Consider Twitter the newest advertising tool that can reach a wide array of potential clients that your business has never touched before.

Where did Twitter come from?

Jack Dorsey,  an American software architect created Twitter. A micro-blogging and social networking service that basically sends messages to its followers with a limit of 140 characters per “tweet.”  When he first analyzed the idea of instant messaging, Dorsey had thought of how to share posts amongst a number of friends easily.  Twitter has now obtained notice in the world market and has received a trendy status to teens,  movie stars and now is moving on to the business community. Due to its 140 character limit, it is from time to time referred to as the “SMS of the Internet”

How can it be used for marketing your business?

Twitter permits businesses or business owners to interrelate with their customers or networks by broadcasting information and updates as well as address comments or concerns about their products or services. These messages are broadcast over the Twitter network, thus letting businesses achieve reaching a greater number of possible customers.

Most of the leading networks and organizations have been using Twitter to provide updates to their followers. Since, these tweets can be viewed using mobile phones it becomes a powerful communication tool.

How to use it?

To use Twitter for business, it is as easy as following this 5 simple steps:

1.    First you need to log-in and become a member of the site. Use a provocative username that best fits your company. Then you need to expand your network by adding followers or following other people’s tweets. This way people will recognize your company’s profile.

2.    After creating an account, do not forget to put your logo in instead of your picture. You want people to recognize your brand. Think about using a Twitter background that is consistent with your company’s image.

3.    Talk to people; once you have developed a network, start sending tweets. It does not always have to do with the product or service you are selling, try to talk to your followers and show that there is a human behind the logo. This way people will become comfortable with your company. Always keep in mind that your posts are a reflection of you and your business.

4.    Provide creative posts:  suppose you owned a restaurant, you could “tweet”  your followers/customers about daily specials, enhancing it with pictures to add to their delight.

5.    You get immediate customer feedback.  If you receive a compliment, grace them with your gratitude, if you however receive negative feedback, acknowledge that you have read it and improve your service or product. This way they will know that you are taking comments seriously and can cause repeat business.

As a reminder you don’t need to read and reply to every “tweet” thrown at you. If you are running a bigger staff, assign more than one individual to updating the tweets, this way there is a variety to the type of message received by your followers.  Or if you don’t know how to get started or don’t have the time or people resources, consider hiring a virtual assistant to help with the task.  Twitter is just one of many social networking sites you can use to promote your business.  You may consider using Facebook, Youtube , Linkedin, Flickr and many more.

Soon you will be surprised when your revenue increases as more and more share your tweets and more and more people are introduced to your product.

In all types of medical service professions such as dentistry, the top on the priority list to consider is relationships. It’s what keeps customers going back for further services. Once this relationship is established, new clients will be pouring in. Creating a social network is a good practice to increase your referral network. Referral marketing has worked through the years and is in no chance of dying anytime soon.

However, a little boost from doing social media marketing does not hurt.  It is basically an additional tool that can be exploited to increase social ties with your existing client relationships. Excellent people skills are valuable in person as well as online.  To go hand in hand with establishing fruitful relationships with your customers, you must open your mind with social media marketing. It will increase visibility for you and your practice. Here are some little tips that can help you cope up with this marketing tool.

1.      While a number of people are aware of the worth of being visible online, most dentists are still working up the idea of social media. The query of whether to join or not is lurking in their minds. Some even have complete aversion over it which is a bit disappointing considering the promises that this marketing tool can entail. This tool magnifies the power of yellow pages to attract new customers. For example compare two existing websites offering the same type of service and skills. One is joining social network sites and the other does not. You will observe that while the other is waiting for emails and calls from prospective clients the other is gaining popularity on blog sites. Making them and their services known to more people, thereby gaining new customers every day.

2.      There are a lot of social media networks available in the market. The best way to be found is to join the ones with wider networks. Join in using your dentist URL page as username or your clinic’s name. If you have a logo, put it as your profile picture to be recognized.

3.      Take care of sharing your information in online networks with the same rationale as you would any other social institution.  In other words, don’t blog about something that will hurt your profession.

4.      Communicate with your network as you would with a patient or a friend. Just as we all do in person, we would also like to be treated well online. Comment on other people’s blogs or messages, making them aware that you exist. The good thing about that is every time you make a comment your created username and picture will appear, hence your URL and logo as mentioned above. It will be free advertising if you do that. But be always sensitive on the comment and always leave it on professional level.

5.      Use keywords on your blogs or messages in social network that will optimize your search engine. Hence, leading them to your own website.

Social media is not an end-all marketing answer for all.  Start from inside, review the quality of your client care and communication relationship.  Then decide whether it is a normal thing for you to partake in social media sites. Remember that whatever medium of marketing you used the most important part is how you care for your clients and how show them your love of work.

If you have been introduced to the world of cyber blogging, then you must have heard of WordPress and TypePad.  If you are just getting started, congratulations!  WordPress.com and other blogging tools are available to assist you in sending your thoughts and work into the cyber world. These products have been competing for your attention, but which to use will depend on you and your personal needs. Let me give some tips for you to enhance your knowledge of the most common blogging tools.

