Your Social Media Specialist Knows Best

TWITTER is the little rock star of the Social Media world. Who would have thought that 140 characters could be so powerful? Millions are using Twitter as a means of driving traffic to their own sites, to others’ sites and for communicating with the masses in real time. Yet for many, Twitter still seems a mystery.  As a Social Media Specialist VA, I coach clients on Social Media usage.  Here are my top 5 No-Nos when it comes to Twitter!

1.   Not Filling in your profile completely.

A completed profile is a must.  This includes your bio and a picture.  I advise against pictures of your favorite pet, cartoon character or using a logo unless you are an association.  People generally want to see who you are and what you are about before they will follow you in a meaningful way.  As a VA, I research potential prospects for my clients and I won’t follow you on behalf of my client unless I have some background on you.

Helpful Tip: Be selective in your keywords when composing your bio.  These are important for search engine optimization.

2. Blocking your updates.

Do not block your updates. The whole purpose of getting involved in Twitter is so that people can see what you have to say!

Helpful Tip: If you are new to Twitter, before you start following anyone,  post about 15 tweets with relevant information so when potential followers visit your site, there will be an archive and people can see what you are about.

3. No personalized Twitter background.

Borrriiiing! Showcase your personality and your business! Spend a few dollars and have someone create a personalized Twitter-back for you if you don’t have the skills to do one yourself.  Some Social Media Specialist VAs like myself can create one for you.  While people don’t always visit your site to communicate with you on a regular basis, they will generally visit it once or twice to get some background on you.

Helpful Tip: Make sure your background ties in with your brand for consistency.

4. Not tweeting enough.

Some people think it’s ok to tweet once a week. Wrong!  You need to be tweeting 3-4 times a day.  What to tweet about?  Tweet important industry related information, news-worthy items, links to articles etc. and only occasionally to your own sites. Avoid shameless self-promotion. Social Media is about relationship building. I can’t stress this enough.  Social Media is an ideal place to become known as a thought leader, problem solver or go-to person in your industry. As far as tweeting what you had for dinner?  Unless you are a caterer,  chef or a food critic, these tweets are best left out of your stream.

Helpful Tip:  If you can’t be at your computer every day at the pertinent time to send out your tweet, there are tools to help you.  Your VA can work with you to ensure your message is getting out there.  You will need to schedule some time each day to review any direct messages or responses to your tweets to build those relationships. Communicating in your authentic voice is very important.  In my opinion, you should not delegate this to your VA.

5. Ignoring the ‘ Re-tweet’

Re-tweeting is a very important part of Twitter.   A compliment goes a long way in the social media world. By re-tweeting someone else’s tweet, you are endorsing the person and their message.

Helpful Tip: When you send out a tweet,  try to leave about 12 characters free (so tweet about 128 chars).  When a message gets re-tweeted, the original author of the tweet gets published again (more publicity for you!)  thus adding the additional characters.  You can’t exceed the 140 character limit and people will not take the time to rework/reword your tweets if they are too long.

Finally there is the debate in the social media world about quality over quantity. Personally I believe quality will win out.   It’s difficult to build quality relationships with 5000 followers!  Seek to find really good prospects and then work at building relationships with them.  If you are unsure how to do this research, your VA can help.

Those are my top 5.  What would you add to the list?

While physically located in Newmarket Ontario where Joanne lives with her family, as a VA, she is virtually yours anywhere….

Who’s Next? Have you Googled Yourself Lately?

I wonder how many businesses out there are paying attention to the change that is going on in terms of brand and reputation management.  With the proliferation of Social Media,  the power to define and control  a brand is now shifting from corporations and institutions to individuals and communities.

Back in 2005, before Social Media became popular, blogger Jeff Jarvis who, among other accreditations, was creator and founding editor of Entertainment Weekly, Sunday editor and associate publisher of the New York Daily News, TV critic for TV Guide and People, purchased a Dell computer which he considered a lemon. When he wasn’t able to get the customer service he was looking for, he proceeded to take Dell down a very lonely path after writing a blog which he entitled “Dell Lies.  Dell Sucks”.  Not an attractive headline.

At the time, Jeff was not able to get Dell’s Executive to respond in the online forum. It was only after their customer satisfaction, market share and share price took a beating that they started paying attention to Social Media. Since that time, Dell has done a complete turnaround and in 2007, they began using Twitter to market its used and refurbished equipment.

