A new study of 2,100 HubSpot customers reveals that companies that blog have 79% more Twitter followers than those that don’t.

The relationship between blogging and Twitter followers is particularly strong for small businesses. We compared 942 small-business customers (customers with less than 15 employees) and discovered that small businesses that blog on average have 102% more Twitter followers than those who don’t.

A study of B2B and B2C companies returned similar findings. As the chart below demonstrates, blogging increases Twitter reach by 113% for B2B companies and 30% for B2C companies.

Full article here

The rapid growth of Twitter in the past year has many people talking about this phenomenal social media platform. Many companies, celebrities, sports figures and politicians are establishing their Twitter ID’s. Some go on to effectively mass large followings, while others never seem to get off the ground.

When discussing Twitter with others for the first time, many often ask questions like “What can I do with it?” “Why do I want to know what someone had for lunch?” or the big one, “How will this help me make money?” These types of questions reveal a need for a paradigm shift in the power of the web.

In an the article “Twitter As Flashpoint for the Attention Economy” by Andrew Keen (http://tinyurl.com/d4×9yv) (thanks for the RT @twitter_tips), Keen elaborates on what has been coined “the attention economy.” The idea is that the “flow of attention” replaces money as the currency of the internet. It is from this idea of the “flow of attention” that I believe the many question of what is the power of twitter can be answered in one word – Influence. Let me explain.

According to Dictionary.Com, Influence is: “the capacity or power of persons or things to be a compelling force on or produce effects on the actions, behavior, opinions, etc., of others:” If I can summarize, it is the ability to get others to act in a desired way.

The power of twitter is based on the influence you can develop with your followers. It is structuring your tweets so you are engaging, relevant and compelling, creating an authentic relationship with them. Once established, when you issue a thought or make a suggestion, many of your followers will respond. Whether it is a call to social or political action, community involvement, philanthropic giving, ministry or just plain fun, your level of influence will determine it’s success.

So what’s Twitter all about? – Influence

Martin Schmaltz (www.twitter.com/socmediastuff & www.SocialMediaStuff.com) is an entrepreneur, motivator and social medial small business strategist. His favorite office is the local Starbucks.

Many “com­pa­nies turn to social net­works to show their lead­er­ship in their field, to find new poten­tial cus­tomers by com­mu­ni­cat­ing with the com­mu­nity, to receive cus­tomer feed­back and give cus­tomer ser­vice. There’s no bet­ter tool these days than Twit­ter to han­dle real-time cus­tomer ser­vice issues.”

Read more about B2B use of social media: click here

“For the third consecutive year, the Center for Marketing Research at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth has conducted a study that looks at the usage of social media among Inc. 500 companies. The 2009 results confirm that America’s fastest growing private companies adopt social media marketing initiatives at much higher rates than other companies, and that interest in social media has grown since the first study was conducted in 2007.”

Click below for full article
Study: Inc. 500 CEOs Aggressively Use Social Media for Business.

A great resource on how to use twitter for marketing your business. Published by By Marko Saric of HowToMakeMyBlog.com

Great guide for basic set up and use of Twitter for business.
Not sure of the source, possibly twitter itself. Published here intact

I recently read a blog post by Seth Godin (Click here) who describes why it can be so difficult for organizations to use social media. Basically he communicates: it is because social media is process oriented and traditional businesses think events.

One of the steps to achieve some of my midrange goals was to get involved in the real-estate market. I studied, passed the exam and went on to spend a short time as a Realtor. It was a great educational experience. From this experience I learned one thing: to be successful, think long term.

A common term to the real-estate industry is “farming:” which means to pick a particular neighborhood or market and become the expert there. Just as a farmer plants the seed, waters and fertilizes a field: the realtor is to do the same in their “farm” neighborhood.

This farming is done by numerous methods to establish you as an expert and keep your name in front of the families living in the “farm” neighborhood. The harvest happens when they or a friend desire to buy or sell, they will think of you.

The same applies to business and social media: there must be a process mentality and “farm” their social media network. The “farmer” businessperson will plant the seeds of information regarding their products, watering with examples of application and fertilizing by testimonies and examples. Then when the “seeds” mature, they seek to harvest the sale.

The “farmer” businessperson must grasp the concept: “You will reap what you sow.”

Great thought on social media and customer service.
Lead with your glass jaw
– Seth Godin
Here’s one way businesses can profit from a social media presence:

Make it easy to get hurt.

If you’re in a low trust industry (like car sales), a social media presence dramatically increases the opportunity people have to call you out, beat you up, tattle on you and flame you in public. If you have a Facebook page and people can YELL at you there, for all to see, it makes you vulnerable. Do you really think that a Chris or a Guy or Gary is going to risk ripping you off for consulting or wine? No way. Too easy for someone to post a comeback for all to see.

