You need your boss to buy-in

Email is an investment

Invest in email marketing. With email you can drastically reduce your postage fees, reduce the time you spend calling prospects and clients and you are able to automate many of your marketing processes which saves staff time. In order to spend the money to invest in email marketing, your boss has to be on board.

Email needs to be merged into your overall marketing strategy

Email marketing must be a part of your total marketing strategy. It can’t be a project that’s handled on the side. You need to take a holistic view of marketing. Email is a key piece of an overall marketing method and strategy.

What your boss wants to know

How much is this going to cost?

Email marketing doesn’t have to be expensive. Many service providers have email plans that start around $20 per month.

Who’s going to manage this?

If you are reading this then you are most likely the champion of your email marketing. But it is critical to identify the person or department that will be managing the campaigns. If this is not you, your boss will obviously need to know who it is.

How much time will it take?

Every business is different. Ultimately, your customers will tell you how often they want to receive information from you. I’ve found that in the businesses I’ve worked with, most send an email about once a week.

To break that down for your boss, someone will need to outline the content and call to action, write up the email, have it approved and then schedule it to be sent. This takes time but it’s far less consuming than printing a postcard and mailing to several thousand people.

When will your boss see results?

This is the most exciting part of email. As your business develops a responsive list (one that knows, likes and trusts you) your job actually gets easier. The response you get from readers goes up as your list grows and you provide them with information.

How to get your boss to focus on email

Show her the numbers

Email is widely used and preferred by your customers. Here are some of the numbers

• Over 90% of internet users between age 18 and 72 and 74% of internet users age 64 and older send and receive email, making it the most popular online activity for all age groups. ?- Pew Internet and American Life Project, 2009
• Email has the highest ROI (return on investment) for all online media. For every dollar spent on email marketing, marketers can expect an estimated $45.06 ROI. ?–DMA, 2008

An eMail Data Source 2007 research study found that:

• 88% of adults have personal email accounts
• 46% of adults have work email accounts
• 147 million Americans use email every day (Juniper Research)

Assure your boss you aren’t here to change the world

It may be a stretch to get your boss to agree to scrap all your traditional marketing channels and solely focus on email marketing… but that’s not what you are trying to do anyway. The goal is to use email to augment the current marketing systems you are using. Then over time, rely more and more on email and faze out your expensive print advertising and mailings.

Do a small test

Testing is great. It can show your boss and other staff the possibilities of email marketing. Start by placing all your current customers on an email list. Use one of our recommended providers. Send them a simple email giving away something of value for free. Watch and see how people respond. Use your email provider to track the results and report back to your boss.

Show some examples from successful companies

It is also a good idea to show samples of other companies and businesses that are using email marketing. Subscribe to these businesses and study how they are using email to drive customers to take action. Share your findings with your boss.

Today’s 10 Minute Exercise: Find and use some friendly competition

Find three email newsletters in your industry and subscribe to them. Notice what they do in their emails. Show your boss some of the emails from your most fierce competitor. There is power in competition. Use this to your advantage.

Now go take action.

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Joel Mark Witt is the Publisher of Folk Media and author of 21 Days To Twitter Leadership and How To Use Social Media To Find A Better Job. He is a producer, author, and speaker who consults with businesses and nonprofits on how to use social media in marketing and communications. Get more from Joel on Twitter or Google Buzz.

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*Photo By Mzelle Biscotte

Written By Erica Hebrank

What is LinkedIn?

LinkedIn is a social networking site for business professionals. Most social networking sites are intended for personal use; a way to connect and share with friends and family.  LinkedIn is different because it focuses on helping you connect with people in your professional network – past and current coworkers, colleagues, members of groups and associations, etc.

Why use LinkedIn?

• Takes your real life network and allows you to see it in a tangible, concrete way
• Allows people to search and find you for potential job opportunities
• Creates an online forum via the groups

How do you start using LinkedIn?

Go to www.LinkedIn.com and create an account by using you email address and creating a password.  Next, you will have the ability to choose the situation that most closely describes where you are professionally: employed, business owner, looking for work, working independently, or a student.  Choose the best option and you will be walked through the rest of the set up process.

LinkedIn will help you search your email client to find contacts that are already using LinkedIn and to invite people who aren’t to join.  You will also be shown suggestions of people you may know.

After that is completed, you will need to edit your profile in order to add all your information.  You will list your current position, past positions and education.  You can even add a summary paragraph to describe yourself freely to those who will view your profile.  Once you have added all of your information, make sure you add a profile picture.  Many people have the same name, so the picture you add will help the people you know professionally to find you.

What can you do next?

