A few of my favorite Twitter applications – when you’ve employed social marketing for your business – are listed below with a brief introduction. Not all applications will be of value to all businesses or strategies so don’t feel that you need to use, employ, install, or integrate each one. Knowing some of the capabilities of these applications might spark a new marketing idea in the future, so save this page to your favorites. Read more…
Site Specific Training applications, business, social marketing, twitter.com
Here’s a quick scan for the web savvy to get the most out of social networking on YahooAnswers.
- Come up with a catchy, easy to remember username so people remember you on future questions and answers.
- Feel free to ask some questions of your own.
- Get as much knowledge as possible of the topics you’ve chosen to specialize in or questions you’ve chosen to answer.
- Be sure your answers are honest and reliable. Do not give false answers just to promote yourself.
- Do not limit to just one topic or subject. No one is one-dimensional.
- Skim the site daily for keywords that you can jump in and answer in relation to your business.
- Link to your website, Digg site, or blog when you answer questions.
- Be sure to read the Terms of Service for the site and make sure you’re in compliance.
- Do not just answer questions with a link. Be sure to answer it thoroughly first, and then suggest a link at the end in the source box.
- Do your best to be the first to answer a question. Sign up for your keywords and phrases feed alerts. (See
- Think about regional questions and answers. This is an excellent way to get new local customers and contacts.
- Use keywords in the answers as long as you can do it casually and not appear spammy.
- Check your spelling and grammar before posting the answer. Mistakes in spelling can be embarrassing and people will question your answers when you appear illiterate.
- Always be polite. Always.
- If you don’t know the answer, do not pretend to. People can smell a liar a mile away, so answer honestly and only the things you know about.
- Be careful of copyright infringement. Do NOT copy and paste answers from Wikipedia unless you quote and source it in the box.
- Be professional. Avoid slang and emoticons.
- Try not to sound as if you’re chatting. Instead, use concise, informative language that gives a straight answer without all of the filler.
- Be objective. Do not interject your personal opinions, no matter what the question is.
- Do not spam. Do not spam. Do not spam.
- You can incorporate videos into your answers as long as they are yours.
- Vote on other peoples’ answers and questions, and make your presence known.
- Aim to get your Top Contributor Badge. Readers will take your answers a lot seriously if you earn this honor.
- Never discuss politics.
- Although some answers require a link to other retailers or online stores, as a business it’s not a good idea to lead people to anywhere other than your website, or sites that relate to your business niche.
- Read the community guidelines carefully on the site before posting any answers on it.
- Worried about linking too often to your own website? You can cross promote sites that link to your site (i.e., your Twitter, a bookmarking profile, etc.)
- Utilize tools that can help you to scour Yahoo Answers, and help you use the website effectively.
- Beware of spamming and over posting. Other users will complain and Yahoo will ban or suspend your account.
- Keyword phrases should be three to five words, and the rest of the content should just be the answer.
- Try not to answer too many questions under one account each day. You can create more than one account at a time so try to switch between them.
- Never answer your other account’s questions.
- You must use HTTP protocol links on the site; anchor links do not work.
- New answers to questions can be posted through RSS sign up, so use that for your questions and see what other people are saying. It’s a good way to see what the competition or other users are saying.
- YahooAnswers relies on users pointing out spammers and trolls so do your part to report these infractions. You can remain anonymous to the person who is getting reported.
- As things change, make sure your questions change as well. In other words, current events related or technology related questions might need some updating later on as new information emerges.
- If you feel as though your answers have been flagged or there are issues, contact the staff at Yahoo Answers and let them know immediately.
- Try to find questions that ask a solution to a problem, particularly ones that your business or service can fix.
- Link to other sites besides your own, as long as they lead back to yours in some way, it will be beneficial. Too many links to your own site is spam.
- Take a break from time to time, so people do not notice you’re posting all day, all over the place.
- Do not try to sell something with your answers. Instead, provide helpful information, and then suggest the links without pushing it.
- Figure out what works and what does not and constantly try to develop new strategies with your questions and answers.
Site Specific Training link, social network, yahoo answers, yahoo.com
If you’re using Twitter for business outreach and promotion, consider the top X Twitter tips for business when setting up your profile and designing your social marketing.
- Add your Twitter profile to your business cards, your website, and in email signatures. In face to face and casual meetings and introductions, when exchanging contact information don’t stop at phone numbers and emails, ask for Twitter profile names and share yours.
