Things that Twitter can do for you

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I have been experimenting with Twitter for about a month and this is a short list of positive things I think it does.

1. Twitter helps one organize great, instant meetups (tweetups).
2. Twitter works swell as an opinion poll so if you have a question about anything just ask.
3. Twitter can help direct people’s attention to good things that are related to your business.
4. Twitter at events helps people build an instant “backchannel” so you can understand how people see you much faster. This enables you to improve how you will improve your next event or marketing strategy.
5. Twitter breaks news faster than other sources, often days ahed of traditional news sources.
6. Twitter gives businesses a glimpse at what status messaging (auto feedback through your phone) can do for an organization.
7. Twitter brings great minds together, and gives you daily opportunities to learn more about what's up in your business's world.
8. Twitter gives your critics (and competition) a forum, but that means you can study them to see what they think is important.
9. Twitter helps with business development, if your prospects are online or if you need up-to-date opinions on subjects so when you network you can stand out in the crowd.
10. Twitter can augment customer service.

Brand Yourself Better Using The Net

Here are some ideas specific to your use of social media as part of your personal branding strategy.

Stick With One Name

If you’re one name on your blog and another name on Twitter, and forced into a semi-real seeming name on Facebook, and using something different for Skype, how will I know it’s you? I’ve got a new friend here that fits that description. When she added me in Facebook, I didn’t know who she was. It took a little bit of dissection to get it, but that’s okay. Stick with one name if you want folks remembering you easily.

Make a Good About Page

I owe someone credit, and I forget who. They linked to my About page as an example of something telling about who you are. (When I look at it, I see that I’m going to add even more to my about page).

Simply, put your name (at least your first name), and some reason for why we’re participating in your media (your blog, your podcast, whatever). Don’t make your about page about the company, at least not first. Make it about a human that we can get to know. If you have a multi-author blog, all the better. Make a page for ALL of you. Make it human.

Email Signatures

Add a link to your personal media on your email signature. Don’t make it super huge and complex, because then no one reads them. Here’s how much I’ve compressed mine:


Bob Garlick
bob@GarlickMarketing.com
Marketing and Design Mentor
Cel: 604 961 0842

The Marketing Mentor Blog: http://marketingstrategymentor.blogspot.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/people/Bob_Garlick/604881401
Website: http://www.GarlickMarketing.com/
Work Samples: http://picasaweb.google.com/bob.garlick
Art Samples: http://bob.garlick.googlepages.com/

DB Communications: Helping you out-market your competition for less

In my case, I list the two most likely ways you know me because I’m often sending emails to folks who might have met me once or twice, but might need their memory jogged. Note that I have many website URL in there. That’s because I want to drive more people to visit my site and know me through my media. Also I put my Company tag-line in to reminder people of what I can help them with.

What! Friday again

Here are some really fun Japanese internal communication subway signs. How come we can't have cool graphics like this in our transport system? I'm sick of the TransLink slick corporate graphics. I think we should have something more West Coast and laid back.

Have a great weekend.

Making Twitter More Manageable

Tweetburner is a twitter mashup that allows you to create tiny URLs and also allow you to track how many times they where clicked on it.

Just ran into this great blog regarding Twitter mashups. Also you will find several more links at the bottom of this post that are from the comments section of the blog.

So please enjoy these 19 mashups for twitter, that enable you to combine internet resources like Google Maps with your Twitter data. There are also some great ways to make Twitter a bit more visual regarding data but also some nice ideas regarding how to manage your Twitter overload situations. Thanks to Thomson Chemmanoor blog post for this great info.

More great Links to Twitter tools:
Twitter History Add your Twitter backlog feed to your favorite calendar application and browse through your personal Twitter diary, making your Twitter history both fun and useful!

TweetDeck is an Adobe Air desktop application that is currently in public beta. It aims to evolve the existing functionality of Twitter by taking an abundance of information i.e twitter feeds, and breaking it down into more manageable bite sized pieces.

fb2Twitter Get your Facebook status automatically copied to your Twitter account whenever you update it.

Why do branded "Catazines" help sales

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One of the great ways to introduce products and services is through a catazine which is basically a catalogue that has a magazine formate and editorial look to it.

Giving a catalogue an editorial theme and designing can make it possible to feature many of the products a store has available. Though websites can also do this, most people use the internet information as research for price and specifications specific to a product they are interested in.

People tend to be more comfortable with a magazine that features articles related to spastic product groups. There are still thousands of magazines out on the market and people still use catazines to discover new products. So even though the internet is a must for any marketing these days the catazine is still a powerful tool that should not be dismissed lightly.

This "catazine" approach is still very effective for getting specific markets to react and make buying decisions. Editorial strategy usually places feature information on a specific products, at the beginning of the catazine. In the latter part of the catazine elements specific to the stores social and marketing events, like trade-shows or special events at the store can be rolled out. More than anything else if the catazine is properly branded it has a tremendous effect oh how people perceive that brand. If the articles are written by staff with specific background, like interior design for a furniture store or mechanical engineering for an auto parts store, the magazines enables that person to be featured as an expert and can influence peoples buying decisions.

Producing a magazine of 60 or more pages can be expensive, and the production time can be daunting, but time and time again these communication devises have proven that people are till attracted to browsing pages of a well designed magazine in the comfort of there home.