Twitter has become one of the most popular social websites! People absolutely love it. It’s fast past and, due to message length restrictions, people can’t post their life story. Twitter is the social place-to-be!

Twitter is also the business place-to-be! Businesses have discovered that Twitter will get you clicks on your links and much better conversions, compared to other social websites!

For business owners and entrepreneurs, Twitter is a marketing tool that you don’t want to ignore. Your links are much more likely to get clicked on Twitter and the short messages make it easy to post multiple “ads” for your products and services. In addition, people look at various times during the day so you can reach a ‘unique audience with each Tweet! The great thing about Twitter, is due to the way it functions, your business Tweets are seen by a different subset of your Followers each time you post, which makes it difficult to saturate and annoy your Followers.

Marketing on Twitter does require that you post regularly. I am not saying spam your Followers, but ideally, you want to have posts going up, periodically, all day. Just imagine if you could make regular posts to multiple accounts, all day, without you being bound to the computer…. you would get great conversions and more sales!

TwitterBot will make regular posts to multiple Twitter accounts, automatically follow other Tweeter (which is still the best way to get people to follow you). This software will save you a ton of time and hopefully make you some more money…I love it! Automate your Twitter accounts with TwitterBot!

With smartphones growing in popularity, it’s not hard to imagine that newer marketing tactics will involve tapping into the mobile market. It’s amazing to me just how many people cannot disconnect themselves from their mobile phones.

Smartphones and iPhones have helped many people be more comfortable with texting. QWERTY keyboards and unlimited mobile plans have turned us into a texting society. Just think, in some states they have had to recently pass laws against texting while driving!

With that kind of user dependence on a device that they monitor regularly all day. Text Message marketing can be surprisingly effective.

In a recent podcast interview, Paul Rosenfeld discusses how text message marketing is quickly becoming the next must have marketing tool.

“Let’s face it, we’re all connected to gadgets and information 24/7 these days. So, it only makes sense that tapping into these channels is going to be the next wave of the future.”

SMS is still a relatively uncluttered and spam-free marketing channel. It’s also the one form of communication that many people are tethered to 24/7. Which helps explain why, at a time when in-boxes fill with hundreds of never-opened e-mail messages from direct marketers, 97 percent of all SMS marketing messages are opened (83 percent within one hour), according to the latest cell-carrier research.

Recent “Business Texting Fast Facts”

• 65% of people send business text messages from their mobile phone on a daily basis
• 50% of people receive business text messages from a member of their team/ department/ office
• 47% of people receive business text messages from a colleague
• 36% receive business text messages from a customer or client
• 71% of people use business texts for setting ‘reminders of meetings and appointments’
• 18% of people used business texts for ‘notifying people about new meetings and appointments’
• 14% of people use business text for ‘chasing up suppliers or new orders’
• A third of respondents (36%) said that they receive text messages from a customer or client
• 11% of people receive text messages from suppliers.

Wow! It all sounds so tempting. A captive, dependent audience with a relatively untapped marketing tool… “all the cash I could make!”

Show Restraint. Moderation. Common Sense! Once you have gathered phone numbers from people who are surprisingly leery of offering their cell numbers; you don’t want to get over zealous and make potential customers hate you!

If you’re texting your customers more than five times a month, you better have a really great reason,” Mr. Lee (president of Distributive Networks, a text-messaging application and consulting firm).  Some other lessons learned in the course of sending and receiving tens of millions of texts in the course of the Obama campaign: When writing out your short code in your ads, don’t put quotes around the number — “12345” — because people will type them in. “We’ve found they take instructions very literally,” Mr. Lee said.

Also, when devising the text messages, don’t make the mistake of thinking that it should be steeped in youth-culture texting slang. “Stay away from shorthand like ‘4u’ or ‘gr8,’ ” Mr. Lee said. “Even the folks I know who work for Adidas, which has a big youth-oriented clientele, feel that when that kind of language is used by a marketer, it comes across as pandering.”

“Build it and they will come,” worked well as the theme in the movie “Field Of
Dreams” in which Kevin Costner turned a cornfield into a ballpark; they did come. But that was a tale. Nicely told, but still a tale. In real life, it just is not so.

Why does this notion persist?

In the early days of the Web, it was almost true, for there was a far greater
demand for information than supply. Thus if one put up some half-way decent content, some people did come. To whatever extent it was true back then, it is nothing but a myth now. If you built your site believing in this myth, you have a problem. Nobody is coming.

Can you change this? Maybe. In some cases, though, it may be best to
start over. Check out the following to see where you stand, then take it from
there.

Site Purpose
Why does the site exist? “To make a profit” is not sufficient. Exactly what is
the site expected to do? There are many good answers. For example: To
increase sales in my offline business. Or maybe: To grow an online business so that it becomes my full time job. And there are many others. But “To make a profit” doesn’t cut it.

How Do You Plan To Achieve This Goal?
You need a business plan of the same sort required in opening a store front on Main Street in your home town. This includes answering a host of questions, and preparing a statement sufficient to make your banker smile and reach for a pen when you ask for a loan. While you likely do not need a banker to open a website, you do need the same definitive plan required of any soon-to-be shopkeeper. Some of the questions you need to answer are:
What is my target market? The more narrowly you can focus, the more likely
you are to succeed. For example, instead of “Dog Lovers,” explore “Doberman
Lovers.” The narrower the focus, the easier it is to position yourself, and your
business, at the top of the heap.

