Archives – April, 2009
Okay, so I hope I’ve managed to convince you of the marketing benefits of getting your small business on Twitter. Now, as promised here is SMEketing’s guide to getting started. It’s extremely simple; however it does come with a warning though – Twitter can be seriously addictive!
Create an account and set up your profile:
The key things here are:
- Your username: which will show as twitter.com/username
- Your bio: to summarise what you do so people know whether or not they will be interested in following you. Do not leave this blank! I rarely follow anyone who doesn’t have a bio
- Your picture: as a rule, if you’re on Twitter as a small business use your corporate logo (this may have to be modified to fit in the small box Twitter provide. If you cannot do this yourself, then get in touch and for a very small fee SMEketing can do this for you. Unless you’re an existing customer, then we’ll provide this service free of charge until the end of June 2009 – get in touch with your SMEketer to receive this freebie). If you do use a logo as your picture, make sure you put your actual name on your profile. For example, our Twitter name is SMEketing, but under our profile the name listed is Victoria Walmsley (me) as I am the one who manages SMEketing’s Twitter account. Twitter, like all social media marketing, is about being transparent. People want to know exactly who they are dealing with
- Your background: this is a good article on branding yourself with a Twitter background
Start following people with similar interests/industries/geographical area are you:
This is important – as a general (ish) rule, when you follow someone, there’s a good chance they’ll follow you back. So you need to follow people who may be interested in your services. Use Twellow and JustTweetIt to find people to follow. You should also look for existing customers and suppliers. Basically anyone who you’d like to network with. This is where personal bio’s come in handy – they’ll help you decide quickly if that person/business is of interest to you. It’s no point following loads of people in New York City if your small business has a customer catchment area in Southampton, Hampshire UK.
Start Tweeting!
Now that you are following people you will be able to see their tweets and so you can now get involved with the conversations. If you see someone tweeting a question, or talking about a subject that you’re a specialist in – get stuck in! Remember though, Twitter is not a direct sales tool – people will quickly remove you from their follow lists if you try the hard sale. Twitter is about conversation and networking. Giving out free advice, tips and relevant links/info to your network will soon help boost your Twitter profile, and in turn, your small business brand.
Make sure you don’t spam tweet. There is nothing worse than logging into your Twitter account, only to find a dozen tweets, all from the same person, all following a similar thread. Tweets such as “Fully manages PPC solutions from SMEketing: http:www.tinyurl.oom/123″ , followed by “Rebranding? Logo design for small businesses: http:www.tinyurl.com/124″ = those kind of tweets, listed in quick succession will irritate people very quickly and you will soon find the number of followers you have dropping (fyi – due to the limited character content, when posting URLs, go to http://bit.ly/ first to shorten it).
You will soon find that you are interacting with a select group of people more than others. This is great – Twitter is about building relationships. So your next move is to take it to the next level – ask for their MSN details/email address/phone number etc, and see if you can arrange to meet up. Anyone who can provide you with new business, or new business referrals are worth their weight in Twitter gold!
Okay, so I don’t want this blog post to get too long – Twitter is a huge topic and I could bang on about it all day.
My last and final Twitter tips are the tools you can use to manage your account. I won’t go into too much depth here – the best thing is to just get stuck in and use them. If you do want more advice as to how to manage your Twitter account to receive maximum return on your (time) investment, get in touch with SMEketing and we’ll happy talk you through it.
- TweetDeck: Use this to give you an overview of what’s happening on Twitter – view all the updates, replies, direct messages, and set up specific keyword related searches to see who’s talking about your interests
- Hashtags: Hashtags (#) enable you to track and follow conversations on Twitter. If SMEketing were to run an event called ‘SMEketer Southampton’ we’d maybe use #SMESo’ton as a hashtag at the end of each tweet that was related to that event.
- MrTweet: Another tool to help you find relevant people to follow
- Twitter Search: If you’re not searching for your keywords via TweetDeck, use Twitter Search
There are hundreds of Twitter tools out there – for more information on these and others, just type ‘Twitter Tools’ into Google and you’ll find 75,500,000 results to look through!!
And finally, now that you’re up and running on Twitter – dont’ forget to follow us at @SMEketing: twitter/SMEketing. Tweet you later!
April 23, 2009
Heard of a little thing called Twitter? I hope so! At SMEketing in Hampshire, not a day goes past where we don’t read some kind of article on it. They’re not always positive articles – like most success stories, there are people who love it, and people who loathe it. But at the end of the day you can no longer ignore it. Twitter is here to stay, and it can help your small business.
