:

I'm looking forward to the next big Inc. event and hope I'll see you there!  I've been promised some video from the dinner - if it's not too horribly embarrassing I'll try to post it here!