Everyone’s abuzz about how Google and other search engines are now heavily weighting your “social signals” — how many people like, friend, retweet, repost at LinkedIN, and Google+ your content.   Google+ too?  Yep.  But how do you stay on top of your Social Media Strategy?

Why do I think Google+ is a winner for B2B MarCom professionals?  Power, placement and pull.  Its tool set is powerful (resources to help you here).  Placement?  It’s everywhere from YouTube, to maps, to Android to websites to… well, everything Google- – and more.  Pull?  Google has over 80% of search eyeballs, and they are factoring Google+ “social signals” into their ranking factors.  In fact… most savvy SEO practitioners admit that Social Media and SEO are converging.

Google+ “Listening” TIP:  Check out this professional directory with over 16 million G+ users to listen to your competition, and study your prospects.

Things are changing fast, and it’s hard to maintain an authentic (live) presence in all social venues.  Here’s a list of Social Media Strategy Success Tactics in a powerful B2B package to minimize time spent, and maximize your SEO and ROI benefits from emerging social media venues:

The Plan to leverage a Smart Social Media Strategy:

1. Get a Presence in the “Big Five” Social Venues — Twitter, Google+. FaceBook, LinkedIN, and StumbleUpon.  Just one of the tactics we use is the WordPress plugin that provides quick ways to bookmark your business blog posts into all 5 venues (see top of this page).  But we know, you don’t have time to be in all places, so ask us about our “focused lead social  venue strategy.”
   
2. Save time, and proactively promote from one social media dashboard (they’re adding Google+ soon):  HootSuite*
   

   Consolidate your social media work on one convenient dashboard for all accounts, accessible by all your MarCom team.

3. Use an emerging “curation” tactic offered by Twylah.com to present your relevant Twitter messages in a zine-like format — on a subdomain for your site, so you get added SEO juice… see ours here:  http://tweetradar.webfadds.com/
   

   Deploy a dynamically updated tweet curation subdomain at your site which serves the dual purpose of refocusing prospects on important tween content plus gathers more SEO value to your domain

    

   • You set your blog to auto tweet to Twitter using HootSuite tools — set it then forget it, and focus instead on the new emerging leader… Google+
4. B2B Marketers… jump into Google+ — it is now recommended over Facebook (more options), and Twitter (better content tools).  TIP:  You may “curate” what you post back from Google+ to your blog.. with an auto-download of recent posts, as I did at my own blog:  http://www.webfadds.com/2011/07/google-digest-of-primers-guides-and-resources/
   
   • Find me on Google+ at ScottGooglePlus.info
5. Make your Social Business Efforts Prove themselves for ROI.  We’ll work with you and create a custom Analytics report designed to show how visitors to your site from each social venue completes desired business goals at your sites including signing up for newsletters, downloading white papers, and completing lead forms.

This is a powerful Minimize-Maximize strategy for your Social Media presence that I  sum up like this:  Minimize time using a central social media dashboard (HootSuite), then use Google+ as your primary “live presence” social venue for B2B professionals.  Maximize ROI using content curation techniques and good Content Marketing tactics — always testing that your Social Media activities yield optimum prospects and customers.

We will be happy to provide you with a prompt estimate for consulting and integration work as you strengthen your Content Curation and Social Signals Strategy.

* Scott Frangos is a Certified Social Media Consultant for HootSuite, and WebFadds has a marketing agreement with HootSuite

What’s with the metaphor in the title? Well, besides the fact that I hail from the Pacific Northwest — home of raindrops and rivers — there’s been a surge (pun intended) recently in new services for the techie-socials among us, with related apps — the raindrops. Then, there’s the great mash-up of services, where drops and streams combine to make… rivers of conscious social connections.  And guess what?  At least one new river looks to carry a raft of customers to small businesses in your hometown.

Streams Collide: Google Buzz  has millions of instant users — plus its own app store online — BuzzAware, already, in just about a month. One new service combines Buzz, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube — allowing easy sending of videos and photos — see HomePuzz.