How? Well, many of the articles I read surround success stories of Twitter – how it has directly helped businesses gain more customers. And you know what? They’re always small businesses – these are the people who are using Twitter to maximise their product/brand awareness and as a result are generating new businesses and boosting the spend of existing customers.
Here’s a couple of Twitter success stories:
Hubspot, a fantastic source for online marketing, recently wrote about the Kogi Korean BBQ taco truck in LA. They’ve been using social media, and in particular Twitter, with astonishing affect. They identified that their young, techno-savvy customers were using Twitter, so they got involved too. They now have a community of over 14,000 people. They used Twitter to broadcast the locations of their trucks, solicited new names for their trucks and are also designing new company t-shirts via their blog and Twitter. As a result, they now have constant queues of people, lining up to get their hands on one of their tacos. Considering the current state of the economy, that’s a pretty nice position to be in!
Another, well documented Twitter success story is that of CoffeeGroundz, a coffee shop that has credited Twitter with almost doubling their clientele! CoffeeGroundz owner, J.R.Cohen registered with Twitter and started following members of his local Twitterati (definition: the tweet elite, whose feeds attract thousands of followers and whose 140-character spews capture the attention of the rapt who doggedly monitor them) – he soon build up over 1000 followers. One day one of his followers called Sean, sent a direct tweet to Cohen, saying that “I want to pre order a bkfast wrap so I can zip thru drive thru to get back for gas man. C’est possible?”. Cohen replied straight away saying ‘Wi. What do you want on it?”. Ten minutes later Sean had been through the drive-thru and had picked up his breakfast wrap. This simple exchange generated a lot of buzz on Twitter, and was hailed as the first time a to-go order had ever been placed via the medium. Grasping the opportunity with both hands Cohen started taking to-go orders via direct messages from any of his Twitter followers.
CoffeeGroundz has also expanded on their Twitter success by hosting a Tweet-Up – an event where local Twitterers meet up to chat, network and generally get to know people better. Not only did this generate great PR for CoffeeGroundz, but they also kept the 100+ Twitterers well fed and watered – lining their pockets even further!
There are many examples of how small businesses are using Twitter for their advantage. It can be as simple as confirming an appointment, offering some advice, or just commenting on other people’s conversations. The point is that you can’t gain from the benefits if you’re not there. Twitter is perfect for small businesses – it doesn’t cost a penny, and it allows you to reinforce one of your key USPs – your individual character and personal touch to business.
What else can you use Twitter for?
- Understand your customers - by using Twitter polls, you can gain insight on your followers that can be fed back into business
- Form valuable business relationships - it’s not just your customers who are using Twitter. It’s likely that journalists and body representatives are using it too, so use if to build relationships with these key people
- Events and reporting - if you are hosting an event, create buzz about it by broadcasting details via Twitter
- Offer exclusive offers and promotions - offer discounts to Twitterers only
- Reputation management - use Twitter to make followers aware of your service levels, answer customer questions and engage i conversations about your offerings
If you’re still not sure if Twitter is right for your small business, come and talk to us at SMEketing. Based in Southampton, Hampshire, we can help you plan your Social Media Marketing campaigns to ensure you receive best possible results from your investment. Get in touch, even if it’s just for a quick bit of advice! Of course, you can always reach a SMEketer on Twitter – follow us at http://twitter.com/SMEketing
If you’re already using Twitter to great success then let us know. It’s always good to hear from small businesses that are doing well – especially in the current economic climate. Leave a comment at the bottom of the post…
For information and advice on setting up a Twitter account – stay tuned. This will be the subject of the next SMEketing blog post.
April 14, 2009
Okay small business owners, I have some questions for you here:
How many of you reading this, know what your logo is? (I’m really hoping you’re nodding along, safe in the knowledge that you know what your logo is! I’ll be scared if you don’t, unless you’re just starting a new business and haven’t had a logo created yet…in which case, get in touch, we’d love to help!)- Great, number 2, how many of you know the difference between your logo and your corporate identity? (From our experience, approximately 60-70% of people reading will know)
- And finally, how many of you understand the difference between your corporate identity and your brand? (this is the biggy – and I’m assuming that some of you might not be 100% sure of the answer here…)
It is really is important for your small business, that you understand not only the differences between these key elements, but also how they work together to form the overall impression of who your company (or personal brand) is… So here’s a quick and easy guide to the differences and how they all work together:
Logo: It is rare that a company, even the smallest of small businesses, doesn’t have a logo, even if it’s a simple word, mark or symbol that someone internally has created to serve as your identifier. A logo can be made up of a different parts, which may or may not always be used together; the word mark, a logo symbol, a tagline.
