Small Business owners and bloggers who are new to Twitter, Social Media and Internet Marketing rarely know where to get started or what their highest priorities should be. This post was inspired by this comment:
“Twitter seems a bit mysterious to me: I’m just not sure how best to engage people on it for my business.”
Michael, who commented on behalf of QDI Stone, a Houston based stone quarry that ships travertine and pavers across the U.S., has expressed what should be true for almost everyone. What I know that many don’t yet is that there are hundreds if not thousands of things you COULD do and it can take years to know which of all those will most benefit your business.
This post covers not just how to use Twitter, but also what else a small business owner should focus on first – what to make your priorities.
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See our Small Business Internet Marketing Starter Package
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USING TWITTER
What you want to do on Twitter is connect with influencers, related businesses, and potential buyers. One easy way to do that is to search for them on Twellow. I have a post on How to Use Twellow. Also see my posts on creating a consistent Twitter presence and How to Use Twitter Lists.
Most people start out broadcasting on Twitter but the value is in building relationships. I just published a post about influencers to follow on Twitter where you can find Twitter users who generously share quality content and recommend deserving businesses and causes.
NEW: All my Twitter posts are now collected
on my Twitter Best Practices page.
If you are brand new to Twitter or it just doesn’t make sense to you yet, see my Twitter Quick Start page for links to how to use Twitter Videos. Eventually you may want to use a tool to manage Twitter more effectively. The easiest one to use is CoTweet and the most powerful and most used solution is Hootsuite. You can read comparisons of these in my post about Managing Twitter Accounts.
One thing about Twitter some don’t realize yet is that it is a way to connect with people who are often very difficult to reach any other way. Sometimes they are using Twitter themselves but you could never get them on the phone or find an email for them and other times someone you can find will introduce you.
NEW: Twitter Best Practices post has all these posts and more all in one place.
IMPORTANT: Put your Twitter @UserName on your blogs, ecommerce and Web sites! The best location is near the top RIGHT corner which is also where the most important frequently used links such as your shopping cart should be. Make sure you use text and not an image that can not be found on a search for Twitter. (When influencers share your site they may overlook it no matter where it is and the sharp will do a search for the word Twitter to find it. Make sure they can!)
Want more excellent tips on how to use Twitter in a businesslike way? Read Jeremiah Owyang‘s How to Use Twitter.
LOCAL SEARCH DIRECTORIES
If your business has a physical address, the first thing you can do that will benefit you the most is to get your Local Search Directory listings on sites like Google Maps, Yahoo Local, Bing, SuperPages, YellowPages and 70+ more.
It is foolish for any business not to obtain their free listings on at least the major sites offering local directories.
Not having these listings is like saying “no thanks” to years of free advertising for your business.
All of these sites still offer totally free listings, but you would never know that by looking for them. They make it really easy to find ways to spend money and hard to find where to get your free listings! (If you can’t find the free option, ask me and I’ll find the link for you.)
Instead of doing all those submissions manually there is a service I use that does Local Search Directory listing submissions for as little as $30. I use that to get the listings online quickly and into the infoUSA database that feeds GPS, cell phone, iPhone and iPad systems. (It is much faster than manually submitting to them and includes sites that charge fees you won’t have to pay.)
Upgrade your listings on the Most Important Local Search Directories List and encourage your current customers to write reviews for you. (Read the Terms of Service on the sites first as some prohibit certain kinds of incentives.)
Read the Benefits of Online Reviews. My post encouraging people to Support Small Businesses includes links to where and how to write reviews. Share these links with your customers and use them to write reviews for local and related businesses. (If they are wise they will write reviews for you in return.)
One very common mistake businesses make is not making it obvious WHERE they do business. The Internet is global so you have to let us know where you are. Make sure in your local listings, on your Web site and everywhere else you include where you are, what cites/counties/metros/states/countries you serve and indicate where you are willing to ship products or provide services.
Do NOT assume your potential customers know the local abbreviations. They may operate in another location and have a job coming up in your area or their buyer may work from home or even another country. Include your city, state, county and country and for heaven’s sake don’t be one of those people who doesn’t include the telephone area code! (Consider including a country code too!)
