How Your Small B2B Business Can Rock Social Media

The questions we typically hear most often from small businesses about social media are: Which social media networks should I consider? What type of content should I post? These are great questions and we have certainly seen a lot of boring Business-To-Business (B2B) content on social media.  It often seems that only Business-To-Consumer (B2C)  businesses know how to sell the sizzle in the steak, so to speak.  What business owners seem to forget when delivering their message to other businesses is that those businesses are run by people.  And people still like to have their attention grabbed, even if it …

Retweeting protocol for small business owners

What’s the proper protocol for re-tweeting when you own a small business? I am frequently asked by my clients what is the correct way to re-tweet. Here are some helpful hints that I have compiled: Following the User. You shouldn’t automatically assume that you are already following this particular user, so make sure by checking your account. If that user was interested enough to share your content, then you should reciprocate when appropriate. Look at their profile to see if they’re a person or organization you’d like to follow and if so, then add them. List the User. If you …

Make Your Business Stand Out on Twitter with These Secret Tips

  Utilize a dashboard The mightiest twitter tools include Dashboards such as TweetDeck, Seesmic, Hootsuite etc. fall under the bracket of the most powerful twitter tools. Why? Because they expand beyond Twitter’s ability of displaying single columns of tweets as well as the standard right panel information that we see when we log on to twiiter.com. Dashboards allow you to customize and create your twitter experience the way you want. You can have streams show only mentions of your Twitter handle, or you can go for advanced options such as creating a column that displays all mentions of your product, …

A Hashtag Primer for Small Business

A hashtag is a keyword or phrase preceded by the hash symbol (#), that people include in their social media posts. Essentially, it makes the content of your post accessible to all people with similar interests, even if they’re not your followers or fans.  For instance, let’s say you’re an Apple fan and that you’re playing with the idea of buying an iPhone 5. A simple “#iPhone5″ search on any social network will open a dedicated news feed with all iPhone 5 latest updates, deals, rumors and hacks. The results you see on this feed are the aggregated posts of …

social media dos and donts

Social Media Do’s and Don’ts

Social media dos and don’ts are crucial aspects that my clients, who are new to utilizing social media for their businesses, often seek advice on. They inquire about what is considered appropriate or inappropriate to express online, the frequency of interactions, and the appropriate individuals with whom they should engage. To address these queries, I typically provide the following high-level response: Approach your online interactions with the same etiquette you would employ at a cocktail party. Just as you wouldn’t barge into a room shouting your business name or distribute business cards haphazardly without establishing rapport or sharing captivating anecdotes …

dealing with negative comments on twitter

8 Tips for Responding To Negative Twitter Comments

When dealing with negative comments on Twitter, your online reputation, especially on social media, can make or break your business. With more and more customers resorting to Twitter and other social media for bad reviews and complaints, how you deal with these comments will define your reputation. Following are the top eight things that you can do when confronted with negative Twitter comments.  Don’t Take It Personally Sympathy always stands out great in comparison with anger. A negative comment is lets you know what your viewers think about your post. Even if someone is clearly looking for a chance to …