When your staff sees how much power you’ve given random consumers, they’ll freak. And then, magically, they’ll start treating customers differently, because maybe, just maybe, this customer is the one who’s going to use the power. Suddenly, the answer to, “do you know who I am!!” is, “yes sire, forgive me.”

It might not be comfortable, but you can bet it will build trust.

Original Article Here

Social Networks: The New Reality
By C.J. Mittica
October, 2009

More people use online social media than check e-mail. Here’s how to best use Facebook and Twitter – and what it will mean for your business. Plus, a primer on each of the Big Four online networks.

Fittingly, all it takes is a two-minute online video to explain the power of social media for business.

“The Breakup” stars two people meeting at a restaurant: the Consumer, a winsome woman, and the Advertiser, a smug man (he’s the one examining his reflection in the silver spoon). She says the relationship is over because he doesn’t care. He doesn’t understand; what about the TV spot and the billboard? “That was like a 200-foot-tall declaration of love,” he rationalizes. It doesn’t matter for her. She wants a dialogue. “I’ve changed, and you haven’t,” she says conclusively. “We don’t even hang out in the same places anymore.”

To Jason Alba, social media expert and author of I’m On Linked In – Now What???, it explains the fundamental difference between online social networking and the traditional means of advertising and communication. “When I do presentations at the corporate level,” he says, “I try to show that video because it really helps people understand, ‘Oh my gosh, things are changing and I need to move with the changes.’”

With social media, change has come today. More people (two-thirds of all global Internet users) now visit social network sites than they use e-mail, according to a March 2009 report by Nielsen. Over one-third (35%) of all U.S. Web users over the age of 18 have a social networking profile, compared to 8% just four years ago. Major services like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn (click on links for primers on how best to use each service for business) have reached critical mass status – over 150 million people worldwide in Facebook’s case, the number-one member community site. It’s no longer an option for business. “If your client demographic is on it, then you need to be on it,” says Mark Graham, president of Rightsleeve (asi/308922), a Web-savvy Canadian distributorship. “And if you’re not on it, you’re not credible.”

It appears ad specialty distributors are getting the message. A recent social networking study conducted by ASI found that nearly 90% of respondents feel that social networking already is or will be a good way to promote their business. More than half of distributors have a profile on either Facebook or LinkedIn. But despite all that, about 47% of distributors still aren’t sure how to best use social media for their business.

That dilemma is a persistent problem for all companies. Social networking has been a major factor for four years on the Web, but it is still very new to many – especially those in the business world. Plus, as Graham points out, companies are taking Web site models developed in dorm rooms and basements (for a very non-corporate use) and trying to adapt it for business. B-to-B companies can’t help but wonder: How will this help me land new business? How can I directly link this to sales? Where is the ROI?

“As a marketing tool to bring in new customers or retain customers, it’s not probably that useful yet,” says Mark Yokoyama, director of marketing and merchandising at ePromos (asi/188515), echoing the sentiments of many.

But that’s the rub of social networking: You do business by not doing business. “When you start treating it like a community, which it is, you’re going to make more friends, therefore you’re going to sell more merchandise to more people,” says Bobby Lehew, director of operations for Robyn Promotions (asi/309656). “If you treat it like a marketing campaign, you might as well not even try.”

Have Your Heart In The Right Place
Eric Marasco, owner of Proforma Distinctive Marketing (asi/300094), had been following a manufacturing rep on Twitter. When an order came in and Marasco needed a product quickly, he was figuring out what to do – until he saw an everyday tweet from the salesman. “He ended up getting a $600 order out of me because I saw him on Twitter,” Marasco says.

Stories like this may be few and far between, because social networking for business is still maturing and distributors are becoming more familiarized with it. But these incidents demonstrate a key idea about social networking: creating a presence. It’s about establishing your brand. Demonstrating your culture. Or simply being there for people. “My focus,” says Marasco, who is also on LinkedIn and Facebook, “is to be more of a knowledge source out there and try to show people who I know and network with that I’m an expert in the promotional printing industry.”

Whatever your message is, there are a multitude of ways to get it out there – everything from local social networks to the mega-behemoth services like Facebook and Twitter. (This doesn’t even mention blogs and photo-sharing sites like Flickr, which may not fall directly under the social network umbrella but are intensely intertwined with it.)

More importantly, the landscape is changing quickly. MySpace was the number one social networking site until Facebook overtook it at the end of 2008. Now Twitter is the dominant topic of conversation; it started out with 500,000 users at the beginning of last year and now has over 70 million. “It’s ease. Twitter is dead simple,” Graham explains of Twitter’s popularity. It has even begun to marginalize Facebook, and has practically become the primary means of communication for many. Says Graham, “Of all the things we’re talking about, I would say I am probably the most excited about the value of the Twitter medium compared to say, Facebook or Flickr or YouTube.”