- Tweet from conferences and trade shows to update your customers and peers on what you’re seeing and doing. This shows them that you’re being proactive and it’s a lot of fun as well. You can tell them some funny things you might be seeing at the trade show,
or maybe inform them of an interesting vendor you’ve hooked up with. By sharing your experiences as you go along, you’re garnering more interest in what is happening with your business.
- Choose your networking buddies carefully. You don’t have to simply befriend every person you can that requests you or vice versa on Twitter. Network instead with noteworthy business associates, competitors, and peers. Look for fellow executives or business owners who work within your market. Then, follow their progress, look for advice, and of course, offer some of your own. By befriending people who are in the same line of work as you, you’ll get an insider’s look at how their successes compare to yours.
- If your company is large or your employees diverse, allow a few employees to Tweet on company time about company business. This way customers get to know others in the business and it adds depth and diversity for the business, and gives clients and prospects a cast of characters to follow instead of a faceless, nameless company.
- Share publicly acceptable facts about your business on Twitter – i.e. your business growth, charts, statistics, awards, and other factual data.
- Stay on top of what other people are tweeting about your company. If you find tweets about you, join the conversation. Thank them for compliments, or attempt to make good if they have a legitimate complaint. Remember that you’re never 100% safe from someone who might try to talk negatively about you, your website, or anything else on Twitter. Be sure to use this to your advantage in a diplomatic way. Set up an account at Tweet Later to be notified by email whenever anyone tweets on your topic, business name, or keyword.
Advanced business, network, social marketing, twitter.com
There are a lot of ways to use or customize Twitter that the average user doesn’t even know exists. This quick article is for business owners who don’t have time to discover all the techniques and social marketing strategies possible with Twitter but are fully aware that they ‘need’ to start using it. These are all are easy to implement without getting lost in a sea of geek terms and instructions.
The tips below are for automating your tweets so you don’t have to be a slave to the machine, whether you’re tweeting from a browser or your mobile phone. You’ll find more fast tips for Twitter in other posts – what to Tweet about, tones of your Tweets, special business promotions, and advanced Twitter features are all to follow.
For complete Newbies to Twitter I’d suggest reading all the tips in this series until you land on one that is relevant to your target market and then put it into practice. Once you’re comfortable with the Twitter interface and application, move onto a new tip to integrate into your business marketing.
To get right to my top tool for Twitter automation (there are others and other methods, but that one is my favorite. Below are ways to put the tool to best use and the reasons why.
- Once you’re tweeting and have followers, do not stop abruptly or you’ll lose your market share and the attention of your peers, your customers and network. Remember that a vital facet of marketing – online or off – is getting yourself in the way of the customer once they’re ready to commit. If you aren’t already a household name or on the tip of everyone’s tongue, you’d better keep tweeting on a regular basis. If your lifestyle is changing and you can’t tweet three times a day anymore, wean your contacts over two weeks to only hearing from you once every few days. If regular tweets are too much to manage right now, sign up for an automation service and load up your tweet sequence to manage your marketing until you can get back to a regularly scheduled program.
- Automated Tweet services help you prioritize your own marketing tasks as well as keep up to date on messages from your competitors. You can sign up for alerts on topics, search terms, or keywords for notification, so that the topics important to you will be delivered daily.
- Automating your Twitter posts is not evil and it reaps sweet benefits. These tools are no different than a marketing auto-responder that allow you to type tweets in advance. Plan ahead, select the dates and times, and they will post to your account on schedule. A fantastic time saver!
- Use automated tweets to supplement your own hands-on messages. Fill up your future tweets with a different message each day that filters user traffic to existing articles on your website, incredible free offers, or anything else you find appropriate to promote. Automation is a great way to increase awareness of your brand, your beliefs, your knowledge and offerings – that they might not know about previously.
- If they weren’t interested in what you had to say, they wouldn’t have added you, so don’t be shy. You should be updating your followers on a regular basis – be a good leader, but don’t posture or flaunt. This is all about the ‘connection’ between you and your target market.
- Help people stay updated through a Twitter ‘feed’ that runs on your website or WordPress blog via a widget. This style of automation is ‘hands off’, a set it and forget it, allowing new Twitter posts each time you publish an article and/or your Twitter posts to show up in your blog’s sidebar.
Intermediate, Site Specific Training automation, business, twitter.com, wordpress
This post is a continuation of the social marketing strategy outlined for YahooAnswers. If you haven’t set up your account on Yahoo nor understand the theory behind the Question-Answer strategy, please review the first post before proceeding.
