Deciding on an advertising budget and determining how to spend it can be among your most challenging decisions. Advertising options have changed and expanded considerably over the past few years, and updating your strategy definitely means taking advantage of the new, digital marketplace.

So how can you create a dynamic advertising campaign with a limited budget? Video.

Video gives you the opportunity to interact with your customers by allowing them to get to know you and your business, and feel comfortable with you. This is especially important for small, local businesses. Forrester Research Group says “video is 53 times more likely than text pages to appear on the first page of a search engine.” Read: video drives search results. On the OurTown website, articles that include a photo array or a video are more easily searched on the Web and receive three times as many clicks as articles without these features.

Adding video to e-mail marketing boosts customers' interaction—such as opening the email or clicking on any of the content—by as much as 200 percent to 300 percent, says Marc Fleishhacker, managing director at WPP's Ogilvy Consulting.

You can, of course, hire a production company like WeTubeU and have them make a video for you. Here are some tips to keep in mind when making your advertising video:

• Keep it short. Studies show that we have an attention span of about 30 seconds. So if you are making an advertising or branding video, say what you have to say and then save the rest for follow up videos.

• Combine video and still images. Mixing videos and stills of your product, employees, location and anything that you believe will interest your potential customers will add variety to your video ad.

• Add a personal message. The message can be from you or one of your employees, or it can be a testimonial or recommendation from one of your customers.

• A little humor never hurts. Sometimes your own gaffes in making the video make it even more appealing.

• Give your videos a call to action. Make it clear what the viewer should do after watching the video. Add a coupon or special offer.

• Make sure your customer knows how to find you. Don’t forget to include your phone number, address, website address and e-mail. If you have a brick and mortar location, you might even want to include a map.

• Distribute your video in every way possible. Promote your video through an online ad campaign, e-mail, social media, YouTube and even your own website. There are online video services that will provide all of these services for a price if you don't want to do it yourself.

You may think this sounds like a lot of trouble, but you do need video. Video engages your customer and sets you apart from those static ads you see on the Internet. It allows you to tell your customer what differentiates you from your competition. Your videos can help you have a face they can recognize and come to trust. That’s the kind of relationship you want with your customer.

OPEN Cardmember Carol Meinhardt is co-Managing Member of Chicago West Pullman, an investment holding company and the COO of vADz, Inc, a social video advertising platform, and OurTown Media, a hyper-local news network.

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Hosted blogging platform WordPress.com has announced that iPhone and iPad users can now upload and embed videos onto its blogs after it gave VideoPress, its HD video service, an upgrade.

The  upgrade means that WordPress.com bloggers on iOS devices can now comfortably upload videos, whether they’re shot vertically or horizontally, and it will take care of rotating it for you prior to publishing.

If you don’t already have VideoPress on your WordPress.com account, you just have to visit VideoPress.com, and follow the instructions. You will, of course, also need the WordPress App on your device.

VideoPress launched initially in mid-2009, and since then it has made a host of enhancements, such as the ability to natively share videos in Facebook. And in March last year, WordPress.com announced another upgrade which meant that videos embedded within its hosted sites would be playable across mobile and touch-screen devices, including iPhones, iPads and Android devices.

WordPress also noted that if you use VideoPress on your self-hosted (.org) site, you should keep an eye on the VideoPress Blog for some “exciting news” soon.

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Mr. Marketing is a 30-year marketing veteran who left his New York City agency life for a home in Rancho Bernardo. Get his free marketing newsletter at www.askmrmarketing.com.

Every business will benefit by a constant presence before current and prospective customers. Recognizing that out of sight is out of mind, you need a drip, drip, drip of communications to provide arguments why folks should buy from you.

This rule applies whether you’re a retailer or a service provider. From banks to window washers to craft stores, the key to increasing sales is increasing your marketing.

Many businesses like the convenience of electronic newsletters. Others prefer direct mail. Which brings us to your question.

Depending on what you’re mailing, postage can be a significant portion of your campaign’s budget. Here are a few thoughts:

• Mail fewer pieces, bringing down postage, printing and handling.

• Cut the number of pieces in your package. That brochure you’re including might be pushing your weight up an ounce.

• Print on thinner paper, lowering weight without needing to redesign your brochure, sales letter, etc.

• Use postcards. A 4” x 6” card effectively sends a quick message while lowering 1-ounce mailing rates from 44 cents to 29 cents.

Now today’s news: With the impending hike in first class rates and the ballyhoo about the potential failure of the Postal Service, the USPS has created a program that delivers mail for just 14 cents each.

Whoa!

Called “Every Door Direct Mail,” the post office lets you hit every mailbox on any block in the country without a specific mailing list.

Which means if you’re looking to get fliers or samples into every home within a radius of two miles…or 200…it’s easier than ever to do.

EDDM lets you send up to 5,000 large mailers per post office per day. They have guidelines you need to follow, of course, but you’d expect that. It’s the post office, for heaven’s sake!

But given the odds that you’ll want to send out a package like the Publisher’s Clearinghouse uses (slim), the flexibility this setup gives you (lots), and the ability to reach huge numbers of sales prospects in your immediate neighborhood, it certainly seems to be worth a look.

More info is available at uspseverydoor.com.

With that said, I wish you a week of profitable marketing.

Related posts:

1. Busiest days ahead at area post offices
2. Ask Mr. Marketing: Good things in different-sized packages
3. Ask Mr. Marketing: Buzz! It’s time to buy from me
4. Ask Mr. Marketing: Planning for next year
5. Ask Mr. Marketing: Customers have long memories

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Avitus Digital Dialog

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With over 135 million users, 59% of which are located outside of the United States and with 75 of the Fortune 100 companies using the network for marketing and recruiting purposes, LinkedIn has become a critical platform for building, connecting with, and growing your personal and professional networks.

As the leading business social network, LinkedIn offers the chance to connect with professionals all around the world and from all industry backgrounds. But how do you convert networks into customers, and ‘likes’ into sales?

1. Learn from your peers

Successful marketing is all about listening to what your market needs. The LinkedIn Groups feature provides a space where you can discuss issues with others in your industry and learn from their advice. You can bounce ideas off industry experts and stay informed on new developments. You also have an opportunity to establish yourself as an expert in a certain industry/area allowing you to build relationships with current and prospective customers in a more organic and credible fashion.

2. Build on your niche

It doesn’t matter how specific your company’s product or service, LinkedIn allows you to connect with companies or individuals by industry, company size, geographic location, and more. By targeting your network-building, you are able to focus your time on building relationships that count.

3. Use Company Status Updates

You can post the latest news, product updates, videos and promotions on yourCompany Profile and instantly learn how it is being received with likes, comments and shares. Just like with any community, make sure your content strategy is relevant, adds value and promotes discussion. Use feedback to adjust your posting frequency or alter your content based on what is popular or what is missing.

4. Ask your audience

LinkedIn provides a channel to your audience, but communication doesn’t have to be one-way. You can use your Company Profile to ask customers what they think, and engage with issues they might face. Asking for feedback can provide a wealth of market information from your core audience. If your Company Profile is too limiting, consider setting up a group or groups that meet a particular need among your audience.

You can also use LinkedIn’s polling feature. LinkedIn Polls is just like any other polling service: everyone can ask any query, include possible answers (as much as five) as well as select how much time it’s going to run. There is an ability to share content out via your social networks or upload it on your website to acquire the highest possible voting power. Analytics data is what’s valuable here: you can break down voters by age, gender and even seniority.