Quite simply, the lines are blurring. The experts explain that online social networking is one and the same with real-world activities, like volunteering for your local chamber of commerce or networking at a trade show. “For some reason, people like to compartmentalize offline and online. It’s no different,” says Lehew, who teaches sessions about social networking at ASI trade shows. And in the same vein, you don’t join a local charity organization just to pitch products to your fellow members.

That dynamic is explained by Tara Hunt in her book The Whuffie Factor. “Whuffie” – a term lifted from a 2003 Cory Doctorow book – in short represents social capital. Companies that have it and cultivate it through social media thrive, Hunt explains. Those who don’t, even if they’re being authentic to themselves, tend to flounder.

“Their whole goal,” Hunt says about the successful companies, “was to create relationships and trust and help others and contribute back to the community and do all that sort of stuff.” As a result, businesses as a whole continue to do poorly and miss opportunities with social networking, even when they’re compelled to join. Adds Hunt: “They’ve embraced the tools without embracing the philosophy behind the tools.”

Change Who You Are
Learning that philosophy – and the correct way of doing things – can be accomplished. But not in an instant. Building communities through social networking takes time, and Lehew suggests it is best to learn as you go. “The thing I try to tell people is jump in, dive in, do it now, and do it poorly until you learn to do it well,” he says.

Graham agrees, but with the caveat of going slowly so as not to break the unwritten rules of each medium. “Get on it. Just try it,” he says. “You can stand on the sidelines at the beginning. Just check it out, and hear and learn and read what other people are doing.”

Even if it doesn’t lead immediately to direct sales, social media offers other payoffs, such as establishing contacts within the industry and reinforcing your brand to potential clients. Moreover, as Yokoyama points out, it’s important in general not to get behind the curve. “A lot of times it makes sense to make a modest investment even before you understand what the return is going to be,” he says.

Social networking is empowering to the little guy. One person alone can generate thousands of followers on Twitter, for example. “It has really leveled the playing field, in a sense, for a lot of companies,” says Alba. “They don’t have to have a bunch of people and a marketing team and a huge budget.”

And more importantly, they can do it without great expense – an investment of time perhaps, but very little investment of money. “Social media marketing can be the exact opposite of a financial extravagance if used on a basic level,” says Danny Rosin, president of BrandFuel (asi/145025). “Facebook, YouTube, Digg and LinkedIn are all pretty much free. There is little required from our own Web servers and infrastructure. Most allow for cross-platform marketing and offer substantial reach.”

But cheap doesn’t necessarily mean easy. Yes, there are programs like TweetDeck and Pingfm that can coordinate your updates across multiple platforms, organize your contacts and minimize the extensive amount of time that you could potentially put into everything. Yet social media may require something else: a radical change in the way distributors do business. “There’s a lot of baggage in this business,” Graham says, “that has led us to this particular place of being fairly closed and secretive. From a Web perspective, with a lot of these principles of openness and sharing in social media, I think a lot of traditional distributors are suspicious of all that stuff.”

What that means is completely embracing social media and its transforming values. Opening a two-way dialogue with customers means receiving feedback that can’t be ignored. It means doing more than putting on a front – using Twitter or Facebook to provide top-notch customer service, for example, but not offering the same degree of customer care elsewhere in your company. “I have a feeling we’ve been putting the cart before the horse in a lot of ways,” says Hunt, “and creating the perception that companies cared when the core of them hasn’t changed.”

Ultimately, distributors will have to rely on social networking as another tool in their arsenal – a requirement of business, yes, but not a total replacement of the other methods of reaching clients and contacts. “You can’t lose track of that. There’s nothing better than going into your client’s office and sitting face-to-face with them,” says Marasco.

But if there’s anyone who will truly get social media, it should be ad specialty distributors. After all, they share the same vision with social networking. “I would think that promotional products companies, they would understand this stuff because it’s kind of what ‘swag’ is about,” says Hunt. “It’s not about increasing direct sales. It’s really about these intangible touch points with customers. They’re similar in that way of creating relationships.”

C.J. Mittica is a staff writer for Counselor.
Original Article Here

In a world where it seems like everybody is using Facebook, MySpace or LinkedIn, posting pictures on Flickr, videos on YouTube, and random thoughts and observations on Twitter, it’s a wonder anybody gets any work done at all. But many companies are leveraging these new social networking sites to increase their visibility and build customer loyalty.

That’s fine if you happen to be promoting a new soft drink or an Ashton Kutcher movie, but how could these Web sites possibly be any help in marketing an autobody shop?

It depends on how you use them, says Helen Todd, director at online marketing specialists theKbuzz. “Because this is social media, half the battle is showing up and talking,” she says. “If you throw a party, it’s not enough to just put plates of food out. You have to talk to your guests.”

