Why You Want to Use Twitter

It’s true – social media is the new way of life, and Twitter is where politicians, famous people, news reporters, rock stars, and dictators hang out – and then there’s the rest of us regular folks.

Become part of CNN’s newsroom just by clicking follow. You will have the latest up to date news streaming to your computer or your smart phone. Of course, you can choose which news you follow. Perhaps you’d like to follow a local anchor and newsroom, or maybe you have family in another part of the world and you would like to follow there. Maybe you’d rather rub tweets with the president. You can feel pretty important pretty fast.

Twitter has also become a great way to make your income. Start a thread on Twitter about the product or service you sell. Embed your own links so followers can click and arrive at your website. It is all pretty impressive that you are able to do internet marketing and there is no cost to you to achieve this.

Many like to use Twitter and it’s become a way of life for an unimaginable number of people. Twitter is used to keep in touch with friends, family, and people that are important to us. You can quickly find out what important people are doing at any minute from the “Tea Party” group, to athletes, and the numerous screen stars you can feel like you are in the loop. It’s fun and it can make you feel important.

Don’t be surprised if you become a Twitter addict. Many do. After all, you can know what’s going on with everyone who is anyone, from anywhere… that’s a bit enticing, and it’s certainly can be exciting when you are the first to hear of something big going down. Best of all Twitter is free to use.

Why You Want to Use Twitter

It’s true – social media is the new way of life, and Twitter is where politicians, famous people, news reporters, rock stars, and dictators hang out – and then there’s the rest of us regular folks.

Become part of CNN’s newsroom just by clicking follow. You will have the latest up to date news streaming to your computer or your smart phone. Of course, you can choose which news you follow. Perhaps you’d like to follow a local anchor and newsroom, or maybe you have family in another part of the world and you would like to follow there. Maybe you’d rather rub tweets with the president. You can feel pretty important pretty fast.

Twitter has also become a great way to make your income. Start a thread on Twitter about the product or service you sell. Embed your own links so followers can click and arrive at your website. It is all pretty impressive that you are able to do internet marketing and there is no cost to you to achieve this.

Many like to use Twitter and it’s become a way of life for an unimaginable number of people. Twitter is used to keep in touch with friends, family, and people that are important to us. You can quickly find out what important people are doing at any minute from the “Tea Party” group, to athletes, and the numerous screen stars you can feel like you are in the loop. It’s fun and it can make you feel important.

Don’t be surprised if you become a Twitter addict. Many do. After all, you can know what’s going on with everyone who is anyone, from anywhere… that’s a bit enticing, and it’s certainly can be exciting when you are the first to hear of something big going down. Best of all Twitter is free to use.

Do You Let Your Staff Daydream?

How much time do you let your staff think? I mean “think” in all shapes and forms. Such as planning and reviewing, brainstorming and creativity, decision-taking and problem-solving, logical thinking and free-flow thinking.

And, yes, daydreaming, too.

Well, if it’s not up to a quarter of their time, then maybe they’re not doing enough.

There’s a rather good story told about the first Henry Ford, founder of the Ford motor company.

Ford, wanting more and more productivity from his workers, decided to hire a consultant to identify areas of improvement in one of his factories.

The consultant went round the site and returned with a list of names of people who he thought weren’t up to scratch.

Ford took one look at the list and exclaimed in horror when he saw the name at the top. “You can’t fire him!”

“Why not?” said the consultant. “Every time I observed him he was sitting doing nothing.”

“I know,” replied Ford. “But he’s the most productive guy in the plant.  I pay him to think.”

For all we know, this was the guy who ensured the phenomenal survivability of the Ford empire.

The fact remains that thought has much greater power than anything else that people do. It’s much more powerful than words or actions. Thoughts inspire. Thoughts motivate. Thoughts lead. Thoughts will take your business much further than any other commodity you possess.

That’s why, when Mike Pedler and Tom Boydell carried out a study of top managers, over half of the top 10 qualities they possessed related to thinking skills, such as mental agility, creativity, learning and analytical skills.

So, if you want your team and your business to shoot ahead, give them some daily thinking time. And don’t worry if you find them daydreaming for some of it. It could be to your advantage!

Brainstorming Techniques

Have you been in a "brainstorming" session where each person just defended their own ideas? Worse is when people don't suggest ideas at all, for fear they'll be attacked. That's no way to brainstorm. Brainstorming is using the power of many minds, and ideas should flow freely and trigger other ideas. How do you make that happen?

The Key To Good Brainstorming

You have to have a good leader to have good brainstorming. The leader isn't there to impose his will, though, but to stop the imposition of anyone’s will. His role is to stop criticisms, arguments, and even strong opinions, at least in the first part of the session.

A brainstorming session needs to be spontaneous, open and uncritical. "Bad" or "silly" ideas can lead to helpful ones, so suggestions have to be left un-judged at first. To brainstorm effectively, you can't stifle the creative process. The leader’s job, then, is to make everyone feel free to suggest any ideas.

An Example Of Good Brainstorming

The scenario: your business needs to cut delivery costs. The group throws out ideas and thoughts. "Let's not deliver," someone suggests, and when another starts to criticize, you remind him of the rules. "Negotiate lower rates," somebody says, "Or just find a company with lower rates," another adds. Ideas like reducing package weight and charging customers more are suggested, and lead to other ideas.