Hootsuite, my social aggregator of choice, allows me to simultaneously monitor tweets about my company, linkedin network activity, and Facebook updates — on one screen. Oh, and Hootsuite just added FourSquare as a new network it monitors. Now what’s FourSquare? It’s yet another new way to connect socially, but it specializes in pulling online people into real world places. And, Mashable reports that Foursquare has momentum — 100,000 new users in the last… 10 days. Wow. Of course all of these social flows are streaming (another water analogy?) on the latest “phones” with apps galore for iPhones, Google’s Android platform, and Blackberries. Whew.

Above, my customized Hootsuite view monitors personalized streams from Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook.  I’ve also added Plaxo, and FourSquare.

Local Business Enters the Social Media Flow…

So, what does all this mean for business? Well, quite a bit if you’re 15th Ave. Coffee & Tea in Seattle, Coopersmiths’s Pub in Ft. Collins, or one of 15 ice-cream parlors listed in the Portland area, including Granny Gedunk in Stevenson, WA. A popular promotion is to award a freebie to a patron with the most recorded visits to your establishment as reported by Foursquare. “Just show me your phone” –  you can ask to see the official Foursquare tally for someone with most visits to your venue.  In Foursquare parlance, that person is known as the “Mayor” and people compete to become Mayor so they can get the award — a free coffee, complimentary cone, etc. Heck, there’s even a “Mayor” of a Plaid Pantry on Interstate in my hometown of Portland, Oregon. Not a lot of imagination on the part of that Mayor, but it must be paying off for that chain convenience store.  You can see a list of some popular Foursquare haunts here.

Above is a promotion advertising perks for the “Mayor” from Foursquare

Not long ago, I resisted the torrent of social media washing my way. Back about 18 months ago, I had not even joined Twitter. Now I have over 8000 followers there for WebFadds. Any business? Yes. One confirmed client by Twitter contact alone, plus Analytics shows a good flow of traffic to my business site from there.

Use Analytics to make Social Media prove itself for your business. Above, I can see direct traffic from Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIN to WebFadds.com.  TIP:  The next step is to review dollar value goals in Analytics so you can gauge the ROI from Social Media activities. LinkedIN shows a 7.7% conversion rate, with Twitter landing 2.3% in conversions for the past month.  Make it pay — contact me for more details.

So now it’s time to dive into FourSquare, and widen my Hootsuite monitoring window to add another Social Media flow to watch. Tweets, Facebook Friends, LinkedIN business, Foursquare hometown — scrolling on screen direct to stream of conscious connection.

Where does it all end? It doesn’t — the ocean is too big. The better question might be — where will it take you? My advice is to connect anew on Foursquare now — the tool automatically finds friends from Gmail, Twitter, and Facebook. It’s good to see social become local, once again.

We’ll be pleased to give you a quote on launching, and monitoring your Social Media Marketing campaign.

How do you monitor social media impact? First… get clear on your goals.

In this post, we’ll take a look goals for Social Media Marketing (SMM), business wise, and then some techniques for monitoring, reviewing and reporting on same.  Here’s what I’ll cover:

• Two basic objectives when setting Goals for Social Media Monitoring
• TweetReach Reporting for Reach of Tweets
• HootSuite Reporting for Reach & Demographics of Tweets
• Analytics Reporting for ROI

Two basic objectives when setting Goals

We’ll concentrate on two basic objectives for business tweeting:  Reach, which may also be a factor in influence, and unique site visitors sent via twitter who make a conversion goal at your site (ie. sign up for newsletter, fill out a lead form, etc.). There is also a case to be made in business for Twitter as a tool to build “brand awareness”, but you need actual research interviews to determine effectiveness. “Branding” does not automatically appear because you are visible. It occurs when your brand sticks in the memory of your target group.  To truly understand the effect of Social Media on your branding, you have to conduct focus groups and polls of real prospects.

So, let’s look at Reach and Important Unique Visitors, which we can study using online tools.

