How to Use Twitter and Facebook for Your Business
Many people have asked me how I use social media for my business. While I do not consider myself an expert in this area, I am happy to share this information to help other business owners navigate social media.
Getting Started
• Sign up for an account at http://twitter.com/ and http://www.facebook.com/
• For Facebook, you will need to create a personal account, which you can decide if you want to use for your business or not
• To create a Facebook page for your business, click here http://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php.
• When creating your Twitter or Facebook profile or page, make sure you personalize it, include your picture or business logo and make sure it is interesting. Always link back to your blog or web site.
Twitter
• If you plan on using Twitter at all, you really need to get Tweetdeck. Download it here http://www.tweetdeck.com/beta/.
• You can link Facebook to Tweetdeck but I haven’t done that. I use Tweetdeck to view my friend’s time line, my @replies and my direct messages all at once. I have also set up searches for “Cornwall, Ontario” and other terms related to my areas of interest so I can see tweets that mention the things I am interested in.
• To find people to “follow” on Twitter (and hopefully who will follow you back), use some directory sites like http://wefollow.com/, where you add yourself under categories and then you can search for other Twitter users by category.
• http://www.twellow.com/ is another directory where you can search Twitter users by location. It will also suggest followers to you and you can search under other categories.
Facebook
• If you haven’t used Facebook at all, you will need to start adding friends. In the upper right-hand corner, you can search by name. Then, once you get some friends, you can search who their friends are. Once you start gaining friends, Facebook will begin suggesting friends for you. You can let friends know about your business page or use your personal page as your business page, or do a combination of both.
• Use your business page (or your personal page if applicable) to create events relating to your business and invite friends. Add blog posts or articles of interest that relate to your business and share them with friends or with your page fans. People can’t refer to you or use your services if they don’t know what you do.
• Once you have a certain amount of fans, you can get a vanity url on Facebook. You should be able to get a personal one right away. Just go to http://www.facebook.com/username/ to set yours. Mine is www.facebook.com/mallinotte.
What do I talk about?
• You can talk about anything really, but you will get the most out of Facebook and Twitter if you give content of value. Start a blog and link to your blog. Your blog can be about your business, it can be about you, it can be about a topic related to your business, or it can be about something completely unrelated, although you need to mention your business occasionally for it to have some value.
• As I said earlier, I use social media to promote events related to my business. Some businesses create contests or have special promotions or coupon codes for their friends, fans or followers.
• You can also use Twitter and Facebook to connect directly with your target audience, to ask them questions, seek feedback, et cetera. That kind of interaction is invaluable for business owners.
• When looking for articles to share, use Google Reader to follow blogs of interest to you, download it here www.google.com/reader. You can also subscribe to blog feeds via email, but Google reader allows you to set up alerts on certain search terms (including your own name or business name) and it will search the internet for that term and give you the link in your Google reader. You can check your reader a couple of times a week for new content. A tutorial for Google reader is available here http://www.google.com/support/reader/?hl=en.
• I also use the searches I have in Tweetdeck to find information to “retweet”.
How do I make it happen by doing only one update?
• To fully integrate your social media, you need to get a Ping account at http://ping.fm/. Then you add your social media accounts to your Ping account. When you update Ping, it updates everything.
• You may not need this right away, but I highly recommend Tweet Later, which is now called Social Oomph http://www.socialoomph.com/. You can create a free account which will allow you to schedule tweets and track certain keywords that are used in Twitter. For me, the real value comes in with the Professional account, which is $20.00 per month but allows me to update all of my social media accounts at once. I put in information and it goes to Twitter, Facebook and Linked In. There are many other advantages of the professional account which I haven’t even explored yet.
• If you use Social Oomph professional, you then can add your Ping account there to schedule your updates to be added to Ping at regular intervals, which will in turn add them to all of your social media accounts.
New age of social networking – The Cornwall Standard Freeholder, August 14, 2009
New age of social networking
Posted By DAVID NESSETH
CORNWALL – Social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter have helped one local lawyer put a human face to a profession often accused of being heartless.On her Facebook group called Your Cornwall Lawyer, Michele R. J Allinotte explains to visitors that she’s “not your parents’ lawyer”. In fact, she says, she’s not like any lawyer you’ve ever met.
“Part of me as a professional is that I am accessible,” says Allinotte, who specializes in estate planning and business law. “I will share personal information or use my grandparents or kids as an example. Clients or referral sources that know me on Facebook as well get to see that side of me, that I’m a real person. I’m easy to get along with, I have a farm and I shovel manure.”
Now, Allinotte is leaving her current firm in Cornwall to strike out on her own. Part of this vision, she says, is to further utilize social networking tools.
The 33-year-old has snagged a couple of clients from her Facebook presence. Sometimes appointments are even booked through the site.
Allinotte believes that some people are more comfortable initiating contact online than on the phone or in person. Lawyers, she admits, can be intimidating, but that’s not her style.
“I didn’t become a lawyer to meet someone once, hand them documents, then never see them again,” she says.
Allinotte often uses Twitter, where she’s MAllinotte, or Facebook, to promote her upcoming seminars or offer links to legal discussions that may be of interest to clients and other lawyers who check her postings.
Currently, her networking accounts promote a planning session that explains how parents can protect their family in the event of their deaths.
She has 834 people following her Twitter updates, and 35 fans of her Facebook group.
CITY JOINS FACEBOOK Bob Peters, the city’s economic development officer, says he’s heard of Allinotte, but only through Facebook. She’s a friend of friends, he said.
Three months ago Peters launched a Facebook group for the City of Cornwall.
It grew quickly. Within one week, “City of Cornwall, Ontario” had 177 members, and it has since grown to about 1,190 members.
“The potential far exceeds where it is now,” Peters said of the group.
But he’s working on it.
Peters has his eye on Brockville’s group, which has more than 3,000 members, yet less than half the population of Cornwall.
“It’s not a competition, but we do have 46,000 people here,” Peters said.
Peters has been keeping an eye out for some great Cornwall photos on Facebook. He’s even used some for the Choose Cornwall economic development website.
Peters said one of the main uses of the city’s Facebook presence is to keep people informed about upcoming events. While these events are also posted on the city’s website, Peters said Facebook gives users the opportunity to see specific events that their online friends plan to attend.
Currently, the city is promoting a knowledge workshop on brownfield redevelopment.
On the group’s wall, Peters said online users can find all kinds of tidbits about the Seaway City.
Often, people are able to network and make connections through the Cornwall group, he said.
“It’s like people sitting around a local pub and overhearing something you could use in your business,” Peters said.
One of the things that’s most surprised Peters about the Cornwall group has been its ability to fend off trollers, or comments out of line with the group’s positive approach.
Peters said he won’t let the Cornwall group become an advertisement vehicle for local businesses, but would allow them to promote special events connected to their business.
Peters says he wants to keep the city’s group light yet professional.
This article was originally published on August 14, 2009 in The Cornwall Standard Freeholder. Click here to view it.