5. Use LinkedIn Ads

If used correctly, LinkedIn Ads can offer a low-cost alternative to traditional advertising. Because of the number of LinkedIn accounts (135 million worldwide), each with detailed profile information, LinkedIn Ads can specifically target your demographic by industry, geographic location, seniority, age, or by LinkedIn Group in a way few other channels can.

6. LinkedIn Recommendations: Give Generously

Your LinkedIn profile might look great, and you may have hundreds of connections, but in a crowded market what is going to make your company stand out? How will potential clients and customers know to choose you above your competition? The answer goes back to one of the basics of marketing: a positive recommendation by others is worth a hundred times what you will ever say about yourself. The secret to attracting great LinkedIn recommendations is to offer them yourself. Businesses, whether suppliers, clients or partners, are far more likely to give you a positive recommendation if you offer one first.

7. LinkedIn SEO

When people search for your industry or product, how are you going to come out on top? Just following the basics, such as making sure your profile is complete and accurate can help, but spending a bit of time over the keywords in the Specialties section is also important for driving traffic. You can also customize your URL to give your company’s name rather than a sequence of numbers, which can help search engines to find you.

8. Enrich your profile with LinkedIn applications

You’ve driven traffic to your LinkedIn page with targeted ads, great networking, and an informative profile, but what now? You’ve got so much more great information that will benefit your customers, but how are you going to tell them about it?LinkedIn apps can help, giving you the ability to add your blog to your profile, upload presentations, add polls and your Amazon reading list, collaborate with document sharing, and many other ways of enriching your profile to help it stand out and offer new ways to engage.

9. Meet like-minded people at industry events

The LinkedIn events tool is a great way to easily search for relevant events (physical events, webinars, workshops, roundtables, etc) where you can meet your peers. LinkedIn search will display events related to your network connections as well as industry and geographic location, both past and present. Utilize this feature to extend your network face-to-face.

10. Integrate your LinkedIn presence into your other properties

Prominently display “Follow Us on LinkedIn” button on your other social properties to help grow your network.

You can also add “LinkedIn Share” button to your other properties to make it easy for people to share your content and help it travel father.

The “Recommend” button can be prominently displayed on your website to give visitors to website a little bit of a nudge to recommend you on LinkedIn. The recommend comes in two formats: one for the company page itself and also one for the products and services page.

11. Measure your success

Make sure to track your performance as you go and make changes to your strategy based on that data.
On your Company Page’s Analytics tab, you can now see how many LinkedIn members are visiting your Company Page and how many of them are following your company. You can also see what industries, functions and companies these professionals come from as well as track how they are interacting with your Careers Tab or Products and Services Tab, how many are clicking on your promotional banners, and how many choose to contact employees at your company. And for every one of these data slices, you can compare yourself against similar companies to benchmark your performance.

Just recently LinkedIn also launched a brand new Group Statistics dashboard that delivers unique insights into groups: demographics, growth, and activity.

LinkedIn can seem daunting at first. If you think of your social media marketing as an extension of your traditional marketing, you can start to think of ways to integrate your standard practices into your LinkedIn networking. You don’t have to start from scratch; much of your marketing media, from videos to presentations and documents, can be shared through your profile and used to reach new, targeted audiences, especially those you may have trouble reaching through traditional marketing methods.

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Video marketing strategies

There are countless ways to use video for business, varying from sophisticated, high-priced ad campaign commercials to complex landing page productions devised to pull someone into a purchase. What are the greatest types of video for Small Business owners that can be produced cost-effectively and published rapidly and create leads? Here are the Elite Eight.

Intro Advert

Well-known and regularly underused, the video Intro to the Business is a short, 5 minute or less (2-3 works well) homepage introduction that tells who you are, what you do and why customers should care. This can be done using a description in a commercial replete with lots of movement shots of the shop floor, the office, and merchandise; a talking head of the CEO to a blank camera; or use the 3rd party opinion of a genuine Video interview (see below) Business FAQ.

Production fees can vary from FREE (CEO talking into a webcam) through a few hundred bucks to thousands for a videographer shot commercial. Google doesn’t care; either will index well given the suitable keyword tags. The question you have to answer is, what is going to be instantly informational, entertaining, and referable (as in Re-tweeted).

Product Description

Specific to demonstrable merchandise, especially ones that move, like machines, toys, electronic devices, and, considering the medium, software. These again shouldn’t go on too long but can be longer than an introductory commercial. A software-based demo may take up to 8 minutes, but you should be able to say it in less time than that. When it comes to demos, in some cases less is more. Most often either a narrative led demo showing strictly merchandise or a spokesperson paced demo (think QVC or Home Shopping Channel) works the best. Just make sure to show the greatest features of your product and lay out consistently (3x) how this addresses an issue for your customers.

Professional Abilities

This is very similar to a product demo and works best for suppliers, especially those in developed countries, trying to demonstrate their remarkable technology will actually cost less money or provide better quality merchandise for a customer engaging them with an arrangement for recurring services. Machine shops and laser houses prefer this stuff, showing programmed machinery cutting steel while a guy with a hardhat and safety goggles oversees the process. This can run 5-10 minutes max. The key here is, make sure that your ability really is something memorable and that your video captures its uniqueness.

Company Spotlights

This is more of a tug on the heartstrings video that features either what your company has achieved that is significant or what your staff members have done for your company. If it’s about the company, it MUST be validated by 3rd party reference, as in an award won from a prestigious registrar (Best in Class, Malcolm Baldridge quality), a status acquired (ISO 9001 certification, etc.) or a cat saved from a tree on the news.

When discussing employees, the old Employee of the Month style headline adds a nice human element and speaks to what your company values in its people, and that can make a big difference to prospects with the same value system. For these kinds of videos, keep them short (2-4 minutes) and keep them current, especially for the employee notoriety videos. An Employee of the Month surmises that next month, we’ll see another.

Video Landing Page Combo

I could write pages on this one and frankly, I’m not a professional at it, but I am sure you’ve experienced pages that have these videos. These are designed to be hands-free on the part of the seller of a product or service, meaning, don’t call me, take the steps explained on the video. That means enter your email address to get something for FREE for agreement to advertise to you, or register for the thing (whatever it is) right now!

Just like text-only sales landing pages, these are long-form videos, with Squeeze Pages (get the email address) videos stretching from 3-7 minutes, and Sales Pages running all the way up to 30 minutes (that is too long in my opinion, with 10-12 being sufficient). The crucial stuff here: limit options to only this with no other on-page interruptions and make multiple calls to action to the prospect.

All about providing information this one is. It comes in the form of an instruction video, which is conveniently done for things like software applications using screen capture software, or talking head telling something she knows, and typically is the Expert Interview (I’ve done a ton of these in my blog, see sample). The goal is expert placement for your company while providing real value for the view. These videos can run from 5-30 minutes or longer (think of a book author interview), but I like to keep them between 7 and 15 minutes (YouTube has a 15 minute max until you are a recurring video poster). Tickets to success are to limit the subject matter to avoid rambling, don’t provide fluff with a sales pitch to get more, and add some written text fore and aft of the video to set it up and recap.

Testimonies and Personal Examples

Very self-explanatory here, this is 3rd party Reliability Building 101. Take the same things that marketers value about written examples and reviews and put them on steroids. This positively MUST be a person outside the company outlining what the company did for him or her, and it can NOT be anonymous (just like those outrageous made up references you see, “JL from Tampa says …”). Use foresight if the person doing the talking is not good on camera. It shouldn’t matter but it does. He doesn’t need to be Ben Affleck, but he can’t be a stiff either. These run no more than 3 minutes in length and follow my rules for great reviews.