Recently, they announced $2M of revenue directly attributable to their @DellOutlet Twitter id and another $1M of revenue from clickthroughs to their Dell.com site.  Jeff now says he blew Dell a big wet kiss.  If you check out their website, you will see a “community” section where they have incorporated a solid SM approach to doing business. Even their employees are now blogging on Dell’s behalf.  Bravo Dell!

This should have been a road map for other organizations to follow!  Fast forward to 2009.

Earlier this spring, Domino’s Pizza were blind-sided when a couple of its employees uploaded a video to YouTube, portraying them breaking every health rule possible while involved in food preparation.  With no one from their organization paying any attention to reputation management online, it took a consumer to bring it to their attention.  There is now a lawsuit pending.   Not surprisingly, I am now seeing Domino’s ads everywhere professing their high customer sat ratings in 2009.

I can only imagine how expensive this recovery effort is to say nothing of the cost of the lawsuit compared to the cost of  some reputation management software and a little awareness. To their credit, Dominos’ President addressed the incident by publishing its own YouTube video shortly thereafter.

It’s time for businesses to sit up and take notice.  Keeping track of what’s being said about your organization online is becoming increasingly important.  And it’s not just big business that needs to pay attention.  Small business owners are just as much if not more vulnerable to having their reputation sullied from a dissatisfied consumer.   Social Media is word of mouth marketing, and bad press can really hurt you.

It’s time to jump on the bandwagon people!  And, if you’re unsure how to track your own or your company’s reputation online, there is help out there.  While you are at it, it’s probably time to take a look at an overall Social Media strategy for your business.  As a Social Media Specialist Virtual Assistant, I can help you from strategy and action planning to profile building and on-going maintenance and support.  It’s much easier to create a positive flow of communication at the outset than to back pedal and recover from a media disaster.

So, do you know what’s being said about you?  Go ahead Google yourself…regularly.

While physically located in Newmarket Ontario where Joanne lives with her family, as a VA, she is virtually yours anywhere….

It’s Really Not Easy Being Green 

Not enough eyes were rivoted on Britain this week as the Prince of  Wales launched his new campaign to save the Rainforests.  While his support of the environment is certainly not new, what is new is that he embraced social media to get his message across.    Notice how he signs off at the end of the video. Charles, Prince of Wales, very informal – so unlike his usual demeanor but very appropriate for this media landscape.  Social Media has certainly made an impact.

The video is both entertaining and educational.  So why are there so few views? Why is no one jumping on proliferating this link as they did for Susan Boyle just weeks ago.  Surely everyone knows by now that the rainforests are the lungs of the plant. This is critical situation and Social Networking is the ideal way to spread the message. Everyone needs to do their part!

We have the power to send this message around the world and make a difference. Virtual Assistants do their part in reducing the carbon footprint by supporting multiple clients from their homes therefore allowing business owners to cut down on the need for additional computers, electricity, automobile emissions, etc.

Please join me in continuing to spread the word and keep this issue at the forefront to help save the planet for our future generations.  Click here for more information on this campaign.

Your comments are always welcomed! Let me know what you think.

While physically located in Newmarket Ontario where Joanne lives with her family, as a VA, she is virtually yours anywhere….

 MAKING EVERY MESSAGE COUNT

As a VA, I find it mind boggling that seasoned marketers are still sending out email messages from their BlackBerry® with the signature block that reads “sent via my BlackBerry….”.  I find it even more ridiculous when these seasoned marketers are tech-savvy.

Unless you own shares in this company, why on earth would you waste valuable advertizing dollars to promote their product when you could easily customize the signature block to include your own business name and contact information and whatever other data that is pertinent to marketing and growing your business? 

It’s so simple to do and the benefit should be obvious, however to make it even easier, here are the instructions from their website.

Adding a signature to email messages that a user sends from a BlackBerry device

1.Click Manage users.

2.Search for a user account.

3.In the search results, click the name of the user account.

4.Click Edit user.

5.In the Messaging configuration section, click Default configuration.

6.On the Email tab, in the Mail options section, in the Auto signature field, type the signature that you want to appear in the email messages that the user sends from the BlackBerry device.

7.Click Continue to user information edit.

8.Click Save all.

 Simple enough, don’t you think? 

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