TweetReach Reporting for Reach

TweetReach.com reports on how many people saw a tweet — including those that retweeted it. Here is a chart for a tweet we sent approx. 24 hours ago — a tweet about studying up on techniques using HootSuite.

Above, we can see 8,567 impressions for two accounts on which we tweeted the same message. WebFadds, and WPsiteHosting (we have a marketing agreement with them) put the word out. Note two key tactics: we manage both twitter accounts in one HootSuite configuration, and we always recommend that all businesses can approach the market with via more than one Twitter account.

HootSuite Reporting for Reach

We’ve recent switched to HootSuite from EasyTweets, as our program of choice for managing multiple Twitter accounts. It also provides reach to FaceBook, LinkedIN, and via PINGfm — 40 other social networks. Plus HootSuite is leading the wave of smartphone use with apps available both for the iPhone and Android platforms.

Using HootSuite’s “Ow.ly” URL shortener enables you to chart how many people actually clicked on your tweet links. This takes it beyond visibility (number of people who saw a tweet) to influence (how many people followed your suggested links). Click to enlarge image.

Above, HootSuite additionally shows you of clicks by Region, and by Top Referrers. Click to enlarge image.

Analytics Reporting for ROI of Social Media

If you spend any time in business groups on LinkedIN (recommended) you will see debates ranging about the relevance of Social Media in corporate MARcom planning. While there are still some arguing against it, most now believe it is a key area for inclusion in marketing budgets, including C-Level Marketing Execs. who rank it highly on this current poll we have there (take the poll to see demographics of respondents): POLL – The Best ROI for Online Marketing in 2010 will come from…

Since cost-conscious managers are anxious to justify time and effort spent on Social Media, one good way to study ROI, is to take a look at Google Analytics (you do have an analytics package installed, don’t you?), for how many people visit your site from a Social Media venue… and what they do next. If you further have $ value goals set up (you should), you can find out how many completed a business goal of value to your company.  You should also pay attention to custom user segments — and one we highly recommend is “engaged users” — those viewing 3 or more pages at your sites.

Above we can see that Titter sent the most visitors (191) in a two month period, and that around 6% of those visitors were engaged on WebFadds.com.  But it is Linkedin.com that shows both the best percentage of engaged visitors (25%), and also shows that 40% of those visitors filled out a lead form on our site — completing “conversion goal” in Analytics terminology.  This tells us a couple of very important things — we need to target our Twitter followers better, or provide content to better serve them, and our LinkedIN strategy is paying off.

Are there Twitter Business Tactics that work? Let’s find out…

I often get questions from clients about if and when and why they should use Twitter in business? Answers: Yes. Now. To listen and connect. Will they lose control? Answer: Sometimes you have to let go for a bit in order to get a better hold. I am going to give you some specific examples here.

I’ve been taking “Inbound Marketing University” courses (recommended), and a recent one was with Laura Fitton, co-author of Twitter for Dummies, and @Pistachio on Twitter. I’ve added her to our Cabal list of Content and Connection Cycle Marketers on Twitter  – click and follow the list for some great, SEO, SMM insights.

Why would a business use Twitter even if most customers are not there yet? Great Question. Fitton, listed a number of great reasons in her webinar, including SEO, listening to your industry and market, and even using it for internal brainstorming and team building. And listening is very important. Most good CRMs like SalesForce.com, SugarCRM, and Batchbook are building in Twitter modules. Using Batchbook, which I recommend for companies of 5-50 people, I can see what a prospect has been tweeting about right on their record page — very valuable “listening” for consultative selling.

Above is a screenshot from Batchbook CRM for a client record where the client’s Twitter stream and LinkedIN Social information are visible — an excellent sales tool.

But are the big brands using Twitter for business? Yes.  ComCast famously uses it for customer service.  Starbucks puts out promotional messages.  Even Walmart has a Twitter homepage.  And, check out the Zappos Twitter home page.    These are pages built at their home site to feature who’s doing the tweeting, and provide visitors with an entre into the conversation — a recommended tactic.

