If all you do is on Twitter on tweet 140 characters, you are missing a trick. You can let your creative side out on Twitter. In this short interview with Tom Evans, he shares great tips to use Twitter in new ways.
Have a look at Twimagination to find out how authors can use it as a Tool. Tom’s profile can be found here.
Have a look at Audioboo.fm to add an audio dimension. We have embedded the interview as an Audioboo below.
The final book the Tom mentioned (and I would highly recommend it) is Dom Sagolla’s 140 Characters.
If you enjoyed this interview and want to get hold of Tom Evans his website is www.tomevans.co, his new “linguistic playground” is www.tmesis.co and you can find him on Twitter @thebookwright.
We would love to have your comments about this interview, thank you.
Do you use “Answers” when you use LinkedIn? If you are wondering what I mean; then this blog post is for you.
LinkedIn has a very useful Questions and Answers (Q & A) feature called “Answers” which can be very helpful for your business.
What is Answers?
LinkedIn Answers is the place on LinkedIn to:
Ask questions to get fast, accurate answers from your network and other experts. The questions can be answered by any of the 130 million plus LinkedIn users so it provides a very valuable resource.
Showcase your knowledge, expertise, and interests by answering questions in your industry
Research your Industry and find experts.
Where can you find Answers?
This video is a quick walk through of the LinkedIn Answers which you can find under the “More” tab.
15 Ways to use Answers
Research – to find out more about a subject
Generate ideas
Check keywords and the terminology that people use in your business
Get answers from experts
Show your expertise by giving helpful answers
Get feedback and opinions on a topic
Raise your profile
Find experts by investigating the people answering questions
Test the market
Stay current within your industry
Find potential guest bloggers/writers
Find industry influencers
See the questions people ask and answer them on your website or blog
Make connections with people
Be seen as the expert in your area by regularly answering questions
There are many ways you can use LinkedIn Answers. Has this post been useful to you? Leave a comment and let me know.
Have you been wondering how to improve your online visibility as a small business?
I was lucky enough to interview Online Visibility Expert, Denise Wakeman earlier this month. Denise shares why online visibility is so important to business owners and the interview is packed with practical hints and tips.
Takeaways from the interview:
If you can’t be found on the web, you don’t exist. If your customers can’t find you, they will find someone else.
Are you using Pinterest? Until recently, I hadn’t heard of it. Then all of a sudden people started mentioning it and people are blogging about it so I thought that I would have a look into it.
And I am very impressed and excited about the opportunities it can offer your small businesses.
What is Pinterest?
Simply, it is a very visual social networking site where you have boards with pictures pinned to them. The pictures can be loaded from your computer or from the web. These pictures has a URL and are linked to its original website. So you can collect pictures from around the web to create vision boards. This is how Pinterest describes itself.
“Pinterest is a Virtual Pinboard. Pinterest lets you organize and share all the beautiful things you find on the web.“
What are people using Pinterest for?
sharing recipes
collecting ideas for weddings
dream destinations
sharing books they read
interior design ideas
saving ideas for inspiration
crafts
Why you should be interested in Pinterest with your business head on
The internet is full of distractions and it is so easy to be tempted by a new site. Pinterest is very addictive and I want you to be aware that time spent on this site might distract you from time spent working on your business.
Even if you decide not to sign up to Pinterest, you need to know the following:
It is a rapidly growing site (it is now one of the top 10 networking sites and is growing exponentially)
It has a very active community
It drives traffic to websites
People may be pinning your blog posts and pictures to the site already
If you don’t have pictures on your website and your blog, you are missing a great opportunity.
Caution: Make sure that the photographs and pictures you are using aren’t breaking copyright terms. It is not okay to use images you find on Google on your website without checking the terms.
Which businesses should be considering Pinterest?
Anyone with a visual business such as designers, artists and photographers
Anyone selling products that are visually appealing
Bloggers who blog for their business
Anyone who can use images to create a feeling of their business
I am using Pinterest predominantly to display my blog postings in a different format and I am monitoring my Google Analytics to see the results. I will report back to you later, but I do know that people are visiting my site from Pinterest and repinning my posts.
Are you using Pinterest yet? You can follow me here. Let me know what creative ways you can come up for using this site.
Did you know that LinkedIn makes it easy to find articles and news that are relevant to you? In fact, they present it to you on a plate.
Have you noticed the LinkedIn Today on your Home Page? Are you using LinkedIn Today to help you?
What is LinkedIn Today?
Just below your update box, you have the top articles that are currently being read and shared on LinkedIn within your industry and among your peers.
