Exploring Twitter!

Twitter is creating waves worldwide, as people today want to share every piece of information. And with such easy access, we have Twitter being used to share what one's pet doggie does, to celebrities' narcissistic behavior to businesses bagging the biggest deals and Twitter being used for humanity and spreading world peace among others.

Discovered in 2006, this micro blogging platform lets users share information in less than 140 characters. Twitter Applications are out there, letting users tap its potential to the fullest. We all love to have a conversation and get it going. With Twitter, one can interact and learn in the simplest and easiest way. We are sure many of you have used some of the Twitter tools to the best of your advantage. Here's some of the Twitter tools that we love!

Twitter monitoring tools
Tweetscan - Allows one to search conversations on varied topics. It also gives a list of popular searches. Also, helps to search people you want to follow by the topic. It offers specific keywords, phrases, and timeframes.

TweetDeck – It’s an easy tool to use and manage conversations on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn to name a few. Manage conversations with @replies and direct messages. Follow topics in real-time with saved searches, and see who's following you...

TweetGrid – TweetGrid allows to monitor conversations, hash tags, phrases, people, groups etc. One can participate in conversations and search in real time.

Scheduling tweets
HootSuite - Allows one to schedule tweets through the day. It has loads of interactive features. It is a Twitter interface providing tools that you need.

Twaitter – Lets one schedule tweets, send messages from calendar, reply, send DM, integrates with ping. fm helps send recurring tweets on a daily, weekly, monthly basis translate and tweet in any language, manage multiple Twitter accounts. Soon to be called GremIn.

Twuffer – Compose tweets and schedule for future...

Other Applications you'll love
Tweepler – Enables you to process new followers and categorize them into 'Follow' and 'Ignore. This makes it simple and reduces clutter. This application helps to manage followers and categorize them accordingly, thus saving time. It also gives you Avg Tweets, Total Tweets, Number of Followers, Number Following, and the Followers to Following Ratio.

TwtPoll – Companies such as Vodafone, Yahoo are engaging customer on Twitter via TwtPoll by asking questions on various topics. This helps them receive immediate feedback and acts as a method to showcase value and loyalty among customer and potential customers.

TwitPic – A picture speaks a thousand words! Sharing photos on Twitter is no rocket science. TwitPic lets you share photos with ease.

These are only a few Twitter Applications in the myriad sea of Twitter tools. Go ahead, share with us Twitter tools that you have explored!

Blogs as a marketing tool

Social media channels like social networking sites, microblogging sites, blogs, photo sharing sites, video sharing sites, social bookmarking sites, document sharing sites etc help branding and the number of businesses gaining profit from these sites, is increasing by the day. Blogs have a great impact on social media initiatives that businesses want to venture into. The advantage of using blogs is, that a detailed story can be posted which encourages feedback and comments. It leaves a lot of room for discussion. It helps to increase the morale of an organization, it leads to sales, it helps build the reputation and image of an organization, and brings about customer relationship management among others.

Blogs can be of various kinds, some use blogs as a personal diary, writing in their views and experiences of life. Some write blogs on specific topics catering to a particular section of readers. For instance there are blogs dedicated wholly to photography, gardening, movies, dogs... There are also organizations who blog for either internal or external marketing. Some organizations maintain an internal blog that looks to inform employees about the organization, its projects, and acts as a medium where information is communicated and exchanged via a single platform. Internal blogs help in the time of communication crisis, brings about a consensus among people, and makes the process of exchanging knowledge and information faster.

There are also company blogs which are maintained by the particular company to give an insight into the culture of the company, to promote products and services, to get quick feedback and to generate more customers. For instance, a camera company has an interactive blog that allows customers to give feedback on the product and suggestions on how they can improve the product. These are corporate blogs that are maintained by a representative of the company or by the CEO. For instance, it was Robert Scoble who started blogging about Microsoft giving an insight into the happenings at Microsoft. He gave a human touch and feel to the blog that made it popular. Other popular corporate blogs are that of Sun Microsystems, and Fastlane.

Blogs are a good medium of promoting business online as it helps to promote new products and services giving customers latest news and updates. It acts as an effective PR and marketing tool helping both the clients and the customers. Also they rank high on the list of search engines and are easily accessible. The reach is greater compared to other marketing methods. Branding one's blog brings about new visitors, building links, gaining subscribers, and developing content that will draw search engine traffic for years to come. The best part of having a blog is that over a period of time, it brings in loyal readers who give good feedback. Hence companies need to develop blog posts that are specific and well targeted.

