A video for people who wonder why blogs are such a big deal.
This video comes in an unbranded “presentation quality” version that can be licensed for use in the workplace. http://www.commoncraft.c…
Archive for July, 2009
Blogs In Plain English
On July - 28 - 2009
How to Conduct Domain Name Search
On July - 28 - 2009
Creating a website is not just about creating your pages, designing them and including all the important information. It is also about creating a domain name
* That relates to your products and services
* That is easy to remember and spell for your customers.
A domain name that is easy to remember will have more return customers and more word of mouth advertising than domain names which are hard to spell, remember, or both. When it comes to searching for a domain name, all you have to do is go online and search for ones that you are interested in to see if they have been taken or not. There are a lot of sites that will let you search domain names.
First of all, prepare a list of domains you would like to register. Try to get several combinations, don’t register the first one you can think of. You need at least 10-20 versions.
If your site doesn’t necessarily need to be international, then you also consider buying a domain for your own country instead of .com – .de for Germany (Deutschland), or a co.uk for the UK, for example.
Stick with a .com, don’t opt for .tv, .biz, or any other suffix if at all possible especially if that exact domain name is taken as a com. You will end up losing business to that site.
Now submit a list of domains to some site to search for the available domain names.
If you are lucky, some domains are available. Register them and don’t wait until them get someone else.
Don’t set your mind on one particular domain name. Also remember that there are niches where every two dictionary words names are already taken. You may need a patience to find the available and good one.
Try to find synonyms for keywords you use, or try to remove some letters. For example, madconomist.com instead of madeconomist.
There is a way to simplify domain name selection – use software! Powerful software, such as Available Domains Pro can generate thousand of valuable domain names in a few minutes. It can be easily customized to fit your needs. Try this one and you won’t regret.
The Business Podcasting Primer
On July - 28 - 2009
A quick search for podcast on Wikipedia brings up this definition:”A podcast is a digital media file, or a series of such files, that is distributed over the Internet using syndication feeds for playback on portable media players and personal computers. A podcast is a specific type of webcast which, like ‘radio’, can mean either the content itself or the method by which it is syndicated; the latter is also termed podcasting. The host or author of a podcast is often called a podcaster. The term “podcast” is a portmanteau of the name of Apple’s portable music player, the iPod, and broadcast[1]; a “pod” refers to the iPod, and “cast” to the idea of broadcasting.”
Put simply, a podcast is a way to publish regular audio and/or video files over the Internet. People can use iTunes (the most popular podcasting software) to subscribe to your podcast and automatically download it onto their iPods. You can add new audio/video files to your podcast using special podcasting software and iTunes will automatically copy the new files onto your iPod for you, keeping your copy of the podcast up to date. In this week’s newsletter I’m going to show you how we’ve just setup our first podcast. I’ll show you everything we did and I’ll also give you some reasons why you should consider setting up a podcast for your business.
A Sample Podcast If you have an iPod then open up iTunes and click the Advanced menu. Choose the “Subscribe to Podcast…” option and copy the URL below:
http://www.interspire.com/email_marketing_podcast/podcast.xml
This is the URL to our new email marketing podcast that I’m going to talk about in this newsletter. If you subscribe to our podcast it will appear in iTunes like so:
Our podcast is all about email marketing and includes 6 tracks totalling 30 minutes in length. You can subscribe to our podcast, download it to your iPod and listen to it in the car or when you exercise, just like you can with all podcasts.
I’ve submitted our podcast to iTunes (Australia), so it will appear under the Business -> Management and Marketing category within a few days. Enough about our podcast. Here’s how and why you should create your own.
Why Start a Podcast? The main reason to start a podcast is to position yourself as an expert in your area of interest. A podcast is a great way to build trust and show potential customers you know what you’re talking about. At the end of the day a podcast is a great marketing tool, with the ultimate goal being more customers for you.
It doesn’t matter which industry you’re in – you can use a podcast to educate and inform your customers and prospects about topics relating to your industry. For example, if you’re a web designer you could start a podcast where you talk about the factors involved in building a usable or profitable web site. If you’re a marketer you could start a podcast to share marketing tips.
