Social media and effects on marketing is a Netbods speciality.
Today we will look at some information about Twitter and how this might change your business.
Social Marketing can either make you friends or business contacts and the key is keeping these separate.
Dealing with Twitter reminds me of talking websites to the egocentric owners of small and medium sized enterprises 10 or 12 years ago. Whilst our team got on with larger household names by building massive online businesses we could see that the smaller organisation could get on this level playing field and generally the owner managed business laughed and scoffed at our proposal.
We heard people say "the Internet is a fad"or " it will not work for us we are different" stupid maybe but different no!
Then some smaller companies woke up and got websites..... phew! The price was a driving factor in first websites and results came in second. In the main some chap swinging around on the bar stool down the local pub got the job or a niece or nephew who could work front-page got the project and we would have failed to deliver our message about good design/build once again.
Internet business boomed for the likes of:
Lastminute.com
Started in the UK 1998 it floated on the 14 March 2000 and rose on the first day of trading floatation the company had been valued at £500m. We then saw Internet shares go through tough times although this company was purchased by Travelocity for £577 Million in 2005. We were busy calling local travel agents in 1998 t0 2000 and they said we are local therfore not needing the Internet. Now many of these local travel shops are bust and the Internet is no longer a fad. This brings me on to Twitter this morning Cerys Matthews http://twitter.com/cerysmatthews said broadcasting digital radio BBC 6 http://www.bbc.co.uk/6music/6musicsocial/ that her holiday in France was helped by tweets on what to do and where to go.
Last.fm was launched in 2002 as an internet radio station and music community. It was started in the United Kingdom but now reaches over 200 countries and has over 20 million active users. Last.fm offers surfers an interesting way to listen to their favorite music acts and a new way to find new groups and musicians. It also created a new avenue for music artists to sell their songs. Last.fm was acquired in May 2007 by CBS Interactive for $280 million.
Bebo is a social network that was launched in January 2005 by Michael and Xochi Birch. The two attempted many times to achieve success online but “failed” until they created Bebo. Bebo has grow to 40 million members and has a strong presence in the United Kingdom. In March 2008, AOL agreed to acquire Bebo for $850 million, making Michael and Xochi two of the most successful entrepreneurs in the “new” wave of the internet.
Before harping on about Google, Youtube, Facebook and other great stories we see a new turn in business.
The future is even brighter for the small business and see search future as being local or from blogs.
The small business still needs to get a good New Media agency to make a small website that
looks like a blue-chip company to keep the level playing field.
Whilst small business owners refuse to buy good design, robust websites the big boys will get all the money and the small business does not see that a homemade template is the same as going to a business meeting in white socks or a self knitted jumper.
We now are talking with companies who have lost their inhibitions toward the Internet
Before getting down to your website we need to start at the top of the sales funnel, make friends and establish trust is the only real way to create sound opportunities to do business without spending a fortune.
Dell computers have
All you doubting Thomases can shut up now: Lifecasting/social net Twitter really does work as a marketing tool, as confirmed by PC retail leviathan Dell.
Dell started Tweeting about two years ago, when the system was pretty new. They don't get into how exactly they traced sales directly back to Tweets, but they're committed to the correlation. So given what they say are $6.5 million in Twitter-driven sales, the company's yearly return from Tweets is around $3.25 million. Dell also notes that its follower list has risen 23% in the last three months alone--which will likely correspond to a hefty skew in the number of PC units sold this year. Dell's Tweets also reach followers in 12 countries, and sales are happening in places that might be a surprise: $800,000 in sales over the last eight months alone came from Brazil.
See more at the Fast Company link below
http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/kit-eaton/technomix/twitter-really-works-makes-65-million-sales-dell
How do they do this you might ask?
Twitter is the same for you, me and Dell.... We can all do this
The more followers you have the more people will see your message and the more people who see your message means the more people you can establish trust with.
We are not looking to sell at this and simply post tweets and share information then we get the followers and make some good offers.
In the USA a coffee shop in Houston Texas tweeting a Twitter coffee party got 100 visitors and I promise you it will come to Blighty.
This blog will help you achieve your social media goals and get rid of the white socks in your business. Stop showing your customers your own knitted jumper and find a real designer
Image via CrunchBase