How will I reach them?
Search engines and mutual links are very helpful. But your marketing strategy is usually the key. Again, the narrower your focus, the easier it is to target your promotional efforts, including advertising.

What products will I market?
(Please substitute services throughout, if that is what you will offer.) Note products you create will bring greater profits than those you market for others.

How will I position my products relative to the same or similar products?
If you have narrowed the focus sufficiently, it is much easier to position yourself above your competition. If you sell better products, this becomes easy.

How will I demonstrate a perceived value in my products greater than that of my competitors?
Perhaps by the special nature of the support you offer or your guarantees beyond those expected. Whatever, this must happen. How will I keep my customers coming back for more? This is fundamental, but simple. Satisfied customers will return, provided you have additional products of interest.
While questions as suggested above need to be answered in all cases, there
are others. More important, there are many specific to your particular business. The answers must guide every step so that it is in accord with the overall business plan. It is also important that no part of the plan conflict with another; all must lead interactively to the same goal.

How To Build Or Modify Your Site
To build or modify your site, all begins with the domain names and product names appropriate to your target. If you are not using names that clearly bring a focus and define a benefit, you may need to change them. In any case this will be the initial point of attack. Don’t doubt the importance of names. As to the site itself, begin with pencil and paper. Rough out the content for each page including the ad copy which sells a specific product, or opens the door to other pages featuring separate products which taken together are a single profit center. One reason for organizing in this way is that if it becomes necessary, you can drop a profit center from your site without having to rebuild the whole of it. Since people may enter your site through any page, each needs to sell the business and the product specific to the page. That is, each page must grab reader attention, raise their interest and draw them quickly more deeply into the page and thus into the site. At any point interest lags, you may lose the visitor. So it is important to sustain, even increase intensity, as the page continues.
There is simply no point in creating even a single website page until your plan
has been implemented on paper and the content for all pages …

1) Is properly targeted
2) Effectively positions both you and the product
3) Grabs and sustains reader interest.

Even if you have a good idea of how you want your pages to look, obtain the
help of an artist. A good one can indirectly provide powerful support by
enhancing the key points of your plan in the art work itself.

Once your site is up and has been submitted to the search engines, the real
task begins. Promotion. A never-ending task. But if your original plan is good,
and it is implemented in your site, you have greatly increased the likelihood your promotional efforts will pay off handsomely.

If you are among those who have built a site that is not working, or not working well enough, there are really only two options. Build a plan as suggested above, with your present site in mind. If you can find ways to modify and expand your site to fit the needs of a good plan, go for it. But if you can’t, the only viable option is to start over. I hate to admit it, but both my first and second tries were a total disaster, and have long since vanished. Ask others now successful, and you will find they have been down this road. But all was not in vain. Think of how much more you know about the Web now. How much you know about putting a site together. And maintaining it. Hey, you’re way ahead of another starting his first site. Take the time to build a good plan and a site to match, and you’ll soon be right where you want to be:  On top!

We are all aware of how successful Steve Jobs is…. you know Mr. Jobs of Apple. I came across a wonderful ebook in which Mr. Jobs gives some pointers on how to make great presentations. As with any advise, you have to apply it to your situation and you have to practice it to hone your personal skill.

excerpts from: The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs

For more than three decades, Jobs has transformed product launches into an art form. Whether you’re a CEO, manager, entrepreneur, small business owner, or sales or marketing professional, Steve Jobs has something to teach you.

1. Plan in Analog – Steve Jobs made his mark in the digital world of bits and bytes, but he plans presentations in the old world of pen and
   paper.
2. Create a Twitter-Friendly Description – Steve Jobs creates a single sentence description for every product. These headlines help the audience categorize the new product and are always concise enough to fit in a 140-character Twitter post.
3. Introduce the Antagonist – In every classic story, the hero fi ghts the villain. The same holds true for a Steve Jobs presentation. In 1984, the villain was IBM, known as “Big Blue” at the time.
4. Focus on Benefits – Your listeners are asking themselves one question: Why should I care? Steve Jobs sells the benefit behind every new product or feature—and he’s very clear about it.
5. Stick to the Rule of Three – Nearly every Steve Jobs presentation is divided into three parts. The number “three” is a powerful concept in writing. Playwrights know that three is more dramatic than two; comedians know that three is funnier than four, and Steve Jobs knows that three is more memorable than six or eight.
6. Sell Dreams, Not Products – Steve Jobs doesn’t sell computers. He sells the promise of a better world. When Jobs introduced the iPod in 2001, he said, “In our own small way we’re going to make the world a better place.”
7. Create Visual Slides – There are no bullet points in his presentations. Instead Jobs relies on photographs and images. Where the average PowerPoint slide has forty words, it’s difficult to find seven words on ten of Jobs’s slides. The technique is called “Picture Superiority”
8. Make Numbers Meaningful – In every Apple presentation, big numbers are put into context. The bigger the number, the more important it is to find analogies or comparisons that make the data relevant to your audience.
9. Use Zippy Words – Steve Jobs speaks in plain English. In fact, he has fun with words. He described the speed of the new iPhone 3G as
   “amazingly zippy.” Where most business presenters use words that are obtuse, vague or confusing, Jobs’s language is remarkably simple.
10. Reveal “Holy Smokes” Moment – Every Steve Jobs presentation has one moment that neuroscience call an “Emotionally Charged Event.” The emotionally charged event is the equivalent of a mental sticky note that tells the brain, “Remember this!”