LinkedIn will look at:
the industry that you are in
who you are connected to
how often articles are been shared, liked or commented on
which recent articles your direct connection have shared
How to use LinkedIn Today
Tailor your LinkedIn Today
The first step is to make sure that headlines you get, are tailor-made for you.
By clicking on the “See all Top Headlines for You” this is what you see:
By clicking on the “See all” for either the Top Sources or Suggested industries, this is what you’ll see:
You can choose which sources and industries are relevant to you specifically by clicking the Follow button.
Read the Headlines
It is a very easy way to keep up to speed with what is happening in your industry. It is worth creating a daily habit for yourself. Even if it is just read one article a day!
Comment on the article
Very few people leave comments on articles and there is a very good reason why you should consider doing it.
It’s an opportunity to form a relationship with the author
It’s an opportunity to show that you are a thought leader (although you have to say more than “Nice post”!) A thoughtful considered response is ideal if you have the time.
Other people can read your comment so it increases your online visibility
Most comments you leave require a website address. This creates a backlink to your website
Each comment can be found by search engines. It gives people who are searching for your name, a more rounded view of you.
Caution: Be aware that if you write a ranting comment on someone’s post it will reflect badly on you.
Share the article
Share the post you have read on LinkedIn, adding a comment to your update.
By sharing good quality content, you get associated with the content.
You don’t have to write everything yourself.
People appreciate people who share good sources of news.
It is an easy way to update your LinkedIn Profile
Which in turn gives you better visibility on LinkedIn
Simple really, isn’t it? Let me know if you have been using LinkedIn Today by leaving a comment below.
Ok, let’s assume you have gone to the trouble of creating a video for your business.
What do you do now? Host the video on your website? Post it on your Facebook Page? Or load it onto a video sharing site?
Unless there is a particular reason for not wanting the video to be public, the obvious choice is to upload it to YouTube – first.
From YouTube, you can easily embed it from YouTube to your own website and share it on Facebook and Twitter and other social media sites.
5 Reasons to use YouTube for hosting
1. Google Ranking
Videos outperform text for keywords in online searches. Up to 53% higher! And Google seems to have a bias to YouTube videos versus video hosted on other sharing sites. Remember: Google owns YouTube.
2. YouTube is by far the largest video sharing site
Yes, there are plenty of other video sharing sites and there is no harm in posting your video on other sites such as Vimeo. But, if you have gone to the effort of producing a video, don’t you want it to reach the largest possible audience?
3. YouTube is the 2nd largest search engine
YouTube is a Search Engine and people are actively searching on YouTube every day. By optimising your video for keywords, you can be found by the right audience. YouTube will suggest your video to people watching similar videos.
If you post the video directly to your website, only people who land on your page will see it.
Don’t just assume that simply posting a video to YouTube will mean that your video will get thousands of views.
37 hours of video are uploaded on YouTube every minute.
You need to be able to stand out from the competition by being strategic and encouraging engagement.
4. Longevity
If you upload your video to Facebook directly, it will be gone within a few days, replaced by other updates. Have you ever tried to find old posts on Facebook? In theory, it is all there, but in practice they are very hard to find. Twitter’s longevity is probably only a few hours. On YouTube videos will be found for years after they have been uploaded.
This is an extract from my interview with YouTube Expert, James Wedmore.
5. Views from other sites count as views on YouTube
If you embed your video onto your website from YouTube, as long as you haven’t set it to autoplay, every time someone watches your video on your website, it counts as a view on YouTube. Every time someone watches it on Facebook or Twitter or any other social network site, it counts as a view.
YouTube videos:
with higher views,
that have engagement i.e. comments and likes
and that are keyword optimised
rank higher in YouTube searches.
Things to remember:
Make sure that you have a call to action
If you refer to something on your video, make sure it makes sense wherever people watching it. I have seen videos on YouTube that tell you to book onto the webinar/course or sign up to a newsletter, but there are no links in the description or directions on how to do it.
Don’t forget to add your website to your description of the video on YouTube (add the http:// to create a hyperlink)
If you want to learn how to use YouTube to drive traffic to you website, I would highly recommend James Wedmore’s Video Traffic Academy Click Here!. I have learned so much from him.
[For transparency, this link is an affiliate link, so I will get commission if you decide to go ahead and buy it.]
Have you been proactive on Twitter about following the right people and following back people who follow you? And suddenly you find that you can’t follow any more people? Have you followed two thousand people? This post is for you.
Here’s why
Twitter has rules to prevent aggressive following. For example, you may not follow hundreds of people or unfollow hundreds of people in a single day. This is stop spammers and automated systems from harvesting followers. Did you know that some people buy followers!?
Twitter has a rule that you can follow up to 2000 people without anyone following you back.