There are several hundred collision repair shops that have established Facebook pages where customers (or anyone else for that matter) can become a “fan.” Others are even using Twitter to update the public on their work or new specials and promotions.

It’s important to have a plan with defined business goals before spending any time trying to establish a presence on most of these sites. Typically, the social media approach works best for brand building, increasing Web site traffic, increasing customer loyalty, and offering promotions and specials.

Todd Hayes, owner of the automotive marketing and training firm ClientOne, as well as RepairOne, a mechanical repair shop in Port Orange, Fla., has used social networking media, but primarily for his business-to-business marketing.

“This is still pretty fresh,” Hayes says. “A lot of us are learning how to have success with social networking media.”

Facebook is quickly taking off as a powerful marketing tool for many businesses. “No other site right now has the type of fan base they do worldwide,” Todd says. “There are 250 million people on Facebook, and the natural virality of the site makes it a great tool for businesses to leverage.”

She cautions that users shouldn’t get too carried away with flash Facebook games and applications. “For brands, those things don’t really work,” Todd says. “What you want on a fan page is a dialogue, not a glossy applications page.”

Body shops also can take advantage of the localized hypertargeting that is possible on Facebook.

“You can build a relevant fan base in the community because the site is built on friends connected to real people,” Todd says. “You can also specifically target your ads by location. You could target people between the ages of 18 and 30 years old within a 10-mile radius of your shop, and even go further than that by selecting people who have self-identified in their profiles that they like cars or NASCAR. You can build a really relevant fan base within a geographic region that can hopefully lead to customer conversions.”

One site that is probably not that helpful for shops is MySpace. Although some repairers have used MySpace as a way to build a free Web site, the user demographic at MySpace skews young, meaning there aren’t many potential paying customers to be found there.

“MySpace just doesn’t have the natural virality that is built into Facebook,” Todd says. “You can reach a bigger audience on Facebook and get your brand out there in a more cost-effective way.”

Twitter, the site on which individuals and businesses can post 140-character updates, can also be used to share information with customers and business partners, provided you can build a good enough follower base.

“If you are in the automotive industry, Twitter is a great vehicle to establish yourself as an expert or thought leader in the field,” Todd says. “You can comment about what’s going on in the industry, or share links to blogs and articles. You have to know who your audience is and what’s going to interest them.”

Kyle Adams, owner of Talent Auto in Winter Garden, Fla., has his shop’s Twitter account (in existence only a few months) set up to automatically update his followers on what’s going on in his shop, which specializes in restoration work, collision and mechanical repairs. “The people following me can see that we’re working on a ‘65 Chevelle, and they can keep track of what I’m doing,” says Adams, who also provides live video feeds from his shop. “I’m not sure Twitter is adding to my business, but it does help people keep in touch with me.”

In some cases, these sites can be used as a sort-of resume or portfolio for a shop. Repairers can post before and after photos of vehicles they’ve repaired on Facebook, MySpace or Flickr, or even post video of repairs in progress on YouTube and then embed those clips in their own Web sites.

Offer valuable content to your customers/followers/fans. Give them a reason to keep checking your page by giving them something interesting to look at – new photos, links to relevant articles about auto repair, etc. Provide links to other sites, blogs and businesses. This can boost your profile in Web searches.

“The mission of social media networking is to give, not to ask,” Hayes says. “You want to be able to provide a good blog or live video streaming or other information, and people will think, ‘This guy has something interesting to say. I want to stay in touch with him and see what’s going on.’”

Darrah & Darrah Autobody, a family-owned shop in Lake Placid, N.Y., has established a Facebook presence to increase brand exposure and to network. Co-owner Mia Harrah says she got the idea from a friend who marketed his real estate business through the site. “We do have customers who have signed up as fans,” she says. “I try to keep it updated with news about body shops and other things that might interest consumers.”

In the past month, Darrah posted links on the site to information about female-friendly businesses, the impact of health care reform on small businesses, and photos of vehicles that the company had successfully repaired.

So far it’s unclear how many shops are really making the most of this technology. Most collision-related Facebook pages are relatively new and only have a few dozen fans. Twitter seems to be an even bigger question mark. But since all of these sites provide a free promotional platform for your business, experimenting to see what works and abandoning the online strategies that don’t generate new leads can still provide useful marketing information.

The downside of utilizing these sites, though, is that brand owners don’t control the conversation with their customers.

“Even running a business with a lot of integrity, these sites give customers an easy platform to complain,” Hayes says. “And once that negative information is out there, it’s out there forever. That’s an area where I’m leery.”

“The risk is they’re going to be talking about you anyway,” Todd counters. “The decision is whether you’re going to be present in that conversation, and one, facilitate it, and two have the ability to jump in and address it, take the feedback if it’s constructive, and actually do something about it or with it.”

Original Article Here