At the top right of your profile, there is a search bar.  Choose “search groups” from the drop down box on the right of the search box.  Then type in an interest of yours: marketing, human resources, etc.  Find a group that is relevant to you and join to start contributing to the online discussion.  This will help you network even more and create new connections.  Groups are great resources because they put you in touch with industry experts who have invaluable advice and ideas.

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Erica Hebrank is a marketing consultant for Green Polka Dot Marketing, where she works to help clients create multi-faceted marketing strategies, including: graphic design & identity creation, website design, search engine optimization, email marketing, public relations and social media. Find her on Twitter.

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Get the book “21 Days To Twitter Leadership” The Step-By-Step Guide On How To Twitter, Get Twitter Followers And Position Yourself As The Leader In Your Industry In Less Than 10 Minutes Per Day.

What can a Twitter plan do for your business or nonprofit? More importantly how do you create one? Does a plan help you get Twitter followers?

Here are five social media strategies recorded last week during my daily audio updates on Utterli. (Utterli is a free voice recording service that allows you to record a message using your cell phone and then post that message to the web). .

Monday: Creating A Twitter Plan For Your Business

Tuesday: Why Create A Twitter Plan

Wednesday: What Is A Twitter Plan

Thursday: How To Create A Twitter Plan

Friday: Action Steps For Creating A Twitter Plan

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Joel Mark Witt is a producer, author, and speaker who consults with businesses and nonprofits on how to use social media in marketing and communications. He is also the Publisher of Folk Media and author of 21 Days To Twitter Leadership Send him an eMail: joelmarkwitt (at) folkmedia.org or follow him on Twitter.

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Get the book “21 Days To Twitter Leadership” The Step-By-Step Guide To Get Twitter Followers And Position Yourself As The Leader In Your Industry In Less Than 10 Minutes Per Day.

*Photo By Sailing “Footprints: Real to Reel” (Ronn ashore)

Why You Need A Workflow

Keeps you organized

Organization is key when you are dealing with mass amounts of information. A short Twitter workflow document can work wonders for your organization.

Saves you time

The goal is to have the maximum impact on Twitter while spending the least amount of time. Time is critical and a workflow can help you achieve better time management, get twitter followers and increase the Twitter followers you have.

Helps you reach the goals you identified in your plan

By having a workflow you are able to work the plan you created. Without a workflow – you are shooting from the hip. Think of the plan as the “why” and “what” of your Twitter strategy and the workflow as the “how.”

What Is A Twitter Workflow?

Think of a Twitter workflow as a “how to” process map

Much like your overall Twitter plan – your Twitter workflow should be short and simple. The key is to treat it like a “how to” process map. When scenario A occurs you take action B. For example, when someone complains about your company or products what is the resulting action? Do you ignore them, engage them, apologize or fight back?

How To Create Your Twitter Workflow

Decide who will champion your Twitter feed

Obviously Twitter is powered by humans. There are tools to augment your Twitter duties but an actual person has to be behind the account. Decide now who that person or persons will be.

This is the document that you use to list Twitter schedules. Who covers weekends? Who covers weekdays? Who covers evenings?

Determine how many times you will update

Your update frequency is important. As you begin to post, you will develop a “cadence” that your followers will come to expect. If you have been posting once per day and suddenly begin posting once every 20 minutes you may shock your followers so much they could unfollow you. Determine your tweet rhythm and stick to it.

List out your negative feedback policy

This is a critical area. How are you going to deal with negative feedback? How are you going to deal with feedback in general? Having this part of your workflow will be critical to your response. (Hint: Your boss will be very interested in this part).

A well defined Twitter work flow can be used as an action document. It should be so thorough that you could hand it to an employee to manage your Twitter feed on their own.

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Joel Mark Witt is a producer, author, and speaker who consults with businesses and nonprofits on how to use social media in marketing and communications. He is also the Publisher of Folk Media and author of 21 Days To Twitter Leadership Send him an eMail: joelmarkwitt (at) folkmedia.org or follow him on Twitter.

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Get the book “21 Days To Twitter Leadership” The Step-By-Step Guide On How To Twitter, Get Twitter Followers And Position Yourself As The Leader In Your Industry In Less Than 10 Minutes Per Day.

Who should you follow on Twitter? Here are some ideas on who to follow and how.

Here are five social media strategies recorded last week during my daily audio updates on Utterli. (Utterli is a free voice recording service that allows you to record a message using your cell phone and then post that message to the web). .