WordPress started as software that you can install onto the Web server of your choice, but now  has 2  versions:  WordPress.com which is a hosted turnkey solution, WordPress.org for installation on your own domain.

TypePad has no installation task to be accomplished. Your blog and the control screens through which you operate the blog, all reside on TypePad computers, not your computer. You pay a monthly or annual fee for a chunk of server space and access to the administrative controls.

What are the features of a blog?

Bloggers create posts and share with their cyber networks by using a blogging tool such as WordPress or TypePad. A post is essentially an online journal entry.  It holds a blogger’s thoughts on anything they can think of that includes words, pictures, videos and links.  A significant feature common to blog sites is the facility to sort posts so that they can be located effortlessly. These would increase the traffic on posts and make it easier for anyone who is looking for a specific topic to search an entry; this capability is usually found on either side of the screen depending on your blog’s design. These blogs would have time stamps from the time you uploaded them. This would allow a blogger to properly archive their entries.

What are their similarities and differences on blogger tools?

WordPress is free while TypePad is not, although if you obtain a full version of WordPress  you will have to pay for web hosting and your own domain, unless you opt to go with WordPress.com which provides the service absolutely free, but does not allow you to put ad sense on your sites.

WordPress has wide-ranging theme types as opposed to a TypePad.  TypePad, however, is uncomplicated in regard to CSS codes, as it does the job for you, so without having any  code knowledge, you are able to switch the customized themes.

TypePad does not offer pages, as the system only allows a blogger to select a certain number of words to be published upfront and the rest would have to be accessed via archives.  WordPress offers multiple pages at the bottom of each page you can either go to the next page, if there is one or previous page if you want to go back.

WordPress has made plugins available on their system to improve its function. These plugins include: tags, popular post side bar, lists of related posts, subscribe to other people’s post or to a comment on your post, SEO tools, social media interaction tools, and much more.

TypePad is reliable during upgrades and maintenance as opposed to WordPress.  If a new version of WordPress is released, you can upgrade it to your existing WordPress, however, you have to do this on your own. TypePad, unknowingly to its users, do the upgrades for you so you don’t need to worry about your PC’s configuration.  Latency on the server may be experienced during this scheduled updates.

So if you are still a bit unsure, just try both for the meantime and compare. This will help you decide on which tool to use for your blogging pleasures.

I found this great article showing some statistics on social media marketing for e-retailers.   According to this article, 34% of e-retailers say social media marketing has increased their sales.   The study was conducted by Forrester Research.

The study also shows the following results:

• The return on investment is unclear, 66%
• Now is a great time to experiment with it prior to the 2009 holiday season, 63%
• The primary ROI is in listening to and understanding customers, 58%
• We’re pursuing it now to avoid being latecomers, 54%
• We’re pursuing it because of the buzz surrounding it, 50%
• We use a specific set of metrics to measure social marketing initiatives, 36%
• It has helped to grow our business, 34%
• We’re pursuing it because our competitors are, 28%
• We’re pursuing it to satisfy senior management, 15%

Social media marketing for your business is worth looking into.  Our social media marketing assistants can help you get started.  Call us today at 888.828.9826 to find out more.

Social media is not only beneficial for your personal needs but it is proven effective for growing your business as well. Many companies, knows this for a fact and have been hiring social media virtual assistants to join social media sites left and right to promote their business. You can use such sites to advertise and market your company and let your brand be known. This is an effective campaign because it gives you access to millions of social media users that are a growing population every single day.

There are many benefits of joining social media sites for your business but always the end result is desirable and it is a step forward in growing your business. If you are a newbie in social media marketing, then the easiest solution is to hire social media virtual assistants. Starting and joining social media sites can be quite time consuming and can be hard for first timers, with social media virtual assistants, you can jump start your social media marketing campaign because you bypass the learning curve.

Joining social media sites can drive traffic to your website. The more traffic that your website gets, the more chances of making more sales for your business. It increases the amount of people that will know about your website and the products and services that you offer. Although traffic does not guarantee a sale, it will arouse the curiosity and spread the word that such a service and product exist which could then lead to a future sale.

It’s a given fact that joining social media sites will need time and a certain level of dedication. For you to keep hold of your followers you always have to have something new to offer and you always have to be good content in the circulation. This is where social media virtual assistants can help you with time consuming tasks. They can do the hard work and labor for you while you enjoy the rewards that it brings for your business. It is important for you to define what you need and what image you need to portray when joining social media sites and from there, you can communicate it to your social media virtual assistants so that they can make it a reality.

One concern for many business owners is the fear that some social media virtual assistants will replace them and jeopardize their social networking efforts. Although a valid concern, you must understand that simply hiring a marketing company or a social media virtual assistant won’t replace you, in fact it should be stated clearly that your participation in social networks is imperative for the campaign for be successful.  Interacting with your audience is still a must to know! Your social media virtual assistant acts strictly with your set of instructions and materials will still come from you because more than anybody else, it is you who knows your business and where it is headed.

If you are not using social media to market your business, your competitor is!  Get started right away.