Social Media Goldmines - Facebook and Twitter

Facebook. Twitter. The names might sound silly, but their power is anything but. Social media web sites are the face of the Web 2.0 marketing revolution. They work on a simple networking principle: word of mouth. You create a profile and invite your friends to subscribe to it. Then they invite their friends, and pretty soon your messages are being sent out far and wide to a receptive audience.

Let's take a closer look at how you can use Facebook and Twitter to share your business with the world.

Facebook

Facebook has over 150 million active users, and is among the top 100 most visited web sites in the world. It allows people to join networks and add friends who share common interests. It also lets you share personal and business information with friends in your network.

To join Facebook, go to Facebook.com and enter your e-mail address, password, and date of birth. You'll soon receive a confirmation e-mail. Once your address has been confirmed, you can start searching for your friends and joining networks. Your own profile can be customized by clicking "Profile", "Info", and then "Edit Information".

Facebook allows you to share links, videos, pictures, messages, and status updates with everyone on your friends list. You can even play games and send virtual items to your friends. Remember, Facebook is where people go to see the human side of your business.

Twitter

Twitter has been called a mini-blog, and for good reason. Users send out continuous updates, or "tweets", in 140 characters or less. Because it's so easy to use Twitter over cell phones, updates can be sent from anywhere - airport terminals, clubs, sporting events, and even the dentist's office. Using Twitter is like having your own reality show with millions of potential viewers.

Twitter is even more user-friendly than Facebook. To get started, go to twitter.com. Choose an easy user name and password, and then choose whether or not you want to import the contacts from your Gmail, Yahoo, or Hotmail account.

Next, you'll be brought to your home page. Enter a message in the box at the top of the page, and click "Update". That's all you have to do to start tweeting. Later, you can click on the "Settings" tab at the top of your home page to fill in your profile details.

You can use Twitter to announce new blog posts, share tips, and answer people's questions. If someone "follows" you, follow them back. You can send private tweets to people, but your public tweets can be seen by all of your followers and all of their followers. This makes it possible to cultivate a good audience in very little time. You can even add a Twitter widget to your Facebook page.

Social Networking Etiquette

Why are Facebook and Twitter so popular? For one thing, they're personal. You can learn a lot about a person by reading their profile, following their favorite links, and learning about their hobbies and interests. Also, they are interactive communities that bring people together. In this age of Internet marketing, people want to talk with a real person rather than receive generic messages from a faceless corporation. Social networking lets you connect with your audience on a new level.

The golden rule of social networking is to just be yourself. Don't spam people with ads for your business, and don't bore them with generic messages. Get to know them, and they'll soon spread the word about the valuable services you offer.

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Social Media For Small Business - How to Use Twitter For Your Business

Following up from the last set of Social Media Marketing webinars where we covered the basics of Twitter and other Social Media tools and sites, I have been getting questions about using Twitter for business purposes. In response to those questions, I wanted to write out a short list of Twitter for Business best practices and some of the most popular tools that make these practices possible. This list of tools, techniques, and what is possible is changing and expanding almost daily with the explosion of Twitter usage and discussions of Twitter merging with some other site/partner. Thus I expect to stay current on using Twitter for business purposes we will need to repost more on this topic from time to time.

o Be Real (don't hide) -
It is important that you completely fill in the registration and profile information when signing up on Twitter. If you set up your Twitter Id as a business name it is less real than using a personal name. If you still want the business name in there, you could possibly add the company after the persons name (like Dell computer has been known to do with names like "PatrickAtDell"). In the profile section, post your website. I wouldn't recommend a short URL here if you can avoid it since this is your brand and the full link helps in your SEO rankings. Also in the profile section you enter in relevant search terms in your profile description.

With the profile bio limited to 160 characters, you want to get the relevant keywords included. By doing so you don't have much space to talk about the business specifically. However you can also squeeze in more content about your business including other websites, urls, logos, or content by uploading a custom Twitter background. Be aware though that the search engines and tools people are using to find you will not pick up words or content located in the background image. That's why the keywords have to be in your description.