For more tips read this 5 Step Process for Dominating Local Search by DuctTape’s Small Business Marketing expert John Jantsch (Follow John Jantsch aka @DuctTape on Twitter).
BLOG COMMENTING
Even if you don’t have a blog yet, you can use CommentLuv to promote your business and build incoming links. Read How CommentLuv Grows Businesses and Blogs for tips on this.
First you need to know what incoming links to build. Read my Building Traffic post for a step-by-step how-to including free tools to use for keyword research and tracking your incoming links.
Most people select keyword phrases that are either too broad or too specific when they first do this so get some feedback. You can run them by me if you like because getting this right is essential to your success.
See my posts on How CommentLuv Works and how to set up default anchor text links on CommentLuv. You will need an RSS feed to use; I can provide one if you need one.
Once you’re set up on CommentLuv you can use the CommentLuv search engine to locate blogs related to your business. The comments you leave create relationships with those bloggers and their readers and the CommentLuv link and what you write attracts people to your site.
Be sure to read blogger’s commenting policies and make your comments about their post. Let the CommentLuv link do your self-promotion for you.
Watch for KeywordLuv enabled blogs like this one. I explain How KeywordLuv Works and provide a list of business-friendly dofollow blogs that have both CommentLuv and KeywordLuv installed. Leaving comments in those blogs create two quality links per comment.
BUSINESS BLOGGING
Eventually you will want to be able to blog yourself. While you could blog on someone else’s platform that is not recommended because that site could decide to shut down or delete your site. If that happens you are back to square one and lose almost everything you have accomplished so far.
You can install a blog on your own domain or let someone else deal with the technical overhead and upkeep and join a group blog and/or write guest posts you get published on established blogs instead.
Installing a blog is far more complicated than it looks. You have to decide what platform (I recommend WordPress), what Theme (I use Thesis for all the blogs I have installed as Joint Ventures and for clients), what plugins, how many columns and much more. Don’t go it alone. At least read How to Create a Successful Blog and ideally ask someone like me what your options are.
You do NOT have to learn how to manage the technical aspects of blogging yourself. I don’t. I have exceptionally talented WordPress Developers and WordPress Designers who handle that for me who can create custom WordPress blogs for you.
If you want a less expensive option and don’t need a custom design, I highly recommend Andrew Rondeau at WeBuildYourBlog for inexpensive Blog Installation and Blog Maintenance.
BLOG OUTREACH
I am encouraging bloggers to create geo-targeted niche blogs to benefit small businesses local to them or selling online in their niches. I will be publishing guest posts here and in other marketing blogs like the one written by Master Gardener Stephanie Suesan Smith on blogger outreach.
Businesses can opt for blog outreach instead of blogging themselves. New tools like Inkybee allow you to identify bloggers who write about subjects related to your products and services or who reach your target audience.
Blog outreach is going to be huge going forward and the bloggers and businesses that use it first have the advantage.
2011 will be the year of blog outreach where bloggers provide what small businesses so desperately need: more visibility to their potential customers.
One blog I recommend businesses – and especially those in the home improvement niche – connect with is Good Millwork. They have been blogging and using Social Media and are well on their way to implementing what small businesses are going to need to do. They are a strong role model for where businesses need to go.
LEAD GENERATION
For businesses interested in lead generation and Internet Marketers who work with them consider the Hubspot 30-day Free Trial to optimize your website to get found by more prospects and convert more of them into leads and paying customers with HubSpot’s inbound marketing software.
I have just joined their partner program and will be using their free trial to generate leads for Good Millwork and see for myself exactly how it works. Watch for follow-up posts about how it works, my review of the process and eventually a case study on our results.
This post has an enormous amount of information in it on subjects that may be new to many who are reading it. We encourage you to save and share the link and to leave a comment or contact us if you have any questions.
We promise that we will not try to sell you anything or charge you for answers, advice, or guidance. Our calling is to assist small businesses and especially those who do not have the ability to pay for quality consulting or do not yet believe that investing in that type of information will benefit them.
