A WORKABLE TWITTER STRATEGY FOR SMALL BUSINESS OWNERS

I’ve seen this many a time… a local business owner signs up for Twitter to begin a new media marketing campaign with dreams of instant stardom, only to struggle with it for a month or two and then quit. What makes business owners give up on their Twitter efforts so easily? Lack of feedback. When the Twittering fails to bring people in the door who buy their stuff, they see it as a waste of time. However, armed with the right strategy and realistic expectations, Twitter marketing for local business owners can prove to be fruitful.

In today’s podcast, I give a step-by-step strategy for business marketing on Twitter that can lead to results, and even be multiplied exponentially by merging new media marketing efforts with traditional media advertising that not many people currently are pursuing. If done correctly, this marketing strategy will not only produce results, but it can actually be tracked and evaluated down to the detail.

Listen to the audio podcast and post your questions below, or chime in with your very own social media marketing tips that you have found to work for your small business or sales career!

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 Local Small Business Twitter Marketing Strategy [7:59m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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Twitter is steamrolling the social media society. In my opinion, it is the hottest social site on
the internet today. What started as just an idea to get attention on a broad scale has morphed into a possible tool that can be used to enhance local prospects for entrepreneurs.

With all of the new Twitter accessory sites popping up on a daily basis, you have a plethora of tools that can be used to actually help develop a business, and even do market research. But what I find most interesting is that practically nobody in my local area is aware of this.

Jefferson City Missouri boasts about a dozen twitter users to my knowledge. I only see one politician (Peter Kinder), and one business owner using the service to their advantage. It appears that the market is wide open. But once the word gets out, there will be a mad dash by local area businesses to gain the biggest influence from using the social sites. I predict an overnight explosion of small business Twitter use.

What I really find exciting is the fact that the first business in each particular sector will stand to gain the most by jumping into the social community before their competitors. The first movers will reap the biggest rewards. All others will have to fight long and hard, and use creativity to put a dent in the market influence of the first movers.

What is really intriguing is the fact that the first movers will be able to establish themselves as the reigning authorities in their field of expertise, just by their own designation. It’s human nature that we follow the ground breakers and give them respect as authoritative experts, simply because they arrived on the scene first. That is why companies like Nike and IBM still sit atop the roost to this day, because they were of the first to break through in their fields.

I’ve been studying the social media phenomenon on a daily basis, but my focus has mainly been on the benefits of using these sites to expand and conquer market share with a small business. I have found that even some of the Fortune 500 companies have successfully implemented social media campaigns to launch new products and services. For example, Cisco just completed a long social media campaign to launch their new routers nationwide.

What these large companies have effectively done is to set the groundwork for small businesses to reproduce their positive results. It’s jsut a matter of having the right strategy for each individual sector.

Do you have a question about social media use in business that I can answer? Comment on this posting, or send an email to carlton.flowers@gmail.com and I will be glad to look into your question and provide an educated answer!

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A VERY SIMPLE HOME-BASED BUSINESS IDEA!

I have just put the finishing touches on my newest “Hotsheetz” guide titled “The Hot Money-Making Newsletter”. This is a project that I have been working on putting together for for almost a year now, and I have just released it. This is one of my favorite home-based business ideas that anyone can do!

I got the idea from a small network marketing business I had joined in 2003 called Golden Fairway. They had a really neat online golf game that you could play by yourself, against friends, and even in tournaments. As a business associate, I had the ability to sell the advertisement spaces on my replicated website, and it was a stupendously easy sell.  Why?

The main reason was that the people who played the game had to register. I had each person’s name and address, and even phone number. Having an exact list of the people who spend time on the site proved the fact that it was fertile ground for an advertise. The second reason was that the average player was spending at least 20 minutes per visit on the site. This was unheard of at the time for an internet site! Nobody in their right mind would pass up a chance to place an ad on a site that people spent that much time looking at.

The way it worked was that there were 2 “gold” ads that stayed on the right side of the game at all times. Then there were “silver” ads that came after the close of every hole played when the score card was shown. All I had to do was design the ad and upload it to my replicated site. In 5 days, I made over $800. I charged $300 each for the 2 gold ads, and sold several silver ads too. It never took more than a few minutes to sell my clients, and they would immediately pull out their checkbooks.

As luck would have it, the company changed the format of their main product to a CD-ROM based software game that had to be loaded on a computer instead of the simple internet site version. This ruined the “sellability”. I stopped developing my site after the change was finalized. But the experience was well worth the time that I spent.

Years later, I came up with a way to create a similar hot advertisement opportunity for local businesses. This time, it didn’t involve an internet site, a game, or anything that required special programming or technical skills. I took the basic concepts from the online golf game and applied what made it work to a newsletter, and the results were very surprising!

This led to the creation of a simple system of making hot attention-grabbing newsletters that practically anyone can duplicate. It’s so simple, yet so creative and crafty! All of my “test subjects” reacted the same way, and three have already decided to use my method to even promote a product that they have designed.

Whether it is used for promoting a good or service, or just for creating an extra income, this money-making guide is perfect for stay-at-home moms, budding entrepreneurs, experienced writers, or even novices that don’t have perfect writing skills.

Check out the details on my site under the tab labeled “Newsletter Cash”, and you may decide to embark upon your own money-making newsletter project yourself!

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