Yes, a blog is definitely a great way to promote a business online these days – now that everyone can become a publisher at NO cost, or at relatively low cost. Anyone with an Internet connection can post his or her thoughts, opinions, and activities on the Global Whiteboard for people to read and comment on.

Here are 10 basic reasons to start blogging:

1. Publishing platform
2. Control your message
3. Delivery system for your messages
4. 24/7 Online network
5. New skill development
6. Increased perception through Web 2.0 sources
7. Visibility
8. Reputation management (your silence allows your critics to win)
9. Build Google presence
10. Research increases your expertise

Follow these 5 steps to get you blogging

Step 1: Before proceeding to Step 2, make sure that you really want to start a blog.

• Are you passionate enough about a topic that you want to write and publish your ideas on a regular basis?
• Can you commit to a consistent schedule, eg, once a week? Twice a week? Twice a day?
• Will you be comfortable learning as you’re doing? Think of Picasso, who said, “I am always doing that which I don’t know how to do in order to learn to do it.”
• Can you be patient about putting in effort before you see the big “payoff,” ie, results and lots of readers?
• Will you make time to read other peoples’ blogs and comment on them?
• Would you like to be an authentic, honest, interesting Voice in the blogosphere?

If the answer is YES to all six questions, proceed to Step 2.

Step 2: Spend a little bit of time searching the Internet for How to Blog articles. Many may be more advanced than a beginner can understand, but that’s OK. Reading them will still help you, and they may provide links to more basic articles.

Step 3: Do NOT wait until you think you will write a perfect blog post. If I had waited, I might never have gotten started. Common Wisdom suggests that you listen to Nike, ie, Just Do It. You will learn from your mistakes. After all, when you do get started, few people will know you are “out there,” so you can build your chops and publish content, which can always be revised and/or deleted later on.

Step 4; Choose a blogging platform. My suggestion is that you go with WordPress – the most popular and well supported blog tool and publishing platform. Here you have another choice: the absolutely FREE http://wordpress.com or the companion platform http://wordpress.org, which requires you to (a) have a domain name that will cost you less than $10 a year and (b) a blog hosting company that will cost around $10 a month.

Why would you pay when you can blog for free?

Actually, my suggestion is that you do choose the free option, wordpress.com, for a month or so to make sure that you want to commit to the practice. My blog post: http://sharisax.com/2009/10/08/how-to-start-a-blog-step-by-step-and-voila-youre-a-publisher/ will help you set up a free blog.

Again, why would you want to pay to blog?

Self-hosting, ie, a blog on a platform like wordpress.org, will offer you much more control, including options like the following:

1. Your own URL and opportunity to build your brand without having to use the platform name, eg, http://sharisax.com vs my “free” blog that was at http://sharisaxiisoutthere.wordpress.com

2. An almost unlimited number of designs (or themes) that can be found free online or designed uniquely for your blog by a professional web developer

3. Opportunities to sell products and services as well as include advertising

4. Addition of a large variety of “plugins” or applications that will extend the capabilities of your blog

Step 5: Just do it! Get started. Here is how to write your first blog post on the free platform: http://sharisax.com/2010/04/09/how-to-write-that-first-blog-post-on-wordpress-com/.

Conclusion: Basically, a blog can put a human face on a company, and people do business with people, not organizations. Bloggers are the new influencers. You can build your authority and influence by knowing your audience and writing relevant, original, interesting, keyword-rich content. Use your blog to become the Go-To source for information in your area of expertise.

This article topic was suggested by Jean Linder.

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“Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.” – Marcus T. Cicero

“No one who achieves success does so without acknowledging the help of others. The wise and confident acknowledge this help with gratitude.” – Unknown

Saying thank you is common courtesy and today’s technology enables us to show gratitude more easily than ever. But just because we can speedily tweet or otherwise post a one-liner thank you, does that mean that we ought to?

Some people feel that there is already too much noise online, and those who continuously post thank you notes for ReTweets, Likes, Recommendations, and new Followers are gridlocking the Internet and  impeding more productive conversations

So the question is, How “valuable” are thank yous?

