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Here’s Why Twitter Is Still An Incredible Marketing Tool

Twitter marketing has been in the shadows since Pinterest and Facebook began to steal the spotlight this year in 2012. Although Facebook has been the leader for a while, they received a lot of additional media attention due to the whole IPO fiasco. Many business owners and professionals still don’t get why Twitter could possibly be significant to their business. I can’t blame them since I felt the same way at one point. What could possibly be significant in 140 characters?   Twitter Marketing Secret Weapon: Advanced Search Your greatest Twitter marketing tool for discovering conversations surrounding your brand, industry or company is arguably Twitter’s Advanced Search. Why? Let me give you an example. If you’re a restaurant, you can search for anyone tweeting the word “hungry” in your local area and it will provide you with instant results, in chronological order starting from the most recent tweets. This is a HUGE opportunity. If you’re a restaurant, these people ARE your customers, so reaching out to them at this moment in time could be a critical turning point for your business. Offer them a special discount code that they can use that day to come in for a meal at [...]

Saving Your Restaurant From Bad Online Reviews

It looks like the excitement surrounding social media for restaurants has seen a cold dose of reality. An Australian news outlet recently published an article explaining the agony restaurants are experiencing when bad reviews are published on social media and review sites such as Yelp. Award winning restaurants “are being forced to defend their reputation as faceless diners use social media to complain about everything from the temperature of their meal to the cleanliness of their bathrooms.” We’ve all had bad experiences when dining out before but businesses really have to be on their toes because accountability is being served, welcome or not.   Social Media For Restaurants: Reading Between The Lines People have so much going on in their lives, you never know what’s happened that day when they leave a bad review. The bad experience at your restaurant could have simply been the feather that broke the camels back and for some reason their emotions drive them to leave a scathing review on Urbanspoon. Related: 5 Social Media Mistakes You Might Be Making (& How to Avoid Them) Whether or not their actions were justified, the way YOU respond makes all the difference. Services like Urbanspoon will give [...]

7 Reasons Why Sales Pros Should Use LinkedIn For Lead Generation

Mastering LinkedIn training for sales professionals can be difficult (yet highly effective) simply because this particular social media site works quite differently than others. Unlike Facebook, LinkedIn is specifically geared toward business decision makers and other professionals who want to leverage the connections they make with others to improve their own businesses and gather more leads. Have you spent time on LinkedIn trying to understand the system and how it can work to attract more leads? Have you felt like throwing your hands up in despair as you tried to learn the ins and outs of using LinkedIn effectively to find new prospects? This article will give you seven specific tips related to using LinkedIn for lead generation in a way that works for your business without adding more unnecessary frustration to the mix. Related: 18 Steps To A Masterful LinkedIn Profile (That Attracts Your Clients   LinkedIn Training For Sales: Why You Need It In Your Toolbox 1. Easier To Find Key Decision Makers. Using advanced search functions with the click of a button you can find and create a long list of ideal prospects to connect with. Whether through a direct connection, introduction or group, you will have [...]

Blogging The Smart Way: An Interview With Jeff Bullas

I recently had the opportunity to chat with Jeff Bullas, a Forbes Top 50 Social Media Power Influencer and author of Blogging The Smart Way: A Complete Guide To Creating & Marketing A Killer Blog With Social Media, to discuss the state of social media marketing and the techniques that are helping businesses turn a profit in 2012 and beyond. Jeff Bullas is a consultant, coach, mentor, and speaker that works with companies and executives to optimize their online presence through branding with digital marketing and social media. His extremely popular blog at www.jeffbullas.com has over 250,000 regular readers and is ranked #46 in the AdAge Power 150, a ranking of the Internet’s best marketing blogs. Like many, Jeff believes content is the core of social media marketing and it’s obvious by the articles he puts out on a regular basis. For those of you who follow me on Twitter, you will notice me sharing Jeff’s articles consistently due to the high volume of quality content he puts out. The struggle for most business owners trying to get into social media is understanding what is important, what’s a waste of time and how much time and effort needs to be [...]

LinkedIn & ROI: Interview With Viveka Von Rosen

Being in the social media game, you cross paths with a lot of self-proclaimed gurus and social media experts that are, quite frankly, competition. Despite this competition, the social media industry tends to have an unspoken brotherhood because one of the common practices preached is to share other’s content. In this process, you inevitably stumble upon some great people who you start to perceive more as peers than anything else. I’m happy to say that the person I interviewed for this feature is someone who has a lot of great advice to give on the subject of LinkedIn and social media. Being that LinkedIn is my field of expertise, I am exceptionally picky about those whom I get info from and Viveka von Rosen is someone that has been around long enough to have earned her stripes. When it came to choosing who would become the author of the upcoming book, LinkedIn Marketing: An Hour A Day, Viveka von Rosen was a stand out choice with her conversational writing style and authentic approach to marketing. The meat of our conversation was our focus on ROI and LinkedIn. We spoke for well over 40 minutes but this article has been condensed [...]

5 Ways Sales Professionals Can Get More Leads From LinkedIn

Finding specific LinkedIn training for lead generation can be difficult when there is so much out there to read and study. Many sales professionals have no idea how to use LinkedIn as a tool for lead generation and to bypass gatekeepers. Thankfully, LinkedIn is easy to learn and implement once you understand the 5 ways as a sales professional that you can get more leads from this social media powerhouse. Maybe you have tried to use LinkedIn for connecting with prospects in the past, but you felt lost in a sea of thousands of connections and groups. Perhaps you aren’t even sure whether LinkedIn will help you find and attract ideal prospects. As of March 2012, over 161 million business professionals from around the world were using LinkedIn, so the massive power that marketing can have by using the site is incredible. Not to mention 68% of the users are business decision makers. Isn’t that who you want to connect with? If so, first you must to learn how to utilize these five powerful LinkedIn strategies.  LinkedIn Training: Five LinkedIn Strategies For Sales Professionals 1. Your LinkedIn Profile Is Crucial To Success. This is one of the biggest mistakes that [...]