How to Start Your Own PodcastIn reality a podcast is nothing more than one or more audio tracks that you’ve recorded attached to a specially formatted RSS feed. Here are the steps to create your own podcast:
1. Come up with one or more topics for your podcast that you could write/speak about with authority.
2. Buy a microphone for your computer. Any type will do.
3. Download Audacity (a free audio recording tool) if you want to record your own voice for your podcast.
4. If you’d rather have someone else voiceover your podcast or you’re short on time then you can find someone on Voices.com.I chose to use an Australian voice-over specialist from Voices.com to record our podcast. His name is Justin and he did a great job.
5. Record your podcast and save it as an MP3 file, or send the script of your podcast to your voice-over specialist.
6. Now you need to create the RSS feed for your podcast. The RSS feed for a podcast is similar to a blog’s RSS feed – it’s a simple way to list the details of your podcast in a single XML file.
Apple has created the ultimate guide to creating an RSS feed for your podcast, which you can read here. If you’re stuck you can see what the XML content of our podcast’s RSS feed here.
7. Upload your RSS feed and MP3 files to a public folder on your web site.
8. Go to the podcasts section in iTunes and click the “Submit a Podcast” link. Type in the URL to your podcast’s RSS file and follow the instructions.
As you can see there’s a few hours of work involved in creating a podcast using the method I’ve described above, however it’s well worth it in the end.
5 Blogging Plugins You Must Use
On July - 28 - 2009
Plugins for the WordPress platform are tons of fun and incredibly useful. You’ll find everything you need to turn your blog into something amazing that is every bit as great as you would have imagined. While there are many plugins out there that are worth your while, the five that follow are the cream of the crop.
Akismet
This plugin actually comes standard with your WordPress installation. You will have to get a WordPress.com API key to make it work, but after you do it’s pure bliss. This will help keep spam comments away automatically! Akismet is smart enough to put suspected spam into a separate folder, and it even learns from you as you go. You should always activate this plugin for the best results with your blog. It saves you a ton of time too!
Related Posts
Linking to different pages in your blog from every page is a great search engine optimization tactic. The problem with blogs is that it can be so hard to dig through old posts that are related and manually link them in your new post. Related posts solves that problem! This will automatically insert some relevant posts for your blog. It’s very hands-off and very effective. Both visitors and search engines love this plugin.
All in One SEO Pack
Once again, optimizing your site for the search engines is going to be one of the best ways you can make money with your blog. The higher you rank, the more traffic you recieve. The more traffic you receive, the more money you make! The All In One SEO pack makes your life easier because it allows you to specify the title, description (that will show up in the search engines), and keywords.
WordPress Database Backup
Backing up your blog is crucial if you value your business. You never know what could happen to your server, and it would be awfully devastating to lose everything. You can easily back everything up by pressing a few simple buttons with this effective and very useful plugin.
Top Commentators
This plugin is greatly effective and it encourages a lot of interaction on your blog. It lists the people who have the most comments within your blog. They love this because they get the extra exposure. You love it because people really get into posting to try and be at the top. It also gives social proof. When people visit a blog for the first time they are more likely to stick around if there are clearly other people there who value your content. The fact that they can see others participating is a great thing.
There are an incredible number of different plugins out there that are ready for you to use. Install these essentials and you’ll be well-prepared to become the great blogger you’re going to become.
Taking the Easier Route to Generating RSS Subscribers
On July - 28 - 2009
Copyright 2005 Rok Hrastnik
RSS is certainly still far from being user-friendly, which is
especially evident once you try and left-click on an RSS
subscribe button.
In most cases your browser will simply display the XML code of
the RSS feed … which does not go far in making internet users
comftorable with RSS.
Heck, if you didn’t know what RSS was and clicked on an RSS
button only to get a page full of code you don’t understand,
would that aid in turning you in to an RSS user?
Probably no. And much worse, you’d probably never consider
clicking on one of those buttons again, at least not any time
soon.