Here are some steps to help you decide how to handle the gratitude dilemma for your own online practice.

• Ask yourself how you feel when someone thanks you online? What if that someone has thousands of followers on one of the social media channels? Your name would be broadcast to huge numbers of people outside your own network.

And if you are the one with the scores of followers, you would be the person boosting someone else’s influence. Actually, the whole idea of the “Like” feature is to rebroadcast someone else’s content to a new community of possible viewers.

• Consider the implication of never acknowledging someone else. “Never acknowledging or thanking someone, especially for recommendations, may give off the impression that you’re concerned only with yourself and your place in the social community,” wrote Ashleigh Grange.* She believes that if someone goes out of his or her way for you, then you, too, should make the extra effort to thank them for their time, interest, and kindness.

Ashleigh follows this same philosophy of gratitude when it comes to her customers: “I think it’s a key quality of being a social, involved member of social media channels,” she wrote.

• Think about one of my favorite sayings: “If it’s too easy, there must be a better way.” If you simply post something like “Thanks @sharisax for the RT,” you are not adding much to the conversation. Rather, write a personal insight with your thanks or go a step further – especially if you are trying to build a relationship – and share a comment posted by that person.

“If I take the time to do someone an actual, in-depth favor, and the response I get is a simple thanks, it doesn't seem sincere,” wrote Bija Andrew Wrigh. He suggested gathering all of the people who have helped to promote you into one blog post, maybe even in a video blog “for the personal touch.”

• Ask yourself exactly WHY would you want to thank someone online? What do you hope to gain? Perhaps there are more productive, ie, “valuable” ways to show gratitude than a simple tweet or post. Here are a few ideas:

Post a question on LinkedIn, Quora, Yahoo Answers or any of a number of Q&A online platforms. [See http://howto.performancesocialmedia.com/social-media-strategy/10-social-media-sites-to-find-answers-for-your-questions/ for more sites.] After you receive the answers, reply back to the sender and then email your personal thank you to each person who took the time to give you a helpful response.

Some social media experts suggest that you should focus on a select group of people who are particularly evangelical about your content. These people you want to make a point to publicly communicate with via @ replies or other praise on another site [from Anthony Lee].

More repeated retweets and promotions result from this strategy practiced by Thursday Bram: “My philosophy is not simply to thank for RTs or other promotion. Rather, I make a point of trying to do a similar turn for whomever I connect with. I'll comment on a blog post, answer a question or generally help with something that person is trying to promote,”

You can cut out some noise if you DM [Direct Message] your thanks on Twitter [as long as the two of you follow one another]; then only the recipient will see it. And when you begin a Tweet with the “mention” [ i.e., @sharisax], then only the people who follow both of you will see that particular Tweet.

Be wary of anything automatic or robotic like the DMs who thank you for following them on Twitter. They are a turn-off to many people who find the impersonal nature to be irritating and intrusive – especially when you simply followed them because they followed you first.

• Finally, determine how much time should be spent giving thanks. Most people agree that if you thanked everyone for doing you an online favor, you’d be doing little else. One suggestion is to designate a specific block of time one day a week to focus on your gratitude efforts.

CONCLUSION

The consensus appears to favor some kind of online display of gratitude. If you agree, you might want to consider how some of the ideas listed above will help you engage more effectively online. This thinking can produce either a formal or informal thank you policy that can bring you measureable results in the form of more customers, partners, and friends.

*All quotes are from the responses to a question posted on LinkedIn asking people if they had a Gratitude Philosophy when it came to posting thank yous online.

Our economy today is very different than our economy of the past. There are several profound differences, which have paved the way for online search and review services that can really help business owners to get what they need quickly and effectively. They are:

• High levels of unemployment
• Less discretionary income
• Falling home prices and foreclosures
• Many scammers and snake oil salesmen
• Faltering traditional media, especially newspapers
• People putting their trust in their friends, rather than in advertisements, promotional materials, and sales techniques

All of those factors have provided a perfect platform for the birth of online search and review services. Those types of services, such as Yelp among others, feature unsolicited reviews from "real" people, not paid journalists, on a variety of local businesses from restaurants and dentists to clothing stores and electricians.