Monday: Who To Follow On Twitter

Tuesday: Why Follow People On Twitter

Wednesday: What Kind Of People To Follow On Twitter

Thursday: How To Follow Someone On Twitter

Friday: Action Steps For Following People On Twitter

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Joel Mark Witt is a producer, author, and speaker who consults with businesses and nonprofits on how to use social media in marketing and communications. He is also the Publisher of Folk Media and author of 21 Days To Twitter Leadership Send him an eMail: joelmarkwitt (at) folkmedia.org or follow him on Twitter.

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Get the book “21 Days To Twitter Leadership” The Step-By-Step Guide To Get Twitter Followers And Position Yourself As The Leader In Your Industry In Less Than 10 Minutes Per Day.

*Photo By waltercolor

Why Favorites Are Overlooked

Most people don’t know about favorites

Favorites are one of the best kept secrets on Twitter. Most people don’t realize they can favorite specific tweets or they simply favorite haphazardly without any type of strategy.

What Can You Do With Favorites

Save tweets you’d like to reference later

Because tweets are social and they represent real people who write them, they are excellent for showing social proof.

Social proof and testimonials

Show what other people say about you. Much more powerful than anything you can say about yourself.

How To Use Favorites As Social Proof

Locate the good tweets and favorite them

When someone says something nice about you or references you as an authority you should “favorite” that Twitter post. In order to favorite a tweet, simply click on the star on the right of the Twitter post.

Don’t be afraid to ask for good comments

Be bold and ask happy customers and clients to write a quick testimonial about you and your business on their Twitter profile. After they write the tweet, favorite it and begin building your list of testimonials.

Link from your website

An advanced technique to show new followers what people are saying about you is to create a page on your website with a screenshot of your favorite Tweets. Obviously these are tweets that you’ve favorited because people have said nice stuff about you as mentioned before. For an example of how we use this see what others are saying on Twitter about Folk Media.

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Joel Mark Witt is a producer, author, and speaker who consults with businesses and nonprofits on how to use social media in marketing and communications. He is also the Publisher of Folk Media and author of 21 Days To Twitter Leadership Send him an eMail: joelmarkwitt (at) folkmedia.org or follow him on Twitter.

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Get the book “21 Days To Twitter Leadership” The Step-By-Step Guide On How To Twitter, Get Twitter Followers And Position Yourself As The Leader In Your Industry In Less Than 10 Minutes Per Day.

*Photo By Matt Hamm

So many people get caught up wondering “what do I have to say?” This short video will show you what to write about on Twitter.

Click here if you are having trouble viewing the video.

Get the book “21 Days To Twitter Leadership” The Step-By-Step Guide To Get Twitter Followers And Position Yourself As The Leader In Your Industry In Less Than 10 Minutes Per Day.

Here is what others are saying on Twitter about Folk Media as referenced in this post talking about how to use favorites to get Twitter followers and increase Twitter followers.

Get the book “21 Days To Twitter Leadership” The Step-By-Step Guide To Get Twitter Followers And Position Yourself As The Leader In Your Industry In Less Than 10 Minutes Per Day.

Why You Need To Sell Twitter To Your Boss

Your boss (or executives) stand between you and your organization using Twitter. Before you can get your boss to buy-in – you need to arm yourself with the facts.

Ask any professional or business owner why they use Twitter and you will get many different answers. Here are a few ways people are using Twitter.

Distribute Company Info

Every organization has information they need to get out to the public, employees, stockholders, or constituents. These include press releases, memos, news items, etc. Twitter is a great mechanism to use for these short, informal alerts.

Get feedback

Twitter can be used as a feedback loop for your organization. It is great for asking for comments and responses from clients, customers, and prospects in real time.

Search the current conversation

Twitter is a giant public text conversation. The text is short, concise, and searchable. When you have the power to search what millions of people are talking about right now, you wield power for your organization’s marketing and communication efforts.

Twitter automatically lists the current top trending topics on your main page. You can scan over these and begin to see trends and how they catch on with Twitter users.

Search your industry or competitors

You can bet that other businesses and organizations are harnessing the power of Twitter. Because of Twitter’s powerful real-time search features, you are able to keep track of your industry including your competitors. Also you can search for product announcements, company news, and key leaders in your industry.

What The Heck Is Twitter Anyway?

Twitter is sort of like a hammer

Much like a hammer, Twitter is a tool. It is an online tool for posting short messages (140 characters in length) to the internet. That’s it. Nothing more – nothing less.

But like any tool, Twitter can be used for various purposes. The same hammer can be used to hang a picture in your living room or build a house. The tool itself is neutral. It is inanimate.

Twitter is the same way. It can be used to keep in touch with friends or family, get on-the-ground breaking news from reporters, or be used to market products and services.

Watch a short video: What Is Twitter?