Consequently, if as a marketer you’re trying to generate RSS
subscribers, simply using an RSS subscribe button is the worst
way to go for you and for the RSS industry as a whole as well.
So, what alternatives are there?
a] CREATE AN RSS PRESENTATION PAGE
If you’re trying to generate RSS subscribers from your site and
are targeting audiences that might not be farmiliar with RSS,
you need at least a basic presentation of what RSS is on your
site, and you need to link to that either directly from the RSS
subscribe button or from a location right next to that button,
like you can see on the MarketingStudies.net example.
On this page you should explain in easy-to-understand terms what
RSS is, how your visitors can use it and how they’ll benefit,
and then provide links to some RSS readers and again links to
your RSS feeds.
This page will be instrumental in telling your visitors about
RSS and helping them subscribe to your feeds.
And of course, the feeds themselves and the RSS presentation
page should be promoted in prominent locations on your website,
especially directly below your e-mail e-zine subscription box
and, if you’re publishing topic oriented feeds, next to their
respective topics on the site, just as Lockergnome.com is doing.
B] TRANSFORM AN RSS FEED IN TO XHTML
Having a link to an RSS presentation page right next to your RSS
subscribe button does aid visitors in learning about RSS and
helps them to subscribe, but it still doesn’t solve the problem
of a user actually clicking on an RSS feed button. That will
still result in the visitor getting heaps of code he really
won’t know what to do with.
Going one step further, you can use XSL Transformations to make
sure that the feed can in fact also be displayed in a browser
(without making it useless for an RSS reader as well) … and
that with some additional information and instructions, such as
a brief overview of RSS and a quick explanation on how the user
can subscribe to this feed via an RSS reader.
I don’t want to get technical here, so to see what I mean simply
click on this link (via FeedBurner):
http://feeds.feedburner.com/BurnThisRSS2
This is basically an RSS feed, which has been transformed in
order to be displayed in a Web browser with some additional
information, but can still be subscribed to via every RSS reader
as well.
Some feed maintanance and publishing services such as FeedBurner
already provide this functionality “out-of-the-box”, without you
having to do practically anything. All you need to do is
register for their free service, enter your feed and then get
this link, which you will place “behind” the RSS subscribe
button on your site, as a link, instead of a direct link to your
RSS feed.
If you don’t want to use a third-party service like FeedBurner,
you can actually do the XSL Transformations by yourself. More
information on how to do this is available at Wikiedia
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xslt).
c] TAKING THE MIDDLE ROAD: SMARTER SUBSCRIBE BUTTONS If you
don’t want to use a third-party service such as FeedBurner or if
your RSS vendor does not provide this functionality or if you
don’t want to be bothered with doing XSLT by yourself, there is
actually an alternative you can use.
David Battino at MacDevCenter.com
(http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/wlg/7821) just wrote a simple
piece of code you can use instead of the typical link to your
RSS feed behind the RSS feed subscription button, which will,
after you click on the link, display a simple message saying
that in order to subscribe to the feed you need to copy and
paste this URL in your your RSS reader.
This certainly doesn’t go very far in making RSS more
user-friendly, as the notification really can’t be used to
explain what RSS is and why your visitors should use it, but it
at least saves the visitor from getting the XML code in his
browser and hating RSS before he or she even find out what it is.
The simple code to do so is
http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/wlg/7821
Also, do not forget about using buttons like Add To MyYahoo!,
since many MyYahoo! users for example don’t know what RSS is,
but they will use this button to subscribe.
d] TARGETING EXISTING RSS USERS
If you’re targeting existing RSS users or at least users that
won’t be put off by a long list of names they won’t be able to
understand, using the free script from Methodize.org might be
the solution.
When the user hovers his mouse above your RSS feed subscribe
button, the script will display a long list of RSS readers that
the visitors can use to directly subscribe to the feed. By
simply clicking on the appropriate link, the user will quickly
subscribe to the feed with the RSS reader he is currently using.