Finally and possibly most important is that you need to upload a picture. People want to see who they are communicating with, even if you are representing a company. If Twitters don't think you are real, they are less likely to be interested in following you and learning more about your business (we are Twittering for Business here remember). If you try to hide with no picture, just a logo, an incomplete profile or no description, the cynical side of social media marketing will take over, people will assume the worst and they won't follow you.

o Participate (be Relevant, contribute, share, respond) -
For a business or business person to be relevant in the Twitter conversation going on, they need to participate. Ask questions and elicit responses. Respond to other user's questions. Tweet not only your own relevant contributions but retweet (RT) other Tweets that you find valuable. Promote and/or attribute others where there's a reason to do so. You can build a following faster if you appear trust worthy (easiest way to do that is by actually being trustworthy), know your subject matter and don't look like you are just out the get them to buy something.

The graders and ranking sites look at both your following as well as your activity. There's a number of search tools that will help you here to see who is talking about what and who is specifically responding to you (for example with @replies). These tools can help you determine where you might want to jump into a conversation and build that relevance. This is important in being noticed by searches from other users. You build following with contribution, relevance, and responsiveness.

The number of keywords in your tweet cloud is also important. Are you an active Tweeter? If so, what are you tweeting about? Are you relatively consistent in what you discuss? There's a big difference between using Twitter like text messaging and blogging each trip to the grocery store and using Twitter for business with a targeted, specific approach to your online identity and the topics you take on. Again, the grading web sites will pick up on this targeted approach and quickly move you to "elite" status in your chosen keywords if you Tweet with some forethought.

o Automate (where possible) -
Reduce the time it takes you to research what is happening in the Twitterdom, speed up your own Tweeting, get yourself followed automatically, and build ranking faster and easier. There are several automation type tools available to help build your Twitter for business presence without having to hire a back room full of people:

--TweetBeep -Set up alerts for various keywords, people, different attitudes, and links.
--Summize (Twitter Search) - Search for your keywords, click a button and you have a custom RSS feed that you can read via your favorite feed reader, or put on your Google or Yahoo home page. A synopsis available on what's happening.
--Tweetlater - one of the more versatile tools related to Twitter. A quick list of services include; emailing a digest of Tweets (like TweetBeep), Pre-scheduling tweets to keep your tweet stream flowing, pre-saving Tweets or common snippets of tweets for faster Tweeting, Automating direct messages to people that follow you, and managing multiple Twitter Ids at the same time.
--Twitscoop - extends what Twitter Search can do with both real-time searches of specific keywords as well as what the overall Twitterdom is talking about using (the Tweet Cloud). It also shows you the hot trends in the cloud.
--Twellow - This is another research tool that extends Twitter for business use, Twellow searches people's profiles or what they are Tweeting about under specific, predefined categories, or a general search. Twellow will also show you geographically where people are Tweeting from in the US and Canada.
--Remember the Milk (RTM) - A real unique and cutting edge use of Twitter. RTM is a Task management service (set up reminders, tasks, things to do, etc.) for an individual or a small team or business. You can interact with Remember the Milk through Twitter. You simply follow the Twitter ID @rtm and then send it commands like retrieving your current tasks, adding new tasks, setting up automated reminders, even sending tasks to other Twitter users. This is a great adaptation of Twitter for business use.

o Re-purpose existing content-
With taking care of customers, blogging, keeping up profiles on numerous social media sites, all while running a business, maintaining your online presence can quickly become overwhelming. Use tools like Twitterfeed to automatically Tweet content from an RSS feeds of your other blogs or sites, and Alterthingy, another tool that helps you aggregate and repost your content across the multiple sites, and profiles you need to maintain.

In addition, several blogs (Wordpress for example) are building Twitter widgets to be able to display your tweets (and others) on your blog, thus keeping the blog actively changing and a target for better search engine ranking and more active visits.

There are any number of other ways you can use Twitter for Business and this note really only scratches the surface of what is possible. As the popularity of Twitter grows so will the unique and inventive ways of using this innovative tool.

About Urvi Mehta:

Urvi Mehta is a passionate Social Media Evangelist who thrives on teaching and consulting business owners and organizations on how to use Web 2.0 and social media tools and social networks like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to help create buzz and influence their branding online.

She is the co-founder of PR Easy (http://www.PREasy.com), a full service online marketing company which serves clients around the world. Urvi teaches her clients how to utilize social networking sites, such as, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to establish themselves as authorities in their industry, acquire more clients and ultimately increase profit.

Urvi holds a Masters degree in Public Health from the University of Illinois in Chicago and is considered by her peers as someone who "holds nothing back and gives real meat." She has recently started a blog, http://www.UrviMehta.com where she discusses Social Media Strategies.