Quality can’t be weak, but a webcam with acceptable quality can be used effectively, as the content of the person’s reference is the crucial piece.

Interviews

Video interviews work well for any business that wants to put a human face on its product, so take into account if that is you. They work exceptionally well when your business has these three qualities:

1. No physical merchandise– That’s right consultants, lawyers, accountants, financial advisors, IT people and anyone else offering professional services, I’m looking at you. You sell intellectual property and that is difficult to show by showing a video shot of your report (although you can show results charts, but the people who can use this tactic the most, financial advisors, usually have rules preventing it).
2. Trust is the key to business– Same group, right? If you’re an attorney, how can you start to break the trust hurdle down without ever getting to know someone? Show some face time with the 3rd party legitimacy that comes from being interviewed.
3. Sameness in Brand– If you look at your rivals’ websites and they look like yours does– competent yet non-distinguishable– you’re a good candidate for a video interview to set yourself apart. Again, this is why professional service companies fall so perfectly into video interview prospects.

For advertising purposes the longest video interview should run about 12 minutes. That’s pretty in-depth. The shortest you can reasonably do with any bona fide dialog is about 2-3 minutes.

The vital success factors here are that the interviewer is good and that the framework of the content is planned beforehand. A faltering interviewer will lead to an unpersuasive interview and fragile video. A sound interviewer with planned content will lead to genuine questions that represent you in the very best light.

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For big brands, Google+ is probably a good investment — but is Google+ an efficient use of time for small businesses?

Google unveiled Google+ brand pages in November, enabling businesses and brands to join its social network. Since then, big brands — including Pepsi, Macy’s and Toyota — have jumped on the Google+ bandwagon, creating yet another hub page for their content-hungry fans.

We reached out to our community to better understand how (and if) small businesses are using Google+. We received more than 50 responses detailing the merits and downfalls of using Google’s social network as a small business.

Below are some of the top thoughts on the pros and cons of using Google+ as a small business. Read on and add your thoughts in the comments below.

7 Reasons to Use Google+

A bulk of the small businesses we spoke with said they feel Google+ is an important social platform because it was developed by Google, one of the Internet’s favorite brands and one of the most influential websites when it comes to site referrals. But small business owners gave a plethora of reasons for being early adopters of the platform. Here are some of the top reasons we heard for using Google+.

1. Get an SEO Boost: Bob Shirilla, director of marketing at Simply Bags, says that his business joined Google+ because he relies on Google search referrals for sales conversions. “Google+ influences search for all the people who have included my business in their circle,” he says. “We have also put a +1 button on each product page. This is a great way to get free promotion from people who like the product to people with similar interests.”

2. Host a Hangout: “Hangouts offer an amazing opportunity for businesses to engage in a highly personal way with clients, customers and industry thought leaders,” says Roger Friedensen, president and CEO of Forge Communications. “Plus, employees in remote locations can hold team meetings to brainstorm with one another from an interface that affords them immediate and easy access to share and collaborate on most of the information materials they might need, such as documents and spreadsheets.”

3. Expand Content Distribution: Phyllis Khare, the social media editorial director of iPhone Life magazine, says that Google+ is a great platform for expanding the publication’s content distribution. “It took us almost a year to get 1,000 Likes on our Facebook Page, and three days on G+ to get that number to Circle us,” she says. “We are gearing up for Hangouts with some of our writers in 2012 to answer iOS questions and a few other fun things with contests and giveaways.”

4. Connect with Early Adopters: If your business falls in the Internet or technology industries, Google+ could be a great place to connect a tech-savvy audience. “The people that are on Google+ already are most likely going to be early adopters of other technologies and marketing channels,” says Jason Pinto, CMO at interlinkONE. “When we look at what defines an ‘ideal customer’ for our products, that criteria is certainly high on our list.”

5. Segment Your Audience: “The obvious benefit of Google+ is that it allows us to share select content with specific audiences,” says Chad Udell, managing director of Float Mobile Learning. Google+ makes it easy for businesses to segment their audiences and share content directly with those certain groups of followers.

6. Use Google+ to Network: David Greenberg, president of Parliament Tutors, says that his business does not have a Google+ page, but that he uses his personal Google+ page to network and gather contact data and research the “personal side” of relevant contacts, such as journalists and potential clients, so that he can better create a connection with them. He adds that the “About” section of a contact’s Google+ profile is usually a great start.

7. Just Explore: Netronic Managing Director Martin Karlowitsch says, “We currently use Google+ for exploratory purposes. It is still a niche platform, but quickly growing and with a platform giant behind it. Knowing the impact that Google has on the way people find relevant information on the web, Google+ soon can become significant by combining social and search. I want to start early using this platform to be prepared when this inflection point arises.”

5 Downfalls of Using Google+

While most of the small business owners we spoke with had a very positive outlook for Google+, we also spoke to a number of skeptics who identified numerous flaws in the social platform. Here are the top five reasons that small business owners gave for limiting their engagement on Google+.

1. Administration is Difficult: “The pages need to be created from an individual’s Google+ account, and you cannot add admins or any other users to manage the account,” says Jason Donaldson, an account executive at Formic Media. “Depending on the size of the business, this may not be an issue. For example, if you only have one or two employees, there probably isn’t an issue accessing the page from a personal Google account. The problem becomes more exaggerated with businesses that don’t have a dedicated social media manager (unlikely with small businesses), because of the need to give out personal account information for users to post on the business page.”

2. Facebook and Twitter Reign: Many of the small businesses we spoke with pointed out that they maintain engaged audiences on Twitter and Facebook, but most of their customers and clients don’t use Google+. So, the platform isn’t much of a priority for their business. In the words of TwiloPR President Chris Heuwetter, “The true value is in Facebook, where we see a nice return on our efforts. Google+ seems like a ghost town [for many small businesses].”

3. Social Dashboards Don’t Integrate Google+ Yet: While more progressive social media dashboards, like Hootsuite, have integrated Google+ into their products, many social dashboard services on the market do not enable users to post to Google+. For businesses that manage their social presences from one central location, the lack of Google+ integration is a huge barrier to Google+ usage.

4. Google Side Projects are Unreliable: James Beswick manages online marketing for a bar in San Antonio called Drink. He looked into creating a Google+ page for the bar, but decided against it, since he’s not certain that the social network will pan out. “Google keeps starting and shutting down products — Buzz, Wave and Hotpot, to name a few — and I’m not entirely convinced the same thing won’t happen with Plus,” he says. “Given the time and cost of engaging followers, I think the effort is better spent on Facebook.”

5. Growth Is Small: Tara Parks, senior marketing administrator at Convergence Networks says that she sees potential in Google+, but that growth has been small for her company. “The biggest drawback to Google+ so far is that it’s hard to grow a fan base, since businesses can only add other businesses to their Circles, and not individuals, the way you can on Twitter (until they add you, that is),” she says. “It will definitely be a lot more fun once more people start using Google+.”

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Everyone's buzzing this week about Twitter's new design--actually, I should say that "everyone who cares about Twitter" is buzzing about Twitter's new design. If you don't use the service, you might not even know there's a new version. But there is. And despite the new embed function, and the new layout and categorizations... the truly big news about Twitter's new design has to do with something near and dear to most of our readers: video.