Social Media trends for 2010

In 2010, Social Media will become more popular, more mobile and more exclusive. Niche networking sites will be a trend leading to exclusive users following you or being on your friend list. Connecting with people who share common interests, hobbies, and having professional associations will give people a purpose to have you on their friend list. Sites that focus on particular interests such as photography, writing, music, or based on demographics that is, age, gender, occupation etc. will gain popularity. This will help to lessen the clutter and will bring in more value. It will also make it easier for marketers and advertisers to target their messages and audience.

In countries like India, going mobile will be the greatest advantage for social media enthusiasts. Picture this - There are more than 65 million active users currently accessing Facebook through their mobile devices and that number grows daily. MySpace estimates that 50% of its Website traffic will be mobile within 24 months. All the major social media sites have mobile versions of their Websites. Another reason for organizations to go mobile is the ban on social media sites by organizations. This will see a rise in the percentage of smartphones that will get people to use social media and its advantages will only increase.

The convergence of social media and ecommerce will reach greater heights with companies like Zappos receiving more accolades. Zappos is a classic example of a company using social media to showcase its culture to the outside world. Zappos CEO, Tony Hsieh, tweets more about his philosophies of life rather than business. Dell is another successful brand that has optimized social media for business. There are several interesting aspects of how Dell uses social media to leverage its business. They have an active presence in every social media channel and have used this as an opportunity to connect with millions of customers.

Online reputation management is another aspect that will see growth. ORM deals with monitoring the reputation of a brand online, dealing with negative comments and protecting your brand via social media channels. Monitoring, repairing and managing are the three steps that companies need to work on for online reputation management.

Google Friend Connect lets users to connect with friends on different websites. Google reports over 5 million sites using friend connect while Facebook Connect has around 15,000. Google SearchWiki is nothing but social media search. SearchWiki allows anyone with a Google account to change the order of search results and make notes about each result in Google. This will help to improve core search results. And will help to rank websites in the future.

The channels that will be widely used across businesses are microblogging sites such as Twitter. The biggest advantage of Twitter is that it lets you network with people in your industry, there is a lot of freedom and space for carrying on conversations. Helps you get the desired traffic and views to your blog. Twitter is in fact a central point for social media activities.

Source: Businessweek
Techcrunch

Importance of Social Media Marketing

Many people want to promote their business via social media? Why? It has various benefits to begin with. Thanks to the number of channels, social media helps reach out to lot of people at once, leads to better search engine rankings, everybody can use social media...there are no barriers, helps one get closer to customers and respond to their needs, increases brand awareness, influences brand reputation, generates leads, and increases sales online among others. Here's a look at some of the social media tools:

Blogs provide an excellent platform to voice one's thoughts and opinions on everything under the sun. Great that people can now listen to what you say, counter it and also give feedback and suggestions. Many bloggers today post just a blog post or two and then promote it actively on other social media channels. Posting a link of your blog post on Twitter and Facebook lets many people read it who otherwise wouldn't have. This is because, most of us like to spend time on Facebook rather than look for content elsewhere. It also helps to get the much needed traffic for your blog.

Social media helps your content to be published in various channels. Bookmarking content, videos, and images on Stumbleupon, Digg, Delicious, and Diigo gets you the desired traffic. The more people bookmark the particular link, the more it is read and trusted. Having a presence in social networking sites such as Facebook help to engage with customers directly (which can be debated) - Giving announcements of product offerings, upcoming deals, and having a fan base that signifies the strength and value of the brand. Microblogging sites such as Twitter lets one 'tweet' their thoughts in 140 characters or less. It lets one articulate content in fewer words thus reaching the goal of people reading or viewing your tweet.

Video and photo sharing sites such as Youtube, Flickr, Photbucket are an audio-visual medium, making the content more interesting and enjoyable. But it is more of a one-way conversation. This depends on the strength of the video or image. For instance, a Michael Jackson video has great chances of having comments that lead to a conversation. Professional networking sites such as LinkedIn help to reach a network of professionals in your domain leading to valuable discussions and exchange of information. Also your queries are answered with genuine people from the field, leading to knowledge sharing.

There are many more like forums, QnA sites, document sharing sites etc. In short, social media marketing is the new age marketing. It helps small businesses see the light of the day and lets the already established ones have a stronger foothold. It's not as easy as it sounds. It is a gradual process and needs expertise and patience if you want to see the fruits of your results.