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.

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

“Follow me” replacing “friend me”?

Facebook may have recently passed MySpace as the most-visited social networking site in the US, but it’s facing stiff competition for the attention of social media marketers. By some metrics, Twitter is more popular in the marketing world.

Burson-Marsteller, in a July 2009 study of Fortune 100 companies, found that more companies had a presence on Twitter (54%) than on Facebook (29%).

According to the study, which looked at corporate blogs in addition to Twitter and Facebook profiles, about one-fifth of Fortune 100 firms only used one of the three channels. Those companies were overwhelmingly likely to choose Twitter (76%) over Facebook (14%) or blogging (10%).

Companies that used two of the three channels were most likely to have a blog plus a Twitter account (64%).

Burson-Marsteller found that these top companies were using Twitter for several purposes: company news, customer service, marketing promotions and employee recruitment.

Twitter is also beating out Facebook’s popularity among e-mail marketers. Email Data Source found that among the US e-mail campaigns it tracked, links to Twitter became more common than links to Facebook in March 2009.

Links to both the social networking giant and the microblogging site rocketed in the first half of 2009, but Twitter’s rise has been more dramatic.

Original Article Here

By Helen Kaiao Chang, SDNN

Angela Cortright, founder of Spa Gregories, which recently opened a branch in Del Mar, uses social media to find new potential customers.

“We’re trying to reach out to the local community through Facebook and Twitter,” she said, “It helps us by word of mouth. This is just a new mouth — it’s a digital mouth, instead of calling my friends.”

Cortright and about 75 other business owners attended a workshop on “Internet Marketing 3.0″ last Friday in Mission Valley. The event organized by Score, a non-profit business training group, was the first of its kind offered by the national network and the highest-ever attended in San Diego. The workshop will be held again on Tuesday in Carlsbad.

Social media brings fear and opportunity to many business owners.

“They’re very fearful because they don’t understand,” said Score counselor Fred Schlaffer. “These are small businesses usually that have very, very limited resources. So to get involved with social networking means more of their time or (the need) to hire somebody.”But Twitter, Facebook, Yelp, YouTube and other networking sites are places to attract customers, build loyalty and ultimately generate more revenue, said workshop leaders.

By Joe Guy Collier
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Donald Munroe, managing partner of the Taco Mac in Midtown, accesses his latest marketing tool through a cell phone.

Munroe shoots out short bursts on Twitter about events, promotions and new beers on tap to more than 300 loyalists of his Taco Mac store.

“I tweet every day,” Munroe said. “My wife calls it my second wife.”

And, Munroe has seen results. Last week, a group of six people stopped by for “Pint Night,” where customers get a free glass with the beer of the month, because one person in the group saw a reminder on Twitter.

The Midtown location used to take several hours to run out of free glasses for the monthly 5 p.m. promotion. “We’re out of glasses by 6 o’clock now,” Munroe said.

A social media sensation, Twitter also is fast becoming a tool companies hope will boost their business. The service allows people to send 140-character “tweets” to other people who have signed on as their followers.

Atlanta-based restaurant chains have jumped on board. Taco Mac, Chick-fil-A, Hooters, Popeyes, Church’s Chicken, Ted’s Montana Grill, Shane’s Rib Shack and Planet Smoothie are just some of the brands with Twitter accounts.

The size and growth of Twitter is hard to ignore. In June, Twitter.com attracted almost 21 million unique visitors, putting it behind only Facebook, Myspace and Blogger among on-line member communities, according to Nielsen Co.

Sorting out how businesses should use Twitter is another matter, said Zeus Kerravala, senior vice president of consumer enterprise research for Yankee Group, a Boston, Mass.,-based technology research and consulting firm.

No one has come up with a good way quantify the benefits of Twitter, Kerravala said. But businesses should be experimenting with the service, he said.

Companies should view social media as another marketing tool to go with other outlets, such as print, radio and TV advertising, Kerravala said. Twitter may not be the best way to reach everyone, but it does provide a quick and easy way to communicate with some customers, he said.

“I truly believe there’s value in the community,” Kerravala said. “Social media will live on, but it may not be Facebook and Twitter down the road.”

Atlanta-based restaurants chains are testing the Twitter waters with a variety of approaches. Some outlets for Shane’s Rib Shack and Planet Smoothie have offered coupons through Twitter. Church’s Chicken has used Twitter to drop clues for a contest where it hands out $1,000 to a customer at restaurants.

Rival chicken chain Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen, though, has shied from using Twitter to push coupons and contests. It has more than 5,300 followers.

“We really are using it as a true engagement tool,” said Alicia Thompson, Popeyes vice president of communications and public relations. “It’s a way for us to build the brand and to keep top of mind awareness with our consumers by giving the brand a face and a personality.”

A pair of Popeyes employees post frequent tweets, often responding to the comments of fans. Popeyes sees opportunities to use Twitter to address customer questions, get input on where to put new stores and gather feedback from core customers.

“We want to touch all of our consumers wherever they are in the manner that is most suited to them,” Thompson said.

Taco Mac turned to Twitter earlier this year because the blog for beverage director Fred Crudder didn’t have room to include all the beer news at different restaurants. Some Taco Macs have more than 100 beers on tap with kegs being added and retired several times a week.

It set up Twitter accounts for 23 stores, which combined have more than 1,800 followers.

“What we liked about Twitter was that because of the coverage we have in metro Atlanta, the customers could pick what stores they followed individually based on what their movements are,” Crudder said.

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In the world of business, social media, led by Twitter, is forcing companies to augment the offshoring of reactive customer service with the nearshoring of proactive customer engagement. The conversations that power social media are sparking a sense of urgency to identify influential voices and talk to customers in a place and time of their choosing (generally, in public and online).

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Today people expect to be able to learn a lot about a food establishment before they walk in the door. Web sites (a necessity) give prospective customers an immediate impression of the businesses’ style and substance.

Now restaurants, grocery stores, bakeries and cafes are dipping a tentative toe into the world of social media, figuring out whether they can “tweet” and “friend” their way to more customers and a healthier bottom line.

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Twittermania has only begun. In the days after Oprah’s show, Twitter’s traffic growth is accelerating. The ratings service HitWise now ranks twitter.com as America’s No. 38 Web site. It’s about to rocket past CNN and Wells Fargo.

read full article here