First the Basics: The New Twitter Design

Let's get the non-video stuff out of the way first. First, there's a brand new layout. It looks like this:

There are now four main ways to interact with Twitter, broken into tabs: Home, Connect, Discover, and Me. Almost all the changes are designed to help make Twitter more accessible to new users who don't know all the lingo or are unsure how to use the service best.

Here's a video they released covering the major changes in the new design:

Twitter Hearts Video

The big news, of course, from our perspective, is the ability for companies to add a video to their Twitter header. This is done through a new service called Brand Pages. Much the same way Google Plus has done recently, Twitter is creating tools for businesses, differentiating more between individuals and companies.

With Brand Pages you get:

• Customizable headers - You can make your logo bigger!
• Sticky Tweets - Brands can select a recent Tweet they'd like to stay at the top of the stream, even if it's not the most recent. And--here comes the exciting part--that Tweet can even auto-expand to reveal a photo or video.

That is absolutely huge news. And it makes perfect sense. Twitter's not dumb, after all. I'm sure they have data on how much video users are sharing on their service. The creation of Brand Pages will help businesses make their Twitter page a destination... and the ability to add video allows for the kind of engaging content we know users

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There are a zillion ways to use video for business, varying from stylish, high-priced ad crusade commercials to complex landing page pieces designed to pull someone into a purchase. What are the greatest types of video for Small Business owners that can be created cost-effectively and published quickly and produce leads? Here are the Elite Eight.

Introductory Clip

Well-known and regularly underused, the video Intro to the Business is a brief, 5 minute or less (2-3 works well) homepage introduction that tells who you are, what you do and why customers should care. This can be done using a narrative in a commercial replete with lots of motion shots of the shop floor, the office, and merchandise; a talking head of the CEO to a blank camera; or use the 3rd party perspective of an authentic Video interview (see below) Business FAQ.

Development costs can range from free (CEO riffing into a webcam) through a few hundred dollars to thousands for a videographer shot commercial. Google doesn’t care; either will index well given the suitable keyword tags. The question you have to answer is, what is going to be quickly informative, entertaining, and referable (as in Re-tweeted). 

Product Demonstration

Specific to demonstrable products, especially ones that move, like machines, toys, electronic devices, and, considering the medium, software. These again shouldn’t run on too long but may be longer than an introductory commercial. A software-based demo may take up to 8 minutes, but you should be able to say it in less time than that. When it comes to demos, sometimes less is more. Most often either a narrative led demo showing strictly merchandise or a spokesperson paced demo (think QVC or Home Shopping Channel) works the best. Just make sure to show the BEST features of your product and explain repeatedly (3x) how this addresses a problem for your prospects.

Professional Abilities

This is very similar to a product demo and works best for suppliers, specifically those in developed countries, trying to demonstrate their superior technology will in reality cost less money or provide better quality merchandise for a customer engaging them with a contract for ongoing services. Machine shops and laser houses love this stuff, showing programmed machinery cutting steel while a guy with a hardhat and safety specs controls the process. This can run 5-10 minutes tops. The key here is, make sure that your ability really is something unique (as in a True Competitive Advantage that others don’t have) and that your video captures its uniqueness.

Company Headlines

This is more of a tug on the heartstrings video that spotlights either what your company has achieved that is noteworthy or what your employees have done for your company. If it’s about the business, it MUST be legitimized by 3rd party reference, as in an accolade won from a prominent registrar (Best in Class, Malcolm Baldridge quality), a status obtained (ISO 9001 certification, etc.) or a cat saved from a tree on the news. When discussing employees, the old Employee of the Month style headline adds a nice human element and speaks to what your company values in its people, and that can make a big difference to prospects with the same value system. For these types of videos, keep them brief (2-4 minutes) and keep them current, particularly for the employee notoriety videos. An Employee of the Month surmises that next month, we’ll see a new one.

Video Landing Page Combination

I could write pages on this one and to be truthful, I’m not a professional at it, but I am sure you’ve experienced pages that have these videos. These are designed to be easy for the vendor of a product or service, meaning, don’t call me, take the action explained on the video. That means enter your email address to get something for FREE for agreement to market to you, or sign up for the thing (whatever it is) immediately! Just like text-only sales landing pages, these are long-form videos, with Squeeze Pages (get the email address) videos stretching from 3-7 minutes, and Sales Pages running all the way up to 30 minutes (that is too long in my view, with 10-12 being enough). The most important stuff here: limit options to only this with no other on-page interruptions and make multiple calls to action to the viewer.

Vlog Posts

All about providing info this one is. It comes in the form of a training video, which is conveniently done for things like software applications using screen capture software, or talking head telling something she knows, and often is the Expert Interview (I’ve done a bunch of these in my blog, see sample). The goal is expert positioning for your company while providing real value for the view. These videos can run from 5-30 minutes or longer (think of a book author interview), but I prefer to keep them between 7 and 15 minutes (YouTube has a 15 minute max until you are a recurring video poster). Tickets to success are to limit the subject matter to prevent rambling, don’t provide fluff with a sales pitch to get more, and add some written text fore and aft of the video to set it up and summarize.

Testimonials and Case Studies

Very self-explanatory here, this is 3rd party Reliability Building 101. Take the same things that marketers value about written examples and testimonials and put them on steroids. This definitely MUST be a person unrelated to the business telling about what the company did for him or her, and it can NOT be anonymous (just like those absurd fake reviews you see, “JL from Tampa says …”). Use foresight if the person doing the talking is not good on camera. It shouldn’t make a difference but it does. He doesn’t need to be Ben Affleck, but he can’t be a stiff either. These run no more than 3 minutes in length and follow my rules for great reviews. Quality can’t be weak, but a webcam with reasonable quality can be used effectively, as the subject matter of the person’s referral is the principal piece.

Video Interview

I saved this for last and, as you probably know by now, Smart Company Growth does these in packages for the right type of clients. Video interviews work well for any company that wants to put a human face on its brand, so consider if that is you. They work extremely well when your organization has these three aspects:

1. No physical product – Right for consultants, lawyers, accountants, financial advisors, IT people and anyone else offering professional services. You sell intellectual property and that is difficult to show by showing a video shot of your report (although you can show results charts, but the people who can use this method the most, financial advisors, usually have rules stopping it).

2. Trust is the key to business – Same group, right? If you’re an attorney, how can you start to break the trust hurdle down without ever meeting someone? Show some face time with the 3rd party legitimacy that comes from being interviewed.

3. Sameness in Brand – If you look at your rivals’ websites and they look like yours does – competent yet non-distinguishable – you’re a good prospect for a video interview to set yourself apart. Once more, this is why professional service companies fall so nicely into video interview candidates.

For marketing purposes the longest video interview (we call them SmartVu) we do is about 12 minutes. That’s pretty in-depth. The shortest you can sensibly do with any bona fide dialog is about 2-3 minutes. The vital success variables here are that the interviewer is good and that the structure of the content is planned ahead of time. An unconvincing interviewer will cause an unpersuasive interview and weak video. A sound interviewer with planned content will lead to genuine questions that portray you in the very best light. Although I cannot convince all of my clients of this, Do Not Read From A Script! If you’re a category expert on your product or topic, a good interviewer’s questions will lead to natural responses with you looking right into the camera. Script readers have their eyes turned away to wherever the script is located and come across as stiff, with only the skilled few able to fool people into believing they are responding ad hoc.

