2 Biz To Do’s for 2009

#1 Join FACEBOOK and TWITTER… They really aren’t scary or hard.

Twitter …. Well, I just LOVE Twitter.  I only have about 5 face to face friends on twitter but I have gotten SO much from my short time there.  (Look for another article talking about that soon).  Here’s what you do.

• Sign up using a name that is catchy and makes sense for your business. A name like @ George239 isn’t very interesting, and @Hotchick4u is likely to get you booted out of Twitter.    Sign up for Twitter
• Fill out your profile completely! People won’t follow if they don’t know who you are and what you might tweet about.
• change your twitter background from the original. (After you get going think about doing a custom background) I can help with that if you like.. email me at milehiweb@yahoo.com
• Go to Twitter Grader enter your @ name. Your score will be low, but that’s not the point for now, with that tool you can search for people using a keyword like “real estate” or “marketing” “Politics” and it will give you the top tweeters in that area.
• Follow them.. Follow who they interact with, look for other people in your other area’s of interest.
• There are two schools of thought about if you should keep all your Twitter following/followers with one account, or split into personal and business.  That is your call.
• If someone’s tweets are spammy… you have the power, just stop following them.
• If you want people to follow you, build value and relationships with people, don’t just squack.. Look what I did, look what I wrote, look what I sell.
• Read TwiTips – a blog by Darren Rowse – A Twitter Must Read
• Follow @problogger Darren was one of the first people I followed and one of the first that responded to me (a nobody) directly.  That impressed me!
• There are lots of applications that are free.  Some of my favorites are

1. Friend or Follow This tells you who is following you that you follow, who is following you that you don’t follow and who you follow that isn’t following you.
2. Tweet Later You can use this to auto DM (Direct Message) people that follow you.  If you use this, make it a friendly message not a BUY THIS FROM MY NOW! type.  People will often unfollow you if you do. & auto follow people that follow you. This also allows you to send yourself an email targeting keywords you are interested in or a person you are interested in.
3. Twitter Local - Shows you the people that live in your area that are Tweeters and an example of their last few tweets.
4. OutTwit - This is an application that brings twitter right into your Microsoft Outlook.  It can be configured in many different ways and their tech support is awesome
   
5. Tweet Deck - A down loadable application that lets you see your Twitterland in all sorts of organized ways.
6. TwitWall – A more complete profile of who you are, what you tweet about, perhaps a picture or two. I wish they had a place to actually link this on your twitter like a “for more info” link.  Anyway, it’s kinda fun. See mine here.
7. Advanced Twitter Search – Thanks to@denverish for sending me this gem. It lets you search the tweets by location, word, phrase, positive people, ?’s being asked.  Very cool!

• I would also recommend going to the local #tweetups.  the #mark is used in Twitter to help you organize events, groups.  you search for #yourtopic and all of the tweets and twits about it come up. so watch for things like #DenverTweetup.  This will give you an opportunity to meet some of the @ people you follow face to face.

• Read Don’t be a Twitter Snob here! & read this article on choosing your Online Profile picture wisely

• 

  @yourwebchick

• Can you think of any other reasons to join these two social networks?
• Or great applications I missed?
• Please comment below!

Facebook isn’t MySpace… I have a page there just for the links but I NEVER “socialize” there… It’s best use is for the artsey folks, musicians etc.  But Facebook is a whole other story, it began as a more “sophisticated” Myspace for College kids, but now those kids are 30 something plus and networking socially and for business too.  Once you join  Facebook,

• use the search tools to find friends and colleagues,
• create a Facebook page for your business
• look for colleagues and  experts in your industry to “friend” and keep them up to date on what your business is doing by
• fill out the “what you are doing” part and send links to articles or interest or your latest blog postings…. or
• Add your blog to your Facebook account so it automatically posts new links.
• Become “a fan” of companies you like… Everyone will see this and you even get your name and face mentioned in the ad’s that pop up.
• Friend Mari Smith.. She is the GURU of Facebook for Business.  See more about her on my Mari Smith the Facebook Guru post here!