How do you prove to the boss that Twitter is worth it? One of our services provides custom Google Analytics with actionable advice, and so we look at Social Media and track visitors from Twitter.com and other Social sites through to $ value conversion goals for a direct link to ROI.  Using this tactic you can find out exactly the conversion value (visitors coming from Twitter and “converting” to a prospect, lead, or customer) of your Social Media Visitors.  It’s more difficult to calculate “Brand Awareness”, but that’s another benefit of Twitter visibility.

Still another way to show value is the “ripple” message extension factor — how far your tweets go via retweeting. I recently wrote a post here about “Why Content is King No More“, and the tool TweetReach.com (go try it) shows it reached 6,119 people via Twitter:

Above, Tweet Reach reports on the ripple effect of my post, who retweeted it, what they said, and gives links to their Twitter pages.

Ok… you get the idea. Now get started. Wait — who should you follow? Well, that’s my last tip. There are a lot of great helpful applications for Twitter, and one that’s very appropriate for this answer is: Mr. Tweet.

Mr. Tweet suggests people to follow: Mr. Tweet isa powerful connection application that learns about you as it goes, recommending people, and conversations as you recommend friends and build your network:

Mr. Tweet offers you a simple but powerful tool to build your network the smart way on Twitter.

We’ll review more twitter business strategies and tactics in posts to come, and remember that we offer a Twitter-Pro marketing package to help you focus on the best methods for your business.

Extending Your Presence Online — How Intense Debate Comments Helps SEO

“He Parlayed his Way to a Million Dollars” – unknown

As I’ve said before, Publishing is the new Marketing, and Marketing via Content now offers continuing new ways to extend your reach and engagement prospects. But you have to foment — that is, promote the growth and development of  your comments, so you can “parlay” your way toward business objectives. One way to do this is with “Intense Debate” — a WordPress plugin that also helps you with SEO.

What is “Intense Debate”? It’s a plugin for WordPress that makes commenting easier to manage and extends your potential reach by allowing your blog readers to choose to tweet their comments. IntenseDebate.com is owned and managed by the same folks that are behind WordPress.com (the remote hosted blogging platform used by millions) and WordPress.org (the software used to create your own hosted CMS and business blog solutions) — Automattic.com.  The company also enables Blogger, Tublr. and TypePad integration.  Features include Comment Threading, Reply by Email, Reputation points and Comment Voting, and Twitter integration — your commenters have the option to send a simultaneous tweet when they post a comment.  Add to that the opening up of the plugin’s API to developers, and I think there’s even more potential to plumb here.  Try it by leaving a comment below.

Above – the Intense Debate comments template allows your commenters to login with Social Networking IDs, Subscribe to comments, and also to post comments on Twitter.

How does Comment Debate help you in SEO? The system provides a very clean, rankable set of Comments on your site, plus gives each commenter the option to tweet their comments when they post them — with links back to your site.

Above, you can manage the comments from more than one blog — all in the same place.

How does Comment Debate help you in Business?

• As stated at Intense Debate — the system serves to bring “quality comments to the forefront”.  And “forefront” translates to engagement with just the right sort of thinkers and prospects for your brand.
• Save Administration Time: Once you have an Intense Debate account, you can quickly manage the comments from multiple blogs all from one control panel online.
• Synergy Loop:  You comment on a post(s) at other sites related to your business mission, and this gets automatically tweeted on Twitter, whereby like-minded people may visit your business blog, comment and have their comments then appear on Twitter with links back to your blog.

Can my business stand up in an “intense” debate? Of course.  This is like asking if your sales force will be able to handle discussion, and even criticism at a trade show.  They can, can’t they?  Good companies will always embrace engaging the market because the constructive criticism will help them perfect products and services.  And great sales people know that debate is an opportunity to present your position which leads to more sales.  Plus, you can always moderate your comment system to weed out spam and destructive comments.

Recommendation: Install IntenseDebate (the WordPress plugin is freely distributed) and add your business blog to the debate.  Webfadds will be pleased to provide this service for you — we’ll be adding it as an option for our Social Marketing Solutions (just contact us at that page).