Gail Gardner
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Hi Gail,
Local presence on directories are of utmost importance but participating in local events can also give a boost to expand your network and create a brand. A basic website is also equally important along with social media page to attract and convert the online visitors into the paid customers.
Thanks for sharing.
Thanks this was really helpful since I am currently starting a small business online and am trying to spread the words about my site. I only have Facebook and had never used Twitter before but my friends insisted that twitter is way better than facebook in connecting with people in the relevant business. so your guide on how to use Twellow also helped me immensely.
WOW, this is amazing. Do you also have a training program for small business owners to get started? I believe that this is going to be much needed.
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Hi John,
Yes, I do have a small business mentoring program as I have found that ebooks, videos, courses, Webinars only go so far. Most watch or read them, but then they never actually IMPLEMENT what they saw. Until you ACT none of it does you any good!
My solution to that – which most won’t offer because it can be very time-consuming – is to actually DO the parts that only need to be done once and teach the business owners or their principles one-on-one what they want to learn at a pace they can handle. There is no reason to invest time in learning something you don’t have to do regularly and I can do it faster than I can explain it much less teach it.
I do that for a one-time flat rate so that any company can afford it. Small businesses are usually so busy that they do things over a long period of time, so this allows them to determine when to do the next step and doesn’t overwhelm me. I also have many social media savvy fellow bloggers who assist and can recommend the very best specialists for any desired task. If I don’t know already I know who does and will find out.
See my Hire GrowMap page for pricing for specific offers including my Small Business Mentoring Program, Basic and Optimized Local Directory Listings, and Pillar Content Creation that builds links on quality related blogs for more organic traffic and includes setting up a process the business owner can use to respond to inquiries across Twitter with their pillar content – or to interact directly when buyers are most interested.
Initial consultations are totally free. The ideas I share – IF acted on – can immediately increase sales and income.
I like the whole blog outreach thing. Very smart.
There are more interesting tips and links in here.
Although I believe I am not a beginner anymore, there is still so much to learn. You need to be learning and adapting constantly on the internet.
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So will these ideas work for someone who is so far just interested in doing high-quality affiliate sites? I don’t have anything else going on yet, as I have only begun internet marketing recently, so I’m not sure how to combine blogging and social media with simple affiliate review sites. Any ideas?
Hi Christina,
All of these tips will work for just about any type of business except for the Local Listings which require a physical address. If you have a physical address you can use you can benefit from Local Listings too.
growmap would love you to read ..Bloggers Wanted for Joint Ventures
There are some amazing resources out there for local exposure. It’s an entirely different beast in some respects from how you focus your efforts without a physical location.
There are many small business owners out there that are not taking advantage of the power of social media and social networking sites. This change is very crucial to the development of ones business. The time have changed and the way people do business, shop and promote.
I agree with several comments that Facebook is not yet an ideal platform to promote smaller businesses with a decent page. But they miss a huge opportunity to compete with Linkedin or other networks. They should create Facebook Business for companies. Local directories are very good but depending on the type of business, local customers may account only for a small piece of business
We lost a huge amount of traffic during a Google algorithm change. Since then, we moved on to social media advertising. We are currently using twitter to twitt our deals, trying our best to put a placeid into place. We are a social buy deal aggregation site and we tried a lot on focusing on things such as foursquare as well. We also developed several tools for others to use and put those into our blogger. Hopefully, some day, all the social media companies will replace Google, but I wish, they won’t turn into another Google.
This is a really great resource: in 1 page you have you have nailed some key internet marketing strategies on 1 page. Just don’t forget Facebook!
Hi Paul,
I left Facebook off to start with for several reasons:
1) It is very complicated and most businesses will have to hire help to get a decent business presence up there.
2) Facebook has major usability issues that make trying to use it logically difficult. Those new to the Internet do not need to be dealing with that kind of confusion until they are more comfortable online.
While Facebook IS used by massive numbers of people including many who are new to the Internet, many or possibly most of them are not trying to accomplish specific goals. If all you want to do is wander around and you don’t think much I suppose they do fine on FB.
