SOCIAL MEDIA MONITORING WITH TWEETGRID

Technology has really changed the way people share their thoughts, opinions, and experiences about businesses. Thanks to social media websites like Twitter and Facebook, a company’s positive image can be bolstered or destroyed overnight.

Those who take the power of social media communities seriously allow themselves the ability to steer through the minefield of public opinion and continue with great success. But companies who chose to ignore the new paradigm we have experienced for the past several years are destined to hit mine and fail.

Reputation monitoring is the big new thing in the world of business today. Community relations now takes place online… in real time… and there’s a secret weapon you can use absolutely free of charge called TweetGrid that will allow you to keep track of what people are saying about your brand as it is happening.

According to Twitter.com, there were 140 million Tweets posted just last month. You better believe that a small but significant fraction of those little messages posted on the hottest micro blogging social community board were from people expressing their thoughts, feelings, or experiences about a business product or service.

Now then… considering the massive amount of traffic pulsing through Twitter each and every day, do you think it would be worth monitoring the site for any instances where your brand is being talked about? Would you like to know when someone says something positive? Or perhaps be in-the-know when someone says something negative about their experience with your business so that you could have the opportunity to corral the unhappy customer and show them that you truly care?

I should hope that you do!

That’s where TweetGrid comes into play. All you have to do is launch the website and set up as many grids that you need in order to monitor what is being said about your business. Pick a few keywords that you think people would use for your business, enter each word into a grid, hit the <enter> button, and there you have it. Each and every time someone makes mention of one of your keywords, it will pop into TweetGrid in real time.

The key here would be to test as many keywords as you possibly can. If there are variations of the names of your business, enter them all. You could even enter common misspellings of your business name. The more the better. The bigger the population of people that frequent your business, the more chances there could be for people to talk up your brand.

If you own a restaurant or a service-related business, you might be surprised at how many people are commenting about your establishment on Twitter. People tend to Tweet a lot about the service they receive, and the quality of food at restaurants, for example. Your goal should be to reinforce and reward the positive comments, and transform the negative comments into good customer service buzz.

Throwing a “thank you” out for positive comments is a no-brainer. But what do you do when an individual says something critical or negative about your business or service? Is it possible to transform such an occurrence into something that could end up building up your reputation?

You bet it is!

If a customer tweets something that doesn’t put you in a positive light, your immediate response and offer to remedy the situation could end up transforming that unhappy person into a happy camper. At worst case, even if they are not ultimately satisfied, more people will trust you and take a chance because they will see that you care.

Simply showing that you care enough to respond is one of the best ways that you can bolster your business’s reputation. However, it goes without saying that you would need to have an actual Twitter account in order to post responses to mentions of your brand, so a little bit of research on how to get started using Twitter and knowing the best way to share your online presence would be in order.

As a side note, most businesses actively posting to Twitter have absolutely no clue as to what to post to be most effective in their marketing efforts. A lot of careless business owners “spam” the Twitter timeline with constant ads, and never interact with others in the community. That is a big mistake. Even if your only activity on Twitter was to respond to people posting about your brand, you would be leaps and bounds ahead of the majority of business Twitterers.

Make the decision now to start monitoring your brand on Twitter and take charge of what your customers reactions are. Turn every situation into a reputation-building opportunity, and watch your business grow leaps and bounds!

Do you have ideas on how to use sites like TweetGrid to better your social media monitoring efforts? Do you have a question about the strategies mentioned in this article? Share them in the comments section below!

Carlton Flowers
Marketing Strategist

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QR CODES WILL REVOLUTIONIZE YOUR BUSINESS MARKETING

The future of local business marketing is here. There’s a small black and white box with a strange pattern in it that will change everything. They’re called “QR Codes“, and you need to know why they will impact your business for the better if you utilize them.

If you are a small business owner, your local advertising and marketing will be revolutionized by incorporating QR codes in your flyers, print ads, billboards, and every single place that you display your business identity.

The days of traditional advertising are over. I will even boldly say that marketing your business on the Internet or on Facebook without QR codes are going to quickly be useless. Why? Because there’s a new mega trend about to hit. And it’s mobile marketing.

Smartphones are everywhere. More of your customers are packing iPhones and Android devices than ever before. When they want to check out for options eating out or shopping, they’re not sitting at home on their home computer to search. They’re reaching for their smartphones.

Within one year, there will be more searches conducted using a smartphone than the home computer. Studies say that 240 million searchers will use their cell phone, while 200 million will use a PC. The gap will widen as more and more people utilize their smartphones as their primary Internet device.

In fact, mobile marketing will give you your biggest bang for your advertising buck. It is a wise investment. You can forget about wasting time and money designing fancy web pages that aren’t optimized for viewing on a cell phone.

The new formula for reaching your potential clients and bringing customers back on a consistent basis will be combining a mobile optimized landing page with traditional advertising and QR codes (plus a little bit of stealthy marketing).

More and more smartphone carriers have free QR code-reading apps, and they are using them. The newness scanning QR codes piques interest and curiosity, and it is quickly becoming popular. Just imagine the rush of new business that could generated by using this new technology right now, while it’s hot.