Twitter News ::::::::::

New Twitter Marketing Guide Available from WebFadds…

You’ve heard about it — even C-Level executives are buzzing about Twitter.  How can you make it work for your business? We’ve produced a Guide with answers, including time saving professional tools, a directory of twitter advertising services, and  links to businesses with details on how they’re making Twitter work in their company (right) — download it today.

CRM Solutions Embrace Twitter…
It’s all about relationships.

In the early 90′s I worked for an international company of some size (about 3,000 employees).  For around a year after email became prevalent — the key decision makers thought the company should not enable it.  It was a sort of bunker mentality — “too dangerous”… the competition might find out what we’re doing.  “Too dangerous”… some employees might abuse it.  Well, we know now that email has become an essential business tool… just like those “antique” fax machines.  Next, up is Twitter — it’s not “too dangerous” to use… it’s too dangerous not to use — your competition is embracing it.  And, major CRM (Customer Relationship Management) service providers are building it right in as another tool to get closer to prospects, leads and customers:

Above:  Salesforce.com builds in “conversation details” from Twitter  for your key contacts into its “Real Time Cloud”, while the Open Source CRM competitor — Sugar CRM — is integrating real time Twitter Search.

> Read more about Social Media Marketing Solutions.

WORDPRESS Attacks & Updates ::::::::::

A number of sites are reporting that WordPress business blogs and CMS installations are under attack — like this report from 9/5 at TechCrunch:  “Security Threat: WordPress Under Attack”.

We recommend you immediately update to the latest version of WordPress (2.8.4), plus install some key plugins to monitor your system and protect files.  We can do this for you for $69 on our servers (we recommend WPsiteHosting.com — an international service with great WordPress Hosting), or $199 on yours.

Here are the steps we recommend:

• Upgrade to the latest version of WordPress
• Install and configure two protective plugins for Virus Check & System Health Monitoring
• Install & configure two Back-up options (one emails backups — the other saves them at WordPressBackup.com)
• Contact your host and enable backups via your Control Panel

Take a look at how the AntiVirus plugin helps alert you to viruses:

Above, the Virus alert program has flagged a front page for review — you then check the file for suspicious code and delete if needed.

Contact us today — we look forward to helping you Optimize, Connect, and Convert.

Wouldn’t it be good if you could get 20% – 70% more leads from your site? Many companies do. What about increases of 200% – 400%? It’s possible. I’ll tell you how. And, we’ll see if the “description” tags most of us use to craft copy for search returns are outdated, plus we’ll consider an important new Twitter service… it’s commerce time for tweeters.

Conversion Alert: Are there ways to squeeze more ROI out of your website? Definitely, and recent studies show the pay-off can be very big. I attended a webinar this week by a company specializing in squeezing more results — conversions (like when a visitor “converts” to a prospect, etc.) — out of landing pages and direct emails. So far every single company that applies a certain conversion success formula has seen increases… and some of them are huge — over 200%. To prove it to yourself, all you need is a free Google analytics account set-up properly to track goals, conversions and related ROI numbers. Then you use another free tool — the Google “Optimizer” to test for winning combinations of headlines, graphics, and calls to action. We can make this happen with a Landing Page Optimization Campaign – contact me for a quote.

Google Evolution: Have you squinted at the Google search results page lately? If you do, you’ll see a “show options” link  at top left, which when clicked reveals a sidebar of search refinements like related videos, forums, past week returns and more. Nice. But for SEO professionals and “Content Masters,” still another Google development adds a new twist on ways to succeed in search ranking, attracting visitors and inspiring conversions: “Rich Snippets.” Now Google is encouraging webmasters to mark-up content so that Google will find and return more meaningful excerpts than what is commonly delivered in search returns. Watch for plugins to facilitate this work.

Above, watch video presentation by Google experts on new Rich Snippets tactics

Twitter Update: It’s commerce time on Twitter folks. You knew it had to happen. Check out Twitpay’s new RT2Buy service . So now for all those who ask just what is the ROI for twittering? You can have a direct answer in the form of revenue via your twitter followers. We have a great program — our Social Media-MAX Package – to build a focused, targeted list of followers efficiently — contact me today.