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Editor’s note:  This guest post is written byAileen Lee, Partner at venture firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, where she focuses on investing in consumer internet ventures.  Full disclosure: some of the companies mentioned below are KPCB-backed companies, including One Kings Lane and Plum District (both of which count Lee as a board member). You can read more about Lee at KPCB.com and follow her on twitter at @aileenlee.

As I’ve written about before, we’re in an amazing period of the consumer Internet.  Despite a shaky economy, many web companies are in hypergrowth.  This is reminiscent of the five-year period over a decade ago when companies like Amazon, Netscape, eBay, Yahoo, Google and PayPal were built.

One challenge, which isn’t new, is the battle for consumer attention.  If you’re looking to grow your user base, is there a best way to cost-effectively attract valuable users?  I’m increasingly convinced the best way is by harnessing a concept called social proof, a relatively untapped gold mine in the age of the social web.

What is social proof?  Put simply, it’s the positive influence created when someone finds out that others are doing something.  It’s also known as informational social influence.

Wikipedia describes social proof as “a psychological phenomenon where people assume the actions of others reflect the correct behavior for a given situation… driven by the assumption that the surrounding people possess more information about the situation.” In other words, people are wired to learn from the actions of others, and this can be a huge driver of consumer behavior.

Consider the social proof of a line of people standing behind a velvet rope, waiting to get into a club.  The line makes most people walking by want to find out what’s worth the wait.  The digital equivalent of the velvet rope helped build viral growth for initially invite-only launches like Gmail, Gilt Groupe, Spotify, and Turntable.fm.

Professor Robert Cialdini, a thought leader in social psychology, has many examples. In one study, his team tested messages to influence reusing towels in hotel rooms.  The social proof message –“Almost 75% of other guests help by using their towels more than once” had 25% better results than all other messages.  And adding the words “of other guests that stayed in this room” had even more impact (also an example of how A/B testing of small details matters). 

In another study, a restaurant increased sales of specific dishes by 13-20% just by highlighting them as “our most popular items”.  SP also works on your subconscious – it’s the reason why comedy shows often use a laugh track or audience; people actually laugh more when they can hear other people laughing.

Five Types of Social Proof

If you’re a digital startup, building and highlighting your social proof is the best way for new users to learn about you.  And engineering your product to generate social proof, and to be shared through social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Tumblr, YouTube, Pinterest and others, can multiply the discovery of your product and its influence.  Think of it as building the foundation for massively scalable word-of-mouth.  Here’s a “teardown” on various forms of social proof, and how some savvy digital companies are starting to measure its impact.

1) Expert social proof – Approval from a credible expert, like a magazine or blogger, can have incredible digital influence.  Examples:

• Visitors referred by a fashion magazine or blogger to designer fashion rentals online atRent the Runway drive a 200% higher conversion rate than visitors driven by paid search.
• Klout identifies people who are topical experts on the social web. Klout invited 217 influencers with high Klout scores in design, luxury, tech and autos to test-drive the new Audi A8.  These influencers sparked 3,500 tweets, reaching over 3.1 million people in less than 30 days – a multiplier effect of over 14,000x.
• Mom-commerce daily offer site Plum District also reached mom influencers thru Klout, and found customers referred by influential digital moms shop at 2x the rate of customers from all other marketing channels.

2) Celebrity social proof – Up to 25% of U.S. TV commercials have used celebrities to great effect, but only a handful of web startups have to date.  Some results:

• In 1997, Priceline.com was one of the first web startups to use a celebrity endorser –William Shatner – not a travel expert, but seemingly obsessed with saving consumers money.  It has been a huge win; Priceline now has a $23 billion market cap, and the fee Shatner took in shares is estimated to be worth $600 million.
• Trendyol, the fastest-growing fashion ecommerce company in Turkey, regularly launches merchandise campaigns with the endorsement of celebrities. This practice increases site traffic by 2.5x and product sell-through by 30%.
• ShoeDazzle launched with celebrity Kim Kardashian as chief stylist. Her involvement helped leapfrog the company to an estimated $25m in 2010 and $70 million in 2011 sales, plus a recent $40m financing.  Celebrity endorsement by Jessica Simpson and aesthetician Nerida Joy recently helped Beautymint attract 500,000 visitors in the first 24 hours of its launch.
• The most authentic (and cost-effective) celebrity social proof is unpaid. For home décor siteOne Kings Lane, a 2010 unpaid mention in Gwyneth Paltrow’s influential blog GOOPprovided a 90% lift in daily sign-ups vs. the previous 4 days’ average.  Celebrity use onTurntable.fm by Sir Mix-A-Lot and producer Diplo generated viral buzz, helping the company skyrocket to 140,000 active users in just 4 weeks.

3) User social proof  – Direct TV marketers are masters at sharing user success stories. (fascination with this was actually the inspiration for this blog post).  Companies mastering this digitally include: 

• More than 61 million people visit Yelp (working on an upcoming IPO) each month to read user reviews.  And reviews drive revenue; a recent HBS study showed that a 1-star increase in Yelp rating leads to 5-9% growth in sales.
• User-generated videos (UGVs) are a growing and important social proof phenomenon.  Early visitors to Shoedazzle watched more than 9 UGVs on average, helping catapult sales; and user testimonials on YouTube drove a 3x conversion rate vs. organic visitors for Beachbody, the makers of P90x fitness.
• Negative user social proof is also important to track. The first negative user review on eBayhas been shown to reverse a seller’s weekly growth rate from 5% to -8%. It also hurts pricing; a 1% increase in negative feedback has been shown to lead to a 7.5% decrease in sale price realized.

4) Wisdom of the crowds social proof – Ray Kroc started using social proof in 1955 by hanging an “Over 1 Million Served” sign at the first McDonald’s.  Highlighting popularity or large numbers of users implies “a million people can’t be wrong.”  Some digital examples:

• Fashion e-tailer Modcloth enables its community to “Be the Buyer” by voting on which styles they think Modcloth should sell in the future.  Shoppers take strong cues from the community; styles with the “Be the Buyer” badge sell at 2x the velocity of un-badged styles.
• Callaway Digital Arts finds that when any of their kids’ iPad apps is listed as a top 10 most popular app in the iTunes App Store “Top Charts,” daily downloads vault 10x over the prior week – but being the No. 1 most popular app drives 30-50% more daily downloads than being No. 2.
• Greentech company Opower uses social proof to help reduce electricity consumption. It works: Opower sees an 80% response rate to e-mails citing how a household’s use compares with the neighborhood, which has driven more than 500 million kilowatt hours of savings so far.

5) Wisdom of your friends social proof – Learning from friends thru the social web is likely the killer app of social proof in terms of 1:1 impact, and the potential to grow virally.  Some examples:

• Friends inviting friends to play through Facebook and other social networks helped Zyngagrow from 3 million to 41 million average daily users in just one year, from 2008 to 2009.
• Moms, arguably the most valuable demographic on the social web, rely heavily on friends and family recommendations.  A recent Babycenter study showed moms rely on the wisdom of their friends 67% more than average shoppers; and they rely on social media 243% more than the general population.
• Friends referred by friends make better customers.  They spend more (a 2x higher estimated lifetime value than customers from all other channels at One Kings Lane); convert better (75% higher conversion than renters from other marketing channels at Rent the Runway); and shop faster (they make their first purchase after joining twice as quickly than referrals from other channels at Trendyol)
• They also make better contributors.  People who see content from their friends onTripAdvisor contribute personal content to the site at 2x the rate of others, and are 20% more engaged than other users.

