Posts tagged social networking

Win more customers by giving your products away for free

By Bob Toovey on September 17, 2011

We all know that word of mouth travels fast. With the advent of social networking, it travels even faster. You need people to say great things about your products, you want them to say it to their friends and anyone else who will listen. How can you achieve that in a cost effective way?

Give your product away!

Yes, give your product away for nothing – free and no cost. I’m not saying all and sundry should get it. Put it in to the hands of a few who can influence others. Those people could be…

Your top 5 customers
Your Facebook fans
Your loyal Twitter followers

I am sure you already know who could spread the word for you.

One way to put your product in the right hands is to offer a competition. Those who really want it will enter and from there you could get email addresses or make them become Facebook Fans.

For example, spread the word that if they become a ‘fan’ of your Facebook page they are in with a chance to win what you are offering. You gain followers which you can then make further offers to.

Give it to someone with influence

Give a product to an influencer or two. In return all you ask is that they write a review on their blog. An authoritative blogger in your industry will be qualified to write about it and therefore will be able to give a better review. Not only will you get a link back to your site but he or she will be encouraging their readership to actually buy it. That blog post will then hit the search engines , possibly be seen on Facebook and mentioned on Twitter.

What happens if my product is expensive?

If you really can’t afford the above approach (your products are really expensive) then consider letting them use the product so they can write the review and give it back afterwards. You could also offer the cheaper alternative, not the top of the range product. Ask the reviewer to mention that there is a product that does more than the one in the review. The one they have is great but the model above does it faster/better but for only X amount more.

I can’t afford to be giving it away!

Think about it, it is something you have already purchased for stock. It’s sitting there waiting to be sold. And to sell it you spend more money on advertising. So why not give it to some one who will rave about it, tell their friends and followers to buy it. Why spend even more money to put it in to customers hands when you can create excitement with a competition on Facebook? Social networking is free and these days, that is where everyone is. Your market is there waiting for you so all you have to do is tell them where you are!

This entry is filed under Business ideas and tagged free, reviews, social networking.

9 very useful things to do with your blogs RSS feed

By Bob Toovey on August 2, 2011

An RSS feed is specially formatted data that can be read by a program, it is not designed for humans. An RSS feed for a blog contains post titles, images and either a summary of the text or all of the text for a blog post. It can be read by RSS feed readers but there is a lot more that you can do with it.

Use it to update your Facebook business page

One easy way to keep your Facebook page updated is with your RSS feed. Check out the many apps that can take your feed and post it direct. I have used Social RSS and Involver RSS App. Easy to setup and keeps your Facebook page looking busy with posts from your blog.

Update Twitter and save time

Two great services you can use to update Twitter with your blog posts are TwitterFeed and Feedburner. Create an account, add your RSS feed and away you go. The benefits of the these services are…

Twitterfeed: Each update to twitter includes the post title and a shortened link to the blog post. That is tracked and you can find out how many clicks there have been for each one.
Feedburner: Not only will it update Twitter with post title etc, but also you can create emails alerts for each new post. If a reader subscribers to them, each time you publish a post they will get an email linking to it, all from your RSS feed.

Send updates to LinkedIn

I really don’t spend enough time on LinkedIn. It’s a wonderful way to network with businesses and professionals. If you are lacking time too, head over to your profile and select edit. Look for the section for adding ‘apps’ and select RSS (keep an eye out for the WordPress logo). Add your feed address and check to make sure it’s found it. Here is my profile with my latest blog posts.

Keep Google informed with Site Maps

Login to Google Webmaster tools and if you have not done so already, add your site and get it verified. In the site map section, you can add your RSS feed along with site map files. Each time you publish a new post, Google will find it not only through it search systems but also through your RSS feed.

Have a friend with a blog?

If you know someone who blogs and it is in someway relevant to what you are doing then ask them to add your RSS feed. My theme allows me to add an RSS widget, I can specify an RSS feed address where it will take the information and display it on my blog’s sidebar.

Make use of your forum profile

Are you a member of a forum? Many have profiles that you can edit, add photo’s and even add your RSS feed. When a forum user takes a look at your profile they will also see your latest posts. It should take minutes to do and is another way of getting your work seen by others.

Use RSS to help with your SEO

Daily SEO tip has a good article,RSS SEO Course: Get Traffic and Index Your Backlinks with RSS feeds) as the title suggests, use your RSS feed to get links back to your site. The article mentions the following RSS directories to submit your feed to…

RSS Mountain
FyberSearch
RSS Clipping
Read a Blog
Golden Feed
Feedgy
GetAPodcast
Postami
Ngoid
Weblogs

Easily create newsletters

Hopefully you have signed up for my weekly newsletter, the summary of the weeks posts that I send out at the weekends. That is created with this sites RSS feed. You can do exactly the same by heading over to MailChimp and sign up for a free account.