So… how are your landing pages… and now, your growing Twitter list(s) converting? Time to call an Optimizer – reach me at (360) 566-2451.

Twitter Engagement: Are you on Twitter yet?  Yes… it will pay off for your business if you use it efficiently and correctly to connect with prospects.  Below are some ideas on how to advertise using Twitter.

Remember… it’s not about followers. It’s about engagement. Many users miss the ways, besides just tweeting, to engage with their “followers”:

1. Reply directly at (@) someone. Use the at symbol then their twitter name to begin the message (hovering over their profile pic will show an auto reply icon that automatically types this in the send field). Then, they will see your message in their “@” message, via the link on the right sidebar.
2. Direct Messages: also on the right sidebar, this is your way to send a private message/tweet directly to the follower of your choice.

Emerging Twitter Ad services: Below you will find a short list of advertising services — interesting. My advice is that it is best to get your word out there naturally — organically — by engaging your prospects on twitter, and having your posts get discussed and retweated from your business blog (we can help you get business blog to twitter postings automated — contact me). After that, it will be interesting to use analytics to track and study ROI for the following services…

• URL shortening service includes paid ads: Adjix
• * Magpie sets up an Ad network for twitter: Be A Magpie
• * Twittads monetize a twitter profile: TwittAd
• * Featured Users features your Twitter profile: Featured Users

If you have a favorite service you’ve used from the four above, or another method of advertising… stop by and let us know. As always, we are interested in how traffic from ads “convert” visitors into prospects, leads, and customers.

So… how is your site converting?

Playing Ball: Innovation, change, and Social Media Marketing growth… it’s happening rapidly each week.  Last week, Twitter reported astronomic growth — up 422% in 12 months. WordPress reported 2 million business blog and CMS installations in 2008.  Wow.  Talk about “playing ball on running water.”  How do you grab a hold of this tiger and make efficient and effective use of it in Business?  I’ll give you some pointers on how to stay optimized.

CMS Thought of the Week: The *whole web* is your Content Management System.  Today, I was checking my LinkedIN homepage, and reviewed a number of blog posts — there — from friends and colleagues.  The same posts often show up in my twitter stream (shortened into 140 characters with links back to posts). And, Google lets you create a sort of “mash-up” via Google reader (for RSS feeds) where you can share your posts and those of others — see: my Google Reader Public Mashup.  Are you optimized to take advantage of these key web CMS techniques?  Contact me and we’ll work on it together.

Twitter Tips of the Week: If you’re looking for a job, check this link to an excellent Mashable article (a great web publication, using a CMS developed in WordPress) will help you learn how — on Twitter.  That’s right!  I’ve found and worked with two clients there in two weeks.  Plus… even if you’re not looking now… consider the article carefully and you’ll understand some key Twitter Social Media Marketing strategies and Tactics.

Next, look carefully at the “Five Phases of Social Media Marketing” — Social Marketing is not “free”, but it will pay off when you tie it into Analytics… and — analyze for conversions (that’s the R.O.I. secret).  One great question from the article:  “Will your CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system interface with your social media tools?”  Watch for good CRM’s to start adding in Twitter functionality.

WordPress Eding Tips on Video: WordPress is a great CMS solution — we develop exclusively with it.  As you learn WordPress, and start managing the admin. area, you may like to review these short (approx. 2 min.) videos.  There are more available at WordPress.tv, but these are my “A-List” to help your work be optimized… in WordPress:

Posts:

• writing-and-publishing-a-post
• using-quick-edit-and-bulk-edit-to-manage-your-posts-in-half-the-time
• saving-and-returning-to-draft-posts-pages
• publishing-your-post-at-a-later-date

Add Categories & Tags to Your Posts (always do this — good for both SEO, and helpful site navigation):

• adding-categories-and-tags-to-your-posts

Pages:

• creating-a-post-excerpt-using-the-more-tag

Sidebar:

• adding-a-widget-to-your-sidebar

There you go.  That should help you optimize your WordPress and Social Media work.  Now… about those conversions? Have you optimized your landing pages so you can increase your conversion rates?  Contact me.