But Twitter is more than a tool – it’s a platform for leadership.

For the smart PR professional or marketer, Twitter is a PLATFORM that gets your ideas and thoughts to the world. Much like Oprah uses television to reach her audience or Stephen Covey uses books, you can use Twitter to become a thought leader in your industry. This is powerful.

Twitter Is A Distribution Platform

Simply put – Twitter allows you to DISTRIBUTE information to people who follow you. This information can be links, resources, tips, ideas, questions, etc.

Twitter Is A Discussion Platform

But Twitter is also a feedback platform. You can get response, in real time from those who you are connected to online.

How You Can Sell Twitter To Your Boss

You must first sell to yourself

It goes without saying, that you must first realize the power of Twitter before you can boast the virtues to others. Spend the time absorbing the benefits. Understand Twitter and its power for yourself.

Twitter is where the people are. That’s worth repeating. Twitter is WHERE the PEOPLE are. If your business reaches out to people – then this is the platform you need to be using.

Show your boss metrics (keep score and show the points)

Metrics are key to showing your boss the value of Twitter and social media. There are many tools that you can use to track Twitter click through rates – and online mentions.

Feedback

Imagine having a superpower that allows you to listen when people talk about you behind your back. It is possible. Twitter Search will allow you to do just that. It is easy to work up searches that show your boss what people are already saying about your business or industry. People are most likely talking about you or your industry. Show your boss the data.

Highlight some key organizations who are using Twitter

There is nothing like good old competition that will motivate bosses at any level. Show your boss the competition and how they are using Twitter. Search for competitors and industry leaders. They are out there. Your boss won’t be able to resist.

Show your boss how people are engaged with online media

Don’t forget – social media is more about engagement than numbers. You may launch your official company Twitter and end up with low numbers at first.  But, keep in mind, the people who are visiting may tend to be targeted and more valuable. Plus when your audience is engaged, they end up becoming long-term readers and customers.

It is important to explain this to your executives. Success in online social media takes time and investment. Your biggest role as “social media champion” for your organization is to educate those around you. They may not understand the power and value of social media like you do.

You need to give them statistics, examples, case studies, and proof that social media is not a waste of time. In fact, in the current economic climate, social media may end up saving many businesses who can’t afford to advertise like they once did. Who knows – maybe you’ll be the hero who took some risk and saved your company. That’s worth a raise and promotion – right?

Consider risking your job for the sake of your career

If all of the above suggestions fail and your boss won’t budge, consider risking your job for the sake of your career. Most likely if your boss is that opposed to Twitter and social media, then he/she has no clue about how it works. So you can probably get away with posting to Twitter and they will never know. At the same time, you will be building up your company and your own career in the process. It is risky – but what good things in life don’t involve some risk?

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Joel Mark Witt is a producer, author, and speaker who consults with businesses and nonprofits on how to use social media in marketing and communications. He is also the Publisher of Folk Media and author of 21 Days To Twitter Leadership Send him an eMail: joelmarkwitt (at) folkmedia.org or follow him on Twitter.

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Get the book “21 Days To Twitter Leadership” The Step-By-Step Guide To Get Twitter Followers And Position Yourself As The Leader In Your Industry In Less Than 10 Minutes Per Day.

*Hammer Photo By Darren Hester
*Tightrope Photo By frankh

A lot of people have been asking me how to block porn and spam on Twitter.

Porn and spam are pockmarks on our society and the internet. Twitter has its fair share of both. To really make it annoying, spammers and porn sites will follow you on Twitter in an effort to get you to follow them back.

The good news – Twitter is 100 percent opt in. You don’t have to follow anyone. In fact, Twitter gives you the ability to block others from following you.

I would recommend that you begin blocking Twitter followers who are obviously on the service to spam you.

First, you will disassociate yourself from these scum. The last thing you need is a new client or prospect checking out who is following you and they discover a bunch of porn sites. Second, if enough people block a certain account, Twitter will usually remove the user from the service.

Watch how to block spam on Twitter in this step-by-step video:

Click here if you are having trouble seeing this video.

Give us your feedback. Let us know what is unclear and how we can help your Twitter experience. Now go take action and start blocking porn and spam.

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Joel Mark Witt is a producer, author, and speaker who consults with businesses and nonprofits on how to use social media in marketing and communications. He is also the Founding Director of Folk Media and author of 21 Days To Twitter Leadership Send him an eMail: joelmarkwitt (at) folkmedia.org or follow him on Twitter.

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Get the book “21 Days To Twitter Leadership” The Step-By-Step Guide To Get Twitter Followers And Position Yourself As The Leader In Your Industry In Less Than 10 Minutes Per Day.