Many of the online search and review services began in the 1990s and now serve as a directory for businesses in many cities in North America, the UK, and Europe. People have written millions of local reviews in many languages.

The databases of these types of services contain directory information including store hours, phone numbers, address and driving directions. Business listings can be accessed via mobile browsers as well as computers and tablets. In addition to the reviews, site visitors can find events, special offers, and discussion forums.

Is your small business on an online search and review service yet?

Any business can set up a profile for free, but your organization can appear on one of the sites even if you don't put it there. They license basic business information from third-party data providers who gather that type of information from public records and other sources. They also get business information from the communities of which they are a part.

Since your customers will be talking about you in the cities where you have an online presence, it makes sense for you to take control of your profiles on those websites — set up your profile and answer  automated questions; it all takes very little time. The administration pages for business owners offer many choices for sharing information to make it easy for users to know exactly what to expect. If you provide the information that prospective customers are looking for, they’re more likely to become reliable, paying customers. So fill out as much information as you can and keep it up to date.

To help business owners get the most out of their online presence, online search and review services offer free tools for business owners to accomplish the following activities:

• Communicate with your customers– privately and publicly
   
• Track how many people view your business page
   
• Add photos, a detailed business description, up-to-date information, history, and specialties
   
• Announce special offers and upcoming events
   
• Recommend other businesses

To reap the benefits from these types of sites, you should recognize the "community" aspect of this social media platform, ie, you must participate — but not simply for self-promotion. Here are five beginner mistakes to avoid:

1. Don’t use online search and review services to leave bad reviews of your competition
    
2. Don’t use them to promote your friend's business
    
3. Don’t use them to “talk up any business in which you have a financial interest (they will find out and you will get blacklisted)
    
4. Don’t create an account, list yourself, then never log in again
    
5. Don’t protest and try to say that you didn’t read the Terms of Service

Reviews are the backbone of these types of sites, and people wonder if they are primarily used for people to complain about their bad experiences. However, statistical analysis shows that the vast majority of reviews range from neutral to five stars (the highest rating).

Business owners are advised to use negative or neutral reviews as an opportunity to engage with consumers and to offer solutions to problems:

Negative reviews are an unfortunate — but entirely normal — part of doing business. Don't be surprised to read the occasional negative review. While it's important to look for patterns in your reviews (the bread is stale, the same employee is repeatedly described as rude), you should take any individual perspective with a grain of salt. Some of the best advice we've heard has come from within the business community.

Contacting reviewers should be approached with care; Internet messaging is a blunt tool and sometimes good intentions come across badly. We've put together some examples to help you get this balance right.

Keep these things in mind as you're crafting a message to your customer:

• Your reviewers are your paying customers
   
• Your reviewers are human beings with (sometimes unpredictable) feelings and sensitivities
   
• Your reviewers are vocal and opinionated (otherwise they would not be writing reviews!)

You can feel confident that the people who work at online search and review services will help you to gather useful information for your business for several reasons, including that:

• The salespeople don't have back-end administrative privileges that would allow them to alter the  review databases
   
• Sales people sign agreement that s/he will not write reviews of any business while working for the online search and review service

Conclusion:

With the possibility of opening your business up to negative reviews, should you avoid setting up a account with one of these services? Given today's marketplace where customers have many avenues available for finding information as well as voicing opinions; the wise choice is to be proactive and manage your online business presence where your current and prospective customers will congregate. The common wisdom is to "Fish where the Fish are." Geomarketing, ie, local targeting, is becoming more important — and more prevalent. The best advice is to do some homework: check out the online and review services, sign up as a consumer, write and read some reviews, participate in the forum discussions and then carefully fill out your profiles. Make sure that your profiles are complete and that you are actively engaging with the other members of the online search and review services of which you are a member.