WordPress CMS News: A new report shows WordPress taking a leading position as one of the top four Open Source Content Management Solutions — read more here.  Version 2.8 is coming soon, and rumored to add even more flexible CMS capabilities.  If you have upgraded to 2.7.x, the upgrade to 2.8 will be easy — no expensive programmer required… just push a button.  If now… contact us, and we can upgrade you.

Are you optimized for Twittering yet? Social Media Marketing is coming fast and hard, with Twitter a major force (see below).  You will find me twittering @webfadds (and Spirit too). And, there are ways to optimize and automate — I’ll show you some here.

Not yet? Well, maybe you’re still on the fence about the “business worthiness” of Tweeting. It’s simply micro-blogging for business people and you are out there letting people get to know you before they buy. Why? People buy from people they know. It’s that simple. Add to that the ability to brand and establish authority in your niche.

And, the Twittersphere itself is offering increasingly useful tools to take your twittering to the next level…

Twitter Resources:

• Polling? You bet — check out: StrawPoll
• Productivity? It’s covered. Track Daily Goals with a social twist of accountability  | An event manager that auto-links to Google Maps, updates your Google Calendar, and auto-invites via Twitter  | Twitter for Organizations | Share files on Twitter
• Job Search? You got it… a job search engine for Twitter
• Research? Check it out… Track Trends and Events with TwitScoop | Tweetscan hunts for topics of interest and sends you an alert
• Publicity? Of course. TweeTube shares photos, YouTube videos, multiple website urls and more (from your iPhone too)
• Staying Efficiently Organized? Right. Have a good look at Easy Tweets* to promote your business and monitor your brands featuring an easy, efficient dashboard (we include coaching for this service in our Social Media MAX pack)
• In Gmail? Yup. Get an app to do Twitter from Gmail (another reason why Google is watching carefully)

Interesting Business Marketing Use of Twitter: ForkFly — a service providing discounts from hundreds of Portland, Oregon merchants. Hmmmmm. Get a following, sell access to focused followers. Earn money. Opportunity knocks.

Another Interesting, Government (hey… looks like they can be efficient sometimes) use of Twitter: If you are a Twitter user you can get northbound Canadian border wait times by sending a direct message to WSDOT – the Washington State Department of Transportation.

Is all of this useful in business? Well, what is one closed sale worth to you? Ten? I had a business meeting last week with a prospect I found on twitter, and am estimating proposals this week. Still questioning it? I agree, in business you have to focus on ROI… so do it. You can track it — Web Analytics Word is reported that Ominiture, a popular commercial Analytics provider, is integrating with Twitter.

Time to Get Going: We have a new package — Social Media-MAX Pack – here at WebFadds to help you get going. You leverage your Business Blog in a synergy with Twitter to engage prospects and leads… and learn about your niche. We coach and train you on efficiency in addition to installing and configuring your package. Contact us to start today.

It works. A week ago, I had 38 followers on Twitter. Now I have 295 (at time of writing), 344 predicted later this week, with over 1,000 predicted ( by yet another twitter service, of course) next month…

How did I do it? I’m practicing what I teach… using the synergy in our Social Media-MAX Pack is very powerful. Like a rocket. Watch me prove this @webfadds.

Is it fake? No.  Not if your intent is actually to engage colleagues and prospects in dialog about your niche focus, and business passions (with a bit of the personal side sprinked in, so people can know you too).  There are automated tools that save you time, but if you proceed ethically, (no spam) with honest intent… it’s for real.  You’ll probably see a few “fakes”… but Twitter is pretty quick to close down those accounts.

You can use our “old technology” contact form to get started… or just contact me on Twitter. And, we can chat about ways to increase conversions at your site too.

* WebFadds is an authorized reseller for Easy Tweets.  You’ll find excellent service and features (more coming… in Beta now) from the support folks there.