- Focus on answering recent questions, posted within the first three hours.
- Always post a relevant website link in the Source box using a URL that sounds similar to the topic. (e.g. If I was answering a question regarding weight loss, I would create a landing page specific to that niche and include it in the source box: yourdomain.com/weight_loss_tips.html)
- Answer questions as thoroughly as you can. The more specific you are with your answers, the better chance you have of being selected as the top choice.
- After your limits are raised and you are able to answer more questions each day, start answering questions regardless of when they were posted (older ones are fine at this point). Every answer you submit will be included in Yahoo’s search engine results page regardless of how old the original question was.
- Be sure to include your keyword (that you are optimizing for) in your answer as best as you can. You can also add your URL (using a href tag) but if you do this incorrectly and your answer reeks of spam, you will not be chosen as the top answer and in some cases your answer may be removed completely.
- It isn’t just Yahoo’s search engine that will pick up your answers (and links). Google may also spider your answers and give you credit for a back-link to be sure to answer as many questions as you can each day, until you reach your limit.
- Stick with it. Building an impressive portfolio and developing your back-links takes time but if you create a strategy where you are answering questions on a daily basis, incorporating your keywords into your answers and linking to your websites within the source boxes you will see results relatively quickly.
- The more effort you put into answering questions thoroughly and being chosen as the top answer the more traffic your website will receive. Always keep this mind when you are answering questions. While quantity is important, so is quality!
- Since you are answering questions across a variety of categories and niche markets, be sure that you know enough about the subject to provide a helpful response. If you answer a question incorrectly, your credibility will wear down. It is important that you focus on answering questions relating to topics that you are familiar with. If you are unsure about a question take a few minutes to research the correct answer before posting. It is not possible to edit your answers once they are published!
- Don’t underestimate the power of custom landing pages. Instead of directing people to the main page of your website, creating specific pages where you can lead people to find out more information, while sticking to the topic or subject that you are answering. This way you will avoid confusing your visitors who are simply looking for additional information about specific topics.
- Points & More Points. You will receive points for answering questions (2 points per answer), 10 points for being selected as the best answer and an additional point for every answer you vote on. When you are building your levels it is important to collect as many points as you can so by voting on answers submitted by other people you are able to generate more points quickly, however you must be a LEVEL 2 to be able to vote on answers, so do your best to get to that level as soon as possible. As you begin to earn points and answer more questions, you will become a top contributor and a badge will appear near your avatar picture. Once you are a top contributor you will be selected more often as the “best answer” and more people will view your answers, profile and your websites. (Social Proof!)
Okay, I realize there are actually eleven tips in the list. Just a little bonus to keep you excited about the power of this easy to implement social marketing strategy.
Beginner, Site Specific Training link, social marketing strategy, yahoo.com, yahooanswers
Targeted traffic. Every website owner wants it, will jump hoops, pay through the nose per click, tweak source code, submit feeds – on and on – to get more of it. Yet when you’re actively involved in your market you can get all kinds of free traffic to your offers, subscription forms, and web pages just by doing what you do best – answering questions.
This is especially true if you own a retail shop or are marketing books that you’ve authored, but it is also true for service oriented companies on a local level. Think about it – you’re the expert, people walk into your shop, stop you on the street or call in to ask questions all the time. They’re considered a ‘warm’ prospect at that point.
Now imagine an online location where all of these potential prospects can be found, asking questions that you could be answering – all the while positioning yourself as the expert on a global scale. Utopia, yes? In fact there are more than 21 million unique users in the U.S. and 90 million worldwide using Yahoo Answers right now, just waiting for your help. In return you’ll be rewarded with rank, traffic, sales and subscribers – whichever you’re after – or all four.
This social marketing strategy will be presented in a step-by-step format that you’ll easily be able to incorporate into your existing marketing hours. In fact if you put all the other stuff on automation – Twitter updates and campaigns, and bookmarking-syndication-commenting-voting – you’ll have time to manage an hour of day of this very hands-on approach. You should also see results quickly – seeing just how powerful this strategy is when analyzing your traffic and seeing just how much Yahoo Answers sends. YahooAnswers is, after all, the largest knowledge-sharing community on the Web. Read more…
Beginner, Site Specific Training marketing strategy, search engine ranking, targeted traffic, yahoo.com, yahooanswers