Maybe it depends on what kind of person you are. I notice that your blog has a post saying Twitter is a bad user experience. While I admit they have far too many fail whales and some usability issues of their own, compared to FB (for me) they’re a wonder.
growmap would love you to read ..Small Business Internet Marketing Starter Package
There are many who are saying that Twitter is going to grow so big that soon people will be job hunting on it…I think it’s closer to a cross between IM and a social network like Facebook.
I have tried myblogguest, but haven’t had much luck…maybe I will have to check it out again, it’s been a while since I’ve been on there.
Great tips!
People already do job hunt on Twitter (although LinkedIn.com is much better for that.
growmap would love you to read ..Building a List- Critical So WHERE Are Our Lists
i think it is important for any level business to get their face out there on the web, i think it is more important than more traditional marketing.
Excellent! this article shared a huge information when starting a business, you guys are great to explain it well. But before that, starting a business is not an easy decisions, you have to know first if your capable to handle your chosen business, and prepared yourself to face the challenges.
There’s a method to the madness. Twitter for me is an opportunity to engage with other SBOs. It’s like going to a cocktail party instead of a backyard BBQ, which is an analogy I heard from Darin Persinger (someone I follow on Twitter) from Productivity Junkies. Facebook being the backyard BBQ.
I just wanted to add that when you decide to use social media, even if it feels real, immediate and productive, nothing beats face to face or phone contact. This is the main reason I make an effort to call, speak or possibly tweetup with other SBOs, especially the people I follow on twitter.
Lots of good links and reads on this site. I will definitely bookmark and revisit.
Hi Angie,
Thank you for taking the time to visit and comment here. While I personally do not have a need to meet people in person or even speak to them on the phone, I do connect with them in chat using Skype or Yahoo Messenger and via email.
We do sometimes talk on the phone if we want to discuss something that is faster done verbally; however, I love having the record of our discussion to refer to and take notes when talking on the phone.
This is a sample of the type of information I share. There is much more here. The Best of GrowMap page is a good place to start or use the categories or search box. If you can’t easily find something specific you need Tweet to me @GrowMap and I’ll send you a link.
growmap would love you to read ..Best of GrowMap – Our Most Important Posts All in One Place
Thanks for sharing this information. Tweeter and social media in general has always been a mystery for me to figure out. People are making money with it. I still havent learned the art of social media yet. So this article has helped as a guide.
They say internet marketing is about targeting different marketing channels, not only google. That’s very true, but it’s a whole new skill set.
thanks for sharing this ideas of the online marketing. Great post…this is the great information for businesses to start internet marketing.
I think the answer to this question really does change on the type of business being run. From experience, if you are starting a business such as ecommerce that relies on traffic, I would suggest learning about on page seo before anything. Developing a site that is setup to be search engine friendly from the start will save you a lot of time, money and effort and/or headaches in the future.
Tom would love you to read ..Comment on Hello world! by Mr WordPress
Gail, this an awesome collection of extremely valuable suggestions/advice. I will definitely be sharing it and bookmarking it for future reference. Thanks for taking the time to collect this data!
Julie Weishaar would love you to read ..Facebook Song!
Thank you Julie and welcome to GrowMap. I can tell you are one of the few who understands the power of collaborating and CommentLuv. I am really surprised I had not seen that Facebook Song video before. I am glad you commented as it reminds me to give you credit when I share it.
growmap would love you to read ..Best of GrowMap – Our Most Important Posts All in One Place
Thanks Gail. Here is another FB video you might or might not have seen. Warning: it is not G-rated 🙂 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_QePidL750&feature=player_embedded
Julie Weishaar would love you to read ..Facebook Song!
its true that most new business man rarely know how to utilize the power of social networking sites. what most of them do is to hire some people who can represent them in these social networking sites. but these people wont know much about your site. its always better for you yourselves to learn about these sites rather than hiring any people for representing your company.
Hi Miekl,
It isn’t just new businesses that have no idea how to use Social Media. Many who are selling their services are still finding their way to what is effective. We are all continually learning and growing our skills.
I agree that many hire the wrong people who are doing all the wrong things and are likely to cause them serious problems. I have nothing against hiring the right people if you don’t have the time to do it yourself, but for some things only the business owner can really be effective.