Social Media Recruitment - Advanced Techniques to Reach Out to Candidates on Twitter and Beyond

As a recruiter how can you reach out to a potentially large candidate pool on social media space in a short span of time? The answer is in carefully crafted social media strategy.

Link your social Media Accounts

As a recruiter build your professional profile carefully on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. A strong presence in these 3 social media forums are an absolute must if you want to taste success in social Media Recruitment. Linking up your networks is even more important as it allows maintaining uniformity across social media networks.

It may seem a little daunting to start with but with but maintaining all 3 networks can be automated in such a way that if you do a Twitter update it will automatically update your statuses in LinkedIn and Facebook saving valuable time and energy. Both LinkedIn and Facebook offer Twitter widgets and all you need to do is to activate the widgets to link all your 3 accounts together. Once you link up your Twitter account with LinkedIn and Facebook you are ready to move to the next level.

Create your Blog Site for Job Posts to harness RSS Feeds

Do I need a blog? The answer is no if you have applicant tracking system which generates RSS feeds for your jobs and offers a job publishing platform. If you don't have system to rely on than a blog can become an indispensable tool for your recruitment process. Blogs can be used as a remarkably cheap platform to publicize your jobs and hundreds of smart recruiters are doing so.

So go ahead and create your blog. Build your profile on your blog carefully with links to your LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter accounts. Make sure the banding is uniform across all 4 platforms. The best approach here is to keep things simple and professional to start with. You can always add bells and whistles as you grow confident. And yes there are ready-made widgets to integrate your social media profiles with your blog and can be unearthed with a little research.

All popular blogging platforms (Blogger, WordPress, Typepad etc to name a few) generate RSS feeds. The innocuous RSS feed are most effective form of content syndication on the Internet today and offers limitless possibilities in spreading your content on the internet. We need to harness RSS feeds to reach out to a larger audience. Once build your blog and start posting, your blog site with generate your RSS Feed. There are many ways to publicize your feed:

You can submit your feeds on all major search engines; you can integrate them on Feed Directories. And you can integrate your RSS feed into your social network which is what I will focus on this article.

Use FeedBurner to auto publish your blog RSS feeds as Tweets

Create a FeedBurner ( http://www.feedburner.com ) account and burn your feed to make your blog feed RSS reader friendly. After you burn your Feed use the FeedBurner tools to optimize and publicize your feed. To publicize your feed FeedBurner offers a gem of a feature called socialize which integrates your RSS feed with your Twitter account. The interface is simple and intuitive and can be activated with a few clicks! The system allows you to send your blog feeds to your twitter account in 1 hr intervals in a twitter friendly format.

Now you have created a system where the moment you post your jobs on your blog the post will be automatically fed into your Twitter account as Tweets via FeedBurner. Once your feed is published on Twitter your already linked accounts on LinkedIn and Facebook will automatically pick up the tweets and publish them as your status updates. In other words all your connections across 3 major social networks can view your job posts as status updates with a link to click on. This in turn which will lead them to your blog to view your jobs and apply. Now you are ready to move to Level 4.

Moving beyond your network using Twitter

Now you have created a system to publicize your jobs across your Twitter LinkedIn and Facebook contacts. Is there a way to move beyond your network? Social Networks tend to grow organically depending on how aggressively you are building them and your jobs can spread quickly via viral mode to a larger network of 2nd and 3rd degree contacts. You can move to an audience beyond your network with the help of a few twitter tools.

? Create an account with twitjobsearch.com and integrate your twitter feed. You Job tweets will become part of a large twitter job platform and will reach out to thousands of followers beyond your network.

? Also use twitterjobcast.com all you need to do is use the word hiring in your job titles. Twitter job cast will automatically pick up your posts and publicize on twitterjobcast.com. As a strategy start your job posts with the word hiring and use the position and location in a tightly constructed blog title. Example "Hiring Mortgage Sales Officers in San Francisco, CA".

Closing the Loop

Now you are reaching beyond your networks and effectively closed the communication loop for effective social media recruitment.

This article at best lays a very basic foundation of what can be achieved in social media recruitment. There are hundreds and twitter tools out there and possibilities are limitless. You can refer feedmyapp.com to experiment with social media tools and to move your social media recruiting strategy forward.

Blog: http://xrecnet.blogspot.com an IT Recruiters Network