Do you suffer from online picture shock?

How about it?  Is the picture you use in social networking or on the “about me” page on your website an accurate representation of what you actually look like?  I know most of us are our own worst critics and we don’t want to scare folks away, but you seriously MUST use a photo that people can recognize you from if you are ever going to have “real life” interactions with them as customers, clients or mentors.   To have a meet and greet at a coffee shop and have them sit there two feet away and not recognize you does nothing for your credibility as an honest professional.

Women have a harder time with this since we often change our hair color, length, style and can look significantly different from month to month and it’s not cost effective nor time effecient  to have to update your picture across all of your social networks.  When I have a new client that I’m meeting I’ll tell them that I am a blonde now or I’ve cut my hair so they aren’t looking for a woman with long red hair instead of short blonde hair.. this usually seems to work.

Guys,  you really have to get a new picture up if you now have WAY less hair than you used to, it used to be dark brown but now not so much or you used to be clean shaven and now have a full beard.  Normally men don’t change their look as often as women do so you don’t have a good excuse to not update your online profiles.

If you want your potential client to trust you and feel good working with you, this seems like a no-brainer but it happens all the time.

If you are a single checking out the online dating scene this is ever MORE crucial.  Most ladies will never give you a 2nd chance at impressing them with your honesty.

What do you think?  Have you ever been in either the position of not being recognized?  Or been the one searching for the person you are meeting and unable to identify them?   Share you thoughts here.

Are you a Twitter snob too??

Twitter Snobs

This article talks about twitter etiquette. If people follow you, what are your responsibilities to them? Do you HAVE to follow? I have found that I only want to follow those people who are dead on topic for me with either SEO, SEM, Website Design, Blogging and/or those people that are within my state as I enjoy those connections as well. To just follow anyone and everyone that follows you created a huge waste of time for me, and even more things to look at and decide if they are worthy of my time.

I am experimenting with having more than one Twitter “face”.
I have my @yourwebchick profile for my business interests and @veryhappywife for the more girlie side of me that likes to learn and discuss things like gardening, photography, parenting, marriage, cooking, empty-nesters, scrap booking etc. I haven’t spent much time making connections on that one yet so I’ll let you know how my experiment goes.

I do agree that you should always answer your @ reply’s.  but I’m not sure that the reason some people don’t respond is snobbery, I think many people on Twitter don’t really understand how to find their DM’s and @ responses.  To people who have used Twitter for awhile it seems obvious, but I think it’s our responsibilities to help the newbies we see.  I will usually message someone who followed me but doesn’t have a picture or a link or their profile filled out and prompt them to do so.  Most people are greatful that I took my time to help them out.

Linked in has added some great new applications!

Linked In

I just discovered some great new applications that Linked In is offering to members. I’ve linked my absolute favorite here With this one you can link your blog directly to your profile so not only can people look at your statistics in your profile they can also check out any blog posts at Blogspot that you’ve made lately.

There are several other applications that look worth trying as well. including
One here for WordPress Blogs
Your Reading List by Amazon .

Just look to the bottom right of your profile page and you’ll see an add applications button.

If you aren’t on Linked In yet, you should be. I think it’s the #1 “Social Networking” sites that all professionals should be on. You can search by topic, location to find folks you might be interested in networking with, there are 100’s of groups you can add for things you are interested in in your personal life and in your business life.

Mari Smith the Facebook Guru

Mary was interviewed by John Lawlor here.

Mari Smith’s Radio Interview

She talks about how you can use Facebook for your business.  Take a listen and let me know what you think by clicking on the link above.

The first thing you should do if you want to grown your business is friend Mari on Facebook and follow her at @marismith on Twitter!  She does podcasts and radio interviews all the time and her accent is a joy to listen to, plus she’s just fun and informative!