Building Your Social Proof

Will one form of social proof work best for your company? Maybe, but companies like LegalZoomhave found that a “mixed salad” of various types of social proof is most effective.  The beauty of the web is you can test, learn and iterate quickly to find what works best.

To note, I don’t think a social proof strategy will be effective if you don’t start with a great product that delights customers, and that people like well enough to recommend.  How do you know if you have a great product?  Track organic traffic growth, reviews, ratings and repeat rates.  And measure your viral coefficient – if your site includes the ability to share, what percentage of your daily visitors and users share with others? How is the good word about your product being shared outside your site on the social web?  Do you know your Net Promoter Score, and your Klout score?

In the age of the social web, social proof is the new marketing.  If you have a great product waiting to be discovered, figure out how to build social proof around it by putting it in front of the right early influencers.  And, engineer your product to share the love.  Social proof is the best way for new users to learn why your product is great, and to remind existing users why they made a smart choice.

P.S.  FOMO, or the psychological phenomenon known as “Fear Of Missing Out,” is also a form of social proof.  As people are wired to learn from others, they are also wired to want things in short supply.  FOMO is a great forcing function on decision-making, as evidenced by the incredible growth of ecommerce flash sales. A friend at another venture firm has posted on his office wall “Is it FOMO, or is it real?” because it also happens in venture financings.  Maybe a topic for a future post.

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In his great book The E-Myth, Michael Gerber says that far too many small business people spend too much time working in their business and not enough time working on their business. Why is working on our business so important?

Because clients and customers leave.

They leave for all sorts of reasons — maybe they don't need you anymore, or they found what you do somewhere else that is more convenient or cheaper, or they moved, or whatever. Working on your business, especially if yours is a freelance or independent contractor sort of gig, means that it is not a crisis when a customer inevitably leaves.

Here then are four ways to work on your business — to grow your business — without breaking the bank:

1. Tap into the power of testimonials: Satisfied customers can be one of a small business' best marketing tools. A testimonial impresses potential customers because it is independent third-party validation that a business really is as good as it claims to be.

So get out there and ask some of your best customers to write you some letters of recommendation on their stationary. You can then take these testimonials and

• Put them in your shop window

•Add them to your website

• Add them as an email tagline

• Use them on your blog or e-newsletter

• Use them in sales presentations

Or what about adding a video testimonial to your website? Talk about making an impact.

2. Boost your word of mouth advertising: We all know that word of mouth is the best sort of advertising there is. But aside from just waiting or hoping that a customer passes your name along, you can

• Create a referral reward system that gives customers a discount when they refer you business

• Encourage comments on your Facebook page, blog or website

• Ask your best customers to recommend you

Finally, check out the organization Le Tip; a group whose purpose is to foster word of mouth referrals.

3. Stay in touch: One way to make a one-off customer into a loyal, repeat customer is to stay top of mind. That is, if you want to get repeat business, your customer has to think of you when he or she has a need. And they will more likely think of you if you gently, consistently (but not too often) stay in touch with them.

Here are two ways to do this:

•Social media is all the rage for a reason: It works. Creating a Facebook page, for instance, is easy, and by using contests and great content, you can get people to "like" it. Thereafter, that page becomes a friendly place to stay in touch. Tweeting can serve much the same function.

•Email marketing is a great way stay in touch because it is permission marketing, that is, by signing up to receive your e-newsletter, customers are giving you permission to stay in touch with them.

4. Get some free help: There is a lot to know and do when you run a business, and none of us can do it all alone. Fortunately these days there is a lot of help out there, and much of it is free. Here are some places to check out:

• The Small Business Administration has field offices all over and a great website. Counseling and training is readily available. The same is true for

• Small Business Development Centers, and

• SCORE

• Chambers of commerce are in the business of helping their members succeed

• Like chambers, the purpose of a trade organization is to help its members

• Online forums and groups

Bottom line: Spending a little more time working on your business will allow you to work in it longer.

Today's Tip: The Hartford recently released its inaugural Small Business Success Survey, which polled 2,000 small business owners. The poll found that

•Despite high unemployment rates, finding qualified talent is a challenge for 59% of small business owners

•Achieving a comfortable lifestyle for themselves (79%) and their employees (72%) is important

•An overwhelming majority indicate they enjoy owning their business (90%)

And here is my favorite takeaway: 82% of the respondents defined success, at least partially, as doing something they feel passionate about and enjoy. Only 18% said profit is the most important factor in defining success.

Article source: USA Today

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• Twitter
  • Post every day. You can comment on industry news, link to your blog, high-five someone else's comment, retweet someone's blog post, ask for help with something, provide help to someone else....the list goes on.
  • Engage in conversation with customers and anyone else who mentions your company or your product. Thank people, ask questions, solicit feedback, etc.
  • Search Twitter for mentions of your competitors and their competing products, to learn which words people are using. Now you start using these words, too. It will help you when people search for what you're offering.
  • For bonus points, you can use the hash tag - # - in front of an important keyword. This is how many people mark out and search topics in Twitter. For example, you might tweet "Read how @StephanieH improved her time with #WideRunningShoes on our blog" and include a link.
  • Use a URL shortener such as bit.ly for links to save characters...140 isn't as much as you think.
  • If you see someone who could use what you sell complaining about a competitor, offer to help them somehow - but don't disparage your competitor, or his product.
  • Find the people who are influential in your target market, and follow them.
  • Thank people individually for following you. Do NOT use an autoresponder. It's a pity for someone's first interaction with you to feel canned - and believe me, experienced Twitter users can smell an autoresponse a mile away.

• Facebook
  • Post every day. You can post the same things on Facebook that you do on Twitter, with the added benefit of being able to include a photo and a much longer comment.
  • Invite engagement by asking people what they think about something you've posted. Comments are noticed by search engines. In fact, Ian Lurie of Portent Interactive found a correlation between comments on a company's Facebook page and high rankings in search engine results.
  • Search Facebook for mentions of your competitors and their competing products. That will tell you which words people use when they're looking for what you sell. Now you start using these words, too, so you'll pop up in product searches.
  • If you see someone complaining about a competitor, you can send an offer of practical help - or even a coupon! - to that person. Don't disparage your competitor or their product...that's not good etiquette.
  • Give people a reason to "like" your Facebook page. You might want to offer access to special deals or coupons, or to some other benefit, such as a "fans only" video page.

• LinkedIn
  • Join groups specific to your industry and to your target customers.
  • Post interesting articles and news to these groups. Be careful not to promote your product or company too hard. Some groups will kick you out for being overly self-promotional. Make sure you read the terms for each group.
  • Answer questions people post in your groups.
  • Write recommendations for people you've done business with.
  • Ask your good customers to write recommendations for you.

• Your blog
  • Post about industry trends and issues.
  • Post about business issues that aren't specific to your industry, but interesting to other business people who may be reading your blog.
  • Post about your own company's news and developments. Your blog can be the modern-day press room - just make sure you tag news announcements appropriately, so company news can be found.
  • Offer insights and advice based on things you learn in the course of business, even if you aren't talking directly about your own product.
  • If you have something thoughtful to say about someone else's blog that is too long for a comment, write a post on your blog, linking to the post you are commenting on. You'll be noticed by the blogger, and he or she may choose to link to your blog, too.