Follow your own feed, check for errors!

I use a RSS feed reader anyway, I follow a lot of sites and read lots of interesting things. I have also added my own site so I can check for errors. If I can’t see an update then no one else can. Also, if the feed reader has troubles displaying the post or picks up a formatting error, I will know about it and can sort it out. I really don’t want to discover a problem weeks after it has happened.

What do you do with your feed?

If you have a suggestion or something to add to the list then please leave a comment. By the way, here is my RSS feed address – I know, shameless plug…

This entry is filed under Blogging and tagged facebook, newsletters, rss, seo, social networking, twitter.

Getting started with Twitter

By Bob Toovey on July 11, 2011

Twitter has become an important part of social networking, not just because of the easy way to share but also the way it has become integrated in to the web. Just about every web site now has a Twitter button to allow you to share what you have just read.

For those who are still unfamiliar with Twitter…

When you tweet (the act of sending out a message), people who follow you can read what you have written. They in turn can send messages to you. You can even send private messages that no one else can see.

People who read your tweets are followers, they can be friends, family or anyone who is interested in what you are writing. You can allow them to follow or block them, you have control.

It has been said that Twitter is full of boring people chatting about their personal habits. That may be true and certainly was at the beginning, however you choose who you follow and if they are boring then just don’t follow them any more.

For a business point of view, Twitter has a lot to offer. If you send out tweets about your product or services then you may well be followed by future customers and current clients. A great way to communicate with them and perhaps close a few deals on the way.

Registering with Twitter

Registering an account with Twitter takes only a few minutes.

Once you hit the ‘create my account’ button, you will the be sent a confirmation email to the account you chose. Click the link and you will be taken to a page so you can send your first tweet and choose followers. Here is a screen shot of that, I created a test account and selected to follow myself using the simple search.

Choosing a profile picture

It is important to upload a picture but which picture you use depends on weather you are using it for business or personal use.

For business, you can upload your logo but if you are the business (a blogger or one man band) then consider using a picture of yourself.

For private use, use a picture of yourself, or something relevant.

Profile settings for web link

If you are going to tweet on behalf of your business then consider having a personal twitter account as well. It is a very good idea to keep the two sides seperate.

With that in mind, you can now add a website to your profile page. For a business, I would highly recommend a dedicated page just for twitter users who follow the link. You can find mine here, Welcome Twitter Friend!

This entry is filed under The Twitter Guide and tagged getting started, guide, social networking, twitter.

Twitter, is it really full of boring people?

By Bob Toovey on April 11, 2011

In the last week, I have two separate conversations with business people who have asked the same question, why bother with Twitter?

They also went on to say that Twitter is just full of people who talk about their breakfast, toilet habits and other inconsequential rubbish. Yes that is true, there are those who send out messages like that. I take no notice of them at all.

Perhaps I should explain Twitter for those who are unaware or unsure of what it’s all about.

What is Twitter (my version)

Each person on Twitter has an account. They can send out messages for the world to read (this is often referred to as ‘micro blogging’), as long at they are no longer than 140 characters in length. These messages appear on what is called the ‘public timeline’, a continuous stream of short messages from everyone. Considering how many people use Twitter it would be extremely difficult to see what your friends are saying.

Twitter provides a feature where you can follow friends and others, like celebrities or people you like. This means that your own private timeline will contain tweets (messages) from only those you are interested in. Don’t want to read rubbish? Then don’t follow those who write rubbish.

Tweets that mention you will appear in your private timeline. You can also send and receive private messages that will only be seen by the person you are sending to.

Being social

Twitter is a social network, a way of keeping in touch with friends and family. It is also a way to get in touch with new customers, people who can help with problems and to share thoughts and ideas.

When you share your knowledge of what you do, you can show people that you know your stuff. Help people out and get known as source of good information. In effect, you build up trust and at the same time people will follow you.

For example, I follow professional bloggers. I do that because they share their knowledge and it is useful to me. I follow expats in France who are friends, those who are in business and those who are just plain interesting. I am not going to follow anyone who is boring or talking rubbish.

So what is the point?

By building up your followers who like your tweets, you can share with them your most recent blog post. Tell them that you have a late availability for your gite. Offer them a discount on your products or services. In effect you can extend your reach to a whole new audience of potential customers.

How to loose followers

As a general guide, it is better to share more often then you mention your own blog posts or offers etc. You may be seen as the equivalent of a spammer, or at the very least boring and talking rubbish.

What do you think?

As I said, this is my opinion of Twitter and it’s worth. What do you think of it?

This entry is filed under Social Networking, Trust and tagged social networking, twitter. | 1 Comment

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