A good example is connecting with architects for Good Millwork. While I can effectively do many things for them, architects with architecture blogs are not going to be too impressed if I contact them but they might be really impressed if they heard from the Harvard educated business owner.
growmap would love you to read ..Support Small Businesses
You gotta start with SEO, it’s the lifeblood of any small business internet marketing campaign.
Hi Tony,
You would have to have a site to SEO first. Small businesses that don’t have any Internet presence can start there, but if they primarily offer products or services to a limited geography they should start with getting their Local Listings first.
growmap would love you to read ..Business Blogging Tips- Top Advice from 31 Bloggers Totally Free Download
Thanks for sharing us ideas on where to start internet business marketing.
Paul Thomas would love you to read ..Become Wealthy With Your New Year Resolution
Using local search directories is a great way to get your name out locally. There are many things that have to be done on a smaller, local level. It is a great way to start, anyway.
I hope everyone who has Local Listings will read the additional information about what else to include in them besides the obvious. Keywords, categories, and descriptions are enormously important.
Here is just one example. I wrote a review for the computer repair person who works on my PC and mentioned in that review that he knows Ubuntu and does hard drive data recovery. Before that review NO computer tech anywhere in the Dallas metro area came up for Ubuntu and only the major data recovery businesses came up for data recovery.
Last time I searched he is the ONLY computer business that comes up for Ubuntu and he also comes up for data recovery. There are tons of PC builders and repair shops but most don’t do either so he now he can be found and draw business from much further away.
If you aren’t listed your happy customers can’t start refviewing. Reviews take the longest to get and are the most effective way to increase business. I regularly search and sort by most/best reviews to select a new restaurant or to find a B&B when traveling.
growmap would love you to read ..Best of GrowMap – Our Most Important Posts All in One Place
Great post. Lots of great information for small businesses to begin Internet marketing.
Only thing I’ll add is the first step is to set up your website before worrying about Twitter or anything else.
Hi Brandon,
Ideally every small business would own their own domain and have a Web site; however, many are not ready to take that step. They can at least get their local listings – even if they never get on the Internet themselves.
I hope more businesses realize the economy is going to continue to be more challenging and the Internet is the least expensive way to draw customers from further away to make up for their own spending less. See the post Support Small Businesses I’ll share in CommentLuv in this reply for more details on why the economy is going to continue to affect local businesses.
growmap would love you to read ..Support Small Businesses
I have been using the main big ones to promote my local search listings but I like what you said about getting it into info usa and the others so that it reaches allot farther. Will have to look into the submission service.
Hi Crystal,
InfoUSA is important because they provide the listings that appear in cell phones, GPS systems, iPads and other portable devices. When people build niche sites either by location or subject they acquire listings from various sources including infoUSA so if you are listed your business ends up being listed on new sites too.
If someone decides to build a directory of hair salons or a directory of businesses in Las Vegas and you’re listed in all these databases YOUR business will automatically be included.
It is faster to get your listing on infoUSA through UBL than directly through them and they also get you listings that you would normally have to pay to be included in.
growmap would love you to read ..Best of GrowMap – Our Most Important Posts All in One Place
This is a very nice blog. I learnt a lot from this blog. Your tips for successfully running small business in the competitive business scenario is tremendous. You have present this blog in a very systametic way, which helps everyone to understand internet marketing in a clear way. I appreciate your post.
Thank you Greet,
That comes from years of experience working with small local and online ecommerce businesses.
growmap would love you to read ..Reputation Management- How to Protect Your Brands
There are some pretty interesting tips. However, every business has its specificity. We must adapt these tips to our business.
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Hi Piese,
All of these tips can be applied to any business, but what order to prioritize them will depend on what has already been done and what the primary goals are.
growmap would love you to read ..Business Blogging Tips- Top Advice from 31 Bloggers Totally Free Download
Gail:
Great resource. I especially am interested in MyBlogGuest. I also use the hubspot tool as I think it gives a TON of valuable information.
thanks for the hard work on this one!
Lisa
Hi Lisa,
You know that Ann Smarty who created MyBlogGuest commented just before you (below you). Guest blogging and blog outreach will continue to grow in importance and MBG is one way to connect those who want to publish with those who want to write.