During difficult economic times such as these, we are inclined to take on everyone who comes through the door. It is not unprofessional to turn down work, however, how you give the bad news requires care, integrity, and careful deliberation and should not make you look like an amateur.

Given the power of word-of-mouth and the need to keep your business active in the recommendation chain, communication strategies — even when saying no — must be forward-looking and as positive as possible.

The continuing growth and force of social media in our business, as well as personal lives, has shown us the necessity for conversations that are sincere, transparent, respectful and honest.

Here are some situations that may require a “no,” as well as how you can deliver it

1) If a prospect needs some skills or experience that you don't have, don't fake it. Instead, acknowledge your scope of practice and recommend a colleague:

"No, I'm sorry, I'm not a ———- , but I've worked with so-and-so, who is. In fact, he/she has done this kind of work for me on time and within our budget.

Of course, this means that part of your business plan should be to build a referral system where you can provide leads to each other.

2) If the situation is a timing issue, this “no” can turn into a "yes, but not at this time":

"I would very much enjoy working with you, but I'm on deadline with two other projects at this time and would like to be able to focus my full attention on yours. If we could schedule it in three weeks, I would be happy to support you."

3) What happens, though, if your initial meeting with the prospect gives you a gut feeling (or you've heard negative reports from associates) that a working relationship would present more stress than the compensation was worth? Here, again, remember "word-of-mouth" and be tactful. Surely, you know of someone whose personality could more comfortably accommodate this client:

"Your project seems like a great challenge, and I know just the person who relishes those types of projects."

See how important it is to build a team of referrals? (BTW, don't think about using Response #2 for two reasons — (a) it isn't sincere, ie, you wouldn't "enjoy working with you"  and (b) what if the person was willing to wait?

Oh, yes, be certain to keep your personal judgments out of the conversation.

4) Perhaps it is purely the project that is not a good fit for your company's image, vision, or mission:

"After chatting with you, I feel certain that at some time in the future, my organization could provide the services that your business can use, but this particular project is one that would conflict with our firm's mission. However, A&B Company regularly handles these types of activities.”

5) Verbal communication can be an issue sometimes. If you speak with a prospective client and he or she is from a foreign country and it is hard to understand him or her, it will be very difficult to have a long-term working relationship with that person.

“After speaking with you, we realize that we can’t help you.”

6) When a prospective client cannot explain clearly what their business is about and are incapable of articulating their needs, there is nothing that you can do to help them.

"At this point we can't help you, however we can refer you to an excellent business advisor. After you have consulted with the business advisor, we would be happy to revisit your requirements."

7) When a prospective client indicates that they do not have a sufficient budget for the project and they request an unreasonable discount or payment plan that does not allow you to make a profit, you need to send them to someone more affordable.

"Unfortunately, it seems as though you can't afford us. I would be very happy to refer you to one of our business associates who can work within your budget."

Identifying a potential client starts with an interview to make certain that the relationship is right for both parties. As a business owner, your own needs must set the priorities, and even when you are hungry for business, you should turn down any customer who will require exhausting hours, extraordinary hassles, or undue stress. But even protecting yourself can preserve your business and possible future relationships with any particular client; simply make a concerted effort to network with colleagues in similar and associated businesses and build a referral team in which everyone comes out a winner.

Conclusion

Although as a business owner, you don’t want to turn anyone away, sometimes it makes more sense when it comes to the welfare of your business to decline a business relationship at an early stage with a prospect if the relationship between the two of  you is not mutually beneficial.

What exactly is a Social Media Policy?

Simply put, your organization's Social Media Policy should set forth a listing of Dos and Don’ts for social media behavior in the workplace. The best policies will define social media and describe your expectations of staff, independent contractors, collaborators, and, in fact, anyone who comes into the workplace and uses an organization's computers.

Is there a one-size-fits-all policy?

If only that was available! However, a 30-minute search on the internet will reveal hundreds of "model" policies from well-known companies (sources listed below) and dozens of tips for inclusion in a document that you can easily construct to address the particular needs of your individual business.