Once you have followed the 2000 mark a ratio kicks in.
Although Twitter don’t actually say what the ratio is, it seems to be 10%
You cannot follow more people until at least 90% follow you back. So to follow more people you will have to have at least 1800 people following you.
So what do you do?
When you have followed 2000 people and you keep getting messages that you can’t follow people you really want to, this is what you do:
Have an assessment of your ratio
Divide your followers by the number of people you are following and times by a hundred to get a percentage.
If your percentage is dramatically less than than 90%…
You have been spending more time concentrating on building up followers than building relationships.
Twitter is not just a free channel to broadcast your message, you need to listen as well. You also should look at the quality of your tweets.
If your ratio is close to 90%…
Time to declutter!
There is a good chance that many of the people you have followed are not following you back.
The reason for this is
No one HAS to follow you just because you have followed them
the person who followed you wasn’t that interested in what you were tweeting and they unfollowed you. Don’t take it to heart, you aren’t going to appeal to absolutely everyone and it is their choice
You were followed by a bot (not a real person, but an automated robot), you followed them back and they unfollowed you a few days later because they were collecting followers to spam or to sell. Read How to Spot a Bot
They will quickly show you the people who you follow and aren’t following you back.
This how my account looks.
I don’t mind that some people don’t follow me back because
they are thought leaders
they are authors of books I have read and admired
I’ve met them in real life
they are local to me
I have just followed them and they may not have had a chance to follow me back
If someone is interesting, it doesn’t matter whether they follow you back or not.
@AthenaNetworks followed me yesterday, I followed them back, received an automated response from them and now they have unfollowed me. This means that they only followed me so they could spam me. So they are an obvious one to unfollow.
Are you using search on Twitter? Did you know you can use an Advanced Search to search? This Advanced Search can be a very helpful tool to grow your business.
Why you need to search on Twitter
To find interesting people to follow
To find people in a particular field or industry
To find people who have a special interest
To learn more about people are saying about a particular subject
To find out more about news stories
To find out who is asking for your services, skills and products right now
There are people who looking for solutions to their problems right now and you may be able to help them. If you don’t listen to the conversations on Twitter, you are leaving money on the table.
The basic search on Twitter is okay if you are looking for:
someone in particular
looking up a trending topic
a simple keyword
a hashtag
BUT, the Advanced search is far more useful and powerful.
Twitter keeps it advance search hidden for some obscure reason. You can find it by searching for search.twitter.com or going directly to
UPDATE: On the new layout it is easier to access the Advance Search. See the video at the end.
and this is what you will see.
I found a great video for you that talks you through some of the ways that you can use it. It is predominantly from a consumer viewpoint, but I think it may help spark some ideas about how you can use it to search for new customers.
The most powerful part is it allows you find the right results by being more specific about keywords.
Think of the possibilities!
HINT: Think in the language your customers would be using, not in your business jargon.
The Places section is very useful if you are a local based business. Once you start typing into the place box, the distance appears (see below). How far away are your ideal customers? Don’t forget you could use your location as a keyword too.
Right at the bottom is a little section called “other” that you might not notice.
My top tip is this:
If people are asking for help, they will be using a question mark, won’t they?
Let me know if you found this helpful and if you have, please share and retweet it.
UPDATE: The new Twitter Layout makes it easier to access Advanced Search. Watch this video.
How well do you know the people who have Liked your Facebook Business Page? What do you know about them? If you only have a few fans then they may all be your friends, but ideally you want to use Facebook to grow your business and so you may have a large number of people you haven’t met yet.
Ok, Facebook can’t tell you about their personalities. Hopefully, that will come across when they interact with you. Facebook Insights can tell you about your fans demographics. So you can find out the general
age
country of origin
town
language
of your fans.
If you click on Insights in the left column, it allows you more options for example “Like”, “Reach” and “Talking about this” (see below)
If you click on the Likes, this is what you will see
My Page has a bias towards women who are 35-44. They do say that you attract people who are like yourself to you!!!
This age group becomes even stronger when you look at the demographics for people “Talking about this” (you can also see the demographics for “Reach” too!)
The people who are most like me are interacting the most with me.
Just under 80% of my fans are over 35 which means that there is a wealth of experience between all of the fans
About half of my fans are in the UK which means almost half of my fans are not!
There would be no point in my heavily promoting my local Social Media workshops on the Page because only a small proportion live locally to me
I have to think about how to offer my services online.
I also need to be conscious of the time I post updates
The Google Analytics for my website which show region are similar, (just under half of my visits are from the UK and about 30% from the US)
So what do you know about your fans? Have you looked at Facebook Insights to find out more about them? Let me know in the comments below.