Just when we thought Twitter, Facebook, and social media marketing was the big new thing, technological advance brings us another paradigm shift in the way we will interact and do business on a local level.

Are you a small business owner or leader of a community group or association that depends on driving new customers and clients to keep your business thriving and growing? Then you better get on this now, and strike while the iron is hot.

You have two choices: figure all of this out on your own, or keep your mind and focus on the daily aspects of your business and let an expert handle it for you.

For the busy folks in the latter category, I suggest you contact me immediately and find out how you can be up and running within days with QR Turbo. I’ll even give you a free 30 minute consultation and live demonstration.

But if you hesitate, I’ll be swamped, and you’ll be left paying a consultant 5x the price for what I can provide for you.

Just pop an email to carlton.flowers@gmail.com with “QR Turbo Fee Demo” in the subject line, and I’ll contact you and schedule a visit.

I’ll also throw in a super free insider tip on how you can use Google Local to set up a free listing that will land you on page 1 of the Google search engine results for your locality.

You will want to get this info before your competitors crowd you out, leaving you on page 2 or 3. And believe me, that could mean the difference in massive traffic to your business (or your competitor). It is mission-critical.

If you want to keep your status as “top-of-mind” for your niche, or kick your competitors off the roost while they are sleeping, I’ll expect to hear from you soon.

All the best,

Carlton Flowers
Your High-Tech Marketing Strategist

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GETTING BACK TO THE BASIC ELEMENTS OF TWITTER MARKETING

In today’s podcast episode, I’ve decided that I need to get back to the basics of Twitter marketing for business owners and sales professionals. The night I recorded this podcast, I received about 25 new follows on Twitter from various marketers and business owners. 25 out of 25 of these new business followers were absolutely failing the test of grabbing my attention and engaging me. I saw so many basic violations of fundamental Twitter marketing, I decided I needed to devote an entire podcast to the basics of Twitter business marketing.

In this 10-minute podcast, I give several examples of some of the things you do NOT want to do if you are a business trying to make an impression on the Twitter community. When you violate some of these fundamental marketing rules, you turn people off. It can be hard, if not impossible, to reverse the effects of a negative first impression. With that in mind, it is very important for you to take heed to the advice given in this podcast if you are new to Twitter marketing. I hope you find this helpful, and as always, if you have any questions or would like to comment on the topic, you are welcomed to share your input and opinion on the blog post below!

For my local friends in Jefferson City and Columbia, Missouri, don’t forget about my free audio CD offer for February, 2010. I’m giving way copies of my social media marketing seminar CD entitled “The Seven Secrets of Revolutionizing Your Business Through Social Media Marketing” just for the asking. Contact me via Twitter or just give me a call to request your copy, and I will personally deliver it to your place of business. If you’d like, I will even shoot a video interview and feature your business on my blog!

Excited about your success in marketing,

Carlton Flowers
Marketing Strategist
(573) 893-9498

Play Now:

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TWITTER TURBO NEARS COMPLETION – VIDEO UPDATE

I’ve been at the helm pounding away at the keyboard and finalizing the Twitter Turbo seminar software CD for release in February of 2010. I’m three months late on my projected release, but I’ve had so much more great information to include in this project that I just could not let it go a minute too early. Several sales & marketing professionals have expressed interest in the program, and several others are asking for information on what the program covers. This video includes a basic explanation of how Twitter Turbo will benefit you as a business owner or sales professional in layman’s terms. In the video, I encourage viewers to sign up for the email list to have immediate notification when the product is ready for release. You will need to go to the Twitter Turbo page and enter your email address at the bottom of the page in order to do so. Questions, comments, or discussion? Feel free to post them below! I’ll look forward to hearing from you!

Click Here to view the video!

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“The Seven Secrets of Revolutionizing Your Business Through Social Media” Audio CD

Two months of hard work has finally paid off! My new audio CD is now available for local business owners, sales professionals, and company marketing managers. The Audio CD program will be available free of charge for a limited time just for the asking.

In this 9-track audio program, I reveal some of my best-kept secrets about social media marketing and why businesses and professionals are turning to this platform at a rapid rate. Here are some of the significant points that are covered:

• the single most critical marketing factor that will cost you your business edge if you don’t pay attention to this marketing trend
• the undesirable result of not taking action if and when your competitors learn of these before you do, and what you must do to stay on top in your field
• how to hack down your advertising & marketing budget, and replace it with something that gets measurable results
• the low-cost and highly effective alternative to “grapeshot marketing”
• a new free service that the majority of households are now discovering and accessing while you continue to dump money into “Stonehenge Media” sources
• a new trend that most large businesses have not discovered that is becoming the most effective form of advertising and brand-building
• a new way to increase your exposure and add potential clients in rapid-fashion like never before

Business owners and professionals in the Central Missouri area can call (573) 893-9498 to request a copy of the audio CD which will be delivered in-person at no charge. For all others, you can get your copy by covering the postage & handling fee of $5.75 and it will be delivered via US Postal Service First Class Mail. Click here to jump to the secure ordering page!

All the best,

Carlton Flowers, Marketing Strategist

573-893-9498

carlton.flowers@gmail.com

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