What are some of the key points to address in the social media usage guidelines for your organization?

1. State that the policy refers to all company employees and applies to multi-media, social networking sites, blogs and wikis for professional and personal use.

2. Make certain that information is a professional reflection of opinions and beliefs — avoiding abusive, racist, unethical remarks.

3. Think carefully before posting anything. Use common sense: do not post either proprietary company material or private information about yourself or co-workers.

4. Be honest about who you are and make it clear that the views expressed are your own — and not that of the company unless you are authorized to speak for the organization.

5. Refrain from engaging in heated conversations or posting angry comments that attack individuals.

6. Endeavor to share accurate, factual information backed up with well-researched links or documents. Stick to your areas of expertise.

7. Use the internet to find out who is writing about your organization — both positively and negatively. Engage with both in a professional manner to build relationships and solve problems.

8. Understand copyright and respect copyright. Do not use the postings of other people without permission or acknowledgement.

9. Respect the privacy of offline conversations.

10. The company reserves the right to avoid certain subjects and remove inappropriate comments.

Here are links to databases including "model" social media policies:

154 Social Media Policies

57 Social Media Policies and Templates

Conclusion

Again, why do we need a social media policy?

There must always be a code of ethics and etiquette for human beings to follow. The rules apply to absolutely everyone who has anything to do with social media. Also, you need to protect your organization from inappropriate and possibly damaging communication through social media. Your attention to possible online threats will address stakeholder fears and mitigate risk for both employers and employees — in addition to outlining what can and cannot be published on the social media channels. A well-constructed policy can become a tool for monitoring your online presence to build a stronger reputation — and a more successful business.

Sadly enough, research shows that two out of three organizations have no social media guidelines at all. Is your company one of them?

These are the kinds of questions discussed by a great number of online writers in the past several months. In fact, Fast Company magazine conducted an Influence project this summer to determine the most influential people online. More than 32,000 people submitted entries, but the results merely gauged popularity – and sparked the online discussion over the difference between popularity and influence.

A recent case study on Twitter participation showed that celebrity Kim Kardashian has more influence than other celebs even though they have more followers. While Lady Gaga has 6.5 million and Britney Spears has more than 6 million, Kim hasn’t won more than 5 million; however, her website gets far more traffic, ie, more referrals from Twitter.

LinkedIn recently added a section to the discussion groups that lists the top influencers of the week. It is a good idea to pay attention to that. You can learn a great deal from those influencers.

The ability to direct website traffic is considered a sign of influence. According to blogger Suzanne Vara, the world used to depend on popularity for sales conversions. In today’s New World, “The web and all things digital have changed the game on us. Influence is quickly becoming the currency of choice on the web.”

Most pundits agree that popularity equates more with quantity while Influence is related to quality. Popularity is measured by hits where Influence measures actions and effects. We all like to think that quality wins over quantity.

But does it?

How important is it for your organization to be influential or is popularity really enough? To answer a question like that, you need to look to your overarching goals. For those companies with products aimed at the masses, the likelihood is that Popularity is critical. After all, how many purchasing decisions are made simply because your friends are buying something or everywhere you turn, you see the product in the media and on the streets.

Popularity, of course, is considered fleeting while influence tends to last and be more than just superficial. But popularity and influence are not mutually exclusive. In fact, achieving popularity, ie, getting the recognition of many, may just be the best first step to having the kind of influence that (a) builds a customer base, (b) keeps current customers, (c) maintains other relationships, and (d) changes behaviors.

The best thing for your organization, then, may be to figure out how to be popular – in the sense that people like and approve of you – and how to be influential, ie, get them to buy from you and act on your messages.

How to Influence Others

In Chapter 11 of Stephen Covey's Principle-Centered Leadership (a follow-up to his The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People), he writes that our motive for achieving positive influence falls into three basic categories: (i) to model by example, (ii) to build caring relationships, (iii) to mentor by instruction.

Social media platforms, including the most popular ones like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and blogging are great for modeling best practices, building relationships, and offering valuable information.

