“There is nothing faster for communicating than Twitter,” said Aaron Allen, chief executive of restaurant consulting firm Quantified Marketing Group. “You have to be a complete moron to ignore it.”

read full article here

Though many are clearly high on the new smell of Twitter — us included — we are beginning to see, through the fog of idle chatter surrounding social media, new opportunities to connect with our customers in ways that makes sense to us. The obvious and redundant criticism of social media is the ROI of such a strategy at any level. How do you measure ROI on buzz, comments, friends, followers, mentions and so forth? For us, we see the value of Twitter in a number of areas.

Read the full article here

As Twitter grows, it will increasingly become a place where companies build brands, do research, send information to customers, conduct e-commerce and create communities for their users. Some industries, like local retail, could be transformed by Twitter — both at one-store operations that cater to customers within a few blocks of their locations and at the individual stores of giant retail operations like Wal-Mart (WMT).

Read full article here

Evidence that Twitter has gone mainstream could be found at a Birmingham social media seminar Wednesday.

The gray hairs and careers represented there made it clear that it’s not just techno-tweens willing to embrace new technologies.

A trio of Nashville-based consultants taught more than a dozen business leaders how to use social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn to grow their businesses.

Read full article here

What better way of enhancing your personal brand than learning from legends. I hope the legendary exploits of the 10 individuals in today’s blog post will inspire you to move your brand a notch higher. Apply one or more of the lessons in this post and you will have a more powerful personal brand.

Read full article here

Facebook is one of the best environments to establish and grow a fan base of highly connected, active talkers. The numbers of Facebook’s potential reach are astounding: If you’ve got 1,000 fans, and they’ve each got 100 friends, you’ve got the potential to reach 100,000 people with the personal recommendation of a friend. If you’ve already set up a group or fan page, start engaging these fans to grow the group and spread some serious word of mouth.

What to do:

Share exclusive content. Give your Facebook fans a sneak peek, an early sample, or access to private updates to help make them feel like a real group of insiders.

Give them a deal. Not only will a special discount generate a lot of buzz within the group, but when they use it, they’ll share it with the rest of their Facebook network — potentially bringing in a bunch of new fans.

Commit. There are thousands of new Facebook groups and fan pages started every day. To stand out, you’ve got to earn new fans and repeat visitors with great content regularly.

Article Source Here

article source here

Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace…. Oh no, stop the madness! Are you starting to feel overloaded or overwhelmed by all the social media websites? Have you been trying to participate on all of the social media websites to enhance or grow your online presence? Then you are not alone because many business owners want to find ways to incorporate social media into the plan of their online presence.

Read full article here

Entrepreneurs, marketing experts and professionals from all types of business know that in order to succeed they must advertise. More and more real estate professionals are making a point to use social media sites like Twitter. Social networking sites allow a wider reach for your marketing than any other means of advertising.

Several large corporations say Twitter keeps them in touch with their customer base.

Read full article here

Their sheer popularity among a broad range of users has made social networking sites suitable for brand awareness campaigns, as these sites can easily deliver content that is targeted to specific demographics.

A majority of the users of such websites belong to the so-called Generations X and Y. In the US alone, an estimated 85 million people use social networking sites; reportedly, around 80 percent are 18 years old or older. An estimated 100 million users from all over the world log on to Facebook at least once a day.

In addition, unlike other forms of advertising such as television and print ads, and even among other forms of online marketing such as e-mails, the potential for customer involvement is greatest through social networking sites; that is, users can and often do comment on social networking content, including ads.

Read full article here