You keep it civil, take notes, and eventually call a halt to this free-for-all part of the session. Now it's time to evaluate and develop the ideas for whatever usefulness they may have.

To keep the creativity flowing in this stage, have participants defend or develop ideas that are not their own. This brings new insight to the idea, and prevents the problem of ego-identification that causes people to get "stuck in a rut" with their own ideas.

For example, ask the man who was critical of the idea of not delivering to work with that idea. "We have to deliver," he might start with. Then he thinks for a second and says, "I suppose we could deliver to central distribution points instead of to the individual customer. The customer could drive a short distance to pick up their order. That might save us on shipping."

Someone else suggests that the customers may like the arrangement. They would be able to return the product immediately if they were dissatisfied, with no need to pack and ship it. You assign a couple people to look into it, and move on to the other ideas.

Good leadership keeps the whole process working. In the last example, you've even used a "bad" idea to come to a possible solution. That's good brainstorming.

Absolute Auction February 26th, 2013 Dayton, OH

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Mobile Marketing is Today Not Just Tomorrow and Beyond

If you are a mobile marketing holdout, you've already missed the boat – at least where the starting point is concerned. Mobile marketing is no longer “on the way” – it’s here and here in a big way.

It’s not too late to start, but if you continue to wait for the official start of the mobile marketing revolution, you’re already being left behind by your competition. By getting started now, you’re going to get a jump on those competitors who have been holding out like you.

Not only is the revolution here, it’s being used and it’s producing results – the most important part of any successful marketing plan.

Mobile marketing is here but the technology that powers it is moving fast and there are no signs of it slowing down. The longer you wait to get involved, the more advantage your competitors are going to have.

Are you using mobile marketing in your business? 

10 Best Tips to Write Effective Emails

Nowadays, we communicate more and more through email. We use Email communication to write something to friends, relatives, colleagues or clients. Whoever the recipient of your email, it is becoming very important that you write email effectively.  As you know, by writing effective email, you can save your time, other person’s time and you can win more trust & confidence from the other end.

Give Reply of Email As soon as Possible

More and more people contact each other through email. Even if they mention directly or not, they expect prompt responses. One of the study by Jupiter Research indicates that 35% of customers expect a reply within six hours, an additional 55% expect a response within 24 hours. Though many people focus on response time, content is just as important. The same study indicated that lack of a thorough response (45%) will cause on-line customers to view a company negatively when considering future purchases.

Learn the art of writing Email

Poorly crafted emails will generate additional emails back & forth, which potentially eating up more of your time. Worse, they can drive unnecessary calls to your most costly channel – your phone. And at that point, customers are bound to be angry and frustrated.

Here are some tips for writing email responses that are both thorough and appropriate:

1.         Format your response so that it’s easy to read on a screen. Do not write email using very long sentences, which are lengthy horizontally. Each line must be short. Ideally, write 5-6 words in each line only and not more than that.

2.         Make sure the subject line is concise and meaningful to the recipient…not just a generic “Response from Marketing Team” But also be careful that it doesn’t look like spam.

3.         Have one subject per paragraph. Mention this separately by blank lines, so that its easy to read and understand.

4.         Be brief. Use as few words as possible to convey your message. More is not better when it comes to email. An email is not perceived as an electronic letter.

5.         Use simple, declarative sentences. Write for a third or fourth grade audience, particularly if you’re creating templates that are sent automatically. You do not know the education level of your sender or the sender’s level of comfort with the English language.

6.         Be sensitive to the tone of the original email. If the sender is upset because of an error on

your part, acknowledge the error. Clearly state what you are doing to correct the situation.

7.         Make sure you answer all the questions posed in the original inquiry. A partial answer frustrates the sender and results in additional contacts. It also makes the company sending the response look inept.

8.         Make it clear what actions you will be taking next and when the writer can expect the next contact from you.

9.         Don’t ask for an order number/case number or any old information which you remember out of your mind only when one is included in the original email…sounds pretty basic, but sometimes people miss very obvious info in email.

10.       Don’t just tell the sender to go to your web site. In many cases, they have already been to

the web site and couldn’t find the answers they were looking for. If you want them to go back to the web site, provide a direct link to the exact information the reader needs.

 

 

 

 

Researching Competitors – Social Media

Social media is a great way to get involved with potential consumers. This is certainly what the majority of businesses use social media for. There is now a new use for social media though, and that is to research what competitors are doing. Nearly every business is using some sort of social media, so it is a worthwhile task to try and determine what they are doing and why.

Like you, your competitors will be using the likes of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and forums to try and get hold of as many customers as possible. The problem for them is that they are exposing their marketing tactics to you. You will be able to browse through all the different social networks that you find them on and will be able to see what they are doing.

Once you are seeing what they are doing, you can start to make a log. Researching competitors that are using social media is incredibly easy, because they have left all of their cards on the table. They are showing you exactly what they are doing, but also exactly what is working for them.

Once you have figured out where they are operating online, you can monitor their progress. If you see them on forums, see what the members have to say. If they are on Twitter, see what promotions they are offering. You can get the big picture and see what works and what doesn’t. This means that when you start your next social media marketing campaign, you’ll have a much better idea of what to aim for and what to expect.

Build this monitoring process into your every day promotion. This will hopefully help determine the best marketing tactics and therefore, save you both time and money, helping you to grow your business.