Here are some tips on how to use social media from the tweets of online influencers:

• “You don’t have to be a blogger to know how words can bring people to know each other’s head, heart, and purpose in life.” Gary Vaynerchuk @garyvee
   
• “What you should do is create a great product or service…the goal is to change the world…if you do that, maybe you’ll be a legend.” Guy Kawasaki @guykawasaki
   
• “An opportunity to be helpful is an opportunity to earn money.” Chris Brogan @chrisbrogan
   
• “Stop talking about your products and services. People don’t care about your products and services; they care about themselves.” David Meerman Scott @dmscott
   
• “We share lots of things that most companies would keep internal. By sharing both the good and the bad, you build digital influence.” Mike Volpe @mvolpe
   
• “Consistency demonstrates commitment. You’re going to earn trust because you are consistent.” Michael Port @michaelport
   
• “Follow better people. The better your inbound is, the better your output will be. And your output is what people follow.” Robert Scoble @scobleizer
   
• “The most important action a person or brand can take to most increase influence is to create, post, or share compelling content.” Brian Solis @briansolis
   
• “Ground your content in who you are. Don’t be afraid to have a point of view. But also give it wings to soar freely and bye shared.” Ann Handley @marketingprofs

You can check out more advice on how to be influential on the web by searching Twitter under #influencers.

Conclusion

In the discussion or controversy or strategic planning around the concepts of popularity and influence, especially in this new world of business and marketing, one factor needs to be abundantly clear, and that stems from the intention to offer people products and services that can truly help them lead better lives as well as enhancing their business lives.

Online opinion can make or break a company – it is a virtual currency.

"We've gone from traditional market research to media monitoring to mining data that helps formulate business and communications strategy," said public opinion pollster Bradley Honan at the Sentiment Analysis Symposium in NYC this past summer. Sentiment analysis is the process to determine the emotional attitudes of writers regarding some brand or topic.

How well sentiment can be truly measured is still in question according to many marketers, including online strategist Thomas Walker. "The value is that you can take a pulse on how effective a campaign has been. For example, you run a campaign that is designed to reach people's funny bones, but the needle doesn't move on your sentiment; you know that on a large scale it was ineffective.”

“But if the needle moves and you look at what people are saying, you have the chance to incorporate certain elements into your brand's voice, and if you use this information correctly, you'll be able to make your brand become more of a reflection of how supporters want to see you.”

“If, however, the feedback is negative, you can drill down using sentiment analysis tools to see what people don't like, and if you're a smart brand, you become what your customers want you to become. This is the new future of business.”

Sentiment analysis is a subjective process. What one person reads as positive could be neutral to another. Specific business goals are required to provide the context for examining online opinion, and this can be analyzed automatically with computer software using Natural Language Processing (NLP) and machine learning.

However, social media bloggers, market monitoring specialists, and measurement software suppliers are taking sides as to whether human or automated sentiment analysis is more accurate — and better: "At the heart of this ongoing debate is the issue of accuracy, or the degree to which software can correctly extract positive, negative or neutral tone” from words alone, according to Marshall Sponder in a recent blog article “Is There Any Point To Doing Sentiment Analysis."

Sponder concluded that aiming for 100% accuracy misses the point because sentiment is not objective and can be swayed by “momentary considerations” like a person's mood at the time of writing. Sponder suggested that businesses try to analyze core beliefs that are more stable than off-the-cuff remarks. He also pointed out that critics of automated tracking say that humans can read between the lines where, of course, a machine cannot.

Information technology professionals like James McGovern, who directs the Virtusa Corporation, urges people to accept the limitations of sentiment analysis: “NLP isn’t quite mature enough yet to automate the measurement, nor is sentiment analysis a quantitative measure. It is more qualitative at this time. It is highly recommended to dedicate a human team to interact with the community, distinct from managing the message,” he said.

Sentiment accuracy is like a fine wine, according to Jennifer Campbell, a resource managing director. “It improves with time, whether you are using a dedicated and educated group of reviewers or an intelligent natural language solution that is able to learn from a growing set of data,” she said.