• Other people's blogs
  • Comment on people's posts, but avoid generic comments like "great post." Try to add something unique and interesting to the discussion. See the section above for when you have a lot to say about someone's post.
  • Ask if you may guest post if you think you have something to contribute. Many bloggers are happy to have guest authors post, if they're adding value.

• News sites
  • Comment on news stories that are relevant to your industry and your business. Don't be snarky - be thoughtful. You can also share these news stories in your social accounts by linking to them. If people read the comments, they'll probably notice yours.

    
    

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Years ago, people used to gather around the TV set to watchCandid Camera. Then, a couple of decades later, Punk’d.

Nowadays, as evinced by October’s most-shared ads list on the Mashable Global Ads Chart, advertisers are addressing our need to see people get victimized by practical jokes. Case in point: Contrex, a Nestle mineral water that’s marketed in France. Contrex got some French men and women (mostly women) to interact with some stationery bikes that powered a 3-D image of a male stripper. And that was the most-shared ad of October.

Also showing up high on the list was Carlsberg, which punk’d some theatergoers in Belgium with the help of a few dozen burly bikers.

Is this the new trend in viral ads? It remains to be seen, but marketers would be smart to start thinking of ways to channel their inner Ashton Kutcher. Otherwise, we have a bumper crop of viral ads this week including a man getting reverse tattoos, two iPhone 4S ads and a PSA from New Zealand that will make you wonder “Is this a joke?” even though it appears to be quite serious.

As usual, we thank our friends at Unruly for compiling this month’s list.

Note: The list below does not include music videos, user-generated content or movie trailers. Unruly Media’s Viral Video Chart tracks 18 million shares a day through third-party APIs.

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Are you looking for fresh ideas to improve your Twitter marketing?

We sought out hot Twitter tips from the pros. Keep reading for inspiration.

Now’s not the time to let your Twitter marketing go stale.

Twitter has already grown more in the last 9 months than in the last 5 years and this trend is expected to continue.

How does Twitter fit into your social media marketing? Here are 17 Twitter marketing tips shared by Social Media Examiner’s writers.

Improve Your Tweets

Mari Smith @marismith

#1: Share valuable content in your own voice

Do your best to craft your content tweets, @replies and promotional tweets all with a seamless style that matches your personality and/or brand.

Ideally, you want people to read your tweets and feel naturally compelled to click on your links and retweet you.

You just want to add value and have no agenda or attachment to “making the sale,” yet you’re strategic and mindful about how you tweet. Then you’ll see a marked improvement in your retweet and click-through rates.

A content tweet from Mari with a link to an informative blog post, and an upbeat comment in square brackets.

Mari Smith, co-author of Facebook Marketing: An Hour a Day.

Debbie Hemley @dhemley

#2: Use keywords in your tweets

Keywords have been and continue to be a relevant and driving force for web content (whether we’re talking about a website, blog post, Facebook update or a tweet). Keywords are the backbone of content.

So I’d have to say hands-down, my best Twitter marketing tipfor business is to make a list of keywords that best describe your business and industry. Use these words as you compose your 140-character posts.

Think quality over quantity. Make every character and tweet count!

Debbie Hemley, social media consultant and blogger.

Shane Snow @shanesnow

#3: Share links to useful content

Sharing links to useful content is, statistically speaking, more effective at growing and retaining followers than “engaging” with them in conversation.

That’s not to say that conversations aren’t useful in helping people to like you, but if you want to grow your fan base, you need to share more links than you do @replies.

Shane Snow, co-founder of Contently.com.

Nichole Kelly @Nichole_Kelly

#4: Use search features to discover what your clients want

Use the search feature in a Twitter tool like HootSuite to watch for conversations about a problem your business can solve. It will give you insight into what is on your prospects’ minds and provide an open door for you to help them.

Try providing a link to a great article or video that answers their question. This one action could lead to an ongoing dialogue that in turn may lead to a customer relationship later.

Nichole Kelly, publisher of FullFrontalROI.com.

Improve Your Networking

Kristi Hines @kikolani

#5: Connect with the right people and tweet with them

There are two crucial things businesses should focus on when implementing their Twitter strategy.

The first is not finding just anyone to follow in hopes that they follow you back, but finding relevant people to follow who are more likely to follow you back. You can bloat your account to 100,000+ followers, but if they are not interested in your content, it gets you nowhere.

You need to be using tools such as Follower Wonk, Twellow and Wefollow to find people who are in your region (if you’re a local business) and interested in your industry. Then start following them.

The second is after you find your targeted audience, don’t just tweet at them—tweet with them. Follow their conversations; add in your two cents from time to time. Follow anyone who talks about your brand and thank them for their compliments or help them with their concerns. Follow anyone who talks about your industry and show why you are an authority.

Doing these things will help you run a successful Twitter campaign that will give your brand exposure as a leader in your industry!

Kristi Hines, Internet marketing specialist with Vertical Measures and author of Kikolani.

Carla Dewing @CarlaDewing

#6: Use a classic icebreaker

Most followers become nameless, faceless numbers on a follower list. Remember when networking used to be about meeting people face to face? Icebreakers were important then, and they’re just as important now in the virtual world.

Icebreakers help you share a common connection with a stranger—and make you memorable enough to begin and sustain a long-term relationship.

When you find relevant tweets from among your followers, retweet their blog link—and follow the author’s feed. Then send them an @message, detailing something insightful about their blog post. At the end of the tweet, link to a similar post you’ve written.

This should result in more blog comments, retweets and followers, all from 10 minutes of effort. Twitter is all about icebreakers, and collecting followers who instantly recognize you in a sea of faces. Invest time in your introductions and they’ll make all the difference to your feed.

Carla Dewing, content marketing expert and part-owner of Contrast Media.

Charlene Kingston @SocialMediaDIY

#7: Cultivate relationships

Pay attention when someone tweets about your blog posts or retweets something you’ve shared. When you are building a business, never take it for granted when people help you spread the word. Start by thanking them for the tweet. And take it a step further: add them to a private list for tweeters and retweeters.

At least once every day for five minutes, review the tweets in that list. Look for great content that you might have missed, information from smart people you need to follow and conversation trends you might have missed. Jump into conversations, retweet items your community would appreciate and thank people for sharing great things.

But most of all, get to know more about these people who volunteered to become part of your team by sharing your content. It’s all about relationships, and Twitter helps you build relationships with these important members of your community.

Charlene Kingston, founder of Social Media DIY Workshop.

Jim Lodico @jlcommunication

#8: Engage your audience

Find ways to reach out and engage your audience. Too many businesses want to just set their Twitter feed on autopilot or constantly push promotional content.

Although there is a place for the promotional tweet, your feed will receive much more attention if you make it a resource for your followers. Sharing articles of interest, leading discussions on topics important to your industry, answering questions and sometimes just being there can do this.

It’s about creating relationships and building trust in those relationships. Although they may not be clients now, when the time comes, you’ve already cleared the first hurdle for your followers.

Jim Lodico, copywriter and marketing consultant.

Sara Hawkins @saving4someday

#9: Be helpful

Plenty of people are filling up Twitter streams with the tech-equivalent of screaming infomercials to buy things. Effective marketing on Twitter takes time. But it also takes more than just selling or pushing your message.

Engaging and interacting with your consumers in a consistent and helpful way will keep your product or service at top of mind. Not everyone needs your offering right now. You want to provide information and solutions that keep them reading, so when they need what you have, they know you’re there for them.

Sara Hawkins, lawyer and blogger.