There’s also a “What’s this” link at the bottom of the list, but
still many visitors will be put off by long list of RSS reader
names they won’t be able to understand, before even being
motivated enough to click on the “What’s this” link at the
bottom.
But still, if you’re targeting a more technical or internet
oriented audiences, this just might do the trick.
The script is available from here:
http://www.methodize.org/quicksub/
e] USING RSS AUTODISCOVERY
RSS Autodiscovery is a very nice feature that allows certain RSS
Autodiscovery-enabled browsers to find a feed on your site and
promptly offer the subscribe option to the visitor.
While most browsers still do not support this, FireFox for
example does.
Using RSS Autodiscovery can’t substitute the other options
above, but it will serve you well for the small part of your
audience that’s using RSS Autodiscovery-enabled browsers.
How to use this?
Simply place the following piece of code in to the HEAD section
of the HTML code of your webpages:
[link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="RSS"
onClick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/article_exit_link');" href="http://rssdiary.marketingstudies.net/index.xml" /]
And don’t forget to replace the [ and ] characters with .
f] STRONG COPY
No matter how many times we write this, it still needs
repeating. The best way to get your visitors to subscribe is to
entice them to do so with strong copy that provides clear and
valuable benefits, explaining to the visitor exactly why he
needs to subscribe to exactly your RSS feed.
Seo Search
On July - 28 - 2009
Seo search: Gain Traffic and Profits with These Seo Search Strategies
In the beginning Google created Page Rank and every living seo search master who then learned to optimize websites for one-word key words. And Google found that page rank was not strong enough and lo here it said, Let there be Phrase Rank. In this seo search brief article, we will see that a site without spelling mistakes and also with aimed phrases has better chances to rank high in the results page of most search engines.Phrase Rank distinguishes interrelated words that make idiomatic expressions in a sentence. These are two, three and four-word combinations. Consequently, a seo search expert has to find different combinations of words that a target user is expected to enter.Search engine societies offer no directions on how to make seo search forecasting or how to optimize a site.Engines would end up far less efficient if every one knew how to perform seo search handling.In the beginning, seo search work was easy. Virtually all inquiries, today, are one- and two-word lookups; but users are more and more frequently introducing triple-four-five or six-word queries now. For example, a user may search for the idiomatic expressions “low-budget seo” or “skilled affordable seo”. But she may also be interested in a company, like in “expert affordable seo firm” or a company in the city, as in “reputable affordable seo company in Seattle, Washington”.Phrasal searches make it tougher for a seo search optimization guru to accommodate copy, because web users can choose different synonyms. They can put the equivalent words in several relative places, also: at the end, in the middle or at the beginning of a phrase. Furthermore, they may misspell some.This takes us to an often disregarded feature of up-to-date search engines. Search engines learned to honor higher rankings to authoritative sites. One way to exhibit authority is writing error-free copy. Therefore, spell-checking is but one of the numerous jobs in the seo search industry. In any case, error-free texts make good impressions and add to the perception of authority of a site. Naturally, more believability impacts directly on revenues.Nevertheless, if a user wrongly spells a word while introducing a query, cautiously aimed seo search phrases become ineffectual. If the writer intentionally uses typos, the web site will look amateurish; if the writer dismisses misspelled possibilities, a percentage of the market is lost. Seo search technicians can take advantage of Meta tags to recuperate that percentage of the market; they simply need to include regular faults inside the tag and those mistakes will be there but invisible to the reader.To summarize, phrasal targeting can facilitate ranking a web site for specific content. A text free from spelling mistakes facilitates ranking it higher yet. Therefore, seo search was, once again, good and apt for online marketing and every living seo master who crawls in the bowels of the WWW blessed Page Rank…
www.Mr-Seo.com
Sem Short and Long Term Cost
On July - 27 - 2009
SEM short and long term cost is considered prior to hiring an expert. Anyone who hires an expert without getting a full readout of the costs is subject to paying higher fees for SEM or search engine marketing. Thus, before you hire someone to handle your SEM business make sure that you consider some important questions.