View the full eBook here

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Court Attention at all Cost

This, at first glance, may seem counter to everything that you have been taught growing up. In your personal life, it may not be a good practice to seek to be the center of attention, at any cost! Attention is good, but be careful not to appear to be seeking it! People are often turned off by people that seem to attention seekers.

Attention to your business should be sought and courted, where ever it can be found. You preferably want the attention to be for positive things, but it has been said that ‘any press is good press’. Stay away from the negative as much as possible, but depending on your business and your target customers it can be a boost to business.

You want your company to be exposed to as many people as possible and the more attention that is paid to your products or services, the more customers you can possible secure.

So how do you get this attention for your business?

Follow is a general list of things that you can do to get attention for your business. Many of these things you have seen before, but they are ttime tested ways to bring attention to your customer. Understand your customer base and who you are marketing to and use that knowledge as a guide for which combination of tools to use. You must understand your industry and those from whom you are seeking attention.

1. Business cards
2. Websites
3. Traffic Exchanges
4. Sponsor an Event
5. Promotional Clothing
6. Promotional Items (pens,cups,pencils, etc.)
7. Press Releases
8. Email Campaigns (don’t spam)
9. Talking to friends, family and customers (word of mouth)
10. Vehicle magnets
11. Brochures
12. Informational Seminars
13. Social Networking
14. Free Give – Aways
15. BE GOOD AT WHAT YOU DO !!!!!

Pew Internet & American Life Project data suggest that consumption of mobile content shows significant variation among ethnic groups. Data shows that Blacks and Latinos are more likely to access the internet via a mobile device. Although 32% of all US consumers ages 18 and older have accessed the mobile Internet (up 8 points since 2007), usage by minorities climbed more quickly. By 2009, 29% of both blacks and Hispanics went online with a hand held device “on a typical day,” versus only 17% of whites.

“Black and Hispanic households are more likely to use a mobile phone as their primary phone, and have a lower rate of PCs and broadband than white households,” said Lisa E. Phillips, eMarketer senior analyst. “It makes sense that these groups access the Internet via a mobile device more often than whites.”

So what does this mean for the small business owner?

Well, if you your target market includes minorities, it is a good idea to explore mobile internet marketing as a means to reach your potential customers. There are multiple ways to achieve better access to your customers that primarily use mobile Internet.

• Email campaigns are great to communicate with potential customers. 16 % of Blacks and 23% of Latinos send and receive email via a mobile device. To have an effective email campaign you need to gather a list of email  addresses. Don’t want to get a reputation as a Spammer. To do this, offer a potential customer something free or at a discount, but require an email address to get the reward. Once you have gathered a nice sized list, send information about your products or services, but keep it to no more than once a week so you don’t irritate people by flooding their inboxes, especially on their mobile device.  Make your emails short and to the point and also make them text-only emails. Graphics take longer to load and they may display differently on different devices.

• 47 % of Blacks and 59% of Latinos send and receive text messages via a mobile device. Get customers that are willing or required to give their mobile phone number to give you permission to send them text messages about new deals or sales. You want to be sure to get the customers explicit permission for this because, depending the person’s individual mobile plan, they may be charged per text message. Costing a person extra money is a sure way to anger them and you lose a customer! If you do get permission, I would keep the communications to twice a month, unless your customer base seems receptive to more frequent text messages.

• Popular social networking sites (Twitter, Yuwie, etc.) have integrated mobile components. Many people get their social network sites to send updates and messages from their account directly to their mobile device. This is a great way to reach potential customers. Set up an account for your business and post things relevant to your industry, with the occasional ‘sale’ or ‘deal’ posting. Network on these sites and gain ‘friends’. The more ‘friends’ you have, the more people that will receive your updates. Be careful to remain professional on these sites, you should not talk as if you are using your personal accounts ! Avoid any offensive language and stay on topic.

• You also want to start making your web pages more mobile ready. This can be done in a variety of ways… here is a good starting point:

Get your website ready for the Mobile Web in 10 steps

High mobile usage among minorities is not limited to online content. Black and Hispanic mobile users were more likely than whites to participate in every mobile activity studied by Pew, including sending and receiving text messages, taking pictures, playing games and accessing e-mail.

It appears that mobile devices may be one of the ways in which the digital-divide is being closed. Minorities seem to gravitate to mobile devices for internet. It is not a surprise though, more minorities have cell phones than do PC’s, they are cheaper and mobile. As more and more activities and services are available on the internet the cell phone is a readily available conduit to the Internet and it is already in most people’s pocket.

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