Stephanie Gehman @airport_girl

#10: Transparency lends credibility

If you mess up, admit it. If you don’t know the answer to a question, admit it. If you’re inexperienced, admit it. If you’re willing to admit that your business is not perfect and is a work-in-progress or open to suggestion, your audience is more likely to take you seriously. You build your company’s credibility and trustworthiness.

The quickest way to lose credibility? If, as a business, you attempt to cover-up, lie or over-promise and under-deliver.

Be honest, be real and be transparent.

Stephanie Gehman, marketing manager for Harrisburg International Airport in Pennsylvania.

Bring Twitter Followers Back to Your Website

Tim Ware @HyperArts

#11: Use hashtags to create and curate conversations around your brand

You can reward your followers when they participate by retweeting them or displaying their tweets on your site or blog.

Bergdorf Goodman is a high-end clothing and shoe retailer that is using the Instagram photo app as well as a Twitter hashtag (#BGShoes) to encourage fans to tweet pictures of their shoes (purchased at BG of course) around the city of New York.

Bergdorf Goodman is capturing all of the photos and tweets on this interactive map, which gives users an incentive to participate.

Here’s another example, the San Francisco Food Bank (@SFFoodBank) gave followers a challenge: Try to spend less than $5/day on food. And tweet about it along the way, using the #hungerchallenge hashtag.

Participants are listed on the Hunger Challenge website (and you can pity them in real time as they tweet about their barely full bellies, all captured in the hashtag stream: http://twitter.com/#!/search/hungerchallenge).

Food blogger @CarinaOst is one of the participants able to help increase awareness of hunger in SF and promote the Food Bank.

These tweets were not just blank advertisements; they were an entertaining journal of the struggle of trying to eat on a budget each day!

Tim Ware, owner of HyperArts Web Design.

Christine Gallagher @ChristineG

#12: Share links back to your website for list-building

In most cases, people aren’t going to buy from you right off of a site like Twitter. You need to shift your thinking from “How can I get this person to buy from me or hire me now?” to ”How can I bring this person into my community and strengthen the relationship with him/her on an ongoing basis?”

One of the best ways to do this is toencourage visits to your blog or website by providing something of value for free in exchange for email addresses. (Make sure what you’re giving them is extra-juicy and useful!) That way, you have permission to keep in touch and build an ongoing relationship with prospects.

This shouldn’t be thought of as list-building just for the sake of boosting your subscriber numbers; rather, it’s a natural continuation of the solid foundation you’ve begun building with a potential client or customer within the Twitterverse.

Christine Gallagher, relationship marketing speaker, trainer and coach.

Janet Aronica @janetaronica

#13: Tweet links to your blog more often

When you’re thinking about using social media for lead generation, you want to use Twitter as not only a conversation channel, but also as a way to drive traffic to your content.

I found a significant increase in traffic from Twitter and engagement with our account when I postedseveral tweets of a blog post rather than one the morning. It gives your followers a chance to catch that link if they missed it the first time and also targets people in different time zones.

Don’t be spammy and go overboard, but sharing your content several times (if it’s valuable) will give you the extra edge.

Janet Aronica, Inbound Marketing Manager at HubSpot.

Fit Twitter Into Your Social Media Marketing

Stephanie Sammons @StephSammons

#14: Connect your LinkedIn account with your Twitter account

Syncing your LinkedIn account with your Twitter account can make your Twitter activities much more relevant to business. Not only can you share content across both networks simultaneously, but also you can keep track of your professional connections from LinkedIn and follow their tweets!

Here are three tips:

• Make sure to add your Twitter account to your LinkedIn profile. Visitors to your profile will be able to follow you on Twitter right there from your profile page! Have more than one Twitter account (perhaps personal and business)? Add them both to your LinkedIn profile and designate your primary account.
• Install the LinkedIn “Tweets” application on your LinkedIn profile and immediately go through and follow each of your LinkedIn connections who have Twitter profiles. In most cases, your professional connections are going to follow you back!
• Create a Twitter list of your LinkedIn connections automatically with the click of a button using the Twitter application in LinkedIn. This makes it easy to follow the stream of updates on Twitter coming from your professional connections.

Twitter is a firehose of information, data and resources. I’m a big fan of making sense out of that data and making it more relevant to your professional network! Integrating your Twitter account with LinkedIn is a great way to do this. To learn more, catch this article from Social Media Examiner: How to Use LinkedIn With Twitter for Better Networking!

Stephanie Sammons, founder and CEO of Wired Advisor.

Make Twitter Tools Work for You

Ben Pickering @bpicks

#15: Take advantage of tools to help curate and share relevant content

Sending out 140-character messages every so often may not seem like a task that requires marketing automation software but, to the contrary, these tools can greatly improve the effectiveness of your Twitter marketing.

There are a slew of services available, some free and some paid, to help manage your Twitter account. At Strutta, we use the HootSuite dashboard to track Twitter activity, which can be easily categorized into multiple streams that we follow.

We also use Summify to help filter through the noise and surface news that is most relevant to our industry. This enables us to find content that is both useful to consume and valuable to share with our followers via retweeting.

Sharing relevant content from other trusted sources helps establish your credibility, especially when mixed with your own original content.

When it comes to sharing, having a platform like HootSuite where you can schedule tweets is extremely helpful.

Given the short shelf-life of a tweet, you can easily schedule content to be pushed out at pre-set intervals to maximize visibility.

Ben Pickering, CEO of Strutta.

Andrea Vahl @AndreaVahl

#16: Add columns of searches in HootSuite

I have a separate tab in HootSuite set up only for searches that I want to monitor throughout the day. I have several columns of searches on this tab so I can see in one glance what people are talking about with respect to those searches at any given moment.

I use a combination of searching on hashtags and searching on just keywords.

In this screenshot, I show one search I have with the hashtag #Facebook.

Then I also have a search where I put the words “how do I” which will give me an exact match on that phrase, and the word “Facebook” which will show both of those key phrases anywhere within the tweet.

I’m looking for people asking questions about Facebook that I can help with. I can then answer the person’s question and perhaps follow them. When you help people who have questions about your niche on Twitter, you stand out as a leader and authority in your field.

Make sure you are authentically helping people out and not giving a sales pitch. So if you want to watch for people asking questions about your niche—which is yoga, for example—you would put the keywords “how do I” and “yoga.” Or you may find that a better search question could be “where do I.” Test out different keyword phrases to see what works best for your business.

Andrea Vahl, co-author of Facebook Marketing All-in-One for Dummies and Facebook community manager for Social Media Examiner.

Still Need Help?

Jamie Turner @60Second Tweets

#17: Get a Twitter tutorial from your teenager

I was at a conference last week where a professor who specializes in new and emerging media made this confession—he frequently asks his students to teach him how to use Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and other social media tools.

He went on to explain that at one point, during one of his tutorials, a student turned to him and said, “Aren’t I paying YOU to teach me this stuff?”

The truth is, if you’re like most businesspeople, it’s very hard to keep up with all of the changes taking place. One way to get more efficient about using Twitter and other tools is to sit down with someone younger than you and ask him or her for a front-lines tutorial.

Oh sure, we all understand the CONCEPT of Twitter, but when it comes to the practical application or the unwritten rules, it’s hard to keep up. The solution, I’ve found, is to not be shy about asking someone younger for a brief, in-the-trenches tutorial. In the long run, it’ll save you hours and hours of anguish.

Jamie Turner, co-author of How to Make Money with Social Media.

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