How much it cost? The cost of SEM depends on the service you hire. If you elect to use Yahoo you can set up a budget plan. Some of Yahoo’s, Google, and MSN’s marketing packages are dangerously high especially if you have small business. The amount you pay monthly for SEM can cause major financial burdens. If you have a larger company you can get away with using the PPC or Pay per click services offered by Google, Yahoo, and MSN. The average large company pays anywhere between $3000 and $15,000 according to MSN and Google. What are the different options? You can bypass Google, Yahoo, and MSN’s marketing plans and do SEM procedures on your own. If you elect to do your own SEM it will cost you much less. You also have the option to research various services online that offer both SEO and SEM packages. Try to find the best companies’ with good track records and affordable rates. How SEM can be improved strategies and how to make it effective? In considering the question how SEM can be improved strategies and how to make it effective, we must consider the various marketing strategies, which include link exchange, organic SEO, press release, article submission, directory submission, optimization strategies, PPC management, market tracking, partnering, etc. SEO has to be included with SEM strategies since many of the SEO methods used are marketing aids. Web content is another SEM tool. When you have high quality, relevant content on your web pages it helps to promote your website by encouraging interested visitors to view your web site’s content. Can SEO be more effective then SEM and less costly? SEO can be more effective then SEM. Why, because SEO if you do the work yourself takes up more time than it uses money. Most of our SEO tactics include content creation, keyword research, keyword list building, link building, etc. If you were to hire someone to handle your link building process it would cost you around $300 for 100 web links. If you do it yourself, you can save the $300, but you will spend at least 1 week or more getting those links. If you have the time you SEO is less costly. If you hire someone to handle your SEM needs, it could cost you around $1500 or more. On the other hand, if you combine SEO and SEM, you can cut back on those expenses. Do we need SEM or we need only SEO? You need both SEO and SEM respectively. SEO is simply the process of optimizing and marketing your web pages while SEM is the complete marketing strategy that gets your pages recognized once you have completed the optimization processes.
Domain Registration Reseller
On July - 27 - 2009
Thoughts and experience on how to become a domain name reseller. Generally, I recommend reselling domain names but if you’re buying to save money, I don’t. See why.
Twitter Demystified for Business Users
On July - 27 - 2009
Twitter is the current top “hot property” on the Web, but its popularity and how to use it has mystified many business owners. Many people think that they want to, or should be using Twitter, but simply do not understand the platform, its use, or its place in building web exposure. This article will demystify Twitter and help you to learn how to use it in the workplace and to promote your business.
First, I have to say that I had been confused on how to use Twitter to benefit my own business until I downloaded TweetDeck. TweetDeck is a desktop application that allows you to review and post status updates on Twitter and Facebook simultaneously. I consider it a “must have” application for anyone who wants to make sense of Twitter. TweetDeck allows you to sort the people you follow on Twitter into groups, allows you to limit the number of Tweets (Twitter micro posts) to be shown at any one time, and also allows you to remove all Tweets you have seen with one click. Additionally, using TweetDeck, finally a Twitter search on a topic makes sense.
Since using TweetDeck, I have had a much better Twitter experience. As a Twitter newbie, visiting your own Twitter home page is intimidating; it consists of post after post from people who you are following, who you may not know much about, and it just seems like a huge volume of content. To get started effectively first group the people who actually have something interesting to say on TweetDeck and voila, you have a powerful tool that keeps you at the forefront of what is happening in your industry and on the Web.
So how do you get started with Twitter? Well the first thing is to start on Twitter yourself to understand what you like to read, who you like to follow, and to clearly identify what you like about Twitter. For me, it boils down to this: I like to follow people in my industry who say something of value, who provide a link to a new application or point me to an interesting new article, video, or blog site that I should review but may have never have found myself. Based on what I like, and the people who I find interesting to read, I now write my Twitter posts using this same formula to grow my own Twitter audience.