“Measuring online opinions and data can be used on a broader scope than just with brands and companies,” pointed out Mark Parker, CEO of Smart Social Media. His company had initially found little “social noise” referencing a client, one of Australia’s largest housing construction companies. However, when he conducted additional research, he found a lot of sentiment expressed around two core issues: interest rate movements and housing affordability, which were both closely linked to the demand for the client’s products.

“What we saw in the sentiment wasn’t so much positive or negative or even neutral for that matter – I termed it as nervous sentiment – the customers were nervous about these two issues. So the opportunity for this client was to tap into these two conversations and be seen to be contributing information, tools, and advice,” he said.

The initial results of online data mining may be less significant than some measurement tool vendors would have us believe, but as a starting point for further investigation and insight, they can be very important. Web marketing strategist (and number cruncher) Alan Stephenson put it this way:

“Sentiment analysis only becomes meaningful for me when we dig deeper. For example, alarm bells would be going off around the 10.4% of posts with the word “problem” mentioned. This discovery would provide a reason to examine posts in more detail. As an early warning system, this kind of alert is extremely relevant. I would rather have a false alarm than a reputation fire,” he said.

Here are some examples of social media applications for monitoring sentiment analysis:
 

• MoodViews: This can connect mood messages with world events on LiveJournal.
   
• Evri’s New Sentiment API: New Sentiment API claims to understand how the Web feels. It connects feelings with entities. It lets you have deeper insight into the “WHOs,” “WHATs,” and “WHYs” that are connected with a specific feeling or expression.
   
• Bubbalon: This offers relevant content about things that are of value to you. Your words will be heard by brands, influencers and venues that you frequent and your views and insights will be captured on the go, wherever you happen to be.

Conclusion

Whether through human or machine analysis, businesses have a huge opportunity to discover valuable information about their products, services and company reputations. The challenge, then, is to take the feelings they uncover and implement appropriate actions to capitalize on the positive feedback — and design solutions for the problems.

Two recent reports show Twitter to be the social tool of choice for businesses. It’s all about influence and interaction:

     (a) The online population that’s creating the content influencing the rest of the world is on Twitter.

     (b) Customers prefer Twitter as the mechanism to truly interact with brands and learn more about them.

With Twitter as a communication platform, brands capitalize on speed and brevity to listen to the marketplace, respond to inquiries, resolve issues, build communities and promote their products and services.

Here are suggestions on what your company should Tweet about:

• Announce special offers and sales instantly to a large audience.
   
• Write live updates on events, such as conferences and trade shows. Twitter is a great last-minute marketing tool.
   
• Provide links to blog posts from your company officers and employees.
   
• Highlight URLs to relevant articles from respected industry sources.
   
• Retweet brand followers to show that you listen to them and respect their opinions.
   
• Offer rewards to customers who tweet about your brand.
   
• Engage in real-time conversations with key influencers to establish your brand as an industry source for bloggers and other media people.
   
• Create valuable webinars to generate leads and promote them through tweets.
   
• Post photos and videos from your offices, stores and warehouses.
   
• Ask questions and get opinions. Twitter is like a real-time focus group; it’s great for feedback. This can be especially helpful for market research and product development.
   
• Answer questions, especially about your brand. Show that you are listening.
   
• Set up a Twitter account that acts solely as a Help Desk. Have experts ready 24/7 to respond to inquiries.
   
• Share sneak peeks of projects or events in development.
   
• Recommend sites and events that your customers might enjoy from which they might benefit.
   
• Comment on industry issues.
   
• Congratulate employees on promotions and other achievements.
   
• Publicize customer success stories.

Conclusion

Twitter eliminates the middleman and allows brands to listen and speak directly with their customers. Many companies like Dell, Home Depot, Starbucks, Jet Blue, Whole Foods, and Southwest Airlines – to name just a few – have already developed successful Twitter strategies. Follow them. Listen to them. Engage with them. Learn from them, and then just do it.