Would you like more business through LinkedIn but not sure how to make it work for you?
Today, Friday 1st July, I will be holding an online question and answer session on Twitter. Tweet any question you like about LinkedIn to @brainstormdsgn and I will give you my opinion.
I will be taking questions between 2-4PM UK time. I look forward to hearing from you!
So, you’ve launched your new Facebook business page. All your friends, relatives and even a couple of strangers have ‘liked’ it. What now? How do you continue drawing new fans to your page, giving it enough exposure to turn it into a useful business tool?
One way is to use other social media sites in order to promote it and drive traffic to your page. Of course, any time you post an item to your Facebook page – be it news item, poll, special offer or information — you should post a link on Twitter. Hopefully, some of the visitors will decide to follow your Facebook page permanently.
When you suffer from chronic pain, it can be difficult to find people who really understand what you are going through, and who can offer you support and advice. Groups like the Fibromyalgia Association offer invaluable benefits, for which there is no substitute. But in recent years, many thousands have also found help through the internet – and specifically, through what is known as "social media", that is, sites like Facebook and Twitter that help you connect to others.
I recently attended the Social Media World Forum where one of the speakers suggested that to be successful on Twitter, you needed to have some kind of personality disorder. Either you’re:
There are endless books and articles being published that deal the subject of gaining followers on Twitter. Less is written about unfollowers. It’s important to understand why people stop following you on Twitter as this can alert you to things you might be doing wrong. You can be unfollowed for a number of reasons:
Has anyone noticed LinkedIn’s April Fools Prank? I’m being invited to connect with a number of people who have strange sounding names. Except that when I try to connect with them, it doesn’t work. Very clever!
This week is a very important milestone for Twitter. In the 5 years since it was founded, Twitter has grown up from being a simple messaging service to a massive PR and sales tool used by millions of businesses. Many could simply not survive without it. From customer services to market research to new business enquiries, Twitter is now relied upon as a vital way for businesses to keep in contact with their users.
To celebrate, were holding a competition. How do you use Twitter for your business? Tweet your entry to @brainstormdsgn – The most innovative answer will receive a FREE usability audit of their website. The deadline is this Friday – 25th March.
When I’m notified that someone is following me on Twitter, the first thing I want to do is find out who they are and what they’re talking about. If the subject matter is relevant and of interest, I will follow them, but if their Twitter feed is nothing more than links to their own articles and products, I lose interest. Even worse are followers who tweet every five minutes.
Connecting with other people on Twitter is no different than connecting with people in real life. When someone has something interesting to say, you listen, and when someone engages with you and asks you about yourself, you want to respond. Conversely, when you’re stuck in a room with someone who does nothing but talk about themselves, you want to run a mile!
You’ve just started up a new business. So how do you get more leads?
Well, you could employ a telemarketer to make some cold calls for you that might lead to an appointment. But it typically takes about 20 calls to get an appointment and several appointments to get a sale, so that’s a very expensive option for a new business.
You could invest in some pay-per-click adverting, but you could end up spending more on advertising than you get in sales.
Or you could invest in search engine optimisation so that people find your website, but it can often take several months and several thousand pounds of effort until people searching for your products find you on Google.
But there is one other way that doesn’t take a huge amount of effort and that doesn’t break the bank. And that’s Networking.
My recent blog post on cold calling attracted some very heated responses, with many of you arguing that cold calling had a useful part to play in new business development and that no amount of social networking could replace it.