What I also like about Twitter is that the people who I follow also know how to show their true personality in their Tweets. Ye,s I do like to know what Danny Sullivan (famous search engine marketing guru) ate for lunch, but better yet is the link to the video he thought was funny. I love following Ashton Kutcher (movie star married to Demi Moore who just hit 1 million Twitter followers in April). Man, that guy is really funny and is having a ball with Twitter. His posts are great and he has just earned the status of the user with the most followers. This is why you can’t hire someone to “Ghost Twitter” for you. It’s about showing the real you – you can’t fake that!
So how can you use Twitter for business? Twitter is an excellent tool for linking and this is the real value for businesses. By using Twitter to point people to content on your website, articles you have written either on or off your website, or by linking to a service you want to highlight, you drive traffic. On top of that, Google actually indexes Twitter and so your Twitter page can appear in the organic search results so make sure your bio is well thought out. Don’t waste time using Twitter to point to blog posts, use TwitterFeed to post your blog posts directly onto Twitter. If you have a blog or website, you’ll get new Twitter followers by posting your TwitterFeed right onto your web pages. People who may not have known your Twitter ID can simply click the bottom “follow me link” and start following you on Twitter.
What’s important to be successful in using Twitter is to identify what you personally like about this new media and then deliver the same type of things that you like back to your own followers – work to provide value not drivel! So you’ve got to play with Twitter and learn how to use it first before you can really become successful with it for your business.
So how do you get followers? Well, I started by following everyone (who I found by doing a Twitter search) who had the last name McCord. Then I searched for web design, search engine optimization, and pay per click. Any site profile that looked good, I clicked to follow the writer. It was that easy. Many times people who you follow yourself will choose to follow you. That’s how you initially build up your Twitter base. Over time you will start to identify your “Twitter voice” and refine the type of Twitter presence you want to have by changing your content style and the things that you Tweet about. As you refine your presence, you will build a following.
Another cool Twitter use is that you can reply to any of your followers by simply putting an @ in front of their Twitter ID. For example to send something to my attention use @mccordweb at the very front of your Twitter posting and click enter. Just remember that this post is seen by all followers on my site and on your Twitter site. If you need a more private exchange, go to the direct message link on the Twitter.com site and select a follower by Twitter ID name and send your message from there. This note will be private. If you are using TweetDeck you can click on a follower’s Twitter ID icon and then select to send a direct message or @reply to them. TweetDeck will automatically insert the correct syntax for you in the Tweet.
For many businesses the ability for users to communicate with top management using Twitter is an invaluable resource. This one-to-one exchange allows a company principal to keep tabs on customer viewpoints, concerns, and interests. As a Twitter reply or direct mail does not use email and does not require a response, this is a great way to tap into social networking to test new ideas and to ask for user feedback. For example, if you have a new software product ask your Twitter followers for feedback on a specific feature, or provide a link to your beta version for their testing.
How you use Twitter is all about your personal business needs. The best advice that I can offer to you is that you need to use Twitter a bit yourself first to understand the medium and to find out what you like to read best using Twitter. Then, create your own Twitter network sharing information that you find interesting and have some fun.
Currently I am following 204 people and 183 people are following me on Twitter. Personally I find Twitter great fun and a very cool way to find out first what’s happening in the world before you see it on TV, read it on the Web, or see it in the newspaper. That’s the real power of Twitter; you share, you find out, and you know, all by a person-to-person exchange of information.
For those of you clicking in from my e-newsletter the rest of the content on Twitter applications and uses follows.
Below are some of the Twitter applications that I like and use regularly for my business.
Twuffer – I love this one, it is a Twitter post scheduler. Some people feel that Twuffer defeats the immediacy of Twitter posts or Tweets, but I like it as I will schedule Tweets on days that I am not blogging to keep my followers advised of things I find important. It is easy to use, allows you to Tweet ahead, and lets you select a posting schedule by day and time. If you are pushing content on a service or product this is an excellent tool to use. Set your Tweets up one week or one month at a time and feed your content to readers in addition to your regular Tweets. Make sure to use www.TinyUrl.com to change any long URLs you point to in the Tweet to a Twitter-friendly short version to save space.