Be sure to read the interview with Ann that includes tips on How to use My Blog Guest.
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Huge thanks for including MyBlogGuest, Gail… and WOW, what a huge resource. It must have taken you a few days to compile the list. Definitely a bookmark-worthy post – thanks for sharing such valuable information!
Ann Smarty would love you to read ..Personal Finance Guest Blogging Contest – Supported by MyBlogGuest
Excellent Article. Internet is the best platform to promote things to the Global audience. however the large enterprise take all the advantages of it and leave no scope for small business to flourish.
This is guide help the Small Business marketers to make the best use of internet and mainly via Social media like twitter, facebook and blogs.
Thanks for this excellent Guide.
Swamykant would love you to read ..5 Tools To Escape The 140 Character Limit in Messages
Very helpful introduction to twitter for business. I’ve always been afraid of working with twitter, because I’ve always thought of it as a purely social platform- but I can definitely see the sense in using that as an avenue to reach beyond your normal audience.
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Excellent post! These are the simple ways to get started on internet marketing. And it’s very well explained. You mentioned about Twitter, well, it is very useful especially to those who are just beginning, it will help them to promote their sites or business.
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Another super fine resource post Gail, nice!
Dennis Edell would love you to read ..Official Rules and Helpful Tips for DEDC’ Monthly Top Commenter Contests
I want to start my new business site, of course for money so I’m reading blogs here and there to learn the unique and effective tips. Your post is really helpful but I think I have to read it more carefully again. I have already bookmarked it and read it again. thanks for sharing your experience it’s really helpful. 🙂
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I am also using comment luv in some of my blog to getting more traffic from commentators. And I just discover that way is working very well.
From that, your website will be include to a dofollow blog with comment luv and people will share to readers on their blog post, as a blog list. And guest what ? Not only one people will share.
Right ?
Promoting over the internet is really a big help for small businesses. Setting up an account in social networking sites can be a good start in attracting customers and soon clients. These are simple yet very effective means of marketing. Thanks for your post! It’s very informative!
I’ve seen some commentluv blogs that actually still somehow use the ‘no-follow’ tag in the HTML despite claiming to be do-follow blogs, which is frustrating. Just something to watch out for.
Many bloggers, myself included, use do follow plugins that allow us to set a number…once an individual leaves that many comments, they all turn do follow…this rewards regulars while cutting out the drive by spammers from getting free link juice they do not deserve.
That said, the commentluv and do follow plugins re not mutually exclusive. Plenty of bloggers use one with out the other, either way.
Dennis Edell would love you to read ..Official Rules and Helpful Tips for DEDC’ Monthly Top Commenter Contests
However, not all blog using this, maybe they think it can hurt their site, right ?
Hi Gail
I will definitely be tweeting this one Gail. Some excellent resources for newbies just starting their blogging journey. I believe that it is a necessity to learn about social media and begin interacting on Twitter to get your blog known and to start building community.
I have found some excellent resources from being active on Twitter. Used the right way it is a powerful tool for bloggers. Also as you point out Gail, can find local businesses this way too. I am already connecting with several in my own area 🙂
Commentluv community is the best. Has helped my small niche blog get noticed and have learnt so much from commentluv members who generously share information on their blogs and come comment on mine.
Patricia Perth Australia
Patricia would love you to read ..Are Your Goals Attainable In 2011
Thanks for the information. This is very comprehensive for a newbie because this the building block of making money online…Thanks again
Nice write-up! I never believed I could make money online, until I started setting up my own website and working at it. That’s the time I saw the benefits and money that comes from owning an online business. Just remember to dedicate more time to your online business at first, and of course update your blog as often as possible. Great tips, will be introducing some more of these tactics to my arsenal in the new year.
Hi Sam,
Most people’s sites don’t make money – especially blogs – because they often aren’t focusing on how to do that. Bloggers interested in making money should read about the Income Blogging Guide that Andrew Rondeau offers.
growmap would love you to read ..Blog Outreach- Garden Bloggers Reach Audiences Beneficial to Related Small Businesses