Corporate Identity: These are the elements of your small business’s graphic/identity/visual language, and are usually, but not always, devised from the elements that make up your logo. If you have worked with an marketing agency (such as SMEketing) to develop your corporate identity, you must ensure that they provide you with a manual, commonly known as the Brand Guidelines (also called a brand manual) as part of the package. This will guide you, your team and suppliers, as to how to correctly utilise your corporate identity. It safeguards your investment in your brand and prevents it from being diluted.
Your corporate identity is made up of symbols, textures, colours, images, photography style and fonts. If you’d like to see an example of some brand guidelines get in touch with us and we can send you some examples of ones we’ve created for past clients.
And all of these elements come together visually in your marketing material (business cards, stationery, website, brochures, forms, email marketing, signage, advertisements, vehicles, etc) to express your corporate identity. A strong corporate identity is one that maintains a consistent use of the elements to achieve quick recognition by a potential client when they come in contact with a marketing piece.
Brand: A lot of people will tell you that your brand IS your corporate identity, however it is much much more than that. A Brand is the sum of ALL parts that make up a company. It includes your logo, your corporate identity, and any and all of the follow elements:
- your company name
- your company culture
- what customers have come to expect from an interaction experience with your company
- team uniforms
- company policies
- tone of how your written content is delivered
- corporate identity
- logo
- tagline
- word of mouth advertising (how your current clients & suppliers talk about you when they refer you)
- partner relationships
- sponsorships
- the space you work in
- and many more..
To summarise, your brand is what people come to expect from your company, whether it be from seeing an advert in a magazine, to ordering a product online, to interacting with a team member over the phone or in person, and so on. And with any great brand these elements are always consistent and congruent.
Developing and maintaining a corporate brand is essential in modern business. SMEketing can work with you and your small business to develop your brand and carry it through all your marketing efforts.
Speak to us about logo design, company stationary, website design, copywriting and more. See our Services page for a full list of marketing solutions we provide.
Our small business marketing agency is based in Hampshire and service all of Hampshire, as well as Wiltshire, Dorset and Surrey, Sussex and Berkshire (and of course the Isle of Wight – in fact it’s so lovely over there we’d welcome the excuse to visit!).
April 6, 2009
I was driving back to Southampton on the M3 the other day when I heard an interesting fact on the radio; did you know that 80% of research before purchase is done online. 88.14% of those searches are done using Google.
So if you’re running a small business, your website must be found on Google to have a chance of connecting these targeted, high quality visitors to your website.
There are two ways to get visitors from Google.
These two methods come under the term “Search Engine Marketing” or “Search Marketing.” Google Adwords is a way of sending high quality visitors to your website immediately, by paying for it. SEO will provide a stream of free, high quality visitors to your website but can take up to a while for the best results to come through.
Both types of search marketing can be used to ensure your website reaches the visitors that you want to connect with.
What is Google Adwords? Google Adwords allows you to place small text based advertisements of your website on Google. Here’s how it works: You create text ads and choose keywords you think your customers would use to find you. Those text ads are displayed when someone types in one of your keywords. You only pay when someone clicks on your ad’s link and visits your website.
What is SEO? SEO is a way of ensuring your website is accessible to Google and has the best chance to rank higher than other websites that offer similar products/services. The theory behind SEO is simple: Ensure your website follows the Google webmaster guidelines to make it accessible. Create a website that is the more relevant to what you are offering then your competitors. Think about the keywords your customers would use to find you and use those words in relevant places throughout your website. Make it a high quality website so that other websites will link to you. I recommend that if you have invested in SEO (and I always advise that you do) you should also run a Google Adwords campaign until your SEO results appear.
Ensuring that your website ranks high in the Google results is vital to receiving high quality and quantity leads. You need to make sure your small business website is working as hard for you, as you are for your small business.
Managing a SEO and PPC campaign takes time, patience and a thorough understanding of the process. If you want to take advantage of the benefits of these solutions, but just don’t have the time or skills, contact us at SMEketing. We have experience in running campaigns for a variety of organisation, all who are now reaping the rewards!
April 3, 2009