Twitter Feed – This is another one of my top favorites. TwitterFeed allows me to show my blog posts from “The Web Authority” directly onto Twitter. It also allows me to post my Tweets back on my blog (by installing a widget) in my blog template – very cool cross interaction! I pick up many Twitter followers with this technique. Readers come to visit my blog and then choose to follow me on Twitter.
Twitter Grader – This one is a vanity application that allows you to see where you stack up against other Twitter users. Twitter Grader measures the power of a Twitter user based on followers, number of updates, and posting frequency.
TweetBeep – With this application, you can manage your online Twitter reputation. Alerts will be emailed to you whenever a Twitter user Tweets about your business, name, or domain. You select the alert criteria and what to watch for using TweetBeep. This is great for a business that is concerned about branding and online identity. PR professionals should make sure to use this tool to watch for comments about their clients.
Twitoria – Clean up your Twitter followers by finding out which people never use Twitter or post infrequently so you can delete them right from the Twitoria interface.
Qwitter – If you want to know when someone stops following you, sign up for this service. Actually, this can be an excellent tool to find out what a reader hated that you posted about and caused them to “chop” you, so you can fine tune your message. If you get a flood of drops after a Tweet, it allows you to learn that people don’t like a certain type of Tweet – instant feedback at an anonymous level!
One big thing about Twitter that I have not even mentioned yet but is actually one of Twitter’s best features is the ability to text-in Tweets from your mobile phone. Although you can’t easily link to great content typically on the fly like this, the ability to connect with others without being tethered to a computer is an opportunity to show the “real you”. Maybe your followers do want to know what you are eating for lunch or about a seminar you just attended, just be kind and don’t vomit out Twitter spam using your Blackberry on meaningless drivel.
You can easily set up the ability to receive text messages from your Twitter account to your cell or Blackberry, but be careful as you may be inundated if you have a large following. I would recommend receiving Twitter updates via text message to your cell only from a small group. For example if you have a project team, set up a Twitter account for each member to allow them to post just to this small unique circle of team members. The value to track and interact with each other at anytime and anywhere using Twitter by computer or by cell phone adds real value for work groups and teams – particularly team managers. Twitter even allows you to make this type of group private.
Another feature of Twitter is the ability to add hashtags in front of keywords in your Tweets to help with sorting to allow others to find your important content. For example if you wanted to Tweet about a recent earthquake in LA you would use #laearthquake in the front of your Tweet. By using hashtags you enable Twitter to return your information for topic searches on newsworthy Tweets. You can visit Hashtags.org for more information on the current hot hashtags that are in use for today so you can follow, add to the topic, or create your own. For example in Twitter World, Fridays are the day you post with #followfriday and enter in the Twitter IDs you want to recommend to others. You would be amazed at the cool new people you can follow and interact with from recommendations of the people you follow.
In conclusion, Twitter is one of the hottest new mediums to arrive on the Internet scene since Facebook. Although it is not exactly “new”, Twitter has just recently become very high profile. If you are in business, Twitter definitely warrants your attention. Not only is it a very smart new tool to use in your marketing arsenal, but I think that the more you use it you will grow to love it and find it fun to use. The ways that you can use Twitter are endless: for teams, for family members, for business networking, to stay at the forefront of news, to promote yourself and your services, and to just have fun connecting with others online. Just remember you can’t really make sense of Twitter for business without using TweetDeck or another similar aggregating and sorting application. Thanks for reading, see you on Twitter, you can reach me at @mccordweb or visit me at www.Twitter.com/mccordweb.
About the Author
Nancy McCord is the founder and President of McCord Web Services LLC which provides search engine marketing, web design, blog writing, and webmaster services globally. Since 2001, Nancy McCord has developed a national reputation as an expert on search engines, blogging, and how businesses can harness the power of Web for profit. You can visit Nancy and her firm at www.McCordWeb.com.
New To Video Blogging,,,
On July - 27 - 2009
We are doing test runs of this video blogging stuff… on the mac!